Over two years back, I was reading one of my favorite e-mail newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo design for the first time. I clicked on it and promptly started wrecking Beehiiv Advertising.
I had not been certain why I really felt so psychological.
Being a permanent developer is tough. I’m frequently getting pitched different tools and services that do not appear to be worth my time.
I think I was emotional due to the fact that I spent the last six months trying out different email and e-newsletter systems to help develop my e-newsletter. And to be fair, there are some terrific choices for writing e-newsletters. But I could not discover one that made me provide a precise “yes”.
The concern with numerous existing newsletter platforms is that they do not feel creator-centered. I desire a newsletter platform that lets me fully tailor my newsletter layouts, makes it super simple to compose and send out emails, and provides me tools that help me evaluate metrics and obtain more subscribers.
I think I’ve finally found the right tool.
But, I understand beehiiv may not be for everybody. 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 newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly e-newsletter system that makes it simple to layout, compose, send, advertise, monetize, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Produced by former workers at the renowned newsletter business Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to assist designers launch and monetize their very own newsletter– taking lots of development concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M subscribers.
In this post, I’m going to explain my personal experience with beehiiv, things I like (and hate) concerning it, all of it’s features, and why I made a decision to lastly select it as my e-newsletter system of selection.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A few months earlier, I mistakenly came across beehiiv. The funny tale is that I’ve been on the lookout for a modern newsletter platform for rather some time now. I have actually hesitated hard when it involved finally launching my newsletter.
Initially, I attempted Mailchimp. Then, a couple of other indie systems. After that, Substack. And lastly, I ended up making use of beehiiv.
I make certain several e-newsletter designers respect preferred newsletters with millions of subscribers– I recognize I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I respected a great deal. They have great web content, lots of clients, and a clever referral program that enables them to get even more clients.
So, I went on a quest to determine just how these huge e-newsletters set up their logistics. What system do they make use of? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they get even more customers? How do they develop an e-newsletter style that remains on-brand?
When I discovered beehiiv for the very first time, it seemed to answer every one of my concerns. I thought to myself, “damn the people that constructed this device truly comprehend e-newsletter creation and growth.” I questioned 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 mind took off.
I knew this was going to be a various newsletter system. One that’s focused on creator growth.
Because, any kind of developer understands, you require development to be able to earn a living off of an e-newsletter. And locating the appropriate newsletter stack (that ranges) commonly implies utilizing numerous various devices to assist attain one objective– one system for your newsletter, one platform to generate income from, and one platform to establish referrals. It can get pricey.
So when I found out beehiiv did every one of these points in one platform, and it was free to begin making use of, it was a piece of cake to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean web content maker that desires a system that allows them to send custom-made newsletters with or without requiring to have an internet site.
One of the most successful newsletters have the right devices to build and scale their newsletters. beehiiv targets at giving you those devices.
If you’re an independent writer, media firm, start-up, or content maker, you must seriously thinking about checking out beehiiv. It’s totally cost-free to begin and you only pay when you get to over 2,500 subscribers on your list.
If you in fact end up needing to pay for beehiiv it’s possibly a good indicator 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 a terrific platform utilized by countless independent writers. With Substack you obtain your very own website and utilize the system as your all-in-one option for sending e-mails (while creating an archive of previous concerns).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s commitment to development. beehiiv allows you do to all things Substack can do, with the advantage of much better analytics, more style flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing customers to obtain words out.
beehiiv additionally gives you a website similar to Substack. However, if you have your own website currently, you can likewise use beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I utilize) to send your web site subscribers straight to your beehiiv email listing. On the exact same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a tool like Revue to allow people to register for your e-newsletter straight from Twitter.
This gives you the flexibility to take advantage of different marketing channels to get your e-newsletter out into the globe, making beehiiv a terrific Substack choice.
Exactly how to start using beehiiv e-mail marketing software application.
Enroll in a free plan
The first step is to enroll in a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Beginning trial” button on beehiiv’s website.
The free plan will certainly allow you to have up to 2,500 customers, give you access to internet site hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, advance personalization, analytics, exterior embed types, and a lot more. It’s an extremely charitable offering for those simply starting (or for those seeking a new system to migrate to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Advertising
After producing an account, you’ll go through an onboarding process that will ask points like, “is this your initial newsletter?”, “what various other platforms have you utilized?”, “do you have any paying subscribers?”, and a lot more.
You’ll after that create a name and URL for your e-newsletter’s internet site. On the free plan, your newsletter will certainly reside on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your website link could be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding procedure, you’ll additionally select your brand design and colors to see to it your newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your dashboard
When you reach your main dashboard, you’ll see every one of your analytics and settings.
You will certainly have detailed details on the amount of sign-ups you’re obtaining and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see choices for “Beginning creating,” “Messages,” “Target market,” “Expand,” “Generate income from,” “Layout,” and” Analyze.” And at the extremely lower you’ll see the settings alternative.
Dashboard is your major control center (screenshot above), Start composing is where you produce and release e-newsletters, Articles is where you can see every one of your previous newsletter editions, Audience is where you can watch who your clients are (and damage them down into segments), Expand is where you have accessibility to a referral program (and growth tutorials) and boosts to run ads, Monetize is where you can access the beehiiv ad network and monetize your e-newsletter with ads, Style is where you design your newsletter landing page and blog post template, Examine is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can manage every one of your admin things.
Creating your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it easy to begin creating, with little to no friction. If you’re just beginning, and have a concept you intend to discuss, I recommend simply mosting likely to the “Create” area in the navbar and clicking on “Start composing”.
You can fine-tune your template and designing later on– concentrate on the web content first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor supplies a tidy and user-friendly user interface for creating.
When you begin creating, you can optimize headings, add links, and style your material just how you like.
beehiiv offers you tons of choices for different kinds of content like video clips, links, images, and a lot more.
The team at beehiiv is also constantly releasing item feature and updates so I make sure there will certainly be a whole lot more content features depending on when you’re reading this.
Optimizing your settings and templates
As soon as you have an e-newsletter that’s ready to send, it’s time to develop your e-mail template and adjust some settings.
Here, you can upgrade the name of your e-newsletter, provide it a description, add your logo, turn on or off a welcome e-mail to 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, borders, spacing, font styles, picture styles, and a lot more. I’m not mosting likely to undergo ever solitary thing you can enhance with your e-mail template due to the fact that it’s a great deal. Just experiment with the system for free and see it on your own!
Crucial beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of fantastic features that make it a terrific publishing platform for any type of e-newsletter designer.
Here are some of the important features you can locate with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter posting platform. It makes it super simple to create and send e-mails. I mentioned above a few of the things you can do with your setups and email design so I’ll save you some additional analysis.
The thing to keep in mind with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has a truly modern-day and minimalistic feeling. It’s certainly one of the better e-mail editors I have actually ever written in.
Web site hosting
When you produce a beehiiv e-newsletter, every one of your e-newsletters (if you want) live on a site. Consider it as a web site for your newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous problems of your newsletter, and an area where people can subscribe to your e-newsletter.
If you’re familiar with Substack, it’s virtually comparable to that.
All plans, consisting of the free one, give you a website. However, the free plan areas your internet site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you want to include a custom-made domain name to eliminate all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting subscribers is necessary. Nevertheless, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can sign up for your newsletter straight from your beehiiv web site or via embed kinds.
If you already have an internet site, and desire people to sign up for your e-newsletter from your existing site, you’ll need to use an embed type. This is what I use on this website (you can see the sign-up embed on the right hand column of this post if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have 3 different choices– a full width, a taken care of width, and a slim installed. I personally utilize the slim embed.
You can discover the code snippet for these embeds in the “Subscribe Forms” tab in your setups.
There’s also an option for acknowledgment monitoring if you intend to onward UTM specifications for tracking functions– pretty neat.
Nevertheless, there are a couple of 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 advantages and disadvantages section listed below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things about beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter system, is a solution for producing a referral program.
You can encourage existing customers on your listing to forward your emails to friends and associates and if they get other individuals to subscribe to your listing, you can award them. These rewards can be in whatever type you desire. I’ve seem many newsletter companies provide benefits in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously transform your clients into a word of mouth growth engine for your newsletter– offering you another method for expanding your email list.
Nonetheless, to get access to the referral program feature, you’ll need to upgrade to an extra superior plan. I’ll discuss all the plans later on in this post.
Costs registrations
They claim all you require to earn a living online is 1,000 true followers. Subscription earnings is certainly a monster of its own. If you’re seeking a platform to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can create “costs” concerns of your newsletter that are only sent to paying subscribers. This can be very profitable relying on what your e-newsletter needs to use. As an example, Trends.co is a popular premium newsletter that generates millions in profits a year just by having pay-only e-newsletter material.
Data analytics
Among things I like about beehiiv is exactly how tidy and easy the analytics are. You get real-time day on exactly how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and customer matter Beehiiv Advertising.
You get accessibility to all the metrics you need to get a bird-eye sight on just how your e-newsletter is really doing. Logging right into your dashboard and seeing that subscriber matter increase is definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv supplies four various pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (totally free) Launch plan offers you every little thing you require to get started and expand your newsletter (up to 2,500 clients).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) provides you whatever in the Launch plan with the addition the advertisement network, referral program, custom domain name, polls, and accessibility to premium subscriptions. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) gives you every little thing in the Grow plan with addition of priority assistance and removing the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are rather generous in my opinion.
For instance, if you have 100,000 clients you will pay around $329 per month. Instead of some competitors, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would certainly charge $679 per month for the very same amount– making beehiiv a wonderful Kit option for many customers.
I’m unsure how the device economics service this, but beehiiv is absolutely less expensive (right now) than what it can be.
beehiiv pros and cons
Certainly, with every system, it has its benefits and drawbacks. Below are some of the advantages and disadvantages I’ve directly experienced while utilizing beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Right here are a few of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter platform of selection:
Easy to establish and begin sending e-newsletters completely free.
Tidy and modern client analytics.
Great deals of versatility with e-mail layouts.
Referral program feature.
Site hosting.
Create costs options to generate income from.
Surveys.
To be sincere, I haven’t seen one more newsletter platform that has actually been able to package every one of these features together so well.
Yet of course, I don’t intend to be biased so I’m mosting likely to state some cons.
Cons of using beehiiv
Here are some of the disadvantages I have actually located while using beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around including custom-made fonts.
I use Webflow as my website structure platform of choice (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a long time ago). I’m not going to enter excessive detail why I love Webflow a lot but you can read my Webflow evaluation if you wish to learn more.
Now, there really is nothing else way I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow website aside from using an iframe embed. I directly do not like utilizing iframe’s due to the fact that they have a tendency to slow down my web site a bit. Every single time a page on my site (with a beehiiv embed) loads, the sign-up installed is the last point to fill on the web page. It’s extremely noticeable when you’re on a slow-moving internet connection. Yet I can navigate that.
The main complaint I have is that I can not utilize a normal Webflow form (which I love utilizing). There are methods around this by using a device like Zapier yet that would certainly simply add added costs that I don’t need. To be honest, this is more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv disadvantage but I thought I would state it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros far outweigh the disadvantages here. I’m additionally enthusiastic that Webflow will eventually produce a much better way to integrate with beehiiv.
Verdict
On the whole, beehiiv is a wonderful solution for any person aiming to study the world of e-mail marketing and e-newsletters.
The functionality of this e-newsletter platform much surpasses numerous that are currently on the market. And with a generous free plan, you actually have nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are also relatively economical of what they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 customers on your checklist is uncommon. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k customers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it can cost you well into the thousands monthly.
Anyways, I don’t create evaluation messages frequently. I only do when I in fact utilize the tool myself and would suggest it to a buddy.
I hope you located some quality on whether or not beehiiv is an excellent system for you.