Over 2 years earlier, I read one of my favorite email newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo for the first time. I clicked it and immediately began wrecking Beehiiv Webflow.
I wasn’t sure why I really felt so psychological.
Being a permanent creator is difficult. I’m often getting pitched different tools and services that do not seem to be worth my time.
I think I was psychological since I invested the last six months trying out various email and e-newsletter platforms to assist develop my newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some wonderful options for composing newsletters. However I could not find one that made me provide a guaranteed “yes”.
The concern with several existing e-newsletter platforms is that they don’t really feel creator-centered. I want a newsletter system that lets me completely personalize my e-newsletter designs, makes it very easy to compose and send e-mails, and offers me devices that help me evaluate metrics and get more customers.
I assume I have actually finally located the best tool.
However, I recognize beehiiv may not be for everyone. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s in fact ideal for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one system for e-newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter system that makes it easy to style, write, send, promote, monetize, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Created by previous employees at the renowned e-newsletter firm Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to aid creators launch and monetize their very own newsletter– taking lots of development principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M subscribers.
In this post, I’m going to clarify my personal experience with beehiiv, the things I like (and hate) about it, all of it’s features, and why I chose to lastly opt for it as my newsletter system of choice.
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 contemporary newsletter platform for rather a long time currently. I’ve put things off hard when it came to ultimately launching my e-newsletter.
First, I attempted Mailchimp. Then, a couple of various other indie systems. After that, Substack. And finally, I ended up making use of beehiiv.
I’m sure numerous newsletter designers look up to preferred newsletters with countless customers– I recognize I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I admired a great deal. They have great material, lots of subscribers, and a creative referral program that allows them to get back at much more customers.
So, I took place a quest to determine how these big newsletters established 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 an e-newsletter design that stays on-brand?
When I uncovered beehiiv for the very first time, it seemed to respond to every one of my inquiries. I believed to myself, “damn individuals that constructed this tool truly comprehend e-newsletter production and development.” I questioned who these designers of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were some of the first marketing and development staff members at Morning Brew– my mind took off.
I recognized this was going to be a various newsletter system. One that’s concentrated on creator development.
Because, any type of maker knows, you need growth to be able to make a living off of an e-newsletter. And locating the ideal newsletter pile (that ranges) often means making use of several different devices to help attain one objective– one platform for your newsletter, one platform to monetize, and one platform to set up references. It can obtain pricey.
So when I found out beehiiv did all of these things in one platform, and it was cost-free to start using, it was a piece of cake to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean web content developer that wants a platform that enables them to send out customized e-newsletters with or without needing to have a site.
The most effective e-newsletters have the right tools to construct and scale their newsletters. beehiiv focuses on giving you those tools.
If you’re an independent writer, media firm, startup, or web content developer, you need to seriously considering trying out beehiiv. It’s totally cost-free to begin and you only pay when you reach over 2,500 clients on your list.
If you actually end up having to pay for beehiiv it’s most likely a good indication that individuals enjoy reviewing your stuff.
beehiiv vs Substack
You could be asking, “isn’t there currently a system for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, yes there is. Substack is a great platform made use of by hundreds of independent writers. With Substack you get your very own website and utilize the platform as your all-in-one service for sending out emails (while creating an archive of previous problems).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s commitment to development. beehiiv allows you do to all things Substack can do, with the advantage of much better analytics, more design flexibilty, and a referral program to urge your existing customers to get the word out.
beehiiv additionally gives you a website comparable to Substack. Yet, if you have your own internet site already, you can also make use of beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I make use of) to send your website customers directly to your beehiiv e-mail listing. On the same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a device like Performance to allow people to register for your newsletter directly from Twitter.
This provides you the versatility to take advantage of various marketing networks to get your newsletter out right into the world, making beehiiv a great Substack choice.
Just how to start utilizing beehiiv e-mail marketing software.
Sign up for a free plan
The first step is to register for a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Start trial” switch on beehiiv’s web site.
The free plan will certainly allow you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, offer you access to internet site hosting, a newsletter CMS, breakthrough personalization, analytics, exterior embed kinds, and extra. It’s an extremely generous offering for those just starting out (or for those looking for a new system to migrate to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Webflow
After producing an account, you’ll experience an onboarding procedure that will ask points like, “is this your very first newsletter?”, “what other platforms have you made use of?”, “do you have any paying customers?”, and much more.
You’ll after that develop a name and URL for your e-newsletter’s internet site. On the free plan, your newsletter will certainly reside on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your internet site URL could be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding procedure, you’ll likewise pick your brand colors and design to make sure your e-newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your dashboard
As soon as you reach your main dashboard, you’ll see every one of your analytics and settings.
You will certainly have detailed info on the amount of sign-ups you’re getting and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see options for “Begin composing,” “Articles,” “Target market,” “Expand,” “Generate income from,” “Design,” and” Analyze.” And at the very lower you’ll see the settings option.
Control panel is your major control center (screenshot over), Beginning creating is where you develop and publish e-newsletters, Blog posts is where you can see all of your previous e-newsletter versions, Audience is where you can view who your clients are (and damage them down into sections), Grow is where you have accessibility 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, Style is where you create your newsletter landing page and message template, Assess is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can take care of every one of your admin things.
Writing your newsletter
beehiiv makes it very easy to begin creating, with little to no rubbing. If you’re just starting out, and have an idea you wish to discuss, I advise just mosting likely to the “Compose” area in the navbar and clicking on “Beginning creating”.
You can fine-tune your template and styling later on– focus on the web content first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor supplies a clean and easy to use interface for composing.
Once you begin composing, you can enhance headings, add web links, and style your web content exactly how you like.
beehiiv gives you tons of options for different kinds of material like video clips, web links, pictures, and more.
The team at beehiiv is additionally regularly launching item feature and updates so I make certain there will certainly be a lot a lot more content features depending upon when you’re reading this.
Maximizing your settings and templates
When you have a newsletter that prepares to send, it’s time to make your e-mail template and adjust some setups.
Right here, you can update the name of your e-newsletter, give it a description, include 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 design.
You can modify background colors, borders, spacing, typefaces, photo formats, and extra. I’m not going to experience ever solitary point you can maximize with your email template since it’s a lot. Simply try the platform free of cost and see it for yourself!
Necessary beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of incredible features that make it a fantastic publishing platform for any kind of newsletter creator.
Below are several of the essential features you can discover with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter posting system. It makes it super simple to create and send out e-mails. I stated above a few of the things you can do with your setups and e-mail design so I’ll save you some added reading.
Things to note with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has a really contemporary and minimalistic feel. It’s absolutely among the much better email 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 a website. Consider it as a website for your newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous issues of your e-newsletter, and an area where individuals can sign up for your e-newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s pretty much comparable to that.
All plans, including the totally free one, provide you a site. However, the free plan locations your website on a beehiiv subdomain so if you want to add a personalized domain name to remove all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining clients is necessary. Nevertheless, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can sign up for your e-newsletter straight from your beehiiv internet site or through embed forms.
If you already have a web site, and desire people to subscribe to your newsletter from your existing site, you’ll have to utilize an embed kind. This is what I use on this site (you can see the sign-up installed on the right hand column of this article if you scroll up).
With embed kinds, you have 3 various choices– a full width, a fixed width, and a slim embed. I personally make use of the slim installed.
You can discover the code snippet for these embeds in the “Subscribe Forms” tab in your setups.
There’s likewise an alternative for attribution monitoring if you intend to onward UTM specifications for tracking purposes– pretty neat.
Nevertheless, there are a couple of features I desire beehiiv had when it concerned subscribe features. I make sure the group is servicing updates for these, however I discussed a couple of issues I had in the pros and cons area listed below.
Referral program
Among the amazing things concerning beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter system, is a solution for producing a referral program.
You can motivate existing customers on your listing to ahead your e-mails to pals and colleagues and if they obtain other individuals to sign up for your checklist, you can compensate them. These incentives can be in whatever form you desire. I have actually seem many newsletter business provide incentives in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously turn your customers into a word of mouth growth engine for your newsletter– giving you an additional method for expanding your email listing.
However, to get accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll have to update to an extra premium plan. I’ll review all the plans later in this write-up.
Costs registrations
They claim all you require to make a living online is 1,000 real followers. Subscription earnings is absolutely a monster of its very own. If you’re searching for a system to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can produce “costs” concerns of your e-newsletter that are only sent out to paying subscribers. This can be extremely lucrative relying on what your newsletter has to supply. For instance, Trends.co is a popular costs newsletter that creates millions in profits a year simply by having pay-only e-newsletter web content.
Information analytics
Among the things I love about 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 rates and customer matter Beehiiv Webflow.
You obtain accessibility to all the metrics you require to obtain a bird-eye sight on how your e-newsletter is actually doing. Logging into your control panel and seeing that subscriber matter rise is most definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv supplies four different pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (complimentary) Launch plan gives you whatever you need to get started and grow your newsletter (up to 2,500 clients).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) provides you every little thing in the Launch plan with the enhancement the ad network, referral program, customized domain name, surveys, and access to premium memberships. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) gives you everything in the Grow plan with enhancement of concern support and removing the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are quite generous in my viewpoint.
For example, if you have 100,000 clients you will certainly pay around $329 monthly. As opposed to some rivals, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would bill $679 each month for the very same amount– making beehiiv a great Kit option for several users.
I’m not exactly sure exactly how the unit economics service this, yet beehiiv is definitely more affordable (right now) than what it can be.
beehiiv benefits and drawbacks
Obviously, with every platform, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Below are some of the advantages and disadvantages I have actually directly experienced while making use of beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Right here are several of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter system of choice:
Easy to establish and begin sending out newsletters free of charge.
Clean and modern client analytics.
Great deals of adaptability with e-mail layouts.
Referral program feature.
Website hosting.
Create premium alternatives to monetize.
Polls.
To be straightforward, I have not seen one more newsletter platform that has actually been able to package all of these features with each other so well.
But naturally, I do not wish to be biased so I’m mosting likely to discuss some cons.
Cons of using beehiiv
Below are some of the disadvantages I have actually discovered while using beehiiv:.
Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around adding custom typefaces.
I make use of Webflow as my website building system of option (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a long time ago). I’m not mosting likely to enter way too much information why I enjoy Webflow a lot yet you can read my Webflow evaluation if you ‘d like to discover more.
Today, there truly is no other means I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow site other than using an iframe embed. I directly do not such as using iframe’s since they have a tendency to reduce my web site a bit. Every single time a page on my site (with a beehiiv installed) loads, the sign-up installed is the last point to pack on the web page. It’s really visible when you get on a sluggish internet link. However I can get around that.
The primary gripe I have is that I can’t utilize a routine Webflow type (which I like making use of). There are ways around this by using a device like Zapier but that would certainly simply add additional costs that I do not require. To be straightforward, this is more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv con yet I believed I would discuss it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros far exceed the cons here. I’m likewise enthusiastic that Webflow will ultimately create a much better method to incorporate with beehiiv.
Conclusion
On the whole, beehiiv is a wonderful service for any individual looking to study the globe of e-mail marketing and newsletters.
The functionality of this newsletter system far exceeds numerous that are presently on the marketplace. And with a generous free plan, you actually have nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are additionally relatively affordable wherefore they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 clients on your list is uncommon. 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 monthly.
Anyways, I do not write evaluation posts often. I only do when I actually make use of the device myself and would suggest it to a good friend.
I wish you discovered some clarity on whether or not beehiiv is an excellent system for you.