Over two years back, I was reading one of my favorite e-mail newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the e-mail and saw the beehiiv logo for the first time. I clicked it and quickly started wrecking Beehiiv Arnold Schwarzenegger.
I had not been sure why I felt so emotional.
Being a full-time creator is difficult. I’m typically obtaining pitched various tools and services that don’t appear to be worth my time.
I guess I was emotional due to the fact that I invested the last 6 months experimenting with various e-mail and newsletter platforms to help build my newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some great options for composing newsletters. However I couldn’t discover one that made me offer a definite “yes”.
The issue with lots of existing e-newsletter platforms is that they do not feel creator-centered. I want an e-newsletter platform that lets me fully customize my newsletter designs, makes it extremely simple to create and send out e-mails, and offers me devices that aid me assess metrics and obtain more clients.
I believe I have actually finally discovered the ideal tool.
Yet, I understand beehiiv might not be for every person. 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 e-newsletter platform that makes it very easy to style, create, send out, advertise, monetize, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Created by previous workers at the popular e-newsletter company Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to aid developers launch and monetize their very own newsletter– taking great deals of growth principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M customers.
In this article, I’m going to clarify my individual experience with beehiiv, the important things I like (and hate) regarding it, all of it’s features, and why I determined to finally opt for it as my newsletter platform of choice.
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-day newsletter platform for rather time now. I have actually postponed hard when it involved finally launching my newsletter.
Initially, I tried Mailchimp. After that, a couple of various other indie systems. After that, Substack. And ultimately, I ended up using beehiiv.
I make certain many e-newsletter creators admire prominent e-newsletters with millions of customers– I recognize I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I respected a great deal. They have great material, tons of subscribers, and a smart referral program that permits them to get back at extra customers.
So, I went on a search to find out exactly how these huge newsletters established their logistics. What platform do they use? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they obtain more customers? How do they develop an e-newsletter style that stays on-brand?
When I uncovered beehiiv for the very first time, it seemed to address all of my inquiries. I thought to myself, “damn the people that developed this tool really understand e-newsletter creation and growth.” I examined who these creators of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were several of the very first marketing and growth workers at Morning Brew– my mind blew up.
I understood this was mosting likely to be a various newsletter system. One that’s concentrated on creator development.
Due to the fact that, any kind of developer recognizes, you require development to be able to make a living off of an e-newsletter. And discovering the appropriate newsletter pile (that ranges) typically indicates utilizing multiple various devices to help accomplish one objective– one platform for your e-newsletter, one platform to generate income from, and one platform to set up recommendations. It can obtain costly.
So when I learnt beehiiv did all of these things in one system, and it was totally free to start making use of, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean web content creator that wants a platform that enables them to send custom-made e-newsletters with or without needing to have an internet site.
The most effective newsletters have the right tools to develop and scale their newsletters. beehiiv aims at giving you those devices.
If you’re an independent author, media business, startup, or web content maker, you need to seriously taking into consideration checking out beehiiv. It’s totally free to get going and you just pay when you get to over 2,500 customers on your list.
If you really end up needing to pay for beehiiv it’s probably an excellent indicator that individuals like reading your things.
beehiiv vs Substack
You could be asking, “isn’t there currently a system for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, of course there is. Substack is an excellent platform utilized by hundreds of independent writers. With Substack you obtain your own site and use the system as your all-in-one solution for sending emails (while creating an archive of previous concerns).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s devotion to growth. beehiiv permits you do to all the important things Substack can do, with the benefit of far better analytics, more style flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing customers to obtain the word out.
beehiiv also offers you a web site comparable to Substack. Yet, if you have your very own website currently, you can likewise utilize beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I utilize) to send your web site subscribers straight to your beehiiv e-mail checklist. On the same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a tool like Performance to enable people to subscribe to your e-newsletter directly from Twitter.
This offers you the adaptability to leverage various marketing networks to obtain your newsletter out right into the globe, making beehiiv a great Substack alternative.
How to begin using beehiiv e-mail marketing software.
Enroll in a free plan
The first step is to enroll in a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Start trial” switch on beehiiv’s website.
The free plan will certainly allow you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, give you access to web site hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, advance modification, analytics, external embed types, and much more. It’s a really charitable offering for those just starting (or for those seeking a new system to move to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Arnold Schwarzenegger
After producing an account, you’ll experience an onboarding process that will ask things like, “is this your initial newsletter?”, “what other systems have you utilized?”, “do you have any type of paying subscribers?”, and extra.
You’ll after that develop a name and link for your e-newsletter’s internet site. On the free plan, your newsletter will survive on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your site URL may be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding procedure, you’ll likewise select your brand name design and colors to make certain your e-newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your dashboard
Once you reach your primary control panel, you’ll see all of your analytics and setups.
You will have detailed details on the amount of sign-ups you’re obtaining and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see alternatives for “Start composing,” “Posts,” “Target market,” “Grow,” “Generate income from,” “Style,” and” Examine.” And at the really lower you’ll see the setups choice.
Dashboard is your main nerve center (screenshot over), Begin composing is where you produce and release e-newsletters, Articles is where you can see every one of your previous e-newsletter editions, Audience is where you can view who your subscribers are (and damage them down into sections), 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, Style is where you make your newsletter landing page and message template, Examine is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can handle all of your admin things.
Composing your newsletter
beehiiv makes it easy to begin composing, with little to no rubbing. If you’re simply beginning, and have an idea you wish to discuss, I recommend just mosting likely to the “Write” area in the navbar and clicking on “Begin creating”.
You can modify your template and styling later on– concentrate on the content initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor supplies a clean and straightforward interface for writing.
Once you begin composing, you can enhance headings, add links, and style your material how you such as.
beehiiv provides you tons of alternatives for different types of material like video clips, links, pictures, and a lot more.
The group at beehiiv is likewise continuously launching item feature and updates so I make certain there will be a whole lot more content features depending on when you’re reading this.
Enhancing your settings and templates
As soon as you have a newsletter that prepares to send out, it’s time to design your email template and adjust some settings.
Right here, you can update the name of your newsletter, offer it a description, add your logo design, turn on or off a welcome email to very first time customers, and extra.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can edit history shades, borders, spacing, typefaces, photo layouts, and more. I’m not mosting likely to undergo ever before solitary thing you can maximize with your e-mail template because it’s a great deal. Just try out the system absolutely free and see it on your own!
Important beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of incredible features that make it a terrific publishing system for any newsletter creator.
Below are several of the important features you can locate with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter publishing platform. It makes it incredibly easy to create and send emails. I stated over several of the important things you can do with your setups and email layout so I’ll spare you some added analysis.
The thing to keep in mind with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has an actually modern and minimalistic feeling. It’s absolutely among the far better email editors I’ve ever before written in.
Site hosting
When you produce a beehiiv newsletter, every one of your newsletters (if you desire) reside on a web site. Consider it as an internet site for your newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous concerns of your newsletter, and an area where individuals can register for your e-newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s basically similar to that.
All plans, including the totally free one, give you a web site. Nevertheless, the free plan places your site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you intend to add a custom domain to eliminate all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining customers is important. Besides, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can subscribe to your newsletter right from your beehiiv website or through embed types.
If you currently have a website, and want people to subscribe to your e-newsletter from your existing site, you’ll have to use an embed form. This is what I make use of on this web site (you can see the sign-up embed on the right-hand man column of this article if you scroll up).
With embed kinds, you have three different options– a full size, a fixed size, and a slim embed. I directly use the slim embed.
You can locate the code fragment for these embeds in the “Subscribe Forms” tab in your settings.
There’s likewise an alternative for acknowledgment tracking if you intend to forward UTM specifications for tracking functions– rather cool.
Nevertheless, there are a few features I want beehiiv had when it involved 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 about beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter system, is a service for developing a referral program.
You can encourage existing clients on your checklist to ahead your emails to close friends and associates and if they obtain other people to subscribe to your list, you can award them. These benefits can be in whatever type you desire. I’ve appear several newsletter business give incentives in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously turn your customers into a word of mouth growth engine for your e-newsletter– giving you an additional avenue for growing your email listing.
Nonetheless, to get access to the referral program feature, you’ll have to upgrade to a more superior plan. I’ll look at all the plans later on in this post.
Premium registrations
They say all you require to make a living online is 1,000 real fans. Registration income is certainly a beast of its very own. If you’re trying to find a platform 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 clients. This can be really profitable depending upon what your e-newsletter needs to use. For example, Trends.co is a preferred costs newsletter that generates millions in earnings a year just by having pay-only e-newsletter content.
Information analytics
Among the important things I like about beehiiv is just how clean and basic the analytics are. You obtain real-time date on how your newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and customer count Beehiiv Arnold Schwarzenegger.
You obtain access to all the metrics you need to obtain a bird-eye view on just how your e-newsletter is in fact doing. Logging into your dashboard and seeing that client matter go up is absolutely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv provides four different pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (complimentary) Launch plan provides you whatever you need to start and grow your newsletter (as much as 2,500 subscribers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) provides you everything in the Launch plan with the addition the advertisement network, referral program, customized domain name, polls, and accessibility to costs subscriptions. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) provides you everything in the Grow plan with addition of concern support and removing the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are fairly charitable in my viewpoint.
For example, if you have 100,000 subscribers you will certainly pay around $329 each month. In contrast to some competitors, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would charge $679 monthly for the very same quantity– making beehiiv an excellent Kit alternative for many customers.
I’m uncertain how the system economics service this, yet beehiiv is certainly less costly (at the moment) than what it can be.
beehiiv advantages and disadvantages
Of course, with every system, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Here are several of the advantages and disadvantages I have actually directly experienced while utilizing beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Right here are some of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter platform of option:
Easy to establish and begin sending newsletters free of cost.
Tidy and modern customer analytics.
Great deals of versatility with e-mail styles.
Referral program feature.
Website hosting.
Create premium alternatives to monetize.
Polls.
To be straightforward, I have not seen one more newsletter system that has actually been able to package all of these features together so well.
But naturally, I do not intend to be prejudiced so I’m going to discuss some disadvantages.
Cons of using beehiiv
Here are several of the cons I have actually located while making use of beehiiv:.
Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around adding customized fonts.
I make use of Webflow as my website structure platform of choice (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a very long time ago). I’m not mosting likely to go in way too much information why I enjoy Webflow a lot yet you can review my Webflow testimonial if you wish to find out more.
Now, there actually is nothing else means I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow website other than making use of an iframe embed. I directly do not such as using iframe’s since they often tend to reduce my website a bit. Whenever a page on my site (with a beehiiv embed) loads, the sign-up embed is the last point to fill on the web page. It’s really visible when you’re on a slow net link. However I can navigate that.
The main complaint I have is that I can’t utilize a routine Webflow form (which I enjoy using). There are means around this by utilizing a tool like Zapier yet that would just include additional prices that I do not need. To be straightforward, this is more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv con however I assumed I would certainly mention it.
Besides that, I still think the pros much exceed the cons here. I’m also enthusiastic that Webflow will at some point develop a far better way to incorporate with beehiiv.
Conclusion
Generally, beehiiv is a fantastic solution for anyone aiming to study the world of email marketing and e-newsletters.
The functionality of this newsletter platform much exceeds numerous that are presently on the marketplace. And with a charitable free plan, you actually have absolutely nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are additionally rather cheap of what they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 customers on your list is unusual. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k subscribers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it can cost you well into the thousands monthly.
Anyways, I don’t compose evaluation blog posts often. I only do when I in fact utilize the tool myself and would certainly advise it to a buddy.
I wish you found some quality on whether beehiiv is a good system for you.