Over two years earlier, I read among my favorite email e-newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo design for the first time. I clicked on it and immediately started destroying Beehiiv Themes.
I wasn’t sure why I felt so emotional.
Being a permanent creator is tough. I’m often obtaining pitched various devices and services that don’t seem to be worth my time.
I think I was psychological because I spent the last 6 months trying various e-mail and newsletter platforms to help construct my e-newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some great alternatives for creating newsletters. Yet I could not find one that made me provide a certain “yes”.
The issue with several existing e-newsletter systems is that they don’t really feel creator-centered. I want a newsletter system that lets me fully tailor my e-newsletter styles, makes it extremely very easy to create and send e-mails, and offers me devices that aid me analyze metrics and obtain more customers.
I believe I’ve lastly located the appropriate tool.
Yet, I understand beehiiv might not be for everyone. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s really right for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one system for newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter system that makes it easy to design, create, send out, advertise, monetize, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Developed by former workers at the renowned e-newsletter firm Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to assist creators launch and monetize their own newsletter– taking great deals of development concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M subscribers.
In this article, I’m going to explain my personal experience with beehiiv, the important things I like (and hate) regarding it, all of it’s features, and why I decided to finally opt for it as my newsletter platform of option.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A couple of months ago, I mistakenly came across beehiiv. The amusing tale is that I have actually been on the lookout for a modern e-newsletter system for quite some time now. I’ve procrastinated hard when it concerned finally introducing my e-newsletter.
Initially, I attempted Mailchimp. Then, a few various other indie systems. After that, Substack. And ultimately, I wound up utilizing beehiiv.
I make certain lots of e-newsletter makers admire prominent e-newsletters with millions of clients– I understand I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I looked up to a lot. They have excellent content, tons of customers, and a creative referral program that permits them to get even more subscribers.
So, I took place a hunt to determine exactly how these big e-newsletters established their logistics. What system do they use? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they get more clients? How do they develop an e-newsletter design that remains on-brand?
When I uncovered beehiiv for the first time, it seemed to respond to all of my inquiries. I believed to myself, “damn individuals that constructed this device really understand newsletter creation and development.” I questioned who these designers of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were some of the first marketing and development workers at Morning Brew– my mind blew up.
I recognized this was going to be a different newsletter system. One that’s focused on maker growth.
Since, any maker recognizes, you need growth to be able to make a living off of an e-newsletter. And finding the ideal newsletter stack (that ranges) typically means utilizing numerous various devices to assist attain one objective– one system for your newsletter, one system to monetize, and one platform to set up references. It can get expensive.
So when I learnt beehiiv did all of these things in one system, and it was cost-free to begin using, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean material creator that desires a system that allows them to send personalized e-newsletters with or without requiring to have an internet site.
One of the most successful e-newsletters have the right tools to construct and scale their newsletters. beehiiv aims at offering you those tools.
If you’re an independent writer, media company, startup, or web content developer, you must seriously taking into consideration trying beehiiv. It’s totally cost-free to begin and you just pay when you get to over 2,500 clients on your list.
If you really wind up having to spend for beehiiv it’s most likely an excellent sign that individuals love reading your stuff.
beehiiv vs Substack
You might be asking, “isn’t there currently a system for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, yes there is. Substack is a wonderful system utilized by countless independent authors. With Substack you get your own web site and use the system as your all-in-one service for sending out e-mails (while developing an archive of previous concerns).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s devotion to growth. beehiiv allows you do to all things Substack can do, with the advantage of much better analytics, more style flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing subscribers to obtain words out.
beehiiv likewise offers you a website comparable to Substack. However, if you have your own web site already, you can also use beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I utilize) to send your internet site clients straight to your beehiiv e-mail listing. On the same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a tool like Performance to enable individuals to register for your e-newsletter straight from Twitter.
This offers you the flexibility to take advantage of various marketing channels to obtain your newsletter out into the globe, making beehiiv a terrific Substack alternative.
Exactly how to begin using beehiiv email marketing software application.
Sign up for a free plan
The very first step is to register for a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Begin trial” switch on beehiiv’s site.
The free plan will allow you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, give you access to web site hosting, a newsletter CMS, development modification, analytics, exterior embed kinds, and much more. It’s an extremely charitable offering for those just starting (or for those searching for a new platform to migrate to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Themes
After producing an account, you’ll experience an onboarding process that will ask things like, “is this your very first newsletter?”, “what other platforms have you made use of?”, “do you have any paying customers?”, and a lot more.
You’ll then produce a name and link for your e-newsletter’s internet site. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will survive a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your internet site link may be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding process, you’ll likewise select your brand colors and design to make sure your newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your dashboard
As soon as you reach your primary dashboard, you’ll see every one of your analytics and setups.
You will have described info on the number of sign-ups you’re obtaining and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see choices for “Start composing,” “Articles,” “Target market,” “Expand,” “Generate income from,” “Design,” and” Assess.” And at the very lower you’ll see the settings option.
Control panel is your main nerve center (screenshot above), Beginning creating is where you create and release newsletters, Messages is where you can see all of your previous newsletter editions, Audience is where you can see who your clients are (and damage them down into sections), Grow is where you have access to a referral program (and development tutorials) and boosts to run advertisements, Monetize is where you can access the beehiiv ad network and monetize your e-newsletter with ads, Style is where you design your e-newsletter landing page and post template, Assess is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can take care of all of your admin stuff.
Creating your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it simple to begin writing, with little to no rubbing. If you’re just beginning, and have an idea you want to cover, I recommend just mosting likely to the “Write” section in the navbar and clicking “Beginning writing”.
You can modify your template and designing later on– concentrate on the web content first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor provides a clean and easy to use interface for creating.
When you begin creating, you can enhance headings, add links, and style your web content how you like.
beehiiv provides you tons of choices for various kinds of material like video clips, web links, images, and much more.
The team at beehiiv is additionally continuously releasing item feature and updates so I’m sure there will be a great deal a lot more content features relying on when you read this.
Enhancing your settings and templates
As soon as you have an e-newsletter that’s ready to send, it’s time to make your email template and change some settings.
Below, you can update the name of your newsletter, offer it a description, add your logo design, switch on or off a welcome email to first time subscribers, and a lot more.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can modify background colors, borders, spacing, fonts, picture layouts, and extra. I’m not mosting likely to go through ever single point you can optimize with your e-mail template since it’s a great deal. Simply try out the platform completely free and see it for yourself!
Important beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of fantastic features that make it a great posting platform for any type of newsletter maker.
Right here are some of the crucial features you can discover with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter publishing platform. It makes it super easy to write and send emails. I pointed out above some of the important things you can do with your settings and e-mail layout so I’ll save you some extra analysis.
The important things to note with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has a truly modern-day and minimalistic feel. It’s most definitely among the better email editors I’ve ever before written in.
Website hosting
When you create a beehiiv newsletter, all of your e-newsletters (if you desire) survive a website. Consider it as a website for your e-newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous concerns of your e-newsletter, and a location where people can register for your e-newsletter.
If you recognize with Substack, it’s pretty much comparable to that.
All plans, including the totally free one, offer you a web site. However, the free plan areas your web site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you intend to include a customized domain to get rid of all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting customers is important. Nevertheless, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can sign up for your newsletter directly from your beehiiv website or through embed kinds.
If you already have an internet site, and want people to sign up for your newsletter from your existing site, you’ll have to utilize an embed type. This is what I use on this website (you can see the sign-up installed on the right-hand man column of this blog post if you scroll up).
With embed kinds, you have 3 various alternatives– a full size, a fixed size, and a slim embed. I directly make use of the slim embed.
You can discover the code fragment for these embeds in the “Subscribe Forms” tab in your setups.
There’s also an option for acknowledgment monitoring if you wish to forward UTM criteria for tracking functions– pretty cool.
However, there are a couple of features I want beehiiv had when it involved subscribe features. I’m sure the group is working with updates for these, however I discussed a few issues I had in the pros and cons area listed below.
Referral program
Among the amazing things regarding beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter system, is a solution for producing a referral program.
You can motivate existing clients on your listing to forward your emails to buddies and colleagues and if they get other individuals to register for your listing, you can compensate them. These incentives can be in whatever type you desire. I have actually seem many newsletter business give rewards in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously transform your customers into a word of mouth development engine for your e-newsletter– providing you one more method for expanding your email list.
However, to get access to the referral program feature, you’ll need to upgrade to a much more superior plan. I’ll discuss all the plans later on in this article.
Premium memberships
They claim all you need to earn a living online is 1,000 real followers. Membership revenue is certainly a beast of its own. If you’re looking for a system to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can develop “costs” problems of your newsletter that are just sent out to paying subscribers. This can be extremely financially rewarding relying on what your e-newsletter has to use. As an example, Trends.co is a popular premium newsletter that creates millions in income a year merely by having pay-only newsletter web content.
Information analytics
Among things I love concerning beehiiv is exactly how tidy and easy the analytics are. You obtain real-time day on just how your newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and subscriber matter Beehiiv Themes.
You obtain accessibility to all the metrics you need to obtain a bird-eye sight on exactly how your e-newsletter is actually doing. Logging into your dashboard and seeing that client count increase is certainly a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv offers 4 different pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (complimentary) Launch plan gives you whatever you require to start and grow your e-newsletter (as much as 2,500 subscribers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) provides you whatever in the Launch plan with the addition the advertisement network, referral program, personalized domain name, surveys, and access to premium subscriptions. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) offers you everything in the Grow plan with enhancement of priority support and getting rid of the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are quite charitable in my opinion.
For example, if you have 100,000 clients you will pay around $329 per month. Instead of some competitors, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would bill $679 monthly for the same amount– making beehiiv a fantastic Kit choice for many individuals.
I’m not exactly sure how the unit business economics work with this, however beehiiv is definitely cheaper (currently) than what it can be.
beehiiv advantages and disadvantages
Certainly, with every platform, it has its benefits and drawbacks. Below are a few of the advantages and disadvantages I have actually personally experienced while making use of beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Here are some of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter platform of option:
Easy to set up and begin sending out newsletters free of charge.
Clean and modern customer analytics.
Great deals of flexibility with e-mail layouts.
Referral program feature.
Website hosting.
Create costs options to monetize.
Surveys.
To be sincere, I haven’t seen one more newsletter system that has actually had the ability to package every one of these features with each other so well.
Yet of course, I do not intend to be prejudiced so I’m mosting likely to point out some disadvantages.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Below are several of the disadvantages I have actually located while making use of beehiiv:.
Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around adding personalized font styles.
I use Webflow as my site structure system of choice (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a very long time ago). I’m not mosting likely to go in too much information why I like Webflow a lot but you can review my Webflow testimonial if you want to learn more.
Today, there really is nothing else method I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow internet site apart from making use of an iframe embed. I personally do not like using iframe’s since they have a tendency to slow down my website a little bit. Every time a page on my site (with a beehiiv installed) lots, the sign-up installed is the last point to fill on the web page. It’s very obvious when you’re on a slow-moving web connection. However I can navigate that.
The major complaint I have is that I can’t use a regular Webflow kind (which I enjoy using). There are ways around this by using a device like Zapier however that would just add extra costs that I don’t need. To be honest, this is even more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv disadvantage but I assumed I would state it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros much exceed the cons below. I’m additionally hopeful that Webflow will ultimately develop a far better way to incorporate with beehiiv.
Conclusion
Overall, beehiiv is a terrific solution for any person looking to study the world of e-mail marketing and e-newsletters.
The performance of this newsletter system far surpasses numerous that are currently on the market. And with a charitable free plan, you truly have absolutely nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are also rather inexpensive for what they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 subscribers on your listing is unheard of. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k customers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it could cost you well into the thousands monthly.
Anyways, I do not compose review blog posts commonly. I just do when I really make use of the tool myself and would certainly recommend it to a buddy.
I hope you located some clarity on whether beehiiv is a great system for you.