Over 2 years ago, I was reading one of my favored email newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo for the very first time. I clicked it and promptly started tearing up Beehiiv Best Newsletters.
I wasn’t certain why I felt so psychological.
Being a full-time creator is difficult. I’m commonly getting pitched different tools and services that do not seem to be worth my time.
I presume I was emotional since I spent the last 6 months checking out different e-mail and e-newsletter platforms to aid develop my newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some great options for creating e-newsletters. Yet I couldn’t discover one that made me provide a precise “yes”.
The problem with many existing e-newsletter platforms is that they do not really feel creator-centered. I want an e-newsletter platform that lets me totally personalize my e-newsletter layouts, makes it very simple to create and send out e-mails, and gives me tools that assist me assess metrics and get even more customers.
I believe I’ve finally located the ideal tool.
But, I understand 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 e-newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter platform that makes it very easy to layout, create, send out, advertise, generate income from, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Produced by former workers at the popular e-newsletter business Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to assist designers launch and monetize their own newsletter– taking lots of growth concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M subscribers.
In this write-up, I’m mosting likely to clarify my personal experience with beehiiv, things I like (and hate) regarding it, all of it’s features, and why I determined to finally select it as my newsletter platform of choice.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A couple of months ago, I accidentally came across beehiiv. The amusing tale is that I’ve been on the lookout for a modern newsletter system for fairly a long time currently. I have actually hesitated hard when it concerned finally introducing my e-newsletter.
First, I attempted Mailchimp. Then, a couple of various other indie platforms. After that, Substack. And lastly, I wound up making use of beehiiv.
I make certain numerous newsletter creators look up to prominent e-newsletters with numerous customers– I understand I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I admired a great deal. They have terrific web content, lots of subscribers, and a brilliant referral program that allows them to get even extra subscribers.
So, I took place a quest to figure out exactly how these big e-newsletters established their logistics. What system do they make use of? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they obtain even more customers? How do they create an e-newsletter layout that remains on-brand?
When I found beehiiv for the first time, it seemed to address every one of my questions. I believed to myself, “damn the people that constructed this tool truly comprehend newsletter production and growth.” I questioned who these makers 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 exploded.
I understood this was mosting likely to be a different newsletter system. One that’s focused on designer growth.
Since, any kind of maker recognizes, you need growth to be able to make a living off of an e-newsletter. And finding the appropriate newsletter pile (that ranges) often suggests using several different tools to assist accomplish one objective– one system for your newsletter, one system to monetize, and one system to set up referrals. It can obtain pricey.
So when I figured out beehiiv did all of these points in one system, and it was complimentary to begin using, it was a piece of cake to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean material designer that desires a platform that enables them to send custom e-newsletters with or without requiring to have a web site.
One of the most effective e-newsletters have the right tools to construct and scale their newsletters. beehiiv focuses on giving you those tools.
If you’re an independent writer, media business, startup, or web content designer, you must seriously taking into consideration trying out beehiiv. It’s entirely free to get started and you only pay when you get to over 2,500 clients on your listing.
If you in fact end up having to spend for beehiiv it’s possibly an excellent indication that people like reviewing your things.
beehiiv vs Substack
You could be asking, “isn’t there already a system for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, of course there is. Substack is an excellent system used by countless independent writers. With Substack you obtain your very own web site and make use of the platform as your all-in-one service for sending emails (while developing an archive of previous concerns).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s dedication to development. beehiiv allows you do to all things Substack can do, with the advantage of far better analytics, more layout flexibilty, and a referral program to encourage your existing subscribers to get the word out.
beehiiv also offers you a web site similar to Substack. Yet, if you have your very own internet site currently, you can likewise use beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I utilize) to send your website clients straight to your beehiiv e-mail listing. On the very same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a tool like Performance to enable people to subscribe to your newsletter directly from Twitter.
This offers you the flexibility to take advantage of different marketing networks to obtain your newsletter out right into the globe, making beehiiv a wonderful Substack alternative.
Just how to start making use of beehiiv e-mail marketing software program.
Register for a free plan
The primary step is to register for a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Begin trial” switch on beehiiv’s site.
The free plan will certainly permit you to have up to 2,500 customers, give you accessibility to site hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, advancement customization, analytics, exterior embed types, and more. It’s a really generous offering for those just beginning (or for those searching for a brand-new system to migrate to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Best Newsletters
After creating an account, you’ll experience an onboarding process that will ask points like, “is this your first e-newsletter?”, “what various other platforms have you used?”, “do you have any kind of paying subscribers?”, and more.
You’ll after that create a name and link for your e-newsletter’s web site. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will certainly live on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your site link might be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding procedure, you’ll also choose your brand colors and design to see to it your newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your dashboard
As soon as you reach your primary control panel, you’ll see every one of your analytics and setups.
You will certainly have described information on the amount of sign-ups you’re getting and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see options for “Beginning composing,” “Articles,” “Audience,” “Grow,” “Generate income from,” “Style,” and” Examine.” And at the extremely bottom you’ll see the settings choice.
Dashboard is your major control center (screenshot over), Start composing is where you develop and publish newsletters, Posts is where you can see all of your previous e-newsletter editions, Target market is where you can view who your clients are (and break them down right into sections), Expand is where you have accessibility to a referral program (and development tutorials) and boosts to run ads, Monetize is where you can access the beehiiv ad network and monetize your newsletter with ads, Style is where you create your newsletter landing page and blog post template, Examine is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can manage every one of your admin things.
Creating your newsletter
beehiiv makes it easy to begin creating, with little to no friction. If you’re just starting out, and have a concept you wish to cover, I suggest just mosting likely to the “Compose” section in the navbar and clicking on “Start composing”.
You can tweak your template and styling later– focus on the web content first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor uses a clean and user-friendly interface for composing.
When you begin creating, you can maximize headings, include links, and design your web content just how you such as.
beehiiv offers you tons of options for different types of material like video clips, links, images, and a lot more.
The team at beehiiv is also continuously launching item feature and updates so I’m sure there will be a lot much more content features depending on when you’re reading this.
Enhancing your settings and templates
As soon as you have a newsletter that’s ready to send out, it’s time to design your e-mail template and change some settings.
Below, you can update the name of your newsletter, give it a summary, include your logo, activate or off a welcome e-mail to very first time clients, and much more.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your style.
You can edit history shades, boundaries, spacing, fonts, picture formats, and extra. I’m not mosting likely to undergo ever before single point you can enhance with your e-mail template because it’s a lot. Just check out the platform free of charge and see it on your own!
Vital beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of incredible features that make it a great publishing platform for any kind of newsletter developer.
Below are some of the essential features you can locate with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter posting system. It makes it incredibly very easy to compose and send emails. I stated over several of things you can do with your setups and email layout so I’ll save you some additional reading.
The important things to keep in mind with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has a really modern-day and minimalistic feeling. It’s certainly among the much better e-mail editors I’ve ever before written in.
Internet site hosting
When you develop a beehiiv e-newsletter, all of your e-newsletters (if you want) reside on an internet site. Consider it as a site for your e-newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous issues of your newsletter, and a location where people can subscribe to your newsletter.
If you recognize with Substack, it’s basically comparable to that.
All plans, consisting of the cost-free one, provide you a site. Nevertheless, the free plan areas your site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you intend to add a customized domain name to eliminate all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining customers is important. Nevertheless, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can register for your e-newsletter right from your beehiiv site or through embed types.
If you currently have a site, and want people to sign up for your e-newsletter from your existing website, you’ll need to make use of an embed form. This is what I make use of on this internet site (you can see the sign-up embed on the right-hand man column of this blog post if you scroll up).
With embed kinds, you have 3 various choices– a complete width, a fixed size, and a slim embed. I personally utilize the slim embed.
You can find the code snippet for these embeds in the “Subscribe Kinds” tab in your setups.
There’s additionally an alternative for acknowledgment tracking if you want to onward UTM parameters for tracking functions– rather cool.
Nevertheless, there are a couple of features I desire beehiiv had when it concerned subscribe features. I’m sure the team is working with updates for these, but I mentioned a couple of concerns I had in the pros and cons area listed below.
Referral program
One of 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 list to ahead your e-mails to good friends and colleagues and if they obtain other people to subscribe to your list, you can reward them. These benefits can be in whatever kind you desire. I’ve appear several e-newsletter companies give 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– giving you an additional opportunity for growing your email listing.
Nevertheless, to obtain accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll need to upgrade to a much more exceptional plan. I’ll review all the plans later in this article.
Premium memberships
They say all you need to earn a living online is 1,000 real fans. Membership profits is certainly a beast of its own. If you’re looking for a platform to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can create “premium” issues of your e-newsletter that are only sent to paying clients. This can be really profitable depending on what your newsletter has to offer. As an example, Trends.co is a preferred premium e-newsletter that generates millions in income a year simply by having pay-only e-newsletter web content.
Data analytics
One of the things I love regarding beehiiv is just how tidy and simple the analytics are. You obtain real-time day on how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and subscriber count Beehiiv Best Newsletters.
You obtain access to all the metrics you need to get a bird-eye view on just how your e-newsletter is in fact doing. Logging right into your dashboard and seeing that client matter increase is definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv offers 4 different pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (totally free) Launch plan offers you every little thing you require to begin and expand your newsletter (approximately 2,500 customers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) offers you whatever in the Launch plan with the enhancement the ad network, referral program, personalized domain name, polls, and access to premium registrations. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) provides you whatever in the Grow plan with addition of concern support and eliminating the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are fairly charitable in my viewpoint.
For example, if you have 100,000 clients you will pay around $329 monthly. In contrast to some competitors, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would bill $679 each month for the very same quantity– making beehiiv a great Kit choice for several users.
I’m unsure how the unit economics deal with this, however beehiiv is certainly more affordable (right now) than what it can be.
beehiiv pros and cons
Certainly, with every system, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Right here are some of the advantages and disadvantages I have actually directly experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Below are several of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter platform of option:
Easy to set up and begin sending newsletters completely free.
Tidy and modern-day subscriber analytics.
Lots of adaptability with e-mail styles.
Referral program feature.
Web site hosting.
Produce premium options to monetize.
Polls.
To be honest, I have not seen one more e-newsletter system that has been able to package every one of these features with each other so well.
But obviously, I don’t wish to be biased so I’m going to state some cons.
Cons of using beehiiv
Right here are some of the disadvantages I have actually located while using beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around adding custom font styles.
I use Webflow as my internet site building system of selection (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a long period of time ago). I’m not going to go in excessive detail why I like Webflow so much but you can review my Webflow testimonial if you wish to discover more.
Now, there actually is no other method I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow site besides making use of an iframe embed. I personally do not like using iframe’s due to the fact that they have a tendency to slow down 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 load on the web page. It’s really noticeable when you’re on a sluggish internet link. But I can navigate that.
The main gripe I have is that I can not make use of a routine Webflow kind (which I like making use of). There are ways around this by utilizing a device like Zapier but that would simply add added costs that I don’t require. To be straightforward, this is more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv con however I thought I would state it.
Besides that, I still think the pros much outweigh the disadvantages here. I’m likewise enthusiastic that Webflow will at some point develop a better means to integrate with beehiiv.
Verdict
In general, beehiiv is a great service for anyone looking to study the world of e-mail marketing and e-newsletters.
The functionality of this newsletter system much outweighs lots of that are presently on the marketplace. And with a generous free plan, you really have nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are additionally rather affordable wherefore they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 subscribers on your checklist 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 monthly.
Anyways, I don’t create testimonial posts commonly. I only do when I in fact use the tool myself and would certainly recommend it to a friend.
I wish you found some quality on whether beehiiv is an excellent platform for you.