Over two years earlier, I read one of my favorite e-mail newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo design for the first time. I clicked on it and instantly began wrecking Beehiiv Creator Accelerator.
I wasn’t sure why I felt so psychological.
Being a permanent creator is difficult. I’m frequently getting pitched different devices and services that do not appear to be worth my time.
I presume I was psychological due to the fact that I spent the last six months checking out different e-mail and e-newsletter platforms to assist construct my e-newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some wonderful choices for writing newsletters. But I could not find one that made me provide a precise “yes”.
The concern with many existing e-newsletter platforms is that they don’t really feel creator-centered. I desire a newsletter system that lets me completely customize my e-newsletter styles, makes it super simple to write and send out emails, and offers me tools that aid me assess metrics and obtain even more customers.
I think I have actually lastly found the best device.
However, I understand beehiiv may not be for everybody. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s actually appropriate 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, compose, send out, advertise, generate income from, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Produced by former workers at the famous e-newsletter company Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to aid developers launch and monetize their own e-newsletter– taking lots of development concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M customers.
In this post, I’m going to discuss my individual experience with beehiiv, things I like (and hate) about it, all of it’s features, and why I made a decision to lastly go with it as my newsletter system of option.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A few months ago, I unintentionally came across beehiiv. The funny story is that I’ve been on the lookout for a modern-day newsletter system for quite time now. I’ve hesitated hard when it pertained to ultimately introducing my e-newsletter.
Initially, I attempted Mailchimp. After that, a couple of other indie platforms. Then, Substack. And finally, I wound up utilizing beehiiv.
I’m sure several e-newsletter developers respect prominent newsletters with millions of subscribers– I understand I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I appreciated a lot. They have wonderful web content, tons of subscribers, and a smart referral program that allows them to get even extra subscribers.
So, I went on a hunt to figure out just 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 more clients? How do they create a newsletter style that stays on-brand?
When I discovered beehiiv for the first time, it appeared to address all of my inquiries. I believed to myself, “damn the people that constructed this tool really recognize newsletter development and growth.” I examined who these creators of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were several of the initial marketing and development staff members at Morning Brew– my mind took off.
I recognized this was mosting likely to be a different e-newsletter platform. One that’s focused on developer growth.
Since, any kind of maker understands, you need growth to be able to earn a living off of a newsletter. And discovering the appropriate e-newsletter stack (that scales) frequently indicates using numerous various tools to help accomplish one objective– one system for your newsletter, one platform to monetize, and one system to set up references. It can get expensive.
So when I found out beehiiv did all of these things in one platform, and it was cost-free to start using, it was a piece of cake to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean content developer that wants a platform that enables them to send out custom-made e-newsletters with or without requiring to have an internet site.
The most effective e-newsletters have the right devices to develop and scale their newsletters. beehiiv aims at giving you those devices.
If you’re an independent writer, media business, start-up, or web content maker, you ought to seriously thinking about experimenting with beehiiv. It’s entirely complimentary to start and you only pay when you reach over 2,500 subscribers on your listing.
If you actually wind up having to spend for beehiiv it’s most likely a good indicator that individuals love reading your stuff.
beehiiv vs Substack
You may be asking, “isn’t there already a system for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, indeed there is. Substack is a terrific platform utilized by hundreds of independent authors. With Substack you obtain your very own site and utilize the platform as your all-in-one solution for sending e-mails (while developing an archive of previous issues).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s dedication to development. beehiiv permits you do to all things Substack can do, with the benefit of better analytics, more layout flexibilty, and a referral program to encourage your existing customers to get words out.
beehiiv additionally gives you a site similar to Substack. Yet, if you have your own site currently, you can additionally utilize beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I utilize) to send your web site customers right to your beehiiv email checklist. On the exact same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a tool like Performance to permit individuals to subscribe to your e-newsletter directly from Twitter.
This gives you the versatility to take advantage of different marketing networks to obtain your e-newsletter out into the globe, making beehiiv an excellent Substack alternative.
Exactly how to begin making use of beehiiv email marketing software.
Register for a free plan
The first step is to register for a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Begin trial” button on beehiiv’s website.
The free plan will certainly permit you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, give you access to internet site hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, advancement customization, analytics, external embed kinds, and a lot more. It’s a very charitable offering for those just starting (or for those trying to find a new platform to move to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Creator Accelerator
After creating an account, you’ll experience an onboarding process that will ask points like, “is this your initial e-newsletter?”, “what other systems have you made use of?”, “do you have any paying subscribers?”, and much more.
You’ll after that create a name and URL for your e-newsletter’s website. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will survive on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your internet site link could be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding procedure, you’ll also choose your brand colors and design to make sure your e-newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your control panel
When you reach your main dashboard, you’ll see every one of your analytics and setups.
You will have outlined information on the number of sign-ups you’re obtaining and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see alternatives for “Begin creating,” “Articles,” “Target market,” “Grow,” “Monetize,” “Style,” and” Examine.” And at the extremely bottom you’ll see the setups option.
Dashboard is your primary nerve center (screenshot over), Beginning writing is where you create and release newsletters, Posts is where you can see every one of your previous e-newsletter editions, Audience is where you can watch who your clients are (and break them down into sectors), Expand is where you have accessibility to a referral program (and development tutorials) and boosts to run advertisements, Monetize is where you can access the beehiiv ad network and monetize your e-newsletter with ads, Design is where you make your e-newsletter landing page and article template, Evaluate is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can manage every one of your admin stuff.
Creating your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it very easy to begin creating, with little to no rubbing. If you’re just starting out, and have an idea you want to discuss, I suggest just mosting likely to the “Create” area in the navbar and clicking on “Beginning composing”.
You can fine-tune your template and designing later on– focus on the web content first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor supplies a clean and easy to use interface for creating.
When you start composing, you can enhance headings, include links, and design your content exactly how you like.
beehiiv gives you lots of choices for various sorts of content like video clips, web links, photos, and much more.
The team at beehiiv is likewise regularly releasing product feature and updates so I’m sure there will be a whole lot extra content features depending on when you’re reading this.
Enhancing your setups and templates
When you have an e-newsletter that prepares to send, it’s time to make your e-mail template and change some setups.
Here, you can update the name of your e-newsletter, give it a summary, include your logo, activate or off a welcome email to very first time customers, and much more.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your design.
You can modify background colors, borders, spacing, typefaces, photo formats, and more. I’m not mosting likely to undergo ever solitary thing you can enhance with your e-mail template due to the fact that it’s a lot. Just experiment with the system totally free and see it on your own!
Important beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of outstanding features that make it an excellent posting system for any kind of newsletter developer.
Right here are some of the essential features you can find with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter publishing platform. It makes it very easy to write and send emails. I pointed out over several of the important things you can do with your settings and email design so I’ll spare you some additional analysis.
The important things to keep in mind with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has a really contemporary and minimalistic feel. It’s absolutely among the much better e-mail editors I’ve ever before written in.
Web site hosting
When you produce a beehiiv e-newsletter, every one of your e-newsletters (if you desire) survive on a website. Consider it as a site for your newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous problems of your newsletter, and an area where individuals can sign up for your newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s practically comparable to that.
All plans, including the cost-free one, provide you a site. However, the free plan locations 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 upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting subscribers is necessary. After all, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can register for your e-newsletter straight from your beehiiv web site or via embed forms.
If you already have a website, and desire individuals to register for your e-newsletter from your existing site, you’ll need to use an embed form. This is what I utilize on this website (you can see the sign-up embed on the right hand column of this blog post if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have three different options– a full width, a repaired size, and a slim installed. I personally use the slim installed.
You can find the code bit for these embeds in the “Subscribe Forms” tab in your settings.
There’s additionally a choice for acknowledgment monitoring if you want to onward UTM criteria for tracking purposes– rather neat.
Nevertheless, there are a couple of features I desire beehiiv had when it pertained to subscribe features. I make certain the team is working on updates for these, however I stated a couple of problems I had in the pros and cons section listed below.
Referral program
Among the amazing things concerning beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter system, is an option for creating a referral program.
You can encourage existing clients on your list to forward your emails to pals and associates and if they get other people to subscribe to your listing, you can reward them. These benefits can be in whatever form you desire. I have actually seem numerous newsletter companies give benefits in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously transform your clients right into a word of mouth development engine for your newsletter– offering you another method for expanding your e-mail listing.
However, to get accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll have to update to a much more premium plan. I’ll look at all the plans later in this post.
Costs memberships
They claim all you need to make a living online is 1,000 true fans. Subscription earnings is absolutely a beast of its own. If you’re trying to find a platform to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can create “premium” problems of your newsletter that are only sent out to paying subscribers. This can be really financially rewarding depending upon what your e-newsletter needs to provide. For example, Trends.co is a prominent costs e-newsletter that creates millions in profits a year just by having pay-only newsletter web content.
Information analytics
Among things I like concerning beehiiv is exactly how clean and basic the analytics are. You get real-time day on how your newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and customer matter Beehiiv Creator Accelerator.
You get access to all the metrics you require to get a bird-eye sight on how your e-newsletter is actually doing. Logging right into your dashboard and seeing that subscriber count go up is absolutely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv supplies 4 various pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (totally free) Launch plan provides you everything you need to get started and grow your newsletter (approximately 2,500 subscribers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) gives you everything in the Launch plan with the addition the advertisement network, referral program, personalized domain, surveys, and accessibility to costs registrations. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) provides you every little thing in the Grow plan with enhancement of concern support and removing the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are quite charitable in my point of view.
For example, if you have 100,000 clients you will pay around $329 monthly. Instead of some rivals, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would charge $679 per month for the same amount– making beehiiv a wonderful Kit alternative for lots of individuals.
I’m not sure exactly how the system business economics deal with this, but beehiiv is definitely more affordable (at the moment) than what it can be.
beehiiv benefits and drawbacks
Of course, with every platform, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Here are several of the pros and cons I’ve directly experienced while utilizing beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Below are several of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter platform of option:
Easy to establish and begin sending newsletters free of cost.
Clean and modern-day subscriber analytics.
Great deals of adaptability with email styles.
Referral program feature.
Internet site hosting.
Develop costs choices to monetize.
Polls.
To be sincere, I haven’t seen another e-newsletter system that has been able to package all of these features together so well.
Yet certainly, I don’t intend to be prejudiced so I’m mosting likely to mention some cons.
Cons of using beehiiv
Here are some of the cons I’ve located while utilizing beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around adding personalized font styles.
I make use of Webflow as my website structure platform of option (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a long time ago). I’m not mosting likely to go in too much detail why I love Webflow so much yet you can review my Webflow testimonial if you want to discover more.
Now, there truly is no other way I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow web site besides making use of an iframe embed. I personally don’t like using iframe’s since they tend to reduce my web site a little bit. Every time a page on my site (with a beehiiv embed) lots, the sign-up embed is the last thing to pack on the web page. It’s extremely visible when you’re on a slow net link. Yet I can get around that.
The primary gripe I have is that I can’t make use of a regular Webflow type (which I love using). There are methods around this by using a device like Zapier but that would simply add extra costs that I do not require. To be truthful, this is even more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv con however I thought I would mention it.
Besides that, I still think the pros far outweigh the disadvantages right here. I’m likewise enthusiastic that Webflow will eventually produce a better way to incorporate with beehiiv.
Conclusion
Generally, beehiiv is a terrific remedy for anyone looking to study the globe of email marketing and newsletters.
The capability of this newsletter platform much surpasses lots of that are presently on the marketplace. And with a generous free plan, you actually have nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are additionally relatively low-cost of what they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 clients on your list is unheard of. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k customers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it can cost you well right into the thousands per month.
Anyways, I don’t compose review messages frequently. I just do when I really use the tool myself and would certainly advise it to a good friend.
I hope you located some clearness on whether or not beehiiv is an excellent system for you.