Over two years earlier, I read among my favorite e-mail e-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 immediately started wrecking Axios Beehiiv.
I wasn’t certain why I really felt so emotional.
Being a full time developer is tough. I’m frequently obtaining pitched various tools and services that do not appear to be worth my time.
I think I was psychological because I spent the last 6 months checking out various email and e-newsletter platforms to aid build my newsletter. And to be fair, there are some fantastic options for composing newsletters. Yet I could not discover one that made me offer a precise “yes”.
The concern with lots of existing newsletter systems is that they don’t really feel creator-centered. I desire a newsletter platform that lets me completely customize my newsletter layouts, makes it super very easy to compose and send emails, and gives me devices that help me assess metrics and get more clients.
I assume I’ve finally found the appropriate tool.
But, I understand beehiiv might not be for everybody. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s actually appropriate for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one platform for newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter platform that makes it simple to style, write, send out, promote, monetize, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Created by former workers at the famous newsletter business Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to help creators launch and monetize their very own e-newsletter– taking lots of growth concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M subscribers.
In this article, I’m mosting likely to describe my personal experience with beehiiv, things I love (and hate) concerning it, all of it’s features, and why I chose to finally choose it as my e-newsletter system of selection.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A couple of months back, I unintentionally stumbled across beehiiv. The funny tale is that I have actually been on the lookout for a contemporary e-newsletter platform for rather a long time now. I have actually hesitated hard when it pertained to finally releasing my e-newsletter.
First, I tried Mailchimp. After that, a couple of various other indie platforms. After that, Substack. And ultimately, I wound up making use of beehiiv.
I’m sure lots of e-newsletter designers appreciate popular newsletters with countless subscribers– I recognize I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I looked up to a great deal. They have wonderful material, lots of subscribers, and a brilliant referral program that enables them to get even extra clients.
So, I took place a hunt to figure out exactly how these big newsletters set up their logistics. What platform do they utilize? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they obtain more customers? How do they develop an e-newsletter layout that remains on-brand?
When I found beehiiv for the very first time, it appeared to respond to every one of my questions. I thought to myself, “damn the people that constructed this tool really recognize e-newsletter production and development.” I examined who these designers of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were some of the very first marketing and growth workers at Morning Brew– my mind exploded.
I understood this was going to be a various e-newsletter platform. One that’s focused on developer growth.
Due to the fact that, any maker knows, you require growth to be able to make a living off of a newsletter. And locating the appropriate newsletter stack (that scales) frequently suggests making use of numerous various tools to aid achieve one objective– one platform for your newsletter, one system to generate income from, and one platform to establish references. It can obtain expensive.
So when I discovered beehiiv did all of these things in one system, 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 content designer that wants a system that enables them to send custom newsletters with or without needing to have a site.
The most effective newsletters have the right devices to construct and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv targets at providing you those tools.
If you’re an independent author, media firm, startup, or material creator, you must seriously thinking about checking out beehiiv. It’s completely complimentary to begin and you just pay when you get to over 2,500 customers on your listing.
If you in fact wind up having to pay for beehiiv it’s probably a good indication that people enjoy reading your things.
beehiiv vs Substack
You could be asking, “isn’t there currently a system for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, indeed there is. Substack is a fantastic system used by thousands of independent writers. With Substack you obtain your very own web site and utilize the platform as your all-in-one service for sending out e-mails (while creating an archive of previous issues).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s devotion to development. beehiiv enables you do to all the things Substack can do, with the benefit of much better analytics, even more style flexibilty, and a referral program to urge your existing subscribers to get the word out.
beehiiv likewise offers you an internet site similar to Substack. But, if you have your own website currently, you can additionally make use of beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I utilize) to send your internet site clients right to your beehiiv email listing. On the same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a tool like Revue to permit people to subscribe to your newsletter straight from Twitter.
This provides you the adaptability to utilize different marketing channels to get your newsletter out into the world, making beehiiv an excellent Substack option.
Just how to begin utilizing beehiiv email marketing software application.
Register for a free plan
The first step is to register for a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Start trial” switch on beehiiv’s website.
The free plan will certainly allow you to have up to 2,500 clients, give you access to internet site hosting, a newsletter CMS, advance modification, analytics, exterior embed kinds, and much more. It’s a really charitable offering for those just starting (or for those looking for a new system to migrate to).
Onboarding Axios Beehiiv
After producing an account, you’ll go through 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 type of paying clients?”, and extra.
You’ll then produce a name and URL for your e-newsletter’s site. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will reside on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your web site URL might be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding process, you’ll additionally select your brand name colors and design to make sure your newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your dashboard
As soon as you reach your major control panel, you’ll see all of your analytics and setups.
You will certainly have detailed information on how many sign-ups you’re getting and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see alternatives for “Start creating,” “Messages,” “Target market,” “Expand,” “Monetize,” “Design,” and” Evaluate.” And at the really lower you’ll see the settings alternative.
Control panel is your major control center (screenshot over), Begin composing is where you create and publish e-newsletters, Messages is where you can see all of your previous e-newsletter editions, Target market is where you can see who your clients are (and damage them down right into sectors), 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 develop your newsletter landing page and message template, Evaluate is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can manage every one of your admin things.
Creating your newsletter
beehiiv makes it simple to begin composing, with little to no friction. If you’re just beginning, and have an idea you intend to blog about, I advise just mosting likely to the “Write” section in the navbar and clicking “Begin writing”.
You can tweak your template and designing later– focus on the web content initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor offers a clean and easy to use user interface for creating.
Once you begin creating, you can optimize headings, include web links, and design your content how you such as.
beehiiv gives you lots of options for various types of material like videos, links, images, and more.
The team at beehiiv is additionally continuously releasing product feature and updates so I make certain there will be a whole lot more content features relying on when you read this.
Enhancing your setups and templates
When you have a newsletter that prepares to send out, it’s time to make your e-mail template and readjust some settings.
Below, you can update the name of your newsletter, offer it a description, add your logo, turn on or off a welcome email to very first time clients, and extra.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your design.
You can modify background shades, boundaries, spacing, font styles, photo styles, and much more. I’m not going to undergo ever solitary point you can maximize with your email template due to the fact that it’s a great deal. Simply experiment with the platform for free and see it on your own!
Crucial beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of impressive features that make it a wonderful posting system for any kind of e-newsletter creator.
Here are several of the crucial features you can find with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter publishing system. It makes it extremely easy to compose and send emails. I stated above some of the things you can do with your setups and email style so I’ll spare you some added analysis.
The important things to note with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has a truly contemporary and minimalistic feeling. It’s certainly one of the better email editors I’ve ever before written in.
Internet site hosting
When you develop a beehiiv e-newsletter, every one of your e-newsletters (if you desire) survive on a site. Think of it as a website for your e-newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous issues of your newsletter, and an area where individuals can sign up for your e-newsletter.
If you recognize with Substack, it’s basically similar to that.
All plans, consisting of the free one, provide you a web site. Nevertheless, the free plan places your internet site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you want to include a custom domain name to eliminate all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining clients is important. Besides, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can subscribe to your newsletter straight from your beehiiv website or with embed kinds.
If you currently have an internet site, and desire individuals to register for your newsletter from your existing site, you’ll need to utilize an embed form. This is what I make use of on this site (you can see the sign-up embed on the right hand column of this blog post if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have 3 different choices– a complete size, a repaired size, and a slim embed. I directly make use of the slim installed.
You can find the code bit for these embeds in the “Subscribe Kinds” tab in your settings.
There’s likewise an option for attribution tracking if you intend to forward UTM specifications for tracking functions– pretty neat.
However, there are a few features I want beehiiv had when it concerned subscribe features. I’m sure the group is working on updates for these, but I discussed a few issues 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 remedy for developing a referral program.
You can motivate existing clients on your listing to onward your e-mails to good friends and coworkers and if they get other individuals to subscribe to your checklist, you can award them. These incentives can be in whatever kind you want. I have actually appear several newsletter companies provide benefits in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously turn your customers into a word of mouth development engine for your newsletter– providing you an additional avenue for growing your e-mail checklist.
Nonetheless, to obtain access to the referral program feature, you’ll have to upgrade to a more premium plan. I’ll go over all the plans later on in this article.
Premium memberships
They state all you need to make a living online is 1,000 real followers. Registration profits is definitely a beast of its own. If you’re seeking a system to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can develop “costs” concerns of your newsletter that are just sent to paying clients. This can be very profitable relying on what your newsletter has to provide. For instance, Trends.co is a prominent costs newsletter that produces millions in profits a year simply by having pay-only newsletter web content.
Data analytics
One of the things I like about beehiiv is just how clean and simple the analytics are. You obtain real-time day on just how your newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and subscriber count Axios Beehiiv.
You obtain accessibility to all the metrics you require to get a bird-eye sight on how your newsletter is actually doing. Logging right into your dashboard and seeing that subscriber count increase is absolutely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv supplies 4 different pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (totally free) Launch plan gives you whatever you need to get going and grow your newsletter (as much as 2,500 clients).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) offers you everything in the Launch plan with the addition the ad network, referral program, custom domain, polls, and access to premium registrations. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) provides you every little thing in the Grow plan with enhancement of priority assistance and getting rid of the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are quite generous in my point of view.
For instance, if you have 100,000 customers you will pay around $329 per month. As opposed to some competitors, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would charge $679 each month for the exact same quantity– making beehiiv a wonderful Kit choice for lots of customers.
I’m uncertain just how the system economics work with this, but beehiiv is absolutely cheaper (right now) than what it can be.
beehiiv benefits and drawbacks
Naturally, with every system, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Right here are some of the advantages and disadvantages I’ve directly experienced while utilizing beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Here are several of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter platform of option:
Easy to establish and start sending out e-newsletters for free.
Clean and modern-day subscriber analytics.
Great deals of adaptability with e-mail styles.
Referral program feature.
Web site hosting.
Produce costs options to generate income from.
Surveys.
To be honest, I have not seen an additional newsletter system that has actually been able to package all of these features together so well.
However certainly, I don’t wish to be biased so I’m mosting likely to point out some cons.
Cons of using beehiiv
Below are some of the cons I’ve discovered while making use of beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around including custom fonts.
I make use of Webflow as my site building platform of selection (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a long time ago). I’m not going to enter too much information why I like Webflow so much but you can review my Webflow evaluation if you want to discover more.
Right now, there truly is nothing else method I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow internet site besides making use of an iframe embed. I personally do not like making use of iframe’s because they tend to reduce my internet site a bit. Each time a web page on my site (with a beehiiv installed) lots, the sign-up embed is the last thing to fill on the page. It’s very noticeable when you’re on a sluggish net link. However I can navigate that.
The major gripe I have is that I can not use a normal Webflow kind (which I enjoy using). There are ways around this by using a tool like Zapier but that would just include added expenses that I don’t need. To be truthful, this is more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv con yet I assumed I would certainly mention it.
Besides that, I still think the pros much exceed the cons below. I’m likewise hopeful that Webflow will at some point create a better method to incorporate with beehiiv.
Conclusion
Generally, beehiiv is an excellent remedy for any individual aiming to study the globe of email marketing and newsletters.
The capability of this newsletter platform much outweighs many that are presently on the marketplace. And with a generous free plan, you truly have absolutely nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are likewise relatively cheap of what they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 subscribers on your list is uncommon. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k customers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it might cost you well into the thousands each month.
Anyways, I do not compose testimonial blog posts usually. I only do when I actually make use of the device myself and would certainly advise it to a good friend.
I wish you discovered some quality on whether beehiiv is an excellent platform for you.