Over 2 years earlier, I read among my preferred email e-newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo for the first time. I clicked it and instantaneously began tearing up Beehiiv Editor.
I wasn’t certain why I felt so emotional.
Being a full-time designer is difficult. I’m typically obtaining pitched various devices and services that don’t seem to be worth my time.
I presume I was psychological because I invested the last six months trying different e-mail and e-newsletter platforms to aid build my e-newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some great alternatives for writing newsletters. However I could not locate one that made me give a precise “yes”.
The problem with many existing newsletter systems is that they do not feel creator-centered. I desire a newsletter system that lets me completely personalize my e-newsletter designs, makes it incredibly simple to compose and send out e-mails, and provides me tools that help me assess metrics and get even more customers.
I think I have actually ultimately discovered the ideal tool.
But, I know beehiiv may not be for everyone. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s actually ideal for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one system for e-newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly e-newsletter system that makes it very easy to layout, write, send out, promote, generate income from, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Created by former staff members at the well-known e-newsletter firm Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to help makers launch and monetize their very own newsletter– taking great deals of development concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M customers.
In this write-up, I’m going to discuss my personal experience with beehiiv, things I enjoy (and hate) concerning it, all of it’s features, and why I chose to ultimately opt for it as my e-newsletter platform of selection.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A few months back, I accidentally came across beehiiv. The amusing story is that I’ve watched for a modern newsletter system for rather some time currently. I have actually hesitated hard when it concerned ultimately releasing my e-newsletter.
First, I attempted Mailchimp. Then, a couple of various other indie systems. Then, Substack. And lastly, I wound up using beehiiv.
I make sure numerous e-newsletter makers look up to prominent e-newsletters with countless subscribers– I recognize I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I admired a great deal. They have great web content, lots of customers, and a brilliant referral program that enables them to get even much more clients.
So, I went on a quest to identify just how these huge newsletters established their logistics. What system do they make use of? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they get even more customers? How do they develop a newsletter layout that stays on-brand?
When I found beehiiv for the first time, it appeared to respond to every one of my questions. I thought to myself, “damn the people that constructed this tool actually recognize e-newsletter creation and development.” I examined who these developers of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were a few of the very first marketing and development staff members at Morning Brew– my mind took off.
I recognized this was going to be a various newsletter platform. One that’s focused on maker development.
Due to the fact that, any kind of designer recognizes, you need development to be able to make a living off of an e-newsletter. And discovering the ideal e-newsletter pile (that scales) commonly means utilizing multiple various devices to assist attain one objective– one system for your e-newsletter, one system to monetize, and one system to set up referrals. It can get expensive.
So when I learnt beehiiv did every one of these points in one platform, and it was complimentary to begin utilizing, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean material creator that desires a platform that allows them to send custom-made e-newsletters with or without requiring to have a website.
The most effective e-newsletters have the right tools to construct and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv focuses on providing you those devices.
If you’re an independent writer, media business, startup, or material creator, you must seriously thinking about experimenting with beehiiv. It’s completely complimentary to start and you just pay when you get to over 2,500 clients on your list.
If you really end up needing to spend for beehiiv it’s probably a good sign that people love reviewing your things.
beehiiv vs Substack
You might be asking, “isn’t there already a platform for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, of course 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 out e-mails (while producing an archive of previous problems).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s dedication to development. beehiiv permits you do to all the important things Substack can do, with the advantage of much better analytics, more design flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing clients to obtain the word out.
beehiiv additionally offers you an internet site comparable to Substack. However, if you have your own website already, you can also make use of beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I utilize) to send your website subscribers right to your beehiiv email list. On the very same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a device like Revue to allow people to sign up for your e-newsletter directly from Twitter.
This gives you the versatility to utilize various marketing networks to obtain your e-newsletter out right into the world, making beehiiv an excellent Substack alternative.
How to start using beehiiv email marketing software.
Register for a free plan
The initial step is to sign up for a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Beginning trial” button on beehiiv’s website.
The free plan will certainly permit you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, offer you access to web site hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, advance modification, analytics, outside embed types, and much more. It’s an extremely generous offering for those simply starting out (or for those searching for a new system to move to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Editor
After producing an account, you’ll undergo an onboarding procedure that will ask things like, “is this your first e-newsletter?”, “what other platforms have you utilized?”, “do you have any paying clients?”, and extra.
You’ll after that create a name and URL for your newsletter’s internet site. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will live on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your web site URL could be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding procedure, you’ll additionally choose your brand colors and design to make sure 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 setups.
You will have outlined details on the amount of sign-ups you’re getting and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see alternatives for “Start composing,” “Articles,” “Audience,” “Grow,” “Monetize,” “Design,” and” Evaluate.” And at the extremely lower you’ll see the setups option.
Dashboard is your main nerve center (screenshot above), Beginning composing is where you create and release e-newsletters, Messages is where you can see every one of your previous e-newsletter versions, Target market is where you can see who your subscribers are (and break them down into segments), Grow is where you have access 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, Style is where you make your e-newsletter landing page and article template, Analyze is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can manage every one of your admin stuff.
Writing your newsletter
beehiiv makes it easy to begin composing, with little to no rubbing. If you’re simply starting, and have an idea you want to discuss, I suggest just going to the “Compose” area in the navbar and clicking on “Start creating”.
You can fine-tune your template and styling later– concentrate on the web content initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor offers a clean and user-friendly interface for composing.
As soon as you start writing, you can maximize headings, include links, and design your material how you such as.
beehiiv provides you lots of alternatives for various sorts of web content like videos, web links, pictures, and a lot more.
The team at beehiiv is likewise frequently launching product feature and updates so I’m sure there will certainly be a great deal more content features relying on when you read this.
Maximizing your settings and templates
Once you have an e-newsletter that prepares to send, it’s time to develop your email template and change some setups.
Right here, you can upgrade the name of your newsletter, give it a summary, add your logo, switch on or off a welcome email to first time subscribers, and much more.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your style.
You can edit background shades, borders, spacing, fonts, picture layouts, and extra. I’m not mosting likely to experience ever before solitary thing you can maximize with your e-mail template since it’s a whole lot. Simply try the system completely free and see it on your own!
Crucial beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of fantastic features that make it an excellent posting system for any newsletter developer.
Right here are a few of the essential features you can find with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter posting platform. It makes it super very easy to create and send out emails. I stated above a few of things you can do with your settings and email style so I’ll spare you some extra analysis.
The thing to keep in mind with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has a truly contemporary and minimalistic feeling. It’s definitely among the far better email editors I have actually ever written in.
Internet site hosting
When you develop a beehiiv e-newsletter, all of your e-newsletters (if you want) survive an internet site. Think of it as an internet site for your e-newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous problems of your e-newsletter, and a location where people can sign up for your newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s practically comparable to that.
All plans, consisting of the complimentary one, offer you an internet site. However, the free plan areas your website on a beehiiv subdomain so if you wish to add a custom-made domain to get rid of all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining customers is essential. Nevertheless, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can sign up for your newsletter right from your beehiiv web site or through embed forms.
If you already have an internet site, and want individuals to register for your e-newsletter from your existing website, you’ll have to use an embed form. This is what I use on this internet site (you can see the sign-up embed on the right hand column of this post if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have three different options– a complete width, a repaired size, and a slim embed. I personally use the slim installed.
You can find the code fragment for these embeds in the “Subscribe Kinds” tab in your settings.
There’s additionally an alternative for acknowledgment tracking if you want to ahead UTM parameters for tracking functions– pretty neat.
Nevertheless, there are a couple of features I wish beehiiv had when it concerned subscribe features. I’m sure the team is working with updates for these, yet I pointed out a couple of worries I had in the advantages and disadvantages area below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things about beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter platform, is a service for producing a referral program.
You can encourage existing subscribers on your listing to ahead your e-mails to buddies and associates and if they get other people to sign up for your list, you can compensate them. These benefits can be in whatever type you desire. I have actually appear lots of e-newsletter business provide incentives in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously turn your clients into a word of mouth growth engine for your e-newsletter– offering you another avenue for growing your e-mail list.
However, to get access to the referral program feature, you’ll need to upgrade to a much more superior plan. I’ll review all the plans later in this article.
Premium subscriptions
They say all you need to earn a living online is 1,000 real followers. Subscription revenue is most definitely a monster of its very own. If you’re looking for a system to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can create “premium” issues of your e-newsletter that are just sent out to paying clients. This can be really rewarding relying on what your e-newsletter has to provide. For example, Trends.co is a preferred premium e-newsletter that produces millions in profits a year simply by having pay-only e-newsletter web content.
Data analytics
Among the things I enjoy regarding beehiiv is just how tidy and simple the analytics are. You obtain real-time date on exactly how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and client count Beehiiv Editor.
You obtain access to all the metrics you require to obtain a bird-eye sight on exactly how your e-newsletter is really doing. Logging into your dashboard and seeing that subscriber matter go up is most definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv provides four various pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (cost-free) Launch plan provides you everything you require to get going and expand your e-newsletter (up to 2,500 customers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) gives you everything in the Launch plan with the enhancement the advertisement network, referral program, custom-made domain name, surveys, and access to premium memberships. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) provides you every little thing in the Grow plan with addition of top priority assistance and getting rid of the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are rather generous in my viewpoint.
As an example, if you have 100,000 clients you will pay around $329 each month. In contrast to some competitors, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would charge $679 monthly for the exact same amount– making beehiiv a terrific Kit choice for numerous individuals.
I’m unsure exactly how the system business economics deal with this, however beehiiv is definitely cheaper (presently) than what it can be.
beehiiv pros and cons
Certainly, with every platform, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Here are a few of the advantages and disadvantages I have actually directly experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Below are a few of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter system of option:
Easy to set up and start sending out newsletters totally free.
Tidy and contemporary customer analytics.
Great deals of versatility with email layouts.
Referral program feature.
Site hosting.
Create costs options to generate income from.
Surveys.
To be truthful, I have not seen another e-newsletter system that has been able to package all of these features together so well.
Yet of course, I do not want to be biased so I’m going to discuss some disadvantages.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Right here are a few of the disadvantages I’ve found while utilizing beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around including custom-made typefaces.
I make use of Webflow as my web site building platform of option (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a long period of time ago). I’m not mosting likely to enter way too much information why I enjoy Webflow so much however you can read my Webflow review if you ‘d like to discover more.
Right now, there truly is nothing else means I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow site besides making use of an iframe embed. I directly do not like making use of iframe’s due to the fact that they tend to slow down my web site a bit. Every single time a web page on my website (with a beehiiv embed) lots, the sign-up embed is the last thing to pack on the web page. It’s very visible when you’re on a slow web link. However I can get around that.
The major gripe I have is that I can not make use of a routine Webflow kind (which I enjoy using). There are means around this by utilizing a device like Zapier yet that would certainly just add additional costs that I don’t need. To be sincere, this is even more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv disadvantage yet I thought I would discuss it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros far exceed the cons here. I’m also enthusiastic that Webflow will eventually produce a better way to integrate with beehiiv.
Verdict
In general, beehiiv is an excellent service for anyone looking to study the globe of email marketing and newsletters.
The capability of this e-newsletter platform far outweighs numerous that are presently on the marketplace. And with a charitable free plan, you truly have absolutely nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are also fairly cheap of what they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 customers on your list is unheard of. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k subscribers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it can cost you well right into the thousands each month.
Anyways, I do not write testimonial messages often. I just do when I in fact utilize the device myself and would certainly suggest it to a close friend.
I wish you discovered some clarity on whether beehiiv is a good platform for you.