Over two years ago, I was reading one of my favored email newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the e-mail and saw the beehiiv logo design for the very first time. I clicked on it and promptly started destroying Beehiiv Payment Methods.
I had not been sure why I really felt so emotional.
Being a full time developer is tough. I’m often getting pitched different devices and solutions that don’t seem to be worth my time.
I think I was psychological since I spent the last 6 months checking out various e-mail and newsletter platforms to help construct my e-newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some wonderful options for composing e-newsletters. However I couldn’t discover one that made me provide a precise “yes”.
The problem with many existing e-newsletter platforms is that they do not feel creator-centered. I desire an e-newsletter system that lets me fully personalize my newsletter styles, makes it extremely easy to write and send out emails, and gives me tools that assist me analyze metrics and get even more clients.
I think I have actually finally located the appropriate tool.
However, I recognize beehiiv may not be for every person. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s really best for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one system for newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter platform that makes it simple to layout, write, send out, promote, generate income from, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Created by previous staff members at the well-known e-newsletter firm Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to help makers launch and monetize their own e-newsletter– taking lots of growth concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M subscribers.
In this article, I’m mosting likely to discuss my personal experience with beehiiv, the things I love (and hate) about it, all of it’s features, and why I determined to ultimately select it as my e-newsletter platform of option.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A couple of months back, I inadvertently came across beehiiv. The amusing tale is that I’ve watched for a modern-day e-newsletter system for quite a long time now. I’ve hesitated hard when it came to lastly launching my e-newsletter.
First, I attempted Mailchimp. Then, a couple of various other indie systems. Then, Substack. And ultimately, I wound up utilizing beehiiv.
I make certain many newsletter makers look up to popular e-newsletters with millions of clients– I know I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I looked up to a great deal. They have wonderful web content, lots of subscribers, and a clever referral program that allows them to get back at more customers.
So, I took place a quest to find out exactly how these huge e-newsletters established their logistics. What system do they utilize? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they obtain even more subscribers? How do they create an e-newsletter layout that remains on-brand?
When I discovered beehiiv for the first time, it appeared to respond to every one of my questions. I believed to myself, “damn individuals that built this tool actually comprehend e-newsletter creation and growth.” I questioned who these creators of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were a few of the initial marketing and development staff members at Morning Brew– my brain blew up.
I recognized this was going to be a different e-newsletter platform. One that’s concentrated on developer development.
Because, any maker knows, you need development to be able to make a living off of a newsletter. And locating the right newsletter pile (that scales) usually indicates utilizing numerous various devices to assist achieve one objective– one platform for your newsletter, one system to generate income from, and one platform to establish referrals. It can obtain expensive.
So when I found out beehiiv did all of these things in one system, and it was free to start using, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean web content maker that wants a system that permits them to send personalized newsletters with or without needing to have an internet site.
One of the most effective newsletters have the right devices to construct and scale their newsletters. beehiiv aims at providing you those devices.
If you’re an independent author, media company, startup, or material creator, you ought to seriously considering trying beehiiv. It’s completely complimentary to begin and you just pay when you get to over 2,500 customers on your checklist.
If you actually wind up needing to pay for beehiiv it’s most likely a good indicator that individuals like reviewing your stuff.
beehiiv vs Substack
You could be asking, “isn’t there already a platform for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, of course there is. Substack is a wonderful platform used by hundreds of independent authors. With Substack you get your very own site and make use of the system as your all-in-one solution for sending e-mails (while producing an archive of previous problems).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s commitment to development. beehiiv enables you do to all things Substack can do, with the advantage of better analytics, even more layout flexibilty, and a referral program to urge your existing clients to get the word out.
beehiiv additionally provides you a site similar to Substack. But, if you have your very own website currently, you can likewise make use of beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I use) to send your internet site clients directly to your beehiiv email list. On the same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a tool like Revue to allow individuals to subscribe to your e-newsletter directly from Twitter.
This provides you the versatility to utilize various marketing networks to obtain your newsletter out into the world, making beehiiv a great Substack option.
Exactly how to start making use of beehiiv email marketing software.
Enroll in a free plan
The very first step is to sign up for a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Start trial” button on beehiiv’s internet site.
The free plan will allow you to have up to 2,500 clients, offer you access to web site hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, advance customization, analytics, exterior embed types, and much more. It’s an extremely charitable offering for those just starting (or for those looking for a new platform to migrate to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Payment Methods
After producing an account, you’ll go through an onboarding procedure that will ask points like, “is this your first newsletter?”, “what other systems have you made use of?”, “do you have any kind of paying customers?”, and a lot more.
You’ll after that develop a name and link for your e-newsletter’s website. On the free plan, your newsletter will certainly survive a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your web site URL may be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding procedure, you’ll likewise pick your brand name colors and design to see to it your e-newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your control panel
When you reach your primary dashboard, you’ll see every one of your analytics and setups.
You will have outlined details on how many sign-ups you’re getting and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see choices for “Begin composing,” “Blog posts,” “Target market,” “Grow,” “Generate income from,” “Layout,” and” Examine.” And at the really lower you’ll see the setups choice.
Control panel is your major nerve center (screenshot over), Beginning writing is where you create and release newsletters, Articles 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 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 e-newsletter with ads, Design is where you make your e-newsletter landing page and message template, Analyze is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can take care of all of your admin things.
Creating your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it very easy to start creating, with little to no rubbing. If you’re just starting out, and have an idea you intend to cover, I recommend simply mosting likely to the “Create” area in the navbar and clicking on “Begin composing”.
You can modify your template and styling later– focus on the content first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor uses a clean and easy to use interface for creating.
When you start composing, you can maximize headings, include web links, and design your content just how you such as.
beehiiv provides you tons of options for various sorts of web content like videos, links, pictures, and more.
The group at beehiiv is additionally continuously releasing item feature and updates so I make certain there will be a whole lot more material features depending on when you’re reading this.
Enhancing your setups and templates
When you have an e-newsletter that’s ready to send out, it’s time to create your email template and adjust some settings.
Right here, you can update the name of your newsletter, provide it a summary, add your logo design, switch on or off a welcome email to first time clients, and extra.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your design.
You can edit background shades, boundaries, spacing, typefaces, image styles, and more. I’m not mosting likely to go through ever before single thing you can enhance with your e-mail template because it’s a great deal. Just check out the system absolutely free and see it for yourself!
Necessary beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of amazing features that make it a fantastic publishing platform for any kind of newsletter creator.
Right here are some of the vital features you can locate with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter posting system. It makes it very simple to write and send emails. I stated over some of the things you can do with your settings and email layout so I’ll save you some additional reading.
Things to note with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has an actually modern and minimalistic feeling. It’s most definitely among the far better e-mail editors I’ve ever before written in.
Web site hosting
When you develop a beehiiv e-newsletter, every one of your e-newsletters (if you want) survive on an internet site. Think about it as a website for your newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous concerns of your newsletter, and an area where people can subscribe to your newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s pretty much comparable to that.
All plans, including the complimentary one, offer you an internet site. Nevertheless, the free plan locations your website on a beehiiv subdomain so if you want to add a personalized domain to get rid of all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting customers is essential. Besides, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can subscribe to your e-newsletter straight from your beehiiv website or with embed kinds.
If you already have a website, and want people to register for your newsletter from your existing site, you’ll need to utilize an embed kind. This is what I use 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 kinds, you have three various options– a full size, a repaired size, and a slim installed. I personally make use of the slim installed.
You can locate the code fragment for these embeds in the “Subscribe Types” tab in your settings.
There’s additionally an option for acknowledgment monitoring if you wish to ahead UTM specifications for tracking objectives– rather cool.
Nevertheless, there are a couple of features I want beehiiv had when it came to subscribe features. I make sure the group is working on updates for these, yet I discussed a couple of concerns I had in the advantages and disadvantages area 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 subscribers on your listing to onward your emails to friends and associates and if they obtain other people to register for your listing, you can award them. These incentives can be in whatever form you desire. I have actually appear numerous newsletter companies offer benefits in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously turn your clients right into a word of mouth development engine for your e-newsletter– offering you one more opportunity for growing your email checklist.
Nonetheless, to obtain accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll need to update to a more exceptional plan. I’ll review all the plans later in this write-up.
Premium memberships
They claim all you require to make a living online is 1,000 true followers. Subscription income is definitely a monster of its very own. If you’re seeking a platform to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can produce “premium” issues of your e-newsletter that are only sent out to paying customers. This can be really lucrative relying on what your e-newsletter needs to supply. As an example, Trends.co is a preferred costs e-newsletter that creates millions in income a year simply by having pay-only e-newsletter material.
Data analytics
Among the important things I like regarding beehiiv is just how clean and straightforward the analytics are. You obtain real-time day on just how your newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and subscriber matter Beehiiv Payment Methods.
You get accessibility to all the metrics you require to obtain a bird-eye view on exactly how your e-newsletter is actually doing. Logging right into your control panel and seeing that customer count rise is definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv supplies four various pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (cost-free) Launch plan offers you everything you need to get started and grow your e-newsletter (as much as 2,500 subscribers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) provides you everything in the Launch plan with the addition the advertisement network, referral program, custom domain, polls, and access to costs memberships. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) offers you every little thing in the Grow plan with enhancement of priority support and removing the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are quite generous in my point of view.
As an example, if you have 100,000 customers you will pay around $329 monthly. In contrast to some rivals, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would certainly bill $679 each month for the very same amount– making beehiiv a terrific Kit alternative for many customers.
I’m not exactly sure just how the device economics deal with this, yet beehiiv is certainly less expensive (right now) than what it can be.
beehiiv benefits and drawbacks
Naturally, with every system, it has its pros and cons. Here are some of the advantages and disadvantages I’ve directly experienced while utilizing beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Here are a few of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter platform of selection:
Easy to establish and start sending e-newsletters for free.
Clean and modern subscriber analytics.
Great deals of flexibility with email layouts.
Referral program feature.
Site hosting.
Produce premium choices to generate income from.
Polls.
To be straightforward, I have not seen one more newsletter system that has had the ability to package all of these features with each other so well.
But naturally, I don’t intend to be prejudiced so I’m mosting likely to point out some cons.
Cons of using beehiiv
Here are several of the cons I have actually located while making use of beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around adding customized typefaces.
I use Webflow as my website structure platform of selection (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a long time ago). I’m not going to go in too much information why I love Webflow a lot but you can review my Webflow review if you would love to find out more.
Right now, there actually is nothing else means I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow internet site apart from utilizing an iframe embed. I personally do not like utilizing iframe’s due to the fact that they tend to slow down my web site a little bit. Every single time a web page on my website (with a beehiiv embed) tons, the sign-up embed is the last thing to load on the web page. It’s very recognizable when you’re on a slow web link. Yet I can navigate that.
The primary gripe I have is that I can’t utilize a regular Webflow form (which I love utilizing). There are means around this by utilizing a tool like Zapier yet that would just add extra prices that I do not require. To be straightforward, this is more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv con yet I thought I would certainly state it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros much outweigh the cons here. I’m likewise hopeful that Webflow will at some point create a better way to integrate with beehiiv.
Final Thought
In general, beehiiv is a terrific remedy for anyone wanting to study the globe of email marketing and e-newsletters.
The performance of this e-newsletter system far surpasses several that are presently on the marketplace. And with a charitable free plan, you truly have nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are additionally relatively economical for what they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 customers on your list is unprecedented. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k subscribers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it can cost you well right into the thousands each month.
Anyways, I do not compose testimonial posts usually. I just do when I really use the device myself and would certainly advise it to a friend.
I hope you found some quality on whether beehiiv is an excellent system for you.