Over 2 years back, I was reading one of my favored email e-newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the e-mail and saw the beehiiv logo design for the first time. I clicked on it and instantaneously began wrecking Beehiiv Creator Network.
I had not been certain why I really felt so psychological.
Being a permanent maker is tough. I’m commonly getting pitched different devices and solutions that don’t appear to be worth my time.
I presume I was emotional because I invested the last six months checking out various e-mail and e-newsletter platforms to aid build my e-newsletter. And to be fair, there are some terrific options for writing newsletters. However I couldn’t discover one that made me provide a certain “yes”.
The problem with lots of existing newsletter systems is that they don’t feel creator-centered. I want a newsletter system that lets me completely customize my e-newsletter designs, makes it very very easy to create and send emails, and offers me devices that assist me analyze metrics and get more customers.
I assume I’ve lastly found the best device.
However, I recognize beehiiv may 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 simple to design, create, send out, advertise, generate income from, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Created by former employees at the popular e-newsletter firm Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to aid designers launch and monetize their own e-newsletter– taking great deals of development principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M clients.
In this write-up, I’m mosting likely to clarify my personal experience with beehiiv, the important things I like (and hate) concerning it, all of it’s features, and why I made a decision to finally select it as my e-newsletter system of selection.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A couple of months back, I accidentally stumbled across beehiiv. The funny story is that I’ve been on the lookout for a modern e-newsletter system for quite a long time currently. I’ve procrastinated hard when it involved ultimately releasing my newsletter.
Initially, I attempted Mailchimp. After that, a couple of other indie platforms. After that, Substack. And finally, I wound up making use of beehiiv.
I’m sure numerous newsletter designers appreciate popular newsletters with numerous subscribers– I recognize I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I looked up to a lot. They have fantastic web content, lots of clients, and a clever referral program that permits them to get back at much more clients.
So, I went on a search to determine how these big 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 customers? How do they develop a newsletter design that remains on-brand?
When I found beehiiv for the first time, it appeared to address all of my inquiries. I thought to myself, “damn individuals that built this tool actually recognize newsletter production and growth.” I questioned who these makers of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were a few of the very first marketing and growth employees at Morning Brew– my mind blew up.
I recognized this was going to be a various newsletter platform. One that’s concentrated on developer development.
Because, any creator knows, you require growth to be able to make a living off of an e-newsletter. And discovering the right e-newsletter pile (that ranges) typically implies utilizing multiple various devices to aid attain one goal– one system for your e-newsletter, one platform to monetize, and one platform to set up referrals. It can obtain expensive.
So when I found out beehiiv did every one of these things in one system, and it was free to begin 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 permits them to send custom e-newsletters with or without requiring to have an internet site.
One of the most successful newsletters have the right devices to construct and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv aims at giving you those tools.
If you’re an independent writer, media business, startup, or content developer, you should seriously considering experimenting with beehiiv. It’s entirely cost-free to get started and you only pay when you get to over 2,500 subscribers on your list.
If you actually wind up having to pay for beehiiv it’s possibly a good indicator that people like reading your stuff.
beehiiv vs Substack
You might be asking, “isn’t there already a platform for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, of course there is. Substack is an excellent system used by countless independent writers. With Substack you get your very own site and make use of the platform as your all-in-one service for sending out emails (while developing an archive of previous concerns).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s devotion to development. beehiiv enables you do to all things Substack can do, with the benefit of much better analytics, more style flexibilty, and a referral program to encourage your existing subscribers to get the word out.
beehiiv also offers you a website similar to Substack. But, if you have your very own website currently, you can likewise use beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I use) to send your internet site subscribers directly to your beehiiv e-mail checklist. On the same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a device like Revue to permit people to register for your newsletter straight from Twitter.
This gives you the flexibility to leverage various marketing channels to obtain your e-newsletter out right into the globe, making beehiiv an excellent Substack choice.
Exactly how to begin using beehiiv email marketing software.
Register for a free plan
The very first step is to register for a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Beginning trial” button on beehiiv’s web site.
The free plan will certainly permit you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, give you accessibility to site hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, advance personalization, analytics, external embed types, and a lot more. It’s a very charitable offering for those simply starting (or for those searching for a brand-new platform to move to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Creator Network
After producing an account, you’ll go through an onboarding procedure that will ask points like, “is this your first newsletter?”, “what various other systems have you made use of?”, “do you have any paying clients?”, and extra.
You’ll then create a name and URL for your newsletter’s website. On the free plan, your newsletter will survive on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your site link might be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding process, you’ll also select your brand colors and design to make certain your e-newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your control panel
Once you reach your primary control panel, you’ll see all of your analytics and settings.
You will certainly have outlined information on the number of sign-ups you’re getting and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see alternatives for “Start composing,” “Articles,” “Audience,” “Expand,” “Generate income from,” “Style,” and” Assess.” And at the very lower you’ll see the setups alternative.
Dashboard is your primary nerve center (screenshot above), Beginning writing is where you develop and release newsletters, Articles is where you can see every one of your previous e-newsletter versions, Target market is where you can see who your clients are (and break them down right into segments), Grow 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, Layout is where you develop your newsletter landing page and message template, Analyze is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can manage all of your admin things.
Composing your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it simple to start creating, with little to no friction. If you’re simply starting out, and have an idea you intend to blog about, I suggest just mosting likely to the “Write” area in the navbar and clicking “Begin composing”.
You can fine-tune your template and styling later on– focus on the web content initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor offers a tidy and easy to use interface for writing.
When you begin writing, you can optimize headings, include web links, and design your content just how you such as.
beehiiv gives you lots of choices for various sorts of content like videos, links, photos, and much more.
The group at beehiiv is likewise frequently launching item feature and updates so I make certain there will be a lot much more content features relying on when you read this.
Maximizing your setups and templates
Once you have a newsletter that prepares to send, it’s time to create your email template and readjust some setups.
Right here, you can upgrade the name of your newsletter, offer it a description, include your logo design, activate 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 modify background shades, boundaries, spacing, fonts, picture styles, and much more. I’m not mosting likely to go through ever before single thing you can maximize with your email template due to the fact that it’s a great deal. Just check out the system free of cost and see it for yourself!
Necessary beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of fantastic features that make it a fantastic publishing platform for any newsletter maker.
Here are several of the necessary features you can locate with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter posting platform. It makes it super very easy to write and send e-mails. I discussed above a few of the important things you can do with your setups and email design so I’ll save you some extra reading.
Things to note with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has a truly modern and minimalistic feel. It’s certainly one of the far better e-mail editors I have actually ever before written in.
Web site hosting
When you create a beehiiv newsletter, all of your newsletters (if you desire) survive a website. Consider it as a website for your newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous problems of your newsletter, and a place where individuals can subscribe to your newsletter.
If you recognize with Substack, it’s virtually comparable to that.
All plans, consisting of the cost-free one, provide you a web site. Nonetheless, the free plan places your site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you want to add a custom-made domain name to eliminate all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting subscribers is essential. After all, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can register for your e-newsletter directly from your beehiiv website or via embed kinds.
If you already have a site, and desire individuals to subscribe to your e-newsletter from your existing website, you’ll have to make use of an embed type. This is what I utilize on this website (you can see the sign-up installed on the right-hand man column of this blog post if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have three various options– a full size, a taken care of size, and a slim embed. I personally utilize the slim installed.
You can discover the code snippet for these embeds in the “Subscribe Types” tab in your settings.
There’s also a choice for acknowledgment monitoring if you want to onward UTM specifications for tracking functions– rather cool.
Nonetheless, there are a couple of features I desire beehiiv had when it came to subscribe features. I make sure the group is dealing with updates for these, but I mentioned a few worries I had in the pros and cons section below.
Referral program
Among the amazing things concerning beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter platform, is a solution for creating a referral program.
You can motivate existing subscribers on your list to forward your e-mails to good friends and colleagues and if they obtain other individuals to register for your list, you can reward them. These rewards can be in whatever kind you desire. I’ve seem several e-newsletter companies provide rewards in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously transform your customers into a word of mouth development engine for your e-newsletter– offering you an additional method for growing your e-mail checklist.
Nonetheless, to obtain access to the referral program feature, you’ll have to update to an extra premium plan. I’ll discuss all the plans later in this short article.
Costs subscriptions
They claim all you need to make a living online is 1,000 real followers. Registration revenue is definitely a beast of its very own. If you’re looking for a system to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can produce “premium” concerns of your e-newsletter that are just sent out to paying customers. This can be extremely rewarding relying on what your newsletter needs to supply. As an example, Trends.co is a popular premium newsletter that generates millions in earnings a year simply by having pay-only e-newsletter web content.
Data analytics
One of the things I enjoy about beehiiv is exactly how clean and simple the analytics are. You obtain real-time day on just how your newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and subscriber count Beehiiv Creator Network.
You obtain access to all the metrics you need to obtain a bird-eye sight on just how your e-newsletter is in fact doing. Logging right into your control panel and seeing that client count increase is certainly a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv provides four different pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (complimentary) Launch plan provides you everything you require to get going and expand your e-newsletter (approximately 2,500 clients).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) provides you everything in the Launch plan with the addition the advertisement network, referral program, custom-made domain name, surveys, and access to costs registrations. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) gives you whatever in the Grow plan with addition of top priority assistance and eliminating the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are fairly charitable in my point of view.
For example, if you have 100,000 clients you will certainly pay around $329 each month. Instead of some rivals, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would bill $679 per month for the same amount– making beehiiv a fantastic Kit choice for many users.
I’m unsure just how the device business economics deal with this, however beehiiv is definitely less expensive (currently) than what it can be.
beehiiv advantages and disadvantages
Certainly, with every system, it has its pros and cons. Right here are several of the pros and cons I’ve personally experienced while utilizing beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Right here are a few of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter platform of selection:
Easy to establish and begin sending out newsletters absolutely free.
Tidy and contemporary customer analytics.
Lots of flexibility with e-mail styles.
Referral program feature.
Internet site hosting.
Produce costs options to generate income from.
Polls.
To be straightforward, I haven’t seen another newsletter platform that has actually had the ability to package all of these features with each other so well.
But certainly, I do not intend to be biased so I’m mosting likely to discuss some disadvantages.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Here are a few of the disadvantages I’ve located while utilizing beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around including custom-made font styles.
I use Webflow as my web site building platform of selection (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a very long time ago). I’m not going to go in excessive information why I enjoy Webflow a lot but you can read my Webflow testimonial if you wish to learn more.
Today, there truly is nothing else means I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow website other than utilizing an iframe embed. I directly don’t such as making use of iframe’s due to the fact that they often tend to decrease my website a bit. Each time a page on my site (with a beehiiv embed) loads, the sign-up embed is the last thing to load on the page. It’s very recognizable when you get on a sluggish internet link. But I can navigate that.
The primary complaint I have is that I can not utilize a normal Webflow type (which I like utilizing). There are methods around this by utilizing a device like Zapier but that would certainly just add added prices that I do not need. To be sincere, this is even more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv disadvantage yet I assumed I would mention it.
Besides that, I still think the pros much outweigh the cons here. I’m also confident that Webflow will at some point create a better means to incorporate with beehiiv.
Verdict
On the whole, beehiiv is an excellent solution for any person aiming to study the globe of email marketing and newsletters.
The functionality of this e-newsletter platform much exceeds lots of that are presently on the market. And with a generous free plan, you truly have nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are additionally rather inexpensive wherefore they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 customers on your checklist is unprecedented. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k subscribers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it might cost you well right into the thousands monthly.
Anyways, I do not create testimonial articles typically. I just do when I actually make use of the device myself and would advise it to a good friend.
I hope you discovered some clarity on whether beehiiv is an excellent platform for you.