Over 2 years ago, I was reading among my preferred email newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo for the first time. I clicked on it and promptly began tearing up Beehiiv Paid Subscriptions.
I had not been certain why I felt so psychological.
Being a full-time developer is tough. I’m typically getting pitched various devices and solutions that don’t appear to be worth my time.
I think I was psychological because I spent the last six months checking out different e-mail and e-newsletter platforms to assist build my newsletter. And to be fair, there are some wonderful alternatives for creating newsletters. However I could not find one that made me provide a guaranteed “yes”.
The issue with several existing e-newsletter systems is that they don’t feel creator-centered. I desire a newsletter platform that lets me completely customize my newsletter layouts, makes it super easy to compose and send out e-mails, and provides me devices that help me assess metrics and obtain more clients.
I assume I’ve finally discovered the ideal device.
But, I understand beehiiv might not be for every person. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s in fact best for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one platform for newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter system that makes it very easy to layout, write, send, advertise, generate income from, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Produced by previous employees at the renowned e-newsletter business Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to help designers launch and monetize their very own e-newsletter– taking lots of development concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M clients.
In this short article, I’m mosting likely to describe my individual experience with beehiiv, things I enjoy (and hate) regarding it, all of it’s features, and why I chose to ultimately select it as my e-newsletter system of selection.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A few months back, I inadvertently stumbled across beehiiv. The amusing tale is that I have actually been on the lookout for a contemporary newsletter system for rather a long time now. I’ve put things off hard when it pertained to lastly launching my e-newsletter.
First, I tried Mailchimp. Then, a few various other indie platforms. Then, Substack. And ultimately, I ended up using beehiiv.
I make certain lots of e-newsletter makers respect prominent e-newsletters with countless subscribers– I understand I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I looked up to a great deal. They have great content, tons of clients, and a clever referral program that permits them to get even more clients.
So, I went on a hunt to identify just how these big newsletters set up their logistics. What platform do they utilize? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they obtain more clients? How do they produce an e-newsletter layout that remains on-brand?
When I discovered beehiiv for the first time, it appeared to answer every one of my questions. I believed to myself, “damn individuals that developed this tool actually comprehend newsletter creation and growth.” I questioned who these creators of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were some of the initial marketing and development workers at Morning Brew– my mind blew up.
I knew this was going to be a different newsletter platform. One that’s concentrated on creator development.
Since, any creator recognizes, you need development to be able to make a living off of an e-newsletter. And discovering the appropriate newsletter stack (that scales) commonly implies utilizing multiple various devices to aid achieve one objective– one platform for your newsletter, one system to generate income from, and one system to establish recommendations. It can obtain costly.
So when I discovered beehiiv did every one of these things in one system, and it was free to begin making use of, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean web content maker that desires a platform that permits them to send out custom-made e-newsletters with or without requiring to have a site.
The most successful newsletters have the right tools to develop and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv focuses on giving you those tools.
If you’re an independent author, media company, start-up, or material developer, you ought to seriously considering checking out beehiiv. It’s totally cost-free to begin and you just pay when you get to over 2,500 subscribers on your checklist.
If you really end up needing to spend for beehiiv it’s possibly an excellent sign that individuals love reading your things.
beehiiv vs Substack
You might be asking, “isn’t there already a system for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, of course there is. Substack is a great platform used by countless independent writers. With Substack you obtain your own site and utilize the platform as your all-in-one remedy for sending out emails (while creating an archive of previous concerns).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s dedication to development. beehiiv enables you do to all the 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 obtain the word out.
beehiiv also offers you a website comparable to Substack. However, if you have your own site already, you can also make use of beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I utilize) to send your website subscribers straight to your beehiiv e-mail list. On the very same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a device like Revue to enable people to register for your e-newsletter directly from Twitter.
This gives you the versatility to take advantage of different marketing networks to obtain your e-newsletter out into the world, making beehiiv an excellent Substack option.
Exactly how to begin utilizing beehiiv email marketing software program.
Sign up for a free plan
The very first step is to sign up for a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Beginning trial” switch on beehiiv’s internet site.
The free plan will certainly permit you to have up to 2,500 clients, give you access to web site hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, development personalization, analytics, outside embed types, and much more. It’s an extremely generous offering for those just beginning (or for those searching for a brand-new platform to migrate to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Paid Subscriptions
After developing an account, you’ll experience an onboarding process that will ask things like, “is this your initial newsletter?”, “what various other platforms have you made use of?”, “do you have any paying subscribers?”, and a lot more.
You’ll then produce a name and URL 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 may be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding procedure, you’ll additionally pick your brand colors and design to make certain your newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your dashboard
As soon as you reach your main control panel, you’ll see all of your analytics and settings.
You will certainly have detailed details on the amount of sign-ups you’re getting and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see alternatives for “Beginning writing,” “Articles,” “Audience,” “Grow,” “Generate income from,” “Style,” and” Assess.” And at the extremely bottom you’ll see the setups option.
Control panel is your major control center (screenshot over), Beginning creating is where you develop and release e-newsletters, Posts is where you can see all of your previous e-newsletter editions, Target market is where you can see who your subscribers are (and break them down right into segments), Grow is where you have accessibility 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 newsletter with advertisements, Design is where you develop your e-newsletter landing page and post template, Assess is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can handle every one of your admin stuff.
Writing your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it easy to begin writing, with little to no friction. If you’re just starting, and have a concept you wish to cover, I advise just going to the “Compose” section in the navbar and clicking “Start creating”.
You can fine-tune your template and styling later on– focus on the material initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor provides a clean and easy to use user interface for creating.
Once you start creating, you can maximize headings, include links, and style your web content exactly how you like.
beehiiv gives you lots of choices for various kinds of content like videos, links, pictures, and much more.
The team at beehiiv is likewise continuously launching product feature and updates so I’m sure there will be a lot more content features relying on when you’re reading this.
Enhancing your settings and templates
As soon as you have a newsletter that’s ready to send out, it’s time to make your e-mail template and change some settings.
Below, you can update the name of your e-newsletter, give it a description, include your logo, turn on or off a welcome e-mail to very first time customers, and more.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can edit background colors, boundaries, spacing, fonts, image styles, and a lot more. I’m not going to go through ever single point you can optimize with your email template because it’s a great deal. Just check out the system for free and see it for yourself!
Crucial beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of amazing features that make it a fantastic posting system for any type of newsletter designer.
Here are several of the vital features you can locate with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter posting system. It makes it super very easy to compose and send out e-mails. I pointed out above a few of the things you can do with your settings and e-mail layout so I’ll spare you some extra analysis.
The important things to note with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has an actually modern and minimalistic feel. It’s most definitely one of the far better e-mail editors I have actually ever before written in.
Site hosting
When you develop a beehiiv newsletter, every one of your e-newsletters (if you desire) survive on a web site. Think of it as an internet site for your e-newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous concerns of your newsletter, and a location where individuals can sign up for your newsletter.
If you recognize with Substack, it’s practically similar to that.
All plans, consisting of the cost-free one, provide you a site. Nevertheless, the free plan areas your web site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you intend to include a customized domain to eliminate all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining subscribers is essential. After all, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can subscribe to your newsletter straight from your beehiiv website or via embed forms.
If you currently have an internet site, and want people to register for your e-newsletter from your existing website, you’ll need to utilize an embed form. This is what I utilize on this internet site (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 various alternatives– a complete width, a repaired width, and a slim embed. I directly use the slim installed.
You can locate the code fragment for these embeds in the “Subscribe Forms” tab in your settings.
There’s additionally an option for attribution tracking if you intend to onward UTM criteria for tracking objectives– quite neat.
However, there are a few features I desire beehiiv had when it concerned subscribe features. I’m sure the group is servicing updates for these, however I stated a few 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 platform, is a solution for producing a referral program.
You can urge existing clients on your checklist to onward your e-mails to close friends and colleagues and if they obtain other people to sign up for your listing, you can reward them. These rewards can be in whatever kind you desire. I have actually seem numerous newsletter business give rewards in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously transform your customers into a word of mouth development engine for your e-newsletter– offering you one more method for growing your email checklist.
However, to get accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll need to update to a more superior plan. I’ll discuss all the plans later on in this write-up.
Premium subscriptions
They state all you require to make a living online is 1,000 true fans. Registration revenue is most definitely a monster of its own. If you’re trying to find a system to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can develop “costs” issues of your newsletter that are only sent out to paying customers. This can be really rewarding depending upon what your e-newsletter needs to provide. As an example, Trends.co is a popular premium e-newsletter that generates millions in earnings a year just by having pay-only e-newsletter content.
Data analytics
One of the important things I like regarding beehiiv is just how tidy and straightforward the analytics are. You obtain real-time day on how your newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and client matter Beehiiv Paid Subscriptions.
You obtain access to all the metrics you need to get a bird-eye view on just how your e-newsletter is in fact doing. Logging into your control panel and seeing that customer matter rise is most definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv uses 4 various pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (free) Launch plan provides you whatever you require to get started and grow your newsletter (approximately 2,500 subscribers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) offers you everything in the Launch plan with the addition the advertisement network, referral program, personalized domain name, polls, and access to costs memberships. This is the plan I am on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) gives you whatever in the Grow plan with addition of priority support and getting rid of the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are quite charitable in my point of view.
As an example, if you have 100,000 customers you will certainly pay around $329 per month. In contrast to some rivals, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would certainly bill $679 per month for the very same quantity– making beehiiv a wonderful Kit alternative for lots of users.
I’m not exactly sure just how the system business economics work with this, but beehiiv is certainly less expensive (currently) than what it can be.
beehiiv advantages and disadvantages
Naturally, with every system, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Here are a few of the pros and cons I’ve personally experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Here are a few of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter platform of option:
Easy to establish and begin sending e-newsletters free of cost.
Clean and modern customer analytics.
Lots of versatility with e-mail designs.
Referral program feature.
Website hosting.
Create premium choices to generate income from.
Surveys.
To be sincere, I haven’t seen another e-newsletter platform that has had the ability to package all of these features with each other so well.
Yet naturally, I don’t want to be prejudiced so I’m going to mention some disadvantages.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Below are several of the cons I’ve discovered while using beehiiv:.
Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around including custom-made typefaces.
I use Webflow as my website building platform of option (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a long time ago). I’m not mosting likely to go in too much information why I enjoy Webflow so much however you can read my Webflow testimonial if you wish to find out more.
Today, there truly is no other method I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow website other than using an iframe embed. I directly don’t like using iframe’s because they often tend to decrease my site a bit. Every single time a web page on my website (with a beehiiv embed) tons, the sign-up installed is the last thing to fill on the web page. It’s really recognizable when you get on a slow-moving web connection. However I can navigate that.
The main complaint I have is that I can’t use a routine Webflow kind (which I enjoy using). There are means around this by utilizing a device like Zapier but that would certainly simply include added costs that I don’t need. To be honest, this is even more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv disadvantage but I believed I would mention it.
Besides that, I still think the pros far exceed the cons below. I’m likewise enthusiastic that Webflow will eventually produce a much better way to incorporate with beehiiv.
Conclusion
On the whole, beehiiv is a fantastic service for any person looking to dive into the world of e-mail marketing and e-newsletters.
The functionality of this e-newsletter system far outweighs several that are currently on the marketplace. And with a charitable free plan, you really have nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are also relatively economical for what they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 customers on your list is unprecedented. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k customers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it can cost you well right into the thousands per month.
Anyways, I do not compose testimonial articles frequently. I only do when I really make use of the device myself and would suggest it to a good friend.
I hope you located some clarity on whether or not beehiiv is a great platform for you.