Over 2 years back, I was reading among my favored email 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 immediately started wrecking Beehiiv Icon.
I had not been sure why I really felt so emotional.
Being a full-time creator is difficult. I’m often obtaining pitched different tools and solutions that do not seem to be worth my time.
I guess I was emotional due to the fact that I invested the last 6 months experimenting with different e-mail and e-newsletter systems to help build my newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some great choices for composing e-newsletters. However I couldn’t discover one that made me give a precise “yes”.
The concern with numerous existing newsletter systems is that they do not really feel creator-centered. I desire an e-newsletter system that lets me totally tailor my e-newsletter styles, makes it very simple to compose and send e-mails, and offers me devices that help me analyze metrics and get even more customers.
I believe I’ve finally discovered the appropriate device.
Yet, I know beehiiv may not be for everybody. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s really right for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one platform for e-newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly e-newsletter system that makes it simple to design, compose, send, advertise, monetize, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Created by previous workers at the popular newsletter firm Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to aid developers launch and monetize their own newsletter– taking lots of growth concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M subscribers.
In this short article, I’m going to explain my personal experience with beehiiv, things I love (and hate) regarding it, all of it’s features, and why I made a decision to finally choose it as my newsletter platform of selection.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A couple of months earlier, I unintentionally stumbled across beehiiv. The amusing story is that I’ve watched for a modern-day e-newsletter system for fairly time now. I’ve postponed hard when it pertained to ultimately releasing my newsletter.
First, I attempted Mailchimp. Then, a few various other indie systems. After that, Substack. And lastly, I wound up making use of beehiiv.
I make sure several newsletter designers respect preferred e-newsletters with numerous subscribers– I recognize I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I admired a whole lot. They have fantastic content, lots of customers, and a smart referral program that enables them to get even much more clients.
So, I took place a hunt to identify how these huge e-newsletters established their logistics. What system do they utilize? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they get more subscribers? How do they create a newsletter design that stays on-brand?
When I found beehiiv for the first time, it seemed to address all of my questions. I thought to myself, “damn the people that built this device actually comprehend newsletter creation and development.” I questioned who these makers of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were a few of the first marketing and growth staff members at Morning Brew– my brain blew up.
I knew this was mosting likely to be a different e-newsletter platform. One that’s concentrated on maker growth.
Since, any kind of creator knows, you need development to be able to make a living off of a newsletter. And discovering the best newsletter stack (that ranges) often suggests using multiple different devices to help achieve one goal– one system for your e-newsletter, one system to generate income from, and one platform to set up references. It can obtain expensive.
So when I discovered beehiiv did all of these things in one system, and it was totally free to start making use of, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean content designer that desires a platform that allows them to send out custom e-newsletters with or without requiring to have a website.
One of the most effective e-newsletters have the right tools to construct and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv aims at providing you those tools.
If you’re an independent author, media company, startup, or material designer, you need to seriously considering trying beehiiv. It’s absolutely complimentary to get started and you just pay when you get to over 2,500 subscribers on your listing.
If you in fact wind up having to spend for beehiiv it’s most likely a good sign that people love reading 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 terrific platform utilized by countless independent authors. With Substack you get your own website and utilize the system as your all-in-one option for sending out e-mails (while developing an archive of previous issues).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s devotion to growth. beehiiv allows you do to all the things Substack can do, with the benefit of much better analytics, even more layout flexibilty, and a referral program to urge your existing clients to get words out.
beehiiv additionally gives you an internet site comparable to Substack. However, if you have your very own web site currently, you can additionally utilize beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I use) to send your internet site clients right to your beehiiv email list. On the very same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a tool like Revue to allow people to sign up for your e-newsletter directly from Twitter.
This offers you the versatility to leverage different marketing networks to get your newsletter out right into the world, making beehiiv a fantastic Substack alternative.
Just how to begin using beehiiv email marketing software.
Register for a free plan
The very first step is to register for a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Start trial” button on beehiiv’s internet site.
The free plan will allow you to have up to 2,500 clients, offer you access to web site hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, breakthrough personalization, analytics, outside embed forms, and a lot more. It’s an extremely generous offering for those just starting out (or for those looking for a brand-new system to move to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Icon
After developing an account, you’ll go through an onboarding process that will ask points like, “is this your initial e-newsletter?”, “what other platforms have you utilized?”, “do you have any type of paying subscribers?”, and more.
You’ll after that produce a name and link for your newsletter’s web site. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will certainly survive on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your web site link may be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding procedure, you’ll additionally select your brand name design and colors to ensure your newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your dashboard
As soon as you reach your primary dashboard, you’ll see all of your analytics and settings.
You will have outlined details on how many sign-ups you’re obtaining and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see options for “Beginning writing,” “Blog posts,” “Target market,” “Expand,” “Monetize,” “Layout,” and” Evaluate.” And at the extremely lower you’ll see the settings choice.
Dashboard is your primary nerve center (screenshot above), Start writing is where you produce and release newsletters, Messages is where you can see all of your previous newsletter editions, Target market is where you can watch who your clients are (and damage them down into sections), Grow is where you have accessibility to a referral program (and development tutorials) and boosts to run ads, Monetize is where you can access the beehiiv ad network and monetize your newsletter with ads, Layout is where you design your e-newsletter landing page and blog post template, Assess is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can handle all of your admin things.
Writing your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it easy to begin creating, with little to no rubbing. If you’re simply beginning, and have a concept you intend to blog about, I advise just going to the “Write” section in the navbar and clicking “Start creating”.
You can modify your template and designing later on– focus on the material first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor uses a tidy and straightforward user interface for writing.
Once you start writing, you can enhance headings, add web links, and style your material how you such as.
beehiiv provides you lots of choices for different sorts of web content like videos, links, photos, and a lot more.
The group at beehiiv is additionally continuously releasing item feature and updates so I make sure there will certainly be a lot extra content features relying on when you’re reading this.
Maximizing your settings and templates
When you have an e-newsletter that’s ready to send out, it’s time to make your e-mail template and change some setups.
Right here, you can upgrade the name of your newsletter, offer it a description, add your logo, switch on or off a welcome email to first time subscribers, and much more.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can edit background colors, borders, spacing, typefaces, picture formats, and extra. I’m not going to go through ever single point you can enhance with your email template because it’s a lot. Simply check out the system completely free and see it on your own!
Necessary beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of incredible features that make it an excellent publishing system for any kind of e-newsletter designer.
Here are a few of the essential features you can find with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter publishing platform. It makes it super simple to write and send out emails. I stated over some of things you can do with your setups and email design so I’ll save you some additional analysis.
The thing to note with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has a really modern and minimalistic feeling. It’s certainly among the far better e-mail editors I’ve ever written in.
Website hosting
When you create a beehiiv e-newsletter, every one of your newsletters (if you desire) reside on an internet site. Think about it as a web site for your newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous problems of your e-newsletter, and a location where people can sign up for your newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s practically comparable to that.
All plans, including the totally free one, offer you an internet site. Nevertheless, the free plan locations your web site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you intend to include a custom-made domain to get rid of all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting subscribers is very important. Besides, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can register for your newsletter right from your beehiiv web site or through embed forms.
If you already have an internet site, and want people to subscribe to your e-newsletter from your existing website, you’ll need to make use of an embed form. This is what I use on this web site (you can see the sign-up installed on the right hand column of this article if you scroll up).
With embed types, you have three different choices– a complete size, a repaired width, and a slim installed. I personally utilize the slim embed.
You can discover the code snippet for these embeds in the “Subscribe Kinds” tab in your settings.
There’s likewise an alternative for acknowledgment monitoring if you wish to onward UTM parameters for tracking objectives– pretty neat.
Nonetheless, there are a couple of features I desire beehiiv had when it came to subscribe features. I make certain the team is working with updates for these, however I pointed out a few concerns I had in the pros and cons area listed below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things regarding beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter system, is a remedy for developing a referral program.
You can urge existing clients on your listing to ahead your e-mails to close friends and colleagues and if they obtain other individuals to subscribe to your list, you can compensate them. These rewards can be in whatever type you want. I’ve appear numerous e-newsletter firms offer incentives in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously turn your clients right into a word of mouth development engine for your newsletter– giving you an additional method for growing your email checklist.
However, to get access to the referral program feature, you’ll need to upgrade to a more exceptional plan. I’ll review all the plans later on in this write-up.
Costs memberships
They claim all you need to earn a living online is 1,000 true fans. Registration income is absolutely a monster of its very own. If you’re trying to find a platform to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can create “costs” issues of your newsletter that are only sent out to paying clients. This can be really lucrative depending on what your e-newsletter has to offer. For instance, Trends.co is a preferred premium newsletter that produces millions in revenue a year merely by having pay-only e-newsletter material.
Data analytics
Among things I like concerning beehiiv is how tidy and straightforward the analytics are. You obtain real-time date on just how your newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and client matter Beehiiv Icon.
You get access to all the metrics you need to obtain a bird-eye sight on how your newsletter is really doing. Logging right into your dashboard and seeing that subscriber matter increase is definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv supplies 4 various pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (cost-free) Launch plan offers you whatever you require to get started and grow your newsletter (approximately 2,500 subscribers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) offers you every little thing in the Launch plan with the enhancement the advertisement network, referral program, custom domain, polls, and accessibility to premium subscriptions. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) gives you whatever in the Grow plan with addition of concern assistance and eliminating the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are quite charitable in my point of view.
For example, if you have 100,000 clients you will pay around $329 monthly. Instead of some competitors, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would charge $679 each month for the very same amount– making beehiiv a great Kit option for many individuals.
I’m not exactly sure just how the system business economics deal with this, yet beehiiv is most definitely less costly (at the moment) than what it can be.
beehiiv advantages and disadvantages
Naturally, with every platform, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Below are a few of the pros and cons I’ve personally experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Right here are some of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter platform of selection:
Easy to establish and start sending out e-newsletters totally free.
Tidy and modern customer analytics.
Great deals of adaptability with e-mail designs.
Referral program feature.
Site hosting.
Produce premium options to generate income from.
Surveys.
To be straightforward, I have not seen an additional e-newsletter platform that has had the ability to package all of these features with each other so well.
However naturally, I do not intend to be biased so I’m going to discuss some cons.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Right here are a few of the disadvantages I have actually found while utilizing beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around including customized font styles.
I utilize Webflow as my internet site 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 enjoy Webflow so much yet you can review my Webflow evaluation if you would love to find out more.
Right now, there really is no other means I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow internet site other than making use of an iframe embed. I personally don’t like utilizing iframe’s because they have a tendency to decrease my web site a bit. Each time a page on my website (with a beehiiv installed) lots, the sign-up embed is the last point to load on the page. It’s really obvious when you get on a sluggish internet link. Yet I can navigate that.
The major gripe I have is that I can not utilize a routine Webflow kind (which I enjoy making use of). There are methods around this by utilizing a device like Zapier but that would certainly simply include additional prices that I do not require. To be straightforward, this is even more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv con yet I believed I would mention it.
Besides that, I still think the pros much outweigh the cons right here. I’m also enthusiastic that Webflow will ultimately develop a much better way to integrate with beehiiv.
Conclusion
Generally, beehiiv is an excellent solution for any individual looking to study the globe of e-mail marketing and e-newsletters.
The performance of this e-newsletter system much surpasses lots of that are currently on the marketplace. And with a generous free plan, you truly have absolutely nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are likewise rather affordable of what they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 clients on your list 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 do not compose evaluation messages typically. I only do when I really utilize the device myself and would suggest it to a pal.
I wish you discovered some clarity on whether beehiiv is a good system for you.