Over 2 years ago, I was reading among my preferred e-mail e-newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the e-mail and saw the beehiiv logo for the very first time. I clicked it and quickly began tearing up Beehiiv Newsletter Course.
I wasn’t certain why I felt so emotional.
Being a full-time creator is tough. I’m often obtaining pitched various tools and services that do not seem to be worth my time.
I presume I was emotional because I invested the last 6 months checking out different email and e-newsletter systems to help build my e-newsletter. And to be fair, there are some fantastic choices for writing e-newsletters. Yet I could not find one that made me provide a certain “yes”.
The issue with numerous existing e-newsletter platforms is that they don’t feel creator-centered. I desire an e-newsletter system that lets me fully customize my e-newsletter layouts, makes it extremely simple to create and send out emails, and offers me devices that help me analyze metrics and obtain more subscribers.
I believe I have actually lastly located the best device.
However, I recognize beehiiv might not be for every person. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s actually ideal for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one system for e-newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter platform that makes it simple to style, compose, send out, promote, generate income from, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Created by former staff members at the famous newsletter firm Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to help designers launch and monetize their own e-newsletter– taking great deals of development principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M clients.
In this article, I’m going to explain my personal experience with beehiiv, things I like (and hate) about it, all of it’s features, and why I chose to finally select it as my newsletter system of selection.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A couple of months ago, I inadvertently came across beehiiv. The amusing story is that I have actually been on the lookout for a modern-day e-newsletter platform for fairly some time now. I’ve postponed hard when it involved ultimately introducing my e-newsletter.
Initially, I attempted Mailchimp. After that, a few various other indie platforms. After that, Substack. And ultimately, I ended up using beehiiv.
I make certain many newsletter developers respect preferred e-newsletters with millions of subscribers– I know I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I looked up to a whole lot. They have excellent content, lots of clients, and a brilliant referral program that permits them to get even more subscribers.
So, I took place a quest to identify exactly how these large newsletters set up their logistics. What system do they use? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they get even more customers? How do they create a newsletter style that stays on-brand?
When I uncovered beehiiv for the very first time, it appeared to answer every one of my questions. I believed to myself, “damn the people that built this tool actually recognize e-newsletter creation and growth.” I questioned who these designers of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were a few of the initial marketing and growth employees at Morning Brew– my mind exploded.
I understood this was going to be a different newsletter platform. One that’s focused on maker growth.
Due to the fact that, any creator knows, you require development to be able to make a living off of a newsletter. And finding the right e-newsletter pile (that scales) commonly means making use of multiple different tools to assist attain one objective– one system for your newsletter, one platform to generate income from, and one system to establish referrals. It can obtain expensive.
So when I found out beehiiv did every one of these things in one platform, and it was complimentary to start utilizing, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean web content designer that desires a system that enables them to send custom e-newsletters with or without needing to have an internet site.
The most effective e-newsletters have the right devices to construct and scale their newsletters. beehiiv focuses on offering you those devices.
If you’re an independent writer, media company, startup, or web content maker, you need to seriously thinking about checking out beehiiv. It’s entirely cost-free to get started and you just pay when you reach over 2,500 subscribers on your list.
If you really end up having to pay for beehiiv it’s most likely a great indicator that people like reading your things.
beehiiv vs Substack
You might be asking, “isn’t there already a platform for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, yes there is. Substack is an excellent platform made use of by countless independent writers. With Substack you obtain your very own site and make use of the system as your all-in-one service for sending emails (while producing an archive of previous issues).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s devotion to development. beehiiv allows you do to all things Substack can do, with the benefit of much better analytics, more style flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing clients to get words out.
beehiiv also provides you a website comparable to Substack. But, if you have your own web site already, you can additionally utilize beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I make use of) to send your site clients right to your beehiiv email list. On the exact same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a tool like Revue to enable people to register for your e-newsletter straight from Twitter.
This provides you the flexibility to leverage different marketing channels to obtain your e-newsletter out into the world, making beehiiv a great Substack choice.
Just how to start using beehiiv email marketing software.
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 permit you to have up to 2,500 customers, give you access to website hosting, a newsletter CMS, advancement personalization, analytics, outside embed types, and a lot more. It’s a really generous offering for those just beginning (or for those looking for a new system to move to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Newsletter Course
After developing an account, you’ll go through an onboarding procedure that will ask things like, “is this your initial e-newsletter?”, “what various other systems have you made use of?”, “do you have any kind of paying clients?”, and a lot more.
You’ll after that develop a name and URL for your newsletter’s website. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will certainly survive on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your website link might be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding process, you’ll also choose your brand name colors and design to ensure your newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your control panel
As soon as you reach your primary control panel, you’ll see all of your analytics and settings.
You will certainly have described info on the number of sign-ups you’re obtaining and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see alternatives for “Begin composing,” “Messages,” “Audience,” “Grow,” “Generate income from,” “Design,” and” Evaluate.” And at the really bottom you’ll see the settings choice.
Control panel is your main control center (screenshot over), Begin composing is where you produce and publish e-newsletters, Blog posts is where you can see every one of your previous e-newsletter editions, Audience is where you can watch who your subscribers are (and break them down into segments), Grow is where you have access to a referral program (and development tutorials) and boosts to run advertisements, Monetize is where you can access the beehiiv ad network and monetize your e-newsletter with advertisements, Layout is where you make your newsletter landing page and post template, Examine 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 simple to begin composing, with little to no friction. If you’re just beginning, and have a concept you intend to discuss, I advise simply going to the “Write” area in the navbar and clicking on “Beginning writing”.
You can modify your template and designing later on– concentrate on the content first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor supplies a tidy and straightforward user interface for composing.
When you begin composing, you can maximize headings, add web links, and design your material just how you such as.
beehiiv offers you tons of choices for different sorts of material like videos, web links, pictures, and more.
The group at beehiiv is likewise frequently launching product feature and updates so I make certain there will certainly be a lot more material features depending upon when you read this.
Maximizing your setups and templates
When you have an e-newsletter that prepares to send, it’s time to make your e-mail template and readjust some setups.
Right here, you can upgrade the name of your newsletter, give it a description, add your logo design, activate or off a welcome e-mail to first time subscribers, and more.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your style.
You can modify background colors, borders, spacing, typefaces, picture styles, and much more. I’m not mosting likely to go through ever before single point you can enhance with your email template since it’s a lot. Just try the system for free and see it for yourself!
Essential beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of impressive features that make it a terrific publishing system for any kind of newsletter maker.
Right here are some of the important features you can find with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter posting system. It makes it extremely simple to compose and send out emails. I discussed above a few of the important things you can do with your settings and e-mail layout so I’ll save you some extra analysis.
Things to note with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has an actually modern-day and minimalistic feeling. It’s definitely among the better e-mail editors I have actually ever written in.
Web site hosting
When you produce a beehiiv newsletter, every one of your newsletters (if you desire) survive on a web site. Consider it as a web site for your newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous problems of your newsletter, and a location where people can register for your e-newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s virtually similar to that.
All plans, consisting of the cost-free one, offer you an internet site. Nonetheless, the free plan areas your internet site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you intend to add a custom domain to get rid of all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting customers is very important. Besides, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can register for your newsletter right from your beehiiv website or with embed forms.
If you already have an internet site, and desire people to register for your e-newsletter from your existing site, you’ll need to make use of an embed kind. This is what I utilize on this website (you can see the sign-up installed on the right-hand man column of this blog post if you scroll up).
With embed kinds, you have three different alternatives– a complete width, a taken care of size, and a slim embed. I personally use the slim installed.
You can locate the code fragment for these embeds in the “Subscribe Types” tab in your setups.
There’s additionally a choice for acknowledgment monitoring if you wish to ahead UTM criteria for tracking functions– pretty neat.
Nonetheless, there are a couple of features I desire beehiiv had when it involved subscribe features. I’m sure the team is servicing updates for these, however I discussed a couple of concerns I had in the advantages and disadvantages area listed below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things concerning beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter system, is an option for creating a referral program.
You can encourage existing customers on your checklist to forward your e-mails to close friends and coworkers and if they obtain other people to register for your listing, you can award them. These incentives can be in whatever type you desire. I’ve appear lots of newsletter companies offer incentives in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously transform your customers into a word of mouth growth engine for your newsletter– giving you an additional method for expanding your e-mail listing.
Nonetheless, to get access to the referral program feature, you’ll have to update to a more superior plan. I’ll review all the plans later on in this write-up.
Costs subscriptions
They claim all you require to make a living online is 1,000 true fans. Subscription earnings is definitely a beast of its own. If you’re seeking a system to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can develop “costs” problems of your newsletter that are only sent to paying subscribers. This can be extremely profitable relying on what your newsletter has to supply. As an example, Trends.co is a preferred costs e-newsletter that creates millions in revenue a year just by having pay-only newsletter material.
Information analytics
Among things I enjoy concerning beehiiv is exactly how tidy and straightforward the analytics are. You get real-time date on exactly how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and subscriber matter Beehiiv Newsletter Course.
You obtain access to all the metrics you require to obtain a bird-eye view on how your newsletter is in fact doing. Logging into your dashboard and seeing that client count increase is absolutely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv provides 4 different pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (totally free) Launch plan provides you everything you require to get started and expand your newsletter (as much as 2,500 customers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) provides you everything in the Launch plan with the addition the advertisement network, referral program, custom-made domain, polls, and accessibility to premium registrations. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) provides you every little thing in the Grow plan with enhancement of priority assistance and getting rid of the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are fairly generous in my viewpoint.
For instance, if you have 100,000 subscribers you will pay around $329 per month. As opposed to some rivals, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would certainly bill $679 each month for the exact same amount– making beehiiv a terrific Kit option for several individuals.
I’m uncertain how the unit economics work with this, but beehiiv is absolutely less expensive (right now) than what it can be.
beehiiv pros and cons
Obviously, with every platform, it has its benefits and drawbacks. Here are some of the benefits and drawbacks I have actually personally experienced while utilizing beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Here are several of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter platform of selection:
Easy to set up and start sending out e-newsletters absolutely free.
Clean and modern customer analytics.
Lots of flexibility with e-mail designs.
Referral program feature.
Site hosting.
Create costs alternatives to generate income from.
Surveys.
To be straightforward, I have not seen an additional newsletter platform that has had the ability to package all of these features together so well.
Yet naturally, I do not wish to be prejudiced so I’m going to discuss some disadvantages.
Cons of using beehiiv
Here are several of the cons I have actually found while making use of beehiiv:.
Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around adding customized font styles.
I use Webflow as my internet site building system of choice (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a long time ago). I’m not mosting likely to go in way too much detail why I like Webflow so much however you can read my Webflow review if you would love to find out more.
Now, there actually is no other method I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow website aside from using an iframe embed. I personally do not such as utilizing iframe’s since they have a tendency to reduce my site a bit. Every single time a page on my site (with a beehiiv embed) lots, the sign-up installed is the last thing to pack on the page. It’s extremely noticeable when you get on a slow internet connection. But I can navigate that.
The primary gripe I have is that I can not make use of a routine Webflow form (which I like utilizing). There are ways around this by utilizing a device like Zapier yet that would simply add added prices that I don’t require. To be truthful, this is even more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv disadvantage but I assumed I would certainly discuss it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros far outweigh the disadvantages below. I’m likewise enthusiastic that Webflow will eventually develop a better way to integrate with beehiiv.
Conclusion
In general, beehiiv is a fantastic service for any person wanting to dive into the globe of email marketing and newsletters.
The capability of this newsletter platform much surpasses lots of that are currently on the marketplace. And with a charitable free plan, you truly have absolutely nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are likewise rather cheap of what they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 subscribers on your listing is unprecedented. If you were to have a 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 compose testimonial blog posts usually. I only do when I really utilize the device myself and would certainly recommend it to a close friend.
I wish you found some quality on whether beehiiv is an excellent system for you.