Over 2 years earlier, I was reading one of my favored email e-newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo design for the first time. I clicked it and quickly began tearing up Beehiiv Gated Content.
I had not been sure why I felt so emotional.
Being a full-time developer is difficult. I’m typically getting pitched various tools and solutions that do not appear to be worth my time.
I think I was emotional since I invested the last 6 months trying out various email and newsletter platforms to help develop my e-newsletter. And to be fair, there are some excellent options for composing newsletters. Yet I couldn’t locate one that made me provide a precise “yes”.
The problem with several existing e-newsletter systems is that they don’t feel creator-centered. I want an e-newsletter platform that lets me fully personalize my newsletter layouts, makes it incredibly very easy to compose and send emails, and gives me devices that assist me analyze metrics and get even more subscribers.
I believe I have actually finally found the right tool.
Yet, I understand beehiiv might not be for everyone. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s actually best for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one system for newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter platform that makes it simple to design, create, send out, advertise, monetize, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Created by former workers at the famous newsletter business Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to aid designers launch and monetize their own e-newsletter– taking lots of growth principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M customers.
In this short article, I’m mosting likely to explain my individual experience with beehiiv, things I love (and hate) about it, all of it’s features, and why I chose to lastly opt for it as my newsletter platform of selection.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A couple of months back, I accidentally stumbled across beehiiv. The funny tale is that I have actually been on the lookout for a modern-day e-newsletter platform for rather some time currently. I’ve postponed hard when it pertained to finally introducing my e-newsletter.
Initially, I tried Mailchimp. After that, a couple of various other indie platforms. After that, Substack. And lastly, I ended up utilizing beehiiv.
I make sure lots of newsletter creators appreciate preferred newsletters with numerous subscribers– I know I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I appreciated a great deal. They have fantastic content, lots of customers, and a brilliant referral program that enables them to get back at a lot more clients.
So, I went on a quest to find out just how these large newsletters set up their logistics. What platform do they utilize? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they obtain more customers? How do they produce a newsletter design that stays on-brand?
When I discovered beehiiv for the very first time, it appeared to answer all of my concerns. I believed to myself, “damn the people that developed this device truly understand newsletter development 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 first marketing and growth workers at Morning Brew– my brain exploded.
I knew this was mosting likely to be a different newsletter platform. One that’s concentrated on creator development.
Because, any kind of maker understands, you need development to be able to make a living off of a newsletter. And discovering the right e-newsletter stack (that ranges) frequently suggests making use of multiple various tools to help attain one goal– one platform for your newsletter, one platform to generate income from, and one system to establish referrals. It can obtain expensive.
So when I figured out beehiiv did all of these points in one system, and it was cost-free to start utilizing, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean web content developer that wants a system that enables them to send out custom-made newsletters with or without requiring to have an internet site.
The most effective newsletters have the right devices to build and scale their newsletters. beehiiv aims at providing you those devices.
If you’re an independent writer, media business, startup, or content creator, you ought to seriously taking into consideration experimenting with beehiiv. It’s entirely complimentary to start and you only pay when you reach over 2,500 customers on your listing.
If you in fact end up having to pay for beehiiv it’s possibly a good indicator that people love reviewing your things.
beehiiv vs Substack
You might be asking, “isn’t there currently a system for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, indeed there is. Substack is a fantastic platform used by thousands of independent authors. With Substack you obtain your very own site and use the platform as your all-in-one option for sending out emails (while developing an archive of previous problems).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s dedication to development. beehiiv permits you do to all the things Substack can do, with the benefit of much better analytics, more style flexibilty, and a referral program to encourage your existing customers to get the word out.
beehiiv additionally gives you an internet site comparable to Substack. But, if you have your very own website already, you can additionally utilize 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 integrate beehiiv with a tool like Revue to permit people to sign up for your newsletter directly from Twitter.
This offers you the versatility to utilize different marketing channels to get your newsletter out right into the globe, making beehiiv a fantastic Substack alternative.
Just how to start using beehiiv e-mail marketing software application.
Enroll in a free plan
The first step is to sign up for a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Beginning trial” switch on beehiiv’s web site.
The free plan will allow you to have up to 2,500 customers, offer you accessibility to website hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, breakthrough customization, analytics, outside embed types, and a lot more. It’s an extremely generous offering for those just starting (or for those trying to find a brand-new system to migrate to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Gated Content
After developing an account, you’ll experience an onboarding procedure that will ask things like, “is this your initial e-newsletter?”, “what various other systems have you used?”, “do you have any type of paying customers?”, and more.
You’ll then produce a name and URL for your newsletter’s internet site. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will survive on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your site URL could be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding process, you’ll likewise select your brand name colors and design to ensure your e-newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your dashboard
When you reach your main dashboard, you’ll see all of your analytics and settings.
You will have detailed details on the number of sign-ups you’re getting and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see options for “Beginning composing,” “Messages,” “Audience,” “Grow,” “Monetize,” “Design,” and” Assess.” And at the extremely bottom you’ll see the setups choice.
Control panel is your primary nerve center (screenshot above), Beginning creating is where you produce and release e-newsletters, Blog posts is where you can see every one of your previous e-newsletter versions, Target market is where you can watch who your clients are (and break them down into segments), Expand 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, Style is where you develop your newsletter landing page and article template, Evaluate is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can take care of every one of your admin things.
Creating your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it very easy to begin composing, with little to no rubbing. If you’re simply beginning, and have a concept you want to discuss, I advise just going to the “Create” area in the navbar and clicking “Beginning creating”.
You can modify your template and styling later on– focus on the web content first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor uses a clean and user-friendly user interface for composing.
When you start composing, you can enhance headings, add links, and design your material just how you such as.
beehiiv offers you lots of choices for different types of content like videos, links, images, and extra.
The team at beehiiv is also continuously releasing item feature and updates so I’m sure there will be a whole lot much more content features depending upon when you’re reading this.
Enhancing your settings and templates
When you have a newsletter that’s ready to send out, it’s time to design your email template and change some setups.
Right here, you can update the name of your newsletter, offer it a summary, add your logo design, switch on or off a welcome e-mail to first time subscribers, and extra.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can edit history shades, borders, spacing, typefaces, picture layouts, and more. I’m not going to go through ever before single point you can optimize with your e-mail template due to the fact that it’s a lot. Just check out the platform free of cost and see it for yourself!
Essential beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of incredible features that make it a fantastic publishing system for any kind of e-newsletter creator.
Right here are some of the crucial features you can discover with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter publishing platform. It makes it incredibly easy to create and send out emails. I mentioned above several of the important things you can do with your setups and e-mail design so I’ll save you some additional reading.
The important things to keep in mind with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has a really modern-day and minimalistic feeling. It’s certainly one of the better email editors I have actually ever before written in.
Site hosting
When you create a beehiiv newsletter, all of your e-newsletters (if you want) live on a website. Think about it as an internet site for your newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous concerns of your e-newsletter, and a location where individuals can subscribe to your e-newsletter.
If you recognize with Substack, it’s basically comparable to that.
All plans, consisting of the cost-free one, provide you a website. However, the free plan places your website on a beehiiv subdomain so if you want to add a personalized domain name to eliminate all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting subscribers is important. After all, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can subscribe to your newsletter directly from your beehiiv web site or through embed types.
If you currently have a web site, and want individuals to subscribe to your e-newsletter from your existing site, you’ll need to make use of an embed form. This is what I utilize on this web site (you can see the sign-up installed on the right-hand man column of this article if you scroll up).
With embed kinds, you have three different choices– a complete width, a taken care of width, and a slim installed. I personally utilize the slim installed.
You can locate the code bit for these embeds in the “Subscribe Kinds” tab in your settings.
There’s also a choice for acknowledgment monitoring if you wish to onward UTM criteria for tracking functions– pretty cool.
However, there are a few features I desire beehiiv had when it came to subscribe features. I’m sure the group is working with updates for these, but I stated a few issues I had in the benefits and drawbacks section below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things concerning beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter platform, is an option for developing a referral program.
You can encourage existing customers on your listing to ahead your e-mails to buddies and coworkers and if they obtain other individuals to register for your listing, you can reward them. These incentives can be in whatever kind you want. I’ve appear several e-newsletter companies offer benefits in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously transform your subscribers into a word of mouth development engine for your newsletter– offering you another method for expanding your email list.
Nonetheless, to get accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll have to update to a much more premium plan. I’ll go over all the plans later in this article.
Costs memberships
They state all you require to make a living online is 1,000 true fans. Subscription income is certainly a beast of its own. If you’re seeking a system to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can produce “premium” issues of your newsletter that are only sent out to paying subscribers. This can be extremely financially rewarding relying on what your e-newsletter needs to offer. As an example, Trends.co is a popular costs e-newsletter that produces millions in revenue a year simply by having pay-only e-newsletter web content.
Data analytics
One of the things I enjoy concerning beehiiv is how tidy and straightforward the analytics are. You get real-time date on exactly how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and customer matter Beehiiv Gated Content.
You obtain access to all the metrics you need to obtain a bird-eye view on just how your e-newsletter is actually doing. Logging into your dashboard and seeing that client matter increase is certainly a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv supplies four different pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (totally free) Launch plan gives you whatever you need to begin and grow your newsletter (up to 2,500 clients).
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 memberships. This is the plan I am on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) offers you everything in the Grow plan with addition of concern support and getting rid of the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are quite charitable in my viewpoint.
For instance, if you have 100,000 clients you will certainly pay around $329 monthly. As opposed to some competitors, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would charge $679 monthly for the very same amount– making beehiiv a great Kit choice for several users.
I’m not exactly sure just how the unit business economics work with this, however beehiiv is definitely less expensive (currently) than what it can be.
beehiiv benefits and drawbacks
Obviously, with every platform, it has its pros and cons. Right here are some of the pros and cons I have actually directly experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Here are some of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter platform of option:
Easy to establish and begin sending out newsletters free of cost.
Tidy and contemporary subscriber analytics.
Lots of adaptability with e-mail layouts.
Referral program feature.
Internet site hosting.
Create costs alternatives to generate income from.
Surveys.
To be sincere, I have not seen one more newsletter platform that has had the ability to package all of these features together so well.
However of course, I don’t intend to be biased so I’m mosting likely to state some cons.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Here are several of the disadvantages I’ve discovered while using beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around adding custom fonts.
I make use of Webflow as my internet site building system of choice (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a very long time ago). I’m not mosting likely to go in too much information why I love Webflow a lot however you can review my Webflow review if you would love to find out more.
Right now, there actually is no other method I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow site besides making use of an iframe embed. I personally don’t such as utilizing iframe’s because they tend to slow down my web site a little bit. Whenever a page on my website (with a beehiiv installed) tons, the sign-up embed is the last thing to pack on the page. It’s extremely obvious when you get on a slow internet connection. However I can navigate that.
The main complaint I have is that I can’t use a normal Webflow type (which I enjoy using). There are methods around this by utilizing a tool like Zapier but that would just add added expenses that I do not need. To be honest, this is even more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv con yet I thought I would state it.
Besides that, I still think the pros much surpass the disadvantages right here. I’m additionally confident that Webflow will eventually create a better way to incorporate with beehiiv.
Verdict
Overall, beehiiv is an excellent remedy for any individual wanting to dive into the world of email marketing and e-newsletters.
The capability of this newsletter platform much surpasses numerous that are presently on the marketplace. And with a charitable free plan, you actually have nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are additionally relatively economical of what they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 clients on your listing is unheard of. 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 monthly.
Anyways, I do not create testimonial articles frequently. I only do when I in fact utilize the device myself and would suggest it to a good friend.
I wish you found some clarity on whether beehiiv is a good platform for you.