Over 2 years back, I was reading one of my favored e-mail newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the e-mail and saw the beehiiv logo for the very first time. I clicked it and quickly began tearing up Beehiiv Income.
I had not been sure why I really felt so emotional.
Being a permanent creator is tough. I’m frequently obtaining pitched different tools and solutions that do not seem to be worth my time.
I presume I was psychological because I spent the last 6 months experimenting with various e-mail and e-newsletter platforms to assist build my newsletter. And to be fair, there are some excellent options for writing newsletters. However I couldn’t find one that made me offer a guaranteed “yes”.
The issue with several existing e-newsletter systems is that they don’t feel creator-centered. I desire an e-newsletter system that lets me totally tailor my e-newsletter designs, makes it super simple to create and send emails, and gives me tools that assist me assess metrics and get even more subscribers.
I assume I have actually finally located the ideal device.
But, I understand beehiiv might not be for everybody. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s actually ideal for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one system for e-newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter platform that makes it easy to style, compose, send out, advertise, generate income from, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Produced by previous employees at the well-known e-newsletter company Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to help creators launch and monetize their very own e-newsletter– taking lots of growth concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M customers.
In this write-up, I’m mosting likely to describe my personal experience with beehiiv, things I love (and hate) regarding it, all of it’s features, and why I determined to finally go with it as my newsletter system of choice.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A couple of months earlier, I unintentionally stumbled across beehiiv. The funny story is that I have actually been on the lookout for a contemporary newsletter system for quite a long time now. I’ve postponed hard when it came to ultimately releasing my newsletter.
First, I attempted Mailchimp. After that, a couple of other indie systems. Then, Substack. And finally, I wound up making use of beehiiv.
I make certain lots of newsletter developers look up to preferred newsletters with millions of clients– I know I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I respected a great deal. They have fantastic web content, tons of clients, and a brilliant referral program that allows them to get even a lot more subscribers.
So, I went on a quest to figure out exactly how these huge newsletters set up their logistics. What system do they use? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they obtain more clients? How do they produce an e-newsletter layout that remains on-brand?
When I discovered beehiiv for the very first time, it seemed to address every one of my inquiries. I thought to myself, “damn individuals that developed this tool truly recognize newsletter production and development.” I examined who these designers of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were a few of the initial marketing and growth workers at Morning Brew– my mind took off.
I understood this was mosting likely to be a different newsletter system. One that’s focused on maker development.
Due to the fact that, any kind of creator knows, you need development to be able to earn a living off of an e-newsletter. And locating the ideal newsletter pile (that ranges) commonly implies using several various devices to help achieve one goal– one platform for your newsletter, one system to monetize, 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 free to start utilizing, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean material designer that wants a platform that enables them to send out personalized e-newsletters with or without requiring to have a site.
One of the most effective newsletters have the right tools to construct and scale their newsletters. beehiiv focuses on giving you those devices.
If you’re an independent author, media firm, start-up, or content developer, you should seriously considering trying out beehiiv. It’s entirely free to get started and you only pay when you reach over 2,500 customers on your listing.
If you really wind up needing to pay for beehiiv it’s most likely an excellent indicator that people enjoy reading your things.
beehiiv vs Substack
You may be asking, “isn’t there currently a platform for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, indeed there is. Substack is an excellent system used by countless independent authors. With Substack you obtain your own site and make use of the system as your all-in-one option for sending emails (while developing an archive of previous problems).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s dedication to development. beehiiv enables you do to all things Substack can do, with the benefit of better analytics, more design flexibilty, and a referral program to encourage your existing clients to get the word out.
beehiiv additionally provides you a website similar to Substack. But, if you have your very own website already, you can also use beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I use) to send your web site customers directly to your beehiiv email checklist. On the same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a device like Revue to permit people to sign up for your e-newsletter directly from Twitter.
This offers you the adaptability to utilize various marketing networks to obtain your e-newsletter out right into the globe, making beehiiv a fantastic Substack choice.
Exactly how to begin making use of beehiiv e-mail marketing software application.
Enroll in a free plan
The primary step is to register for a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Beginning trial” button on beehiiv’s internet site.
The free plan will certainly allow you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, offer you accessibility to web site hosting, a newsletter CMS, advance customization, analytics, exterior embed kinds, and extra. It’s an extremely generous offering for those simply starting (or for those seeking a new system to migrate to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Income
After creating 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 used?”, “do you have any kind of paying subscribers?”, and more.
You’ll after that create a name and link for your e-newsletter’s web site. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will live on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your website URL might be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding process, you’ll additionally pick your brand design and colors to make certain your e-newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your dashboard
As soon as you reach your primary control panel, you’ll see all of your analytics and settings.
You will certainly have detailed details on how many sign-ups you’re getting and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see alternatives for “Beginning composing,” “Messages,” “Target market,” “Expand,” “Monetize,” “Layout,” and” Evaluate.” And at the very bottom you’ll see the settings choice.
Dashboard is your primary nerve center (screenshot above), Begin composing is where you create and release newsletters, Articles is where you can see all of your previous e-newsletter versions, Audience is where you can view who your clients are (and damage them down into segments), Expand 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 e-newsletter with ads, Layout is where you create your newsletter landing page and blog post template, Analyze is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can take care of all of your admin stuff.
Composing your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it easy to begin composing, with little to no rubbing. If you’re simply starting, and have an idea you wish to blog about, I suggest just mosting likely to the “Compose” section in the navbar and clicking on “Begin creating”.
You can modify your template and styling later on– focus on the web content first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor offers a clean and user-friendly interface for composing.
When you start creating, you can enhance headings, add links, and style your material how you such as.
beehiiv provides you lots of choices for different sorts of content like video clips, web links, pictures, and a lot more.
The team at beehiiv is additionally frequently launching item feature and updates so I make sure there will be a whole lot more 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 develop your e-mail template and readjust some setups.
Below, you can upgrade the name of your newsletter, provide it a description, add your logo design, switch on or off a welcome email to first time clients, and much more.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your design.
You can modify background colors, borders, spacing, typefaces, image layouts, and more. I’m not mosting likely to undergo ever before single point you can optimize with your email template because it’s a great deal. Simply try the system completely free and see it for yourself!
Crucial beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of impressive features that make it a great publishing system for any e-newsletter maker.
Below are several of the essential features you can discover with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter posting platform. It makes it very simple to write and send out e-mails. I mentioned above some of things you can do with your settings and email style so I’ll save you some added analysis.
The thing to note with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has a truly modern and minimalistic feeling. It’s certainly among the far better email editors I’ve ever before written in.
Website hosting
When you create a beehiiv newsletter, all of your newsletters (if you want) survive on an internet site. Think about it as a web site for your e-newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous issues of your e-newsletter, and an area where individuals can sign up for your newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s practically similar to that.
All plans, consisting of the totally free one, provide you a web site. Nevertheless, the free plan areas your web site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you intend to include a custom domain to eliminate all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting customers is important. After all, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can sign up for your newsletter directly from your beehiiv internet site or with embed kinds.
If you currently have an internet site, and want individuals to subscribe to your e-newsletter from your existing website, you’ll have to make use of an embed kind. This is what I utilize on this website (you can see the sign-up embed on the right-hand man column of this post if you scroll up).
With embed kinds, you have 3 various alternatives– a complete width, a fixed size, and a slim embed. I directly make use of the slim embed.
You can discover the code fragment for these embeds in the “Subscribe Forms” tab in your setups.
There’s likewise an option for acknowledgment monitoring if you wish to onward UTM criteria for tracking functions– quite cool.
Nonetheless, there are a couple of features I desire beehiiv had when it came to subscribe features. I make certain the group is working on updates for these, but I discussed a couple of problems I had in the advantages and disadvantages section listed below.
Referral program
Among the amazing things concerning beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter platform, is a solution for producing a referral program.
You can motivate existing clients on your checklist to forward your e-mails to good friends and coworkers and if they obtain other people to register for your listing, you can reward them. These rewards can be in whatever type you want. I have actually seem lots of newsletter companies give benefits in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously turn your customers right into a word of mouth growth engine for your e-newsletter– providing you one more method for expanding your email listing.
However, to get access to the referral program feature, you’ll have to upgrade to a more exceptional plan. I’ll discuss all the plans later on in this article.
Costs subscriptions
They state all you require to make a living online is 1,000 true followers. Membership earnings is most definitely a monster of its very own. If you’re looking for a platform to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can develop “premium” concerns of your newsletter that are only sent out to paying customers. This can be really profitable depending on what your e-newsletter has to offer. For instance, Trends.co is a popular costs e-newsletter that generates millions in earnings a year simply by having pay-only e-newsletter web content.
Data analytics
Among things I enjoy about beehiiv is how clean and straightforward the analytics are. You obtain real-time date on how your newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and client count Beehiiv Income.
You get accessibility to all the metrics you require to get a bird-eye sight on how your e-newsletter is really doing. Logging right into your control panel and seeing that subscriber matter rise is certainly a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv provides four various pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (cost-free) Launch plan gives you every little thing you need to get going and grow your newsletter (as much as 2,500 clients).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) provides you every little thing in the Launch plan with the enhancement the advertisement network, referral program, custom domain name, surveys, and access to premium memberships. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) gives you whatever in the Grow plan with enhancement of priority support and eliminating the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are rather generous in my viewpoint.
For instance, if you have 100,000 clients you will pay around $329 each month. In contrast to some rivals, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would charge $679 each month for the very same amount– making beehiiv an excellent Kit choice for lots of customers.
I’m uncertain exactly how the device economics deal with this, however beehiiv is most definitely cheaper (currently) than what it can be.
beehiiv advantages and disadvantages
Of course, with every system, it has its pros and cons. Right here are a few of the benefits and drawbacks I have actually personally experienced while utilizing beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Right here are some of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter platform of option:
Easy to set up and start sending newsletters totally free.
Clean and modern-day customer analytics.
Great deals of flexibility with email designs.
Referral program feature.
Internet site hosting.
Produce premium alternatives to generate income from.
Surveys.
To be sincere, I haven’t 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 biased so I’m going to state some cons.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Below are a few of the disadvantages I’ve discovered while making use of beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around including custom-made fonts.
I utilize Webflow as my site structure system of selection (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a long period of time ago). I’m not going to go in too much detail why I like Webflow a lot but you can read my Webflow review if you would love to discover more.
Right now, there actually is no other method I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow internet site besides using an iframe embed. I directly do not like using iframe’s since they often tend to slow down my site a bit. Every single time a web page on my site (with a beehiiv embed) lots, the sign-up installed is the last thing to pack on the page. It’s really obvious when you’re on a slow net connection. However I can get around that.
The main gripe I have is that I can’t make use of a routine Webflow kind (which I like using). There are methods around this by using a device like Zapier yet that would simply add additional expenses that I don’t require. To be honest, this is more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv disadvantage but I believed I would discuss it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros much surpass the cons here. I’m also confident that Webflow will at some point develop a far better method to incorporate with beehiiv.
Final Thought
Overall, beehiiv is a wonderful solution for any individual wanting to study the globe of e-mail marketing and newsletters.
The capability of this newsletter platform much outweighs lots of that are currently on the market. And with a charitable free plan, you truly have absolutely nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are likewise rather economical wherefore they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 subscribers on your checklist is uncommon. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k subscribers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it might cost you well right into the thousands per month.
Anyways, I do not create review articles commonly. I only do when I actually make use of the device myself and would advise it to a pal.
I hope you located some clearness on whether or not beehiiv is a great platform for you.