Over 2 years back, I was reading one of my preferred email e-newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo for the very first time. I clicked it and quickly began tearing up Beehiiv Dedicated IP Addresses.
I wasn’t sure why I felt so emotional.
Being a full time maker is tough. I’m commonly getting pitched various tools and services that do not appear to be worth my time.
I think I was emotional because I invested the last six months checking out various email and newsletter platforms to aid construct my newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some fantastic alternatives for writing e-newsletters. But I couldn’t find one that made me provide a certain “yes”.
The issue with several existing e-newsletter systems is that they don’t really feel creator-centered. I want a newsletter system that lets me fully personalize my newsletter layouts, makes it super simple to write and send e-mails, and gives me tools that help me examine metrics and obtain even more customers.
I think I’ve lastly discovered the ideal tool.
However, I recognize beehiiv may not be for every person. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s really best for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one platform for newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly e-newsletter system that makes it very easy to design, compose, send out, promote, generate income from, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Produced by former workers at the famous newsletter company Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to aid developers launch and monetize their own e-newsletter– taking great deals of development principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M clients.
In this short article, I’m mosting likely to describe my personal experience with beehiiv, things I like (and hate) about it, all of it’s features, and why I determined to finally choose it as my e-newsletter system of selection.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A couple of months earlier, I unintentionally stumbled across beehiiv. The funny tale is that I’ve watched for a contemporary newsletter platform for quite a long time now. I have actually put things off hard when it concerned finally launching my newsletter.
Initially, I attempted Mailchimp. After that, a couple of various other indie platforms. Then, Substack. And lastly, I wound up using beehiiv.
I’m sure several newsletter creators respect popular newsletters with numerous clients– I know I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I respected a lot. They have wonderful web content, lots of clients, and a clever referral program that allows them to get even a lot more subscribers.
So, I took place a search to find out just how these huge e-newsletters established their logistics. What platform do they utilize? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they obtain more subscribers? How do they create a newsletter layout that stays on-brand?
When I uncovered beehiiv for the very first time, it appeared to address all of my concerns. I believed to myself, “damn individuals that built this device truly recognize newsletter production and growth.” I questioned who these creators of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were some of the first marketing and growth staff members at Morning Brew– my mind took off.
I recognized this was going to be a various newsletter system. One that’s concentrated on developer growth.
Due to the fact that, any type of creator understands, you require growth to be able to earn a living off of a newsletter. And finding the right newsletter pile (that scales) usually suggests utilizing numerous different devices to assist achieve one goal– one system for your newsletter, one system to generate income from, and one platform to set up recommendations. It can obtain costly.
So when I found out beehiiv did all of these points in one system, and it was cost-free to begin using, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean content developer that wants a system that enables them to send custom newsletters with or without needing to have an internet site.
The most effective e-newsletters have the right tools to build and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv focuses on offering you those tools.
If you’re an independent author, media company, startup, or material creator, you must seriously taking into consideration trying out beehiiv. It’s totally complimentary to begin and you just pay when you get to over 2,500 clients on your list.
If you actually end up having to pay for beehiiv it’s most likely a great indicator that individuals love reviewing your things.
beehiiv vs Substack
You may be asking, “isn’t there already a platform for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, indeed there is. Substack is a fantastic system used by countless independent writers. With Substack you get your own website and use the platform as your all-in-one solution for sending emails (while developing an archive of previous issues).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s devotion to development. beehiiv enables you do to all the things Substack can do, with the advantage of better analytics, even more layout flexibilty, and a referral program to encourage your existing customers to get words out.
beehiiv additionally provides you an internet site comparable to Substack. But, if you have your own site currently, you can additionally use beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I make use of) to send your internet site customers directly to your beehiiv email list. On the exact same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a device like Performance to permit individuals to subscribe to your newsletter straight from Twitter.
This gives you the adaptability to take advantage of various marketing networks to obtain your newsletter out into the world, making beehiiv a great Substack choice.
Just 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” switch on beehiiv’s site.
The free plan will permit you to have up to 2,500 customers, provide you access to site hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, advance customization, analytics, outside embed kinds, and a lot more. It’s a very generous offering for those just starting (or for those looking for a brand-new system to move to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Dedicated IP Addresses
After creating an account, you’ll experience 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 subscribers?”, and a lot more.
You’ll after that create a name and URL for your newsletter’s web site. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will live on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your site URL might be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding procedure, you’ll additionally choose your brand colors and design to make certain your e-newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your dashboard
As soon as you reach your major control panel, you’ll see every one of your analytics and settings.
You will certainly have outlined info on the amount of sign-ups you’re getting and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see options for “Begin writing,” “Blog posts,” “Target market,” “Expand,” “Generate income from,” “Layout,” and” Examine.” And at the extremely bottom you’ll see the settings choice.
Control panel is your main control center (screenshot over), Beginning creating is where you develop and release e-newsletters, Articles is where you can see all of your previous e-newsletter versions, Audience is where you can watch who your clients are (and break them down into sections), 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 newsletter with advertisements, Design is where you make your newsletter landing page and post template, Analyze is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can manage all of your admin things.
Writing your newsletter
beehiiv makes it easy to begin composing, with little to no friction. If you’re simply beginning, and have a concept you wish to write about, I advise just going to the “Compose” section in the navbar and clicking on “Begin composing”.
You can tweak your template and styling later on– focus on the material first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor offers a tidy and user-friendly interface for writing.
As soon as you start composing, you can maximize headings, include web links, and style your web content exactly how you such as.
beehiiv offers you lots of options for various types of material like video clips, web links, pictures, and much more.
The group at beehiiv is additionally continuously releasing item feature and updates so I’m sure there will be a whole lot extra content features relying on when you’re reading this.
Optimizing your settings and templates
As soon as you have a newsletter that’s ready to send out, it’s time to develop your email template and adjust 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 more.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can edit history colors, boundaries, spacing, typefaces, picture layouts, and much more. I’m not going to go through ever single thing you can optimize with your e-mail template since it’s a great deal. Just try the system free of cost and see it for yourself!
Necessary beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of impressive features that make it a fantastic publishing platform for any type of newsletter designer.
Right here are a few of the necessary features you can discover with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter publishing system. It makes it extremely easy to create and send out e-mails. I discussed over some of the important things you can do with your setups and email layout so I’ll save you some extra reading.
The thing to note with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has a truly modern and minimalistic feeling. It’s definitely one of the far better e-mail editors I’ve ever written in.
Site hosting
When you produce a beehiiv e-newsletter, all of your e-newsletters (if you desire) survive on a website. Think of it as a website for your e-newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous issues of your e-newsletter, and an area where people can sign up for your newsletter.
If you recognize with Substack, it’s basically comparable to that.
All plans, consisting of the cost-free one, provide you an internet site. However, the free plan locations your internet site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you want to add a personalized domain name to eliminate 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 an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can subscribe to your e-newsletter straight from your beehiiv website or with embed forms.
If you already have a site, and want people to subscribe to your e-newsletter from your existing site, you’ll have 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 article if you scroll up).
With embed types, you have 3 various options– a complete size, a taken care of size, and a slim installed. I directly utilize the slim embed.
You can locate the code snippet for these embeds in the “Subscribe Types” tab in your setups.
There’s additionally an alternative for attribution tracking if you wish to forward UTM parameters for tracking functions– pretty neat.
However, there are a couple of features I wish beehiiv had when it came to subscribe features. I make certain the team is dealing with updates for these, however I pointed out a few concerns I had in the benefits and drawbacks section listed below.
Referral program
Among the amazing things concerning beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter platform, is a service for producing a referral program.
You can urge existing clients on your list to forward your emails to buddies and colleagues and if they obtain other individuals to subscribe to your checklist, you can reward them. These rewards can be in whatever form you want. I’ve seem lots of e-newsletter companies give incentives in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously transform your subscribers right into a word of mouth development engine for your e-newsletter– providing you another avenue for expanding your e-mail checklist.
However, to get accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll have to update to a much more exceptional plan. I’ll review all the plans later in this short article.
Costs registrations
They claim all you need to earn a living online is 1,000 real followers. Registration income is absolutely a monster of its very own. If you’re trying to find a system to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can develop “premium” problems of your e-newsletter that are just sent to paying clients. This can be really rewarding relying on what your newsletter has to provide. As an example, Trends.co is a preferred costs e-newsletter that creates millions in profits a year merely by having pay-only e-newsletter material.
Information analytics
One of the important things I love about beehiiv is how tidy and easy the analytics are. You get real-time day on how your newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and customer matter Beehiiv Dedicated IP Addresses.
You get access to all the metrics you require to obtain a bird-eye view on exactly how your e-newsletter is actually doing. Logging right into your dashboard and seeing that subscriber count rise is definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv uses 4 different pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (cost-free) Launch plan offers you everything you need to start and expand your e-newsletter (approximately 2,500 subscribers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) provides you whatever in the Launch plan with the enhancement the ad network, referral program, custom domain, polls, and accessibility to premium subscriptions. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) gives you everything in the Grow plan with enhancement of concern assistance and removing the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are rather generous in my viewpoint.
For example, if you have 100,000 subscribers you will pay around $329 each month. Rather than some competitors, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would certainly bill $679 each month for the exact same quantity– making beehiiv a wonderful Kit choice for several users.
I’m unsure exactly how the device economics deal with this, however beehiiv is definitely less expensive (right now) than what it can be.
beehiiv benefits and drawbacks
Naturally, with every platform, it has its benefits and drawbacks. Here are some of the benefits and drawbacks I’ve directly 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 set up and start sending newsletters absolutely free.
Tidy and contemporary subscriber analytics.
Great deals of versatility with email styles.
Referral program feature.
Website hosting.
Develop costs choices to generate income from.
Polls.
To be straightforward, I have not seen one more newsletter system that has been able to package every one of these features with each other so well.
But of course, I do not intend to be prejudiced so I’m mosting likely to discuss some disadvantages.
Cons of using beehiiv
Right here are some of the cons I have actually found while making use of beehiiv:.
Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around adding custom-made fonts.
I use Webflow as my site building platform of option (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a very long time ago). I’m not mosting likely to go in way too much detail why I enjoy Webflow so much yet you can read my Webflow review if you wish to discover more.
Today, there actually is no other way I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow web site other than using an iframe embed. I personally don’t such as using iframe’s since they have a tendency to decrease my web site a bit. Each time a web page on my site (with a beehiiv installed) tons, the sign-up embed is the last thing to pack on the page. It’s very obvious when you’re on a sluggish internet link. But I can get around that.
The main gripe I have is that I can not utilize a regular Webflow kind (which I enjoy using). There are ways around this by utilizing a device like Zapier but that would certainly simply include added expenses that I don’t require. To be sincere, this is more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv disadvantage but I believed I would certainly state it.
Besides that, I still think the pros much outweigh the disadvantages below. I’m likewise confident that Webflow will at some point develop a better means to integrate with beehiiv.
Conclusion
Generally, beehiiv is a terrific solution for anyone looking to study the world of email marketing and e-newsletters.
The capability of this e-newsletter platform far exceeds lots of that are currently on the marketplace. And with a charitable free plan, you actually have absolutely nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are additionally rather low-cost wherefore they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 subscribers 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 each month.
Anyways, I don’t compose testimonial messages usually. I only do when I really utilize the tool myself and would advise it to a good friend.
I wish you discovered some clearness on whether beehiiv is a great system for you.