Over two years back, I read among my favored e-mail newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo for the first time. I clicked on it and instantaneously began destroying Beehiiv Code Block.
I had not been certain why I felt so emotional.
Being a full time creator is difficult. I’m frequently getting pitched various tools and services that don’t appear to be worth my time.
I presume I was psychological due to the fact that I invested the last six months experimenting with different e-mail and e-newsletter systems to assist develop my e-newsletter. And to be fair, there are some wonderful choices for composing e-newsletters. Yet I could not discover one that made me provide a precise “yes”.
The problem with many existing newsletter platforms is that they do not feel creator-centered. I desire an e-newsletter platform that lets me fully tailor my newsletter designs, makes it incredibly very easy to write and send out e-mails, and provides me devices that assist me examine metrics and obtain even more subscribers.
I believe I have actually finally located the appropriate tool.
Yet, I understand beehiiv might 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 out, promote, monetize, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Developed by former staff members at the renowned newsletter business Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to aid developers launch and monetize their own e-newsletter– taking great deals of development concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M subscribers.
In this write-up, I’m mosting likely to describe my individual experience with beehiiv, the things I love (and hate) about it, all of it’s features, and why I chose to finally opt for it as my newsletter system of option.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A few months back, I inadvertently stumbled across beehiiv. The amusing story is that I have actually been on the lookout for a contemporary e-newsletter system for fairly time currently. I have actually procrastinated hard when it concerned ultimately launching my e-newsletter.
Initially, I attempted Mailchimp. After that, a couple of various other indie platforms. After that, Substack. And finally, I wound up utilizing beehiiv.
I’m sure lots of newsletter developers look up to preferred e-newsletters with numerous clients– I know I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I looked up to a lot. They have wonderful content, lots of customers, and a creative referral program that enables them to get even more clients.
So, I took place a quest to figure out exactly how these large e-newsletters set up their logistics. What platform do they make use of? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they get more subscribers? How do they produce an e-newsletter style that stays on-brand?
When I discovered beehiiv for the very first time, it appeared to answer all of my questions. I believed to myself, “damn individuals that built this device truly understand newsletter creation and growth.” I questioned who these makers of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were several of the initial marketing and growth staff members at Morning Brew– my mind blew up.
I recognized this was mosting likely to be a different newsletter system. One that’s concentrated on designer development.
Since, any kind of designer knows, you require growth to be able to earn a living off of a newsletter. And finding the ideal newsletter stack (that scales) frequently suggests making use of numerous various tools to assist attain one goal– one platform for your e-newsletter, one system to monetize, and one system to establish recommendations. It can obtain expensive.
So when I discovered beehiiv did all of these things in one system, and it was totally free to start utilizing, it was a piece of cake to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean material developer that desires a system that enables them to send custom e-newsletters with or without requiring to have a site.
The most effective e-newsletters have the right devices to develop and scale their newsletters. beehiiv targets at providing you those devices.
If you’re an independent writer, media business, startup, or material developer, you need to seriously considering checking out beehiiv. It’s absolutely complimentary to begin and you just pay when you get to over 2,500 subscribers on your checklist.
If you really wind up having to spend for beehiiv it’s most likely a good sign that people love reviewing your things.
beehiiv vs Substack
You could be asking, “isn’t there currently a system for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, indeed there is. Substack is an excellent platform utilized by thousands of independent writers. With Substack you get your own site and make use of the system as your all-in-one solution for sending e-mails (while developing an archive of previous issues).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s devotion to growth. beehiiv allows you do to all things Substack can do, with the advantage of much better analytics, more design flexibilty, and a referral program to encourage your existing subscribers to obtain the word out.
beehiiv likewise gives you a website comparable to Substack. Yet, if you have your own web site currently, you can also use beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I make use of) to send your website clients right to your beehiiv e-mail list. On the same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a tool like Revue to allow people to sign up for your newsletter straight from Twitter.
This gives you the adaptability to utilize different marketing networks to obtain your newsletter out right into the globe, making beehiiv a fantastic Substack alternative.
How to start utilizing beehiiv email marketing software.
Register for a free plan
The initial step is to enroll in a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Begin trial” switch on beehiiv’s web site.
The free plan will permit you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, offer you accessibility to web site hosting, a newsletter CMS, advance personalization, analytics, outside embed forms, and extra. It’s a really generous offering for those simply starting (or for those trying to find a brand-new platform to move to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Code Block
After producing 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 utilized?”, “do you have any type of paying clients?”, and more.
You’ll then create a name and link for your e-newsletter’s website. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will survive a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your internet site URL might be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding process, you’ll also choose your brand colors and design to see to it your newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your dashboard
When you reach your main control panel, you’ll see all of your analytics and setups.
You will certainly have described details on the amount of sign-ups you’re obtaining and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see choices for “Begin creating,” “Blog posts,” “Target market,” “Expand,” “Monetize,” “Layout,” and” Examine.” And at the really lower you’ll see the setups alternative.
Control panel is your primary control center (screenshot above), Begin composing is where you develop and publish newsletters, Articles is where you can see all of your previous e-newsletter versions, Audience is where you can see who your customers are (and damage them down right into sectors), Grow is where you have access 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 e-newsletter with ads, Design is where you create your newsletter landing page and post template, Evaluate is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can handle every one of your admin things.
Writing your newsletter
beehiiv makes it easy to start composing, with little to no rubbing. If you’re just beginning, and have a concept you intend to cover, I advise just going to the “Compose” area in the navbar and clicking on “Begin creating”.
You can tweak your template and designing later– concentrate on the content first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor provides a clean and easy to use interface for writing.
When you start writing, you can maximize headings, include web links, and design your material just how you such as.
beehiiv offers you lots of alternatives for different types of web content like video clips, web links, pictures, and much more.
The team at beehiiv is likewise frequently launching product feature and updates so I’m sure there will be a lot more content features depending upon when you read this.
Maximizing your settings and templates
As soon as you have a newsletter that’s ready to send, it’s time to design your email template and change some setups.
Below, you can upgrade the name of your e-newsletter, give it a description, include your logo, switch on or off a welcome e-mail to first time customers, and extra.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your style.
You can edit history colors, borders, spacing, typefaces, image styles, and extra. I’m not going to undergo ever before solitary point you can maximize with your e-mail template due to the fact that it’s a lot. Simply try the platform totally free and see it for yourself!
Crucial beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of outstanding features that make it a terrific publishing system for any kind of e-newsletter designer.
Here are a few of the necessary features you can discover with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter posting platform. It makes it extremely very easy to compose and send out e-mails. I pointed out over a few of the things you can do with your settings and email layout so I’ll save you some added analysis.
The important things to keep in mind with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has a truly modern-day and minimalistic feeling. It’s definitely one of the much better e-mail editors I’ve ever before written in.
Site hosting
When you produce a beehiiv e-newsletter, every one of your newsletters (if you desire) survive a site. Think about it as a web site for your newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous issues of your e-newsletter, and a place where individuals can sign up for your newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s basically comparable to that.
All plans, consisting of the totally free one, provide you a web site. However, the free plan places your web site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you intend to add a customized domain to eliminate all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting clients is necessary. After all, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can register for your newsletter right from your beehiiv site or through embed forms.
If you already have a web site, and want people to register for your newsletter from your existing website, you’ll have to utilize an embed type. This is what I utilize on this site (you can see the sign-up embed on the right hand column of this post if you scroll up).
With embed types, you have 3 various options– a complete size, a dealt with size, and a slim embed. I personally make use of the slim installed.
You can find the code fragment for these embeds in the “Subscribe Kinds” tab in your settings.
There’s also a choice for attribution tracking if you want to forward UTM specifications for tracking objectives– pretty cool.
Nonetheless, there are a few features I desire beehiiv had when it pertained to subscribe features. I’m sure the team is working on updates for these, yet I mentioned a couple of concerns I had in the advantages and disadvantages section listed below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things regarding beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter platform, is a remedy for developing a referral program.
You can urge existing subscribers on your checklist to forward your emails to good friends and colleagues and if they obtain other individuals to subscribe to your list, you can compensate them. These rewards can be in whatever type you want. I’ve seem several e-newsletter companies offer incentives in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously turn your subscribers into a word of mouth growth engine for your e-newsletter– giving you one more opportunity for expanding your e-mail list.
Nevertheless, to obtain accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll have to update to a more exceptional plan. I’ll review all the plans later on in this write-up.
Premium memberships
They say all you need to make a living online is 1,000 real fans. Membership income is definitely a beast of its own. If you’re searching for a system to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can develop “costs” concerns of your newsletter that are just sent out to paying subscribers. This can be really lucrative depending on what your e-newsletter has to offer. For instance, Trends.co is a preferred premium e-newsletter that creates millions in earnings a year merely by having pay-only newsletter web content.
Information analytics
Among things I love concerning beehiiv is exactly how tidy and simple the analytics are. You obtain real-time date on exactly how your newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and client matter Beehiiv Code Block.
You obtain access to all the metrics you need to obtain a bird-eye sight on just how your newsletter is in fact doing. Logging right into your control panel and seeing that client count go up is most definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv supplies 4 different pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (free) Launch plan offers you everything you need to begin and expand your e-newsletter (as much as 2,500 clients).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) provides you whatever in the Launch plan with the addition the advertisement network, referral program, custom-made domain name, polls, and access to premium subscriptions. This is the plan I am on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) gives you whatever in the Grow plan with enhancement of concern assistance and eliminating the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are quite charitable in my viewpoint.
For example, if you have 100,000 subscribers you will pay around $329 each month. Rather than some rivals, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would bill $679 each month for the same amount– making beehiiv a fantastic Kit choice for many customers.
I’m unsure exactly how the device economics work on this, however beehiiv is most definitely cheaper (at the moment) than what it can be.
beehiiv advantages and disadvantages
Certainly, with every platform, it has its benefits and drawbacks. Here are some of the pros and cons I’ve personally experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Here are a few of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter platform of choice:
Easy to establish and start sending e-newsletters totally free.
Tidy and modern subscriber analytics.
Great deals of versatility with e-mail layouts.
Referral program feature.
Website hosting.
Produce costs options to generate income from.
Surveys.
To be truthful, I have not seen one more e-newsletter system that has actually had the ability to package all of these features together so well.
But naturally, I do not intend to be biased so I’m mosting likely to point out some disadvantages.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Here are several of the cons I’ve discovered while utilizing beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around adding customized fonts.
I make use of Webflow as my web site building platform of option (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a very long time ago). I’m not mosting likely to enter excessive information why I like Webflow a lot however you can review my Webflow testimonial if you ‘d like to learn more.
Right now, there actually is no other means I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow internet site apart from making use of an iframe embed. I personally don’t like making use of iframe’s because they tend to reduce my site a bit. Whenever a page on my website (with a beehiiv embed) lots, the sign-up installed is the last thing to load on the page. It’s very visible when you’re on a sluggish web connection. Yet I can get around that.
The main complaint I have is that I can’t use a routine Webflow form (which I like making use of). There are means around this by utilizing a device like Zapier but that would simply add additional costs that I don’t need. To be sincere, this is even more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv con however I assumed I would certainly state it.
Besides that, I still think the pros far exceed the disadvantages here. I’m additionally enthusiastic that Webflow will ultimately create a far better method to integrate with beehiiv.
Verdict
On the whole, beehiiv is a fantastic solution for anybody looking to dive into the globe of e-mail marketing and newsletters.
The performance of this e-newsletter platform much surpasses numerous that are currently on the marketplace. And with a generous free plan, you really have absolutely nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are additionally rather affordable 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 per month.
Anyways, I don’t create review messages commonly. I just do when I actually use the device myself and would suggest it to a pal.
I hope you discovered some clearness on whether or not beehiiv is a good system for you.