Over two years back, I was reading among my preferred email 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 instantaneously began tearing up Beehiiv Affiliate Leaderboard.
I wasn’t sure why I really felt so psychological.
Being a full time creator is difficult. I’m usually getting pitched different tools and services that do not seem to be worth my time.
I think I was emotional because I invested the last 6 months experimenting with different email and e-newsletter systems to aid construct my newsletter. And to be fair, there are some great choices for composing e-newsletters. But I couldn’t discover one that made me offer a certain “yes”.
The concern with many existing e-newsletter platforms is that they don’t feel creator-centered. I want a newsletter system that lets me completely personalize my e-newsletter layouts, makes it super easy to compose and send emails, and gives me tools that aid me evaluate metrics and obtain even more subscribers.
I assume I’ve finally found the appropriate tool.
However, 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 platform for e-newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter system that makes it easy to layout, compose, send out, advertise, monetize, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Produced by former staff members at the popular e-newsletter company Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to assist makers launch and monetize their own e-newsletter– taking great deals of development concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M subscribers.
In this write-up, I’m going to clarify my personal experience with beehiiv, the important things I enjoy (and hate) about it, all of it’s features, and why I decided to finally opt for it as my e-newsletter system of choice.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A few months back, I accidentally came across beehiiv. The funny tale is that I’ve been on the lookout for a contemporary newsletter system for quite time currently. I’ve put things off hard when it concerned finally introducing my newsletter.
Initially, I tried Mailchimp. After that, a couple of various other indie systems. Then, Substack. And ultimately, I ended up making use of beehiiv.
I make certain lots of e-newsletter developers admire popular newsletters with countless clients– I know I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I respected a whole lot. They have fantastic web content, tons of customers, and a creative referral program that allows them to get back at extra subscribers.
So, I went on a search to determine exactly how these large e-newsletters set up their logistics. What platform do they utilize? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they obtain more subscribers? How do they produce a newsletter style that remains on-brand?
When I found beehiiv for the very first time, it seemed to answer every one of my concerns. I believed to myself, “damn individuals that developed this device really comprehend e-newsletter production and development.” I examined who these developers of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were several of the initial marketing and growth workers at Morning Brew– my mind took off.
I understood this was going to be a various newsletter platform. One that’s focused on maker growth.
Since, any designer knows, you require development to be able to make a living off of a newsletter. And finding the appropriate newsletter stack (that ranges) typically means utilizing numerous various tools to aid achieve one objective– one platform for your e-newsletter, one system to monetize, and one system to set up references. It can obtain expensive.
So when I found out beehiiv did every one of these points in one platform, and it was totally free to begin using, it was a piece of cake to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean material developer that desires a system that allows them to send out personalized e-newsletters with or without requiring to have a website.
One of the most effective newsletters have the right tools to construct and scale their newsletters. beehiiv aims at offering you those tools.
If you’re an independent author, media firm, start-up, or content maker, you should seriously taking into consideration trying beehiiv. It’s completely free to get going and you just pay when you get to over 2,500 subscribers on your list.
If you actually end up needing to pay for beehiiv it’s possibly a good indicator that individuals enjoy reading your stuff.
beehiiv vs Substack
You may be asking, “isn’t there currently a platform for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, indeed there is. Substack is a great system used by thousands of independent writers. With Substack you get your own site and make use of the platform as your all-in-one remedy for sending emails (while creating an archive of previous problems).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s commitment to development. beehiiv enables you do to all the important things Substack can do, with the benefit of much better analytics, even more layout flexibilty, and a referral program to urge your existing customers to obtain words out.
beehiiv also provides you an internet site comparable to Substack. But, if you have your very own website already, you can additionally use beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I utilize) to send your website clients right to your beehiiv e-mail list. On the very same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a tool like Performance to allow individuals to register for your newsletter directly from Twitter.
This offers you the flexibility to take advantage of various marketing networks to get your newsletter out right into the world, making beehiiv a fantastic Substack alternative.
Just how to start making use of beehiiv e-mail marketing software program.
Register for a free plan
The initial step is to enroll in a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Beginning trial” switch on beehiiv’s website.
The free plan will certainly permit you to have up to 2,500 clients, give you accessibility to internet site hosting, a newsletter CMS, breakthrough customization, analytics, external embed forms, and much more. It’s an extremely charitable offering for those just starting (or for those seeking a brand-new platform to move to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Affiliate Leaderboard
After developing an account, you’ll experience an onboarding procedure that will ask things like, “is this your very first e-newsletter?”, “what various other platforms have you made use of?”, “do you have any type of paying subscribers?”, and more.
You’ll after that produce a name and URL for your newsletter’s internet site. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will reside on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your site link may be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding process, you’ll likewise select your brand name design and colors to ensure your e-newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your control panel
Once you reach your major control panel, you’ll see all of your analytics and settings.
You will have detailed info on the amount of sign-ups you’re getting and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see options for “Beginning composing,” “Articles,” “Audience,” “Grow,” “Monetize,” “Layout,” and” Evaluate.” And at the really lower you’ll see the setups alternative.
Control panel is your primary nerve center (screenshot above), Begin creating is where you create and publish e-newsletters, Messages is where you can see every one of your previous e-newsletter versions, Target market is where you can watch who your clients are (and break them down right into segments), Expand is where you have access to a referral program (and growth tutorials) and boosts to run advertisements, Monetize is where you can access the beehiiv ad network and monetize your e-newsletter with advertisements, Layout is where you create your e-newsletter landing page and article template, Assess 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 easy to begin composing, with little to no rubbing. If you’re simply beginning, and have an idea you want to write about, I suggest simply going to the “Create” section in the navbar and clicking “Start creating”.
You can fine-tune your template and designing later on– focus on the web content first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor supplies a tidy and user-friendly interface for writing.
Once you start creating, you can enhance headings, include web links, and style your content just how you such as.
beehiiv offers you tons of options for various types of material like video clips, links, photos, and much more.
The group at beehiiv is additionally frequently releasing item feature and updates so I make certain there will certainly be a whole lot extra material features depending upon when you read this.
Optimizing your settings and templates
As soon as you have an e-newsletter that’s ready to send out, it’s time to design your e-mail template and change some setups.
Below, you can upgrade the name of your newsletter, give it a summary, add your logo design, switch on or off a welcome email to first time clients, and much more.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can edit history shades, borders, spacing, font styles, picture styles, and a lot more. I’m not mosting likely to go through ever before single thing you can enhance with your email template because it’s a whole lot. Simply try out the platform free of charge and see it on your own!
Necessary beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of impressive features that make it a wonderful posting platform for any type of newsletter maker.
Below are some of the important features you can locate with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter publishing system. It makes it super easy to create and send emails. I stated over a few of the things you can do with your setups and e-mail style so I’ll save you some added analysis.
Things to note with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has a truly modern-day and minimalistic feeling. It’s most definitely one of the much better e-mail editors I’ve ever written in.
Site hosting
When you develop a beehiiv e-newsletter, every one of your e-newsletters (if you desire) survive on an internet site. Think about it as a web site for your newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous concerns of your newsletter, and a location where individuals can sign up for your newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s virtually similar to that.
All plans, including the totally free one, provide you an internet site. Nonetheless, the free plan areas your web site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you want to add a personalized domain to remove all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining customers is necessary. Besides, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can subscribe to your newsletter right from your beehiiv web site or via embed kinds.
If you already have a site, and want people to sign up for your e-newsletter from your existing website, you’ll need to utilize an embed kind. This is what I utilize on this web site (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 complete size, a repaired size, and a slim embed. I directly make use of the slim installed.
You can discover the code bit for these embeds in the “Subscribe Forms” tab in your settings.
There’s additionally a choice for attribution monitoring if you intend to ahead UTM parameters for tracking objectives– quite cool.
However, there are a couple of features I desire beehiiv had when it pertained to subscribe features. I make certain the group is working with updates for these, however I pointed out a few concerns I had in the pros and cons section below.
Referral program
Among 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 encourage existing clients on your list to ahead your e-mails to close friends and colleagues and if they obtain other people to sign up for your listing, you can award them. These rewards can be in whatever type you want. I have actually appear many e-newsletter firms provide rewards in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously transform your subscribers right into a word of mouth development engine for your e-newsletter– offering you another method for growing your e-mail checklist.
However, to obtain accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll need to update to a much more premium plan. I’ll discuss all the plans later on in this post.
Costs memberships
They state all you need to earn a living online is 1,000 true followers. Subscription income is definitely a beast of its own. If you’re trying to find a platform to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can develop “premium” problems of your e-newsletter that are only sent out to paying customers. This can be extremely profitable relying on what your newsletter needs to use. As an example, Trends.co is a prominent premium newsletter that creates millions in income a year merely by having pay-only e-newsletter material.
Information analytics
Among the important things I love about beehiiv is exactly how tidy and simple the analytics are. You get real-time date on how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and customer count Beehiiv Affiliate Leaderboard.
You get access to all the metrics you need to get a bird-eye sight on just how your newsletter is actually doing. Logging right into your control panel and seeing that customer matter go up is certainly a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv offers 4 various pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (complimentary) Launch plan offers you whatever you require to begin and grow your e-newsletter (up to 2,500 customers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) gives you every little thing 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 am on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) offers you whatever in the Grow plan with addition of priority assistance and eliminating the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are fairly generous in my opinion.
For example, if you have 100,000 clients you will certainly pay around $329 monthly. Instead of some rivals, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would charge $679 each month for the same quantity– making beehiiv a fantastic Kit choice for numerous users.
I’m not sure how the unit business economics deal with this, but beehiiv is definitely more affordable (currently) than what it can be.
beehiiv advantages and disadvantages
Of course, with every system, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Right here are a few of the benefits and drawbacks I have actually personally experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Here are several of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter system of option:
Easy to establish and start sending out newsletters totally free.
Tidy and modern-day subscriber analytics.
Great deals of flexibility with e-mail designs.
Referral program feature.
Website hosting.
Develop costs options to monetize.
Surveys.
To be straightforward, I have not seen another newsletter platform that has actually had the ability to package every one of these features with each other so well.
Yet certainly, I do not want to be biased so I’m mosting likely to state some cons.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Right here are some of the cons I’ve located while utilizing beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around including custom typefaces.
I use Webflow as my web site building platform of choice (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a long time ago). I’m not going to go in too much information why I like Webflow so much however you can read my Webflow testimonial if you ‘d like to learn more.
Right now, there truly is nothing else method I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow internet site aside from using an iframe embed. I directly do not like using iframe’s since they tend to slow down my web site a bit. Every time a page on my site (with a beehiiv embed) tons, the sign-up embed is the last point to pack on the page. It’s really noticeable when you’re on a slow web connection. Yet I can get around that.
The main gripe I have is that I can not utilize a routine Webflow type (which I love making use of). There are means around this by utilizing a device like Zapier however that would certainly just add extra costs that I do not need. To be honest, this is more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv con yet I believed I would state it.
Besides that, I still think the pros far exceed the cons here. I’m additionally confident that Webflow will eventually produce a much better method to integrate with beehiiv.
Verdict
In general, beehiiv is a fantastic service for anyone seeking to dive into the world of email marketing and e-newsletters.
The performance of this e-newsletter system much outweighs several that are presently on the marketplace. And with a charitable free plan, you truly have nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are likewise rather affordable wherefore they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 subscribers on your checklist is uncommon. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k customers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it could cost you well into the thousands monthly.
Anyways, I don’t create testimonial posts often. I only do when I actually utilize the device myself and would advise it to a good friend.
I hope you discovered some clearness on whether beehiiv is a great platform for you.