Over 2 years back, I was reading one of my preferred email e-newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo for the first time. I clicked it and instantaneously started tearing up Beehiiv Getting Started.
I wasn’t certain why I felt so psychological.
Being a full-time designer is difficult. I’m often obtaining pitched different tools and solutions that do not seem to be worth my time.
I presume I was psychological since I spent the last 6 months trying different email and e-newsletter systems to assist develop my e-newsletter. And to be fair, there are some great options for writing e-newsletters. However I couldn’t locate one that made me give a precise “yes”.
The problem with numerous existing newsletter platforms is that they don’t feel creator-centered. I desire an e-newsletter platform that lets me completely customize my e-newsletter layouts, makes it incredibly easy to write and send e-mails, and offers me tools that aid me assess metrics and get even more customers.
I believe I’ve finally located the best tool.
Yet, I recognize beehiiv may not be for everyone. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s actually right 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 easy to design, compose, send out, advertise, generate income from, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Produced by previous workers at the famous newsletter firm Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to assist designers launch and monetize their very own newsletter– taking great deals of growth concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M customers.
In this write-up, I’m going to describe my personal experience with beehiiv, the important things I enjoy (and hate) concerning it, all of it’s features, and why I chose to ultimately opt for it as my newsletter system of selection.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A few months ago, I inadvertently stumbled across beehiiv. The amusing story is that I’ve watched for a contemporary e-newsletter platform for quite some time currently. I’ve hesitated hard when it involved lastly introducing my newsletter.
Initially, I tried Mailchimp. Then, a few various other indie platforms. After that, Substack. And lastly, I ended up using beehiiv.
I make certain many e-newsletter makers admire prominent newsletters with millions of clients– I understand I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I admired a whole lot. They have fantastic material, tons of clients, and a brilliant referral program that enables them to get back at a lot more customers.
So, I took place a hunt to identify exactly how these big e-newsletters set up their logistics. What system do they utilize? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they obtain more customers? How do they produce a newsletter style that remains on-brand?
When I uncovered beehiiv for the very first time, it appeared to address all of my inquiries. I believed to myself, “damn the people that built this device really comprehend e-newsletter production and development.” I examined who these makers of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were a few of the very first marketing and growth staff members at Morning Brew– my mind took off.
I recognized this was mosting likely to be a different newsletter platform. One that’s concentrated on designer growth.
Due to the fact that, any type of maker understands, you require development to be able to earn a living off of an e-newsletter. And discovering the appropriate newsletter stack (that ranges) commonly implies utilizing numerous different tools to assist accomplish one goal– one platform for your newsletter, one platform to generate income from, and one platform to set up references. It can get costly.
So when I discovered beehiiv did every one of these points in one platform, and it was totally free to start using, it was a piece of cake to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean web content maker that wants a platform that permits them to send personalized e-newsletters with or without requiring to have an internet site.
The most successful newsletters have the right tools to develop and scale their newsletters. beehiiv focuses on offering you those tools.
If you’re an independent writer, media company, startup, or material developer, you need to seriously considering trying out beehiiv. It’s totally cost-free to start and you just pay when you get to over 2,500 clients on your listing.
If you actually wind up needing to pay for beehiiv it’s probably a good indicator that individuals enjoy reading your things.
beehiiv vs Substack
You may be asking, “isn’t there currently a platform for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, yes there is. Substack is a wonderful platform used by hundreds of independent authors. With Substack you get your own web site and use the platform as your all-in-one option for sending out e-mails (while developing an archive of previous problems).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s commitment to growth. beehiiv allows you do to all things Substack can do, with the benefit of better analytics, more style flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing customers to obtain the word out.
beehiiv likewise provides you an internet site similar to Substack. Yet, 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 clients straight to your beehiiv e-mail checklist. On the exact same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a device like Revue to enable people to subscribe to your newsletter straight from Twitter.
This gives you the flexibility to leverage various marketing channels to get your newsletter out right into the globe, making beehiiv a wonderful Substack alternative.
Exactly how to begin making use of beehiiv email 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 “Beginning trial” switch on beehiiv’s site.
The free plan will certainly permit you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, offer you access to web site hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, development modification, analytics, exterior embed kinds, and a lot more. It’s a really generous offering for those just starting (or for those looking for a brand-new system to move to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Getting Started
After producing an account, you’ll experience an onboarding process that will ask points like, “is this your very first e-newsletter?”, “what various other systems have you utilized?”, “do you have any kind of paying clients?”, and more.
You’ll after that develop a name and link for your newsletter’s web site. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will live on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your internet site link could be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding process, you’ll likewise select your brand name design and colors to make sure your e-newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your control panel
When you reach your main dashboard, you’ll see every one of your analytics and setups.
You will certainly have outlined info on the number of sign-ups you’re getting and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see choices for “Beginning writing,” “Blog posts,” “Audience,” “Grow,” “Generate income from,” “Layout,” and” Examine.” And at the really lower you’ll see the setups alternative.
Control panel is your main nerve center (screenshot over), Beginning creating is where you produce and release e-newsletters, Posts is where you can see every one of your previous e-newsletter editions, Target market is where you can see who your subscribers are (and damage them down into segments), Expand is where you have accessibility 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 newsletter with ads, Style is where you develop your newsletter landing page and article template, Examine is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can take care of all of your admin things.
Writing your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it simple to begin composing, with little to no rubbing. If you’re simply starting out, and have a concept you intend to discuss, I suggest just going to the “Create” area in the navbar and clicking “Begin composing”.
You can tweak your template and designing later on– focus on the web content initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor provides a tidy and easy to use user interface for creating.
Once you start composing, you can enhance headings, include links, and design your content exactly how you like.
beehiiv offers you tons of choices for various types of material like video clips, web links, pictures, and a lot more.
The group at beehiiv is likewise frequently launching item feature and updates so I’m sure there will be a whole lot a lot more content features depending upon when you read this.
Enhancing your setups and templates
As soon as you have an e-newsletter that’s ready to send, it’s time to create your email template and adjust some settings.
Here, you can update the name of your e-newsletter, provide it a summary, include your logo, switch on or off a welcome e-mail to very first time customers, and extra.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your style.
You can edit history colors, borders, spacing, typefaces, image formats, and much more. I’m not mosting likely to go through ever solitary thing you can maximize with your email template due to the fact that it’s a great deal. Just experiment with the platform for free and see it for yourself!
Important beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of incredible features that make it a terrific publishing platform for any e-newsletter developer.
Right here are several of the crucial features you can find with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter posting system. It makes it very easy to write and send out emails. I pointed out above several of the things you can do with your setups and e-mail layout so I’ll spare you some added reading.
The thing to keep in mind with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has a really modern and minimalistic feeling. It’s definitely among the better e-mail editors I’ve ever written in.
Internet site hosting
When you develop a beehiiv newsletter, all of your newsletters (if you desire) survive on an internet site. Think of it as an internet site for your newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous problems of your newsletter, and a place where people can register for your e-newsletter.
If you recognize with Substack, it’s virtually comparable to that.
All plans, consisting of the totally free one, provide you a website. However, the free plan locations your website on a beehiiv subdomain so if you wish to include a custom-made domain to remove all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining customers is very important. After all, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can subscribe to your e-newsletter directly from your beehiiv site or through embed kinds.
If you currently have a website, and want individuals to subscribe to your e-newsletter from your existing website, you’ll have to use an embed type. This is what I utilize on this internet site (you can see the sign-up embed on the right hand column of this blog post if you scroll up).
With embed kinds, you have 3 different alternatives– a complete size, a fixed width, and a slim embed. I directly use the slim embed.
You can find the code snippet for these embeds in the “Subscribe Forms” tab in your setups.
There’s likewise an option for attribution monitoring if you wish to ahead UTM specifications for tracking objectives– rather cool.
Nevertheless, there are a couple of features I desire beehiiv had when it pertained to subscribe features. I make sure the group is working with updates for these, but I discussed a couple of concerns I had in the benefits and drawbacks section listed below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things regarding beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter platform, is an option for creating a referral program.
You can encourage existing clients on your listing to onward your e-mails to good friends and coworkers and if they get other people to sign up for your listing, you can reward them. These benefits can be in whatever kind you want. I have actually appear many newsletter companies offer benefits in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously turn your clients into a word of mouth growth engine for your newsletter– giving you one more method for growing your e-mail list.
Nonetheless, to get accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll need to update to an extra exceptional plan. I’ll discuss all the plans later on in this write-up.
Premium registrations
They state all you need to earn a living online is 1,000 real followers. Subscription revenue is definitely 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” concerns of your e-newsletter that are just sent out to paying subscribers. This can be very rewarding depending on what your e-newsletter needs to supply. For instance, Trends.co is a popular costs e-newsletter that creates millions in profits a year just by having pay-only newsletter web content.
Data analytics
Among the things I love regarding beehiiv is just how clean and simple the analytics are. You obtain real-time date on exactly how your newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and customer count Beehiiv Getting Started.
You obtain access to all the metrics you require to obtain a bird-eye sight on how your e-newsletter is in fact doing. Logging into your control panel and seeing that customer matter rise is most definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv supplies four various pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (totally free) Launch plan offers you everything you require to get going and grow your e-newsletter (up to 2,500 subscribers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) gives you whatever in the Launch plan with the enhancement the ad network, referral program, customized domain name, surveys, and access to costs memberships. This is the plan I am on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) provides you whatever in the Grow plan with enhancement of priority support and getting rid of the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are quite generous in my viewpoint.
For instance, if you have 100,000 clients you will pay around $329 monthly. In contrast to some rivals, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would bill $679 each month for the very same amount– making beehiiv a terrific Kit alternative for several individuals.
I’m not exactly sure just how the device economics work with this, but beehiiv is definitely less expensive (presently) than what it can be.
beehiiv benefits and drawbacks
Of course, with every platform, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Here are several of the benefits and drawbacks I’ve directly experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Right here are some of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter system of selection:
Easy to establish and begin sending out e-newsletters free of charge.
Clean and contemporary subscriber analytics.
Lots of versatility with e-mail layouts.
Referral program feature.
Internet site hosting.
Create premium choices to monetize.
Polls.
To be truthful, I have not seen another e-newsletter system that has actually had the ability to package every one of these features with each other so well.
However certainly, I do not wish to be prejudiced so I’m mosting likely to point out some cons.
Cons of using beehiiv
Right here are some of the disadvantages I’ve found while using beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around adding personalized typefaces.
I use Webflow as my website structure platform of choice (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a long time ago). I’m not going to go in way too much information why I like Webflow a lot however you can read my Webflow review if you would love to discover more.
Today, there actually is nothing else means I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow website besides using an iframe embed. I directly don’t such as utilizing iframe’s due to the fact that they have a tendency to slow down my site a bit. Each time a web page on my website (with a beehiiv installed) loads, the sign-up installed is the last point to load on the web page. It’s very recognizable when you’re on a slow internet link. Yet I can navigate that.
The main complaint I have is that I can not make use of a routine Webflow form (which I love making use of). There are ways around this by utilizing a device like Zapier yet that would certainly simply add added costs that I don’t need. To be honest, this is even more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv disadvantage yet I thought I would discuss it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros far outweigh the cons below. I’m also hopeful that Webflow will at some point create a better method to integrate with beehiiv.
Verdict
Overall, beehiiv is a wonderful service for anybody seeking to dive into the globe of e-mail marketing and e-newsletters.
The capability of this newsletter platform far surpasses several that are presently on the marketplace. And with a charitable free plan, you really have absolutely nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are likewise rather low-cost of what they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 customers on your listing is unusual. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k clients, and all of these features beehiiv has, it might cost you well right into the thousands per month.
Anyways, I don’t create testimonial messages frequently. I just do when I in fact use the tool myself and would certainly advise it to a close friend.
I hope you found some clarity on whether beehiiv is a good system for you.