Over 2 years earlier, I was reading among my preferred email newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo for the first time. I clicked it and promptly began tearing up Beehiiv For Food Writers.
I had not been certain why I felt so psychological.
Being a permanent maker is difficult. I’m typically obtaining pitched different devices and services that do not seem to be worth my time.
I think I was psychological due to the fact that I spent the last six months trying out different e-mail and e-newsletter platforms to help construct my newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some fantastic options for creating e-newsletters. Yet I couldn’t locate one that made me offer a definite “yes”.
The issue with lots of existing e-newsletter platforms is that they don’t really feel creator-centered. I desire an e-newsletter system that lets me totally tailor my newsletter layouts, makes it extremely simple to create and send e-mails, and provides me tools that help me examine metrics and get even more clients.
I think I’ve lastly discovered the ideal device.
But, I know beehiiv might not be for every person. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s in fact best for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one system for newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly e-newsletter platform that makes it very easy to style, write, send, promote, monetize, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Produced by former staff members at the well-known e-newsletter firm Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to assist designers launch and monetize their very own e-newsletter– taking great deals of growth concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M clients.
In this short article, I’m mosting likely to clarify my personal experience with beehiiv, things I enjoy (and hate) concerning it, all of it’s features, and why I decided to ultimately opt for it as my e-newsletter platform of choice.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A couple of months ago, I inadvertently came across beehiiv. The funny story is that I’ve been on the lookout for a modern-day newsletter system for fairly some time currently. I have actually postponed hard when it concerned finally launching my newsletter.
Initially, I tried Mailchimp. After that, a few other indie systems. Then, Substack. And lastly, I wound up utilizing beehiiv.
I make sure many newsletter designers respect preferred e-newsletters with numerous clients– I understand I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I looked up to a great deal. They have terrific web content, lots of customers, and a brilliant referral program that permits them to get back at much more customers.
So, I went on a quest to find out how these big newsletters set up their logistics. What platform do they utilize? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they obtain more clients? How do they create an e-newsletter design that remains on-brand?
When I found beehiiv for the first time, it seemed to answer all of my inquiries. I thought to myself, “damn the people that built this tool actually recognize e-newsletter creation and growth.” I questioned who these creators of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were some of the first marketing and growth employees at Morning Brew– my mind took off.
I understood this was going to be a different newsletter system. One that’s concentrated on developer development.
Due to the fact that, any maker understands, you need growth to be able to earn a living off of an e-newsletter. And discovering the appropriate newsletter stack (that ranges) frequently means using multiple various devices to help attain one objective– one system for your e-newsletter, one platform to monetize, and one system to set up recommendations. It can get costly.
So when I discovered beehiiv did all of these points in one system, and it was free to start using, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean material creator that desires a system that permits them to send out customized newsletters with or without needing to have a site.
One of the most successful newsletters have the right devices to develop and scale their newsletters. beehiiv aims at providing you those devices.
If you’re an independent writer, media business, start-up, or web content creator, you ought to seriously taking into consideration trying out beehiiv. It’s totally complimentary to start and you just pay when you get to over 2,500 subscribers on your checklist.
If you in fact end up needing to pay for beehiiv it’s most likely a great indication that individuals like reviewing your stuff.
beehiiv vs Substack
You might be asking, “isn’t there already a platform for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, of course there is. Substack is a terrific platform used by countless independent authors. With Substack you obtain your very own website and utilize the platform as your all-in-one remedy for sending out e-mails (while creating an archive of previous problems).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s dedication to growth. beehiiv enables you do to all the things Substack can do, with the benefit of far better analytics, even more style flexibilty, and a referral program to urge your existing customers to get words out.
beehiiv additionally offers you a web site similar to Substack. But, if you have your own internet site currently, you can additionally make use of beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I make use of) to send your web site customers directly to your beehiiv e-mail listing. On the very same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a device like Performance to permit people to register for your newsletter straight from Twitter.
This gives you the flexibility to leverage different marketing networks to obtain your newsletter out into the globe, making beehiiv a wonderful Substack alternative.
Just how to begin using beehiiv email marketing software application.
Sign up for a free plan
The first step is to enroll in a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Begin trial” switch on beehiiv’s internet site.
The free plan will certainly permit you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, offer you accessibility to website hosting, a newsletter CMS, breakthrough modification, analytics, outside embed kinds, and extra. It’s a very generous offering for those just starting (or for those trying to find a new system to migrate to).
Onboarding Beehiiv For Food Writers
After developing an account, you’ll go through an onboarding procedure that will ask points like, “is this your very first e-newsletter?”, “what various other systems have you made use of?”, “do you have any kind of paying clients?”, and a lot more.
You’ll after that produce a name and URL for your 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 internet site link may be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding process, you’ll additionally pick your brand name colors and design to make certain your e-newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your control panel
When you reach your primary control panel, you’ll see all of your analytics and setups.
You will have described details on the number of sign-ups you’re obtaining and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see alternatives for “Start writing,” “Messages,” “Audience,” “Grow,” “Monetize,” “Design,” and” Evaluate.” And at the extremely bottom you’ll see the settings alternative.
Dashboard is your main control center (screenshot above), Beginning creating is where you produce and release e-newsletters, Articles is where you can see every one of your previous newsletter editions, Target market is where you can see who your customers are (and damage them down into sections), Grow is where you have access to a referral program (and growth tutorials) and boosts to run ads, Monetize is where you can access the beehiiv ad network and monetize your e-newsletter with ads, Style is where you create your newsletter landing page and article template, Assess is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can take care of every one of your admin things.
Writing your newsletter
beehiiv makes it very easy to start creating, with little to no rubbing. If you’re simply starting out, and have a concept you wish to discuss, I advise just going to the “Create” area in the navbar and clicking on “Beginning writing”.
You can fine-tune your template and styling later on– focus on the material initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor offers a tidy and user-friendly user interface for creating.
Once you start composing, you can enhance headings, include links, and style your web content just how you like.
beehiiv gives you lots of choices for various types of web content like videos, web links, images, and more.
The group at beehiiv is likewise constantly releasing product feature and updates so I’m sure there will certainly be a whole lot more content features relying on when you’re reading this.
Maximizing your setups and templates
Once you have an e-newsletter that prepares to send out, it’s time to design your e-mail template and change some settings.
Here, you can upgrade the name of your e-newsletter, offer it a description, add your logo, activate or off a welcome e-mail to first time customers, and more.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can edit history colors, boundaries, spacing, typefaces, picture formats, and a lot more. I’m not going to undergo ever single thing you can maximize with your e-mail template since it’s a whole lot. Simply try the platform absolutely free and see it for yourself!
Essential beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of outstanding features that make it a terrific posting platform for any type of newsletter creator.
Right here are a few of the crucial features you can discover with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter publishing platform. It makes it extremely very easy to create and send e-mails. I mentioned over several of the things you can do with your settings and email layout so I’ll save you some additional analysis.
Things to note with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has a really modern and minimalistic feeling. It’s most definitely among the much better email editors I have actually ever written in.
Web site hosting
When you develop a beehiiv e-newsletter, all of your e-newsletters (if you desire) live on a web site. Consider it as a web site for your e-newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous problems of your newsletter, and an area where people can sign up for your newsletter.
If you’re familiar with Substack, it’s virtually similar to that.
All plans, consisting of the free one, give you a site. Nevertheless, the free plan locations your site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you wish to add a custom domain to get rid of all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining subscribers is necessary. Nevertheless, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can subscribe to your newsletter straight from your beehiiv web site or via embed forms.
If you already have a site, and want people to register for your e-newsletter from your existing site, you’ll have to utilize an embed kind. This is what I make use of on this web site (you can see the sign-up installed on the right hand column of this post if you scroll up).
With embed kinds, you have 3 various alternatives– a complete width, a repaired size, and a slim installed. I personally make use of the slim installed.
You can discover the code bit for these embeds in the “Subscribe Forms” tab in your settings.
There’s additionally a choice for acknowledgment tracking if you want to onward UTM criteria for tracking functions– rather cool.
However, there are a couple of features I wish beehiiv had when it involved subscribe features. I’m sure the team is working with updates for these, however I pointed out a few issues 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 e-newsletter system, is a service for creating a referral program.
You can motivate existing customers on your list to ahead your e-mails to close friends and colleagues and if they obtain other people to sign up for your checklist, you can award them. These benefits can be in whatever type you desire. I have actually appear several e-newsletter firms offer benefits in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously transform your subscribers right into a word of mouth development engine for your newsletter– providing you another method for expanding your email checklist.
However, to get access to the referral program feature, you’ll need to update to an extra premium plan. I’ll go over all the plans later on in this short article.
Premium memberships
They state all you need to earn a living online is 1,000 real fans. Registration income is definitely a beast of its very own. If you’re looking for a system to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can create “costs” problems of your e-newsletter that are just sent to paying subscribers. This can be very rewarding depending upon what your newsletter has to use. For instance, Trends.co is a popular premium newsletter that generates millions in earnings a year simply by having pay-only newsletter content.
Information analytics
One of the things I enjoy concerning beehiiv is just how tidy and straightforward the analytics are. You get real-time date on exactly how your newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and customer count Beehiiv For Food Writers.
You get access to all the metrics you require to obtain a bird-eye view on just how your e-newsletter is really doing. Logging into your dashboard and seeing that client count go up is absolutely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv uses 4 different pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (totally free) Launch plan offers you everything you require to start and grow your newsletter (up to 2,500 subscribers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) offers you everything in the Launch plan with the addition the advertisement network, referral program, customized domain, surveys, and accessibility to costs registrations. This is the plan I am on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) gives you whatever in the Grow plan with addition of concern support and removing the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are quite charitable in my viewpoint.
For example, if you have 100,000 subscribers you will certainly pay around $329 each month. In contrast to some rivals, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would bill $679 monthly for the very same quantity– making beehiiv a great Kit alternative for several users.
I’m uncertain just how the unit business economics work on this, but beehiiv is certainly more affordable (at the moment) than what it can be.
beehiiv benefits and drawbacks
Obviously, with every system, it has its benefits and drawbacks. Below are some of the advantages and disadvantages I’ve personally experienced while making use of beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Below are several of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter platform of choice:
Easy to establish and start sending newsletters totally free.
Clean and modern client analytics.
Lots of adaptability with e-mail styles.
Referral program feature.
Website hosting.
Create costs alternatives to generate income from.
Polls.
To be honest, I haven’t seen one more e-newsletter system that has had the ability to package all of these features together so well.
However obviously, I don’t intend to be biased so I’m going to point out some disadvantages.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Below are a few of the cons I’ve discovered while utilizing beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around adding custom-made typefaces.
I make use of Webflow as my website structure system of choice (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a very long time ago). I’m not mosting likely to go in excessive information why I like Webflow a lot but you can read my Webflow evaluation if you would love to learn more.
Today, there truly is nothing else way I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow site apart from using an iframe embed. I directly do not like making use of iframe’s due to the fact that they tend to decrease my internet site a bit. Every single time a page on my website (with a beehiiv embed) loads, the sign-up installed is the last thing to load on the page. It’s very obvious when you’re on a slow web connection. But I can get around that.
The main gripe I have is that I can’t use a routine Webflow type (which I enjoy utilizing). There are methods around this by using a device like Zapier yet that would certainly just add additional costs that I don’t require. To be straightforward, this is even more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv con yet I assumed I would state it.
Besides that, I still think the pros much surpass the disadvantages below. I’m also enthusiastic that Webflow will ultimately produce a much better method to incorporate with beehiiv.
Conclusion
Overall, beehiiv is an excellent remedy for anybody wanting to study the world of e-mail marketing and newsletters.
The performance of this e-newsletter platform far outweighs lots of that are presently on the market. And with a generous free plan, you truly have absolutely nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are additionally relatively low-cost of what they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 subscribers on your checklist is unprecedented. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k clients, and all of these features beehiiv has, it could cost you well into the thousands per month.
Anyways, I do not write testimonial posts commonly. I only do when I really utilize the tool myself and would certainly advise it to a friend.
I hope you found some quality on whether beehiiv is a good system for you.