Over two years earlier, I read among my preferred 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 on it and quickly began wrecking Beehiiv Documentation.
I wasn’t certain why I really felt so emotional.
Being a full-time designer is tough. I’m typically obtaining pitched various devices and solutions that don’t seem to be worth my time.
I think I was psychological because I invested the last six months checking out various e-mail and e-newsletter platforms to aid build my newsletter. And to be fair, there are some terrific alternatives for composing newsletters. However I could not find one that made me give a precise “yes”.
The issue with lots of existing e-newsletter systems is that they do not feel creator-centered. I want a newsletter platform that lets me fully personalize my e-newsletter layouts, makes it super very easy to create and send out emails, and gives me devices that help me assess metrics and obtain even more customers.
I assume I have actually lastly found the best device.
However, I understand beehiiv may not be for everyone. 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 e-newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter platform that makes it simple to layout, compose, send out, advertise, generate income from, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Created by previous workers at the famous e-newsletter company Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to assist developers launch and monetize their very own e-newsletter– taking great deals of development concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M customers.
In this article, I’m going to clarify my individual experience with beehiiv, the things I like (and hate) concerning it, all of it’s features, and why I made a decision to finally opt for it as my e-newsletter system of selection.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A few months ago, I mistakenly stumbled across beehiiv. The funny tale is that I’ve watched for a contemporary e-newsletter system for fairly a long time now. I have actually hesitated hard when it concerned finally releasing my newsletter.
Initially, I tried Mailchimp. After that, a couple of various other indie platforms. After that, Substack. And ultimately, I ended up utilizing beehiiv.
I make certain several newsletter creators appreciate preferred e-newsletters with millions of clients– I understand I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I admired a lot. They have wonderful web content, lots of subscribers, and a brilliant referral program that permits them to get back at much more subscribers.
So, I took place a hunt to find out just how these huge e-newsletters set up their logistics. What platform do they use? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they obtain more customers? How do they produce a newsletter layout that stays on-brand?
When I found beehiiv for the very first time, it seemed to address all of my questions. I believed to myself, “damn the people that built this device really recognize e-newsletter production and development.” I questioned who these creators of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were several of the initial marketing and growth employees at Morning Brew– my mind blew up.
I knew this was going to be a various newsletter system. One that’s focused on developer growth.
Since, any maker understands, you need growth to be able to make a living off of a newsletter. And finding the ideal e-newsletter pile (that scales) often implies making use of several different devices to help achieve one objective– one platform for your newsletter, one platform to generate income from, and one platform to set up referrals. It can obtain pricey.
So when I found out beehiiv did every one of these things in one system, and it was totally free to begin using, it was a piece of cake to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean material maker that wants a system that enables them to send personalized newsletters with or without requiring to have a website.
One of the most effective e-newsletters have the right tools to build and scale their newsletters. beehiiv aims at giving you those devices.
If you’re an independent writer, media firm, startup, or web content creator, you need to seriously taking into consideration checking out beehiiv. It’s totally cost-free to get going and you just pay when you reach over 2,500 clients on your checklist.
If you actually wind up needing to spend for beehiiv it’s probably a great indicator that individuals like reading your things.
beehiiv vs Substack
You could be asking, “isn’t there already a system for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, indeed there is. Substack is an excellent platform made use of by countless independent writers. With Substack you get your very own web site and use the platform as your all-in-one option for sending out e-mails (while creating an archive of previous problems).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s commitment to development. beehiiv allows you do to all things Substack can do, with the benefit of better analytics, more design flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing subscribers to obtain the word out.
beehiiv additionally provides you a website similar to Substack. However, if you have your very own internet site already, you can likewise use beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I make use of) to send your web site subscribers right to your beehiiv e-mail checklist. On the very same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a tool like Revue to permit individuals to sign up for your e-newsletter straight from Twitter.
This provides you the flexibility to leverage various marketing networks to obtain your newsletter out into the globe, making beehiiv a wonderful Substack alternative.
How to start using beehiiv e-mail marketing software application.
Register for a free plan
The first step is to enroll in a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Start trial” button on beehiiv’s internet site.
The free plan will enable you to have up to 2,500 clients, offer you access to website hosting, a newsletter CMS, advance customization, analytics, external embed types, and extra. It’s a very charitable offering for those just beginning (or for those seeking a new system to move to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Documentation
After developing an account, you’ll undergo an onboarding procedure that will ask things like, “is this your initial newsletter?”, “what other systems have you made use of?”, “do you have any paying customers?”, and a lot more.
You’ll then create a name and link for your e-newsletter’s web site. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will certainly survive on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your web site URL may be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding process, you’ll also pick your brand name 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 every one of your analytics and setups.
You will have outlined details on the number of sign-ups you’re getting and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see choices for “Begin writing,” “Messages,” “Target market,” “Expand,” “Monetize,” “Design,” and” Analyze.” And at the very bottom you’ll see the setups option.
Control panel is your primary nerve center (screenshot above), Start creating is where you develop and release e-newsletters, Posts is where you can see every one of your previous newsletter editions, Target market is where you can view who your customers are (and damage them down right into sections), Expand is where you have accessibility 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 advertisements, Layout is where you design your e-newsletter landing page and post template, Evaluate is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can take care of every one of your admin stuff.
Creating your newsletter
beehiiv makes it easy to begin writing, with little to no friction. If you’re simply beginning, and have a concept you want to cover, I advise just going to the “Compose” section in the navbar and clicking “Beginning composing”.
You can tweak your template and styling later on– concentrate on the material first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor provides a clean and straightforward interface for writing.
As soon as you begin writing, you can maximize headings, add links, and design your content how you such as.
beehiiv gives you tons of options for different sorts of material like video clips, web links, photos, and more.
The team at beehiiv is additionally continuously releasing product feature and updates so I’m sure there will be a lot a lot more content features relying on when you read this.
Maximizing your setups and templates
When you have a newsletter that’s ready to send out, it’s time to develop your e-mail template and readjust some settings.
Below, you can upgrade the name of your e-newsletter, provide it a description, add your logo design, switch on or off a welcome e-mail to very first time customers, and more.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can modify history shades, borders, spacing, font styles, picture layouts, and a lot more. I’m not going to undergo ever before single point you can optimize with your e-mail template since it’s a lot. Simply try the platform for free and see it for yourself!
Vital beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of incredible features that make it a wonderful posting platform for any type of e-newsletter developer.
Below are some of the necessary features you can find with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter publishing system. It makes it incredibly easy to write and send out e-mails. I mentioned over some of the things you can do with your setups and e-mail layout so I’ll save you some added analysis.
The important things to note with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has a really contemporary and minimalistic feel. It’s most definitely one of the better e-mail editors I have actually ever before written in.
Web site hosting
When you create a beehiiv e-newsletter, all of your newsletters (if you want) survive on a web site. Consider it as an internet site for your newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous issues of your e-newsletter, and an area where people can subscribe to your e-newsletter.
If you recognize with Substack, it’s virtually similar to that.
All plans, consisting of the complimentary one, give you a site. Nonetheless, the free plan locations your internet site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you wish to include a custom-made domain 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 a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can subscribe to your e-newsletter right from your beehiiv internet site or through embed types.
If you already have a site, and want individuals to register for your newsletter from your existing site, you’ll have to use an embed type. This is what I use on this web site (you can see the sign-up embed on the right hand column of this blog post if you scroll up).
With embed kinds, you have three different options– a complete size, a fixed width, and a slim embed. I personally utilize the slim embed.
You can find the code bit for these embeds in the “Subscribe Forms” tab in your settings.
There’s likewise a choice for attribution tracking if you intend to ahead UTM parameters for tracking functions– pretty neat.
Nevertheless, there are a few features I want beehiiv had when it pertained to subscribe features. I make sure the team is dealing with updates for these, however I discussed a few 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 newsletter platform, is a service for developing a referral program.
You can urge existing clients on your list to ahead your e-mails to close friends and coworkers and if they obtain other people to subscribe to your list, you can reward them. These incentives can be in whatever kind you desire. I have actually appear several newsletter business offer incentives in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously turn your subscribers into a word of mouth growth engine for your e-newsletter– giving you an additional method for expanding your email list.
Nevertheless, to get accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll need to update to an extra premium plan. I’ll look at all the plans later in this short article.
Costs memberships
They state all you need to make a living online is 1,000 real fans. Registration earnings is absolutely a monster of its very own. If you’re searching for a platform to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can develop “costs” problems of your newsletter that are just sent to paying subscribers. This can be extremely rewarding relying on what your e-newsletter has to use. For example, Trends.co is a preferred costs e-newsletter that produces millions in profits a year simply by having pay-only e-newsletter material.
Data analytics
One of the things I love about beehiiv is just how tidy and easy the analytics are. You get real-time date on how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and client matter Beehiiv Documentation.
You get access to all the metrics you require to obtain a bird-eye sight on exactly how your newsletter is in fact doing. Logging into your control panel and seeing that client count rise is most definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv supplies four various pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (free) Launch plan provides you whatever you need to get started and expand your e-newsletter (up to 2,500 subscribers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) gives you every little thing in the Launch plan with the enhancement the ad network, referral program, custom-made domain name, surveys, and accessibility to costs subscriptions. This is the plan I am on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) provides you whatever in the Grow plan with addition of priority assistance and getting rid of the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are quite charitable in my viewpoint.
For example, if you have 100,000 subscribers you will certainly pay around $329 monthly. In contrast to some rivals, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would bill $679 each month for the very same amount– making beehiiv an excellent Kit alternative for lots of individuals.
I’m uncertain just how the unit economics work with this, yet beehiiv is absolutely cheaper (at the moment) than what it can be.
beehiiv advantages and disadvantages
Certainly, with every platform, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Right here are a few of the benefits and drawbacks I’ve directly experienced while utilizing beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Below are a few of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter system of option:
Easy to establish and begin sending e-newsletters absolutely free.
Tidy and contemporary customer analytics.
Lots of flexibility with e-mail styles.
Referral program feature.
Site hosting.
Create premium options to generate income from.
Polls.
To be sincere, I haven’t seen an additional newsletter platform that has been able to package every one of these features with each other so well.
However naturally, I do not want to be prejudiced so I’m going to mention some cons.
Cons of using beehiiv
Below are a few of the disadvantages I have actually found while utilizing beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around adding custom-made fonts.
I use Webflow as my website building system of selection (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a very long time ago). I’m not mosting likely to enter too much detail why I love Webflow so much however you can review my Webflow evaluation if you wish to discover more.
Right now, there really is no other means I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow internet site apart from making use of an iframe embed. I directly do not such as using iframe’s due to the fact that they often tend to reduce my site a little bit. Each time a web page on my site (with a beehiiv installed) loads, the sign-up installed is the last thing to pack on the web page. It’s extremely recognizable when you get on a slow-moving net link. But I can navigate that.
The major gripe I have is that I can’t make use of a regular Webflow form (which I love using). There are ways around this by using a device like Zapier but that would simply add added expenses that I do not require. To be truthful, this is even more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv disadvantage however I thought I would certainly discuss it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros far exceed the cons below. I’m likewise enthusiastic that Webflow will ultimately develop a much better method to incorporate with beehiiv.
Verdict
In general, beehiiv is a terrific service for any person looking to dive into the world of email marketing and e-newsletters.
The functionality of this newsletter system much outweighs several that are currently on the market. And with a charitable free plan, you really have absolutely nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are additionally rather cheap wherefore they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 customers on your checklist is unprecedented. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k subscribers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it could cost you well right into the thousands monthly.
Anyways, I don’t write evaluation blog posts usually. I only do when I actually make use of the tool myself and would certainly advise it to a buddy.
I hope you discovered some clearness on whether beehiiv is an excellent system for you.