Over 2 years earlier, I was reading one of my favored email e-newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the e-mail and saw the beehiiv logo for the very first time. I clicked on it and quickly started tearing up Beehiiv Analytics.
I wasn’t certain why I really felt so emotional.
Being a full time creator is tough. I’m commonly getting pitched various devices and solutions that do not appear to be worth my time.
I guess I was emotional since I invested the last six months checking out various email and e-newsletter platforms to aid build my e-newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some fantastic alternatives for writing newsletters. But I couldn’t find one that made me offer a certain “yes”.
The problem with several existing newsletter platforms is that they do not feel creator-centered. I want an e-newsletter system that lets me completely customize my newsletter layouts, makes it super simple to write and send emails, and gives me tools that help me assess metrics and obtain more clients.
I assume I have actually ultimately found the right device.
However, I recognize beehiiv may not be for everybody. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s actually ideal for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one system for e-newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter platform that makes it simple to layout, compose, send, promote, monetize, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Produced by former workers at the popular e-newsletter firm Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to assist developers launch and monetize their very own e-newsletter– taking lots of development principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M subscribers.
In this article, I’m going to clarify my personal experience with beehiiv, the things I enjoy (and hate) concerning it, all of it’s features, and why I determined to finally opt for it as my e-newsletter platform of choice.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A few months earlier, I mistakenly came across beehiiv. The amusing tale is that I’ve been on the lookout for a modern newsletter system for quite some time now. I have actually postponed hard when it pertained to lastly launching my e-newsletter.
First, I attempted Mailchimp. Then, a couple of various other indie systems. After that, Substack. And ultimately, I ended up utilizing beehiiv.
I make certain numerous newsletter developers appreciate preferred e-newsletters with numerous subscribers– I understand I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I respected a great deal. They have fantastic content, lots of subscribers, and a clever referral program that allows them to get even extra subscribers.
So, I took place a search to find out exactly how these huge e-newsletters set up their logistics. What system do they utilize? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they get even more clients? How do they produce an e-newsletter design that stays on-brand?
When I uncovered beehiiv for the very first time, it appeared to respond to every one of my questions. I believed to myself, “damn individuals that built this device truly recognize e-newsletter development and growth.” I questioned who these designers of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were several of the very first marketing and growth workers at Morning Brew– my mind exploded.
I knew this was going to be a different newsletter platform. One that’s concentrated on creator development.
Because, any maker understands, you need development to be able to make a living off of an e-newsletter. And discovering the right newsletter stack (that scales) usually indicates making use of multiple different tools to aid achieve one goal– one platform for your e-newsletter, one system to monetize, and one platform to set up referrals. It can obtain pricey.
So when I discovered beehiiv did every one of these things in one system, and it was cost-free to start using, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean web content creator that desires a platform that permits them to send out custom-made newsletters with or without needing to have an internet site.
The most successful e-newsletters have the right tools to develop and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv targets at giving you those devices.
If you’re an independent author, media business, startup, or content designer, you need to seriously considering trying out beehiiv. It’s entirely cost-free to start and you just pay when you reach over 2,500 customers on your listing.
If you actually wind up needing to spend for beehiiv it’s most likely a good indicator that individuals love reviewing your things.
beehiiv vs Substack
You could be asking, “isn’t there currently a platform for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, yes there is. Substack is a terrific platform utilized by hundreds of independent writers. With Substack you get your own website and use the system as your all-in-one remedy for sending out emails (while producing an archive of previous issues).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s devotion to development. beehiiv permits you do to all the important things Substack can do, with the advantage of far better analytics, more layout flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing clients to get the word out.
beehiiv additionally provides you a site comparable to Substack. However, if you have your own web site currently, you can likewise make use of beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I use) to send your site subscribers right to your beehiiv email checklist. On the exact same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a device like Revue to permit individuals to register for your newsletter directly from Twitter.
This offers you the flexibility to utilize different marketing channels to obtain your e-newsletter out right into the globe, making beehiiv a great Substack choice.
How to start making use of beehiiv e-mail marketing software program.
Register for a free plan
The very first step is to register for a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Begin trial” switch on beehiiv’s website.
The free plan will allow you to have up to 2,500 customers, give you accessibility to internet site hosting, a newsletter CMS, breakthrough modification, analytics, outside embed types, and a lot more. It’s an extremely generous offering for those simply starting out (or for those searching for a new system to migrate to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Analytics
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 used?”, “do you have any paying clients?”, and a lot more.
You’ll then produce a name and link for your 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 website URL might be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding process, you’ll also select your brand name colors and design to ensure your newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your dashboard
As soon as you reach your main control panel, you’ll see every one of your analytics and setups.
You will certainly have outlined info on the amount of sign-ups you’re getting and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see options for “Begin creating,” “Blog posts,” “Target market,” “Expand,” “Monetize,” “Design,” and” Assess.” And at the extremely lower you’ll see the setups alternative.
Dashboard is your major control center (screenshot over), Beginning writing is where you create and publish e-newsletters, Blog posts is where you can see every one of your previous e-newsletter editions, Audience is where you can watch who your customers are (and damage them down right into sections), Expand is where you have accessibility 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, Style is where you make your newsletter landing page and article template, Analyze is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can handle every one of your admin things.
Creating your newsletter
beehiiv makes it simple to begin composing, with little to no rubbing. If you’re simply beginning, and have an idea you want to blog about, I advise simply mosting likely to the “Write” section in the navbar and clicking “Beginning composing”.
You can tweak your template and designing later– concentrate on the web content initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor offers a clean and user-friendly user interface for creating.
Once you start creating, you can maximize headings, include web links, and design your content exactly how you such as.
beehiiv gives you tons of options for various kinds of material like video clips, links, images, and a lot more.
The group at beehiiv is likewise frequently releasing item feature and updates so I’m sure there will certainly be a whole lot much more content features relying on when you’re reading this.
Optimizing your setups and templates
Once you have an e-newsletter that prepares to send, it’s time to make your email template and change some settings.
Here, you can upgrade the name of your newsletter, offer it a summary, include your logo design, turn on or off a welcome e-mail to first time customers, and more.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can edit background shades, borders, spacing, typefaces, photo styles, and a lot more. I’m not mosting likely to undergo ever solitary thing you can optimize with your email template because it’s a great deal. Just try out the platform absolutely free and see it for yourself!
Crucial beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of amazing features that make it a wonderful publishing platform for any type of e-newsletter designer.
Below are several of the vital features you can find with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter posting system. It makes it very simple to create and send emails. I pointed out over several of things you can do with your setups and e-mail design so I’ll spare you some extra reading.
The thing to keep in mind with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has an actually modern and minimalistic feel. It’s absolutely among the much better e-mail editors I have actually ever before written in.
Site hosting
When you develop a beehiiv newsletter, every one of your newsletters (if you want) reside on an internet site. Think of it as a site for your e-newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous issues of your e-newsletter, and an area where individuals can register for your newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s practically comparable to that.
All plans, including the totally free one, give you a web site. However, the free plan places your web site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you wish to add a custom-made domain name to remove all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining customers is important. After all, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can subscribe to your newsletter straight from your beehiiv internet site or with embed types.
If you currently have a site, and want people to register for your e-newsletter from your existing site, you’ll have to utilize an embed kind. This is what I utilize on this site (you can see the sign-up embed on the right hand column of this article if you scroll up).
With embed types, you have three various choices– a full size, a fixed width, and a slim embed. I personally make use of the slim embed.
You can locate the code snippet for these embeds in the “Subscribe Kinds” tab in your settings.
There’s additionally an option for attribution monitoring if you want to onward UTM specifications for tracking functions– pretty cool.
Nevertheless, there are a few features I desire beehiiv had when it pertained to subscribe features. I make sure the team is working with updates for these, but I stated a few problems I had in the advantages and disadvantages section listed below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things regarding beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter system, is a solution for developing a referral program.
You can encourage existing subscribers on your listing to ahead your emails to pals and associates and if they get other individuals to subscribe to your checklist, you can reward them. These rewards can be in whatever kind you want. I’ve seem many newsletter firms provide rewards in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously turn your subscribers into a word of mouth growth engine for your newsletter– offering you another avenue for growing your email list.
However, to get access to the referral program feature, you’ll have to upgrade to a more exceptional plan. I’ll discuss all the plans later in this article.
Costs subscriptions
They claim all you need to earn a living online is 1,000 true fans. Membership profits is absolutely a beast of its very own. If you’re searching for a system to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can create “premium” concerns of your e-newsletter that are only sent to paying clients. This can be really lucrative depending upon what your newsletter needs to supply. For instance, Trends.co is a preferred premium newsletter that produces millions in earnings a year just by having pay-only e-newsletter web content.
Information analytics
One of things I love concerning beehiiv is exactly how tidy and easy the analytics are. You get real-time date on exactly how your newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and client count Beehiiv Analytics.
You get accessibility to all the metrics you require to get a bird-eye view on exactly how your e-newsletter is in fact doing. Logging into your control panel and seeing that customer count rise is most definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv uses 4 different pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (free) Launch plan provides you every little thing you require to begin and grow your newsletter (as much as 2,500 customers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) gives you whatever in the Launch plan with the enhancement the advertisement network, referral program, personalized domain, surveys, and access to premium registrations. This is the plan I am on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) provides you every little thing in the Grow plan with addition of priority support and removing the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are fairly generous in my point of view.
For example, if you have 100,000 clients you will certainly pay around $329 per month. Instead of some competitors, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would charge $679 monthly for the same quantity– making beehiiv an excellent Kit choice for several customers.
I’m not sure exactly how the device business economics deal with this, but beehiiv is certainly more affordable (right now) than what it can be.
beehiiv benefits and drawbacks
Naturally, with every platform, it has its pros and cons. Here are some of the benefits and drawbacks I have actually personally experienced while making use of beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Right here are some of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter system of choice:
Easy to establish and begin sending e-newsletters completely free.
Clean and contemporary subscriber analytics.
Great deals of adaptability with e-mail designs.
Referral program feature.
Web site hosting.
Develop costs alternatives to generate income from.
Polls.
To be truthful, I haven’t seen an additional newsletter system that has actually had the ability to package every one of these features together so well.
However obviously, I don’t want to be biased so I’m mosting likely to discuss some disadvantages.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Here are some of the disadvantages I’ve located while using beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around adding customized font styles.
I use Webflow as my site building platform of option (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a long time ago). I’m not mosting likely to enter way too much information why I like Webflow a lot but you can read my Webflow evaluation if you wish to discover more.
Now, there really is nothing else way I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow website other than making use of an iframe embed. I personally don’t such as using iframe’s due to the fact that they have a tendency to reduce my website a little bit. Each time a page on my website (with a beehiiv embed) lots, the sign-up embed is the last point to pack on the web page. It’s really visible when you get on a sluggish net link. However I can get around that.
The major gripe I have is that I can not use a normal Webflow kind (which I enjoy utilizing). There are methods around this by utilizing a tool like Zapier but that would simply add additional costs that I do not require. To be straightforward, this is more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv con however I believed I would certainly mention it.
Besides that, I still think the pros much surpass the disadvantages right here. I’m additionally hopeful that Webflow will ultimately create a far better way to incorporate with beehiiv.
Conclusion
On the whole, beehiiv is a terrific service for any individual looking to study the globe of email marketing and e-newsletters.
The functionality of this e-newsletter system far surpasses lots of that are presently on the marketplace. And with a charitable free plan, you actually have absolutely nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are also fairly affordable wherefore they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 subscribers on your list is unprecedented. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k subscribers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it can cost you well right into the thousands each month.
Anyways, I do not compose review posts usually. I only do when I really make use of the tool myself and would certainly advise it to a buddy.
I hope you discovered some clearness on whether or not beehiiv is a great system for you.