Over 2 years ago, I read one of my preferred email e-newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the e-mail and saw the beehiiv logo design for the very first time. I clicked it and promptly began tearing up Beehiiv Shaan Puri.
I wasn’t sure why I really felt so emotional.
Being a permanent designer is difficult. I’m commonly getting pitched various tools and solutions 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 experimenting with various e-mail and newsletter systems to aid develop my e-newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some excellent options for writing e-newsletters. However I could not find one that made me offer a definite “yes”.
The issue with several existing newsletter systems is that they do not really feel creator-centered. I desire an e-newsletter system that lets me fully tailor my newsletter styles, makes it very easy to write and send out emails, and gives me devices that assist me examine metrics and obtain even more customers.
I believe I’ve finally discovered the right device.
But, I know beehiiv might not be for everyone. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s in fact right 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 easy to design, compose, send, promote, generate income from, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Produced by former staff members at the well-known e-newsletter company Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to aid developers launch and monetize their own e-newsletter– taking great deals of growth principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M subscribers.
In this post, I’m mosting likely to discuss my individual experience with beehiiv, things I love (and hate) about it, all of it’s features, and why I decided to lastly opt for it as my newsletter platform of choice.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A few months earlier, I inadvertently stumbled across beehiiv. The funny tale is that I have actually watched for a modern-day e-newsletter system for fairly some time now. I’ve hesitated hard when it involved ultimately releasing my e-newsletter.
First, I tried Mailchimp. After that, a couple of other indie systems. After that, Substack. And lastly, I ended up making use of beehiiv.
I make sure many e-newsletter creators appreciate popular newsletters with numerous clients– I understand I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I admired a great deal. They have wonderful content, tons of clients, and a creative referral program that enables them to get back at more subscribers.
So, I went on a hunt to identify exactly how these huge newsletters set up their logistics. What system do they make use of? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they obtain more clients? How do they develop an e-newsletter style that stays on-brand?
When I found beehiiv for the very first time, it appeared to respond to every one of my questions. I believed to myself, “damn individuals that developed this device really recognize newsletter production and growth.” I questioned who these makers of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were a few of the very first marketing and development staff members at Morning Brew– my mind blew up.
I understood this was mosting likely to be a different e-newsletter system. One that’s concentrated on creator development.
Due to the fact that, any developer knows, you require growth to be able to earn a living off of an e-newsletter. And locating the appropriate newsletter stack (that scales) usually implies using numerous different devices to help accomplish one goal– one platform for your newsletter, one system to generate income from, and one system to set up references. It can get costly.
So when I learnt beehiiv did all of these things in one system, and it was free to begin making use of, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean web content maker that wants a system that enables them to send out custom-made e-newsletters with or without requiring to have a web site.
One of the most successful e-newsletters have the right devices to build and scale their newsletters. beehiiv aims at providing you those devices.
If you’re an independent author, media firm, startup, or web content developer, you must seriously considering checking out beehiiv. It’s completely complimentary to get started and you just pay when you get to over 2,500 clients on your checklist.
If you in fact wind up having to spend for beehiiv it’s possibly a great sign that individuals like reading your stuff.
beehiiv vs Substack
You may be asking, “isn’t there currently a system for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, indeed there is. Substack is a terrific platform made use of by thousands of independent writers. With Substack you get your very own internet site and utilize the platform as your all-in-one option for sending e-mails (while producing an archive of previous concerns).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s devotion to growth. beehiiv permits you do to all things Substack can do, with the benefit of much better analytics, even more design flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing clients to get words out.
beehiiv likewise provides you an internet site similar to Substack. But, if you have your own website currently, you can likewise use beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I utilize) to send your web site subscribers directly to your beehiiv e-mail checklist. On the very same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a device like Performance to permit people to subscribe to your e-newsletter directly from Twitter.
This offers you the flexibility to utilize various marketing channels to obtain your newsletter out into the globe, making beehiiv a terrific Substack alternative.
How to start utilizing 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 web site.
The free plan will allow you to have up to 2,500 customers, give you access to internet site hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, development modification, analytics, outside embed kinds, and more. It’s a really charitable offering for those simply beginning (or for those trying to find a new system to move to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Shaan Puri
After producing an account, you’ll go through an onboarding process that will ask points like, “is this your first newsletter?”, “what other platforms have you used?”, “do you have any type of paying customers?”, and a lot more.
You’ll after that develop a name and link for your e-newsletter’s web site. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will reside on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your website link could be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding procedure, you’ll also select your brand design and colors to see to it your e-newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your dashboard
Once you reach your major control panel, you’ll see every one of your analytics and settings.
You will have outlined info on the amount of sign-ups you’re getting and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see options for “Beginning writing,” “Messages,” “Audience,” “Grow,” “Generate income from,” “Layout,” and” Assess.” And at the very lower you’ll see the setups choice.
Dashboard is your main nerve center (screenshot above), Start creating is where you create and release e-newsletters, Messages is where you can see all of your previous e-newsletter editions, Audience is where you can view who your customers are (and damage them down right 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 advertisements, Style is where you develop your e-newsletter landing page and message template, Evaluate 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 easy to start writing, with little to no rubbing. If you’re simply starting out, and have an idea you want to discuss, I recommend simply mosting likely to the “Compose” section in the navbar and clicking on “Start creating”.
You can fine-tune your template and designing later– focus on the material first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor supplies a clean and easy to use user interface for writing.
When you start creating, you can optimize headings, include web links, and style your material exactly how you like.
beehiiv gives you tons of choices for various types of web content like video clips, web links, pictures, and much more.
The team at beehiiv is likewise regularly launching product feature and updates so I make sure there will be a lot more content features depending upon when you’re reading this.
Optimizing your settings and templates
When you have an e-newsletter that’s ready to send, it’s time to make your e-mail template and change some settings.
Below, you can update the name of your e-newsletter, provide it a summary, add your logo design, activate or off a welcome e-mail to first time clients, and extra.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can modify history colors, boundaries, spacing, font styles, photo layouts, and much more. I’m not going to undergo ever solitary thing you can maximize with your email template due to the fact that it’s a whole lot. Simply experiment with the system totally free and see it for yourself!
Crucial beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of impressive features that make it a great posting platform for any type of newsletter designer.
Here are several of the crucial features you can locate with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter publishing platform. It makes it incredibly very easy to create and send emails. I mentioned over several of the important things you can do with your settings and email design so I’ll save you some additional analysis.
The thing to note with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has a really modern and minimalistic feeling. It’s most definitely among the far better e-mail editors I’ve ever before written in.
Website hosting
When you produce a beehiiv newsletter, all of your newsletters (if you want) survive a site. Consider it as an internet site for your newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous issues of your e-newsletter, and a location where individuals can sign up for your e-newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s practically similar to that.
All plans, including the free one, provide you a web site. Nonetheless, the free plan locations your site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you intend to include a customized domain name to get rid of all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting customers is important. Besides, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can sign up for your newsletter directly from your beehiiv web site or with embed kinds.
If you already have an internet site, and desire individuals to subscribe to your e-newsletter from your existing site, you’ll have to make use of an embed kind. This is what I make use of on this internet site (you can see the sign-up embed on the right hand column of this article if you scroll up).
With embed kinds, you have three different alternatives– a full width, a repaired width, and a slim installed. I directly use the slim installed.
You can discover the code bit for these embeds in the “Subscribe Forms” tab in your settings.
There’s likewise an alternative for attribution monitoring if you intend to onward UTM criteria for tracking objectives– quite neat.
Nonetheless, there are a couple of features I wish beehiiv had when it concerned subscribe features. I’m sure the group is working with updates for these, yet I discussed a couple of problems I had in the pros and cons area listed below.
Referral program
Among the amazing things about beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter platform, is a remedy for creating a referral program.
You can encourage existing subscribers on your listing to onward your emails to good friends and coworkers and if they obtain other individuals to subscribe to your checklist, you can compensate them. These benefits can be in whatever kind you want. I have actually seem many newsletter firms provide incentives in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously transform your clients into a word of mouth development engine for your newsletter– giving you one more method for expanding your e-mail listing.
Nevertheless, to get accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll have to update to a more premium plan. I’ll go over all the plans later in this short article.
Costs memberships
They claim all you require to earn a living online is 1,000 true followers. Membership revenue is most definitely a beast of its own. If you’re looking for a platform to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can produce “premium” issues of your e-newsletter that are only sent out to paying clients. This can be extremely profitable depending upon what your newsletter needs to use. As an example, Trends.co is a prominent premium e-newsletter that generates millions in revenue a year merely by having pay-only e-newsletter content.
Information analytics
Among the important things I enjoy regarding beehiiv is just how clean and basic the analytics are. You get real-time day on exactly how your newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and client count Beehiiv Shaan Puri.
You obtain access to all the metrics you need to get a bird-eye view on exactly how your e-newsletter is actually doing. Logging into your dashboard and seeing that customer matter rise is most definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv provides four different pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (cost-free) Launch plan provides you every little thing you require to start and grow your e-newsletter (approximately 2,500 customers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) gives you every little thing in the Launch plan with the enhancement the advertisement network, referral program, personalized domain, polls, and access to premium registrations. 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 eliminating the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are fairly generous in my opinion.
For example, if you have 100,000 clients you will certainly pay around $329 per month. In contrast to some competitors, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would certainly bill $679 monthly for the very same quantity– making beehiiv a fantastic Kit alternative for several customers.
I’m not exactly sure just how the unit business economics work on this, but beehiiv is absolutely cheaper (right now) than what it can be.
beehiiv pros and cons
Of course, with every platform, it has its pros and cons. Below are some of the pros and cons I have actually directly experienced while making use of beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Here are some of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter platform of selection:
Easy to establish and start sending e-newsletters absolutely free.
Tidy and modern-day subscriber analytics.
Lots of adaptability with email designs.
Referral program feature.
Internet site hosting.
Develop premium alternatives to monetize.
Surveys.
To be straightforward, I haven’t seen another e-newsletter platform that has actually been able to package all of these features with each other so well.
However naturally, I do not want to be prejudiced so I’m mosting likely to point out some disadvantages.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Below are a few of the cons I have actually discovered while making use of beehiiv:.
Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around adding personalized typefaces.
I make use of Webflow as my internet site structure system of option (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a very long time ago). I’m not going to go in too much information why I love Webflow so much yet you can review my Webflow review if you wish to discover more.
Today, there truly is nothing else way I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow web site aside from making use of an iframe embed. I personally don’t such as making use of iframe’s because they tend to decrease my internet site a bit. Whenever a page on my site (with a beehiiv embed) loads, the sign-up installed is the last thing to fill on the web page. It’s very recognizable when you get on a slow net link. However I can get around that.
The major gripe I have is that I can’t utilize a routine Webflow kind (which I enjoy making use of). There are means around this by utilizing a tool like Zapier but that would simply include additional expenses that I do not require. To be straightforward, this is more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv disadvantage but I believed I would certainly mention it.
Besides that, I still think the pros far outweigh the cons below. I’m likewise enthusiastic that Webflow will at some point develop a better method to incorporate with beehiiv.
Final Thought
In general, beehiiv is a great solution for any person looking to dive into the globe of email marketing and newsletters.
The capability of this e-newsletter platform far outweighs lots of that are presently on the market. And with a charitable free plan, you actually have absolutely nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are also rather low-cost for what they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 clients on your checklist is uncommon. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k clients, and all of these features beehiiv has, it can cost you well right into the thousands monthly.
Anyways, I don’t write testimonial posts commonly. I only do when I actually use the device myself and would recommend it to a pal.
I hope you found some clearness on whether beehiiv is an excellent system for you.