Over 2 years ago, I read among my preferred e-mail e-newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo design for the first time. I clicked it and immediately started destroying Beehiiv Upgrade Page.
I wasn’t sure why I really felt so psychological.
Being a full time designer is difficult. I’m commonly getting pitched various devices and services that do not seem to be worth my time.
I guess I was psychological because I invested the last 6 months trying out different email and newsletter platforms to assist construct my e-newsletter. And to be fair, there are some excellent alternatives for writing newsletters. But I couldn’t find one that made me give a certain “yes”.
The problem with lots of existing newsletter platforms is that they do not really feel creator-centered. I want a newsletter platform that lets me totally tailor my newsletter designs, makes it extremely simple to compose and send emails, and offers me devices that help me examine metrics and obtain even more customers.
I assume I’ve finally located the ideal tool.
Yet, I recognize beehiiv might not be for everybody. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s in fact ideal for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one platform for newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly e-newsletter platform that makes it easy to style, create, send out, promote, monetize, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Created by previous staff members at the popular e-newsletter firm Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to help designers launch and monetize their own e-newsletter– taking lots of development concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M subscribers.
In this write-up, I’m mosting likely to discuss my personal experience with beehiiv, the things I love (and hate) concerning it, all of it’s features, and why I made a decision to ultimately go with it as my newsletter system of choice.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A few months earlier, I accidentally came across beehiiv. The amusing tale is that I’ve been on the lookout for a modern newsletter platform for quite time currently. I have actually hesitated hard when it involved ultimately introducing my e-newsletter.
First, I tried Mailchimp. After that, a couple of other indie systems. After that, Substack. And ultimately, I wound up using beehiiv.
I make certain lots of e-newsletter creators look up to popular e-newsletters with millions of customers– I recognize I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I respected a great deal. They have terrific web content, tons of subscribers, and a clever referral program that permits them to get even a lot more subscribers.
So, I took place a hunt to find out just how these big newsletters established their logistics. What platform do they make use of? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they obtain even more subscribers? How do they develop an e-newsletter layout that stays on-brand?
When I uncovered beehiiv for the very first time, it seemed to respond to every one of my concerns. I believed to myself, “damn the people that developed this device truly recognize e-newsletter creation and growth.” I examined who these developers of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were a few of the first marketing and development workers at Morning Brew– my mind exploded.
I understood this was going to be a various e-newsletter system. One that’s focused on creator growth.
Because, any type of designer understands, you require growth to be able to earn a living off of an e-newsletter. And locating the ideal newsletter pile (that ranges) usually means using several different devices to aid attain one goal– one system for your newsletter, one platform to monetize, and one platform to set up referrals. It can get costly.
So when I discovered beehiiv did every one of these things in one platform, and it was complimentary to begin using, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean web content designer that desires a platform that enables them to send personalized newsletters with or without needing to have an internet site.
The most effective newsletters have the right tools to develop and scale their newsletters. beehiiv targets at giving you those devices.
If you’re an independent writer, media firm, start-up, or web content designer, you ought to seriously taking into consideration checking out beehiiv. It’s absolutely complimentary to get going and you just pay when you reach over 2,500 customers on your listing.
If you actually end up needing to spend for beehiiv it’s possibly a great indication that people love reviewing your stuff.
beehiiv vs Substack
You might be asking, “isn’t there already a system for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, yes there is. Substack is a fantastic platform utilized by hundreds of independent writers. With Substack you get your own site and utilize the platform as your all-in-one service for sending out e-mails (while developing an archive of previous issues).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s dedication to growth. beehiiv allows you do to all the things Substack can do, with the benefit of far better analytics, more layout flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing subscribers to obtain words out.
beehiiv also provides you an internet site comparable to Substack. Yet, if you have your own internet site currently, you can also use beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I use) to send your web site customers straight to your beehiiv email listing. On the very same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a device like Revue to allow individuals to sign up for your e-newsletter straight from Twitter.
This gives you the flexibility to take advantage of different marketing channels to obtain your e-newsletter out into the globe, making beehiiv an excellent Substack alternative.
Exactly how to begin utilizing beehiiv email marketing software application.
Enroll in a free plan
The initial step is to sign up for a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Begin trial” button on beehiiv’s web site.
The free plan will certainly permit you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, offer you accessibility to internet site hosting, a newsletter CMS, breakthrough modification, analytics, external embed kinds, and much more. It’s a really generous offering for those simply starting out (or for those looking for a new system to move to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Upgrade Page
After creating an account, you’ll go through an onboarding process that will ask things like, “is this your first e-newsletter?”, “what various other systems have you made use of?”, “do you have any type of paying clients?”, and a lot more.
You’ll after that produce a name and link for your e-newsletter’s internet site. On the free plan, your newsletter will certainly survive on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your web site link might be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding process, you’ll additionally select your brand name colors and design to make certain your e-newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your dashboard
Once you reach your major 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 where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see options for “Start writing,” “Blog posts,” “Target market,” “Expand,” “Monetize,” “Design,” and” Analyze.” And at the really bottom you’ll see the settings choice.
Dashboard is your major nerve center (screenshot above), Beginning creating is where you create and release newsletters, Blog posts is where you can see every one of your previous newsletter editions, Audience is where you can see who your clients are (and damage them down into sections), Expand is where you have accessibility 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, Design is where you create your newsletter landing page and blog post template, Analyze is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can take care of all of your admin stuff.
Writing your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it easy to start writing, with little to no friction. If you’re just starting, and have a concept you wish to cover, I suggest simply mosting likely to the “Create” section in the navbar and clicking “Begin writing”.
You can tweak your template and designing later on– concentrate on the material first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor supplies a clean and user-friendly interface for composing.
As soon as you begin composing, you can maximize headings, add links, and style your content exactly how you such as.
beehiiv provides you tons of alternatives for various sorts of content like videos, web links, images, and a lot more.
The group at beehiiv is additionally regularly releasing product feature and updates so I make certain there will be a lot more content features depending on when you read this.
Maximizing your setups and templates
When you have an e-newsletter that’s ready to send, it’s time to design your e-mail template and readjust some settings.
Below, you can upgrade the name of your e-newsletter, give it a summary, add your logo, turn on or off a welcome e-mail to very first time clients, and a lot more.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your style.
You can modify history shades, boundaries, spacing, fonts, picture formats, and much more. I’m not going to go through ever solitary point you can maximize with your email template because it’s a lot. Just try out the platform for free and see it on your own!
Important beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of amazing features that make it an excellent publishing platform for any e-newsletter creator.
Below are several of the necessary features you can discover with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter posting platform. It makes it super simple to write and send e-mails. I stated above several of things you can do with your settings and e-mail layout so I’ll spare you some added reading.
The important things to keep in mind with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has a truly contemporary and minimalistic feeling. It’s absolutely among the better email editors I’ve ever before written in.
Website hosting
When you develop a beehiiv newsletter, all of your e-newsletters (if you want) live on an internet site. Think of it as a website for your e-newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous issues of your e-newsletter, and a place where people can subscribe to your newsletter.
If you recognize with Substack, it’s practically similar to that.
All plans, consisting of the complimentary one, provide you a website. Nevertheless, the free plan places your site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you intend to include a personalized domain name to eliminate all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining clients is necessary. Besides, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can register for your e-newsletter directly from your beehiiv internet site or with embed forms.
If you already have a site, and desire individuals to subscribe to your newsletter from your existing site, you’ll need to make use of an embed form. This is what I make use of on this website (you can see the sign-up embed on the right-hand man column of this article if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have 3 different choices– a complete size, a taken care of size, and a slim embed. I personally make use of the slim installed.
You can locate the code fragment for these embeds in the “Subscribe Types” tab in your settings.
There’s likewise a choice for acknowledgment tracking if you wish to forward UTM criteria for tracking functions– quite cool.
However, there are a couple of features I wish beehiiv had when it came to subscribe features. I make certain the team is dealing with updates for these, yet I mentioned a few problems I had in the pros and cons area listed below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things regarding beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter system, is a solution for developing a referral program.
You can encourage existing clients on your listing to onward your emails to good friends and associates and if they obtain other people to sign up for your checklist, you can compensate them. These rewards can be in whatever form you desire. I have actually appear several newsletter companies provide rewards in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously transform your subscribers right into a word of mouth development engine for your newsletter– offering you another method for growing your email listing.
Nevertheless, to obtain access to the referral program feature, you’ll have to update to a more exceptional plan. I’ll discuss all the plans later in this post.
Premium subscriptions
They claim all you need to earn a living online is 1,000 real fans. Subscription earnings is absolutely a monster of its own. If you’re seeking a platform to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can develop “costs” issues of your e-newsletter that are only sent to paying subscribers. This can be extremely profitable relying on what your e-newsletter needs to provide. For instance, Trends.co is a preferred premium e-newsletter that creates millions in income a year merely by having pay-only e-newsletter content.
Information analytics
Among the important things I like concerning beehiiv is just how clean and easy the analytics are. You obtain real-time date on exactly how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and subscriber count Beehiiv Upgrade Page.
You get accessibility to all the metrics you require to obtain a bird-eye view on how your newsletter is actually doing. Logging right into your dashboard and seeing that customer matter increase is certainly a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv provides four different pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (totally free) Launch plan offers you every little thing you require to begin and grow your e-newsletter (approximately 2,500 subscribers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) provides you every little thing in the Launch plan with the addition the advertisement network, referral program, customized domain name, polls, and access to premium memberships. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) offers you everything in the Grow plan with enhancement of concern assistance and getting rid of the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are rather generous in my opinion.
For example, if you have 100,000 subscribers you will certainly pay around $329 per month. In contrast to some competitors, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would charge $679 per month for the same amount– making beehiiv a fantastic Kit alternative for many customers.
I’m not sure how the device business economics deal with this, yet beehiiv is certainly less expensive (currently) than what it can be.
beehiiv benefits and drawbacks
Certainly, with every system, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Here are several of the advantages and disadvantages I’ve personally experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Right here are some of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter system of selection:
Easy to set up and begin sending out e-newsletters totally free.
Clean and contemporary client analytics.
Great deals of versatility with e-mail layouts.
Referral program feature.
Site hosting.
Develop costs alternatives to monetize.
Surveys.
To be sincere, I haven’t seen another newsletter system that has actually had the ability to package all of these features with each other so well.
Yet certainly, I do not want to be biased so I’m mosting likely to point out some disadvantages.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Here are some of the disadvantages I’ve located while utilizing beehiiv:.
Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around adding custom-made font styles.
I use Webflow as my internet site building system of selection (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a long period of time ago). I’m not mosting likely to enter excessive detail why I enjoy Webflow so much but you can read my Webflow evaluation if you would love to find out more.
Right now, there truly is nothing else way I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow website aside from utilizing an iframe embed. I directly do not such as utilizing iframe’s because they often tend to decrease my internet site a little bit. Each time a web page on my website (with a beehiiv embed) tons, the sign-up installed is the last point to pack on the web page. It’s very recognizable when you’re on a slow-moving net connection. However I can get around that.
The major complaint I have is that I can’t use a normal Webflow kind (which I like making use of). There are means around this by utilizing a tool like Zapier yet that would certainly just include extra costs that I do not require. To be honest, this is more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv con however I believed I would state it.
Besides that, I still think the pros far surpass the cons right here. I’m likewise confident that Webflow will eventually develop a far better way to incorporate with beehiiv.
Final Thought
Generally, beehiiv is a great solution for anyone seeking to study the world of e-mail marketing and e-newsletters.
The capability of this e-newsletter platform much surpasses lots of that are presently on the market. And with a charitable free plan, you truly have nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are also rather economical wherefore they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 subscribers on your list is uncommon. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k subscribers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it can cost you well into the thousands per month.
Anyways, I don’t write evaluation messages often. I just do when I actually make use of the device myself and would certainly advise it to a pal.
I wish you discovered some clearness on whether beehiiv is an excellent system for you.