Over 2 years ago, I was reading among my favored e-mail e-newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the e-mail and saw the beehiiv logo for the first time. I clicked on it and instantaneously started wrecking Beehiiv Facebook Ads.
I wasn’t sure why I felt so emotional.
Being a full time designer is tough. I’m usually getting pitched different devices and services that do not appear to be worth my time.
I guess I was emotional because I invested the last six months checking out different e-mail and e-newsletter systems to assist develop my e-newsletter. And to be fair, there are some great options for composing e-newsletters. Yet I could not discover one that made me give a certain “yes”.
The concern with lots of existing e-newsletter systems is that they do not really feel creator-centered. I desire a newsletter system that lets me completely tailor my e-newsletter designs, makes it super simple to create and send emails, and gives me devices that aid me assess metrics and obtain more customers.
I believe I’ve lastly discovered the best tool.
But, I know beehiiv may not be for everyone. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s in fact 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 very easy to style, create, send out, promote, generate income from, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Developed by previous workers at the well-known e-newsletter business Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to assist makers launch and monetize their own newsletter– taking great deals of growth concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M customers.
In this article, I’m mosting likely to describe my personal experience with beehiiv, things I love (and hate) concerning it, all of it’s features, and why I chose to ultimately opt for it as my e-newsletter platform of option.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A few months earlier, I unintentionally stumbled across beehiiv. The funny tale is that I’ve been on the lookout for a contemporary e-newsletter system for quite a long time now. I’ve hesitated hard when it pertained to finally releasing my newsletter.
First, I tried Mailchimp. After that, a few various other indie platforms. After that, Substack. And finally, I wound up making use of beehiiv.
I make sure many newsletter designers respect preferred e-newsletters with numerous clients– I understand I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I appreciated a great deal. They have great material, lots of clients, and a creative referral program that permits them to get even more customers.
So, I took place a quest to identify how these huge newsletters set up their logistics. What system do they make use of? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they get more clients? How do they produce a newsletter layout that remains on-brand?
When I discovered beehiiv for the first time, it seemed to respond to every one of my inquiries. I believed to myself, “damn the people that developed this device actually understand newsletter production and development.” I examined who these designers of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were several of the initial marketing and growth staff members at Morning Brew– my mind exploded.
I recognized this was mosting likely to be a various newsletter platform. One that’s focused on developer development.
Due to the fact that, any developer understands, you need growth to be able to earn a living off of an e-newsletter. And finding the appropriate e-newsletter stack (that scales) usually implies making use of numerous various devices to help achieve one goal– one system for your newsletter, one platform to generate income from, and one platform to establish referrals. It can obtain expensive.
So when I discovered beehiiv did every one of these points in one platform, and it was cost-free to start using, it was a piece of cake to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean content maker that wants a system that permits them to send out custom-made e-newsletters with or without requiring to have a website.
The most successful e-newsletters have the right devices to construct and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv focuses on providing you those devices.
If you’re an independent author, media business, start-up, or content creator, you must seriously thinking about experimenting with beehiiv. It’s absolutely complimentary to start and you only pay when you get to over 2,500 clients on your list.
If you really wind up having to spend for beehiiv it’s most likely an excellent sign that individuals enjoy reading your things.
beehiiv vs Substack
You could be asking, “isn’t there currently a system for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, yes there is. Substack is an excellent platform made use of by thousands of independent writers. With Substack you get your own website and make use of the platform as your all-in-one option for sending e-mails (while creating an archive of previous problems).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s dedication to growth. beehiiv permits you do to all the things Substack can do, with the advantage of far better analytics, even more layout flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing clients to obtain words out.
beehiiv likewise gives you a site comparable to Substack. Yet, if you have your very own internet site currently, you can also use beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I utilize) to send your web site subscribers right to your beehiiv e-mail listing. On the same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a device like Performance to permit people to sign up for your newsletter straight from Twitter.
This gives you the adaptability to leverage different marketing channels to get your newsletter out into the world, making beehiiv a wonderful Substack alternative.
Exactly how to begin using beehiiv e-mail marketing software application.
Sign up for a free plan
The primary step is to enroll in a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Begin trial” switch on beehiiv’s web site.
The free plan will certainly allow you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, offer you accessibility to internet site hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, advancement customization, analytics, exterior embed kinds, and extra. It’s a really generous offering for those simply beginning (or for those looking for a new platform to migrate to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Facebook Ads
After producing an account, you’ll undergo an onboarding procedure that will ask points like, “is this your initial newsletter?”, “what other platforms have you made use of?”, “do you have any paying subscribers?”, and a lot more.
You’ll after that create a name and URL for your newsletter’s internet site. On the free plan, your newsletter will certainly survive a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your site link might be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding procedure, you’ll likewise pick your brand design and colors to make certain your e-newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your dashboard
Once you reach your main control panel, you’ll see all of your analytics and settings.
You will have described details on the amount of sign-ups you’re getting and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see options for “Beginning writing,” “Messages,” “Target market,” “Grow,” “Monetize,” “Layout,” and” Evaluate.” And at the really lower you’ll see the settings option.
Control panel is your primary nerve center (screenshot above), Beginning creating is where you create and release newsletters, Articles is where you can see every one of your previous newsletter editions, Audience is where you can see who your clients are (and break them down right into sectors), Grow is where you have access 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 advertisements, Design is where you develop your newsletter landing page and article template, Analyze is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can manage every one of your admin stuff.
Creating your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it easy to start composing, with little to no friction. If you’re just starting out, and have a concept you intend to discuss, I advise simply going to the “Compose” section in the navbar and clicking on “Begin composing”.
You can modify your template and designing later on– concentrate on the web content initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor uses a clean and easy to use interface for composing.
Once you start creating, you can maximize headings, add links, and style your web content how you such as.
beehiiv provides you lots of options for various sorts of material like videos, links, images, and extra.
The group at beehiiv is also frequently releasing product feature and updates so I make sure there will certainly be a lot a lot more content features depending on when you’re reading this.
Maximizing your settings and templates
As soon as you have an e-newsletter that prepares to send out, it’s time to make your e-mail template and readjust some settings.
Below, you can upgrade the name of your newsletter, offer it a description, include your logo, switch on or off a welcome e-mail to very first time customers, and much more.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can edit history shades, boundaries, spacing, fonts, image styles, and a lot more. I’m not mosting likely to go through ever before solitary point you can maximize with your email template due to the fact that it’s a lot. Simply experiment with the platform free of charge and see it on your own!
Essential beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of remarkable features that make it a wonderful posting system for any kind of newsletter developer.
Here are several of the important features you can find with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter posting system. It makes it incredibly very easy to compose and send e-mails. I mentioned above some of the things you can do with your setups and email design so I’ll save you some extra analysis.
The thing to note with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has an actually modern and minimalistic feel. It’s certainly among the far better e-mail editors I’ve ever before written in.
Web site hosting
When you produce a beehiiv newsletter, all of your e-newsletters (if you want) survive an internet site. Think of it as an internet site for your newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous issues of your newsletter, and a location where people can subscribe to your e-newsletter.
If you’re familiar with Substack, it’s pretty much similar to that.
All plans, consisting of the totally free one, give you an internet site. Nevertheless, the free plan places your internet site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you want to include a custom domain name to eliminate all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining subscribers is important. After all, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can register for your newsletter right from your beehiiv web site or via embed forms.
If you already have an internet site, and desire individuals to sign up 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 types, you have 3 different choices– a full size, a repaired size, and a slim installed. I directly utilize the slim installed.
You can locate the code fragment for these embeds in the “Subscribe Types” tab in your setups.
There’s also an alternative for attribution monitoring if you intend to ahead UTM criteria for tracking functions– rather neat.
Nevertheless, there are a couple of features I wish beehiiv had when it concerned subscribe features. I make sure the group is dealing with updates for these, however I discussed a few concerns I had in the pros and cons section listed below.
Referral program
Among the amazing things about beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter system, is an option for developing a referral program.
You can encourage existing subscribers on your list to onward your emails to friends and associates and if they obtain other people to register for your list, you can reward them. These incentives can be in whatever type you desire. I’ve seem numerous newsletter business provide rewards in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously transform your subscribers into a word of mouth development engine for your e-newsletter– offering you one more avenue for growing your e-mail checklist.
However, to get accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll have to update to an extra premium plan. I’ll go over all the plans later in this short article.
Costs subscriptions
They state all you require to earn a living online is 1,000 true followers. Membership income is certainly a beast of its own. If you’re looking for a system to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can produce “costs” concerns of your newsletter that are just sent out to paying customers. This can be really rewarding depending upon what your e-newsletter needs to provide. As an example, Trends.co is a preferred costs e-newsletter that produces millions in profits a year simply by having pay-only e-newsletter content.
Data analytics
Among things I love about beehiiv is exactly how tidy and basic the analytics are. You get real-time day on exactly how your newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and customer matter Beehiiv Facebook Ads.
You get accessibility to all the metrics you need to obtain a bird-eye view on how your newsletter is actually doing. Logging right into your control panel and seeing that customer 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 gives you whatever you require to get going and expand your newsletter (as much as 2,500 subscribers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) offers you whatever in the Launch plan with the enhancement the advertisement network, referral program, personalized domain name, surveys, and access to premium memberships. This is the plan I am on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) offers you every little thing in the Grow plan with addition of concern assistance and getting rid of the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are rather generous in my viewpoint.
As an example, if you have 100,000 subscribers you will certainly pay around $329 monthly. Rather than some competitors, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would certainly charge $679 per month for the very same amount– making beehiiv a terrific Kit alternative for numerous users.
I’m not sure exactly how the system economics service this, however beehiiv is most definitely less expensive (currently) than what it can be.
beehiiv benefits and drawbacks
Of course, with every platform, it has its benefits and drawbacks. Below are a few of the benefits and drawbacks I have actually directly 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 selection:
Easy to set up and start sending newsletters completely free.
Clean and modern-day subscriber analytics.
Lots of adaptability with email layouts.
Referral program feature.
Web site hosting.
Develop premium choices to monetize.
Polls.
To be straightforward, I have not seen an additional e-newsletter system that has actually had the ability to package every one of these features together so well.
But obviously, I don’t wish to be prejudiced so I’m going to state some cons.
Cons of using beehiiv
Here are some of the cons I have actually found while using beehiiv:.
Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around including personalized font styles.
I make use of Webflow as my website structure system of option (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a long time ago). I’m not going to go in way too much information why I enjoy Webflow a lot yet you can read my Webflow testimonial if you would love to learn more.
Now, there actually is no other method I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow site apart from making use of an iframe embed. I directly do not like using iframe’s since they tend to slow down my internet site a little bit. Every time a page on my website (with a beehiiv installed) lots, the sign-up installed is the last thing to fill on the web page. It’s really recognizable when you get on a sluggish net connection. However I can navigate that.
The main complaint I have is that I can not utilize a regular Webflow form (which I love using). There are methods around this by using a tool like Zapier yet that would certainly just include added costs that I don’t need. To be sincere, this is even more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv disadvantage but I assumed I would certainly discuss it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros much exceed the cons right here. I’m also confident that Webflow will at some point produce a much better method to incorporate with beehiiv.
Conclusion
Overall, beehiiv is a great service for any person looking to study the globe of e-mail marketing and e-newsletters.
The performance of this newsletter system much exceeds numerous that are currently on the market. And with a charitable free plan, you truly have nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are likewise fairly cheap of what they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 customers on your list 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 write evaluation posts commonly. I just do when I really use the tool myself and would certainly recommend it to a close friend.
I wish you found some clearness on whether or not beehiiv is an excellent system for you.