Over two years ago, I was reading among my favorite e-mail e-newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo design for the first time. I clicked it and instantly began tearing up Beehiiv Custom Fields.
I had not been sure why I felt so psychological.
Being a full-time creator is tough. I’m usually obtaining pitched various devices and services that do not appear to be worth my time.
I presume I was emotional because I invested the last six months experimenting with different email and newsletter platforms to assist build my e-newsletter. And to be fair, there are some fantastic options for creating e-newsletters. However I couldn’t find one that made me offer a precise “yes”.
The problem with many existing e-newsletter systems is that they don’t really feel creator-centered. I desire an e-newsletter system that lets me fully tailor my e-newsletter styles, makes it incredibly very easy to write and send out emails, and provides me devices that help me evaluate metrics and obtain even more subscribers.
I believe I’ve lastly found the ideal tool.
However, I know beehiiv might not be for everybody. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s actually right for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one platform for e-newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly e-newsletter system that makes it very easy to layout, write, send, advertise, monetize, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Created by previous staff members at the famous newsletter company Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to help creators launch and monetize their very own e-newsletter– taking lots of growth concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M subscribers.
In this write-up, I’m mosting likely to discuss my individual experience with beehiiv, the things I enjoy (and hate) concerning it, all of it’s features, and why I determined to lastly select it as my newsletter platform of option.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A few months back, I unintentionally stumbled across beehiiv. The funny tale is that I have actually watched for a modern e-newsletter platform for rather some time now. I have actually hesitated hard when it pertained to ultimately introducing my e-newsletter.
First, I tried Mailchimp. After that, a few various other indie systems. After that, Substack. And lastly, I wound up making use of beehiiv.
I make sure lots of newsletter creators appreciate prominent newsletters with countless clients– I understand I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I appreciated a lot. They have fantastic material, tons of clients, and a brilliant referral program that allows them to get even more subscribers.
So, I took place a hunt to determine how these large e-newsletters established their logistics. What platform do they utilize? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they get even more subscribers? How do they develop an e-newsletter style that stays on-brand?
When I discovered beehiiv for the first time, it appeared to respond to every one of my questions. I thought to myself, “damn the people that built this tool truly comprehend e-newsletter development and development.” I examined who these designers of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were several of the first marketing and growth staff members at Morning Brew– my mind exploded.
I knew this was mosting likely to be a different newsletter system. One that’s focused on maker growth.
Since, any type of designer knows, you need growth to be able to make a living off of an e-newsletter. And locating the appropriate e-newsletter pile (that ranges) commonly suggests making use of multiple different devices to aid accomplish one objective– one platform for your newsletter, one system to monetize, and one system to set up references. It can get costly.
So when I figured out beehiiv did every one of these things in one system, and it was free to begin using, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean web content maker that wants a system that enables them to send personalized newsletters with or without needing to have a web site.
The most successful e-newsletters have the right devices to build and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv aims at giving you those devices.
If you’re an independent writer, media company, start-up, or material creator, you ought to seriously taking into consideration experimenting with beehiiv. It’s completely free to get going and you only pay when you get to over 2,500 customers on your checklist.
If you in fact wind up having to pay for beehiiv it’s possibly a good indicator that people enjoy reviewing your things.
beehiiv vs Substack
You could be asking, “isn’t there already a platform for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, indeed there is. Substack is a wonderful system used by hundreds of independent authors. With Substack you get your own web site and use the platform as your all-in-one solution for sending emails (while creating an archive of previous problems).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s devotion to growth. beehiiv allows you do to all the things Substack can do, with the benefit of far better analytics, more style flexibilty, and a referral program to encourage your existing subscribers to get the word out.
beehiiv additionally provides you a site similar to Substack. However, if you have your own site currently, you can likewise use beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I utilize) to send your website clients directly to your beehiiv email listing. On the exact same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a device like Performance to permit individuals to register for your newsletter straight from Twitter.
This gives you the adaptability to take advantage of various marketing channels to obtain your newsletter out right into the globe, making beehiiv a fantastic Substack alternative.
How to start making use of beehiiv e-mail marketing software program.
Register for a free plan
The initial step is to enroll in a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Start trial” button on beehiiv’s site.
The free plan will enable you to have up to 2,500 clients, give you accessibility to website hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, breakthrough personalization, analytics, exterior embed types, and a lot more. It’s a really generous offering for those just starting out (or for those trying to find a new system to move to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Custom Fields
After developing an account, you’ll experience an onboarding procedure that will ask things like, “is this your initial e-newsletter?”, “what various other systems have you made use of?”, “do you have any type of paying clients?”, and more.
You’ll then create a name and link for your newsletter’s internet site. On the free plan, your newsletter will reside on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your web site link may be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding process, you’ll additionally pick your brand name colors and design to make sure your newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your control panel
When you reach your main dashboard, you’ll see every one of your analytics and setups.
You will have described details on how many sign-ups you’re obtaining and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see alternatives for “Begin composing,” “Posts,” “Audience,” “Grow,” “Monetize,” “Style,” and” Examine.” And at the extremely lower you’ll see the setups alternative.
Control panel is your main nerve center (screenshot above), Start writing is where you develop and release e-newsletters, Blog posts is where you can see every one of your previous e-newsletter editions, Target market is where you can see who your subscribers are (and damage them down right into sectors), Expand is where you have access to a referral program (and growth tutorials) and boosts to run ads, Monetize is where you can access the beehiiv ad network and monetize your newsletter with ads, Layout is where you create your newsletter landing page and blog post template, Assess is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can manage all of your admin things.
Writing your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it very easy to begin composing, with little to no friction. If you’re just starting, and have a concept you wish to discuss, I advise simply going to the “Compose” section in the navbar and clicking on “Begin writing”.
You can modify your template and styling later on– focus on the web content initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor supplies a tidy and easy to use interface for creating.
When you begin writing, you can maximize headings, add links, and design your material exactly how you such as.
beehiiv provides you lots of options for various types of content like video clips, web links, pictures, and more.
The team at beehiiv is likewise frequently launching item feature and updates so I make certain there will certainly be a lot a lot more material features depending upon when you read this.
Maximizing your setups and templates
As soon as you have an e-newsletter that prepares to send out, it’s time to make your email template and adjust some settings.
Here, you can update the name of your newsletter, provide it a summary, add your logo design, switch on or off a welcome e-mail to first time customers, and a lot more.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can modify history shades, boundaries, spacing, typefaces, image formats, and more. I’m not mosting likely to undergo ever single thing you can optimize with your e-mail template due to the fact that it’s a whole lot. Simply check out the system for free and see it for yourself!
Important beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of impressive features that make it a fantastic posting platform for any e-newsletter designer.
Below are some of the crucial features you can find with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter publishing platform. It makes it super simple to create and send emails. I discussed over some of the important things you can do with your setups and e-mail layout so I’ll save you some added analysis.
Things to note with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has a really modern-day and minimalistic feel. It’s most definitely one of the better e-mail editors I have actually ever written in.
Website hosting
When you create a beehiiv newsletter, all of your newsletters (if you desire) survive a website. Consider it as an internet site for your e-newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous concerns of your e-newsletter, and a place where people can sign up for your newsletter.
If you’re familiar with Substack, it’s pretty much similar to that.
All plans, including the totally free one, give you an internet site. However, the free plan locations your website on a beehiiv subdomain so if you intend to add a customized domain to get rid of all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining subscribers is necessary. After all, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can register for your e-newsletter right from your beehiiv website or through embed kinds.
If you currently have an internet site, and desire individuals to sign up for your e-newsletter from your existing site, you’ll have to make use of an embed kind. This is what I utilize on this site (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 3 various choices– a full size, a dealt with size, and a slim installed. I directly utilize the slim installed.
You can locate the code bit for these embeds in the “Subscribe Forms” tab in your settings.
There’s likewise an alternative for acknowledgment monitoring if you intend to ahead UTM criteria for tracking objectives– rather cool.
Nonetheless, there are a few features I want beehiiv had when it concerned subscribe features. I make sure the group is working on updates for these, however I discussed a couple of concerns I had in the benefits and drawbacks area 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 subscribers on your list to forward your emails to close friends and colleagues and if they obtain other people to subscribe to your list, you can award them. These incentives can be in whatever type you want. I’ve appear several e-newsletter business offer incentives in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously turn your customers into a word of mouth growth engine for your e-newsletter– giving you another method for growing your email checklist.
However, to get access to the referral program feature, you’ll have to upgrade to an extra premium plan. I’ll go over all the plans later on in this post.
Premium registrations
They say all you require to earn a living online is 1,000 real fans. Membership profits is absolutely a monster of its own. If you’re looking for a system to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can produce “costs” issues of your e-newsletter that are just sent to paying customers. This can be very financially rewarding relying on what your newsletter has to offer. As an example, Trends.co is a popular costs newsletter that produces millions in income a year simply by having pay-only newsletter material.
Data analytics
Among the things I like about beehiiv is how tidy and basic the analytics are. You obtain real-time day on just how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and subscriber matter Beehiiv Custom Fields.
You obtain accessibility to all the metrics you need to get a bird-eye sight on exactly how your e-newsletter is really doing. Logging into your control panel and seeing that subscriber matter rise is definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv offers 4 different pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (complimentary) Launch plan gives you whatever you need to get going and grow your e-newsletter (approximately 2,500 clients).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) offers you every little thing in the Launch plan with the enhancement the advertisement network, referral program, custom-made domain name, surveys, and access to costs subscriptions. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) gives you whatever in the Grow plan with addition of concern assistance and getting rid of the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are rather generous in my point of view.
As an example, if you have 100,000 clients you will certainly pay around $329 each month. Instead of some competitors, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would certainly bill $679 per month for the exact same amount– making beehiiv a wonderful Kit choice for many customers.
I’m uncertain exactly how the system business economics service this, but beehiiv is most definitely less costly (at the moment) than what it can be.
beehiiv benefits and drawbacks
Naturally, with every system, it has its benefits and drawbacks. Below are some of the benefits and drawbacks I have actually directly experienced while making use of beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Right here are a few of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter platform of selection:
Easy to establish and start sending out newsletters for free.
Clean and modern client analytics.
Lots of flexibility with email layouts.
Referral program feature.
Web site hosting.
Create costs choices to monetize.
Polls.
To be sincere, I haven’t seen an additional e-newsletter platform that has been able to package every one of these features with each other so well.
However obviously, I do not intend to be biased so I’m going to point out some disadvantages.
Cons of using beehiiv
Right here are several of the disadvantages I’ve located while utilizing beehiiv:.
Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around adding personalized font styles.
I use Webflow as my web site structure platform of choice (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a long period of time ago). I’m not mosting likely to go in excessive information why I love Webflow a lot but you can review my Webflow testimonial if you wish to discover more.
Today, there actually is no other means I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow web site aside from using an iframe embed. I personally don’t like utilizing iframe’s because they often tend to slow down my internet site a bit. Whenever a web page on my site (with a beehiiv installed) tons, the sign-up installed is the last point to load on the page. It’s extremely noticeable when you get on a slow-moving internet connection. Yet I can get around that.
The major gripe I have is that I can not make use of a regular Webflow type (which I like making use of). There are means around this by using a device like Zapier but that would just include additional prices that I don’t require. To be truthful, this is more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv con yet I believed I would discuss it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros much exceed the disadvantages right here. I’m additionally enthusiastic that Webflow will eventually develop a far better means to integrate with beehiiv.
Conclusion
Generally, beehiiv is a fantastic remedy for any person seeking to dive into the globe of email marketing and newsletters.
The capability of this e-newsletter system far outweighs lots of that are currently on the marketplace. And with a generous free plan, you really have absolutely nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are also fairly inexpensive for what they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 customers on your list is unheard of. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k subscribers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it could cost you well into the thousands each month.
Anyways, I don’t create evaluation messages typically. I just do when I in fact make use of the device myself and would recommend it to a good friend.
I wish you located some clarity on whether beehiiv is an excellent system for you.