Over two years ago, I read one of my preferred 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 instantaneously started tearing up Beehiiv ResiClub.
I had not been sure why I felt so emotional.
Being a full-time maker is difficult. I’m usually getting pitched different devices and services that do not seem to be worth my time.
I guess I was emotional due to the fact that I spent the last six months checking out different e-mail and newsletter systems to assist build my e-newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some great options for writing newsletters. But I couldn’t find one that made me provide a guaranteed “yes”.
The concern with several existing e-newsletter platforms is that they don’t feel creator-centered. I want an e-newsletter platform that lets me fully personalize my newsletter layouts, makes it super simple to create and send e-mails, and gives me tools that help me examine metrics and obtain even more clients.
I believe I’ve finally discovered the right tool.
Yet, I understand beehiiv may not be for everybody. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s in fact ideal for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one system for newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter system that makes it simple to layout, compose, send, promote, generate income from, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Produced by former staff members at the famous newsletter company Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to help developers launch and monetize their own e-newsletter– taking great deals of growth concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M clients.
In this short article, 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 ultimately go with it as my e-newsletter platform of choice.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A couple of months ago, I inadvertently stumbled across beehiiv. The funny tale is that I’ve been on the lookout for a modern newsletter system for quite time currently. I have actually procrastinated hard when it came to lastly introducing my e-newsletter.
First, I tried Mailchimp. Then, a few other indie systems. After that, Substack. And ultimately, I wound up utilizing beehiiv.
I’m sure several newsletter designers admire preferred e-newsletters with numerous subscribers– I understand I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I respected a whole lot. They have great material, lots of subscribers, and a clever referral program that allows them to get even much more customers.
So, I took place a quest to identify just how these huge e-newsletters set up their logistics. What platform do they use? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they obtain even more subscribers? How do they produce a newsletter layout that stays on-brand?
When I discovered beehiiv for the first time, it appeared to address all of my inquiries. I believed to myself, “damn individuals that developed this tool truly understand e-newsletter production and growth.” I examined who these makers of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were a few of the initial marketing and development employees at Morning Brew– my mind took off.
I knew this was going to be a various newsletter platform. One that’s focused on maker growth.
Since, any kind of creator understands, you need development to be able to make a living off of an e-newsletter. And discovering the appropriate newsletter pile (that scales) often means using numerous various devices to help achieve one objective– one system for your e-newsletter, one platform to generate income from, and one system to establish referrals. It can get pricey.
So when I discovered beehiiv did all of these points in one platform, 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 content designer that desires a platform that allows them to send customized e-newsletters with or without requiring to have a website.
The most effective e-newsletters have the right tools to build and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv targets at giving you those tools.
If you’re an independent writer, media firm, startup, or content maker, you should seriously thinking about trying out beehiiv. It’s absolutely cost-free to get going and you just pay when you reach over 2,500 subscribers on your checklist.
If you actually wind up having to pay for beehiiv it’s possibly an excellent sign that people love reviewing your things.
beehiiv vs Substack
You might be asking, “isn’t there already a system for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, of course there is. Substack is a terrific system utilized by countless independent authors. With Substack you obtain your very own web site and make use of the platform as your all-in-one service for sending emails (while producing an archive of previous concerns).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s dedication to development. beehiiv allows you do to all the things Substack can do, with the benefit of much better analytics, even more design flexibilty, and a referral program to urge your existing clients to get words out.
beehiiv additionally gives you a web site similar to Substack. But, if you have your own site already, you can likewise use beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I make use of) to send your site clients straight to your beehiiv e-mail list. On the same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a device like Performance to enable people to subscribe to your newsletter straight from Twitter.
This offers you the adaptability to leverage different marketing channels to get your e-newsletter out into the globe, making beehiiv a fantastic Substack option.
Exactly how to begin making use of beehiiv email marketing software program.
Register for a free plan
The very first step is to enroll in a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Begin trial” button on beehiiv’s internet site.
The free plan will certainly allow you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, give you access to website hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, development personalization, analytics, external embed types, and more. It’s a really charitable offering for those just starting out (or for those searching for a brand-new system to migrate to).
Onboarding Beehiiv ResiClub
After developing an account, you’ll undergo an onboarding process that will ask points like, “is this your first newsletter?”, “what various other systems have you utilized?”, “do you have any kind of paying subscribers?”, and more.
You’ll after that produce a name and link for your newsletter’s site. On the free plan, your newsletter will certainly live on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your website link may be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding procedure, you’ll also choose your brand name design and colors to ensure your e-newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your control panel
As soon as you reach your major control panel, you’ll see all of your analytics and setups.
You will have described details on how many sign-ups you’re obtaining and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see choices for “Beginning composing,” “Articles,” “Audience,” “Expand,” “Generate income from,” “Design,” and” Evaluate.” And at the very lower you’ll see the settings alternative.
Control panel is your major control center (screenshot over), Start writing is where you produce and publish e-newsletters, Blog posts is where you can see all of your previous newsletter editions, Audience is where you can see who your customers are (and break them down into segments), Grow 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, Style is where you design your newsletter landing page and message template, Evaluate is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can handle every one of your admin things.
Writing your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it easy to start writing, with little to no rubbing. If you’re simply beginning, and have a concept you intend to blog about, I advise simply mosting likely to the “Compose” area in the navbar and clicking on “Begin creating”.
You can modify your template and designing later– concentrate on the web content first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor offers a tidy and user-friendly interface for creating.
When you begin creating, you can maximize headings, add web links, and style your material exactly how you like.
beehiiv offers you tons of alternatives for various kinds of content like video clips, web links, images, and more.
The group at beehiiv is also regularly launching item feature and updates so I’m sure there will certainly be a great deal a lot more material features depending upon when you read this.
Maximizing your settings and templates
As soon as you have an e-newsletter that’s ready to send out, it’s time to design your e-mail template and adjust some settings.
Below, you can upgrade the name of your newsletter, provide it a summary, include your logo, turn on or off a welcome e-mail to very first time customers, and more.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your style.
You can edit history colors, borders, spacing, fonts, image styles, and much more. I’m not mosting likely to experience ever solitary point you can maximize with your e-mail template since it’s a whole lot. Just check out the system absolutely free and see it for yourself!
Vital beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of remarkable features that make it a great posting system for any type of e-newsletter creator.
Below are several of the important features you can locate with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter publishing platform. It makes it super easy to compose and send out e-mails. I discussed over some of the things you can do with your setups and e-mail design so I’ll spare you some additional analysis.
The important things to note with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has a truly modern and minimalistic feeling. It’s certainly among the far better email editors I’ve ever written in.
Web site hosting
When you produce a beehiiv e-newsletter, every one of your newsletters (if you want) live on a website. Think about it as a website for your e-newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous concerns of your e-newsletter, and a place where individuals can subscribe to your e-newsletter.
If you’re familiar with Substack, it’s pretty much comparable to that.
All plans, consisting of the complimentary one, give you a site. Nevertheless, the free plan locations your internet site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you want to include a personalized domain to get rid of all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining clients is essential. Besides, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can register for your e-newsletter straight from your beehiiv web site or through embed forms.
If you currently have an internet site, and want people to subscribe to your e-newsletter from your existing website, you’ll have to utilize an embed type. This is what I utilize on this website (you can see the sign-up embed on the right-hand man column of this article if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have 3 various choices– a full width, a repaired size, and a slim installed. I personally make use of the slim embed.
You can locate the code fragment for these embeds in the “Subscribe Types” tab in your setups.
There’s likewise an alternative for attribution monitoring if you intend to forward UTM criteria for tracking functions– quite neat.
Nevertheless, there are a few features I desire beehiiv had when it pertained to subscribe features. I make sure the group is servicing updates for these, but I discussed a few issues I had in the advantages and disadvantages area listed below.
Referral program
Among the amazing things concerning beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter platform, is a remedy for producing a referral program.
You can encourage existing customers on your list to ahead your e-mails to pals and colleagues and if they get other individuals to register for your list, you can compensate them. These benefits can be in whatever kind you want. I have actually seem several newsletter companies provide incentives in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously transform your clients right into a word of mouth development engine for your newsletter– offering you another method for growing your email list.
Nonetheless, to obtain access to the referral program feature, you’ll need to update to a more premium plan. I’ll go over all the plans later on in this post.
Costs subscriptions
They say all you require to make a living online is 1,000 real fans. Registration earnings is most 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 “costs” problems of your newsletter that are only sent out to paying customers. This can be really lucrative relying on what your e-newsletter has to use. For instance, Trends.co is a prominent premium e-newsletter that produces millions in revenue a year simply by having pay-only newsletter content.
Information analytics
Among the things I love regarding beehiiv is how tidy and straightforward the analytics are. You get real-time date on just how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and client count Beehiiv ResiClub.
You get accessibility to all the metrics you need to get a bird-eye sight on exactly how your e-newsletter is actually doing. Logging right into your dashboard and seeing that client count increase is most definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv supplies four various pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (free) Launch plan provides you everything you require to get going and grow your newsletter (up to 2,500 clients).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) provides you everything in the Launch plan with the enhancement the advertisement network, referral program, custom-made domain, polls, and accessibility to costs memberships. This is the plan I am on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) gives you everything in the Grow plan with enhancement of concern assistance and removing the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are quite charitable in my point of view.
For example, if you have 100,000 clients you will pay around $329 each month. As opposed to some competitors, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would bill $679 monthly for the very same quantity– making beehiiv a terrific Kit option for numerous customers.
I’m unsure exactly how the system economics work on this, but beehiiv is certainly more affordable (right now) than what it can be.
beehiiv benefits and drawbacks
Certainly, with every platform, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Below are some of the advantages and disadvantages I have actually personally experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Right here are several of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter system of choice:
Easy to establish and begin sending out newsletters absolutely free.
Clean and modern-day client analytics.
Lots of flexibility with email designs.
Referral program feature.
Website hosting.
Create premium options to monetize.
Polls.
To be straightforward, I have not seen one more e-newsletter platform that has been able to package all of these features together so well.
Yet certainly, I do not wish to be prejudiced so I’m going to discuss some cons.
Cons of using beehiiv
Here are a few of the cons I’ve found while making use of beehiiv:.
Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around adding custom-made fonts.
I use Webflow as my site building platform of choice (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a long period of time ago). I’m not mosting likely to enter excessive information why I love Webflow so much but you can read my Webflow testimonial if you want to discover more.
Now, there truly is nothing else way I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow web site aside from making use of an iframe embed. I directly do not such as making use of iframe’s since they have a tendency to slow down my website a bit. Whenever a page on my website (with a beehiiv embed) lots, the sign-up embed is the last thing to load on the page. It’s very obvious when you’re on a sluggish net link. However I can navigate that.
The major complaint I have is that I can’t utilize a regular Webflow form (which I love utilizing). There are means around this by using a tool like Zapier but that would just add additional prices that I do not need. To be truthful, this is more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv disadvantage however I believed I would state it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros far surpass the disadvantages below. I’m likewise hopeful that Webflow will at some point develop a better means to integrate with beehiiv.
Final Thought
Generally, beehiiv is a fantastic remedy for any individual seeking to study the world of e-mail marketing and newsletters.
The functionality of this newsletter system much outweighs lots of that are presently on the marketplace. And with a charitable free plan, you really have absolutely nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are likewise relatively cheap for what they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 clients on your listing is unheard of. 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 don’t create review messages commonly. I just do when I in fact use the device myself and would certainly advise it to a friend.
I hope you discovered some clearness on whether or not beehiiv is an excellent platform for you.