Over two years back, I read one of my preferred e-mail newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the e-mail and saw the beehiiv logo design for the very first time. I clicked it and instantaneously started wrecking Beehiiv Chatbot Assistant.
I wasn’t sure why I felt so emotional.
Being a full time developer is tough. I’m usually obtaining pitched various devices and solutions that don’t seem to be worth my time.
I presume I was psychological since I spent the last 6 months checking out different e-mail and e-newsletter systems to help build my e-newsletter. And to be fair, there are some excellent options for composing newsletters. But I couldn’t find one that made me offer a definite “yes”.
The issue with numerous existing e-newsletter systems is that they do not really feel creator-centered. I want a newsletter platform that lets me completely tailor my e-newsletter styles, makes it extremely easy to compose and send out emails, and provides me devices that assist me evaluate metrics and get more subscribers.
I assume I have actually finally located the right device.
But, I recognize beehiiv may not be for everyone. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s really best for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one system for e-newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly e-newsletter system that makes it very easy to design, write, send out, promote, generate income from, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Produced by previous employees at the renowned e-newsletter firm Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to aid designers launch and monetize their own e-newsletter– taking great deals of development concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M subscribers.
In this short article, I’m mosting likely to explain my personal experience with beehiiv, the things I love (and hate) regarding it, all of it’s features, and why I determined to ultimately select it as my e-newsletter platform of choice.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A couple of months ago, I accidentally stumbled across beehiiv. The amusing tale is that I’ve watched for a contemporary e-newsletter system for fairly some time currently. I’ve postponed hard when it pertained to lastly releasing my e-newsletter.
First, I tried Mailchimp. Then, a few various other indie platforms. Then, Substack. And ultimately, I wound up utilizing beehiiv.
I make certain many e-newsletter designers look up to popular newsletters with numerous clients– I understand I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I looked up to a whole lot. They have terrific web content, lots of customers, and a creative referral program that enables them to get back at more subscribers.
So, I went on a search to figure out exactly how these huge newsletters established their logistics. What system do they make use of? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they get more subscribers? How do they develop an e-newsletter design that stays on-brand?
When I found beehiiv for the very first time, it appeared to address every one of my inquiries. I believed to myself, “damn individuals that constructed this tool truly comprehend newsletter development and growth.” I examined who these designers of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were several of the initial marketing and growth workers at Morning Brew– my mind took off.
I knew this was mosting likely to be a various newsletter platform. One that’s concentrated on designer growth.
Because, any kind of designer knows, you require development to be able to earn a living off of a newsletter. And finding the right e-newsletter stack (that ranges) frequently means using numerous different devices to assist achieve one objective– one platform for your e-newsletter, one system to monetize, and one system to set up referrals. It can obtain costly.
So when I discovered beehiiv did all of these points in one platform, and it was free to start utilizing, 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 platform that permits them to send out customized newsletters with or without needing to have an internet site.
One of the most successful newsletters have the right tools to build and scale their newsletters. beehiiv aims at giving you those devices.
If you’re an independent author, media firm, start-up, or content designer, you must seriously taking into consideration trying out beehiiv. It’s completely free to start and you only pay when you reach over 2,500 subscribers on your list.
If you in fact end up needing to spend for beehiiv it’s probably a great indication that people like reviewing your stuff.
beehiiv vs Substack
You may be asking, “isn’t there currently a platform for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, indeed there is. Substack is an excellent system utilized by hundreds of independent authors. With Substack you get your very own internet site and make use of the system as your all-in-one solution for sending out emails (while producing an archive of previous issues).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s devotion to growth. beehiiv allows you do to all the things Substack can do, with the advantage of much better analytics, even more design flexibilty, and a referral program to encourage your existing clients to get words out.
beehiiv also provides you a site comparable to Substack. However, if you have your very own site currently, you can additionally use beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I make use of) to send your internet site customers straight to your beehiiv e-mail list. On the same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a device like Performance to enable individuals to register for your newsletter directly from Twitter.
This gives you the adaptability to leverage different marketing channels to get your newsletter out into the world, making beehiiv a great Substack alternative.
Just how to start using beehiiv e-mail marketing software program.
Sign up for a free plan
The very first step is to sign up for a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Start trial” switch on beehiiv’s web site.
The free plan will enable you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, provide you access to web site hosting, a newsletter CMS, development modification, analytics, external embed types, and a lot more. It’s a really generous offering for those just beginning (or for those seeking a brand-new system to move to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Chatbot Assistant
After creating an account, you’ll go through 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 clients?”, and more.
You’ll after that create a name and URL for your e-newsletter’s web site. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will certainly reside on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your site URL could be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding process, you’ll additionally select your brand colors and design to ensure your newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your control panel
When you reach your major dashboard, you’ll see all of your analytics and setups.
You will have detailed information on the amount of sign-ups you’re getting and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see choices for “Beginning composing,” “Messages,” “Audience,” “Expand,” “Monetize,” “Design,” and” Assess.” And at the very bottom you’ll see the setups choice.
Dashboard is your main nerve center (screenshot above), Begin composing is where you create and publish e-newsletters, Messages is where you can see all of your previous newsletter editions, Audience is where you can view who your clients are (and break them down into segments), Grow 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 create your e-newsletter landing page and post template, Examine is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can handle all of your admin things.
Creating your newsletter
beehiiv makes it very easy to begin composing, with little to no friction. If you’re simply starting, and have a concept you intend to cover, I recommend simply mosting likely to the “Compose” area in the navbar and clicking “Begin composing”.
You can fine-tune your template and styling later on– focus on the content initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor offers a tidy and user-friendly interface for writing.
As soon as you begin creating, you can enhance headings, add web links, and style your material just how you such as.
beehiiv provides you lots of options for various sorts of content like videos, web links, images, and extra.
The team at beehiiv is also regularly launching product feature and updates so I’m sure there will be a great deal a lot more material features depending upon when you read this.
Optimizing your settings and templates
As soon as you have a newsletter that’s ready to send out, it’s time to make your email template and adjust some setups.
Below, you can upgrade the name of your newsletter, give it a description, include your logo design, activate or off a welcome email to first time clients, and extra.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can edit background shades, boundaries, spacing, typefaces, picture styles, and extra. I’m not mosting likely to go through ever before solitary thing you can optimize with your email template because it’s a great deal. Just try out the system for free and see it for yourself!
Vital beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of remarkable features that make it a terrific posting platform for any type of newsletter designer.
Here are a few of the crucial features you can locate with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter posting platform. It makes it extremely easy to compose and send out emails. I pointed out over a few of the things you can do with your settings and email style so I’ll save you some extra reading.
The important things to note with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has a truly contemporary and minimalistic feel. It’s most definitely among the better email editors I have actually ever before written in.
Website hosting
When you develop a beehiiv e-newsletter, every one of your e-newsletters (if you want) live on a website. Think about it as a website for your newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous problems of your e-newsletter, and a location where individuals can subscribe to your newsletter.
If you’re familiar with Substack, it’s practically comparable to that.
All plans, including the totally free one, provide you a website. Nevertheless, the free plan areas your web site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you intend to add a personalized domain name to remove all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining customers is very important. Nevertheless, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can subscribe to your e-newsletter straight from your beehiiv web site or with embed types.
If you currently have a website, and desire individuals to sign up for your e-newsletter from your existing site, you’ll need to use an embed kind. This is what I make use of on this website (you can see the sign-up installed on the right hand column of this blog post if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have three various choices– a full width, a dealt with size, and a slim installed. I personally use the slim embed.
You can locate the code snippet for these embeds in the “Subscribe Kinds” tab in your setups.
There’s also an alternative for attribution tracking if you wish to onward UTM criteria for tracking objectives– rather cool.
However, there are a couple of features I want beehiiv had when it involved subscribe features. I make certain the team is working with updates for these, but I discussed a couple of concerns I had in the advantages and disadvantages area listed below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things concerning beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter platform, is an option for developing a referral program.
You can encourage existing customers on your listing to onward your emails to pals and colleagues and if they get other people to register for your listing, you can award them. These benefits can be in whatever form you want. I’ve seem numerous newsletter companies provide rewards in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously turn your customers right into a word of mouth growth engine for your e-newsletter– providing you one more avenue for growing your email listing.
However, to obtain accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll need to update to an extra premium plan. I’ll discuss all the plans later on in this article.
Premium subscriptions
They say all you require to earn a living online is 1,000 real fans. Registration revenue is most definitely a monster of its own. If you’re seeking a platform to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can develop “premium” problems of your newsletter that are just sent to paying customers. This can be really financially rewarding depending on what your newsletter has to provide. For example, Trends.co is a prominent premium newsletter that produces millions in income a year merely by having pay-only e-newsletter content.
Data analytics
One of the things I like regarding beehiiv is how tidy and basic the analytics are. You obtain real-time day on just how your newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and client matter Beehiiv Chatbot Assistant.
You get accessibility to all the metrics you require to get a bird-eye sight on exactly how your newsletter is really doing. Logging into your dashboard and seeing that subscriber count go up is absolutely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv uses 4 various pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (cost-free) Launch plan gives you whatever you need to start and expand your newsletter (up to 2,500 customers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) gives you everything in the Launch plan with the enhancement the ad network, referral program, custom domain name, surveys, and access to costs subscriptions. This is the plan I am on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) gives you every little thing in the Grow plan with addition of priority support and removing the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are rather charitable in my viewpoint.
For example, if you have 100,000 clients you will pay around $329 per month. As opposed to some competitors, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would charge $679 per month for the exact same amount– making beehiiv a wonderful Kit alternative for numerous customers.
I’m not sure exactly how the unit economics work on this, however beehiiv is definitely less costly (at the moment) than what it can be.
beehiiv benefits and drawbacks
Naturally, with every platform, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Here are several of the pros and cons I have actually personally experienced while making use of beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Right here are several of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter system of selection:
Easy to establish and begin sending e-newsletters for free.
Clean and modern client analytics.
Lots of versatility with e-mail styles.
Referral program feature.
Internet site hosting.
Produce costs choices to generate income from.
Polls.
To be straightforward, I haven’t seen one more e-newsletter system that has had the ability to package all of these features with each other so well.
Yet of course, I don’t intend to be prejudiced so I’m going to discuss some disadvantages.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Right here are some of the disadvantages I’ve discovered while utilizing beehiiv:.
Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around including personalized fonts.
I make use of Webflow as my web site building platform of choice (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a very long time ago). I’m not going to go in way too much detail why I enjoy Webflow so much yet you can read my Webflow review if you ‘d like to discover more.
Today, there really is no other method I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow internet site besides making use of an iframe embed. I personally do not like making use of iframe’s because they have a tendency to decrease my web site a bit. Each time a web page on my site (with a beehiiv embed) tons, the sign-up installed is the last thing to load on the web page. It’s really obvious when you’re on a slow net link. But I can get around that.
The main complaint I have is that I can’t use a routine Webflow form (which I love making use of). There are ways around this by using a tool like Zapier however that would simply include added expenses that I don’t need. To be sincere, this is more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv disadvantage however I thought I would certainly discuss it.
Besides that, I still think the pros far surpass the disadvantages here. I’m likewise confident that Webflow will ultimately produce a far better method to incorporate with beehiiv.
Final Thought
Overall, beehiiv is a terrific solution for anybody seeking to study the world of e-mail marketing and newsletters.
The functionality of this e-newsletter platform far exceeds numerous that are currently on the marketplace. And with a charitable free plan, you really have nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are additionally relatively economical wherefore they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 clients on your listing is uncommon. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k clients, and all of these features beehiiv has, it might cost you well into the thousands per month.
Anyways, I do not create testimonial posts frequently. I only do when I in fact use the device myself and would certainly suggest it to a buddy.
I hope you located some quality on whether beehiiv is an excellent system for you.