Over two years earlier, I read one of my preferred e-mail e-newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo for the very first time. I clicked on it and promptly began tearing up Daniel Berk Beehiiv.
I had not been certain why I felt so psychological.
Being a full-time creator is difficult. I’m typically getting pitched different tools and services that do not seem to be worth my time.
I think I was emotional due to the fact that I invested the last six months checking out different email and e-newsletter systems to assist construct my newsletter. And to be fair, there are some fantastic options for creating e-newsletters. However I could not discover one that made me offer a guaranteed “yes”.
The concern with several existing newsletter platforms is that they do not really feel creator-centered. I desire a newsletter system that lets me completely tailor my e-newsletter styles, makes it extremely simple to create and send emails, and provides me devices that aid me evaluate metrics and get more clients.
I assume I’ve finally discovered the right tool.
Yet, I understand beehiiv may not be for every person. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s really ideal 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 design, create, send out, promote, generate income from, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Produced by previous staff members at the renowned e-newsletter company Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to aid developers launch and monetize their very own e-newsletter– taking lots of growth principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M clients.
In this write-up, I’m mosting likely to explain my individual experience with beehiiv, the things I like (and hate) concerning it, all of it’s features, and why I chose to lastly choose it as my e-newsletter platform of choice.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A few months ago, I inadvertently came across beehiiv. The amusing story is that I’ve watched for a modern newsletter platform for quite some time currently. I’ve procrastinated hard when it came to lastly launching my e-newsletter.
First, I tried Mailchimp. Then, a few other indie platforms. After that, Substack. And lastly, I wound up using beehiiv.
I’m sure several e-newsletter designers respect prominent newsletters with millions of customers– I recognize I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I respected a whole lot. They have excellent web content, lots of customers, and a brilliant referral program that allows them to get even much more clients.
So, I went on a quest to determine how these huge newsletters established their logistics. What system do they use? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they obtain more clients? How do they create a newsletter layout that stays on-brand?
When I uncovered beehiiv for the first time, it seemed to address all of my questions. I thought to myself, “damn the people that built this tool truly understand e-newsletter creation and development.” I examined who these designers of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were some of the initial marketing and development staff members at Morning Brew– my brain exploded.
I understood this was going to be a different e-newsletter platform. One that’s concentrated on developer development.
Because, any kind of maker knows, you need growth to be able to earn a living off of an e-newsletter. And locating the right newsletter pile (that scales) commonly indicates using several different devices to assist attain one objective– one platform for your e-newsletter, one system to monetize, and one system to set up referrals. It can obtain expensive.
So when I found out beehiiv did all 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 content designer that wants a system that allows them to send out personalized newsletters with or without needing to have a site.
The most effective e-newsletters have the right tools to build and scale their newsletters. beehiiv focuses on offering you those devices.
If you’re an independent writer, media business, start-up, or content designer, you ought to seriously considering trying beehiiv. It’s entirely free to get going and you just pay when you get to over 2,500 clients on your checklist.
If you really end up needing to pay for beehiiv it’s most likely a great indication that people love reviewing your stuff.
beehiiv vs Substack
You might be asking, “isn’t there already a platform for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, indeed there is. Substack is a wonderful platform utilized by hundreds of independent writers. With Substack you obtain your very own site and utilize the system as your all-in-one remedy for sending e-mails (while creating an archive of previous problems).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s commitment to development. beehiiv allows you do to all the things Substack can do, with the advantage of far better analytics, more style flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing customers to get words out.
beehiiv also gives you a web site similar to Substack. However, if you have your own website currently, you can additionally use beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I make use of) to send your web site customers directly to your beehiiv e-mail listing. On the same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a tool like Performance to allow people to subscribe to your e-newsletter directly from Twitter.
This offers you the flexibility to utilize various marketing channels to obtain your newsletter out right into the globe, making beehiiv an excellent Substack option.
Just how to start making use of beehiiv e-mail marketing software application.
Sign up for a free plan
The first step is to sign up for a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Begin trial” button on beehiiv’s site.
The free plan will permit you to have up to 2,500 customers, provide you accessibility to website hosting, a newsletter CMS, development customization, analytics, external embed types, and much more. It’s a really charitable offering for those just starting (or for those looking for a brand-new system to migrate to).
Onboarding Daniel Berk Beehiiv
After producing an account, you’ll go through an onboarding procedure that will ask points like, “is this your 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 link for your newsletter’s web site. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will certainly live on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your internet site link may be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding procedure, you’ll also choose your brand name design and colors to ensure your newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your control panel
When you reach your primary control panel, you’ll see all of your analytics and settings.
You will have outlined details on the amount of sign-ups you’re getting and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see options for “Start writing,” “Articles,” “Audience,” “Grow,” “Monetize,” “Style,” and” Assess.” And at the extremely lower you’ll see the settings choice.
Control panel is your major nerve center (screenshot above), Start composing is where you develop and release e-newsletters, Posts is where you can see every one of your previous newsletter versions, Target market is where you can watch who your subscribers are (and break them down into segments), Expand is where you have accessibility to a referral program (and development tutorials) and boosts to run ads, Monetize is where you can access the beehiiv ad network and monetize your e-newsletter with ads, Design is where you design your e-newsletter landing page and post template, Evaluate is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can take care of all of your admin things.
Creating your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it easy to begin composing, with little to no rubbing. If you’re simply beginning, and have an idea you intend to write about, I advise just going to the “Write” area in the navbar and clicking “Begin composing”.
You can modify your template and designing later on– concentrate on the content first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor uses a tidy and straightforward interface for writing.
Once you begin composing, you can optimize headings, include web links, and style your content exactly how you such as.
beehiiv provides you tons of alternatives for various types of material like video clips, links, pictures, and much more.
The team at beehiiv is also continuously launching item feature and updates so I make sure there will certainly be a great deal more content features depending upon when you’re reading this.
Enhancing your settings and templates
When you have a newsletter that prepares to send, it’s time to develop your email template and adjust some settings.
Right here, you can update the name of your e-newsletter, offer it a description, add your logo, turn on or off a welcome email to very first time subscribers, and much more.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your design.
You can modify history shades, borders, spacing, typefaces, picture layouts, and more. I’m not mosting likely to undergo ever before solitary thing you can enhance with your email template because it’s a whole lot. Just experiment with the platform for free and see it on your own!
Essential beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of outstanding features that make it a great publishing platform for any newsletter maker.
Below are some of the important features you can find with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter posting platform. It makes it incredibly simple to create and send emails. I discussed above several of the things you can do with your settings and email design so I’ll save you some extra reading.
The important things to note with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has a really modern-day and minimalistic feel. It’s absolutely among the better e-mail editors I’ve ever before written in.
Web site hosting
When you create a beehiiv e-newsletter, every one of your e-newsletters (if you want) live on an internet site. Think about it as a website for your newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous issues of your e-newsletter, and a place where people can sign up for your e-newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s virtually similar to that.
All plans, consisting of the cost-free one, give you a website. However, the free plan places your website on a beehiiv subdomain so if you intend to add a customized domain name to remove all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining clients is necessary. After all, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can sign up for your newsletter right from your beehiiv internet site or via embed types.
If you already have a website, and want individuals to subscribe to your newsletter from your existing site, you’ll need to utilize an embed form. This is what I utilize on this site (you can see the sign-up installed on the right hand column of this blog post if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have three various alternatives– a complete width, a dealt with size, and a slim embed. I personally use the slim embed.
You can find the code snippet for these embeds in the “Subscribe Types” tab in your settings.
There’s likewise an alternative for acknowledgment tracking if you want to onward UTM parameters for tracking purposes– quite neat.
Nonetheless, there are a couple of features I want beehiiv had when it pertained to subscribe features. I make certain the team is working with updates for these, but I stated a couple of worries I had in the advantages and disadvantages section below.
Referral program
Among the amazing things concerning beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter system, is a solution for creating a referral program.
You can urge existing subscribers on your list to forward your emails to close friends and colleagues and if they obtain other individuals to register for your listing, you can compensate them. These rewards can be in whatever form you desire. I have actually seem several e-newsletter business provide rewards in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously transform your customers right into a word of mouth growth engine for your e-newsletter– offering you one more avenue for expanding your email list.
Nonetheless, to get access to the referral program feature, you’ll need to upgrade to an extra superior plan. I’ll look at all the plans later on in this write-up.
Costs subscriptions
They claim all you need to earn a living online is 1,000 true followers. Registration revenue is most definitely a beast of its own. If you’re searching for a platform to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can produce “premium” problems of your e-newsletter that are only sent to paying clients. This can be very lucrative depending on what your newsletter needs to supply. As an example, Trends.co is a preferred premium newsletter that produces millions in income a year merely by having pay-only newsletter content.
Data analytics
Among the things I love regarding beehiiv is just how tidy and easy the analytics are. You get real-time date on how your newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and subscriber count Daniel Berk Beehiiv.
You get access to all the metrics you require to get a bird-eye view on exactly how your e-newsletter is in fact doing. Logging into your dashboard and seeing that client count go up is certainly a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv provides 4 different pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (cost-free) Launch plan gives you every little thing you need to get going and expand your newsletter (approximately 2,500 customers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) gives you every little thing in the Launch plan with the enhancement the ad network, referral program, custom domain name, polls, 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 assistance and eliminating the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are quite charitable in my viewpoint.
For example, if you have 100,000 clients you will certainly pay around $329 monthly. In contrast to some rivals, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would certainly charge $679 per month for the exact same quantity– making beehiiv a great Kit option for several customers.
I’m uncertain exactly how the device business economics work on this, but beehiiv is absolutely cheaper (presently) than what it can be.
beehiiv advantages and disadvantages
Certainly, with every system, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Right here are several of the pros and cons I have actually personally experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Right here are a few of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter platform of option:
Easy to set up and begin sending e-newsletters free of cost.
Tidy and modern subscriber analytics.
Lots of adaptability with e-mail designs.
Referral program feature.
Web site hosting.
Create costs options to monetize.
Polls.
To be straightforward, I have not seen one more e-newsletter system that has been able to package all of these features with each other so well.
But of course, I don’t wish to be biased so I’m mosting likely to discuss some cons.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Below are some of the disadvantages I’ve discovered while using beehiiv:.
Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around adding customized typefaces.
I use Webflow as my website building system of option (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a long period of time ago). I’m not mosting likely to go in too much detail why I like Webflow so much yet you can review my Webflow review if you wish to learn more.
Right now, there really is nothing else means I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow web site other than using an iframe embed. I directly don’t like utilizing iframe’s due to the fact that they have a tendency to decrease my site a little bit. Every single time a web page on my site (with a beehiiv installed) tons, the sign-up embed is the last thing to load on the page. It’s very noticeable when you get on a sluggish internet connection. However I can navigate that.
The major gripe I have is that I can not use a normal Webflow type (which I like making use of). There are means around this by utilizing a tool like Zapier however that would certainly simply include extra expenses that I do not require. To be truthful, this is more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv disadvantage however I assumed I would state it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros much surpass the disadvantages here. I’m likewise confident that Webflow will ultimately develop a far better method to integrate with beehiiv.
Verdict
On the whole, beehiiv is a wonderful option for anybody aiming to dive into the globe of email marketing and e-newsletters.
The performance of this e-newsletter system much outweighs many 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 likewise fairly affordable wherefore they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 customers on your list is unprecedented. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k clients, and all of these features beehiiv has, it could cost you well into the thousands each month.
Anyways, I do not compose review messages commonly. I only do when I in fact utilize the tool myself and would recommend it to a buddy.
I hope you located some quality on whether or not beehiiv is an excellent system for you.