Over 2 years ago, I was reading one of my preferred e-mail newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo for the first time. I clicked on it and quickly started destroying Beehiiv Series A.
I wasn’t sure why I felt so psychological.
Being a full time designer is difficult. I’m typically getting pitched different devices and solutions that don’t appear to be worth my time.
I guess I was emotional because I invested the last 6 months trying various e-mail and e-newsletter platforms to help construct my e-newsletter. And to be fair, there are some terrific choices for writing newsletters. But I couldn’t discover one that made me give a guaranteed “yes”.
The concern with lots of existing e-newsletter platforms is that they do not feel creator-centered. I desire a newsletter system that lets me completely personalize my newsletter styles, makes it very simple to write and send out e-mails, and offers me devices that assist me evaluate metrics and obtain more subscribers.
I assume I have actually ultimately discovered the best tool.
However, I know beehiiv might not be for everybody. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s actually right 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 style, compose, send, promote, monetize, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Produced by former employees at the renowned newsletter company Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to help developers launch and monetize their own e-newsletter– taking lots of development principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M subscribers.
In this short article, I’m mosting likely to describe my individual experience with beehiiv, the important things I like (and hate) concerning it, all of it’s features, and why I chose to lastly choose it as my e-newsletter platform of selection.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A few months ago, I unintentionally came across beehiiv. The funny tale is that I’ve been on the lookout for a modern-day newsletter platform for rather some time currently. I have actually hesitated hard when it concerned finally releasing my e-newsletter.
First, I attempted Mailchimp. After that, a couple of other indie systems. Then, Substack. And finally, I wound up using beehiiv.
I make certain several e-newsletter makers look up to preferred e-newsletters with millions of customers– I know I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I looked up to a lot. They have terrific content, lots of customers, and a smart referral program that allows them to get back at extra subscribers.
So, I took place a quest to identify just how these big newsletters set up their logistics. What platform do they use? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they obtain even more subscribers? How do they create a newsletter style that remains on-brand?
When I found beehiiv for the very first time, it seemed to respond to every one of my concerns. I believed to myself, “damn individuals that constructed this device truly recognize 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 some of the very first marketing and growth employees at Morning Brew– my mind blew up.
I understood this was mosting likely to be a various newsletter platform. One that’s concentrated on designer development.
Due to the fact that, any type of developer knows, you require growth to be able to earn a living off of a newsletter. And discovering the right e-newsletter pile (that scales) commonly suggests using several different devices to aid attain one objective– one platform for your e-newsletter, one system to monetize, and one system to establish referrals. It can obtain costly.
So when I found out beehiiv did all of these things in one system, and it was free to start using, it was a piece of cake to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean material designer that desires a platform that permits them to send out personalized e-newsletters with or without requiring to have a site.
The most successful newsletters have the right devices to develop and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv focuses on providing you those tools.
If you’re an independent writer, media firm, start-up, or material creator, you must seriously considering experimenting with beehiiv. It’s completely free to start and you only pay when you get to over 2,500 subscribers on your listing.
If you actually wind up needing to pay for beehiiv it’s probably a great indicator that individuals like reading your stuff.
beehiiv vs Substack
You may be asking, “isn’t there currently a platform for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, yes there is. Substack is a fantastic system used by thousands of independent writers. With Substack you get your own web site and make use of the platform as your all-in-one option for sending e-mails (while creating an archive of previous concerns).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s dedication to growth. beehiiv allows you do to all the things Substack can do, with the benefit of far better analytics, more design flexibilty, and a referral program to encourage your existing customers to obtain words out.
beehiiv likewise provides you a web site similar to Substack. However, if you have your own site currently, you can also make use of beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I use) to send your website clients directly to your beehiiv e-mail listing. On the exact same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a tool like Performance to permit individuals to sign up for your e-newsletter directly from Twitter.
This gives you the adaptability to utilize various marketing channels to get your newsletter out right into the globe, making beehiiv an excellent Substack option.
How to begin using beehiiv email marketing software program.
Register for 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 website.
The free plan will certainly allow you to have up to 2,500 clients, provide you accessibility to web site hosting, a newsletter CMS, breakthrough modification, analytics, external embed kinds, and extra. It’s a really charitable offering for those simply starting (or for those looking for a brand-new system to migrate to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Series A
After producing an account, you’ll experience an onboarding process that will ask things like, “is this your first e-newsletter?”, “what other platforms have you made use of?”, “do you have any paying subscribers?”, and extra.
You’ll after that produce a name and link for your newsletter’s website. On the free plan, your newsletter will certainly survive on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your internet site link might be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding process, you’ll also select your brand design and colors to make sure your newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your dashboard
When you reach your major control panel, you’ll see every one of your analytics and setups.
You will have detailed details on how many sign-ups you’re getting and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see choices for “Start composing,” “Articles,” “Target market,” “Grow,” “Generate income from,” “Style,” and” Evaluate.” And at the very lower you’ll see the settings option.
Dashboard is your main nerve center (screenshot over), Beginning writing is where you create and release newsletters, Blog posts is where you can see every one of your previous e-newsletter versions, Audience is where you can view who your clients are (and break them down into sectors), Expand 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 newsletter with advertisements, Style is where you develop your e-newsletter landing page and blog post template, Assess is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can take care of all of your admin stuff.
Creating your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it very easy to start creating, with little to no rubbing. If you’re simply beginning, and have an idea you intend to write about, I recommend simply going to the “Compose” area in the navbar and clicking on “Start creating”.
You can modify your template and designing later– focus on the material first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor uses a clean and straightforward interface for writing.
As soon as you begin writing, you can enhance headings, add links, and design your content how you like.
beehiiv provides you tons of choices for different kinds of content like video clips, links, photos, and extra.
The team at beehiiv is additionally constantly releasing product feature and updates so I’m sure there will certainly be a great deal much more content features depending upon when you read this.
Optimizing your settings and templates
When you have a newsletter that prepares to send, it’s time to design your e-mail template and readjust some setups.
Right here, you can update the name of your e-newsletter, provide it a description, include your logo design, turn on or off a welcome email to very first time customers, and extra.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can modify background shades, borders, spacing, typefaces, image styles, and more. I’m not going to go through ever solitary thing you can enhance with your e-mail template because it’s a lot. Just experiment with the platform free of cost and see it on your own!
Crucial beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of amazing features that make it a great posting platform for any e-newsletter maker.
Here are some of the essential features you can locate with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter posting system. It makes it incredibly simple to write and send out emails. I pointed out above a few of the things you can do with your settings and email layout so I’ll save you some extra analysis.
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’ve ever written in.
Website hosting
When you create a beehiiv newsletter, every one of your newsletters (if you desire) survive on a web site. Think about it as a website for your e-newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous issues of your e-newsletter, and a place where people can subscribe to your newsletter.
If you’re familiar with Substack, it’s practically comparable to that.
All plans, including the free one, offer you a web site. Nonetheless, the free plan locations 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
Getting subscribers is important. After all, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can sign up for your newsletter directly from your beehiiv site or via embed types.
If you already have an internet site, and desire individuals to subscribe to your e-newsletter from your existing website, you’ll have to make use of an embed kind. This is what I make use of on this web site (you can see the sign-up installed on the right-hand man column of this blog post if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have 3 various options– a full size, a repaired width, and a slim installed. I personally make use of the slim installed.
You can locate the code bit for these embeds in the “Subscribe Types” tab in your setups.
There’s additionally an alternative for attribution monitoring if you want to ahead UTM specifications for tracking functions– quite cool.
Nonetheless, there are a couple of features I want beehiiv had when it concerned subscribe features. I make certain the team is servicing updates for these, yet I mentioned a few problems 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 newsletter platform, is a service for creating a referral program.
You can urge existing customers on your checklist to onward your emails to good friends and coworkers and if they get other individuals to sign up for your list, you can compensate them. These benefits can be in whatever kind you desire. I have actually appear numerous newsletter business provide benefits in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously turn your customers right into a word of mouth development engine for your newsletter– providing you an additional opportunity for expanding your email checklist.
However, to obtain access to the referral program feature, you’ll have to update to a more superior plan. I’ll go over all the plans later in this post.
Costs subscriptions
They say all you require to make a living online is 1,000 real followers. Registration earnings is absolutely a monster of its very own. If you’re searching for a platform to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can create “premium” concerns of your e-newsletter that are just sent out to paying clients. This can be really lucrative relying on what your newsletter has to offer. For instance, Trends.co is a prominent costs e-newsletter that generates millions in revenue a year just by having pay-only newsletter content.
Information analytics
One of things I like concerning beehiiv is exactly how tidy and simple the analytics are. You get real-time day on just how your newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and client matter Beehiiv Series A.
You obtain accessibility to all the metrics you require to obtain a bird-eye view on just how your e-newsletter is really doing. Logging into your dashboard and seeing that subscriber count go up is most definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv uses 4 various pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (complimentary) Launch plan gives you every little thing you need to start and expand your e-newsletter (up to 2,500 subscribers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) provides you everything in the Launch plan with the addition the ad network, referral program, personalized domain name, polls, and access to premium memberships. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) provides you every little thing in the Grow plan with enhancement of concern assistance and eliminating the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are quite generous in my viewpoint.
As an example, if you have 100,000 clients you will certainly pay around $329 each month. As opposed to some rivals, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would charge $679 each month for the same quantity– making beehiiv a wonderful Kit choice for several individuals.
I’m not exactly sure how the device economics deal with this, yet beehiiv is definitely less expensive (at the moment) than what it can be.
beehiiv advantages and disadvantages
Certainly, with every platform, it has its pros and cons. Right here are several of the pros and cons I have actually directly experienced while making use of beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Here are a few of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter system of choice:
Easy to set up and begin sending out e-newsletters completely free.
Tidy and contemporary subscriber analytics.
Lots of adaptability with e-mail layouts.
Referral program feature.
Web site hosting.
Develop premium choices to monetize.
Polls.
To be honest, I have not seen an additional e-newsletter platform that has had the ability to package all of these features together so well.
However of course, I don’t want to be biased so I’m mosting likely to discuss some cons.
Cons of using beehiiv
Here are some of the cons I have actually located while making use of beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around adding custom fonts.
I utilize Webflow as my site building platform of choice (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a very long time ago). I’m not mosting likely to go in too much information why I love Webflow so much yet you can read my Webflow review if you wish to discover more.
Right now, there truly is no other means I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow website apart from using an iframe embed. I personally do not like utilizing iframe’s due to the fact that they often tend to decrease my web site a bit. Whenever a page on my website (with a beehiiv installed) lots, the sign-up embed is the last thing to fill on the page. It’s extremely recognizable when you’re on a sluggish web link. However I can navigate that.
The main gripe I have is that I can not make use of a routine Webflow kind (which I enjoy using). There are methods around this by utilizing a tool like Zapier yet that would simply add added costs that I don’t require. To be straightforward, this is more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv disadvantage yet I believed I would certainly state it.
Besides that, I still think the pros much outweigh the cons right here. I’m additionally confident that Webflow will eventually create a far better method to integrate with beehiiv.
Conclusion
Generally, beehiiv is a terrific service for anybody wanting to study the world of email marketing and newsletters.
The capability of this e-newsletter platform far outweighs several that are currently on the market. And with a generous free plan, you actually have absolutely nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are also relatively cheap of what they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 subscribers on your checklist is unprecedented. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k customers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it could cost you well right into the thousands monthly.
Anyways, I do not write review articles commonly. I only do when I really make use of the tool myself and would recommend it to a friend.
I wish you found some clearness on whether or not beehiiv is an excellent system for you.