Over two years back, I was reading one of my favorite e-mail e-newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo for the very first time. I clicked it and immediately started destroying Beehiiv Lead Magnet.
I had not been sure why I really felt so psychological.
Being a permanent designer is tough. I’m frequently obtaining pitched different devices and services that don’t appear to be worth my time.
I guess I was psychological since I invested the last 6 months trying different e-mail and e-newsletter systems to assist develop my newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some terrific alternatives for composing newsletters. But I could not discover one that made me provide a precise “yes”.
The problem with numerous existing e-newsletter systems is that they do not really feel creator-centered. I desire a newsletter system that lets me totally tailor my newsletter designs, makes it extremely easy to write and send emails, and offers me tools that assist me analyze metrics and get more customers.
I assume I’ve finally found the appropriate tool.
But, I recognize beehiiv may 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 platform for e-newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly e-newsletter system that makes it simple to design, write, send, advertise, monetize, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Created by previous staff members at the well-known newsletter business Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to help creators launch and monetize their own e-newsletter– taking great deals of growth concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M customers.
In this short article, I’m mosting likely to clarify my personal experience with beehiiv, the things I like (and hate) regarding it, all of it’s features, and why I made a decision to ultimately opt for it as my e-newsletter platform of option.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A couple of months back, I mistakenly came across beehiiv. The funny tale is that I have actually been on the lookout for a contemporary e-newsletter system for rather some time currently. I have actually put things off hard when it concerned finally introducing my e-newsletter.
First, I attempted Mailchimp. After that, a few various other indie platforms. Then, Substack. And lastly, I wound up using beehiiv.
I make certain many e-newsletter designers appreciate prominent newsletters with countless subscribers– I recognize I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I admired a great deal. They have fantastic material, tons of clients, and a creative referral program that allows them to get back at much more customers.
So, I took place 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 newsletters? How do they get even more customers? How do they produce an e-newsletter style that remains on-brand?
When I discovered beehiiv for the first time, it seemed to answer every one of my concerns. I thought to myself, “damn the people that developed this tool really comprehend e-newsletter production and growth.” I questioned who these developers of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were a few of the initial marketing and development workers at Morning Brew– my brain blew up.
I knew this was mosting likely to be a various e-newsletter platform. One that’s concentrated on designer growth.
Due to the fact that, any type of maker understands, you need growth to be able to earn a living off of a newsletter. And finding the appropriate newsletter stack (that scales) usually means making use of numerous different tools to aid accomplish one goal– one platform for your newsletter, one system to monetize, and one platform to set up referrals. It can obtain costly.
So when I figured out beehiiv did every one of these things in one system, and it was complimentary to start making use of, it was a piece of cake to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean content maker that desires a system that allows them to send custom e-newsletters with or without needing to have a site.
The most successful newsletters have the right devices to develop and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv aims at providing you those tools.
If you’re an independent writer, media business, startup, or content designer, you must seriously taking into consideration experimenting with beehiiv. It’s completely free to start and you only pay when you get to over 2,500 clients on your checklist.
If you really end up needing to spend for beehiiv it’s probably a great indicator that individuals like reading your things.
beehiiv vs Substack
You could be asking, “isn’t there already a platform for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, indeed there is. Substack is an excellent platform used by hundreds of independent writers. With Substack you obtain your very own web site and utilize the system as your all-in-one option for sending out e-mails (while producing an archive of previous problems).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s devotion to growth. beehiiv allows you do to all things Substack can do, with the benefit of much better analytics, even more design flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing subscribers to obtain words out.
beehiiv likewise offers you a web site similar to Substack. Yet, if you have your own internet site currently, you can likewise use beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I utilize) to send your website customers directly to your beehiiv email listing. On the very same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a tool like Revue to allow individuals to sign up for your newsletter straight from Twitter.
This gives you the adaptability to take advantage of different marketing channels to obtain your newsletter out right into the globe, making beehiiv a wonderful Substack choice.
Just how to begin using beehiiv e-mail marketing software program.
Enroll in a free plan
The first step is to sign up for a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Start trial” switch on beehiiv’s website.
The free plan will permit you to have up to 2,500 customers, provide you access to website hosting, a newsletter CMS, breakthrough customization, analytics, exterior embed forms, and extra. It’s an extremely charitable offering for those simply starting (or for those seeking a brand-new platform to migrate to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Lead Magnet
After creating an account, you’ll undergo an onboarding process that will ask things like, “is this your first newsletter?”, “what other systems have you made use of?”, “do you have any type of paying subscribers?”, and extra.
You’ll then produce a name and URL 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 “Cooking Cakes,” your website URL could be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding process, you’ll additionally choose your brand design and colors to make sure your e-newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your control panel
When you reach your major dashboard, you’ll see all of your analytics and setups.
You will certainly have outlined info on how many sign-ups you’re obtaining and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see options for “Start writing,” “Posts,” “Audience,” “Expand,” “Monetize,” “Layout,” and” Assess.” And at the very lower you’ll see the setups option.
Control panel is your major control center (screenshot over), Beginning writing is where you produce and release e-newsletters, Posts is where you can see every one of your previous newsletter editions, Target market is where you can view who your clients are (and break them down into segments), Expand is where you have access 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 advertisements, Style is where you make your e-newsletter landing page and message template, Assess is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can handle all of your admin stuff.
Creating your newsletter
beehiiv makes it easy to start writing, with little to no rubbing. If you’re just starting, and have a concept you wish to cover, I recommend just mosting likely to the “Write” section in the navbar and clicking on “Begin writing”.
You can modify your template and styling later– focus on the web content initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor provides a tidy and straightforward user interface for composing.
Once you start writing, you can maximize headings, include web links, and design your material just how you such as.
beehiiv offers you lots of choices for various types of material like video clips, web links, images, and much more.
The group at beehiiv is additionally regularly launching item feature and updates so I make certain there will be a lot more content features depending upon when you read this.
Maximizing your settings and templates
When you have an e-newsletter that’s ready to send, it’s time to create your e-mail template and change some setups.
Below, you can update the name of your e-newsletter, provide it a description, add your logo design, turn on or off a welcome email to first time clients, and extra.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your design.
You can edit history colors, borders, spacing, fonts, picture formats, and extra. I’m not going to undergo ever solitary thing you can optimize with your email template since it’s a lot. Just try out the platform completely free and see it for yourself!
Essential beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of impressive features that make it a fantastic posting platform for any kind of newsletter maker.
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 posting platform. It makes it super easy to write and send out e-mails. I mentioned above some of the things you can do with your setups and email layout so I’ll spare you some extra analysis.
The thing to note with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has a truly contemporary and minimalistic feel. It’s definitely among the much better e-mail editors I have actually ever before written in.
Web site hosting
When you develop a beehiiv newsletter, all of your e-newsletters (if you desire) reside on a web site. Think about it as a site for your e-newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous concerns of your newsletter, and an area where people can sign up for your e-newsletter.
If you’re familiar with Substack, it’s virtually similar to that.
All plans, consisting of the cost-free one, give you a site. Nonetheless, the free plan places your web site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you want to include a customized domain name to eliminate all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting subscribers is very important. After all, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can subscribe to your newsletter directly from your beehiiv web site or via embed forms.
If you currently have a site, and want individuals to subscribe to your newsletter from your existing website, you’ll have to make use of an embed type. This is what I utilize on this web site (you can see the sign-up installed on the right hand column of this blog post if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have three different options– a complete size, a taken care of width, and a slim embed. I personally make use of the slim installed.
You can discover the code snippet for these embeds in the “Subscribe Forms” tab in your setups.
There’s additionally an alternative for acknowledgment monitoring if you intend to forward UTM specifications for tracking functions– rather cool.
Nevertheless, there are a couple of features I want beehiiv had when it concerned subscribe features. I make certain the group is servicing updates for these, however I mentioned a couple of issues I had in the advantages and disadvantages area below.
Referral program
Among the amazing things regarding beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter system, is an option for creating a referral program.
You can urge existing subscribers on your checklist to ahead your e-mails to buddies and colleagues and if they obtain other individuals to sign up for your checklist, you can award them. These benefits can be in whatever type you want. I have actually appear several newsletter companies give rewards 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– offering you an additional avenue for growing your e-mail checklist.
Nevertheless, to obtain access to the referral program feature, you’ll have to update to an extra exceptional plan. I’ll review all the plans later on in this write-up.
Costs registrations
They say all you require to make a living online is 1,000 real followers. Subscription profits is most definitely a beast of its very own. If you’re trying to find a system to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can produce “premium” concerns of your e-newsletter that are only sent to paying customers. This can be extremely profitable relying on what your newsletter needs to supply. As an example, Trends.co is a preferred premium e-newsletter that generates millions in revenue a year merely by having pay-only newsletter material.
Data analytics
One of things I love about beehiiv is just how clean and straightforward the analytics are. You get real-time day on how your newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and customer matter Beehiiv Lead Magnet.
You get accessibility to all the metrics you need to obtain a bird-eye sight on just how your e-newsletter is in fact doing. Logging right into your dashboard and seeing that client count rise is definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv supplies four different pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (totally free) Launch plan provides you everything you need to get started and grow your e-newsletter (up to 2,500 clients).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) provides you whatever in the Launch plan with the addition the advertisement network, referral program, customized domain name, surveys, and accessibility to premium subscriptions. This is the plan I am on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) gives you every little thing in the Grow plan with addition of priority assistance and eliminating the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are rather generous in my opinion.
As an example, if you have 100,000 customers you will certainly pay around $329 per month. Rather than some rivals, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would bill $679 each month for the very same quantity– making beehiiv a fantastic Kit choice for several customers.
I’m unsure exactly how the device business economics work with this, yet beehiiv is most definitely cheaper (currently) than what it can be.
beehiiv advantages and disadvantages
Naturally, with every platform, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Right here are a few of the advantages and disadvantages I’ve personally experienced while utilizing beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Here are several of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter system of option:
Easy to establish and start sending out e-newsletters absolutely free.
Clean and modern subscriber analytics.
Lots of versatility with e-mail designs.
Referral program feature.
Web site hosting.
Develop costs options to monetize.
Surveys.
To be honest, I have not seen one more e-newsletter platform that has been able to package every one of these features together so well.
But naturally, I do not wish to be biased so I’m going to mention some disadvantages.
Cons of using beehiiv
Here are several of the disadvantages I’ve found while making use of beehiiv:.
Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around including custom-made fonts.
I utilize Webflow as my internet site structure system of selection (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a long time ago). I’m not mosting likely to enter too much detail why I enjoy Webflow so much however you can read my Webflow review if you want to find out more.
Today, there really is nothing else method I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow site other than utilizing an iframe embed. I personally do not like making use of iframe’s due to the fact that they tend to decrease my site a little bit. Each time a page on my website (with a beehiiv installed) tons, the sign-up installed is the last point to load on the page. It’s very obvious when you’re on a slow-moving web connection. But I can navigate that.
The primary complaint I have is that I can not utilize a regular Webflow form (which I enjoy utilizing). There are ways around this by utilizing a tool like Zapier but that would certainly simply include added expenses that I don’t need. To be straightforward, this is even more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv con yet I assumed I would certainly mention it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros much surpass the cons below. I’m also enthusiastic that Webflow will ultimately develop a far better means to integrate with beehiiv.
Verdict
On the whole, beehiiv is a great option for anybody looking to study the world of e-mail marketing and e-newsletters.
The functionality of this newsletter system far outweighs many that are currently on the market. And with a charitable free plan, you really have absolutely nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are likewise relatively economical wherefore they are. Paying just $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 might cost you well right into the thousands monthly.
Anyways, I do not compose testimonial messages typically. I only do when I actually utilize the device myself and would certainly recommend it to a buddy.
I wish you located some clearness on whether beehiiv is an excellent platform for you.