Over 2 years back, I read among my favored e-mail newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the e-mail and saw the beehiiv logo for the very first time. I clicked on it and quickly began destroying Beehiiv Dr. Jen Ashton.
I had not been sure why I really felt so psychological.
Being a full-time maker is difficult. I’m frequently getting pitched various devices and solutions that don’t seem to be worth my time.
I think I was emotional because I spent the last six months checking out different e-mail and newsletter platforms to help build my newsletter. And to be fair, there are some great choices for composing e-newsletters. Yet I could not discover one that made me give a certain “yes”.
The issue with many existing newsletter systems is that they do not feel creator-centered. I want a newsletter system that lets me totally personalize my newsletter styles, makes it incredibly simple to write and send emails, and offers me devices that help me evaluate metrics and obtain even more customers.
I think I have actually finally located the ideal tool.
But, I know beehiiv may not be for every person. 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 newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly e-newsletter platform that makes it very easy to design, create, send, promote, monetize, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Created by previous workers at the well-known e-newsletter firm Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to assist makers launch and monetize their very own newsletter– taking lots of development concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M subscribers.
In this post, I’m going to explain my personal experience with beehiiv, the things I enjoy (and hate) about it, all of it’s features, and why I made a decision to lastly go with it as my e-newsletter system of option.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A few months back, I unintentionally came across beehiiv. The amusing story is that I’ve watched for a modern newsletter system for fairly some time now. I have actually put things off hard when it involved ultimately releasing my e-newsletter.
First, I tried Mailchimp. After that, a couple of various other indie systems. After that, Substack. And finally, I wound up utilizing beehiiv.
I’m sure numerous newsletter makers look up to popular e-newsletters with millions of clients– I know I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I looked up to a great deal. They have excellent web content, tons of customers, and a smart referral program that allows them to get even extra customers.
So, I took place a search to find out how these large e-newsletters set up their logistics. What platform do they make use of? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they obtain more subscribers? How do they develop an e-newsletter style that stays on-brand?
When I uncovered beehiiv for the first time, it seemed to answer all of my questions. I believed to myself, “damn individuals that constructed this tool truly comprehend e-newsletter production and development.” I questioned who these designers of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were some of the very first marketing and development employees at Morning Brew– my mind blew up.
I knew this was mosting likely to be a different e-newsletter system. One that’s focused on creator development.
Due to the fact that, any kind of creator understands, you require development to be able to earn a living off of a newsletter. And finding the appropriate newsletter pile (that scales) often implies making use of multiple different devices to aid attain one goal– one platform for your newsletter, one platform to generate income from, and one platform to establish referrals. It can obtain pricey.
So when I figured out beehiiv did all of these things in one platform, and it was complimentary to start utilizing, 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 system that permits them to send personalized e-newsletters with or without requiring to have an internet site.
The most effective newsletters have the right tools to build and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv aims at offering you those tools.
If you’re an independent author, media firm, startup, or content maker, you must seriously considering experimenting with beehiiv. It’s entirely cost-free to begin and you only pay when you get to over 2,500 customers on your list.
If you actually wind up having to pay for beehiiv it’s probably a great indication that individuals like reviewing your stuff.
beehiiv vs Substack
You may be asking, “isn’t there currently a platform for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, of course there is. Substack is an excellent platform made use of by countless independent writers. With Substack you obtain your own internet site and use the platform as your all-in-one option for sending out emails (while creating an archive of previous concerns).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s commitment to growth. beehiiv permits you do to all things Substack can do, with the advantage of far better analytics, more layout flexibilty, and a referral program to encourage your existing customers to obtain the word out.
beehiiv also gives you a web site similar to Substack. But, if you have your own internet site already, you can additionally use beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I utilize) to send your website clients directly to your beehiiv e-mail checklist. On the very same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a tool like Revue to allow people to sign up for your newsletter straight from Twitter.
This provides you the adaptability to utilize various marketing networks to get your e-newsletter out right into the globe, making beehiiv an excellent Substack option.
How to begin using beehiiv email marketing software.
Sign up for a free plan
The very first step is to enroll in a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Beginning trial” switch on beehiiv’s internet site.
The free plan will certainly permit you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, provide you accessibility to website hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, breakthrough modification, analytics, external embed forms, and extra. It’s a very generous offering for those simply starting out (or for those searching for a brand-new system to migrate to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Dr. Jen Ashton
After producing an account, you’ll undergo an onboarding process that will ask points like, “is this your initial e-newsletter?”, “what various other platforms have you utilized?”, “do you have any paying clients?”, and much more.
You’ll then produce a name and link for your e-newsletter’s web site. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will survive a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your website link could be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding procedure, you’ll also choose your brand name design and colors to make certain your newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your control panel
When you reach your major dashboard, you’ll see every one of your analytics and setups.
You will have outlined info on the amount of sign-ups you’re getting and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see alternatives for “Start composing,” “Blog posts,” “Target market,” “Grow,” “Generate income from,” “Style,” and” Assess.” And at the very lower you’ll see the settings option.
Dashboard is your main nerve center (screenshot over), Begin creating is where you create and publish newsletters, Articles is where you can see all of your previous newsletter versions, Audience is where you can watch who your customers are (and break them down right into sectors), Grow is where you have accessibility to a referral program (and growth tutorials) and boosts to run advertisements, Monetize is where you can access the beehiiv ad network and monetize your e-newsletter with ads, Style is where you design your e-newsletter landing page and blog post template, Evaluate is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can handle every one of your admin things.
Creating your newsletter
beehiiv makes it very easy to begin composing, with little to no rubbing. If you’re simply starting, and have a concept you intend to cover, I advise simply mosting likely to the “Compose” section in the navbar and clicking on “Begin creating”.
You can tweak your template and styling later– focus on the web content initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor provides a tidy and easy to use user interface for creating.
Once you begin writing, you can enhance headings, include web links, and design your material just how you like.
beehiiv gives you lots of options for various kinds of content like videos, links, pictures, and a lot more.
The group at beehiiv is likewise constantly releasing product feature and updates so I make sure there will be a whole lot a lot more content features depending upon when you read this.
Maximizing your setups and templates
Once you have an e-newsletter that’s ready to send out, it’s time to create your e-mail template and readjust some setups.
Right here, you can upgrade the name of your e-newsletter, provide it a summary, include your logo, switch on or off a welcome e-mail to first time subscribers, and a lot more.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can modify background colors, borders, spacing, font styles, image styles, and a lot more. I’m not mosting likely to experience ever before single thing you can maximize with your email template due to the fact that it’s a lot. Simply try the system free of cost and see it on your own!
Essential beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of fantastic features that make it a great publishing platform for any type of e-newsletter maker.
Here are several of the important features you can locate with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter publishing system. It makes it super very easy to create and send emails. I pointed out above some of the important things you can do with your setups and email layout so I’ll spare you some extra reading.
The thing to keep in mind with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has a really modern-day and minimalistic feel. It’s most definitely one of the much better email editors I have actually ever written in.
Web site hosting
When you create a beehiiv e-newsletter, every one of your newsletters (if you desire) live on a website. Think about it as a site for your e-newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous concerns of your newsletter, and a place where people can register for your e-newsletter.
If you’re familiar with Substack, it’s pretty much similar to that.
All plans, consisting of the cost-free one, give you an internet site. Nonetheless, the free plan places your website on a beehiiv subdomain so if you intend to include a custom-made domain to eliminate all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting clients is essential. After all, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can register for your newsletter directly from your beehiiv internet site or through embed forms.
If you currently have a website, and want individuals to sign up for your e-newsletter from your existing website, you’ll have to use an embed kind. This is what I make use of on this website (you can see the sign-up embed on the right hand column of this post if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have 3 different choices– a full size, a dealt with width, and a slim installed. I personally utilize the slim embed.
You can find the code snippet for these embeds in the “Subscribe Kinds” tab in your setups.
There’s likewise an option for attribution monitoring if you wish to onward UTM specifications for tracking functions– rather neat.
Nonetheless, there are a few features I desire beehiiv had when it involved subscribe features. I’m sure the team is working on updates for these, but I discussed a few issues I had in the pros and cons section listed below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things concerning beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter platform, is a service for creating a referral program.
You can urge existing clients on your listing to ahead your e-mails to buddies and associates and if they obtain other people to sign up for your list, you can compensate them. These benefits can be in whatever form you want. I have actually seem several newsletter companies provide 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– offering you one more avenue for expanding your email listing.
However, to get accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll have to upgrade to a much more premium plan. I’ll look at all the plans later in this article.
Costs subscriptions
They claim all you need to earn a living online is 1,000 real fans. Subscription profits is absolutely a beast of its own. If you’re seeking a platform to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can create “premium” problems of your newsletter that are just sent out to paying customers. This can be very lucrative relying on what your newsletter has to use. For instance, Trends.co is a prominent costs e-newsletter that generates millions in revenue a year simply by having pay-only newsletter material.
Data analytics
Among things I love regarding beehiiv is how tidy and basic the analytics are. You get real-time day on how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and client count Beehiiv Dr. Jen Ashton.
You get accessibility to all the metrics you require to get a bird-eye sight on exactly how your newsletter is actually doing. Logging into your dashboard and seeing that subscriber count go up is most definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv offers four different pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (totally free) Launch plan provides you everything you require to get started and grow your e-newsletter (up to 2,500 customers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) gives you whatever in the Launch plan with the enhancement the advertisement network, referral program, custom-made domain name, surveys, and access to premium subscriptions. This is the plan I am on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) offers you every little thing in the Grow plan with addition of top priority assistance and removing the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are quite charitable in my viewpoint.
For instance, if you have 100,000 customers you will certainly pay around $329 monthly. As opposed to some rivals, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would certainly bill $679 each month for the same quantity– making beehiiv a wonderful Kit alternative for lots of individuals.
I’m not exactly sure just how the system business economics work on this, but beehiiv is definitely more affordable (at the moment) than what it can be.
beehiiv benefits and drawbacks
Of course, with every system, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Below 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 newsletter platform of option:
Easy to set up and begin sending newsletters for free.
Clean and contemporary subscriber analytics.
Great deals of versatility with e-mail designs.
Referral program feature.
Web site hosting.
Produce costs choices to generate income from.
Surveys.
To be truthful, I have not seen an additional newsletter system that has had the ability to package all of these features with each other so well.
Yet certainly, I don’t wish to be prejudiced so I’m going to point out some disadvantages.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Below are a few of the cons I’ve found while making use of beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around including custom-made typefaces.
I make use of Webflow as my website structure 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 yet you can read my Webflow review if you would love to discover more.
Today, there really is no other method I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow website apart from using an iframe embed. I directly do not such as utilizing iframe’s since they tend to decrease my website a little bit. Every single time a web page on my site (with a beehiiv embed) lots, the sign-up embed is the last thing to load on the page. It’s really recognizable when you’re on a slow-moving web connection. But I can navigate that.
The primary complaint I have is that I can’t utilize a regular Webflow form (which I enjoy making use of). There are methods around this by utilizing a tool like Zapier however that would certainly just add additional costs that I don’t require. To be truthful, this is even more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv con yet I assumed I would certainly mention it.
Besides that, I still think the pros far exceed the disadvantages below. I’m additionally confident that Webflow will ultimately create a far better way to incorporate with beehiiv.
Final Thought
On the whole, beehiiv is a terrific service for anybody wanting to study the world of e-mail marketing and e-newsletters.
The performance of this e-newsletter system far exceeds several that are currently on the marketplace. And with a generous free plan, you truly have nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are additionally rather cheap wherefore they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 clients on your list is unheard of. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k clients, and all of these features beehiiv has, it can cost you well right into the thousands each month.
Anyways, I don’t create evaluation messages frequently. I just do when I really make use of the tool myself and would advise it to a friend.
I wish you located some clearness on whether beehiiv is a great system for you.