Over 2 years ago, I was reading among my favored email newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo design for the first time. I clicked it and promptly began wrecking Beehiiv Paywall.
I wasn’t sure why I really felt so psychological.
Being a full time designer is tough. I’m frequently getting pitched various tools and services that do not seem to be worth my time.
I think I was emotional due to the fact that I spent the last 6 months checking out various email and e-newsletter systems to aid build my newsletter. And to be fair, there are some great options for writing newsletters. But I couldn’t find one that made me give a precise “yes”.
The concern with lots of existing e-newsletter platforms is that they do not really feel creator-centered. I want an e-newsletter system that lets me fully tailor my e-newsletter layouts, makes it super easy to create and send e-mails, and gives me tools that help me analyze metrics and get more clients.
I think I’ve lastly found the ideal device.
However, I know beehiiv might not be for everyone. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s really best for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one platform for e-newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly e-newsletter system that makes it simple to design, write, send out, promote, monetize, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Produced by previous employees at the well-known newsletter business Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to help designers launch and monetize their very own e-newsletter– taking great deals of development principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M customers.
In this write-up, I’m mosting likely to clarify my personal experience with beehiiv, the things I love (and hate) regarding it, all of it’s features, and why I chose to ultimately go with it as my e-newsletter platform of selection.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A few months ago, I inadvertently stumbled across beehiiv. The funny story is that I have actually been on the lookout for a contemporary e-newsletter platform for fairly time currently. I have actually put things off hard when it involved finally launching my e-newsletter.
First, I attempted Mailchimp. Then, a few various other indie platforms. After that, Substack. And ultimately, I wound up making use of beehiiv.
I make certain several e-newsletter makers look up to preferred newsletters with countless subscribers– I know I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I admired a lot. They have excellent content, tons of clients, and a smart referral program that allows them to get even more customers.
So, I took place a hunt to find out exactly how these large e-newsletters set up their logistics. What system do they make use of? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they obtain more customers? How do they create an e-newsletter layout that stays on-brand?
When I uncovered beehiiv for the very first time, it seemed to answer every one of my concerns. I believed to myself, “damn individuals that developed this device really recognize newsletter creation and growth.” I questioned who these creators of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were a few of the very first marketing and growth staff members at Morning Brew– my mind took off.
I knew this was mosting likely to be a various newsletter system. One that’s concentrated on creator growth.
Since, any type of designer recognizes, you require development to be able to make a living off of a newsletter. And discovering the appropriate newsletter stack (that ranges) frequently indicates using several various devices to help attain one goal– one platform for your e-newsletter, one platform to monetize, and one platform to establish recommendations. It can obtain costly.
So when I found out beehiiv did every one of these points in one system, and it was complimentary to start making use of, 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 system that enables them to send out custom-made e-newsletters with or without requiring to have a site.
The most effective e-newsletters have the right devices to build and scale their newsletters. beehiiv focuses on providing you those tools.
If you’re an independent writer, media business, startup, or material maker, you should seriously thinking about checking out beehiiv. It’s totally complimentary to start and you only pay when you reach over 2,500 customers on your list.
If you really end up needing to spend for beehiiv it’s probably a good indicator that people enjoy reviewing your stuff.
beehiiv vs Substack
You might be asking, “isn’t there already a system for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, yes there is. Substack is an excellent platform utilized by countless independent writers. With Substack you obtain your own site and make use of the platform as your all-in-one remedy for sending out e-mails (while creating an archive of previous issues).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s commitment to growth. beehiiv permits you do to all the important things Substack can do, with the benefit of much better analytics, even more design flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing customers to obtain words out.
beehiiv also provides you a web site similar to Substack. Yet, if you have your own site currently, you can additionally use beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I utilize) to send your internet site subscribers right to your beehiiv e-mail checklist. On the very same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a device like Performance to enable individuals to sign up for your e-newsletter straight from Twitter.
This offers you the adaptability to leverage various marketing channels to get your newsletter out right into the world, making beehiiv a wonderful Substack choice.
How to begin using beehiiv e-mail marketing software application.
Sign up for a free plan
The first step is to enroll in a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Beginning trial” button on beehiiv’s site.
The free plan will certainly enable you to have up to 2,500 clients, offer you access to website hosting, a newsletter CMS, development customization, analytics, outside embed kinds, and much more. It’s a really generous offering for those simply starting (or for those seeking a new system to migrate to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Paywall
After creating an account, you’ll experience an onboarding process that will ask things like, “is this your very first e-newsletter?”, “what other systems have you utilized?”, “do you have any type of paying clients?”, and a lot more.
You’ll after that create a name and URL for your e-newsletter’s internet site. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will survive a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your website link might be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding procedure, you’ll likewise choose your brand design and colors to ensure your e-newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your dashboard
As soon as you reach your primary control panel, you’ll see every one of your analytics and setups.
You will have outlined details on the amount of sign-ups you’re obtaining and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see alternatives for “Begin composing,” “Messages,” “Target market,” “Grow,” “Generate income from,” “Design,” and” Examine.” And at the extremely bottom you’ll see the setups option.
Dashboard is your primary nerve center (screenshot over), Start writing is where you create and release e-newsletters, Messages is where you can see every one of your previous newsletter editions, Target market is where you can watch who your customers are (and break them down into sectors), Expand is where you have access 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 ads, Design is where you create your e-newsletter landing page and article template, Examine is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can manage every one of your admin things.
Writing your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it simple to start writing, with little to no rubbing. If you’re just beginning, and have an idea you wish to discuss, I recommend just going to the “Write” section in the navbar and clicking “Start creating”.
You can fine-tune your template and styling later on– focus on the material first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor offers a tidy and straightforward interface for creating.
Once you start composing, you can optimize headings, include web links, and design your content just how you like.
beehiiv offers you tons of options for different kinds of web content like video clips, links, pictures, and extra.
The team at beehiiv is likewise continuously launching item feature and updates so I’m sure there will be a lot much more content features depending on when you read this.
Optimizing your setups and templates
When you have an e-newsletter that’s ready to send out, it’s time to design your e-mail template and readjust some setups.
Here, you can update the name of your newsletter, give it a description, add your logo, switch on or off a welcome email to very first time subscribers, and extra.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your style.
You can modify background shades, boundaries, spacing, fonts, picture styles, and extra. I’m not mosting likely to experience ever before single thing you can optimize with your e-mail template since it’s a whole lot. Simply experiment with the platform for free and see it on your own!
Vital beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of outstanding features that make it a terrific publishing platform for any kind of e-newsletter developer.
Below are a few of the crucial features you can find with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter posting platform. It makes it super simple to create and send out e-mails. I mentioned over some of the things you can do with your settings and email layout so I’ll save you some additional reading.
The important things to note with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has an actually contemporary and minimalistic feeling. It’s most definitely one of the much better email editors I have actually ever before written in.
Internet site hosting
When you create a beehiiv e-newsletter, all of your e-newsletters (if you desire) survive an internet 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 an area where people can sign up for your newsletter.
If you recognize with Substack, it’s virtually comparable to that.
All plans, including the free one, provide you an internet site. Nevertheless, the free plan places your internet site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you want to add a custom domain name 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 an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can sign up for your e-newsletter directly from your beehiiv internet site or with embed kinds.
If you already have a web site, and want people to register for your e-newsletter from your existing site, you’ll need to make use of an embed type. This is what I use on this site (you can see the sign-up embed on the right hand column of this post if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have three different alternatives– a full width, a dealt with size, and a slim embed. I personally make use of the slim installed.
You can locate the code fragment for these embeds in the “Subscribe Forms” tab in your settings.
There’s also an option for acknowledgment monitoring if you want to ahead UTM specifications for tracking purposes– pretty cool.
Nonetheless, there are a few features I want beehiiv had when it involved subscribe features. I’m sure the group is working with updates for these, but I discussed a couple of issues I had in the benefits and drawbacks area below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things regarding beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter platform, is a solution for creating a referral program.
You can urge existing customers on your checklist to forward your e-mails to close friends and colleagues and if they get other individuals to subscribe to your list, you can award them. These incentives can be in whatever kind you desire. I’ve appear numerous newsletter companies provide benefits in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously turn your clients into a word of mouth growth engine for your newsletter– offering you one more avenue for growing your e-mail checklist.
However, to obtain access to the referral program feature, you’ll need to upgrade to a more exceptional plan. I’ll go over all the plans later in this article.
Costs memberships
They claim all you require to make a living online is 1,000 real followers. Subscription revenue is absolutely a beast of its very own. If you’re trying to find a system to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can create “premium” concerns of your e-newsletter that are just sent out to paying customers. This can be extremely profitable depending upon what your newsletter needs to provide. For instance, Trends.co is a preferred costs newsletter that creates millions in earnings a year merely by having pay-only newsletter material.
Data analytics
One of the important things I love regarding 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 customer count Beehiiv Paywall.
You obtain accessibility to all the metrics you require to get a bird-eye sight on exactly how your newsletter is really doing. Logging into your dashboard and seeing that subscriber count rise is certainly a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv offers 4 various pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (complimentary) Launch plan gives you every little thing you need to get going and expand your newsletter (up to 2,500 subscribers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) gives you every little thing in the Launch plan with the addition the advertisement network, referral program, personalized domain name, surveys, and accessibility to premium registrations. This is the plan I am on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) gives you whatever in the Grow plan with enhancement of priority support and getting rid of the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are fairly generous in my opinion.
For instance, if you have 100,000 customers you will certainly pay around $329 each month. Instead of some rivals, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would certainly charge $679 per month for the exact same amount– making beehiiv a fantastic Kit choice for many customers.
I’m not exactly sure how the system economics deal with this, but beehiiv is certainly more affordable (currently) than what it can be.
beehiiv pros and cons
Naturally, with every platform, it has its pros and cons. Below are a few of the advantages and disadvantages I’ve directly experienced while utilizing beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Below are a few of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter system of option:
Easy to establish and start sending out e-newsletters for free.
Clean and modern customer analytics.
Great deals of adaptability with email layouts.
Referral program feature.
Site hosting.
Develop costs choices to monetize.
Surveys.
To be honest, I haven’t seen one more e-newsletter system that has been able to package all of these features with each other so well.
However naturally, I do not intend to be biased so I’m mosting likely to state some cons.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Right here are a few of the disadvantages I’ve discovered while utilizing beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around including customized fonts.
I utilize Webflow as my internet site building system of choice (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a long period of time ago). I’m not mosting likely to go in too much detail why I enjoy Webflow a lot however you can read my Webflow testimonial if you want to discover more.
Now, there actually is nothing else method I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow web site other than making use of an iframe embed. I directly do not like using iframe’s because they tend to slow down my website a bit. Each time a page on my website (with a beehiiv embed) loads, the sign-up installed is the last point to load on the web page. It’s very noticeable when you get on a slow-moving web connection. But I can get around that.
The primary complaint I have is that I can not utilize a regular Webflow form (which I like utilizing). There are methods around this by using a device like Zapier but that would simply add additional expenses that I do not need. To be straightforward, this is more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv con yet I assumed I would certainly state it.
Besides that, I still think the pros far surpass the cons right here. I’m also enthusiastic that Webflow will at some point create a much better method to incorporate with beehiiv.
Verdict
Overall, beehiiv is a fantastic option for anybody seeking to study the world of email marketing and newsletters.
The capability of this newsletter platform far surpasses many that are presently on the market. And with a charitable free plan, you really have nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are additionally relatively low-cost for what they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 subscribers on your list is uncommon. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k subscribers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it could cost you well into the thousands per month.
Anyways, I do not write review posts commonly. I just do when I really use the device myself and would certainly recommend it to a buddy.
I hope you found some clearness on whether beehiiv is an excellent system for you.