Over two years ago, I read one of my favorite 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 it and quickly began wrecking Beehiiv NFT.
I wasn’t certain why I really felt so psychological.
Being a full-time maker is difficult. I’m often obtaining pitched different tools and services that do not appear to be worth my time.
I guess I was psychological due to the fact that I invested the last 6 months experimenting with different e-mail and newsletter platforms to help develop my e-newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some great options for writing newsletters. However I could not discover one that made me give a guaranteed “yes”.
The issue with lots of existing newsletter platforms is that they don’t feel creator-centered. I desire a newsletter platform that lets me fully personalize my e-newsletter layouts, makes it very easy to create and send out emails, and provides me tools that help me assess metrics and get even more clients.
I think I have actually ultimately located the ideal device.
However, I recognize beehiiv may 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, write, send out, advertise, generate income from, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Produced by previous staff members at the well-known newsletter business Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to assist makers launch and monetize their own newsletter– taking lots of development principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M clients.
In this write-up, I’m mosting likely to discuss my personal experience with beehiiv, the important things I love (and hate) concerning it, all of it’s features, and why I determined to finally choose it as my e-newsletter platform of option.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A couple of months earlier, I accidentally stumbled across beehiiv. The funny story is that I have actually been on the lookout for a modern e-newsletter system for fairly some time now. I’ve put things off hard when it came to lastly releasing my e-newsletter.
First, I attempted Mailchimp. Then, a few various other indie platforms. After that, Substack. And finally, I wound up utilizing beehiiv.
I make sure several newsletter developers admire prominent newsletters with millions of customers– I know I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I respected a lot. They have fantastic web content, lots of customers, and a brilliant referral program that permits them to get even much more subscribers.
So, I went on a search to figure out how these large newsletters established their logistics. What system do they make use of? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they get even more subscribers? How do they produce a newsletter layout that stays on-brand?
When I uncovered beehiiv for the first time, it appeared to respond to all of my concerns. I thought to myself, “damn individuals that built this device actually comprehend newsletter creation and growth.” I examined who these creators of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were several of the very first marketing and development staff members at Morning Brew– my mind took off.
I knew this was mosting likely to be a various e-newsletter platform. One that’s focused on maker development.
Because, any kind of creator understands, you require growth to be able to make a living off of a newsletter. And discovering the appropriate newsletter stack (that scales) often implies utilizing several different devices to assist achieve one objective– one platform for your newsletter, one system to monetize, and one platform to set up references. It can get costly.
So when I found out beehiiv did every one of these points in one system, and it was free to start utilizing, it was a piece of cake to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean material creator that wants a system that permits them to send custom-made newsletters with or without needing to have a website.
One of the most effective newsletters have the right devices to build and scale their newsletters. beehiiv focuses on giving you those tools.
If you’re an independent author, media firm, start-up, or web content designer, you should seriously considering experimenting with beehiiv. It’s completely complimentary to get going and you only pay when you reach over 2,500 subscribers on your list.
If you actually end up needing to spend for beehiiv it’s possibly an excellent sign that people like reading your things.
beehiiv vs Substack
You could be asking, “isn’t there already a system for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, yes there is. Substack is a fantastic platform used by countless independent authors. With Substack you obtain your very own website and utilize the platform as your all-in-one remedy for sending e-mails (while creating an archive of previous issues).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s commitment to development. beehiiv allows you do to all things Substack can do, with the benefit of far better analytics, even more style flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing subscribers to get the word out.
beehiiv additionally offers you a web site similar to Substack. But, if you have your own web site currently, you can also utilize beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I make use of) to send your website customers straight to your beehiiv email checklist. On the same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a tool like Revue to enable individuals to subscribe to your newsletter straight from Twitter.
This gives you the adaptability to leverage various marketing networks to get your e-newsletter out right into the globe, making beehiiv a wonderful Substack option.
Just how to begin making use of beehiiv email marketing software application.
Sign up for a free plan
The primary step is to sign up for a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Beginning trial” button on beehiiv’s internet site.
The free plan will allow you to have up to 2,500 clients, offer you access to website hosting, a newsletter CMS, development personalization, analytics, external embed types, and a lot more. It’s a very generous offering for those just starting (or for those looking for a new platform to move to).
Onboarding Beehiiv NFT
After developing an account, you’ll go through an onboarding procedure that will ask things like, “is this your first e-newsletter?”, “what other systems have you utilized?”, “do you have any type of paying clients?”, and extra.
You’ll after that develop a name and link for your newsletter’s web site. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will live on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your site URL may be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding procedure, you’ll likewise choose your brand name design and colors to see to it your e-newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your dashboard
When you reach your main control panel, you’ll see all of your analytics and settings.
You will certainly have described information on the amount of sign-ups you’re obtaining and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see alternatives for “Beginning writing,” “Blog posts,” “Audience,” “Grow,” “Generate income from,” “Style,” and” Analyze.” And at the extremely lower you’ll see the setups option.
Control panel is your main nerve center (screenshot above), Beginning creating is where you produce and publish newsletters, Posts is where you can see all of your previous newsletter versions, Audience is where you can see who your customers are (and damage them down right into sectors), Grow is where you have accessibility 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 newsletter with advertisements, Style is where you develop your newsletter landing page and post template, Assess is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can handle all of your admin things.
Creating your newsletter
beehiiv makes it very easy to start creating, with little to no rubbing. If you’re just starting, and have an idea you wish to write about, I advise just going to the “Create” section in the navbar and clicking “Beginning composing”.
You can tweak your template and designing later on– focus on the material initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor provides a clean and straightforward user interface for writing.
Once you start writing, you can optimize headings, add links, and design your material exactly how you like.
beehiiv gives you tons of options for different sorts of content like videos, web links, photos, and extra.
The group at beehiiv is likewise constantly releasing product feature and updates so I’m sure there will be a great deal much more content features depending on when you read this.
Optimizing your settings and templates
Once you have an e-newsletter that prepares to send out, it’s time to design your e-mail template and adjust some setups.
Here, you can upgrade the name of your e-newsletter, offer it a summary, include your logo design, turn on or off a welcome email to first time subscribers, 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, font styles, photo styles, and more. I’m not going to undergo ever solitary thing you can optimize with your e-mail template due to the fact that it’s a lot. Just try out the system completely free and see it on your own!
Essential beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of remarkable features that make it a fantastic publishing platform for any kind of newsletter maker.
Here are a few of the essential features you can locate with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter publishing system. It makes it incredibly simple to create and send out emails. I mentioned over a few of the important things you can do with your setups and e-mail style so I’ll spare you some extra analysis.
The important things to keep in mind with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has an actually modern and minimalistic feeling. It’s absolutely among the far better email editors I’ve ever written in.
Internet site hosting
When you create a beehiiv newsletter, all of your e-newsletters (if you want) survive an internet site. Consider it as a site for your newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous issues of your newsletter, and a location where people can register for your e-newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s virtually comparable to that.
All plans, including the complimentary one, provide you a site. Nevertheless, the free plan areas your internet site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you intend to include a personalized domain to remove all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining clients is very important. Besides, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can subscribe to your newsletter directly from your beehiiv site or via embed kinds.
If you already have a site, and desire individuals to sign up for your e-newsletter from your existing site, you’ll have to utilize an embed form. This is what I make use of on this web site (you can see the sign-up embed on the right hand column of this post if you scroll up).
With embed types, you have 3 various options– a full width, a repaired size, and a slim embed. I personally use the slim embed.
You can discover the code fragment for these embeds in the “Subscribe Kinds” tab in your setups.
There’s likewise an option for attribution tracking if you want to onward UTM criteria for tracking purposes– pretty cool.
However, there are a few features I want beehiiv had when it pertained to subscribe features. I’m sure the group is working with updates for these, but I mentioned a few issues I had in the pros and cons area listed below.
Referral program
Among the amazing things concerning beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter platform, is a solution for producing a referral program.
You can motivate existing customers on your checklist to forward your emails to good friends and coworkers and if they get other people to sign up for your checklist, you can compensate them. These rewards can be in whatever type you want. I’ve appear several newsletter firms offer incentives in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously turn your clients right into a word of mouth development engine for your e-newsletter– providing you another method for growing your email listing.
However, to obtain access to the referral program feature, you’ll have to upgrade to an extra superior plan. I’ll discuss all the plans later in this short article.
Costs memberships
They claim all you require to earn a living online is 1,000 real fans. Subscription profits is most definitely a beast of its very own. If you’re seeking a system to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can develop “costs” concerns of your e-newsletter that are only sent to paying subscribers. This can be really profitable depending upon what your e-newsletter has to supply. For example, Trends.co is a popular costs e-newsletter that generates millions in profits a year merely by having pay-only e-newsletter web content.
Data analytics
One of things I like concerning beehiiv is exactly how tidy and straightforward the analytics are. You obtain real-time day on just how your newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and client matter Beehiiv NFT.
You obtain access to all the metrics you require to obtain a bird-eye sight on just how your newsletter is in fact doing. Logging right into your dashboard and seeing that customer matter rise is most definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv uses four different pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (cost-free) Launch plan offers you every little thing you require to start and grow your e-newsletter (as much as 2,500 subscribers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) offers you everything in the Launch plan with the addition the ad network, referral program, customized domain, polls, and access to premium subscriptions. This is the plan I am on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) gives you every little thing in the Grow plan with addition of top priority support and eliminating the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are fairly generous in my viewpoint.
For example, if you have 100,000 clients you will certainly pay around $329 monthly. As opposed to some competitors, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would charge $679 each month for the same quantity– making beehiiv a great Kit choice for many customers.
I’m uncertain exactly how the unit business economics work with this, yet beehiiv is certainly less costly (presently) than what it can be.
beehiiv benefits and drawbacks
Certainly, with every system, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Here are some of the advantages and disadvantages I have actually directly experienced while utilizing beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Below are some of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter platform of option:
Easy to set up and begin sending newsletters for free.
Clean and modern-day subscriber analytics.
Great deals of versatility with e-mail styles.
Referral program feature.
Site hosting.
Develop costs alternatives to generate income from.
Surveys.
To be honest, I haven’t seen another e-newsletter platform that has had the ability to package all of these features together so well.
However obviously, I do not wish to be biased so I’m mosting likely to mention some disadvantages.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Here are several of the disadvantages I’ve discovered while using beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around including custom-made font styles.
I make use of Webflow as my web site structure system of option (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a long period of time ago). I’m not going to enter too much detail why I enjoy Webflow a lot however you can review my Webflow testimonial if you wish to discover more.
Right now, there truly is no other way I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow web site aside from making use of an iframe embed. I personally do not like making use of iframe’s since they have a tendency to decrease my web site a bit. Every time a web page on my site (with a beehiiv embed) lots, the sign-up installed is the last point to fill on the page. It’s extremely visible when you get on a slow web connection. However I can get around that.
The major gripe I have is that I can’t utilize a normal Webflow type (which I enjoy utilizing). There are ways around this by using a device like Zapier yet that would certainly simply add added prices that I do not need. To be straightforward, this is more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv con but I assumed I would certainly state it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros far surpass the disadvantages here. I’m also confident that Webflow will eventually produce a much better way to incorporate with beehiiv.
Final Thought
In general, beehiiv is a fantastic remedy for anybody looking to study the globe of e-mail marketing and newsletters.
The functionality of this newsletter system much surpasses many that are presently on the market. And with a charitable free plan, you really have nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are additionally rather affordable of what they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 customers on your listing is unheard of. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k subscribers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it could cost you well into the thousands each month.
Anyways, I do not write evaluation articles usually. I just do when I in fact utilize the tool myself and would certainly recommend it to a close friend.
I wish you found some clarity on whether beehiiv is a great platform for you.