Over 2 years back, I read among my favorite 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 instantly started destroying How User-Friendly Is Beehiiv For Beginners.
I had not been sure why I felt so psychological.
Being a full-time designer is difficult. I’m frequently obtaining pitched different devices and solutions that do not seem to be worth my time.
I guess I was psychological because I spent the last 6 months experimenting with various e-mail and e-newsletter platforms to help construct my newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some great options for creating e-newsletters. But I could not discover one that made me offer a certain “yes”.
The problem with lots of existing e-newsletter systems is that they do not feel creator-centered. I want an e-newsletter system that lets me fully tailor my newsletter designs, makes it very very easy to compose and send out emails, and offers me tools that help me evaluate metrics and get more customers.
I believe I have actually lastly found the best device.
Yet, I know beehiiv might not be for everyone. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s in fact best 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 simple to design, write, send, promote, generate income from, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Produced by former workers at the well-known newsletter company Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to assist designers launch and monetize their very own newsletter– taking lots of development principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M subscribers.
In this article, I’m going to clarify my personal experience with beehiiv, things I like (and hate) concerning it, all of it’s features, and why I decided to ultimately go with it as my newsletter system of choice.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A couple of months back, I accidentally came across beehiiv. The funny story is that I’ve watched for a modern-day newsletter system for rather some time now. I have actually hesitated hard when it came to finally launching my newsletter.
First, I attempted Mailchimp. After that, a couple of other indie platforms. Then, Substack. And finally, I ended up utilizing beehiiv.
I make sure lots of newsletter designers look up to popular newsletters with numerous customers– I understand I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I looked up to a lot. They have wonderful material, lots of clients, and a smart referral program that permits them to get even extra subscribers.
So, I took place a hunt to identify just how these huge newsletters set up their logistics. What platform do they utilize? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they obtain more customers? How do they create a newsletter layout that stays on-brand?
When I found beehiiv for the very first time, it seemed to answer every one of my questions. I believed to myself, “damn individuals that constructed this tool actually understand e-newsletter development and growth.” I questioned who these designers of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were some of the initial marketing and development employees at Morning Brew– my brain exploded.
I knew this was mosting likely to be a different newsletter system. One that’s focused on designer growth.
Since, any type of creator recognizes, you need growth to be able to make a living off of a newsletter. And locating the ideal e-newsletter pile (that scales) typically indicates making use of several different devices to assist accomplish one objective– one platform for your newsletter, one system to monetize, and one platform to set up references. It can obtain costly.
So when I discovered beehiiv did all of these points in one system, 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 content maker that wants a platform that allows them to send customized e-newsletters with or without requiring to have an internet site.
The most effective newsletters have the right devices to develop and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv targets at providing you those devices.
If you’re an independent writer, media firm, start-up, or web content developer, you should seriously considering trying beehiiv. It’s totally free to get going and you only pay when you get to over 2,500 subscribers on your list.
If you in fact wind up having to pay for beehiiv it’s probably a great indication that individuals love reading your things.
beehiiv vs Substack
You may be asking, “isn’t there already a system for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, of course there is. Substack is a wonderful system utilized by thousands of independent authors. With Substack you obtain your very own website and utilize the system as your all-in-one remedy for sending emails (while creating an archive of previous problems).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s devotion to development. beehiiv enables you do to all things Substack can do, with the advantage of much better analytics, more design flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing clients to obtain words out.
beehiiv also provides you a site similar to Substack. Yet, if you have your own website currently, you can also use beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I make use of) to send your internet site customers right to your beehiiv e-mail listing. On the same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a device like Performance to permit individuals to subscribe to your newsletter directly from Twitter.
This gives you the flexibility to utilize various marketing channels to get your e-newsletter out into the world, making beehiiv a great Substack option.
How to start utilizing beehiiv e-mail marketing software program.
Register for a free plan
The very first step is to enroll in a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Beginning trial” switch on beehiiv’s site.
The free plan will certainly permit you to have up to 2,500 customers, provide you accessibility to internet site hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, development customization, analytics, outside embed types, and much more. It’s an extremely generous offering for those simply starting out (or for those seeking a new platform to migrate to).
Onboarding How User-Friendly Is Beehiiv For Beginners
After producing an account, you’ll experience an onboarding process that will ask things like, “is this your initial e-newsletter?”, “what various other platforms have you used?”, “do you have any paying subscribers?”, and a lot more.
You’ll then produce a name and URL for your newsletter’s site. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will survive a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your site link may be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding process, you’ll additionally choose your brand name colors and design to see to it your newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your control panel
Once you reach your main dashboard, you’ll see every one of your analytics and settings.
You will certainly have outlined details on the number of sign-ups you’re obtaining and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see choices for “Beginning composing,” “Messages,” “Target market,” “Expand,” “Monetize,” “Layout,” and” Analyze.” And at the really bottom you’ll see the setups option.
Control panel is your primary control center (screenshot over), Beginning writing is where you create and publish newsletters, Blog posts is where you can see all of your previous newsletter versions, Target market is where you can view who your subscribers are (and break them down right into segments), Expand is where you have accessibility 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 e-newsletter with advertisements, Design is where you develop your e-newsletter landing page and article template, Examine is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can take care of all of your admin stuff.
Composing your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it easy to begin writing, with little to no friction. If you’re simply starting out, and have a concept you wish to cover, I suggest just mosting likely to the “Compose” area in the navbar and clicking “Start creating”.
You can fine-tune your template and styling later on– concentrate on the content initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor offers a tidy and straightforward interface for creating.
When you start composing, you can enhance headings, include web links, and style your material exactly how you like.
beehiiv provides you lots of alternatives for different types of content like video clips, web links, images, and a lot more.
The team at beehiiv is likewise frequently launching item feature and updates so I’m sure there will certainly be a great deal extra content features depending upon when you’re reading this.
Maximizing your setups and templates
As soon as you have a newsletter that’s ready to send, it’s time to develop your email template and readjust some settings.
Here, you can upgrade the name of your e-newsletter, offer it a summary, add your logo, turn on or off a welcome e-mail to very first time clients, and a lot more.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your design.
You can modify background shades, borders, spacing, font styles, image styles, and more. I’m not going to undergo ever before solitary point you can optimize with your e-mail template since it’s a great deal. Just check out the platform free of charge and see it for yourself!
Important beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of amazing features that make it an excellent publishing system for any newsletter developer.
Here are several of the crucial features you can discover with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter publishing platform. It makes it incredibly simple to create and send e-mails. I mentioned over several of the things you can do with your settings and email design so I’ll save you some added reading.
Things to keep in mind with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has a truly modern-day and minimalistic feeling. It’s definitely among the much better e-mail editors I’ve ever before written in.
Site hosting
When you produce a beehiiv newsletter, all of your newsletters (if you desire) reside on an internet site. Consider it as a web site for your newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous issues of your e-newsletter, and a location where individuals can sign up for your e-newsletter.
If you’re familiar with Substack, it’s pretty much comparable to that.
All plans, including the free one, provide you an internet site. Nonetheless, the free plan locations your website on a beehiiv subdomain so if you intend to add a custom domain to get rid of all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting clients is very important. Besides, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can subscribe to your newsletter right from your beehiiv web site or through embed kinds.
If you already have a website, and desire individuals to sign up for 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 embed on the right hand column of this post if you scroll up).
With embed types, you have three various options– a full width, a fixed size, and a slim embed. I personally make use of the slim embed.
You can locate the code fragment for these embeds in the “Subscribe Kinds” tab in your settings.
There’s likewise a choice for acknowledgment tracking if you intend to onward UTM parameters for tracking purposes– pretty cool.
Nevertheless, there are a couple of features I want beehiiv had when it involved subscribe features. I’m sure the team is servicing updates for these, but I mentioned a couple of concerns I had in the benefits and drawbacks area listed below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things concerning beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter system, is a service for creating a referral program.
You can motivate existing clients on your checklist to ahead your emails to buddies and colleagues and if they get other individuals to register for your checklist, you can reward them. These benefits can be in whatever kind you want. I’ve seem numerous e-newsletter business offer rewards in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously turn your subscribers right into a word of mouth development engine for your e-newsletter– providing you an additional opportunity for expanding your e-mail listing.
However, to get access to the referral program feature, you’ll need to upgrade to a much more exceptional plan. I’ll go over all the plans later on in this article.
Premium registrations
They claim all you need to earn a living online is 1,000 real fans. Subscription profits is definitely a beast of its very own. If you’re trying to find a system to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can create “costs” problems of your newsletter that are only sent to paying customers. This can be extremely financially rewarding depending on what your newsletter needs to use. As an example, Trends.co is a preferred costs newsletter that produces millions in profits a year just by having pay-only e-newsletter web content.
Data analytics
Among the things I like concerning beehiiv is exactly how tidy and straightforward the analytics are. You obtain real-time day on just how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and subscriber matter How User-Friendly Is Beehiiv For Beginners.
You get access to all the metrics you require to obtain a bird-eye view on exactly how your newsletter is actually doing. Logging into your dashboard and seeing that client matter increase is definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv offers 4 different pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (complimentary) Launch plan offers you everything you require to get going and grow your e-newsletter (as much as 2,500 customers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) offers you every little thing in the Launch plan with the enhancement the advertisement network, referral program, custom domain name, polls, and access to premium memberships. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) offers you whatever in the Grow plan with addition of top priority assistance and getting rid of the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are rather generous in my point of view.
For instance, if you have 100,000 customers you will certainly pay around $329 monthly. Instead of some competitors, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would bill $679 monthly for the same quantity– making beehiiv an excellent Kit choice for lots of users.
I’m uncertain how the system economics work on this, however beehiiv is definitely more affordable (at the moment) than what it can be.
beehiiv advantages and disadvantages
Certainly, with every system, it has its benefits and drawbacks. Below are several of the benefits and drawbacks I’ve directly experienced while making use of beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Below are some of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter platform of option:
Easy to establish and begin sending newsletters free of cost.
Clean and modern subscriber analytics.
Lots of versatility with e-mail styles.
Referral program feature.
Site hosting.
Develop costs alternatives to generate income from.
Surveys.
To be honest, I have not seen one more newsletter platform that has been able to package all of these features together so well.
However of course, I do not wish to be prejudiced so I’m going to discuss some cons.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Below are several of the cons I’ve discovered while making use of beehiiv:.
Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around adding custom-made font styles.
I use Webflow as my site structure system of selection (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a very long time ago). I’m not going to enter too much information why I love Webflow a lot yet you can read my Webflow review if you would love to find out more.
Today, there truly is no other means I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow website besides making use of an iframe embed. I directly don’t such as using iframe’s since they have a tendency to reduce my internet site a bit. Every time a web page on my site (with a beehiiv installed) tons, the sign-up embed is the last point to load on the page. It’s very recognizable when you get on a sluggish web link. But I can navigate that.
The major gripe I have is that I can’t use a routine Webflow form (which I enjoy utilizing). There are ways around this by using a device like Zapier but that would simply add added prices that I don’t require. To be sincere, this is even more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv disadvantage but I believed I would certainly discuss it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros far exceed the cons right here. I’m also hopeful that Webflow will at some point create a far better method to incorporate with beehiiv.
Verdict
On the whole, beehiiv is a great solution for anybody wanting to dive into the world of email marketing and e-newsletters.
The functionality of this newsletter platform much outweighs many that are presently on the marketplace. And with a generous free plan, you actually have absolutely nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are additionally relatively affordable for what they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 clients on your list is unprecedented. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k customers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it could cost you well into the thousands per month.
Anyways, I do not create testimonial blog posts typically. I only do when I really make use of the device myself and would certainly advise it to a good friend.
I hope you discovered some clarity on whether beehiiv is an excellent system for you.