Over 2 years ago, I read one of my favorite e-mail newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the e-mail and saw the beehiiv logo for the first time. I clicked on it and quickly started wrecking AI Researches Beehiiv.
I had not been certain why I really felt so psychological.
Being a full time designer is tough. I’m usually obtaining pitched different devices and solutions that do not appear to be worth my time.
I think I was psychological because I spent the last six months trying out different email and e-newsletter systems to aid build my newsletter. And to be fair, there are some great choices for writing e-newsletters. Yet I couldn’t discover one that made me provide a certain “yes”.
The problem with numerous existing newsletter systems is that they don’t feel creator-centered. I desire a newsletter platform that lets me fully customize my e-newsletter layouts, makes it incredibly easy to create and send emails, and offers me tools that assist me evaluate metrics and obtain even more clients.
I believe I’ve finally found the appropriate 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 platform for e-newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter system that makes it simple to style, compose, send out, advertise, generate income from, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Produced by former employees at the renowned newsletter firm Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to assist makers launch and monetize their own e-newsletter– taking great deals of development principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M subscribers.
In this write-up, I’m going to clarify my personal experience with beehiiv, things I enjoy (and hate) about it, all of it’s features, and why I chose to finally go with it as my newsletter platform of choice.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A few months ago, I unintentionally stumbled across beehiiv. The amusing story is that I have actually watched for a contemporary newsletter platform for rather some time currently. I have actually put things off hard when it pertained to lastly launching my newsletter.
Initially, I tried Mailchimp. Then, a few various other indie systems. Then, Substack. And lastly, I ended up making use of beehiiv.
I make sure several e-newsletter creators respect prominent newsletters with numerous subscribers– I know I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I admired a great deal. They have wonderful material, tons of clients, and a smart referral program that allows them to get back at much more clients.
So, I took place a hunt to determine just how these large newsletters established their logistics. What platform do they use? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they obtain more subscribers? How do they develop a newsletter layout that stays on-brand?
When I found beehiiv for the very first time, it appeared to respond to every one of my inquiries. I believed to myself, “damn individuals that built this tool actually understand newsletter creation and growth.” I examined who these makers of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were some of the first marketing and development staff members at Morning Brew– my brain exploded.
I recognized this was going to be a various e-newsletter platform. One that’s focused on developer growth.
Since, any type of developer understands, you need development to be able to make a living off of a newsletter. And finding the ideal e-newsletter stack (that ranges) typically indicates using multiple different devices to aid achieve one objective– one system for your newsletter, one platform to generate income from, and one system to set up recommendations. It can obtain expensive.
So when I discovered beehiiv did all of these things in one platform, and it was totally free to start using, it was a piece of cake to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean web content designer that desires a platform that allows them to send out customized newsletters with or without requiring to have an internet site.
One of the most effective newsletters have the right devices to build and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv targets at giving you those devices.
If you’re an independent author, media business, startup, or material developer, you should seriously taking into consideration experimenting with beehiiv. It’s absolutely cost-free to start and you just pay when you get to over 2,500 subscribers on your list.
If you really wind up having to spend for beehiiv it’s possibly a great indicator that individuals love reviewing your stuff.
beehiiv vs Substack
You may be asking, “isn’t there currently a system for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, indeed there is. Substack is a fantastic platform made use of by thousands of independent writers. With Substack you obtain your very own internet site and use the platform as your all-in-one service for sending out emails (while developing an archive of previous issues).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s dedication to growth. beehiiv allows you do to all things Substack can do, with the advantage of far better analytics, more layout flexibilty, and a referral program to urge your existing subscribers to obtain words out.
beehiiv likewise offers you a web site similar to Substack. Yet, if you have your very own website already, you can additionally make use of beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I utilize) to send your site subscribers right to your beehiiv e-mail list. On the exact same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a device like Performance to allow individuals to subscribe to your newsletter directly from Twitter.
This provides you the flexibility to leverage different marketing channels to get your e-newsletter out into the globe, making beehiiv a fantastic Substack choice.
How to begin utilizing beehiiv e-mail marketing software program.
Enroll in a free plan
The initial step is to sign up for a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Start trial” switch on beehiiv’s internet site.
The free plan will permit you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, provide you access to website hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, breakthrough modification, analytics, exterior embed types, and much more. It’s a really generous offering for those just starting out (or for those searching for a brand-new platform to move to).
Onboarding AI Researches Beehiiv
After developing an account, you’ll experience an onboarding process that will ask points like, “is this your very first e-newsletter?”, “what other systems have you utilized?”, “do you have any type of paying subscribers?”, and a lot more.
You’ll then develop a name and URL for your e-newsletter’s site. On the free plan, your newsletter will certainly reside on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your website URL might be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding procedure, you’ll also choose your brand name colors and design to see to it your e-newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your dashboard
When you reach your major control panel, you’ll see all of your analytics and settings.
You will have outlined information on the number of sign-ups you’re obtaining and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see alternatives for “Start creating,” “Messages,” “Audience,” “Grow,” “Generate income from,” “Style,” and” Analyze.” And at the very lower you’ll see the settings option.
Control panel is your primary nerve center (screenshot over), Begin creating is where you develop and release e-newsletters, Posts is where you can see all of your previous e-newsletter versions, Audience is where you can view who your customers are (and break them down right into sections), Grow 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 e-newsletter with ads, Design is where you design your newsletter landing page and article template, Analyze is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can take care of all of your admin things.
Creating your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it very easy to start writing, with little to no friction. If you’re just starting out, and have an idea you wish to write about, I suggest simply mosting likely to the “Create” area in the navbar and clicking on “Begin composing”.
You can fine-tune your template and styling later on– concentrate on the content first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor uses a tidy and easy to use interface for composing.
As soon as you start composing, you can enhance headings, add web links, and design your content exactly how you like.
beehiiv provides you tons of choices for different types of web content like video clips, web links, images, and much more.
The group at beehiiv is likewise continuously launching item feature and updates so I make sure there will certainly be a whole lot a lot more content features depending on when you’re reading this.
Optimizing your settings 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 setups.
Here, you can update the name of your newsletter, provide it a summary, add your logo, switch on or off a welcome email to very first time customers, and more.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your design.
You can modify background colors, boundaries, spacing, font styles, image formats, and more. I’m not mosting likely to undergo ever solitary thing you can optimize with your email template because it’s a whole lot. Just experiment with the platform completely free and see it for yourself!
Crucial beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of incredible features that make it an excellent publishing platform for any kind of newsletter creator.
Here are several of the important features you can discover with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter publishing platform. It makes it super very easy to create and send e-mails. I pointed out over a few of the things you can do with your setups and email design so I’ll save you some additional reading.
The thing to note with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has a truly contemporary and minimalistic feeling. It’s absolutely among the far better e-mail editors I’ve ever written in.
Site hosting
When you develop a beehiiv newsletter, every one of your newsletters (if you desire) survive on an internet site. Think about it as a site for your newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous issues of your e-newsletter, and a place where people can subscribe to your e-newsletter.
If you’re familiar with Substack, it’s practically similar to that.
All plans, including the complimentary one, offer you a web site. However, the free plan areas your web site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you intend to add a custom domain name to remove all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting clients is essential. Besides, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can register for your e-newsletter right from your beehiiv internet site or through embed kinds.
If you already have a web site, and want people to subscribe to your newsletter from your existing site, you’ll have to use an embed form. This is what I use on this website (you can see the sign-up installed on the right-hand man column of this article if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have three various choices– a complete size, a repaired width, and a slim embed. I directly use the slim embed.
You can locate the code fragment for these embeds in the “Subscribe Kinds” tab in your settings.
There’s additionally an option for acknowledgment tracking if you intend to forward UTM criteria for tracking purposes– quite cool.
Nonetheless, there are a couple of features I desire beehiiv had when it concerned subscribe features. I’m sure the team is dealing with updates for these, yet I mentioned a couple of issues I had in the advantages and disadvantages section listed below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things concerning beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter system, is a solution for producing a referral program.
You can urge existing clients on your listing to onward your emails to close friends and associates and if they obtain other individuals to subscribe to your listing, you can compensate them. These incentives can be in whatever form you want. I have actually seem several newsletter companies offer rewards in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously turn your clients right into a word of mouth growth engine for your e-newsletter– providing you one more opportunity for growing your e-mail listing.
Nevertheless, to get accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll need to update to an extra premium plan. I’ll review all the plans later in this post.
Costs memberships
They claim all you need to earn a living online is 1,000 real fans. Membership earnings is certainly a monster of its very own. If you’re searching for a platform to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can create “premium” concerns of your e-newsletter that are just sent out to paying customers. This can be really financially rewarding relying on what your e-newsletter needs to offer. For instance, Trends.co is a popular premium e-newsletter that produces millions in income a year merely by having pay-only e-newsletter material.
Information analytics
Among things I like concerning beehiiv is just how tidy and simple the analytics are. You get real-time date on exactly how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and client matter AI Researches Beehiiv.
You obtain accessibility to all the metrics you need to obtain a bird-eye view on just how your e-newsletter is really doing. Logging right into your dashboard and seeing that customer count rise is definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv uses 4 different pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (cost-free) Launch plan provides you whatever you require to start and grow your e-newsletter (up to 2,500 clients).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) offers you whatever in the Launch plan with the enhancement the advertisement network, referral program, personalized domain, polls, and accessibility to premium memberships. This is the plan I am on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) provides you every little thing in the Grow plan with addition of top priority support and eliminating the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are quite charitable in my viewpoint.
For instance, if you have 100,000 clients you will pay around $329 each month. Rather than some rivals, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would certainly charge $679 each month for the very same amount– making beehiiv a terrific Kit choice for lots of individuals.
I’m not exactly sure just how the system business economics deal with this, but beehiiv is most definitely more affordable (right now) than what it can be.
beehiiv pros and cons
Naturally, with every system, it has its benefits and drawbacks. Below are a few of the advantages and disadvantages I have actually personally experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Here are some of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter system of choice:
Easy to establish and begin sending e-newsletters totally free.
Tidy and contemporary subscriber analytics.
Lots of flexibility with e-mail layouts.
Referral program feature.
Website hosting.
Develop costs alternatives to generate income from.
Surveys.
To be sincere, I have not seen one more newsletter system that has actually been able to package all of these features together so well.
Yet of course, I do not intend to be prejudiced so I’m going to state some disadvantages.
Cons of using beehiiv
Right here are several of the disadvantages I have actually discovered while making use of beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around including custom-made typefaces.
I utilize Webflow as my web site structure system of selection (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a very long time ago). I’m not going to enter way too much information why I love Webflow a lot yet you can review my Webflow testimonial if you wish to learn more.
Today, there really is no other method I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow web site apart from using an iframe embed. I personally don’t such as using iframe’s due to the fact that they often tend to decrease my site a bit. Whenever a page on my website (with a beehiiv embed) loads, the sign-up embed is the last point to pack on the web page. It’s very visible when you get on a slow-moving web link. Yet I can get around that.
The major complaint I have is that I can not utilize a routine Webflow form (which I enjoy making use of). There are methods around this by using a device like Zapier however that would certainly just add added expenses that I do not require. To be truthful, this is more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv con yet I thought I would state it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros much exceed the cons right here. I’m likewise enthusiastic that Webflow will ultimately create a better method to integrate with beehiiv.
Verdict
Overall, beehiiv is a terrific remedy for any person wanting to dive into the world of email marketing and newsletters.
The performance of this e-newsletter platform much outweighs numerous that are currently on the market. And with a charitable free plan, you actually have absolutely nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are likewise rather inexpensive of what they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 subscribers on your list is unheard of. 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 per month.
Anyways, I do not write evaluation articles often. I just do when I really use the tool myself and would certainly advise it to a buddy.
I hope you discovered some clearness on whether or not beehiiv is an excellent platform for you.