Over two years earlier, I was reading one of my preferred e-mail 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 started tearing up Beehiiv Monetization Calculator.
I had not been certain why I felt so psychological.
Being a full time maker is difficult. I’m frequently getting pitched various devices and services that do not seem to be worth my time.
I think I was emotional due to the fact that I invested the last 6 months checking out various email and e-newsletter systems to assist build my newsletter. And to be fair, there are some wonderful choices for composing newsletters. However I couldn’t locate one that made me offer a certain “yes”.
The issue with many existing newsletter platforms is that they don’t feel creator-centered. I desire an e-newsletter platform that lets me completely personalize my e-newsletter layouts, makes it very very easy to compose and send emails, and gives me tools that aid me assess metrics and get even more subscribers.
I assume I have actually ultimately located the ideal tool.
But, I recognize beehiiv might not be for everybody. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s really best 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 design, compose, send out, promote, generate income from, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Produced by former workers at the renowned e-newsletter business Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to assist developers 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 going to discuss my individual experience with beehiiv, the things I love (and hate) concerning it, all of it’s features, and why I determined to lastly go with it as my e-newsletter platform of selection.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A couple of months earlier, I mistakenly came across beehiiv. The amusing story is that I have actually been on the lookout for a modern-day newsletter platform for quite a long time now. I’ve procrastinated hard when it came to ultimately releasing my e-newsletter.
First, I tried Mailchimp. Then, a few various other indie platforms. After that, Substack. And lastly, I wound up using beehiiv.
I’m sure many e-newsletter makers respect popular e-newsletters with numerous customers– I understand I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I admired a whole lot. They have excellent material, lots of clients, and a smart referral program that permits them to get even much more clients.
So, I went on a hunt to figure out just how these big newsletters set up their logistics. What system do they use? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they obtain more subscribers? How do they produce an e-newsletter layout that remains on-brand?
When I discovered beehiiv for the first time, it seemed to respond to all of my questions. I thought to myself, “damn the people that built this tool truly comprehend e-newsletter production and development.” I examined who these developers of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were several of the first marketing and development employees at Morning Brew– my brain blew up.
I recognized this was going to be a various e-newsletter platform. One that’s concentrated on designer development.
Because, any kind of maker recognizes, you require growth to be able to earn a living off of an e-newsletter. And discovering the right e-newsletter stack (that ranges) frequently implies making use of multiple various devices to assist accomplish one objective– one system for your e-newsletter, one system to monetize, and one system to set up referrals. It can obtain expensive.
So when I discovered beehiiv did every one of these points in one platform, 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 maker that desires a system that allows them to send custom e-newsletters with or without needing to have a web site.
One of the most effective e-newsletters have the right devices to build and scale their newsletters. beehiiv aims at providing you those tools.
If you’re an independent author, media company, startup, or web content developer, you should seriously thinking about trying out beehiiv. It’s absolutely free to begin and you just pay when you reach over 2,500 customers on your listing.
If you really end up needing to pay for beehiiv it’s most likely an excellent indicator that individuals enjoy reviewing your stuff.
beehiiv vs Substack
You could be asking, “isn’t there already a system for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, yes there is. Substack is an excellent platform used by thousands of independent writers. With Substack you get your own internet site and utilize the system as your all-in-one remedy for sending out emails (while creating an archive of previous problems).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s devotion to growth. beehiiv allows you do to all things Substack can do, with the advantage of better analytics, more layout flexibilty, and a referral program to encourage your existing customers to get words out.
beehiiv also provides you a website similar to Substack. But, if you have your very own site already, you can also utilize beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I use) to send your website customers straight to your beehiiv email list. On the very same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a tool like Revue to allow individuals to register for your e-newsletter directly from Twitter.
This gives you the adaptability to leverage different marketing channels to get your newsletter out into the globe, making beehiiv a wonderful Substack choice.
Just how to start using beehiiv email marketing software program.
Enroll in a free plan
The primary step is to sign up for a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Beginning trial” switch on beehiiv’s site.
The free plan will certainly allow you to have up to 2,500 customers, give you accessibility to website hosting, a newsletter CMS, advancement customization, analytics, exterior embed kinds, and a lot more. It’s a really generous offering for those just beginning (or for those trying to find a new system to migrate to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Monetization Calculator
After producing an account, you’ll experience an onboarding process that will ask points like, “is this your initial e-newsletter?”, “what various other systems have you used?”, “do you have any type of paying customers?”, and a lot more.
You’ll then produce a name and link for your newsletter’s website. On the free plan, your newsletter will certainly survive 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 process, you’ll likewise choose your brand name colors and design to make certain your newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your control panel
Once you reach your main control panel, you’ll see all of your analytics and settings.
You will have detailed details on the amount of sign-ups you’re getting and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see options for “Beginning creating,” “Blog posts,” “Audience,” “Grow,” “Monetize,” “Layout,” and” Evaluate.” And at the extremely bottom you’ll see the settings choice.
Control panel is your primary control center (screenshot above), Begin writing is where you develop and publish newsletters, Articles is where you can see all of your previous e-newsletter versions, Target market is where you can watch who your customers are (and break them down into sectors), 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 newsletter with advertisements, Design is where you develop your newsletter landing page and blog post template, Assess is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can handle all of your admin stuff.
Creating your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it simple to start writing, with little to no rubbing. If you’re simply beginning, and have a concept you intend to write about, I advise simply going to the “Create” area in the navbar and clicking “Start composing”.
You can tweak your template and designing later on– concentrate on the content first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor supplies a clean and user-friendly interface for composing.
As soon as you begin creating, you can enhance headings, include web links, and design your web content how you like.
beehiiv offers you lots of alternatives for various kinds of content like video clips, web links, photos, and more.
The group at beehiiv is likewise constantly releasing item feature and updates so I make sure there will certainly be a great deal a lot more content features depending upon when you read this.
Enhancing your setups and templates
When you have an e-newsletter that prepares to send, it’s time to create your email template and adjust some setups.
Right here, you can update the name of your e-newsletter, give it a description, include your logo, switch on or off a welcome e-mail to very first time clients, and a lot more.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your design.
You can edit history shades, boundaries, spacing, fonts, image styles, and much more. I’m not mosting likely to experience ever single thing you can optimize with your e-mail template due to the fact that it’s a whole lot. Simply check out the platform completely free and see it on your own!
Important beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of remarkable features that make it a fantastic posting platform for any newsletter maker.
Right here are some of the essential features you can discover with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter posting platform. It makes it extremely very easy to compose and send emails. I mentioned above a few of things you can do with your setups and email design so I’ll save you some extra reading.
The thing to keep in mind with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has an actually modern-day and minimalistic feeling. It’s absolutely among the far better email editors I’ve ever before written in.
Web site hosting
When you create a beehiiv newsletter, every one of your newsletters (if you desire) live on an internet site. Think of it as a website for your e-newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous issues of your e-newsletter, and a location where people can register for your newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s pretty much similar to that.
All plans, including the complimentary one, give you an internet site. Nevertheless, the free plan places your internet site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you want to include a personalized domain name to eliminate all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining customers is necessary. After all, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can subscribe to your e-newsletter right from your beehiiv web site or through embed forms.
If you already have a web site, and want individuals to register for your newsletter from your existing website, you’ll have to use an embed kind. This is what I make use of on this website (you can see the sign-up embed on the right hand column of this blog post if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have three different choices– a full width, a dealt with width, and a slim installed. I personally use the slim installed.
You can locate the code fragment for these embeds in the “Subscribe Types” tab in your settings.
There’s additionally an option for acknowledgment tracking if you wish to ahead UTM specifications for tracking objectives– quite neat.
However, there are a couple of features I wish beehiiv had when it concerned subscribe features. I’m sure the group is working with updates for these, but I stated a couple of problems I had in the pros and cons area 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 service for developing a referral program.
You can motivate existing subscribers on your checklist to forward your emails to friends and colleagues and if they obtain other individuals to sign up for your listing, you can reward them. These rewards can be in whatever kind you want. I have actually appear lots of newsletter companies provide rewards in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously turn your customers into a word of mouth growth engine for your e-newsletter– offering you one more opportunity for growing your email checklist.
Nevertheless, to get access to the referral program feature, you’ll have to update to a much more exceptional plan. I’ll discuss all the plans later on in this article.
Costs subscriptions
They say all you require to make a living online is 1,000 real followers. Registration revenue is certainly a monster of its very own. If you’re trying to find a system to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can create “premium” issues of your newsletter that are only sent to paying subscribers. This can be extremely rewarding depending on what your newsletter needs to offer. For example, Trends.co is a preferred costs e-newsletter that generates millions in revenue a year merely by having pay-only e-newsletter content.
Data analytics
Among the things I like concerning beehiiv is how tidy and easy the analytics are. You get real-time day on how your newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and customer matter Beehiiv Monetization Calculator.
You get accessibility to all the metrics you need to obtain a bird-eye view on exactly how your newsletter is actually doing. Logging right into your dashboard and seeing that subscriber matter go up is certainly a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv supplies 4 various pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (free) Launch plan offers you every little thing you require to begin and expand your newsletter (as much as 2,500 subscribers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) gives you everything in the Launch plan with the addition the advertisement network, referral program, custom-made domain, polls, and accessibility to premium memberships. This is the plan I am on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) gives you everything in the Grow plan with enhancement of concern assistance and getting rid of the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are fairly generous in my point of view.
For example, if you have 100,000 subscribers you will pay around $329 each month. Rather than some competitors, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would charge $679 each month for the exact same amount– making beehiiv a fantastic Kit option for several individuals.
I’m uncertain exactly how the unit economics deal with this, but beehiiv is most definitely cheaper (currently) than what it can be.
beehiiv benefits and drawbacks
Certainly, with every system, it has its benefits and drawbacks. Below are some of the advantages and disadvantages I have actually directly experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Below are some of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter system of choice:
Easy to set up and begin sending newsletters absolutely free.
Tidy and contemporary customer analytics.
Lots of flexibility with e-mail layouts.
Referral program feature.
Website hosting.
Create premium options to monetize.
Surveys.
To be honest, I have not seen an additional e-newsletter system that has actually been able to package every one of these features with each other so well.
But certainly, I do not wish to be biased so I’m mosting likely to discuss some disadvantages.
Cons of using beehiiv
Right here are some of the disadvantages I have actually located while making use of beehiiv:.
Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around including custom-made font styles.
I utilize Webflow as my website structure system of selection (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a very long time ago). I’m not going to go in too much detail why I enjoy Webflow so much however you can review my Webflow testimonial if you wish to find out more.
Today, there actually is nothing else way I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow site apart from using an iframe embed. I personally do not such as using iframe’s due to the fact that they tend to reduce my site a little bit. Every time a page on my website (with a beehiiv installed) tons, the sign-up embed is the last thing to fill on the page. It’s extremely visible when you’re on a slow web link. But I can get around that.
The primary gripe I have is that I can not utilize a routine Webflow kind (which I enjoy utilizing). There are ways around this by utilizing a device like Zapier yet that would certainly just add extra costs that I do not need. To be honest, this is more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv disadvantage but I assumed I would state it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros much outweigh the disadvantages right here. I’m additionally enthusiastic that Webflow will ultimately create a far better method to incorporate with beehiiv.
Final Thought
Overall, beehiiv is a fantastic option for anybody wanting to dive into the globe of email marketing and newsletters.
The functionality of this newsletter platform far outweighs numerous that are presently on the market. And with a generous free plan, you actually have nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are additionally fairly economical for what they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 clients on your checklist is unheard of. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k subscribers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it could cost you well into the thousands per month.
Anyways, I don’t write testimonial blog posts usually. I just do when I in fact use the tool myself and would certainly advise it to a close friend.
I hope you found some clearness on whether or not beehiiv is a great system for you.