Over 2 years back, I was reading one of my preferred e-mail newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the e-mail and saw the beehiiv logo design for the very first time. I clicked it and promptly started destroying Beehiiv First Name.
I had not been sure why I felt so emotional.
Being a full-time creator is difficult. I’m often getting pitched different devices and services that don’t appear to be worth my time.
I think I was psychological since I spent the last 6 months trying different e-mail and newsletter systems to help construct my newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some great choices for creating newsletters. However I couldn’t discover one that made me provide a precise “yes”.
The issue with lots of existing newsletter platforms is that they do not feel creator-centered. I want an e-newsletter system that lets me completely customize my e-newsletter layouts, makes it incredibly very easy to compose and send out emails, and gives me devices that assist me examine metrics and get even more subscribers.
I assume I have actually lastly discovered the right device.
However, I know beehiiv may not be for every person. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s really appropriate for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one platform for newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly e-newsletter system that makes it very easy to layout, create, send, promote, generate income from, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Produced by former staff members at the renowned newsletter business Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to help developers launch and monetize their very own newsletter– taking great deals of growth principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M customers.
In this write-up, I’m mosting likely to describe my personal experience with beehiiv, the important things I love (and hate) concerning it, all of it’s features, and why I chose to lastly go with it as my newsletter platform of choice.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A few months back, I unintentionally came across beehiiv. The amusing story is that I have actually watched for a modern-day e-newsletter system for fairly a long time currently. I have actually put things off hard when it came to lastly introducing my e-newsletter.
First, I tried Mailchimp. After that, a few various other indie platforms. Then, Substack. And finally, I ended up making use of beehiiv.
I make certain many e-newsletter developers respect prominent newsletters with numerous clients– I know I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I looked up to a whole lot. They have excellent web content, lots of subscribers, and a brilliant referral program that permits them to get even a lot more clients.
So, I went on a search to identify how these big e-newsletters established their logistics. What platform do they use? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they get even more clients? How do they develop an e-newsletter layout that stays on-brand?
When I found beehiiv for the first time, it seemed to answer all of my inquiries. I believed to myself, “damn individuals that constructed this tool truly recognize newsletter production and growth.” I questioned who these creators of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were a few of the very first marketing and growth employees at Morning Brew– my mind took off.
I recognized this was going to be a different newsletter system. One that’s concentrated on creator growth.
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 finding the ideal e-newsletter stack (that scales) often means making use of multiple different devices to help achieve one goal– one platform for your e-newsletter, one system to monetize, and one system to establish referrals. It can obtain pricey.
So when I learnt beehiiv did every one of these things in one system, and it was complimentary to begin using, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean content maker that desires a system that enables them to send out custom-made newsletters with or without needing to have a site.
The most successful newsletters have the right tools to develop and scale their newsletters. beehiiv targets at offering you those devices.
If you’re an independent author, media business, startup, or web content designer, you should seriously considering trying beehiiv. It’s absolutely cost-free to get started and you only pay when you reach over 2,500 clients on your checklist.
If you in fact wind up having to pay for beehiiv it’s probably an excellent indication that people like reading your things.
beehiiv vs Substack
You could be asking, “isn’t there already a platform for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, of course there is. Substack is a fantastic platform used by hundreds of independent writers. With Substack you get your own site and use the platform as your all-in-one remedy for sending emails (while developing an archive of previous concerns).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s dedication to growth. beehiiv permits you do to all the important things Substack can do, with the benefit of better analytics, even more layout flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing clients to obtain the word out.
beehiiv also gives you a web site comparable to Substack. But, if you have your very own internet site currently, you can also make use of beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I use) to send your website subscribers straight to your beehiiv email list. On the very same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a tool like Performance to enable people to subscribe to your newsletter directly from Twitter.
This gives you the adaptability to leverage various marketing networks to get your newsletter out right into the world, making beehiiv a fantastic Substack alternative.
Exactly how to begin using beehiiv e-mail marketing software.
Register for a free plan
The primary step is to sign up for a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Start trial” button on beehiiv’s site.
The free plan will permit you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, offer you accessibility to site hosting, a newsletter CMS, development customization, analytics, external embed types, and a lot more. It’s a very generous offering for those just starting out (or for those seeking a brand-new platform to migrate to).
Onboarding Beehiiv First Name
After developing an account, you’ll undergo an onboarding procedure that will ask points like, “is this your very first newsletter?”, “what various other platforms have you used?”, “do you have any type of paying clients?”, and extra.
You’ll then produce a name and link for your e-newsletter’s website. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will certainly survive on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your website link might be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding process, you’ll additionally choose your brand name colors and design to see to it your e-newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your control panel
Once you reach your main control panel, you’ll see all of your analytics and settings.
You will certainly have outlined information on how many sign-ups you’re getting and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see options for “Beginning composing,” “Articles,” “Target market,” “Grow,” “Generate income from,” “Style,” and” Analyze.” And at the extremely bottom you’ll see the setups choice.
Control panel is your main control center (screenshot above), Beginning creating is where you create and release newsletters, Messages is where you can see every one of your previous newsletter editions, Target market is where you can see who your clients are (and damage them down right into sectors), Expand 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 advertisements, Style is where you develop your e-newsletter landing page and message template, Analyze is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can handle all of your admin stuff.
Creating your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it very easy to start creating, with little to no rubbing. If you’re simply starting, and have an idea you intend to write about, I suggest simply going to the “Write” section in the navbar and clicking on “Beginning composing”.
You can fine-tune your template and styling later on– concentrate on the content first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor provides a tidy and straightforward interface for composing.
When you begin composing, you can maximize headings, add links, and design your web content just how you such as.
beehiiv provides you lots of alternatives for different sorts of web content like video clips, web links, images, and much more.
The group at beehiiv is also regularly releasing item feature and updates so I’m sure there will certainly be a whole lot a lot more material features depending on when you’re reading this.
Enhancing your settings and templates
As soon as you have a newsletter that prepares to send out, it’s time to develop your e-mail template and change some setups.
Right here, you can upgrade the name of your newsletter, provide it a description, add your logo design, activate or off a welcome e-mail to very first time subscribers, and extra.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can modify history colors, borders, spacing, typefaces, photo layouts, and much more. I’m not mosting likely to go through ever solitary point you can optimize with your email template since it’s a great deal. Simply experiment with the platform absolutely free and see it for yourself!
Vital beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of amazing features that make it a terrific posting system for any e-newsletter creator.
Here are several of the vital features you can find with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter publishing system. It makes it super easy to compose and send emails. I stated over some of the important things you can do with your settings and e-mail layout so I’ll save you some added analysis.
Things to keep in mind with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has a really modern and minimalistic feel. It’s most definitely among the better email editors I’ve ever written in.
Website hosting
When you produce a beehiiv newsletter, all of your e-newsletters (if you want) reside on a site. Think of it as a site for your e-newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous issues of your e-newsletter, and an area where people can sign up for your newsletter.
If you’re familiar with Substack, it’s pretty much similar to that.
All plans, consisting of the cost-free one, offer you a web site. However, the free plan areas your web site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you intend to include a custom-made domain name to eliminate all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting subscribers is necessary. Nevertheless, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can sign up for your newsletter straight from your beehiiv website or with embed forms.
If you currently have a site, and desire people to sign up for your e-newsletter from your existing website, you’ll need to utilize an embed kind. This is what I make use of on this website (you can see the sign-up installed on the right hand column of this blog post if you scroll up).
With embed types, you have three various alternatives– a full size, a dealt with width, and a slim embed. I personally make use of the slim installed.
You can discover the code snippet for these embeds in the “Subscribe Kinds” tab in your settings.
There’s also an option for attribution tracking if you want to ahead UTM parameters for tracking purposes– rather cool.
Nonetheless, there are a couple of features I wish beehiiv had when it involved subscribe features. I make certain the group is dealing with updates for these, however I stated a few problems I had in the pros and cons area listed below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things about beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter system, is a service for developing a referral program.
You can motivate existing clients on your listing to onward your emails to good friends and associates and if they obtain other individuals to subscribe to your listing, you can award them. These incentives can be in whatever type you want. I’ve seem several e-newsletter companies give benefits in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously turn your clients right into a word of mouth growth engine for your newsletter– providing you another opportunity for growing your email listing.
Nevertheless, to obtain accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll have to upgrade to a more exceptional plan. I’ll look at all the plans later on in this write-up.
Costs registrations
They say all you require to make a living online is 1,000 true followers. Membership revenue is absolutely a beast of its own. If you’re trying to find a platform to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can develop “premium” issues of your e-newsletter that are just sent out to paying clients. This can be really financially rewarding depending on what your newsletter has to supply. For instance, Trends.co is a popular costs e-newsletter that produces millions in profits a year merely by having pay-only e-newsletter web content.
Data analytics
Among the important things I like concerning beehiiv is just how tidy and simple the analytics are. You obtain real-time date on exactly how your newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and client count Beehiiv First Name.
You obtain access to all the metrics you require to obtain a bird-eye sight on how your newsletter is really doing. Logging right into your control panel and seeing that customer matter increase is certainly a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv offers four various pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (totally free) Launch plan gives you whatever you require to begin and grow your e-newsletter (approximately 2,500 customers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) provides you every little thing in the Launch plan with the enhancement the ad network, referral program, custom domain, surveys, and accessibility to costs subscriptions. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) offers you every little thing in the Grow plan with enhancement of priority assistance and eliminating the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are rather generous in my viewpoint.
For instance, if you have 100,000 subscribers you will pay around $329 per month. In contrast to some rivals, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would certainly bill $679 per month for the exact same amount– making beehiiv a wonderful Kit choice for many customers.
I’m not exactly sure exactly how the unit business economics service this, but beehiiv is most definitely more affordable (at the moment) than what it can be.
beehiiv advantages and disadvantages
Of course, with every system, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Here are a few of the advantages and disadvantages I’ve personally experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Below are several of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter platform of option:
Easy to set up and start sending e-newsletters absolutely free.
Clean and modern-day subscriber analytics.
Great deals of versatility with e-mail designs.
Referral program feature.
Internet site hosting.
Develop costs options to monetize.
Polls.
To be straightforward, I have not seen an additional newsletter system that has had the ability to package all of these features with each other so well.
But certainly, I do not intend to be prejudiced so I’m going to discuss some cons.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Right here are some of the cons I’ve located while making use of beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around adding custom fonts.
I make use of Webflow as my website building platform of selection (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a long period of time ago). I’m not going to enter excessive detail why I like Webflow a lot but you can read my Webflow evaluation if you would love to find out more.
Now, there truly is no other means I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow web site aside from utilizing an iframe embed. I directly don’t like utilizing iframe’s since they have a tendency to decrease my site a little bit. Every time a page on my site (with a beehiiv installed) loads, the sign-up installed is the last point to fill on the page. It’s very visible when you’re on a slow-moving web connection. Yet I can get around that.
The main complaint I have is that I can not utilize a routine Webflow type (which I like using). There are ways around this by utilizing a device like Zapier yet that would certainly just add added prices that I don’t require. To be sincere, this is more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv con yet I believed I would certainly mention it.
Besides that, I still think the pros much outweigh the disadvantages below. I’m likewise hopeful that Webflow will ultimately produce a better way to incorporate with beehiiv.
Final Thought
In general, beehiiv is a wonderful remedy for any individual aiming to dive into the world of email marketing and newsletters.
The performance of this newsletter system far exceeds numerous that are currently on the marketplace. And with a charitable free plan, you truly have nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are additionally relatively inexpensive wherefore they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 customers on your checklist is unprecedented. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k customers, 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 frequently. I only do when I actually use the device myself and would certainly suggest it to a good friend.
I hope you found some quality on whether or not beehiiv is an excellent platform for you.