Over 2 years ago, I was reading among my favored email e-newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo for the first time. I clicked on it and immediately began wrecking Beehiiv Vs TinyLetter.
I had not been sure why I felt so psychological.
Being a full time developer is tough. I’m frequently getting pitched different tools and services that do not appear to be worth my time.
I presume I was psychological since I spent the last six months checking out different email and e-newsletter systems to help build my e-newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some excellent alternatives for creating newsletters. Yet I couldn’t locate one that made me give a definite “yes”.
The concern with lots of existing e-newsletter platforms is that they don’t feel creator-centered. I want a newsletter system that lets me completely customize my newsletter layouts, makes it extremely easy to create and send out e-mails, and offers me devices that assist me evaluate metrics and obtain even more customers.
I assume I’ve ultimately found the ideal device.
Yet, I know beehiiv might not be for everybody. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s really best for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one platform for newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter system that makes it simple to layout, compose, send, promote, monetize, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Developed by former staff members at the popular newsletter company Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to assist developers launch and monetize their very own e-newsletter– taking great deals of development concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M clients.
In this post, I’m going to clarify my personal experience with beehiiv, the things I enjoy (and hate) concerning it, all of it’s features, and why I made a decision to ultimately select it as my newsletter platform of option.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A few months ago, I unintentionally came across beehiiv. The funny story is that I have actually been on the lookout for a modern-day e-newsletter platform for rather time currently. I’ve postponed hard when it came to lastly introducing my e-newsletter.
First, I attempted Mailchimp. Then, a couple of various other indie systems. After that, Substack. And finally, I ended up using beehiiv.
I make certain several e-newsletter makers respect preferred newsletters with millions of subscribers– I recognize I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I respected a lot. They have terrific web content, lots of customers, and a creative referral program that permits them to get back at much more subscribers.
So, I took place a search to determine 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 develop an e-newsletter design that remains on-brand?
When I discovered beehiiv for the first time, it appeared to answer all of my questions. I thought to myself, “damn individuals that constructed this tool actually understand e-newsletter development and growth.” I questioned who these makers of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were several of the very first marketing and development staff members at Morning Brew– my brain exploded.
I knew this was mosting likely to be a different newsletter platform. One that’s focused on developer development.
Due to the fact that, any designer knows, you require development to be able to make a living off of an e-newsletter. And discovering the ideal newsletter stack (that scales) typically suggests making use of numerous different tools to help achieve one goal– one system for your e-newsletter, one platform to generate income from, and one system to set up recommendations. It can obtain costly.
So when I discovered beehiiv did all of these things in one system, and it was free to begin utilizing, it was a piece of cake to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean web content designer that wants a platform that permits them to send out custom e-newsletters with or without requiring to have a site.
One of the most effective e-newsletters have the right devices to develop and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv aims at offering you those tools.
If you’re an independent author, media firm, start-up, or material creator, you need to seriously thinking about experimenting with beehiiv. It’s entirely complimentary to begin and you only pay when you reach over 2,500 subscribers on your list.
If you in fact end up having to pay for beehiiv it’s probably a great indication that people enjoy reviewing your things.
beehiiv vs Substack
You may be asking, “isn’t there currently a platform for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, yes there is. Substack is a wonderful platform made use of by hundreds of independent writers. With Substack you obtain your very own website and utilize the platform as your all-in-one service for sending e-mails (while producing an archive of previous issues).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s dedication to development. beehiiv allows you do to all the things Substack can do, with the advantage of much better analytics, even more design 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 very own website already, you can additionally utilize beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I use) to send your web site clients directly to your beehiiv email list. On the exact same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a tool like Performance to enable individuals to sign up for your newsletter straight from Twitter.
This offers you the flexibility to take advantage of various marketing channels to obtain your e-newsletter out right into the world, making beehiiv an excellent Substack option.
Exactly how to begin utilizing beehiiv email marketing software program.
Enroll in a free plan
The first step is to enroll in a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Beginning trial” switch on beehiiv’s web site.
The free plan will certainly enable you to have up to 2,500 clients, provide you accessibility to website hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, development modification, analytics, exterior embed types, and a lot more. It’s an extremely generous offering for those just beginning (or for those trying to find a brand-new platform to migrate to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Vs TinyLetter
After producing an account, you’ll go through an onboarding process that will ask things like, “is this your first newsletter?”, “what various other platforms have you made use of?”, “do you have any paying subscribers?”, and more.
You’ll after that produce a name and URL for your newsletter’s website. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will certainly reside on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your website link may be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding process, you’ll likewise select your brand name colors and design to make certain your newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your dashboard
Once you reach your main dashboard, you’ll see all of your analytics and setups.
You will certainly have outlined details on the amount of sign-ups you’re obtaining and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see alternatives for “Beginning composing,” “Posts,” “Audience,” “Grow,” “Generate income from,” “Style,” and” Examine.” And at the very lower you’ll see the settings option.
Dashboard is your major nerve center (screenshot above), Start creating is where you produce and release newsletters, Articles is where you can see every one of your previous e-newsletter versions, Audience is where you can watch who your customers are (and break them down right into sections), Expand is where you have access to a referral program (and growth 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 develop your e-newsletter landing page and article template, Assess is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can manage all of your admin stuff.
Writing your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it simple to begin creating, with little to no rubbing. If you’re just starting, and have a concept you wish to write about, I recommend just going to the “Compose” area in the navbar and clicking “Beginning creating”.
You can modify your template and designing later– concentrate on the content first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor supplies a clean and user-friendly interface for creating.
Once you begin creating, you can optimize headings, include links, and style your material exactly how you like.
beehiiv gives you lots of options for different types of material like video clips, links, pictures, and a lot more.
The team at beehiiv is additionally frequently releasing item feature and updates so I make sure there will certainly be a lot extra material features depending on when you read this.
Maximizing your settings and templates
As soon as you have an e-newsletter that’s ready to send out, it’s time to make your e-mail template and change some settings.
Below, you can update the name of your newsletter, give it a description, add your logo design, switch on or off a welcome e-mail to very first time clients, and much more.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can modify history shades, boundaries, spacing, font styles, photo layouts, and more. I’m not mosting likely to undergo ever before single thing you can enhance with your email template due to the fact that it’s a whole lot. Simply try the system free of cost and see it on your own!
Important beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of remarkable features that make it a great posting system for any kind of e-newsletter developer.
Right here are a few of the important features you can find with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter publishing system. It makes it very simple to write and send out emails. I stated above some of the important things you can do with your setups and e-mail layout so I’ll spare you some additional reading.
Things to note with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has an actually contemporary and minimalistic feel. It’s most definitely among the better email editors I’ve ever before written in.
Website hosting
When you produce a beehiiv e-newsletter, every one of your e-newsletters (if you desire) reside on a website. Think about it as a web site for your e-newsletter that’s a home to all 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 practically similar to that.
All plans, including the complimentary one, provide you an internet site. Nonetheless, the free plan places your website on a beehiiv subdomain so if you intend to add a personalized domain name to remove all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining clients is important. Nevertheless, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can subscribe to your newsletter directly from your beehiiv web site or with embed forms.
If you already have an internet site, and desire individuals to sign up for your newsletter from your existing site, you’ll have to utilize an embed type. This is what I utilize on this web site (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 three different alternatives– a full width, a repaired size, and a slim embed. I directly use the slim installed.
You can find the code fragment for these embeds in the “Subscribe Forms” tab in your setups.
There’s likewise an alternative for attribution monitoring if you want to onward UTM parameters for tracking objectives– rather cool.
Nonetheless, there are a couple of features I wish beehiiv had when it came to subscribe features. I’m sure the team is working with updates for these, yet I pointed out a few concerns I had in the pros and cons area below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things regarding beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter platform, is a remedy for producing a referral program.
You can motivate existing customers on your checklist to ahead your emails to friends and coworkers and if they obtain other people to register for your listing, you can reward them. These rewards can be in whatever kind you want. I have actually appear many e-newsletter firms give benefits in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously turn your clients into a word of mouth development engine for your newsletter– providing you another method for growing your e-mail checklist.
Nonetheless, to obtain access to the referral program feature, you’ll have to upgrade to an extra premium plan. I’ll discuss all the plans later in this post.
Costs subscriptions
They say all you require to earn a living online is 1,000 true fans. Subscription earnings is most definitely a beast of its very own. If you’re trying to find a platform to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can develop “costs” issues of your e-newsletter that are just sent out to paying clients. This can be extremely lucrative relying on what your newsletter has to offer. For instance, Trends.co is a prominent costs newsletter that generates millions in revenue a year just by having pay-only e-newsletter material.
Information analytics
One of the important things I love about beehiiv is just how tidy and easy the analytics are. You get real-time day on how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and customer matter Beehiiv Vs TinyLetter.
You get access to all the metrics you need to obtain a bird-eye sight on how your e-newsletter is actually doing. Logging into your dashboard and seeing that subscriber count go up is definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv provides four different pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (cost-free) Launch plan provides you whatever you need to get going and expand your e-newsletter (as much as 2,500 clients).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) provides you everything in the Launch plan with the addition the advertisement network, referral program, custom-made domain, polls, and accessibility to premium memberships. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) gives you whatever in the Grow plan with addition of concern assistance and eliminating the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are fairly charitable in my point of view.
For example, if you have 100,000 subscribers you will pay around $329 monthly. Instead of some competitors, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would bill $679 monthly for the same amount– making beehiiv a great Kit option for several users.
I’m unsure how the device economics service this, but beehiiv is most definitely less expensive (currently) than what it can be.
beehiiv pros and cons
Naturally, with every system, it has its benefits and drawbacks. Here are several of the pros and cons I’ve directly experienced while utilizing beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Below are several of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter platform of choice:
Easy to set up and begin sending out e-newsletters completely free.
Tidy and contemporary client analytics.
Great deals of versatility with email designs.
Referral program feature.
Website hosting.
Produce costs options to generate income from.
Polls.
To be honest, I haven’t seen an additional e-newsletter system that has actually had the ability to package every one of these features together so well.
But certainly, I don’t wish to be biased so I’m going to discuss some cons.
Cons of using beehiiv
Here are some of the cons I’ve found while making use of beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around adding custom fonts.
I use Webflow as my web site building platform of selection (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a long period of time ago). I’m not mosting likely to enter excessive detail why I like Webflow so much yet you can read my Webflow review if you wish to learn more.
Right now, there truly is no other method I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow site other than utilizing an iframe embed. I personally don’t like making use of iframe’s due to the fact that they tend to reduce my site a bit. Every single time a web page on my website (with a beehiiv installed) tons, the sign-up installed is the last point to fill on the page. It’s extremely noticeable when you’re on a sluggish internet link. But I can navigate that.
The major gripe I have is that I can’t utilize a regular Webflow kind (which I like utilizing). There are ways around this by utilizing a device like Zapier but that would just add added prices that I don’t require. To be sincere, this is even more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv disadvantage yet I thought I would certainly state it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros far outweigh the cons here. I’m additionally enthusiastic that Webflow will ultimately produce a much better way to integrate with beehiiv.
Conclusion
Overall, beehiiv is a wonderful service for any individual seeking to dive into the globe of e-mail marketing and newsletters.
The capability of this e-newsletter platform far surpasses many that are presently on the market. And with a generous free plan, you truly have nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are likewise fairly inexpensive wherefore they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 customers on your checklist is uncommon. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k subscribers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it could cost you well into the thousands each month.
Anyways, I don’t create review blog posts frequently. I only do when I in fact use the tool myself and would certainly advise it to a close friend.
I hope you found some clearness on whether or not beehiiv is a great system for you.