Over two years earlier, I read one of my favorite e-mail newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo design for the very first time. I clicked it and promptly started tearing up Does Beehiiv Have a Free Version.
I wasn’t certain why I felt so emotional.
Being a full time maker is difficult. I’m frequently getting pitched different tools and solutions that do not appear to be worth my time.
I presume I was emotional due to the fact that I spent the last six months trying out various e-mail and newsletter platforms to help construct my e-newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some terrific alternatives for creating newsletters. However I couldn’t find one that made me provide a certain “yes”.
The issue with lots of existing newsletter systems is that they don’t really feel creator-centered. I desire a newsletter platform that lets me completely tailor my newsletter styles, makes it extremely very easy to write and send emails, and gives me devices that aid me examine metrics and obtain more subscribers.
I assume I’ve finally discovered the ideal tool.
Yet, I know beehiiv may not be for everybody. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s in fact appropriate for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one system for e-newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly e-newsletter system that makes it easy to style, create, send out, promote, monetize, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Created by former employees at the well-known newsletter company Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to help makers launch and monetize their very own newsletter– taking lots of development principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M clients.
In this post, I’m going to discuss my personal experience with beehiiv, the important things I enjoy (and hate) about it, all of it’s features, and why I decided to finally opt for it as my newsletter system of choice.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A couple of months back, I mistakenly stumbled across beehiiv. The amusing story is that I’ve watched for a modern newsletter system for quite a long time currently. I’ve hesitated hard when it pertained to finally launching my e-newsletter.
Initially, I attempted Mailchimp. Then, a few various other indie platforms. Then, Substack. And lastly, I wound up utilizing beehiiv.
I make sure many newsletter developers respect prominent e-newsletters with millions of clients– I recognize I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I respected a great deal. They have great web content, tons of subscribers, and a smart referral program that permits them to get even more customers.
So, I went on a hunt to find out exactly how these huge e-newsletters set up 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 produce an e-newsletter design that stays on-brand?
When I uncovered beehiiv for the first time, it seemed to address all of my inquiries. I believed to myself, “damn the people that developed this tool really understand e-newsletter production and growth.” I examined who these designers of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were a few of the first marketing and growth workers at Morning Brew– my mind exploded.
I recognized this was going to be a different e-newsletter platform. One that’s concentrated on maker growth.
Because, any type of creator knows, you require growth to be able to make a living off of a newsletter. And discovering the best newsletter stack (that scales) typically means making use of numerous different devices to aid achieve one objective– one system for your newsletter, one system to monetize, and one platform to establish references. It can obtain costly.
So when I found out beehiiv did all of these things in one platform, and it was cost-free to start making use of, it was a piece of cake to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean content maker that wants a platform that enables them to send personalized newsletters with or without needing to have a web site.
One of the most successful newsletters have the right tools to develop and scale their newsletters. beehiiv targets at offering you those tools.
If you’re an independent writer, media business, start-up, or material maker, you must seriously considering checking out beehiiv. It’s completely cost-free to begin and you just pay when you reach over 2,500 customers on your checklist.
If you actually wind up needing to pay for beehiiv it’s probably a great indication that people like reviewing your stuff.
beehiiv vs Substack
You might be asking, “isn’t there already a system for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, indeed there is. Substack is a great platform utilized by countless independent authors. With Substack you obtain your very own web site and make use of the platform as your all-in-one remedy for sending emails (while producing an archive of previous problems).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s dedication to development. beehiiv enables you do to all 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 the word out.
beehiiv additionally offers you a website similar to Substack. Yet, if you have your own web site already, you can additionally make use of beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I make use of) to send your internet site customers right to your beehiiv email listing. On the very same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a tool like Performance to allow people to subscribe to your newsletter directly from Twitter.
This offers you the adaptability to take advantage of various marketing channels to obtain your newsletter out into the world, making beehiiv a terrific Substack choice.
Just how to begin making use of beehiiv email marketing software program.
Sign up for a free plan
The initial step is to register for a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Start trial” button on beehiiv’s internet site.
The free plan will certainly enable you to have up to 2,500 customers, offer you access to internet site hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, breakthrough customization, analytics, external embed kinds, and extra. It’s an extremely generous offering for those just beginning (or for those looking for a brand-new system to migrate to).
Onboarding Does Beehiiv Have a Free Version
After producing an account, you’ll undergo an onboarding procedure that will ask points like, “is this your first newsletter?”, “what various other systems have you used?”, “do you have any kind of paying customers?”, and much more.
You’ll then create a name and URL for your newsletter’s internet site. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will survive a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your web site link might be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding process, you’ll likewise choose your brand name design and colors to make sure your newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your control panel
Once you reach your major dashboard, you’ll see all of your analytics and setups.
You will have described information on how many sign-ups you’re obtaining and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see options for “Beginning writing,” “Articles,” “Target market,” “Grow,” “Generate income from,” “Layout,” and” Assess.” And at the extremely bottom you’ll see the settings alternative.
Control panel is your major nerve center (screenshot over), Beginning creating is where you produce and release newsletters, Blog posts is where you can see all of your previous newsletter editions, Target market is where you can see who your subscribers are (and break them down right into sectors), Expand is where you have access 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 newsletter with ads, Layout is where you create your newsletter landing page and post template, Analyze is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can take care of every one of your admin stuff.
Writing your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it very easy to start composing, with little to no friction. If you’re simply starting out, and have an idea you intend to cover, I recommend just going to the “Create” area in the navbar and clicking on “Begin creating”.
You can fine-tune your template and styling later– concentrate on the material initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor uses a tidy and user-friendly user interface for creating.
As soon as you begin composing, you can enhance headings, include web links, and design your content how you such as.
beehiiv offers you lots of choices for various types of material like videos, links, images, and more.
The team at beehiiv is likewise regularly launching item feature and updates so I make certain there will be a great deal much more material features relying on when you’re reading this.
Optimizing your setups and templates
Once you have a newsletter that’s ready to send out, it’s time to make your e-mail template and change some settings.
Right here, you can upgrade the name of your e-newsletter, give it a description, add your logo design, switch on or off a welcome e-mail to first time customers, and extra.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your design.
You can modify history shades, borders, spacing, fonts, image formats, and more. I’m not mosting likely to go through ever before single point you can maximize with your email template due to the fact that it’s a great deal. Simply try out the platform totally free and see it for yourself!
Crucial beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of impressive features that make it a wonderful publishing platform for any kind of newsletter maker.
Right here are several of the crucial features you can locate with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter publishing system. It makes it extremely simple to create and send emails. I mentioned over a few of the important things you can do with your settings and email layout so I’ll spare you some additional analysis.
The important things to note with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has an actually modern-day and minimalistic feel. It’s most definitely one of the better email editors I’ve ever written in.
Internet site hosting
When you create a beehiiv e-newsletter, every one of your e-newsletters (if you desire) reside on a web site. Consider it as a web site for your newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous problems of your newsletter, and a place where people can register for your newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s virtually comparable to that.
All plans, including the free one, give you a site. Nevertheless, the free plan locations your internet site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you want to add a custom-made domain to get rid of all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining subscribers is essential. Besides, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can register for your newsletter straight from your beehiiv site or through embed types.
If you already have a website, and want individuals to register for your e-newsletter from your existing website, you’ll need to make use of an embed type. This is what I utilize on this site (you can see the sign-up installed on the right-hand man column of this article if you scroll up).
With embed types, you have 3 different alternatives– a full size, a taken care of width, and a slim embed. I personally utilize the slim installed.
You can locate the code fragment for these embeds in the “Subscribe Forms” tab in your settings.
There’s likewise an alternative for acknowledgment monitoring if you want to ahead UTM criteria for tracking functions– rather neat.
However, there are a few features I wish beehiiv had when it pertained to subscribe features. I make sure the group is servicing updates for these, but I pointed out a couple of issues I had in the advantages and disadvantages section below.
Referral program
Among the amazing things about beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter platform, is a service for developing a referral program.
You can urge existing clients on your listing to forward your emails to pals and colleagues and if they obtain other people to subscribe to your checklist, you can reward them. These incentives can be in whatever type you want. I’ve seem several e-newsletter companies provide incentives in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously transform your customers into a word of mouth development engine for your newsletter– giving you one more avenue for expanding your email list.
Nonetheless, to get accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll have to update to an extra superior plan. I’ll look at all the plans later on in this write-up.
Premium memberships
They state all you need to earn a living online is 1,000 real followers. Registration earnings is definitely a beast of its very own. If you’re looking for a system to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can develop “costs” problems of your newsletter that are just sent to paying subscribers. This can be extremely financially rewarding depending on what your e-newsletter needs to provide. As an example, Trends.co is a prominent premium newsletter that creates millions in earnings a year merely by having pay-only newsletter material.
Information analytics
Among the important things I like concerning beehiiv is just how clean and straightforward the analytics are. You obtain real-time day on exactly how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and client matter Does Beehiiv Have a Free Version.
You get access to all the metrics you require to get a bird-eye sight on exactly how your newsletter is in fact doing. Logging into your control panel and seeing that client matter rise is certainly a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv offers four various pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (cost-free) Launch plan provides you whatever you require to start and expand your newsletter (as much as 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, polls, and access to costs memberships. 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 getting rid of the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are fairly generous in my opinion.
For example, if you have 100,000 customers you will certainly pay around $329 per month. In contrast to some rivals, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would certainly charge $679 each month for the same amount– making beehiiv a fantastic Kit choice for numerous individuals.
I’m not exactly sure just how the unit business economics service this, however beehiiv is absolutely less expensive (right now) than what it can be.
beehiiv benefits and drawbacks
Certainly, with every platform, it has its benefits and drawbacks. Right here are some of the pros and cons I have actually directly experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Right here are a few of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter system of selection:
Easy to set up and begin sending out e-newsletters absolutely free.
Tidy and modern-day subscriber analytics.
Great deals of adaptability with email styles.
Referral program feature.
Internet site hosting.
Develop costs choices to monetize.
Polls.
To be honest, I haven’t seen one more e-newsletter system that has actually been able to package all of these features together so well.
But certainly, I don’t intend to be biased so I’m going to state some disadvantages.
Cons of using beehiiv
Right here are several of the cons I have actually discovered while making use of beehiiv:.
Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around adding custom typefaces.
I utilize Webflow as my site building platform of selection (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a long period of time ago). I’m not mosting likely to go in too much information why I love Webflow so much yet you can read my Webflow testimonial if you would love to discover more.
Today, there really is nothing else way I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow web site besides utilizing an iframe embed. I directly don’t such as using iframe’s due to the fact that they have a tendency to slow down my web site a little bit. Whenever a page on my site (with a beehiiv installed) lots, the sign-up embed is the last point to pack on the page. It’s very noticeable when you get on a slow net link. Yet I can navigate that.
The main gripe I have is that I can not use a normal Webflow form (which I love utilizing). There are methods around this by utilizing a device like Zapier yet that would certainly just include additional expenses that I don’t need. To be truthful, this is more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv con yet I assumed I would state it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros far exceed the cons below. I’m also enthusiastic that Webflow will ultimately develop a much better way to integrate with beehiiv.
Final Thought
Generally, beehiiv is a terrific solution for any person wanting to dive into the world of e-mail marketing and newsletters.
The performance of this e-newsletter platform far exceeds many that are currently on the market. And with a charitable free plan, you really have nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are additionally rather cheap 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 might cost you well into the thousands per month.
Anyways, I do not compose evaluation articles usually. I only do when I in fact utilize the tool myself and would advise it to a pal.
I hope you found some clarity on whether or not beehiiv is an excellent platform for you.