Over two years earlier, I was reading among my favored 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 on it and instantaneously started wrecking Beehiiv Monetize.
I had not been certain why I felt so emotional.
Being a full-time maker is tough. I’m usually getting pitched different tools and services that don’t appear to be worth my time.
I guess I was psychological due to the fact that I invested the last six months checking out various email and newsletter platforms to help construct my newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some excellent alternatives for composing e-newsletters. Yet I couldn’t locate one that made me provide a definite “yes”.
The problem with lots of existing newsletter platforms is that they don’t really feel creator-centered. I want an e-newsletter system that lets me completely tailor my e-newsletter styles, makes it super very easy to create and send out emails, and provides me devices that help me analyze metrics and obtain more subscribers.
I think I’ve lastly found the appropriate tool.
However, I recognize beehiiv might not be for everyone. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s really right for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one platform for newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly e-newsletter platform that makes it easy to style, write, send out, advertise, generate income from, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Developed by previous workers at the renowned e-newsletter firm Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to aid creators launch and monetize their own newsletter– taking lots of growth concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M subscribers.
In this article, I’m going to explain my individual experience with beehiiv, the things I love (and hate) about it, all of it’s features, and why I determined to ultimately opt for it as my e-newsletter system of choice.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A few months back, I accidentally came across beehiiv. The funny story is that I have actually watched for a contemporary e-newsletter platform for rather a long time currently. I’ve postponed hard when it concerned finally introducing my e-newsletter.
Initially, I attempted Mailchimp. Then, a few other indie systems. Then, Substack. And ultimately, I wound up using beehiiv.
I make certain several newsletter developers respect popular e-newsletters with numerous clients– I recognize I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I admired a lot. They have terrific web content, lots of subscribers, and a smart referral program that permits them to get even more clients.
So, I took place a search to determine exactly how these big e-newsletters established 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 create an e-newsletter style that remains on-brand?
When I uncovered beehiiv for the very first time, it appeared to address all of my concerns. I thought to myself, “damn individuals that developed this tool really understand e-newsletter development and development.” I examined who these makers of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were a few of the initial marketing and development staff members 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 creator growth.
Because, any developer understands, you need growth to be able to earn a living off of a newsletter. And locating the ideal e-newsletter stack (that scales) typically means using numerous various devices to aid attain one goal– one platform for your newsletter, one system to generate income from, and one platform to establish referrals. It can obtain costly.
So when I learnt beehiiv did all of these points in one system, 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 material developer that wants a system that enables them to send out personalized e-newsletters with or without needing to have an internet site.
One of the most effective e-newsletters have the right tools to build and scale their newsletters. beehiiv targets at providing you those tools.
If you’re an independent writer, media company, start-up, or material developer, you ought to seriously taking into consideration checking out beehiiv. It’s entirely complimentary to get going and you only pay when you reach over 2,500 subscribers on your listing.
If you actually wind up needing to pay for beehiiv it’s most likely a good indicator that people enjoy reading your things.
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 system made use of by hundreds of independent authors. With Substack you get your very own web site and make use of the platform as your all-in-one option for sending e-mails (while developing an archive of previous concerns).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s dedication to development. beehiiv enables you do to all things Substack can do, with the advantage of much better analytics, more style flexibilty, and a referral program to urge your existing subscribers to obtain the word out.
beehiiv also provides you a site similar to Substack. However, if you have your own site currently, you can likewise utilize beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I utilize) to send your internet site clients directly to your beehiiv email checklist. On the very same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a device like Performance to allow individuals to subscribe to your e-newsletter straight from Twitter.
This gives you the versatility to utilize different marketing channels to get your e-newsletter out into the globe, making beehiiv a fantastic Substack choice.
How to start making use of beehiiv e-mail marketing software application.
Register for a free plan
The initial step is to enroll in a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Begin trial” button on beehiiv’s web site.
The free plan will certainly enable you to have up to 2,500 clients, provide you accessibility to website hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, advance modification, analytics, external embed kinds, and extra. It’s a really charitable offering for those simply starting out (or for those trying to find a new platform to migrate to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Monetize
After producing an account, you’ll undergo an onboarding procedure that will ask points like, “is this your first newsletter?”, “what various other platforms have you utilized?”, “do you have any paying subscribers?”, and much more.
You’ll after that produce a name and link for your e-newsletter’s web site. On the free plan, your newsletter will certainly survive a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your internet site URL might be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding procedure, you’ll likewise select your brand colors and design to see to it your newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your control panel
Once you reach your main dashboard, you’ll see every one of your analytics and setups.
You will have detailed info on the number of sign-ups you’re getting and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see options for “Start writing,” “Posts,” “Target market,” “Expand,” “Generate income from,” “Design,” and” Evaluate.” And at the really bottom you’ll see the settings option.
Dashboard is your major control center (screenshot over), Start writing is where you create and publish newsletters, Posts is where you can see all of your previous newsletter versions, Audience is where you can watch who your subscribers are (and damage them down into sections), Grow is where you have access to a referral program (and growth tutorials) and boosts to run advertisements, 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, Analyze is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can take care of every one of your admin stuff.
Writing your newsletter
beehiiv makes it easy to begin writing, with little to no rubbing. If you’re simply starting, and have an idea you want to discuss, I suggest just mosting likely to the “Write” area in the navbar and clicking “Begin writing”.
You can tweak your template and styling later– concentrate on the web content first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor offers a tidy and straightforward user interface for creating.
As soon as you start writing, you can optimize headings, include links, and design your material how you such as.
beehiiv offers you tons of choices for various sorts of web content like videos, links, images, and more.
The group at beehiiv is additionally constantly releasing item feature and updates so I make sure there will certainly be a great deal extra content features depending on when you’re reading this.
Enhancing your settings and templates
Once you have an e-newsletter that prepares to send, it’s time to make your email template and change some setups.
Right here, you can upgrade the name of your e-newsletter, offer it a summary, add your logo design, switch on or off a welcome email to first time customers, and a lot more.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can edit background shades, boundaries, spacing, fonts, image layouts, and more. I’m not going to undergo ever before single thing you can maximize with your email template since it’s a whole lot. Just experiment with the system for free and see it on your own!
Important beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of incredible features that make it a great publishing platform for any type of newsletter maker.
Here are a few of the crucial features you can find with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter publishing system. It makes it super easy to create and send emails. I stated over several of the things you can do with your setups and email design so I’ll save you some additional reading.
The thing to note with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has a truly contemporary and minimalistic feeling. It’s absolutely one of the much better e-mail editors I have actually ever written in.
Website hosting
When you create a beehiiv e-newsletter, every one of your e-newsletters (if you want) survive on an internet site. Consider it as an internet site for your e-newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous issues of your newsletter, and a location where individuals can subscribe to your newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s basically comparable to that.
All plans, consisting of the complimentary one, give you a site. Nevertheless, the free plan locations your website on a beehiiv subdomain so if you intend to add a personalized domain name to get rid of all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting clients is necessary. Besides, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can subscribe to your e-newsletter straight from your beehiiv site or with embed types.
If you already have a website, and desire people to subscribe to your e-newsletter from your existing website, you’ll need to utilize an embed form. This is what I utilize on this site (you can see the sign-up embed on the right-hand man column of this blog post if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have 3 various options– a complete width, a dealt with width, and a slim installed. I personally use the slim installed.
You can locate the code bit for these embeds in the “Subscribe Forms” tab in your setups.
There’s likewise an option for attribution tracking if you want to forward UTM parameters for tracking purposes– rather neat.
Nevertheless, there are a few features I wish beehiiv had when it came to subscribe features. I make certain the group is servicing updates for these, yet I stated a couple of concerns I had in the pros and cons area listed below.
Referral program
Among the amazing things about beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter platform, is an option for developing a referral program.
You can encourage existing clients on your listing to onward your e-mails to close friends and colleagues and if they obtain other people to subscribe to your listing, you can award them. These benefits can be in whatever form you want. I’ve appear numerous newsletter companies offer incentives in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously turn your subscribers right into a word of mouth development engine for your newsletter– giving you an additional avenue for growing your email listing.
However, to obtain accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll need to upgrade to a much more superior plan. I’ll go over all the plans later in this article.
Premium subscriptions
They say all you require to make a living online is 1,000 real fans. Subscription income is certainly a monster of its own. If you’re searching for a system to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can create “costs” issues of your e-newsletter that are just sent out to paying subscribers. This can be extremely financially rewarding depending upon what your newsletter has to use. For example, Trends.co is a popular premium e-newsletter that creates millions in income a year just by having pay-only newsletter material.
Information analytics
Among the things I love concerning beehiiv is how clean and straightforward the analytics are. You obtain real-time day on just how your newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and customer matter Beehiiv Monetize.
You obtain accessibility to all the metrics you need to get a bird-eye sight on exactly how your newsletter is really doing. Logging right into your dashboard and seeing that customer count increase is certainly a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv uses four different pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (complimentary) Launch plan offers you everything you need to begin and expand your e-newsletter (up to 2,500 customers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) gives you whatever in the Launch plan with the enhancement the advertisement network, referral program, custom-made domain name, surveys, and access to costs memberships. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) provides you every little thing in the Grow plan with enhancement of concern support and removing the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are quite charitable in my opinion.
As an example, if you have 100,000 subscribers you will certainly pay around $329 each month. In contrast to some competitors, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would bill $679 per month for the exact same quantity– making beehiiv a great Kit alternative for many customers.
I’m unsure exactly how the system business economics deal with this, however beehiiv is absolutely more affordable (presently) than what it can be.
beehiiv advantages and disadvantages
Certainly, with every platform, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Right here are some of the advantages and disadvantages I’ve personally experienced while making use of beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Right here are some of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter system of choice:
Easy to establish and start sending out e-newsletters for free.
Tidy and contemporary client analytics.
Great deals of versatility with email layouts.
Referral program feature.
Internet site hosting.
Develop costs choices to generate income from.
Polls.
To be truthful, I have not seen one more e-newsletter system that has actually had the ability to package every one of these features with each other so well.
Yet naturally, I don’t intend to be biased so I’m going to mention some cons.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Here are some of the cons I’ve found while making use of beehiiv:.
Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around adding custom typefaces.
I make use of Webflow as my site building platform of option (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a long period of time ago). I’m not mosting likely to go in excessive information why I like Webflow a lot but you can read my Webflow evaluation if you wish to find out more.
Right now, there really is no other way I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow web site other than utilizing an iframe embed. I directly don’t like making use of iframe’s because they tend to reduce my site a little bit. Every time a web page on my website (with a beehiiv installed) tons, the sign-up installed is the last point to load on the web page. It’s extremely noticeable when you get on a slow-moving net link. But I can get around that.
The main complaint I have is that I can’t utilize a normal Webflow type (which I like making use of). There are ways around this by utilizing a device like Zapier yet that would certainly just add additional expenses that I don’t need. To be sincere, this is even more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv con but I assumed I would state it.
Besides that, I still think the pros far surpass the disadvantages right here. I’m likewise confident that Webflow will at some point create a far better means to incorporate with beehiiv.
Conclusion
In general, beehiiv is an excellent solution for anyone wanting to dive into the world of email marketing and e-newsletters.
The performance of this newsletter system far outweighs many that are presently on the market. And with a charitable free plan, you really have nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are likewise relatively economical for what they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 customers on your list is unusual. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k subscribers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it could cost you well right into the thousands monthly.
Anyways, I do not compose testimonial blog posts typically. I only do when I in fact use the device myself and would certainly advise it to a good friend.
I hope you found some clarity on whether or not beehiiv is a good system for you.