Over two years earlier, I read one of my preferred e-mail 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 instantly began wrecking Beehiiv Vs HubSpot.
I had not been sure why I felt so emotional.
Being a permanent maker is tough. I’m typically obtaining pitched different tools and services that don’t appear to be worth my time.
I presume I was psychological due to the fact that I invested the last six months trying various email and newsletter platforms to help construct my newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some fantastic choices for writing newsletters. However I could not discover one that made me offer a guaranteed “yes”.
The issue with several existing e-newsletter platforms is that they don’t really feel creator-centered. I desire an e-newsletter system that lets me fully personalize my newsletter designs, makes it very simple to compose and send emails, and provides me tools that help me analyze metrics and get even more subscribers.
I believe I have actually lastly found the right device.
However, 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 e-newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly e-newsletter platform that makes it simple to style, create, send, promote, monetize, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Produced by former workers at the renowned e-newsletter business Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to aid makers launch and monetize their own e-newsletter– taking lots of development concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M customers.
In this article, I’m mosting likely to discuss my individual experience with beehiiv, things I like (and hate) about it, all of it’s features, and why I made a decision to ultimately go with it as my e-newsletter platform of option.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A few months ago, I inadvertently stumbled across beehiiv. The funny tale is that I’ve watched for a contemporary e-newsletter system for quite time now. I have actually procrastinated hard when it involved finally releasing my e-newsletter.
Initially, I tried Mailchimp. After that, a couple of various other indie platforms. After that, Substack. And ultimately, I ended up using beehiiv.
I make sure many e-newsletter makers look up to prominent e-newsletters with millions of subscribers– I understand I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I admired a lot. They have terrific content, lots of clients, and a smart referral program that allows them to get back at a lot more customers.
So, I went on a quest to identify just how these big e-newsletters set up their logistics. What system do they use? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they get more subscribers? How do they develop a newsletter layout that stays on-brand?
When I uncovered beehiiv for the first time, it appeared to address every one of my inquiries. I believed to myself, “damn the people that constructed this tool really comprehend newsletter development and development.” I questioned who these creators of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were several of the first marketing and development employees at Morning Brew– my mind blew up.
I recognized this was mosting likely to be a different newsletter platform. One that’s focused on maker growth.
Since, any maker recognizes, you need development to be able to earn a living off of a newsletter. And discovering the appropriate newsletter stack (that scales) frequently means utilizing multiple different tools to aid accomplish one goal– one system for your newsletter, one system to monetize, and one platform to set up recommendations. It can get costly.
So when I figured out beehiiv did every one of these points in one system, and it was cost-free to start utilizing, it was a piece of cake to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean web content maker that wants a platform that permits them to send out customized e-newsletters with or without requiring to have a site.
The most effective e-newsletters have the right devices to construct and scale their newsletters. beehiiv focuses on offering you those tools.
If you’re an independent author, media firm, start-up, or material developer, you ought to seriously considering trying out beehiiv. It’s completely complimentary to begin and you just pay when you get to over 2,500 customers on your list.
If you actually end up needing to spend for beehiiv it’s possibly a great indicator that people love reviewing 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 a wonderful system utilized by countless independent authors. With Substack you obtain your very own site and make use of the system as your all-in-one solution for sending emails (while developing an archive of previous issues).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s dedication to development. beehiiv enables you do to all the things Substack can do, with the benefit of better analytics, more design flexibilty, and a referral program to encourage your existing customers to get words out.
beehiiv additionally provides you a website comparable to Substack. However, if you have your very own site already, you can likewise make use of beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I use) to send your web site subscribers straight to your beehiiv e-mail list. On the same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a device like Revue to enable individuals to register for your e-newsletter straight from Twitter.
This gives you the adaptability to leverage various marketing channels to get your e-newsletter out right into the world, making beehiiv a great Substack option.
Exactly how to begin making use of beehiiv e-mail marketing software program.
Register for a free plan
The first step is to register for a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Beginning trial” switch on beehiiv’s web site.
The free plan will certainly enable you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, offer you access to website hosting, a newsletter CMS, advancement modification, analytics, outside embed types, and a lot more. It’s a very charitable offering for those just beginning (or for those seeking a brand-new system to migrate to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Vs HubSpot
After producing an account, you’ll undergo an onboarding process that will ask points like, “is this your very first newsletter?”, “what various other systems have you utilized?”, “do you have any kind of paying subscribers?”, and a lot more.
You’ll then develop a name and URL for your newsletter’s web site. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will live on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your web site URL could be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding procedure, you’ll additionally pick your brand colors and design to make sure your newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your dashboard
Once you reach your primary control panel, you’ll see every one of your analytics and setups.
You will certainly have detailed information on the number of sign-ups you’re obtaining and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see options for “Beginning composing,” “Blog posts,” “Audience,” “Expand,” “Monetize,” “Layout,” and” Analyze.” And at the really bottom you’ll see the settings choice.
Control panel is your major control center (screenshot above), Beginning composing is where you develop and release e-newsletters, Messages is where you can see all of your previous e-newsletter versions, Target market is where you can see who your clients are (and damage them down into segments), Grow 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 e-newsletter with ads, Style is where you develop your newsletter landing page and blog post template, Analyze is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can handle every one of your admin things.
Composing your newsletter
beehiiv makes it very easy to begin composing, with little to no rubbing. If you’re just beginning, and have a concept you wish to write about, I advise simply mosting likely to the “Compose” section in the navbar and clicking “Begin composing”.
You can modify your template and styling later– focus on the material initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor supplies a tidy and user-friendly user interface for creating.
As soon as you begin writing, you can enhance headings, include web links, and design your web content exactly how you like.
beehiiv provides you lots of options for different types of content like video clips, web links, photos, and extra.
The team at beehiiv is likewise continuously releasing product feature and updates so I make certain there will be a whole lot a lot more content features depending on when you read this.
Optimizing your settings and templates
As soon as you have a newsletter that prepares to send, it’s time to make your e-mail template and readjust some settings.
Right here, you can update the name of your newsletter, offer it a summary, add your logo design, activate or off a welcome e-mail to first time clients, and much more.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can edit background shades, borders, spacing, font styles, image styles, and extra. I’m not going to go through ever single thing you can optimize with your e-mail template because it’s a whole lot. Simply try out the system for free and see it on your own!
Vital beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of impressive features that make it a fantastic publishing platform for any kind of e-newsletter designer.
Right here are a few of the vital features you can locate with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter publishing platform. It makes it incredibly simple to write and send e-mails. I mentioned above several of the things you can do with your settings and e-mail style so I’ll spare you some added analysis.
The important things to note with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has a really contemporary and minimalistic feeling. It’s most definitely among the far better e-mail editors I have actually ever written in.
Internet site hosting
When you produce a beehiiv e-newsletter, every one of your e-newsletters (if you want) survive on an internet site. Consider it as a website for your e-newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous problems of your e-newsletter, and a location where individuals can sign up for your e-newsletter.
If you’re familiar with Substack, it’s basically comparable to that.
All plans, consisting of the free one, give you a web site. Nevertheless, the free plan areas your web site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you wish to add a custom domain to remove all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining customers is essential. After all, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can sign up for your newsletter right from your beehiiv web site or through embed types.
If you already have a site, and desire people to register for your e-newsletter from your existing site, you’ll need to utilize an embed kind. This is what I make use of on this site (you can see the sign-up embed on the right-hand man column of this article if you scroll up).
With embed types, you have 3 different alternatives– a complete width, a dealt with size, and a slim embed. I directly make use of the slim installed.
You can discover the code bit for these embeds in the “Subscribe Forms” tab in your setups.
There’s likewise a choice for acknowledgment tracking if you wish to forward UTM specifications for tracking functions– rather cool.
Nonetheless, there are a few features I want beehiiv had when it pertained to subscribe features. I make sure the team is dealing with updates for these, however I pointed out a couple of concerns I had in the advantages and disadvantages area below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things concerning beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter platform, is a remedy for creating a referral program.
You can motivate existing clients on your checklist to ahead your e-mails to good friends and colleagues and if they get other people to sign up for your list, you can reward them. These benefits can be in whatever form you want. I have actually seem numerous e-newsletter firms offer benefits in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously turn your subscribers into a word of mouth growth engine for your newsletter– offering you one more opportunity for growing your e-mail listing.
Nevertheless, to obtain accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll have to upgrade to a much more exceptional plan. I’ll review all the plans later in this write-up.
Costs memberships
They claim all you need to earn a living online is 1,000 true fans. Membership earnings is most definitely a beast of its very own. If you’re seeking a platform to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can produce “costs” issues of your newsletter that are only sent to paying subscribers. This can be extremely financially rewarding depending upon what your newsletter needs to use. For example, Trends.co is a prominent costs newsletter that produces millions in income a year just by having pay-only newsletter content.
Information analytics
Among the important things I enjoy regarding beehiiv is just how clean and simple the analytics are. You get real-time date on how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and client count Beehiiv Vs HubSpot.
You obtain accessibility to all the metrics you require to get a bird-eye sight on just how your newsletter is actually doing. Logging into your control panel and seeing that customer matter go up is definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv offers four various pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (totally free) Launch plan offers you everything you need to get started and grow your newsletter (approximately 2,500 customers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) gives you whatever in the Launch plan with the enhancement the ad network, referral program, personalized domain name, surveys, and accessibility to premium registrations. This is the plan I am on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) offers you whatever in the Grow plan with enhancement of top priority assistance and eliminating the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are fairly generous in my point of view.
For example, if you have 100,000 clients you will certainly pay around $329 monthly. Rather than some rivals, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would bill $679 each month for the exact same amount– making beehiiv an excellent Kit option for numerous individuals.
I’m not sure just how the unit economics deal with this, yet beehiiv is absolutely cheaper (currently) than what it can be.
beehiiv pros and cons
Naturally, with every platform, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Right here are some of the advantages and disadvantages I’ve directly experienced while utilizing beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Right here are several of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter system of selection:
Easy to establish and begin sending newsletters free of charge.
Tidy and modern-day customer analytics.
Lots of versatility with e-mail styles.
Referral program feature.
Site hosting.
Develop premium options to monetize.
Surveys.
To be truthful, I haven’t seen one more e-newsletter platform that has been able to package every one of these features with each other so well.
But obviously, I do not intend to be prejudiced so I’m mosting likely to mention some cons.
Cons of using beehiiv
Right here are some of the cons I’ve discovered while using beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around adding custom-made typefaces.
I make use of Webflow as my site building system of option (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a long period of time ago). I’m not mosting likely to go in excessive detail why I like Webflow a lot however you can read my Webflow review if you wish to learn more.
Today, there really is no other method I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow internet site aside from using an iframe embed. I directly don’t such as utilizing iframe’s since they often tend to reduce my web site a little bit. Every time a web page on my site (with a beehiiv installed) lots, the sign-up embed is the last thing to load on the page. It’s very visible when you get on a slow web link. But I can navigate that.
The major gripe I have is that I can’t make use of a regular Webflow kind (which I like using). There are ways around this by using a device like Zapier however that would simply add additional expenses that I don’t require. To be truthful, this is even more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv con yet I assumed I would discuss it.
Besides that, I still think the pros much exceed the cons here. I’m likewise confident that Webflow will eventually produce a better means to integrate with beehiiv.
Final Thought
On the whole, beehiiv is a fantastic service for any individual wanting to study the world of e-mail marketing and newsletters.
The performance of this newsletter platform much exceeds many that are presently on the marketplace. And with a charitable free plan, you truly have nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are additionally fairly inexpensive for what they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 clients on your checklist is unusual. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k customers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it could cost you well right into the thousands per month.
Anyways, I do not write testimonial blog posts usually. I only do when I actually use the tool myself and would certainly advise it to a pal.
I hope you found some quality on whether beehiiv is a great system for you.