Over two years ago, I read among my favored e-mail e-newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the e-mail and saw the beehiiv logo design for the very first time. I clicked on it and immediately began destroying Beehiiv Merge Tags.
I had not been sure why I really felt so psychological.
Being a permanent designer is difficult. I’m often getting pitched various devices and services that do not appear to be worth my time.
I guess I was emotional because I invested the last six months trying out various email and e-newsletter platforms to aid construct my e-newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some wonderful options for writing newsletters. Yet I couldn’t discover one that made me give a precise “yes”.
The problem with numerous existing newsletter platforms is that they do not really feel creator-centered. I want an e-newsletter platform that lets me fully tailor my newsletter styles, makes it super very easy to write and send e-mails, and provides me devices that help me examine metrics and obtain more clients.
I believe I’ve lastly located the ideal tool.
Yet, I recognize beehiiv might not be for everybody. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s really appropriate for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one system for newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter platform that makes it easy to style, write, send out, promote, monetize, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Created by previous staff members at the well-known e-newsletter company Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to assist makers launch and monetize their very own e-newsletter– taking great deals of growth principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M clients.
In this write-up, I’m mosting likely to discuss my individual experience with beehiiv, the things I enjoy (and hate) regarding it, all of it’s features, and why I decided to finally opt for it as my e-newsletter platform of choice.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A few months back, I mistakenly stumbled across beehiiv. The amusing tale is that I’ve watched for a modern-day newsletter platform for fairly some time now. I’ve hesitated hard when it involved ultimately launching my newsletter.
First, I tried Mailchimp. Then, a few other indie platforms. After that, Substack. And ultimately, I wound up utilizing beehiiv.
I’m sure several e-newsletter developers look up to popular newsletters with countless clients– I know I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I respected a whole lot. They have excellent content, lots of clients, and a clever referral program that permits them to get even a lot more clients.
So, I took place a quest to find out how these huge newsletters set up their logistics. What system do they utilize? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they obtain even more subscribers? How do they develop a newsletter style that remains on-brand?
When I uncovered beehiiv for the first time, it appeared to answer every one of my concerns. I thought to myself, “damn individuals that built this tool actually comprehend e-newsletter creation and growth.” I examined who these designers of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were several of the very first marketing and growth employees at Morning Brew– my mind blew up.
I understood this was mosting likely to be a different e-newsletter system. One that’s focused on designer development.
Since, any kind of maker recognizes, you require growth to be able to earn a living off of a newsletter. And locating the ideal newsletter stack (that ranges) commonly means making use of several various devices to help accomplish one goal– one platform for your newsletter, one platform to generate income from, and one platform to establish recommendations. It can obtain costly.
So when I learnt beehiiv did all of these things in one system, and it was free to begin using, 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-made e-newsletters with or without needing to have a website.
The most successful e-newsletters have the right devices to develop and scale their newsletters. beehiiv focuses on providing you those tools.
If you’re an independent writer, media firm, start-up, or content maker, you need to seriously considering experimenting with beehiiv. It’s absolutely free to get started and you just pay when you reach over 2,500 clients on your listing.
If you really wind up needing to spend for beehiiv it’s possibly a great sign that individuals enjoy reviewing your stuff.
beehiiv vs Substack
You could be asking, “isn’t there already a platform for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, yes there is. Substack is an excellent platform used by thousands of independent authors. With Substack you obtain your own site and make use of the platform as your all-in-one service for sending out e-mails (while creating an archive of previous concerns).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s dedication to development. beehiiv allows you do to all the important things Substack can do, with the advantage of better analytics, even more style flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing clients to get words out.
beehiiv also gives you a web site similar to Substack. Yet, if you have your own internet site currently, you can likewise make use of beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I use) to send your internet site clients straight to your beehiiv email checklist. On the same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a tool like Revue to enable people to register for your e-newsletter straight from Twitter.
This provides you the versatility to leverage different marketing channels to get your newsletter out into the globe, making beehiiv a terrific Substack option.
How to start utilizing beehiiv e-mail marketing software.
Sign up for a free plan
The first step is to sign up for a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Start trial” switch on beehiiv’s site.
The free plan will enable you to have up to 2,500 customers, give you access to web site hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, development modification, analytics, external embed kinds, and extra. It’s an extremely generous offering for those simply starting out (or for those seeking a brand-new platform to move to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Merge Tags
After creating an account, you’ll undergo an onboarding process that will ask things like, “is this your initial newsletter?”, “what other platforms have you utilized?”, “do you have any type of paying subscribers?”, and much more.
You’ll after that develop a name and link for your e-newsletter’s site. On the free plan, your newsletter will survive on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your internet 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 see to it your e-newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your dashboard
As soon as you reach your major control panel, you’ll see all of your analytics and setups.
You will certainly have detailed information on how many sign-ups you’re obtaining and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see alternatives for “Begin creating,” “Messages,” “Audience,” “Grow,” “Generate income from,” “Design,” and” Assess.” And at the very lower you’ll see the settings choice.
Control panel is your major control center (screenshot over), Begin creating is where you produce and publish e-newsletters, Messages is where you can see every one of your previous e-newsletter versions, Audience is where you can see who your subscribers are (and damage them down right into segments), Grow is where you have access to a referral program (and growth 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 develop your newsletter landing page and post template, Evaluate is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can handle all of your admin things.
Composing your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it simple to start creating, with little to no rubbing. If you’re simply starting out, and have an idea you intend to blog about, I advise just mosting likely to the “Create” area in the navbar and clicking “Start writing”.
You can fine-tune your template and designing later on– concentrate on the material initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor offers a tidy and straightforward user interface for writing.
Once you start writing, you can enhance headings, add links, and design your web content exactly how you like.
beehiiv gives you lots of choices for different sorts of web content like videos, web links, pictures, and a lot more.
The team at beehiiv is also constantly releasing product feature and updates so I make certain there will certainly be a lot a lot more content features depending upon when you read this.
Enhancing your setups and templates
When you have a newsletter that’s ready to send out, it’s time to create your e-mail template and readjust some settings.
Right here, you can update the name of your e-newsletter, offer it a summary, include your logo design, turn on or off a welcome email to very first time clients, and a lot more.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your style.
You can modify history colors, boundaries, spacing, typefaces, image layouts, and much more. I’m not mosting likely to undergo ever before solitary thing you can maximize with your e-mail template because it’s a lot. Just experiment with the platform completely free and see it for yourself!
Necessary beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of amazing features that make it an excellent publishing system for any kind of e-newsletter designer.
Below are a few of the essential features you can find with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter posting system. It makes it extremely easy to create and send e-mails. I mentioned above some of things you can do with your settings and email layout so I’ll spare you some extra analysis.
The important things to note with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has an actually contemporary and minimalistic feeling. It’s absolutely one of the better email editors I have actually ever before written in.
Website hosting
When you create a beehiiv e-newsletter, all of your newsletters (if you want) survive on a website. Consider 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 newsletter.
If you recognize with Substack, it’s basically comparable to that.
All plans, consisting of the cost-free one, give you a web site. Nonetheless, the free plan locations your website on a beehiiv subdomain so if you wish to include a custom-made domain name to get rid of all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting clients is very important. Nevertheless, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can sign up for your e-newsletter straight from your beehiiv web site or through embed types.
If you currently have a web site, and want people to sign up for your newsletter from your existing website, you’ll need to make use of an embed kind. This is what I use on this internet site (you can see the sign-up installed on the right hand column of this post if you scroll up).
With embed types, you have three various options– a full width, a taken care of width, and a slim installed. I personally make use of the slim installed.
You can discover the code fragment for these embeds in the “Subscribe Types” tab in your setups.
There’s likewise an alternative for attribution tracking if you wish to onward UTM parameters for tracking objectives– pretty neat.
However, there are a couple of features I want beehiiv had when it came to subscribe features. I make sure the team is dealing with updates for these, however I discussed a few concerns I had in the benefits and drawbacks area 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 subscribers on your list to forward your e-mails to close friends and associates and if they obtain other people to register for your checklist, you can compensate them. These benefits can be in whatever kind you desire. I have actually appear numerous newsletter firms give rewards 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 one more method for growing your email listing.
However, to obtain accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll have to update to a much more superior plan. I’ll look at all the plans later on in this short article.
Premium memberships
They state all you require to make a living online is 1,000 real fans. Registration income is most definitely a beast of its very own. If you’re looking for a platform to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can create “premium” problems of your e-newsletter that are just sent to paying subscribers. This can be really profitable depending on what your newsletter has to provide. As an example, Trends.co is a preferred costs newsletter that produces millions in income a year simply by having pay-only newsletter content.
Information analytics
One of things I love regarding beehiiv is how tidy and basic the analytics are. You obtain real-time day on exactly how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and customer count Beehiiv Merge Tags.
You obtain access to all the metrics you need to get a bird-eye view on how your e-newsletter is really doing. Logging right into your control panel and seeing that client count rise is absolutely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv supplies 4 various pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (complimentary) Launch plan offers you every little thing you require to begin and grow your e-newsletter (up to 2,500 clients).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) gives you whatever in the Launch plan with the addition the ad network, referral program, customized domain, polls, and access to premium registrations. This is the plan I am on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) offers you everything in the Grow plan with addition of priority support and eliminating the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are rather charitable in my opinion.
As an example, if you have 100,000 customers you will pay around $329 each month. In contrast to some rivals, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would certainly bill $679 per month for the same amount– making beehiiv a terrific Kit choice for many customers.
I’m unsure just how the device business economics deal with this, but beehiiv is certainly less expensive (at the moment) than what it can be.
beehiiv pros and cons
Certainly, with every platform, it has its pros and cons. Right here are a few of the benefits and drawbacks I have actually personally experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Right here are a few of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter system of choice:
Easy to establish and start sending newsletters completely free.
Tidy and contemporary subscriber analytics.
Great deals of flexibility with email styles.
Referral program feature.
Site hosting.
Produce costs alternatives to monetize.
Polls.
To be sincere, I have not seen another e-newsletter system that has had the ability to package every one of these features with each other so well.
But naturally, I do not wish to be biased so I’m going to state some cons.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Here are some of the disadvantages I have actually found while making use of beehiiv:.
Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around adding custom fonts.
I utilize Webflow as my web site structure platform of selection (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 but you can review my Webflow review if you would love to learn more.
Now, there actually is nothing else way I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow web site besides utilizing an iframe embed. I directly do not like making use of iframe’s since they tend to slow down my site a little bit. Every single time a page on my site (with a beehiiv embed) lots, the sign-up embed is the last thing to fill on the page. It’s extremely recognizable when you’re on a slow internet link. However I can get around that.
The major gripe I have is that I can not make use of a normal Webflow form (which I like making use of). There are ways around this by using a tool like Zapier yet that would certainly just include extra prices that I don’t require. To be honest, this is even more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv con yet I believed I would certainly state it.
Besides that, I still think the pros far outweigh the disadvantages here. I’m also confident that Webflow will eventually develop a much better way to integrate with beehiiv.
Verdict
On the whole, beehiiv is a wonderful option for any person looking to study the world of e-mail marketing and e-newsletters.
The performance of this e-newsletter platform far outweighs lots of that are currently on the marketplace. And with a charitable free plan, you really have nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are additionally rather low-cost for what they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 clients on your checklist is unprecedented. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k customers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it could cost you well into the thousands per month.
Anyways, I don’t create evaluation articles frequently. I only do when I really make use of the device myself and would certainly recommend it to a close friend.
I hope you located some clearness on whether beehiiv is a good platform for you.