Over 2 years ago, I read among my favorite email newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo design for the first time. I clicked it and instantaneously started wrecking Beehiiv Email Recommendations.
I wasn’t certain why I felt so psychological.
Being a full-time creator is difficult. I’m often getting pitched different devices and solutions that don’t appear to be worth my time.
I think I was emotional since I invested the last six months experimenting with various email and newsletter systems to assist build my newsletter. And to be fair, there are some great options for writing e-newsletters. But I couldn’t discover one that made me offer a certain “yes”.
The issue with lots of existing newsletter systems is that they do not really feel creator-centered. I want a newsletter platform that lets me totally personalize my e-newsletter designs, makes it super simple to compose and send out e-mails, and provides me tools that aid me analyze metrics and obtain more clients.
I believe I have actually ultimately found the ideal device.
But, I know beehiiv might not be for everybody. 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 e-newsletter platform that makes it very easy to style, create, send out, advertise, generate income from, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Created by former staff members at the famous newsletter company Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to aid creators launch and monetize their very own newsletter– taking great deals of development principles 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 love (and hate) regarding it, all of it’s features, and why I decided to lastly choose it as my e-newsletter platform of choice.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A couple of months earlier, I unintentionally came across beehiiv. The funny tale is that I’ve watched for a contemporary newsletter platform for quite some time currently. I’ve postponed hard when it concerned lastly introducing my newsletter.
Initially, I attempted Mailchimp. Then, a couple of other indie platforms. After that, Substack. And lastly, I wound up utilizing beehiiv.
I make certain several newsletter creators respect preferred e-newsletters with millions of clients– I know I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I admired a lot. They have great web content, lots of subscribers, and a clever referral program that allows them to get even extra subscribers.
So, I took place a quest to determine just how these big e-newsletters established their logistics. What platform do they make use of? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they get even more subscribers? How do they create an e-newsletter layout that remains on-brand?
When I discovered beehiiv for the first time, it appeared to answer every one of my questions. I believed to myself, “damn the people that developed this device actually understand e-newsletter production and growth.” I examined who these developers of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were some of the first marketing and development workers at Morning Brew– my brain blew up.
I recognized this was going to be a various e-newsletter system. One that’s concentrated on maker growth.
Due to the fact that, any developer understands, you need growth to be able to make a living off of an e-newsletter. And discovering the right e-newsletter pile (that ranges) commonly indicates utilizing several various devices to aid achieve one goal– one system for your e-newsletter, one system to generate income from, and one system to establish references. It can get costly.
So when I learnt beehiiv did all of these points in one platform, and it was complimentary to start utilizing, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean material developer that wants a platform that enables them to send customized e-newsletters with or without needing to have a site.
The most successful e-newsletters have the right devices to build and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv focuses on giving you those tools.
If you’re an independent writer, media company, start-up, or web content developer, you must seriously taking into consideration trying out beehiiv. It’s totally cost-free to begin and you just pay when you reach over 2,500 clients on your listing.
If you actually end up having to pay for beehiiv it’s most likely an excellent sign that individuals love reading your stuff.
beehiiv vs Substack
You may be asking, “isn’t there currently a platform for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, yes there is. Substack is a fantastic system utilized by countless independent writers. With Substack you get your own website and utilize the system as your all-in-one remedy for sending emails (while producing an archive of previous problems).
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 much better analytics, more design flexibilty, and a referral program to encourage your existing subscribers to get words out.
beehiiv also provides you a website comparable to Substack. However, if you have your own internet site already, you can also make use of beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I make use of) to send your website customers straight to your beehiiv e-mail listing. On the same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a tool like Performance to permit individuals to subscribe to your newsletter directly from Twitter.
This provides you the flexibility to utilize various marketing networks to get your e-newsletter out into the globe, making beehiiv a wonderful Substack option.
Just how to start making use of beehiiv e-mail marketing software application.
Sign up for a free plan
The very first step is to sign up for a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Start trial” button on beehiiv’s site.
The free plan will certainly allow you to have up to 2,500 customers, provide you accessibility to site hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, development personalization, analytics, outside embed forms, and much more. It’s a very generous offering for those just beginning (or for those trying to find a brand-new platform to move to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Email Recommendations
After creating an account, you’ll experience an onboarding process that will ask points like, “is this your initial e-newsletter?”, “what various other platforms have you made use of?”, “do you have any type of paying clients?”, and much more.
You’ll then develop a name and link for your e-newsletter’s site. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will certainly survive a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your internet site URL may be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding process, you’ll additionally select your brand name colors and design to see to it your newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your control panel
When you reach your major dashboard, you’ll see all of your analytics and settings.
You will certainly have outlined details on the amount of sign-ups you’re obtaining and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see alternatives for “Start creating,” “Messages,” “Target market,” “Expand,” “Monetize,” “Layout,” and” Assess.” And at the very lower you’ll see the settings choice.
Control panel is your primary nerve center (screenshot above), Beginning composing is where you develop and release e-newsletters, Messages is where you can see every one of your previous e-newsletter editions, Audience is where you can see who your clients are (and break them down into sections), Expand is where you have access 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 ads, Design is where you design your e-newsletter landing page and blog post template, Analyze is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can handle all of your admin things.
Composing your newsletter
beehiiv makes it easy to begin composing, with little to no friction. If you’re simply starting, and have a concept you intend to write about, I advise just going to the “Compose” section in the navbar and clicking on “Beginning writing”.
You can modify your template and styling later on– focus on the content initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor supplies a tidy and straightforward interface for writing.
As soon as you begin composing, you can optimize headings, include web links, and style your material just how you like.
beehiiv gives you lots of alternatives for different kinds of web content like video clips, links, pictures, and a lot more.
The group at beehiiv is additionally continuously launching product feature and updates so I’m sure there will be a whole lot more content features relying on when you’re reading this.
Optimizing your settings and templates
Once you have a newsletter that’s ready to send, it’s time to make your e-mail template and readjust some settings.
Here, you can update the name of your e-newsletter, provide it a description, include your logo, turn on or off a welcome e-mail to first time clients, and more.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your design.
You can edit history shades, boundaries, spacing, typefaces, picture layouts, and a lot more. I’m not mosting likely to go through ever solitary point you can enhance with your e-mail template due to the fact that it’s a lot. Just check out the system for free and see it on your own!
Important beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of remarkable features that make it a fantastic posting platform for any kind of e-newsletter designer.
Right here are several of the essential features you can discover with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter posting platform. It makes it extremely simple to compose and send out emails. I mentioned above a few of things you can do with your settings and e-mail design so I’ll spare you some extra reading.
The important things to keep in mind with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has an actually contemporary and minimalistic feeling. It’s definitely among the better e-mail editors I have actually ever written in.
Web site hosting
When you create a beehiiv newsletter, all of your newsletters (if you desire) reside on an internet site. Consider it as a website for your newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous problems of your e-newsletter, and an area where individuals can register for your newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s practically comparable to that.
All plans, including the totally free one, provide you an internet site. Nevertheless, the free plan areas your site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you wish to include a custom-made domain to get rid of all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting clients is very important. Nevertheless, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can sign up for your newsletter straight from your beehiiv site or through embed forms.
If you currently have a site, and desire individuals to register for your e-newsletter from your existing website, you’ll have to make use of an embed form. This is what I use on this web site (you can see the sign-up embed on the right-hand man column of this article if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have three different choices– a full width, a repaired width, and a slim embed. I personally use the slim installed.
You can locate the code snippet for these embeds in the “Subscribe Types” tab in your setups.
There’s additionally a choice for acknowledgment monitoring if you wish to ahead UTM specifications for tracking functions– rather neat.
Nevertheless, there are a few features I wish beehiiv had when it concerned subscribe features. I make sure the group is dealing with updates for these, yet I mentioned a couple of concerns I had in the advantages and disadvantages area below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things concerning beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter system, is a remedy for developing a referral program.
You can encourage existing customers on your listing to forward your e-mails to buddies and coworkers and if they obtain other people to sign up for your listing, you can compensate them. These rewards can be in whatever kind you desire. I have actually appear numerous newsletter firms provide incentives in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously transform your clients right into a word of mouth development engine for your newsletter– providing you another avenue for growing your e-mail listing.
However, to get access to the referral program feature, you’ll need to update to an extra premium plan. I’ll review all the plans later in this write-up.
Costs registrations
They say all you require to make a living online is 1,000 real fans. Registration profits is absolutely a beast of its very own. If you’re searching for a platform to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can create “costs” problems of your newsletter that are just sent to paying subscribers. This can be really rewarding relying on what your newsletter needs to use. For example, Trends.co is a prominent premium e-newsletter that generates millions in revenue a year simply by having pay-only newsletter web content.
Information analytics
Among things I enjoy concerning beehiiv is just how clean and easy the analytics are. You get real-time day on how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and client count Beehiiv Email Recommendations.
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 customer count rise is certainly a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv uses four various pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (totally free) Launch plan gives you every little thing you need to begin and grow your e-newsletter (up to 2,500 customers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) offers you every little thing in the Launch plan with the addition the advertisement network, referral program, customized domain, polls, and accessibility to premium memberships. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) offers you every little thing in the Grow plan with addition of priority support and removing the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are rather generous in my opinion.
For example, if you have 100,000 subscribers you will pay around $329 per month. Instead of some rivals, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would bill $679 per month for the same quantity– making beehiiv a fantastic Kit option for lots of customers.
I’m not sure just how the system business economics service this, yet beehiiv is certainly cheaper (right now) than what it can be.
beehiiv benefits and drawbacks
Of course, with every system, it has its benefits and drawbacks. Right here are several of the advantages and disadvantages I have actually personally experienced while making use of beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Right here are several of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter platform of choice:
Easy to establish and start sending out newsletters free of charge.
Clean and modern-day subscriber analytics.
Lots of adaptability with e-mail layouts.
Referral program feature.
Site hosting.
Create costs alternatives to generate income from.
Surveys.
To be truthful, I have not seen one more e-newsletter system that has had the ability to package all of these features with each other so well.
Yet obviously, I don’t intend to be prejudiced so I’m going to mention some cons.
Cons of using beehiiv
Below are some of the cons I’ve found while using beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around adding customized typefaces.
I use Webflow as my site building system of option (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a very long time ago). I’m not mosting likely to enter way too much detail why I enjoy Webflow a lot but you can read my Webflow review if you would love to learn more.
Right now, there actually is nothing else way I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow internet site besides making use of an iframe embed. I personally do not like utilizing iframe’s since they have a tendency to decrease my website a bit. Each time a web page on my site (with a beehiiv installed) loads, the sign-up installed is the last point to pack on the page. It’s really recognizable when you get on a sluggish web connection. But I can get around that.
The major complaint I have is that I can not use a routine Webflow kind (which I like using). There are methods around this by using a device like Zapier but that would just add additional costs that I don’t require. To be honest, this is even more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv con yet I believed I would certainly state it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros much exceed the disadvantages right here. I’m also hopeful that Webflow will eventually develop a better method to integrate with beehiiv.
Conclusion
In general, beehiiv is a wonderful solution for any individual aiming to study the globe of email marketing and e-newsletters.
The performance of this e-newsletter platform far surpasses several that are currently on the marketplace. And with a charitable free plan, you truly have absolutely nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are likewise rather cheap for what they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 subscribers on your list is unprecedented. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k customers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it can cost you well into the thousands per month.
Anyways, I don’t write review blog posts often. I just do when I really make use of the tool myself and would advise it to a buddy.
I wish you discovered some clearness on whether or not beehiiv is a good system for you.