Over 2 years ago, I was reading one of my favorite email newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the e-mail and saw the beehiiv logo design for the first time. I clicked it and promptly started tearing up Beehiiv PopUp.
I wasn’t certain why I really felt so psychological.
Being a permanent creator is tough. I’m commonly getting pitched different tools and services that do not appear to be worth my time.
I presume I was psychological because I spent the last 6 months trying out different email and newsletter systems to assist develop my newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some terrific choices for composing newsletters. However I could not locate one that made me give a certain “yes”.
The concern with numerous existing newsletter systems is that they don’t really feel creator-centered. I desire an e-newsletter platform that lets me fully personalize my newsletter layouts, makes it very simple to create and send e-mails, and gives me devices that help me evaluate metrics and get even more subscribers.
I believe I’ve ultimately found the best device.
Yet, I know beehiiv might not be for every person. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s in fact ideal for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one platform for newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly e-newsletter platform that makes it simple to style, compose, send out, advertise, monetize, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Produced by previous workers at the famous e-newsletter firm Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to assist creators launch and monetize their very own newsletter– taking lots of development principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M clients.
In this write-up, I’m going to discuss my personal experience with beehiiv, the important things I like (and hate) regarding it, all of it’s features, and why I decided to finally select it as my e-newsletter system of selection.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A couple of months earlier, I unintentionally came across beehiiv. The amusing story is that I’ve watched for a modern newsletter system for quite some time currently. I have actually put things off hard when it came to finally introducing my newsletter.
Initially, I attempted Mailchimp. Then, a couple of other indie systems. Then, Substack. And lastly, I ended up making use of beehiiv.
I’m sure many newsletter developers look up to prominent newsletters with millions of clients– I understand I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I appreciated a whole lot. They have wonderful material, lots of clients, and a clever referral program that permits them to get back at a lot more clients.
So, I went on a hunt to determine just how these huge newsletters established their logistics. What platform do they utilize? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they obtain even more clients? How do they produce a newsletter design that stays on-brand?
When I discovered beehiiv for the first time, it appeared to address all of my concerns. I thought to myself, “damn the people that constructed this tool really comprehend newsletter production and growth.” I questioned who these developers of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were some of the initial marketing and development staff members at Morning Brew– my brain blew up.
I understood this was going to be a different newsletter system. One that’s focused on developer development.
Because, any designer recognizes, you require development to be able to earn a living off of an e-newsletter. And locating the appropriate newsletter pile (that ranges) often implies making use of multiple different tools to aid attain one goal– one system for your newsletter, one system to generate income from, and one system to establish recommendations. It can obtain expensive.
So when I found out beehiiv did all of these things in one platform, and it was free to begin using, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean material maker that desires a system that allows them to send custom-made newsletters with or without requiring to have an internet site.
One of the most effective e-newsletters have the right devices to construct and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv aims at giving you those devices.
If you’re an independent writer, media company, start-up, or web content developer, you need to seriously considering experimenting with beehiiv. It’s entirely free to begin and you just pay when you reach over 2,500 customers on your list.
If you in fact end up needing to spend for beehiiv it’s probably a good sign that people enjoy reading your stuff.
beehiiv vs Substack
You could be asking, “isn’t there already a platform for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, yes there is. Substack is an excellent system utilized by hundreds of independent authors. With Substack you obtain your very own internet site and use the platform as your all-in-one remedy for sending e-mails (while producing an archive of previous concerns).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s dedication to growth. beehiiv permits you do to all the important things Substack can do, with the benefit of far better analytics, more style flexibilty, and a referral program to encourage your existing clients to obtain words out.
beehiiv also offers you a website similar to Substack. Yet, if you have your own site currently, you can likewise use beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I make use of) to send your website clients straight to your beehiiv email listing. On the exact same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a device like Performance to permit individuals to sign up for your newsletter straight from Twitter.
This offers you the adaptability to utilize various marketing channels to obtain your newsletter out into the globe, making beehiiv a terrific Substack choice.
Exactly how to begin making use of beehiiv e-mail marketing software application.
Sign up for a free plan
The very first step is to sign up for a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Begin trial” switch on beehiiv’s site.
The free plan will permit you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, offer you access to site hosting, a newsletter CMS, breakthrough personalization, analytics, outside embed types, and extra. It’s a really generous offering for those just beginning (or for those trying to find a brand-new system to move to).
Onboarding Beehiiv PopUp
After creating an account, you’ll undergo an onboarding procedure that will ask things like, “is this your very first newsletter?”, “what various other platforms have you used?”, “do you have any kind of paying clients?”, and more.
You’ll after that create a name and link for your newsletter’s website. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will survive on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your web site link might be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding procedure, you’ll additionally pick your brand colors and design to make sure your e-newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your control panel
Once you reach your primary dashboard, you’ll see every one of your analytics and settings.
You will certainly have outlined details on the number of sign-ups you’re obtaining and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see alternatives for “Beginning writing,” “Blog posts,” “Target market,” “Grow,” “Generate income from,” “Layout,” and” Examine.” And at the extremely lower you’ll see the setups alternative.
Dashboard is your main nerve center (screenshot above), Start writing is where you develop and publish e-newsletters, Articles is where you can see every one of your previous e-newsletter versions, Target market is where you can view who your clients are (and damage them down into sectors), Expand is where you have accessibility to a referral program (and development 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 message template, Evaluate is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can take care of all of your admin stuff.
Composing your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it simple to begin composing, with little to no friction. If you’re just starting, and have an idea you intend to cover, I suggest simply going to the “Compose” area in the navbar and clicking “Beginning composing”.
You can tweak your template and designing later on– focus on the material first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor provides a tidy and user-friendly user interface for creating.
As soon as you start writing, you can maximize headings, add links, and style your web content just how you like.
beehiiv offers you lots of choices for various types of web content like video clips, web links, photos, and extra.
The team at beehiiv is also regularly releasing product feature and updates so I make sure there will be a whole lot extra material features depending upon when you’re reading this.
Enhancing your setups and templates
Once you have a newsletter that prepares to send out, it’s time to make your e-mail template and change some setups.
Right here, you can update the name of your newsletter, give it a description, include your logo design, switch on or off a welcome e-mail to first time subscribers, and much more.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can edit background shades, boundaries, spacing, fonts, picture styles, and more. I’m not going to go through ever single point you can maximize with your e-mail template due to the fact that it’s a whole lot. Just try out the system free of charge and see it on your own!
Necessary beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of incredible features that make it a terrific publishing platform for any type of e-newsletter developer.
Below are a few of the important features you can locate with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter posting platform. It makes it super easy to write and send out emails. I discussed over several of things you can do with your settings and email design so I’ll spare you some extra analysis.
Things to keep in mind with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has a truly contemporary and minimalistic feel. It’s absolutely among the much better e-mail editors I have actually ever before written in.
Web site hosting
When you produce a beehiiv newsletter, every one of your e-newsletters (if you desire) live on a web site. Think of it as an internet site for your newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous problems of your e-newsletter, and a place where individuals can register for your newsletter.
If you recognize with Substack, it’s basically similar to that.
All plans, consisting of the complimentary one, give you a site. Nevertheless, the free plan places your internet site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you wish to add a custom-made domain name to eliminate all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining subscribers is important. After all, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can subscribe to your e-newsletter right from your beehiiv internet site or with embed forms.
If you currently have an internet site, and want people to subscribe to your e-newsletter from your existing site, you’ll need to utilize an embed type. This is what I make use of on this internet site (you can see the sign-up installed on the right-hand man column of this article if you scroll up).
With embed kinds, you have 3 different alternatives– a full size, a taken care of size, and a slim embed. I directly make use of the slim embed.
You can discover the code bit for these embeds in the “Subscribe Types” tab in your setups.
There’s likewise a choice for acknowledgment tracking if you wish to ahead UTM criteria for tracking objectives– quite cool.
However, there are a few features I desire beehiiv had when it pertained to subscribe features. I make certain the group is servicing updates for these, but I pointed out a couple of worries I had in the benefits and drawbacks area below.
Referral program
One of 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 customers on your listing to ahead your emails to close friends and coworkers and if they get other individuals to register for your list, you can award them. These incentives can be in whatever kind you want. I’ve appear several newsletter firms provide rewards in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously transform your subscribers into a word of mouth growth engine for your e-newsletter– offering you one more avenue for expanding your e-mail list.
However, to obtain accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll have to upgrade to a much more premium plan. I’ll review all the plans later in this post.
Premium memberships
They say all you require to make a living online is 1,000 true followers. Subscription revenue is definitely a beast of its own. If you’re seeking a platform to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can develop “premium” concerns of your e-newsletter that are just sent out to paying customers. This can be really lucrative depending upon what your e-newsletter needs to offer. For example, Trends.co is a preferred premium e-newsletter that generates millions in revenue a year merely by having pay-only newsletter web content.
Data analytics
One of the important things I love concerning beehiiv is just how clean and straightforward the analytics are. You obtain real-time day on exactly how your newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and customer matter Beehiiv PopUp.
You get accessibility to all the metrics you need to obtain a bird-eye sight on exactly how your newsletter is in fact doing. Logging into your dashboard and seeing that client count go up is absolutely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv supplies four different pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (totally free) Launch plan gives you everything you require to begin and expand your newsletter (approximately 2,500 clients).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) provides you whatever in the Launch plan with the addition the advertisement network, referral program, custom domain, polls, and accessibility 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 getting rid of the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are fairly charitable in my point of view.
For example, if you have 100,000 subscribers you will certainly pay around $329 monthly. Rather than some competitors, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would certainly charge $679 monthly for the same quantity– making beehiiv a great Kit choice for many users.
I’m not sure exactly how the device business economics work with this, however beehiiv is most definitely cheaper (presently) than what it can be.
beehiiv advantages and disadvantages
Of course, with every system, it has its pros and cons. Below are several of the advantages and disadvantages I’ve personally experienced while utilizing beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Below are some of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter platform of option:
Easy to set up and begin sending newsletters totally free.
Tidy and contemporary subscriber analytics.
Great deals of versatility with email designs.
Referral program feature.
Internet site hosting.
Create costs choices to generate income from.
Surveys.
To be honest, I have not seen another newsletter platform that has actually had the ability to package every one of these features together so well.
However obviously, I do not want to be biased so I’m mosting likely to discuss some cons.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Here are a few of the cons I have actually located while using beehiiv:.
Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around adding custom typefaces.
I utilize Webflow as my site building platform of selection (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a very long time ago). I’m not going to enter way too much detail why I enjoy Webflow a lot but you can review my Webflow evaluation if you ‘d like to find out more.
Today, there actually is no other way I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow internet site apart from using an iframe embed. I directly do not like utilizing iframe’s since they often tend to reduce my site a little bit. Every single time a web page on my website (with a beehiiv embed) tons, the sign-up installed is the last point to fill on the page. It’s really obvious when you get on a slow internet connection. But I can navigate that.
The major complaint I have is that I can not use a normal Webflow kind (which I enjoy using). There are means around this by using a device like Zapier but that would certainly just include additional expenses that I do not require. To be honest, this is more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv disadvantage yet I thought I would state it.
Besides that, I still think the pros far outweigh the cons here. I’m likewise enthusiastic that Webflow will eventually create a better way to incorporate with beehiiv.
Final Thought
Generally, beehiiv is a wonderful service for any individual wanting to study the world of email marketing and newsletters.
The performance of this newsletter platform far surpasses many that are currently on the marketplace. And with a charitable free plan, you truly have nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are additionally fairly cheap of what they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 subscribers on your list is unheard of. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k customers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it can cost you well into the thousands per month.
Anyways, I do not create testimonial posts commonly. I only do when I in fact make use of the tool myself and would recommend it to a close friend.
I hope you discovered some clarity on whether beehiiv is a great platform for you.