Over two years ago, I was reading one of my favorite e-mail 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 promptly started wrecking Beehiiv 14 Day Free Trial.
I had not been sure why I felt so emotional.
Being a permanent designer is tough. I’m usually obtaining pitched different tools and solutions that do not seem to be worth my time.
I guess I was emotional since I invested the last 6 months checking out various email and newsletter systems to help develop my newsletter. And to be fair, there are some fantastic alternatives for creating newsletters. Yet I couldn’t discover one that made me provide a definite “yes”.
The problem with several existing e-newsletter systems is that they don’t really feel creator-centered. I desire an e-newsletter system that lets me totally personalize my newsletter designs, makes it super very easy to create and send emails, and offers me tools that assist me examine metrics and get more subscribers.
I think I have actually finally found the ideal tool.
However, I know beehiiv may not be for every person. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s in fact best for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one platform for newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly e-newsletter platform that makes it simple to design, compose, send, promote, generate income from, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Developed by former staff members at the well-known e-newsletter firm Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to assist designers launch and monetize their very own e-newsletter– taking lots of development concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M clients.
In this write-up, I’m mosting likely to discuss my individual experience with beehiiv, the important things I like (and hate) about it, all of it’s features, and why I made a decision to lastly select it as my newsletter system of choice.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A couple of months back, I inadvertently stumbled across beehiiv. The funny story is that I have actually watched for a contemporary newsletter platform for fairly some time currently. I’ve put things off hard when it came to lastly introducing my e-newsletter.
Initially, I attempted Mailchimp. After that, a couple of various other indie systems. After that, Substack. And lastly, I wound up making use of beehiiv.
I make sure lots of e-newsletter designers respect preferred e-newsletters with numerous subscribers– I know I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I respected a whole lot. They have terrific web content, tons of clients, and a clever referral program that enables them to get back at much more customers.
So, I went on a quest to identify just how these big newsletters set up their logistics. What system do they make use of? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they obtain more clients? How do they create a newsletter style that remains on-brand?
When I found beehiiv for the very first time, it seemed to address all of my concerns. I thought to myself, “damn the people that constructed this device truly recognize newsletter production and development.” I questioned who these makers of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were some of the very first marketing and growth staff members at Morning Brew– my mind took off.
I recognized this was mosting likely to be a different newsletter system. One that’s concentrated on maker development.
Due to the fact that, any designer recognizes, you require development to be able to earn a living off of an e-newsletter. And locating the appropriate newsletter stack (that scales) often means using numerous different tools to help accomplish one goal– one platform for your e-newsletter, one system to monetize, and one platform to set up recommendations. It can obtain pricey.
So when I learnt beehiiv did all of these things in one system, and it was free to start making use of, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean material designer that wants a system that enables them to send personalized e-newsletters with or without needing to have a site.
One of the most successful e-newsletters have the right tools to develop and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv targets at giving you those tools.
If you’re an independent writer, media firm, start-up, or content developer, you must seriously considering experimenting with beehiiv. It’s absolutely cost-free to get started and you only pay when you get to over 2,500 subscribers on your list.
If you really wind up needing to pay for beehiiv it’s most likely a great indication that people like reading your things.
beehiiv vs Substack
You may be asking, “isn’t there currently a system for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, yes there is. Substack is an excellent system made use of by countless independent authors. With Substack you get your very own internet site and use the system as your all-in-one remedy for sending out e-mails (while developing an archive of previous problems).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s commitment to development. beehiiv enables you do to all things Substack can do, with the advantage of better analytics, more layout flexibilty, and a referral program to encourage your existing clients to obtain words out.
beehiiv additionally gives you a website comparable to Substack. But, if you have your own site already, you can additionally use beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I utilize) to send your internet site customers directly to your beehiiv e-mail list. On the very same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a tool like Revue to enable individuals to subscribe to your e-newsletter straight from Twitter.
This gives you the flexibility to utilize different marketing channels to obtain your newsletter out into the globe, making beehiiv a great Substack alternative.
Exactly how to begin utilizing beehiiv e-mail marketing software.
Sign up for a free plan
The primary step is to register for a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Begin trial” switch on beehiiv’s website.
The free plan will permit you to have up to 2,500 customers, provide you accessibility to internet site hosting, a newsletter CMS, advance modification, analytics, exterior embed kinds, and much more. It’s a very generous offering for those just starting (or for those trying to find a brand-new platform to move to).
Onboarding Beehiiv 14 Day Free Trial
After producing an account, you’ll experience an onboarding procedure that will ask points like, “is this your initial newsletter?”, “what other systems have you made use of?”, “do you have any paying subscribers?”, and more.
You’ll after that develop a name and URL for your newsletter’s internet site. On the free plan, your newsletter will survive on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your website link may be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding procedure, you’ll likewise pick your brand name colors and design to make sure your newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your dashboard
As soon as you reach your major dashboard, you’ll see every one of your analytics and setups.
You will have detailed information on the number of sign-ups you’re getting and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see alternatives for “Beginning creating,” “Articles,” “Target market,” “Grow,” “Monetize,” “Style,” and” Evaluate.” And at the extremely lower you’ll see the settings option.
Control panel is your primary nerve center (screenshot over), Begin composing is where you produce and release e-newsletters, Articles is where you can see all of your previous newsletter editions, Audience is where you can see who your clients are (and damage them down into sections), Grow is where you have access 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 newsletter with advertisements, Layout is where you create your e-newsletter landing page and post template, Examine is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can manage all of your admin things.
Writing your newsletter
beehiiv makes it easy to start creating, with little to no rubbing. If you’re just starting out, and have an idea you intend to blog about, I advise simply mosting likely to the “Create” section in the navbar and clicking “Start composing”.
You can modify your template and styling later– focus on the web content initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor uses a clean and user-friendly interface for composing.
As soon as you begin composing, you can optimize headings, include web links, and style your content exactly how you like.
beehiiv gives you tons of choices for various types of web content like video clips, links, photos, and much more.
The team at beehiiv is additionally regularly releasing product feature and updates so I make sure there will be a whole lot a lot more 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 out, it’s time to develop your e-mail template and adjust some settings.
Here, you can upgrade the name of your newsletter, give it a description, add your logo design, activate or off a welcome email to very first time clients, and extra.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can modify background colors, boundaries, spacing, fonts, picture styles, and a lot more. I’m not mosting likely to undergo ever before solitary point you can maximize with your e-mail template because it’s a great deal. Simply try the platform free of cost and see it on your own!
Important beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of amazing features that make it a terrific posting system for any e-newsletter maker.
Here are some of the essential features you can discover with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter posting system. It makes it super easy to create and send e-mails. I discussed over some of the important things you can do with your settings and email design so I’ll save you some additional analysis.
Things to keep in mind with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has a really contemporary and minimalistic feel. It’s most definitely one of the much better email editors I’ve ever written in.
Internet site hosting
When you develop a beehiiv e-newsletter, every one of your newsletters (if you want) survive on a web site. Think of it as a site for your newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous problems of your newsletter, and a place where individuals can sign up for your newsletter.
If you’re familiar with Substack, it’s practically comparable to that.
All plans, including the free one, offer you a website. However, the free plan locations your internet site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you intend to add a customized domain to get rid of all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining customers is necessary. Nevertheless, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can register for your e-newsletter directly from your beehiiv website or through embed kinds.
If you currently have an internet site, and desire individuals to register for your e-newsletter from your existing site, you’ll need to utilize an embed form. This is what I make use of on this web site (you can see the sign-up installed on the right hand column of this article if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have 3 various options– a complete size, a taken care of width, and a slim embed. I personally make use of the slim embed.
You can find the code fragment for these embeds in the “Subscribe Kinds” tab in your setups.
There’s likewise an alternative for acknowledgment tracking if you wish to onward UTM parameters for tracking functions– rather neat.
Nonetheless, there are a couple of features I wish beehiiv had when it pertained to subscribe features. I make sure the group is working with updates for these, however I pointed out a few worries I had in the benefits and drawbacks section below.
Referral program
Among the amazing things about beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter system, is a solution for producing a referral program.
You can urge existing customers on your listing to ahead your e-mails to good friends and colleagues and if they obtain other individuals to subscribe to your listing, you can reward them. These benefits can be in whatever form you desire. I have actually seem numerous newsletter companies offer rewards in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously turn your clients right into a word of mouth growth engine for your e-newsletter– providing you an additional method for expanding your email list.
Nevertheless, to get access to the referral program feature, you’ll have to upgrade to a much more exceptional plan. I’ll review all the plans later on in this post.
Premium registrations
They state all you require to earn a living online is 1,000 true fans. Membership revenue is definitely a beast of its very own. If you’re searching for a system to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can create “premium” problems of your e-newsletter that are only sent out to paying clients. This can be extremely rewarding depending upon what your e-newsletter needs to provide. For example, Trends.co is a preferred costs newsletter that creates millions in earnings a year merely by having pay-only newsletter content.
Data analytics
Among the important things I love concerning beehiiv is just how clean and easy the analytics are. You get real-time day on just how your newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and customer count Beehiiv 14 Day Free Trial.
You get access to all the metrics you require to get a bird-eye view on exactly how your newsletter is really doing. Logging right into your dashboard and seeing that client matter go up is absolutely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv supplies four various pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (totally free) Launch plan provides you whatever you need to get started and grow your e-newsletter (approximately 2,500 subscribers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) gives you whatever in the Launch plan with the addition the ad network, referral program, personalized domain name, surveys, and access to premium memberships. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) gives you everything in the Grow plan with addition of top priority support and removing the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are fairly charitable in my opinion.
As an example, if you have 100,000 customers you will pay around $329 per month. Instead of some rivals, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would bill $679 each month for the exact same quantity– making beehiiv a fantastic Kit option for several individuals.
I’m unsure exactly how the system economics work with this, however beehiiv is definitely cheaper (presently) than what it can be.
beehiiv pros and cons
Of course, with every system, it has its pros and cons. Right here are a few of the advantages and disadvantages I’ve directly experienced while utilizing beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Below are a few of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter system of option:
Easy to establish and begin sending e-newsletters for free.
Tidy and modern-day client analytics.
Great deals of versatility with email styles.
Referral program feature.
Website hosting.
Create costs options to generate income from.
Surveys.
To be sincere, I haven’t seen an additional newsletter platform that has had the ability to package every one of these features with each other so well.
However certainly, I do not want to be prejudiced so I’m going to state some disadvantages.
Cons of using beehiiv
Below are a few of the cons I have actually located while making use of beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around adding personalized typefaces.
I make use of Webflow as my website building platform of selection (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a very long time ago). I’m not going to enter way too much detail why I like Webflow a lot however you can read my Webflow review if you wish to learn more.
Now, there actually is no other method I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow website other than making use of an iframe embed. I personally don’t like making use of iframe’s due to the fact that they have a tendency to reduce my site a bit. Each time a web page on my website (with a beehiiv embed) lots, the sign-up installed is the last point to pack on the web page. It’s extremely noticeable 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 use a regular Webflow form (which I enjoy utilizing). There are means around this by using a device like Zapier yet that would certainly simply include added expenses that I do not require. To be straightforward, this is even more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv con yet I thought I would certainly discuss it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros far exceed the cons here. I’m likewise enthusiastic that Webflow will eventually produce a far better way to incorporate with beehiiv.
Conclusion
In general, beehiiv is an excellent service for any person looking to study the globe of email marketing and e-newsletters.
The capability of this newsletter platform much surpasses lots of that are presently on the marketplace. And with a charitable free plan, you truly have absolutely nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are likewise fairly cheap for what they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 clients on your list is unprecedented. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k subscribers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it could cost you well into the thousands per month.
Anyways, I don’t compose evaluation articles commonly. I only do when I in fact make use of the device myself and would certainly recommend it to a good friend.
I wish you located some quality on whether beehiiv is a good platform for you.