Over 2 years ago, I read one of my preferred e-mail e-newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo design for the very first time. I clicked it and promptly began wrecking Beehiiv API Documentation.
I had not been certain why I felt so psychological.
Being a full-time developer is tough. I’m commonly getting pitched various tools and solutions that do not appear to be worth my time.
I presume I was emotional because I invested the last six months experimenting with various e-mail and e-newsletter systems to aid construct my newsletter. And to be fair, there are some wonderful alternatives for composing e-newsletters. However I couldn’t locate one that made me offer a definite “yes”.
The concern with many existing newsletter platforms is that they don’t feel creator-centered. I want an e-newsletter platform that lets me totally tailor my newsletter styles, makes it extremely easy to write and send e-mails, and gives me tools that help me assess metrics and get more subscribers.
I assume I’ve ultimately located the right device.
But, I recognize 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 newsletter system that makes it simple to layout, compose, send out, promote, monetize, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Produced by former staff members at the renowned newsletter firm Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to assist developers launch and monetize their very own newsletter– taking lots of development principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M subscribers.
In this short article, I’m going to discuss my individual experience with beehiiv, the things I love (and hate) about it, all of it’s features, and why I chose to lastly opt for it as my e-newsletter platform of option.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A few months back, I unintentionally stumbled across beehiiv. The amusing tale is that I’ve been on the lookout for a modern-day e-newsletter platform for fairly a long time now. I have actually put things off hard when it involved lastly launching my newsletter.
Initially, I attempted Mailchimp. After that, a few other indie platforms. Then, Substack. And lastly, I wound up making use of beehiiv.
I’m sure many e-newsletter creators appreciate preferred newsletters with countless clients– I know I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I respected a whole lot. They have wonderful web content, tons of subscribers, and a smart referral program that allows them to get even more customers.
So, I went on a search to identify exactly how these huge newsletters established their logistics. What platform do they make use of? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they obtain more customers? How do they produce a newsletter style that remains on-brand?
When I found beehiiv for the first time, it appeared to answer every one of my questions. I believed to myself, “damn the people that developed this tool really understand e-newsletter development and growth.” I examined who these developers of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were some of the first marketing and growth workers at Morning Brew– my mind exploded.
I knew this was going to be a various e-newsletter system. One that’s concentrated on developer development.
Since, any kind of designer understands, you need development to be able to earn a living off of an e-newsletter. And finding the right e-newsletter stack (that ranges) typically indicates making use of several various tools to aid achieve one goal– one system for your newsletter, one system to monetize, and one platform to establish references. It can get pricey.
So when I found out beehiiv did all of these things in one platform, and it was cost-free to start 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 developer that wants a system that permits them to send out customized newsletters with or without needing to have a website.
The most effective e-newsletters have the right devices to build and scale their newsletters. beehiiv focuses on giving you those tools.
If you’re an independent author, media company, startup, or web content creator, you must seriously taking into consideration trying out beehiiv. It’s absolutely complimentary to get going and you just pay when you get to over 2,500 customers on your listing.
If you really wind up needing to pay for beehiiv it’s most likely a great sign that individuals enjoy reviewing your stuff.
beehiiv vs Substack
You might be asking, “isn’t there currently a system for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, indeed there is. Substack is a terrific platform utilized by hundreds of independent authors. With Substack you obtain your own internet site and utilize the system as your all-in-one service for sending emails (while creating an archive of previous issues).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s devotion to growth. beehiiv permits you do to all things Substack can do, with the advantage of much better analytics, even more layout flexibilty, and a referral program to urge your existing subscribers to obtain words out.
beehiiv additionally offers you a site similar to Substack. But, if you have your own internet site currently, you can likewise use beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I utilize) to send your site clients straight to your beehiiv email listing. On the exact same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a tool like Performance to enable people to subscribe to your e-newsletter directly from Twitter.
This offers you the versatility to take advantage of different marketing networks to obtain your e-newsletter out right into the world, making beehiiv a terrific Substack option.
Exactly how to begin making use of beehiiv e-mail marketing software program.
Enroll in a free plan
The very 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 permit you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, offer you accessibility to internet site hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, advancement personalization, analytics, external embed types, and much more. It’s a very generous offering for those just starting (or for those seeking a brand-new platform to move to).
Onboarding Beehiiv API Documentation
After producing an account, you’ll undergo an onboarding procedure that will ask things like, “is this your first newsletter?”, “what other platforms have you utilized?”, “do you have any kind of paying subscribers?”, and more.
You’ll then create a name and URL for your newsletter’s site. On the free plan, your newsletter will reside on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your website URL could be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding procedure, you’ll additionally select your brand design and colors to make certain your newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your dashboard
When you reach your primary control panel, you’ll see all of your analytics and settings.
You will have described information on the number of sign-ups you’re getting and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see options for “Beginning composing,” “Posts,” “Audience,” “Expand,” “Monetize,” “Design,” and” Examine.” And at the very bottom you’ll see the settings option.
Control panel is your major control center (screenshot over), Begin creating is where you create and release newsletters, Articles is where you can see all of your previous newsletter editions, Target market is where you can view who your clients are (and damage them down right into sections), Expand is where you have access 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 newsletter with advertisements, Style is where you create your e-newsletter landing page and post template, Examine is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can manage all of your admin things.
Creating your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it easy to start composing, with little to no rubbing. If you’re just starting, and have an idea you intend to discuss, I advise simply going to the “Create” section in the navbar and clicking on “Beginning composing”.
You can tweak your template and designing later on– focus on the material first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor uses a clean and easy to use user interface for writing.
As soon as you begin creating, you can enhance headings, include links, and design your material exactly how you such as.
beehiiv provides you tons of options for various sorts of content like video clips, web links, images, and more.
The team at beehiiv is additionally constantly launching item feature and updates so I make certain there will certainly be a great deal more content features depending on when you’re reading this.
Enhancing your settings and templates
Once you have an e-newsletter that’s ready to send out, it’s time to develop your email template and readjust some settings.
Below, you can update the name of your newsletter, give it a description, include your logo, switch on or off a welcome email to first time clients, and extra.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your design.
You can modify history colors, borders, spacing, fonts, picture layouts, and extra. I’m not going to experience ever single thing you can optimize with your e-mail template due to the fact that it’s a whole lot. Simply check out the platform free of charge and see it on your own!
Necessary beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of remarkable features that make it a terrific publishing system for any newsletter maker.
Right here are some of the important features you can locate with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter posting system. It makes it incredibly easy to create and send emails. I stated over some of the important things you can do with your setups and e-mail layout so I’ll spare you some additional reading.
The thing to keep in mind with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has a truly modern and minimalistic feel. It’s absolutely among the far better e-mail editors I have actually ever written in.
Site hosting
When you create a beehiiv newsletter, all of your newsletters (if you desire) survive a website. Think about it as a web site for your newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous concerns of your e-newsletter, and an area where individuals can register for your newsletter.
If you’re familiar with Substack, it’s practically similar to that.
All plans, including the complimentary one, provide you a website. Nevertheless, the free plan areas your web site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you wish to include a customized domain name to remove all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting subscribers is necessary. Besides, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can register for your e-newsletter straight from your beehiiv web site or via embed types.
If you already have a site, and want individuals to subscribe to your newsletter from your existing site, you’ll have to utilize an embed type. This is what I utilize on this website (you can see the sign-up embed on the right-hand man column of this blog post if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have three different choices– a complete size, a fixed width, and a slim installed. I personally use the slim installed.
You can discover the code fragment for these embeds in the “Subscribe Kinds” tab in your setups.
There’s also an alternative for attribution tracking if you want to forward UTM specifications for tracking purposes– rather cool.
Nevertheless, there are a couple of features I wish beehiiv had when it involved subscribe features. I’m sure the group is working with updates for these, but I discussed a few issues I had in the advantages and disadvantages area listed below.
Referral program
Among the amazing things regarding beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter platform, is an option for producing a referral program.
You can encourage existing subscribers on your list to ahead your e-mails to pals and colleagues and if they obtain other individuals to sign up for your listing, you can reward them. These rewards can be in whatever form you desire. I have actually appear many newsletter firms provide benefits in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously turn your customers into a word of mouth growth engine for your newsletter– giving you another avenue for expanding your e-mail list.
Nonetheless, to obtain access to the referral program feature, you’ll need to update to an extra exceptional plan. I’ll review all the plans later on in this write-up.
Costs registrations
They say all you need to earn a living online is 1,000 true fans. Subscription earnings is definitely a monster of its very own. If you’re seeking a system to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can produce “costs” concerns of your e-newsletter that are just sent out to paying customers. This can be very profitable depending on what your newsletter needs to use. As an example, Trends.co is a popular premium e-newsletter that creates millions in earnings a year simply by having pay-only e-newsletter content.
Information analytics
One of things I enjoy about beehiiv is exactly how tidy and simple the analytics are. You obtain real-time day on exactly how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and subscriber matter Beehiiv API Documentation.
You get access to all the metrics you require to obtain a bird-eye sight on exactly how your newsletter is actually doing. Logging right into your dashboard and seeing that client count increase is certainly a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv supplies 4 various pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (cost-free) Launch plan provides you every little thing you need to get started and grow your e-newsletter (as much as 2,500 clients).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) gives you every little thing in the Launch plan with the enhancement the advertisement network, referral program, personalized domain name, polls, and access to premium memberships. This is the plan I get 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 rather generous in my point of view.
As an example, if you have 100,000 customers you will certainly pay around $329 monthly. In contrast to some rivals, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would bill $679 monthly for the same amount– making beehiiv a terrific Kit option for many users.
I’m unsure exactly how the device business economics work on this, but beehiiv is definitely cheaper (right now) than what it can be.
beehiiv pros and cons
Obviously, with every platform, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Right here are a few of the pros and cons I’ve directly experienced while making use of beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Below are some of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter system of option:
Easy to establish and start sending out newsletters for free.
Clean and modern-day customer analytics.
Lots of versatility with e-mail styles.
Referral program feature.
Website hosting.
Create premium options to generate income from.
Surveys.
To be straightforward, I haven’t seen one more e-newsletter system that has actually been able to package all of these features with each other so well.
However certainly, I don’t want to be prejudiced so I’m mosting likely to state some cons.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Right here are a few of the cons I have actually located while utilizing beehiiv:.
Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around adding custom-made fonts.
I utilize Webflow as my website building platform of selection (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a long time ago). I’m not mosting likely to go in too much detail why I love Webflow a lot however you can review my Webflow testimonial if you would love to learn more.
Today, there truly is nothing else method I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow website apart from utilizing an iframe embed. I directly don’t such as utilizing iframe’s because they tend to reduce my site a bit. Every time a page on my site (with a beehiiv embed) loads, the sign-up embed is the last point to fill on the page. It’s extremely noticeable when you’re on a slow net connection. However I can get around that.
The major complaint I have is that I can’t utilize a regular Webflow kind (which I like utilizing). There are ways around this by using a device like Zapier but that would simply include added costs that I do not need. To be sincere, this is more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv con however I assumed I would mention it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros much exceed the cons right here. I’m also confident that Webflow will eventually create a better means to incorporate with beehiiv.
Conclusion
On the whole, beehiiv is a terrific service for anyone looking to dive into the world of email marketing and e-newsletters.
The capability of this e-newsletter system much surpasses several that are presently on the marketplace. And with a generous free plan, you truly have absolutely nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are additionally rather economical of what they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 subscribers on your listing is unheard of. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k subscribers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it might cost you well into the thousands each month.
Anyways, I don’t compose review messages frequently. I just do when I really utilize the device myself and would certainly suggest it to a good friend.
I wish you found some clarity on whether or not beehiiv is a good system for you.