Over 2 years ago, I read one of my favorite email newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the e-mail and saw the beehiiv logo design for the first time. I clicked it and immediately started wrecking Is Beehiiv Better Than Substack.
I wasn’t certain why I really felt so emotional.
Being a permanent maker is difficult. I’m often obtaining pitched different tools and services that don’t appear to be worth my time.
I presume I was psychological since I invested the last six months checking out different email and e-newsletter systems to aid construct my newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some fantastic alternatives for writing e-newsletters. However I could not discover one that made me give a definite “yes”.
The issue with numerous existing e-newsletter systems is that they don’t really feel creator-centered. I want an e-newsletter platform that lets me completely personalize my e-newsletter layouts, makes it extremely simple to compose and send out emails, and gives me devices that assist me analyze metrics and get more clients.
I believe I’ve finally located the best device.
However, I know beehiiv might 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 style, write, send out, promote, generate income from, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Produced by former workers at the famous newsletter firm Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to help developers launch and monetize their very own e-newsletter– taking great deals of development principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M subscribers.
In this article, I’m mosting likely to discuss my personal experience with beehiiv, things I love (and hate) about it, all of it’s features, and why I made a decision to finally choose it as my newsletter platform of option.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A couple of months earlier, I unintentionally stumbled across beehiiv. The amusing story is that I have actually watched for a contemporary e-newsletter platform for rather some time currently. I’ve hesitated hard when it pertained to ultimately introducing my e-newsletter.
Initially, I tried Mailchimp. After that, a couple of various other indie platforms. Then, Substack. And lastly, I ended up using beehiiv.
I make sure several newsletter designers respect preferred e-newsletters with millions of customers– I understand I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I respected a whole lot. They have great content, tons of customers, and a creative referral program that permits them to get even a lot more subscribers.
So, I went on a search to figure out exactly how these huge e-newsletters established their logistics. What platform do they use? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they obtain more subscribers? How do they create an e-newsletter design that remains on-brand?
When I uncovered beehiiv for the first time, it appeared to respond to all of my questions. I believed to myself, “damn individuals that constructed this tool really recognize e-newsletter production and development.” I examined who these creators of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were some of the very first marketing and development employees at Morning Brew– my brain took off.
I recognized this was mosting likely to be a different newsletter platform. One that’s concentrated on creator development.
Due to the fact that, any kind of designer knows, you require growth to be able to make a living off of an e-newsletter. And finding the appropriate e-newsletter pile (that ranges) typically indicates utilizing several different devices to assist attain one objective– one system for your newsletter, one platform to generate income from, and one system to establish referrals. It can get costly.
So when I found out beehiiv did all of these points in one platform, 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 developer that desires a platform that permits them to send out custom newsletters with or without requiring to have an internet site.
The most successful e-newsletters have the right tools to construct and scale their newsletters. beehiiv focuses on offering you those tools.
If you’re an independent author, media company, start-up, or material designer, you must seriously taking into consideration checking out beehiiv. It’s totally complimentary to begin and you only pay when you get to over 2,500 clients on your checklist.
If you really wind up needing to spend for beehiiv it’s probably a good indication that individuals like reviewing your stuff.
beehiiv vs Substack
You could be asking, “isn’t there already a system for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, yes there is. Substack is an excellent system made use of by thousands of independent writers. With Substack you get your own internet site and make use of the platform as your all-in-one option for sending e-mails (while producing an archive of previous concerns).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s commitment to growth. beehiiv allows you do to all the things Substack can do, with the advantage of better analytics, more design flexibilty, and a referral program to encourage your existing subscribers to obtain the word out.
beehiiv additionally gives you a website similar to Substack. But, if you have your very own web site already, you can additionally make use of beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I use) to send your web site customers straight to your beehiiv email checklist. On the same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a device like Performance to allow individuals to register for your e-newsletter directly from Twitter.
This gives you the adaptability to utilize various marketing networks to obtain your newsletter out into the globe, making beehiiv a great Substack option.
Just how to begin making use of beehiiv email marketing software application.
Register for a free plan
The very first step is to enroll in a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Begin trial” switch on beehiiv’s site.
The free plan will certainly permit you to have up to 2,500 clients, provide you access to site hosting, a newsletter CMS, breakthrough personalization, analytics, exterior embed forms, and a lot more. It’s a really charitable offering for those just starting out (or for those seeking a brand-new system to move to).
Onboarding Is Beehiiv Better Than Substack
After developing an account, you’ll experience an onboarding procedure that will ask things like, “is this your very first e-newsletter?”, “what other systems have you used?”, “do you have any paying subscribers?”, and extra.
You’ll after that produce a name and link for your newsletter’s web site. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will survive on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your web site link might be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding procedure, you’ll also choose your brand colors and design to make sure your e-newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your control panel
Once you reach your major control panel, you’ll see every one of your analytics and setups.
You will certainly have described details on how many sign-ups you’re getting and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see options for “Begin composing,” “Messages,” “Audience,” “Grow,” “Generate income from,” “Design,” and” Examine.” And at the really bottom you’ll see the setups option.
Dashboard is your major nerve center (screenshot over), Start creating is where you create and publish e-newsletters, Messages is where you can see every one of your previous e-newsletter editions, Audience is where you can view who your subscribers are (and damage 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 newsletter with advertisements, Layout is where you develop your newsletter landing page and post template, Examine is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can take care of all of your admin stuff.
Writing your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it simple to begin writing, with little to no friction. If you’re just beginning, and have an idea you intend to discuss, I advise simply going to the “Create” area in the navbar and clicking “Begin composing”.
You can modify your template and designing later– concentrate on the material first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor provides a clean and straightforward user interface for creating.
When you start writing, you can optimize headings, add links, and style your content just how you like.
beehiiv provides you lots of options for various types of content like video clips, links, images, and a lot more.
The group at beehiiv is additionally constantly releasing item feature and updates so I make sure there will certainly be a lot much more content features depending on when you read this.
Optimizing 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 change some settings.
Below, you can update the name of your e-newsletter, give it a description, include your logo design, turn on or off a welcome email to very 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 shades, boundaries, spacing, fonts, photo styles, and much more. I’m not going to experience ever before single thing you can maximize with your email template due to the fact that it’s a lot. Simply check out the platform totally free and see it for yourself!
Crucial beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of amazing features that make it a fantastic publishing system for any kind of newsletter creator.
Below are some of the crucial features you can discover with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter posting platform. It makes it incredibly simple to create and send out emails. I discussed above a few of the important things you can do with your setups and email design so I’ll save you some additional analysis.
The thing to note with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has an actually 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 produce a beehiiv e-newsletter, every one of your e-newsletters (if you want) live on a website. Think of it as an internet site for your newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous problems of your newsletter, and an area where people can register for your e-newsletter.
If you’re familiar with Substack, it’s basically comparable to that.
All plans, including the free one, offer you a web site. Nonetheless, the free plan areas your site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you wish to add a customized domain to eliminate all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining customers is important. After all, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can sign up for your newsletter directly from your beehiiv web site or via embed kinds.
If you currently have a web site, and want people to sign up for your e-newsletter from your existing website, you’ll need to make use of an embed kind. 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 kinds, you have 3 different alternatives– a complete size, a dealt with size, and a slim embed. I personally use the slim embed.
You can discover the code snippet for these embeds in the “Subscribe Forms” tab in your settings.
There’s likewise a choice for attribution monitoring if you intend to ahead UTM specifications for tracking functions– pretty cool.
Nevertheless, there are a couple of features I desire beehiiv had when it came to subscribe features. I make certain the group is working with updates for these, yet I pointed out a few worries I had in the advantages and disadvantages area below.
Referral program
Among the amazing things regarding beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter system, is a service for producing a referral program.
You can encourage existing customers on your listing to forward your emails to friends and coworkers and if they obtain other individuals to subscribe to your listing, you can compensate them. These incentives can be in whatever type you desire. I have actually seem lots of newsletter firms offer incentives in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously transform your subscribers into a word of mouth growth engine for your newsletter– offering you another opportunity for expanding your email list.
Nonetheless, to get access to the referral program feature, you’ll have to upgrade to a more premium plan. I’ll look at all the plans later on in this write-up.
Costs memberships
They say all you require to earn a living online is 1,000 real fans. Membership revenue is absolutely a monster of its very own. If you’re searching for a platform to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can produce “costs” concerns of your e-newsletter that are just sent out to paying clients. This can be really financially rewarding relying on what your e-newsletter needs to offer. For example, Trends.co is a preferred premium newsletter that produces millions in revenue a year just by having pay-only e-newsletter content.
Information analytics
Among things I enjoy about beehiiv is just how tidy and straightforward the analytics are. You obtain real-time date on exactly how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and subscriber count Is Beehiiv Better Than Substack.
You get accessibility to all the metrics you require to obtain a bird-eye view on just how your newsletter is actually doing. Logging right into your control panel and seeing that client matter go up is definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv provides four various pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (totally free) Launch plan gives you whatever you need 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 accessibility to premium subscriptions. This is the plan I am on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) offers you whatever in the Grow plan with addition of concern support and removing the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are fairly generous in my viewpoint.
For instance, if you have 100,000 customers you will pay around $329 per month. Instead of some competitors, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would charge $679 each month for the very same amount– making beehiiv a terrific Kit alternative for lots of users.
I’m uncertain just how the system economics deal with this, however beehiiv is definitely less expensive (presently) than what it can be.
beehiiv pros and cons
Obviously, with every system, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Below are some of the benefits and drawbacks I have actually directly experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Here are several of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter system of option:
Easy to establish and begin sending out e-newsletters absolutely free.
Tidy and modern customer analytics.
Lots of versatility with email designs.
Referral program feature.
Site hosting.
Develop costs alternatives to monetize.
Surveys.
To be straightforward, I haven’t seen an additional newsletter platform that has been able to package every one of these features together so well.
However certainly, I don’t want to be biased so I’m going to mention some disadvantages.
Cons of using beehiiv
Here are several of the cons I’ve located while making use of beehiiv:.
Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around adding customized font styles.
I make use of Webflow as my web site structure platform of option (I finished 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 but you can read my Webflow testimonial if you would love to learn more.
Right now, there actually is nothing else means I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow site besides using an iframe embed. I directly don’t such as utilizing iframe’s due to the fact that they often tend to slow down my web site a little bit. Every single time a page on my site (with a beehiiv installed) loads, the sign-up installed is the last thing to fill on the web page. It’s really obvious when you get on a slow-moving internet link. However I can get around that.
The main gripe I have is that I can’t make use of a regular Webflow type (which I enjoy making use of). There are means around this by utilizing a device like Zapier however that would simply include added prices that I do not require. To be honest, this is even more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv con but I believed I would mention it.
Besides that, I still think the pros far exceed the cons here. I’m likewise enthusiastic that Webflow will eventually develop a better means to incorporate with beehiiv.
Conclusion
In general, beehiiv is a great solution for any person looking to study the globe of email marketing and newsletters.
The functionality of this newsletter system far outweighs several that are currently on the marketplace. And with a generous free plan, you really have nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are likewise relatively cheap wherefore they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 subscribers on your listing is uncommon. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k subscribers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it can cost you well right into the thousands each month.
Anyways, I do not write testimonial articles usually. I just do when I actually use the tool myself and would certainly suggest it to a friend.
I hope you found some clearness on whether or not beehiiv is a good platform for you.