Over two years earlier, I was reading among my preferred e-mail newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the e-mail and saw the beehiiv logo for the very first time. I clicked on it and immediately began tearing up Beehiiv Tutorials.
I had not been certain why I really felt so psychological.
Being a permanent maker is difficult. I’m typically obtaining pitched different devices and services that do not seem to be worth my time.
I presume I was emotional since I spent the last six months checking out various email and newsletter platforms to assist construct my e-newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some terrific choices for creating e-newsletters. However I could not locate one that made me provide a precise “yes”.
The issue with lots of existing e-newsletter platforms is that they do not feel creator-centered. I desire a newsletter platform that lets me completely tailor my newsletter styles, makes it extremely very easy to compose and send e-mails, and gives me devices that aid me analyze metrics and get more customers.
I think I’ve lastly found the right device.
Yet, I know beehiiv may not be for every person. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s actually right for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one system for e-newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter platform that makes it very easy to layout, compose, send out, advertise, monetize, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Created by former employees at the renowned e-newsletter business Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to aid designers launch and monetize their own e-newsletter– taking great deals of development principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M customers.
In this write-up, I’m mosting likely to clarify my individual experience with beehiiv, the things I like (and hate) about it, all of it’s features, and why I chose to finally go with it as my e-newsletter platform of choice.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A couple of months ago, I inadvertently came across beehiiv. The funny story is that I’ve been on the lookout for a contemporary e-newsletter system for rather time currently. I have actually postponed hard when it came to ultimately launching my newsletter.
First, I tried Mailchimp. Then, a couple of other indie systems. After that, Substack. And finally, I ended up making use of beehiiv.
I make sure lots of e-newsletter developers respect preferred e-newsletters with countless customers– I know I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I admired a whole lot. They have excellent web content, lots of customers, and a smart referral program that enables them to get even more customers.
So, I took place a hunt to identify just how these huge e-newsletters established their logistics. What system do they utilize? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they get even more customers? How do they create a newsletter style that stays on-brand?
When I uncovered beehiiv for the first time, it appeared to answer all of my questions. I thought to myself, “damn individuals that built this tool really recognize e-newsletter creation and development.” I examined who these makers of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were several of the first marketing and development staff members at Morning Brew– my brain took off.
I knew this was going to be a various e-newsletter system. One that’s concentrated on designer growth.
Since, any type of developer knows, you require growth to be able to make a living off of an e-newsletter. And finding the appropriate newsletter stack (that ranges) frequently means making use of numerous different devices to assist attain one objective– one system for your newsletter, one platform to monetize, and one system to set up referrals. It can obtain pricey.
So when I figured out beehiiv did all of these things in one system, and it was cost-free to start using, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean content developer that desires a platform that permits them to send out custom-made newsletters with or without requiring to have a web site.
One of the most effective e-newsletters have the right tools to build and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv targets at offering you those tools.
If you’re an independent author, media company, startup, or web content creator, you ought to seriously thinking about checking out beehiiv. It’s absolutely cost-free to get started and you just pay when you get to over 2,500 subscribers on your checklist.
If you in fact wind up needing to spend for beehiiv it’s probably a great indication that people like reading your things.
beehiiv vs Substack
You might be asking, “isn’t there currently a platform for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, indeed there is. Substack is an excellent platform utilized by thousands of independent writers. With Substack you obtain your own web site and use the platform as your all-in-one option for sending e-mails (while creating an archive of previous problems).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s devotion to growth. beehiiv enables you do to all things Substack can do, with the advantage of much better analytics, even more style flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing customers to obtain the word out.
beehiiv additionally provides you an internet site comparable to Substack. However, if you have your very own internet site currently, you can likewise utilize beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I use) to send your site customers directly to your beehiiv e-mail list. On the very same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a tool like Revue to enable individuals to subscribe to your e-newsletter straight from Twitter.
This gives you the flexibility to leverage different marketing networks to get your e-newsletter out right into the world, making beehiiv a great Substack choice.
Just how to start using beehiiv email marketing software.
Enroll in a free plan
The first step is to enroll in a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Beginning trial” button on beehiiv’s internet site.
The free plan will certainly permit you to have up to 2,500 customers, provide you accessibility to internet site hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, breakthrough modification, analytics, exterior embed kinds, and much more. It’s an extremely generous offering for those just starting (or for those looking for a brand-new platform to move to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Tutorials
After producing an account, you’ll experience an onboarding process that will ask points like, “is this your very first newsletter?”, “what other platforms have you used?”, “do you have any kind of paying clients?”, and extra.
You’ll after that develop a name and URL for your e-newsletter’s internet site. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will live on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your web site link might be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding process, you’ll additionally select your brand colors and design to make certain your newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your control panel
When you reach your major dashboard, you’ll see all of your analytics and settings.
You will certainly have described information on the number of sign-ups you’re obtaining and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see choices for “Start creating,” “Messages,” “Audience,” “Grow,” “Generate income from,” “Design,” and” Assess.” And at the extremely lower you’ll see the settings choice.
Control panel is your major control center (screenshot over), Start composing is where you develop and publish e-newsletters, Articles is where you can see all of your previous e-newsletter versions, Audience is where you can view who your subscribers are (and damage them down right into segments), Expand is where you have access to a referral program (and growth tutorials) and boosts to run ads, Monetize is where you can access the beehiiv ad network and monetize your newsletter with advertisements, Layout is where you design your newsletter landing page and article template, Evaluate is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can manage every one of your admin things.
Creating your newsletter
beehiiv makes it easy to start composing, with little to no friction. If you’re just beginning, and have an idea you wish to blog about, I recommend just going to the “Compose” area in the navbar and clicking “Start creating”.
You can fine-tune your template and styling later on– concentrate on the web content initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor supplies a tidy and easy to use user interface for creating.
Once you begin creating, you can optimize headings, add links, and style your content how you like.
beehiiv offers you tons of options for different types of web content like video clips, links, images, and more.
The team at beehiiv is likewise regularly launching product feature and updates so I’m sure there will be a lot extra content features depending on when you read this.
Optimizing your settings and templates
Once you have an e-newsletter that prepares to send out, it’s time to design your email template and adjust some settings.
Below, you can upgrade the name of your e-newsletter, provide it a summary, include your logo design, switch on or off a welcome e-mail to first time clients, and extra.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your design.
You can modify background colors, boundaries, spacing, typefaces, image formats, and extra. I’m not mosting likely to experience ever before solitary thing you can maximize with your e-mail template because it’s a great deal. Just check out the system free of cost and see it for yourself!
Essential beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of remarkable features that make it an excellent publishing platform for any e-newsletter designer.
Below are several of the essential features you can find with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter posting system. It makes it super easy to compose and send emails. I discussed above some of the things you can do with your setups and e-mail style so I’ll save you some extra analysis.
Things to note with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has an actually contemporary and minimalistic feeling. It’s absolutely among the far better e-mail editors I’ve ever written in.
Website hosting
When you produce a beehiiv newsletter, every one of your newsletters (if you want) live on an internet site. Think of it as a web site for your e-newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous problems of your e-newsletter, and a location where people can sign up for your e-newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s pretty much comparable to that.
All plans, consisting of the complimentary one, provide you a website. Nonetheless, the free plan places your web site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you intend to add a custom-made domain name to eliminate all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting customers is very important. Besides, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can subscribe to your newsletter straight from your beehiiv internet site or with embed types.
If you currently have an internet site, and want people to subscribe to your e-newsletter from your existing site, you’ll have to make use of an embed type. This is what I use on this internet site (you can see the sign-up embed on the right-hand man column of this blog post if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have three various alternatives– a complete size, a fixed size, and a slim installed. I personally make use of the slim installed.
You can find the code snippet for these embeds in the “Subscribe Types” tab in your settings.
There’s additionally an option for acknowledgment tracking if you intend to forward UTM specifications for tracking objectives– rather neat.
Nonetheless, there are a couple of features I desire beehiiv had when it involved subscribe features. I’m sure the team is working on updates for these, yet I pointed out a few concerns I had in the pros and cons section below.
Referral program
Among the amazing things about beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter system, is a service for producing a referral program.
You can urge existing customers on your list to forward your e-mails to buddies and coworkers and if they obtain other people to register for your checklist, you can compensate them. These rewards can be in whatever kind you desire. I have actually appear many e-newsletter business offer benefits in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously transform your clients into a word of mouth growth engine for your newsletter– giving you one more method for expanding your e-mail list.
However, to get accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll have to update to a more premium plan. I’ll review all the plans later on in this article.
Premium memberships
They claim all you require to earn a living online is 1,000 true followers. Membership profits is most definitely a monster of its own. If you’re looking for a platform to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can develop “premium” problems of your e-newsletter that are just sent out to paying customers. This can be very rewarding depending upon what your newsletter has to supply. For instance, Trends.co is a prominent premium e-newsletter that creates millions in revenue a year simply by having pay-only e-newsletter web content.
Information analytics
Among things I enjoy regarding beehiiv is just how tidy and straightforward the analytics are. You obtain real-time day on how your newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and subscriber matter Beehiiv Tutorials.
You obtain access to all the metrics you need to obtain a bird-eye sight on exactly how your e-newsletter is really doing. Logging into your dashboard and seeing that customer count increase is most definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv uses four various pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (totally free) Launch plan offers you every little thing you need to get going and expand your e-newsletter (approximately 2,500 customers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) provides you everything in the Launch plan with the enhancement the advertisement network, referral program, customized domain, surveys, and accessibility to premium registrations. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) gives you everything in the Grow plan with enhancement of concern assistance and eliminating the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are fairly charitable in my opinion.
For instance, if you have 100,000 clients you will pay around $329 per month. As opposed to some competitors, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would bill $679 each month for the very same quantity– making beehiiv a fantastic Kit option for numerous users.
I’m uncertain how the device business economics deal with this, yet beehiiv is definitely less expensive (currently) than what it can be.
beehiiv pros and cons
Obviously, with every platform, it has its benefits and drawbacks. Here are a few of the advantages and disadvantages I have actually directly experienced while making use of beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Right here are some of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter platform of choice:
Easy to establish and begin sending e-newsletters free of charge.
Clean and modern-day customer analytics.
Lots of versatility with e-mail designs.
Referral program feature.
Website hosting.
Produce premium alternatives to monetize.
Polls.
To be truthful, I haven’t seen one more newsletter system that has actually been able to package every one of these features together so well.
However obviously, I do not intend to be prejudiced so I’m mosting likely to state some cons.
Cons of using beehiiv
Right here are a few of the cons I’ve found while utilizing beehiiv:.
Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around including custom fonts.
I make use of Webflow as my website building platform of option (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a long period of time ago). I’m not going to enter too much detail why I like Webflow so much yet you can review my Webflow testimonial if you would love to find out more.
Right now, there truly is nothing else way I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow web site aside from utilizing an iframe embed. I directly do not like utilizing iframe’s because they tend to decrease my website a bit. Whenever a web page on my site (with a beehiiv embed) tons, the sign-up embed is the last point to fill on the page. It’s very visible when you’re on a slow-moving net connection. But I can navigate that.
The main complaint I have is that I can’t make use of a routine Webflow form (which I love using). There are ways around this by utilizing a tool like Zapier yet that would simply add extra expenses that I do not require. To be straightforward, this is more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv disadvantage yet I thought I would mention it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros much surpass the cons here. I’m also enthusiastic that Webflow will ultimately develop a far better method to integrate with beehiiv.
Conclusion
Generally, beehiiv is a fantastic option for any person wanting to study the world of e-mail marketing and newsletters.
The performance of this newsletter platform far surpasses numerous that are presently on the market. And with a generous free plan, you actually have absolutely nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are additionally relatively economical for what they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 subscribers on your list is unusual. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k clients, and all of these features beehiiv has, it can cost you well right into the thousands monthly.
Anyways, I don’t write testimonial blog posts typically. I just do when I in fact use the tool myself and would advise it to a friend.
I hope you found some clearness on whether or not beehiiv is a great system for you.