Over two years earlier, I was reading among my preferred email e-newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the e-mail and saw the beehiiv logo for the first time. I clicked it and quickly began wrecking Beehiiv Partners.
I wasn’t sure why I felt so psychological.
Being a full time designer is difficult. I’m usually getting pitched different devices and solutions that don’t seem to be worth my time.
I think I was emotional due to the fact that I invested the last six months checking out different email and e-newsletter platforms to help develop my newsletter. And to be fair, there are some wonderful options for writing e-newsletters. However I couldn’t locate one that made me offer a precise “yes”.
The concern with several existing e-newsletter platforms is that they do not feel creator-centered. I desire a newsletter platform that lets me completely tailor my newsletter designs, makes it incredibly easy to write and send out emails, and provides me devices that aid me analyze metrics and get even more clients.
I believe I’ve ultimately discovered the appropriate device.
But, I understand beehiiv may not be for every person. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s actually appropriate for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one system for newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter system that makes it very easy to style, compose, send out, promote, monetize, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Produced by previous employees at the well-known e-newsletter company Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to assist developers launch and monetize their own newsletter– taking lots of development concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M customers.
In this post, 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 chose to lastly opt for it as my e-newsletter platform of selection.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A few months ago, I inadvertently stumbled across beehiiv. The funny tale is that I have actually been on the lookout for a contemporary e-newsletter platform for fairly some time now. I have actually hesitated hard when it pertained to lastly introducing my e-newsletter.
Initially, I attempted Mailchimp. After that, a couple of other indie platforms. Then, Substack. And ultimately, I wound up using beehiiv.
I make certain several e-newsletter designers respect preferred e-newsletters with numerous customers– I understand I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I respected a great deal. They have excellent web content, tons of customers, and a creative referral program that enables them to get even a lot more customers.
So, I went on a quest to figure out exactly how these large e-newsletters set up their logistics. What platform do they use? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they get even more subscribers? How do they develop an e-newsletter design that stays on-brand?
When I discovered beehiiv for the very first time, it appeared to answer every one of my concerns. I thought to myself, “damn the people that built this device actually comprehend e-newsletter development and development.” I questioned who these designers of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were some of the very first marketing and growth workers at Morning Brew– my mind exploded.
I recognized this was mosting likely to be a various e-newsletter platform. One that’s focused on creator development.
Since, any kind of creator recognizes, you require development to be able to earn a living off of a newsletter. And locating the appropriate e-newsletter stack (that ranges) typically means utilizing numerous various devices to assist achieve one objective– one system for your newsletter, one system to monetize, and one system to establish recommendations. It can get pricey.
So when I figured out beehiiv did every one of these points in one system, and it was free to start using, it was a piece of cake to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean material designer that wants a platform that permits them to send out customized e-newsletters with or without requiring to have an internet site.
The most effective e-newsletters have the right devices to develop and scale their newsletters. beehiiv targets at providing you those devices.
If you’re an independent author, media business, startup, or web content creator, you must seriously taking into consideration checking out beehiiv. It’s entirely free to start and you only pay when you get to over 2,500 customers on your listing.
If you really end up needing to spend for beehiiv it’s most likely a good indication that individuals like reading your stuff.
beehiiv vs Substack
You may be asking, “isn’t there already a system for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, yes there is. Substack is a great platform utilized by thousands of independent writers. With Substack you get your very own website and utilize the system as your all-in-one option for sending out emails (while developing an archive of previous problems).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s commitment to development. beehiiv permits you do to all the important things Substack can do, with the advantage of much better analytics, more design flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing subscribers to get words out.
beehiiv also gives you an internet site similar to Substack. However, if you have your very own internet site already, you can also utilize beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I make use of) to send your web site customers straight to your beehiiv e-mail listing. On the very same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a tool like Revue to enable people to sign up for your e-newsletter directly from Twitter.
This offers you the versatility to leverage different marketing channels to obtain your e-newsletter out into the globe, making beehiiv a wonderful Substack option.
Just how to start utilizing beehiiv e-mail marketing software.
Sign up for a free plan
The primary step is to sign up for a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Beginning trial” switch on beehiiv’s site.
The free plan will permit you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, give you accessibility to site hosting, a newsletter CMS, advance personalization, analytics, external embed forms, and a lot more. It’s a really charitable offering for those just starting out (or for those trying to find a brand-new system to migrate to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Partners
After creating an account, you’ll experience an onboarding process that will ask things like, “is this your very first newsletter?”, “what other systems have you utilized?”, “do you have any type of paying subscribers?”, and extra.
You’ll then develop a name and URL for your newsletter’s site. On the free plan, your newsletter will live on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your site link might be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding procedure, you’ll likewise choose your brand name colors and design to make sure your e-newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your dashboard
When you reach your primary dashboard, you’ll see all of your analytics and setups.
You will certainly have detailed info on the number of sign-ups you’re getting and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see options for “Beginning creating,” “Posts,” “Audience,” “Expand,” “Monetize,” “Style,” and” Analyze.” And at the very bottom you’ll see the setups alternative.
Dashboard is your major nerve center (screenshot above), Start creating is where you create and publish newsletters, Articles is where you can see every one of your previous e-newsletter editions, Target market is where you can see who your clients are (and damage them down right into sectors), Grow is where you have accessibility 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, Layout is where you make your e-newsletter landing page and article template, Evaluate is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can handle all of your admin things.
Creating your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it simple to begin writing, with little to no rubbing. If you’re simply beginning, and have a concept you intend to write about, I recommend simply going to the “Create” section in the navbar and clicking “Start creating”.
You can modify your template and styling later on– focus on the content first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor offers a clean and straightforward interface for writing.
When you begin composing, you can maximize headings, add links, and style your web content how you like.
beehiiv gives you lots of options for different types of content like video clips, links, images, and a lot more.
The team at beehiiv is also continuously launching product feature and updates so I make certain there will certainly be a lot more content features depending upon when you read this.
Maximizing your setups and templates
When you have an e-newsletter that prepares to send out, it’s time to develop your e-mail template and readjust some settings.
Right here, you can upgrade the name of your newsletter, offer it a description, include your logo, activate 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 style.
You can modify background colors, borders, spacing, font styles, picture styles, and much more. I’m not mosting likely to go through ever before single point you can maximize with your email template because it’s a whole lot. Just try out the system free of charge and see it on your own!
Important beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of remarkable features that make it a great posting system for any kind of newsletter creator.
Here are several of the essential features you can locate with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter posting platform. It makes it incredibly simple to write and send emails. I stated above several of the things you can do with your settings and email design so I’ll save you some additional analysis.
The important things to keep in mind with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has an actually modern and minimalistic feel. It’s definitely among the far better e-mail editors I have actually ever before written in.
Web site hosting
When you develop a beehiiv e-newsletter, all of your e-newsletters (if you want) survive a website. Think about it as a web site for your newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous problems of your e-newsletter, and a place where individuals can subscribe to your newsletter.
If you recognize with Substack, it’s practically comparable to that.
All plans, including the complimentary one, provide you a web site. Nevertheless, the free plan locations your website on a beehiiv subdomain so if you wish to add a customized domain name to eliminate all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining clients is necessary. Besides, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can sign up for your newsletter right from your beehiiv web site or via embed forms.
If you already have a web site, and want individuals to register for your newsletter from your existing site, you’ll need to utilize an embed type. This is what I use on this web site (you can see the sign-up installed on the right hand column of this article if you scroll up).
With embed types, you have three various alternatives– a full width, a dealt with width, and a slim embed. I directly utilize the slim embed.
You can find the code fragment for these embeds in the “Subscribe Kinds” tab in your settings.
There’s also a choice for attribution tracking if you wish to forward UTM criteria for tracking purposes– rather cool.
However, there are a few features I wish beehiiv had when it pertained to subscribe features. I make certain the team is working on updates for these, yet I stated a few concerns I had in the advantages and disadvantages area below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things about beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter system, is a remedy for producing a referral program.
You can urge existing subscribers on your checklist to onward your emails to friends and colleagues and if they get other people to sign up for your checklist, you can reward them. These incentives can be in whatever kind you desire. I’ve seem lots of e-newsletter companies offer 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– providing you an additional avenue for expanding your e-mail checklist.
Nonetheless, to obtain access to the referral program feature, you’ll need to update to an extra exceptional plan. I’ll go over all the plans later on in this write-up.
Premium memberships
They claim all you need to earn a living online is 1,000 true followers. Registration earnings is definitely a monster of its own. If you’re seeking a platform to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can produce “premium” problems of your e-newsletter that are just sent out to paying clients. This can be really lucrative depending upon what your e-newsletter needs to use. For example, Trends.co is a preferred premium newsletter that creates millions in revenue a year just by having pay-only newsletter material.
Information analytics
One of the important things I like concerning beehiiv is just how clean and straightforward the analytics are. You obtain real-time date on just how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and subscriber count Beehiiv Partners.
You get accessibility to all the metrics you require to get a bird-eye sight on just how your e-newsletter is in fact doing. Logging into your dashboard and seeing that customer matter rise is absolutely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv provides 4 different pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (free) Launch plan provides you every little thing you require to get started and expand your e-newsletter (up to 2,500 customers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) offers you everything in the Launch plan with the enhancement the ad network, referral program, customized domain, surveys, and accessibility to costs subscriptions. This is the plan I am on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) provides you everything in the Grow plan with enhancement of top priority support and getting rid of the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are rather charitable in my viewpoint.
For example, if you have 100,000 clients you will certainly pay around $329 each month. In contrast to some rivals, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would charge $679 each month for the very same quantity– making beehiiv a fantastic Kit option for several customers.
I’m not exactly sure exactly how the system economics work on this, however beehiiv is certainly less costly (right now) than what it can be.
beehiiv benefits and drawbacks
Obviously, with every platform, it has its benefits and drawbacks. Here are some of the advantages and disadvantages I have actually directly experienced while making use of beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Below are several of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter system of option:
Easy to set up and start sending out newsletters totally free.
Tidy and contemporary client analytics.
Great deals of flexibility with email styles.
Referral program feature.
Website hosting.
Produce costs options to monetize.
Surveys.
To be straightforward, I have not seen an additional e-newsletter platform that has had the ability to package all of these features with each other so well.
However certainly, I don’t intend to be prejudiced so I’m going to state some disadvantages.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Here are some of the disadvantages I have actually located while making use of beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around including custom fonts.
I utilize Webflow as my website structure system of selection (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a very long time ago). I’m not mosting likely to go in way too much information why I enjoy Webflow so much however you can review my Webflow evaluation if you want to discover more.
Right now, there truly is nothing else way I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow website besides using an iframe embed. I personally don’t such as utilizing iframe’s due to the fact that they often tend to decrease my site a bit. Every time a page on my site (with a beehiiv embed) lots, the sign-up embed is the last point to pack on the web page. It’s very noticeable when you get on a slow-moving web connection. But I can navigate that.
The primary gripe I have is that I can not use a routine Webflow type (which I like utilizing). There are methods around this by utilizing a tool like Zapier however that would just include extra costs that I do not require. To be straightforward, this is more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv con but I thought I would certainly state it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros much surpass the cons below. I’m likewise confident that Webflow will ultimately create a much better way to integrate with beehiiv.
Conclusion
Overall, beehiiv is an excellent solution for anybody aiming to study the globe of e-mail marketing and newsletters.
The performance of this e-newsletter system much surpasses lots of that are currently on the market. And with a generous free plan, you actually have absolutely nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are also rather inexpensive of what they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 customers on your checklist is unprecedented. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k clients, and all of these features beehiiv has, it can cost you well right into the thousands each month.
Anyways, I do not create testimonial messages typically. I only do when I really use the device myself and would certainly advise it to a close friend.
I wish you found some clarity on whether or not beehiiv is an excellent system for you.