Over 2 years ago, I was reading among my favorite email newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the e-mail and saw the beehiiv logo for the first time. I clicked on it and instantly started tearing up Beehiiv and WordPress.
I wasn’t sure why I really felt so psychological.
Being a full time maker is difficult. I’m typically getting pitched various devices and solutions that don’t appear to be worth my time.
I guess I was emotional since I invested the last 6 months trying out different e-mail and newsletter platforms to aid construct my e-newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some wonderful alternatives for writing e-newsletters. But I could not locate one that made me give a guaranteed “yes”.
The problem with several existing newsletter systems is that they don’t feel creator-centered. I desire a newsletter system that lets me completely personalize my newsletter styles, makes it super easy to compose and send out e-mails, and provides me devices that help me examine metrics and obtain even more customers.
I believe I have actually lastly discovered the appropriate device.
But, I recognize beehiiv may not be for everybody. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s actually best 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 very easy to layout, create, send, advertise, generate income from, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Developed by previous staff members at the well-known newsletter company Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to help creators launch and monetize their very own newsletter– taking lots of development principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M subscribers.
In this write-up, I’m going to clarify my individual experience with beehiiv, the important things I love (and hate) regarding it, all of it’s features, and why I chose to finally opt for it as my e-newsletter platform of selection.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A couple of months earlier, I unintentionally stumbled across beehiiv. The funny story is that I’ve watched for a modern-day newsletter platform for rather time currently. I’ve put things off hard when it pertained to lastly releasing my e-newsletter.
First, I attempted Mailchimp. Then, a few various other indie systems. Then, Substack. And finally, I ended up utilizing beehiiv.
I make certain lots of newsletter designers look up to prominent e-newsletters with millions of customers– I know I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I appreciated a great deal. They have terrific web content, lots of clients, and a smart referral program that allows them to get back at extra subscribers.
So, I took place a quest to find out just how these large e-newsletters established their logistics. What system do they utilize? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they get even more subscribers? How do they create a newsletter design that remains on-brand?
When I discovered beehiiv for the first time, it seemed to answer every one of my inquiries. I believed to myself, “damn the people that built this device actually recognize newsletter production and development.” I questioned who these creators of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were several of the very first marketing and growth employees at Morning Brew– my brain blew up.
I understood this was mosting likely to be a various newsletter platform. One that’s concentrated on maker development.
Because, any developer recognizes, you require development to be able to make a living off of a newsletter. And discovering the ideal newsletter pile (that scales) usually means utilizing numerous various tools to help achieve one objective– one platform for your e-newsletter, one platform to generate income from, and one system to establish references. It can obtain costly.
So when I discovered beehiiv did all of these points in one platform, and it was totally free to start using, it was a piece of cake to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean content maker that desires a system that allows them to send custom 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 focuses on offering you those tools.
If you’re an independent writer, media business, startup, or web content designer, you need to seriously taking into consideration experimenting with beehiiv. It’s totally cost-free to start and you just pay when you reach over 2,500 subscribers on your list.
If you actually end up needing to spend for beehiiv it’s possibly an excellent indicator that people enjoy reading your stuff.
beehiiv vs Substack
You could be asking, “isn’t there already a platform for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, yes there is. Substack is an excellent platform utilized by hundreds of independent writers. With Substack you obtain your very own internet site and utilize the platform as your all-in-one option for sending out e-mails (while creating an archive of previous problems).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s dedication to development. beehiiv allows you do to all the important things Substack can do, with the advantage of far better analytics, even more style flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing clients to get the word out.
beehiiv likewise gives you a web site similar to Substack. But, if you have your very own site currently, you can also use beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I use) to send your web site subscribers right to your beehiiv email listing. On the exact same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a tool like Performance to allow individuals to register for your newsletter directly from Twitter.
This gives you the versatility to utilize different marketing channels to obtain your e-newsletter out into the globe, making beehiiv a terrific Substack alternative.
How to begin utilizing beehiiv email marketing software.
Sign up for a free plan
The primary step is to register for a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Begin trial” button on beehiiv’s website.
The free plan will certainly allow you to have up to 2,500 customers, give you access to web site hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, advancement personalization, analytics, external embed forms, and more. It’s a really charitable offering for those just starting (or for those trying to find a new platform to move to).
Onboarding Beehiiv and WordPress
After creating an account, you’ll experience an onboarding procedure that will ask points like, “is this your first e-newsletter?”, “what various other systems have you made use of?”, “do you have any kind of paying clients?”, and more.
You’ll then produce a name and link for your e-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 web site link might be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding process, you’ll also select your brand colors and design to make certain your e-newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your dashboard
When you reach your major dashboard, you’ll see every one of your analytics and setups.
You will certainly have detailed information on the number of sign-ups you’re obtaining and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see alternatives for “Begin composing,” “Messages,” “Audience,” “Grow,” “Monetize,” “Layout,” and” Assess.” And at the very lower you’ll see the settings alternative.
Control panel is your main nerve center (screenshot over), Beginning writing is where you develop and publish newsletters, Blog posts is where you can see all of your previous newsletter versions, Audience is where you can view who your subscribers are (and damage 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 newsletter with ads, Design is where you make your newsletter landing page and article template, Examine is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can handle all of your admin things.
Writing your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it very easy to start composing, with little to no rubbing. If you’re simply beginning, and have a concept you intend to cover, I suggest simply mosting likely to the “Compose” area in the navbar and clicking “Start creating”.
You can tweak your template and designing later on– focus on the content first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor provides a clean and straightforward user interface for writing.
When you begin writing, you can enhance headings, include links, and design your web content just how you such as.
beehiiv provides you tons of choices for various kinds of content like video clips, web links, photos, and a lot more.
The group at beehiiv is additionally continuously releasing item feature and updates so I make certain there will certainly be a lot a lot more material features relying on when you read this.
Optimizing your setups and templates
When you have an e-newsletter that’s ready to send, it’s time to develop your email template and change some setups.
Here, you can update the name of your newsletter, give it a description, include 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, photo layouts, and much more. I’m not going to experience ever before solitary thing you can maximize with your e-mail template because it’s a lot. Simply try the system totally free and see it for yourself!
Necessary beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of incredible features that make it a fantastic publishing system for any kind of e-newsletter developer.
Below are a few of the vital features you can find with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter posting system. It makes it extremely simple to compose and send emails. I discussed above several of the important things you can do with your setups and email style so I’ll save you some added reading.
Things to note with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has a truly modern-day and minimalistic feel. It’s most definitely one of the much better e-mail editors I’ve ever before written in.
Internet site hosting
When you produce a beehiiv newsletter, all of your e-newsletters (if you want) reside on an internet site. Think of it as a website for your newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous issues of your e-newsletter, and a location where people can sign up for your e-newsletter.
If you recognize with Substack, it’s pretty much comparable to that.
All plans, including the totally free one, provide you a website. Nonetheless, the free plan locations your internet site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you intend to add a personalized domain name to get rid of all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting subscribers is important. Nevertheless, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can register for your newsletter right from your beehiiv web site or through embed kinds.
If you currently have a web site, and desire individuals to subscribe to your e-newsletter from your existing site, you’ll have to utilize an embed form. This is what I use on this website (you can see the sign-up installed on the right hand column of this post if you scroll up).
With embed kinds, you have 3 various choices– a complete width, a fixed size, and a slim installed. I directly use the slim installed.
You can locate the code snippet for these embeds in the “Subscribe Types” tab in your setups.
There’s additionally a choice for attribution monitoring if you wish to onward UTM specifications for tracking purposes– pretty neat.
Nonetheless, there are a couple of features I want beehiiv had when it involved subscribe features. I make certain the team is servicing updates for these, however I mentioned a few issues I had in the advantages and disadvantages area listed below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things regarding beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter system, is a service for producing a referral program.
You can motivate existing clients on your list to ahead your e-mails to friends and associates and if they get other people to register for your checklist, you can reward them. These incentives can be in whatever form you desire. I have actually appear several newsletter firms provide benefits in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously transform your customers right into a word of mouth growth engine for your newsletter– offering you another avenue for growing your e-mail checklist.
Nonetheless, to obtain access to the referral program feature, you’ll need to upgrade to an extra premium plan. I’ll go over all the plans later on in this article.
Premium memberships
They say all you require to earn a living online is 1,000 true fans. Membership profits is definitely a monster of its own. If you’re looking for a system to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can develop “premium” issues of your newsletter that are just sent out to paying subscribers. This can be extremely profitable depending upon what your e-newsletter needs to offer. For instance, Trends.co is a popular costs e-newsletter that creates millions in income a year merely by having pay-only newsletter material.
Information analytics
Among things I love concerning beehiiv is just how tidy and straightforward the analytics are. You get real-time date on just how your newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and customer matter Beehiiv and WordPress.
You obtain access to all the metrics you require to get a bird-eye sight on just how your newsletter is really doing. Logging right into your dashboard and seeing that customer count increase is absolutely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv supplies 4 different pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (complimentary) Launch plan provides you everything you need to start and grow your newsletter (up to 2,500 customers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) gives you whatever in the Launch plan with the addition the ad network, referral program, custom-made domain, surveys, and accessibility to costs memberships. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) provides you whatever in the Grow plan with enhancement of concern support and removing the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are rather charitable in my opinion.
For example, if you have 100,000 customers you will certainly pay around $329 per month. In contrast to some competitors, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would certainly charge $679 monthly for the very same quantity– making beehiiv a terrific Kit alternative for many customers.
I’m not sure how the system business economics work with this, yet beehiiv is absolutely more affordable (at the moment) than what it can be.
beehiiv pros and cons
Certainly, with every platform, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Below are a few of the pros and cons I have actually directly experienced while utilizing beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Right here are some of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter platform of option:
Easy to set up and start sending newsletters absolutely free.
Tidy and modern subscriber analytics.
Great deals of adaptability with e-mail layouts.
Referral program feature.
Web site hosting.
Produce premium alternatives to monetize.
Polls.
To be straightforward, I haven’t seen another newsletter system that has been able to package every one of these features with each other so well.
Yet of course, I do not want to be prejudiced so I’m mosting likely to mention some disadvantages.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Below are some of the disadvantages I have actually discovered while making use of beehiiv:.
Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around including personalized fonts.
I utilize Webflow as my website structure system of choice (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a long time ago). I’m not mosting likely to enter way too much detail why I like Webflow so much but you can read my Webflow evaluation if you want to learn more.
Now, there really is no other means I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow site apart from using an iframe embed. I directly don’t like making use of iframe’s because they have a tendency to decrease my website a bit. Every single time a web page on my website (with a beehiiv installed) lots, the sign-up embed is the last point to pack on the page. It’s really visible when you get on a sluggish internet connection. However I can navigate that.
The main complaint I have is that I can’t use a regular Webflow type (which I enjoy using). There are means around this by using a device like Zapier but that would simply include additional expenses that I don’t need. To be truthful, this is more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv disadvantage but I thought I would certainly discuss it.
Besides that, I still think the pros far exceed the cons here. I’m additionally hopeful that Webflow will ultimately create a better way to incorporate with beehiiv.
Verdict
Generally, beehiiv is a great remedy for any person wanting to dive into the globe of e-mail marketing and e-newsletters.
The capability of this e-newsletter platform far exceeds lots of that are currently on the market. And with a generous free plan, you really have 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 listing is unusual. If you were to have an e-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 posts typically. I just do when I really make use of the tool myself and would certainly recommend it to a friend.
I wish you discovered some quality on whether beehiiv is a great system for you.