Over 2 years back, I was reading among my favorite e-mail e-newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo design for the first time. I clicked on it and quickly started tearing up Beehiiv Meta Pixel.
I had not been sure why I felt so psychological.
Being a full time designer is difficult. I’m frequently obtaining pitched various devices 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 six months trying out different email and newsletter platforms to help develop my newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some excellent choices for composing newsletters. But I could not find one that made me provide a guaranteed “yes”.
The problem with many existing newsletter systems is that they do not feel creator-centered. I desire a newsletter system that lets me completely tailor my e-newsletter styles, makes it incredibly very easy to compose and send e-mails, and provides me tools that aid me analyze metrics and get more subscribers.
I think I have actually lastly discovered the best device.
Yet, I understand 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 system for e-newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly e-newsletter platform that makes it very easy to style, compose, send out, promote, generate income from, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Created by previous staff members at the famous newsletter company Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to help makers launch and monetize their own e-newsletter– taking lots of growth concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M clients.
In this post, I’m going to describe my individual experience with beehiiv, things I enjoy (and hate) about it, all of it’s features, and why I made a decision to ultimately opt for it as my newsletter platform of selection.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A few months back, I inadvertently stumbled across beehiiv. The amusing tale is that I’ve watched for a modern-day newsletter platform for quite some time now. I’ve hesitated hard when it came to ultimately launching my newsletter.
Initially, I attempted Mailchimp. After that, a couple of various other indie platforms. Then, Substack. And finally, I ended up utilizing beehiiv.
I make sure many newsletter designers look up to prominent newsletters with numerous clients– I recognize I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I admired a lot. They have terrific material, lots of subscribers, and a smart referral program that permits them to get back at a lot more clients.
So, I went on a hunt to determine just how these big e-newsletters set up their logistics. What platform do they make use of? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they obtain more customers? How do they produce an e-newsletter design that remains on-brand?
When I found beehiiv for the first time, it seemed to respond to every one of my concerns. I believed to myself, “damn individuals that built this tool actually understand e-newsletter creation and growth.” I questioned who these designers of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were several of the first marketing and development staff members at Morning Brew– my mind took off.
I knew this was going to be a various e-newsletter system. One that’s focused on designer growth.
Since, any kind of creator understands, you need growth to be able to make a living off of an e-newsletter. And finding the right e-newsletter pile (that ranges) usually implies utilizing numerous various tools to assist achieve one goal– one platform for your e-newsletter, one system to generate income from, and one platform to establish recommendations. It can obtain expensive.
So when I learnt beehiiv did every one of these points in one platform, and it was complimentary to begin using, it was a piece of cake to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean web content developer that wants a system that enables them to send out personalized e-newsletters with or without requiring to have an internet site.
One of the most effective e-newsletters have the right devices to build and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv focuses on giving you those devices.
If you’re an independent author, media company, start-up, or material creator, you need to seriously considering trying beehiiv. It’s entirely cost-free to get going and you just pay when you reach over 2,500 customers on your list.
If you in fact wind up needing to pay for beehiiv it’s probably a good indication that individuals enjoy reviewing your stuff.
beehiiv vs Substack
You may be asking, “isn’t there already a system for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, yes there is. Substack is a fantastic platform used by thousands of independent authors. With Substack you obtain your very own site and make use of the platform as your all-in-one solution for sending emails (while creating an archive of previous concerns).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s commitment to development. beehiiv permits you do to all the important things Substack can do, with the benefit of better analytics, more style flexibilty, and a referral program to urge your existing subscribers to obtain the word out.
beehiiv likewise gives you an internet site similar to Substack. However, if you have your very own web site already, you can likewise utilize beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I make use of) to send your site customers right to your beehiiv email checklist. On the exact same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a tool like Revue to permit individuals to register for your newsletter directly from Twitter.
This gives you the adaptability to utilize different marketing channels to get your newsletter out into the globe, making beehiiv a wonderful Substack option.
Exactly how to begin making use of 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 “Beginning trial” button on beehiiv’s website.
The free plan will enable you to have up to 2,500 customers, give you access to website hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, breakthrough personalization, analytics, external embed kinds, and more. It’s a very charitable offering for those simply starting out (or for those looking for a brand-new system to migrate to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Meta Pixel
After producing an account, you’ll undergo an onboarding procedure that will ask points like, “is this your very first e-newsletter?”, “what various other platforms have you made use of?”, “do you have any type of paying subscribers?”, and more.
You’ll then develop a name and URL for your newsletter’s site. On the free plan, your newsletter will certainly reside on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your website link may be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding process, you’ll likewise pick your brand name design and colors to make sure your newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your control panel
Once you reach your primary control panel, you’ll see every one of your analytics and settings.
You will certainly have described information on the amount of sign-ups you’re getting and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see alternatives for “Beginning writing,” “Blog posts,” “Audience,” “Expand,” “Monetize,” “Style,” and” Analyze.” And at the extremely lower you’ll see the setups choice.
Control panel is your major control center (screenshot above), Start creating is where you produce and publish e-newsletters, Posts is where you can see all of your previous newsletter versions, Target market is where you can watch who your clients are (and damage them down right into sections), Grow 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 ads, Style is where you design your e-newsletter landing page and article template, Evaluate is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can manage all of your admin things.
Creating your newsletter
beehiiv makes it simple to start composing, with little to no rubbing. If you’re simply beginning, and have a concept you intend to blog about, I advise just mosting likely to the “Compose” section in the navbar and clicking “Start composing”.
You can tweak your template and styling later– focus on the content first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor offers a tidy and straightforward user interface for writing.
Once you begin writing, you can optimize headings, add web links, and style your content how you such as.
beehiiv provides you lots of choices for various types of content like videos, web links, images, and a lot more.
The group at beehiiv is also regularly launching item feature and updates so I make certain there will certainly be a whole lot much more content features depending on when you’re reading this.
Maximizing your settings and templates
When you have an e-newsletter that’s ready to send, it’s time to develop your email template and adjust some settings.
Below, you can upgrade the name of your e-newsletter, offer it a description, add your logo, turn on or off a welcome e-mail to first time subscribers, and extra.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can edit history shades, borders, spacing, fonts, picture layouts, and more. I’m not mosting likely to go through ever solitary point you can enhance with your email template because it’s a great deal. Simply experiment with the system totally free and see it for yourself!
Important beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of impressive features that make it a wonderful posting system for any newsletter designer.
Below are some of the essential features you can discover with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter posting platform. It makes it extremely easy to write and send out emails. I stated over some of things you can do with your setups and e-mail style so I’ll save you some additional reading.
The important things to keep in mind with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has a truly contemporary and minimalistic feel. It’s certainly among the far better e-mail editors I’ve ever written in.
Site hosting
When you develop a beehiiv newsletter, all of your newsletters (if you desire) survive a web site. Consider it as a site for your newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous concerns of your newsletter, and a place where people can register for your e-newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s virtually similar to that.
All plans, including the cost-free one, offer you a web site. Nevertheless, the free plan areas your website on a beehiiv subdomain so if you wish to add a custom-made domain to get rid of all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting clients is very important. Besides, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can register for your e-newsletter right from your beehiiv internet site or with embed forms.
If you already have a web site, and desire individuals to sign up for your e-newsletter from your existing site, you’ll have to make use of an embed form. This is what I make use of on this site (you can see the sign-up embed on the right hand column of this article if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have 3 different options– a full size, a repaired size, and a slim embed. I directly make use of the slim installed.
You can find the code snippet for these embeds in the “Subscribe Types” tab in your settings.
There’s additionally an alternative for acknowledgment tracking if you want to forward UTM parameters for tracking purposes– pretty cool.
Nevertheless, there are a couple of features I wish beehiiv had when it involved subscribe features. I make certain the group is working with updates for these, however I pointed out a couple of worries I had in the advantages and disadvantages section listed below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things about beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter platform, 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 get other people to subscribe to your listing, you can reward them. These rewards can be in whatever kind you desire. I have actually appear several e-newsletter business offer rewards in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously transform your customers right into a word of mouth growth engine for your e-newsletter– giving you an additional avenue for expanding your email list.
However, to obtain access to the referral program feature, you’ll need to update to a more superior plan. I’ll look at all the plans later on in this write-up.
Premium subscriptions
They say all you require to earn a living online is 1,000 true followers. Subscription income is absolutely a beast of its very own. If you’re looking for a platform to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can develop “premium” problems of your newsletter that are only sent to paying subscribers. This can be extremely rewarding depending upon what your newsletter needs to offer. For instance, Trends.co is a popular premium e-newsletter that generates millions in income a year merely by having pay-only newsletter material.
Information analytics
Among things I like concerning beehiiv is how tidy and straightforward the analytics are. You get real-time day on just how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and customer count Beehiiv Meta Pixel.
You get accessibility to all the metrics you need to get a bird-eye view on exactly how your newsletter is really doing. Logging into your dashboard and seeing that customer count increase is absolutely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv supplies 4 various pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (complimentary) Launch plan offers you whatever you need to begin and expand your newsletter (as much as 2,500 subscribers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) gives you whatever in the Launch plan with the enhancement the ad network, referral program, personalized domain name, surveys, and access to costs memberships. This is the plan I am on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) provides you everything in the Grow plan with enhancement of top priority support and removing the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are rather generous in my point of view.
For instance, if you have 100,000 clients you will certainly pay around $329 per month. Instead of some competitors, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would certainly bill $679 per month for the exact same quantity– making beehiiv a great Kit choice for several individuals.
I’m unsure how the device economics service this, however beehiiv is most definitely less expensive (right now) than what it can be.
beehiiv advantages and disadvantages
Obviously, with every system, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Below are several of the benefits and drawbacks I’ve personally experienced while making use of beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Below are a few of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter platform of option:
Easy to establish and begin sending out e-newsletters totally free.
Tidy and contemporary client analytics.
Lots of versatility with email layouts.
Referral program feature.
Web site hosting.
Produce costs choices to generate income from.
Surveys.
To be honest, I haven’t seen another newsletter system that has had the ability to package every one of these features with each other so well.
Yet of course, I do not wish to be biased so I’m mosting likely to state some cons.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Here are several of the cons I have actually discovered while using beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around adding custom typefaces.
I utilize Webflow as my website building platform of choice (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a long period of time ago). I’m not mosting likely to go in way too much information why I enjoy Webflow so much yet you can read my Webflow testimonial if you wish to learn more.
Right now, there actually is nothing else way I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow website other than using an iframe embed. I personally do not like using iframe’s since they have a tendency to reduce my web site a bit. Whenever a page on my site (with a beehiiv embed) loads, the sign-up installed is the last point to fill on the page. It’s very recognizable when you get on a slow net link. However I can get around that.
The main complaint I have is that I can’t utilize a normal Webflow form (which I enjoy utilizing). There are means around this by using a tool like Zapier yet that would certainly just add extra costs that I don’t need. To be straightforward, this is even more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv disadvantage but I assumed I would certainly discuss it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros much exceed the disadvantages here. I’m additionally hopeful that Webflow will eventually develop a far better means to incorporate with beehiiv.
Verdict
Overall, beehiiv is a great service for any individual seeking to study the globe of email marketing and newsletters.
The performance of this newsletter platform far surpasses numerous that are presently on the marketplace. And with a charitable free plan, you truly have absolutely nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are additionally relatively low-cost for what they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 clients on your checklist 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 into the thousands each month.
Anyways, I do not create evaluation messages usually. I only do when I really use the tool myself and would advise it to a buddy.
I wish you found some clearness on whether beehiiv is an excellent system for you.