Over 2 years back, I read among my favorite email newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the e-mail and saw the beehiiv logo for the very first time. I clicked on it and promptly started tearing up Beehiiv Priority Live Support.
I wasn’t certain why I really felt so emotional.
Being a permanent maker is tough. I’m frequently obtaining pitched different devices and services that don’t seem to be worth my time.
I think I was psychological due to the fact that 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 fantastic alternatives for writing newsletters. However I could not find one that made me provide a definite “yes”.
The concern with numerous existing newsletter systems is that they do not really feel creator-centered. I want an e-newsletter platform that lets me completely tailor my e-newsletter layouts, makes it super easy to write and send e-mails, and gives me devices that aid me analyze metrics and obtain more customers.
I assume I’ve ultimately found the ideal tool.
However, I recognize beehiiv might not be for every person. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s actually best for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one platform for e-newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter system that makes it very easy to layout, write, send out, advertise, monetize, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Developed by previous employees at the renowned e-newsletter business Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to aid designers launch and monetize their own e-newsletter– taking great deals of development concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M clients.
In this write-up, I’m mosting likely to explain my personal experience with beehiiv, the important things I like (and hate) about it, all of it’s features, and why I decided to lastly opt for it as my e-newsletter system of choice.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A couple of months ago, I unintentionally stumbled across beehiiv. The amusing tale is that I’ve been on the lookout for a modern e-newsletter system for rather some time currently. I have actually hesitated hard when it pertained to ultimately releasing my e-newsletter.
Initially, I tried Mailchimp. Then, a few other indie platforms. Then, Substack. And ultimately, I wound up utilizing beehiiv.
I make sure many e-newsletter makers respect popular newsletters with millions of customers– I know I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I appreciated a lot. They have fantastic content, tons of subscribers, and a brilliant referral program that enables them to get even more subscribers.
So, I went on a quest to determine just how these big newsletters set up their logistics. What system do they use? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they obtain even more subscribers? How do they produce an e-newsletter layout that remains on-brand?
When I found beehiiv for the first time, it seemed to answer every one of my concerns. I thought to myself, “damn individuals that built this tool truly understand e-newsletter production and growth.” I questioned who these makers of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were a few of the initial marketing and development employees at Morning Brew– my brain blew up.
I recognized this was going to be a various newsletter system. One that’s concentrated on maker development.
Since, any type of maker understands, you require development to be able to earn a living off of a newsletter. And discovering the right e-newsletter stack (that ranges) commonly implies making use of multiple various tools to assist attain one goal– one system for your e-newsletter, one platform to monetize, and one system to set up referrals. It can get pricey.
So when I discovered beehiiv did all of these points in one system, and it was complimentary to begin utilizing, it was a piece of cake to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean content creator that desires a platform that allows them to send custom-made e-newsletters with or without needing to have an internet site.
One of the most effective e-newsletters have the right devices to develop and scale their newsletters. beehiiv aims at offering you those devices.
If you’re an independent writer, media company, startup, or web content maker, you need to seriously considering checking out beehiiv. It’s entirely complimentary to begin and you only pay when you get to over 2,500 clients on your list.
If you really wind up needing to pay for beehiiv it’s probably a good indicator that individuals love reviewing your things.
beehiiv vs Substack
You could be asking, “isn’t there currently a system for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, of course there is. Substack is an excellent platform used by hundreds of independent writers. With Substack you get your very own website and make use of the system as your all-in-one solution for sending emails (while producing an archive of previous issues).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s commitment to growth. beehiiv permits you do to all the things Substack can do, with the benefit of better analytics, more design flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing subscribers to obtain words out.
beehiiv additionally offers you a web site similar to Substack. But, if you have your own web site already, you can also utilize beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I utilize) to send your website clients right to your beehiiv email checklist. On the same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a device like Performance to allow people to sign up for your newsletter directly from Twitter.
This gives you the versatility to take advantage of different marketing channels to get your newsletter out right into the world, making beehiiv a wonderful Substack alternative.
How to begin utilizing beehiiv email marketing software application.
Enroll in a free plan
The initial step is to register for a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Start trial” switch on beehiiv’s site.
The free plan will certainly enable you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, offer you accessibility to website hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, advancement modification, analytics, external embed kinds, and a lot more. It’s an extremely generous offering for those simply starting out (or for those trying to find a brand-new system to move to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Priority Live Support
After producing an account, you’ll undergo an onboarding process that will ask things like, “is this your initial newsletter?”, “what various other platforms have you utilized?”, “do you have any kind of 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 e-newsletter will survive on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your internet site URL may be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding procedure, you’ll also pick your brand colors and design to make sure your e-newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your dashboard
As soon as you reach your major control panel, you’ll see every one of your analytics and setups.
You will certainly have outlined details on the number of sign-ups you’re obtaining and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see options for “Beginning writing,” “Posts,” “Target market,” “Grow,” “Monetize,” “Design,” and” Evaluate.” And at the really bottom you’ll see the settings alternative.
Control panel is your primary nerve center (screenshot over), Begin writing is where you create and publish newsletters, Posts is where you can see every one of your previous newsletter versions, Audience is where you can see who your subscribers are (and break them down into sectors), Expand is where you have access 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 ads, Layout is where you create your e-newsletter landing page and post template, Evaluate is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can take care of every one of your admin stuff.
Creating your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it simple to start creating, with little to no friction. If you’re just beginning, and have a concept you want to write about, I advise just mosting likely to the “Create” area in the navbar and clicking “Start creating”.
You can fine-tune your template and designing later on– concentrate on the material initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor supplies a clean and easy to use interface for writing.
As soon as you begin writing, you can enhance headings, add links, and design your material just how you like.
beehiiv provides you lots of choices for different sorts of content like video clips, links, images, and more.
The group at beehiiv is additionally frequently launching item feature and updates so I make certain there will certainly be a great deal extra material features depending upon when you’re reading this.
Optimizing your setups and templates
When you have an e-newsletter that prepares to send out, it’s time to develop your email template and readjust some setups.
Here, you can update the name of your e-newsletter, give it a summary, add your logo design, turn on or off a welcome email to very first time clients, and a lot more.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your design.
You can modify history shades, boundaries, spacing, font styles, picture formats, and extra. I’m not mosting likely to experience ever before single point you can maximize with your email template due to the fact that it’s a whole lot. Simply try out the platform totally free and see it for yourself!
Necessary beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of amazing features that make it a great publishing system for any kind of e-newsletter creator.
Right here are some of the vital features you can find with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter posting system. It makes it incredibly simple to create and send out emails. I discussed over several of things you can do with your setups and email design so I’ll spare you some additional analysis.
Things to note with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has a really contemporary and minimalistic feeling. It’s certainly one of the better e-mail editors I’ve ever before written in.
Site hosting
When you create a beehiiv newsletter, every one of your newsletters (if you want) reside on an internet site. Think of it as a website for your newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous concerns of your e-newsletter, and a place where individuals can sign up for your e-newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s pretty much similar to that.
All plans, consisting of the cost-free one, give you an internet site. However, the free plan places your internet site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you want to add a customized domain to remove all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting subscribers is important. Besides, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can subscribe to your e-newsletter right from your beehiiv website or with embed forms.
If you currently have a web site, and desire individuals to sign up for your newsletter from your existing website, you’ll need to make use of an embed type. This is what I utilize on this site (you can see the sign-up embed on the right hand column of this post if you scroll up).
With embed types, you have 3 various choices– a complete width, a repaired size, and a slim installed. I personally use the slim installed.
You can find the code bit for these embeds in the “Subscribe Forms” tab in your settings.
There’s additionally an alternative for attribution monitoring if you want to onward UTM specifications for tracking functions– quite neat.
However, there are a few features I wish beehiiv had when it involved subscribe features. I make sure the team is dealing with updates for these, however I mentioned a couple of issues I had in the benefits and drawbacks section below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things about beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter platform, is a service for producing a referral program.
You can urge existing subscribers on your list to ahead your emails to close friends and coworkers and if they get other individuals to register for your listing, you can compensate them. These rewards can be in whatever form you desire. I’ve seem numerous newsletter firms offer rewards in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously turn your clients right into a word of mouth growth engine for your newsletter– offering you an additional method for growing your email checklist.
Nonetheless, to obtain accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll need to upgrade to a more superior plan. I’ll review all the plans later in this short article.
Premium memberships
They say all you need to make a living online is 1,000 real fans. Membership profits is most definitely a monster of its own. If you’re searching for a platform to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can produce “costs” problems of your newsletter that are just sent out to paying clients. This can be extremely profitable relying on what your e-newsletter needs to offer. For example, Trends.co is a preferred costs e-newsletter that generates millions in income a year simply by having pay-only newsletter web content.
Information analytics
One of things I like regarding beehiiv is how clean and easy the analytics are. You obtain real-time date on exactly how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and subscriber count Beehiiv Priority Live Support.
You get accessibility to all the metrics you need to get a bird-eye sight on just how your newsletter is in fact doing. Logging into your control panel and seeing that customer count rise is definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv uses four various pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (totally free) Launch plan offers you whatever you require to get going and grow your newsletter (as much as 2,500 customers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) gives you whatever in the Launch plan with the addition the ad network, referral program, personalized domain, polls, and accessibility to premium subscriptions. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) gives you every little thing in the Grow plan with enhancement of top priority assistance and removing the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are fairly generous in my point of view.
As an example, if you have 100,000 customers you will certainly pay around $329 monthly. Instead of some competitors, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would bill $679 per month for the exact same quantity– making beehiiv a fantastic Kit alternative for numerous individuals.
I’m not sure how the device business economics work on this, yet beehiiv is most definitely more affordable (right now) than what it can be.
beehiiv benefits and drawbacks
Obviously, with every platform, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Here are a few of the benefits and drawbacks I’ve personally experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Here are several of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter system of selection:
Easy to establish and begin sending newsletters for free.
Clean and contemporary client analytics.
Great deals of adaptability with email layouts.
Referral program feature.
Website hosting.
Produce premium choices to generate income from.
Surveys.
To be sincere, I haven’t seen one more e-newsletter platform that has actually had the ability to package all of these features with each other so well.
Yet obviously, I do not want to be prejudiced so I’m going to point out some cons.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Below are a few of the cons I’ve found while utilizing beehiiv:.
Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around including custom-made font styles.
I use Webflow as my website building platform of selection (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a long period of time ago). I’m not mosting likely to go in too much detail why I love Webflow so much however you can review my Webflow evaluation if you would love to learn more.
Right now, there actually is nothing else method I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow web site apart from making use of an iframe embed. I directly don’t such as making use of iframe’s due to the fact that they have a tendency to slow down my web site a bit. Every time a page on my site (with a beehiiv installed) loads, the sign-up installed is the last point to load on the page. It’s really recognizable when you’re on a sluggish net link. But I can navigate that.
The main gripe I have is that I can’t utilize a regular Webflow type (which I enjoy making use of). There are methods around this by using a device like Zapier but that would certainly just include additional prices that I do not require. To be truthful, this is even more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv con however I thought I would certainly mention it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros far surpass the cons here. I’m also confident that Webflow will eventually produce a much better means to incorporate with beehiiv.
Final Thought
On the whole, beehiiv is a terrific solution for anybody seeking to dive into the world of e-mail marketing and newsletters.
The capability of this e-newsletter system much surpasses many that are currently on the marketplace. And with a generous free plan, you really have absolutely nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are likewise relatively low-cost of what they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 clients on your listing is unprecedented. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k customers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it might cost you well into the thousands monthly.
Anyways, I do not write review posts frequently. I only do when I actually use the tool myself and would certainly recommend it to a close friend.
I wish you discovered some clearness on whether or not beehiiv is a great system for you.