Over 2 years back, I was reading one of my favorite email e-newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo for the first time. I clicked on it and instantaneously started tearing up Kevin Chambers Beehiiv.
I wasn’t sure why I really felt so psychological.
Being a full-time designer is difficult. I’m frequently obtaining pitched different tools and services that don’t seem to be worth my time.
I presume I was psychological due to the fact that I spent the last six months checking out various e-mail and e-newsletter platforms to assist develop my newsletter. And to be fair, there are some fantastic options for writing newsletters. But I could not discover one that made me give a certain “yes”.
The issue with several existing newsletter systems is that they do not really feel creator-centered. I want an e-newsletter system that lets me fully customize my newsletter designs, makes it very simple to write and send out e-mails, and provides me tools that assist me analyze metrics and get even more clients.
I think I’ve ultimately found the right tool.
However, I recognize beehiiv might not be for everybody. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s actually best for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one system for newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter system that makes it easy to design, compose, send out, promote, monetize, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Created by previous employees at the famous e-newsletter business Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to aid developers launch and monetize their own e-newsletter– taking lots of growth concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M subscribers.
In this write-up, I’m going to discuss my individual experience with beehiiv, the important things I like (and hate) regarding it, all of it’s features, and why I chose to lastly go with it as my newsletter platform of choice.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A few months back, I inadvertently stumbled across beehiiv. The funny tale is that I have actually watched for a modern newsletter platform for quite some time now. I’ve hesitated hard when it pertained to lastly launching my e-newsletter.
Initially, I attempted Mailchimp. After that, a few other indie platforms. After that, Substack. And finally, I wound up making use of beehiiv.
I’m sure numerous newsletter designers look up to preferred e-newsletters with countless clients– I recognize I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I looked up to a lot. They have fantastic web content, lots of subscribers, and a brilliant referral program that enables them to get even much more customers.
So, I went on a quest to figure out how these large e-newsletters set up 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 produce an e-newsletter design that remains on-brand?
When I found beehiiv for the very first time, it appeared to answer every one of my questions. I thought to myself, “damn individuals that built this tool truly understand newsletter development and growth.” I examined who these developers of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were some of the first marketing and development staff members at Morning Brew– my brain took off.
I understood this was mosting likely to be a various e-newsletter platform. One that’s focused on maker development.
Because, any creator understands, you require growth to be able to earn a living off of a newsletter. And locating the best newsletter pile (that scales) typically suggests making use of numerous different tools to help accomplish one objective– one system for your newsletter, one platform to generate income from, and one system to set up referrals. It can get pricey.
So when I discovered beehiiv did all of these things in one system, and it was totally free to begin utilizing, it was a piece of cake to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean content developer that desires a system that allows them to send personalized newsletters with or without requiring to have a site.
The most effective e-newsletters have the right tools to build and scale their newsletters. beehiiv targets at offering you those devices.
If you’re an independent author, media business, startup, or content maker, you need to seriously considering trying beehiiv. It’s totally cost-free to get going and you only pay when you get to over 2,500 clients on your list.
If you actually end up needing to pay for beehiiv it’s possibly a good sign that individuals like reviewing your things.
beehiiv vs Substack
You may be asking, “isn’t there currently a system for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, of course there is. Substack is an excellent system used by hundreds of independent authors. With Substack you obtain your own website and utilize the platform as your all-in-one option for sending out e-mails (while developing an archive of previous issues).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s dedication to growth. beehiiv allows you do to all the important things Substack can do, with the benefit of much better analytics, more style flexibilty, and a referral program to urge your existing subscribers to get the word out.
beehiiv also gives you a site comparable to Substack. However, if you have your very own site currently, you can also make use of beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I make use of) to send your site customers right to your beehiiv e-mail list. On the same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a device like Revue to enable individuals to register for your newsletter straight from Twitter.
This offers you the adaptability to leverage various marketing networks to obtain your e-newsletter out right into the globe, making beehiiv a terrific Substack choice.
How to begin using beehiiv e-mail marketing software program.
Enroll in a free plan
The first step is to enroll in a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Begin trial” button on beehiiv’s website.
The free plan will certainly enable you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, give you access to web site hosting, a newsletter CMS, breakthrough personalization, analytics, external embed forms, and a lot more. It’s an extremely generous offering for those just starting out (or for those looking for a brand-new system to move to).
Onboarding Kevin Chambers Beehiiv
After developing an account, you’ll experience an onboarding process that will ask points like, “is this your first e-newsletter?”, “what various other platforms have you used?”, “do you have any kind of paying subscribers?”, and a lot more.
You’ll after that develop a name and link for your newsletter’s site. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will reside on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your website URL may be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding procedure, you’ll also pick your brand name design and colors to make sure your e-newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your dashboard
As soon as you reach your main dashboard, you’ll see all of your analytics and settings.
You will have outlined details on how many sign-ups you’re obtaining and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see options for “Begin composing,” “Posts,” “Target market,” “Grow,” “Monetize,” “Design,” and” Assess.” And at the extremely lower you’ll see the settings choice.
Control panel is your primary nerve center (screenshot over), Start composing is where you develop and publish e-newsletters, Messages is where you can see all of your previous e-newsletter editions, Target market is where you can watch who your clients are (and break them down into segments), Expand is where you have access 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 make your newsletter landing page and message template, Examine is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can handle every one of your admin things.
Composing your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it simple to start creating, with little to no rubbing. If you’re just beginning, and have an idea you wish to discuss, I suggest simply mosting likely to the “Compose” area in the navbar and clicking on “Start creating”.
You can modify your template and styling later– concentrate on the material initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor offers a tidy and straightforward user interface for composing.
When you start writing, you can enhance headings, add links, and design your content just how you like.
beehiiv offers you tons of options for different types of material like video clips, links, photos, and a lot more.
The team at beehiiv is likewise regularly releasing item feature and updates so I make certain there will certainly be a whole lot much more content features depending upon when you’re reading this.
Enhancing your settings and templates
Once you have a newsletter that prepares to send out, it’s time to make your e-mail template and readjust some settings.
Right here, you can upgrade the name of your e-newsletter, give it a description, include your logo design, activate or off a welcome e-mail to first time subscribers, and a lot more.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your style.
You can edit background shades, boundaries, spacing, typefaces, picture styles, and much more. I’m not going to undergo ever before single thing you can enhance with your e-mail template due to the fact that it’s a great deal. Simply try out the platform free of charge and see it on your own!
Essential beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of fantastic features that make it an excellent posting platform for any newsletter creator.
Here are a few of the necessary features you can find with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter publishing platform. It makes it very very easy to create and send out emails. I discussed above several of the important things you can do with your settings and e-mail style so I’ll spare you some extra analysis.
The important things to note with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has a truly contemporary and minimalistic feeling. It’s definitely one of the far better e-mail editors I’ve ever before written in.
Site hosting
When you develop a beehiiv e-newsletter, all of your newsletters (if you want) reside on a web site. Think of it as a web site for your newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous issues of your newsletter, and an area where individuals can register for your newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s pretty much comparable to that.
All plans, consisting of the complimentary one, give you a site. Nevertheless, the free plan areas your website on a beehiiv subdomain so if you want to include a customized domain to get rid of all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining customers is very important. After all, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can sign up for your e-newsletter right from your beehiiv website or through embed forms.
If you already have an internet site, and want individuals to subscribe to your newsletter from your existing site, you’ll need to utilize an embed kind. This is what I make use of on this website (you can see the sign-up embed on the right-hand man column of this blog post if you scroll up).
With embed types, you have 3 various choices– a full size, a taken care of size, and a slim installed. I directly make use of the slim installed.
You can find the code snippet for these embeds in the “Subscribe Kinds” tab in your settings.
There’s likewise a choice for attribution tracking if you intend to ahead UTM specifications for tracking functions– quite neat.
Nonetheless, there are a few features I want beehiiv had when it pertained to subscribe features. I’m sure the group is servicing updates for these, however I stated a couple of problems I had in the benefits and drawbacks area listed below.
Referral program
Among the amazing things concerning 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 customers on your list to forward your e-mails to close friends and colleagues and if they obtain other people to register for your checklist, you can compensate them. These benefits can be in whatever form you desire. I have actually appear many newsletter firms give incentives in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously turn your subscribers right into a word of mouth development engine for your e-newsletter– offering you an additional opportunity for expanding your email listing.
However, to obtain accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll have to update to an extra superior plan. I’ll go over all the plans later in this post.
Costs registrations
They state all you require to earn a living online is 1,000 real fans. Subscription profits is certainly a monster of its very own. If you’re searching for a system to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can produce “premium” problems of your e-newsletter that are only sent to paying subscribers. This can be really financially rewarding depending on what your newsletter needs to supply. For example, Trends.co is a popular costs newsletter that generates millions in earnings a year just by having pay-only newsletter content.
Data analytics
Among things I love about beehiiv is how clean and straightforward the analytics are. You get real-time day on how your newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and subscriber count Kevin Chambers Beehiiv.
You get access to all the metrics you need to obtain a bird-eye sight on just how your e-newsletter is in fact doing. Logging into your control panel and seeing that subscriber count increase is absolutely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv provides four different pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (totally free) Launch plan offers you every little thing you require to get started and expand your newsletter (up to 2,500 subscribers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) offers you whatever in the Launch plan with the enhancement the ad network, referral program, custom-made domain name, surveys, and accessibility to premium memberships. This is the plan I am on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) offers you everything in the Grow plan with enhancement of top priority support and eliminating the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are rather generous in my opinion.
For example, if you have 100,000 clients you will pay around $329 each month. In contrast to some rivals, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would bill $679 each month for the very same quantity– making beehiiv a fantastic Kit alternative for numerous customers.
I’m uncertain just how the unit economics work with this, but beehiiv is definitely cheaper (right now) than what it can be.
beehiiv benefits and drawbacks
Naturally, with every platform, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Here are several of the benefits and drawbacks I’ve directly experienced while utilizing beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Here are a few of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter system of selection:
Easy to establish and start sending out newsletters free of charge.
Clean and contemporary client analytics.
Great deals of versatility with e-mail designs.
Referral program feature.
Site hosting.
Create premium alternatives to generate income from.
Polls.
To be straightforward, I haven’t seen one more newsletter system that has been able to package every one of these features with each other so well.
However of course, I do not intend to be prejudiced so I’m mosting likely to state some disadvantages.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Below are a few of the disadvantages I have actually found while using beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around including personalized typefaces.
I utilize Webflow as my web site building platform of choice (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a long period of time ago). I’m not going to enter way too much information why I like Webflow a lot but you can read my Webflow evaluation if you want to discover more.
Today, there truly is no other method I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow internet site besides utilizing an iframe embed. I personally do not such as using iframe’s since they often tend to reduce my website a little bit. Whenever a web page on my website (with a beehiiv installed) lots, the sign-up embed is the last thing to fill on the web page. It’s extremely noticeable when you’re on a sluggish net link. But I can navigate that.
The main complaint I have is that I can not utilize a routine Webflow form (which I enjoy utilizing). There are methods around this by utilizing a tool like Zapier yet that would just include extra prices that I don’t require. To be honest, this is even more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv con yet I believed I would discuss it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros far surpass the cons here. I’m likewise enthusiastic that Webflow will ultimately produce a better way to integrate with beehiiv.
Final Thought
Generally, beehiiv is a fantastic service for anyone seeking to study the world of email marketing and newsletters.
The functionality of this e-newsletter system far outweighs many that are currently on the marketplace. And with a generous free plan, you really have absolutely nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are likewise rather cheap for what they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 customers on your listing is unusual. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k subscribers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it could cost you well into the thousands each month.
Anyways, I don’t create evaluation blog posts often. I only do when I actually use the device myself and would suggest it to a friend.
I hope you discovered some quality on whether beehiiv is a great system for you.