Over two years back, I read one of my preferred e-mail newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo for the very first time. I clicked it and instantaneously began destroying Beehiiv Shop.
I had not been certain why I felt so emotional.
Being a full time developer is difficult. I’m typically obtaining pitched different tools and services that do not seem to be worth my time.
I presume I was psychological due to the fact that I spent the last 6 months experimenting with different e-mail and newsletter platforms to help develop my e-newsletter. And to be fair, there are some fantastic alternatives for composing e-newsletters. However I couldn’t find one that made me provide a definite “yes”.
The concern with several existing e-newsletter systems is that they do not feel creator-centered. I want a newsletter system that lets me totally customize my e-newsletter layouts, makes it super very easy to create and send emails, and offers me tools that help me examine metrics and get even more clients.
I think I’ve lastly found the best tool.
Yet, I know beehiiv may not be for everybody. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s actually appropriate for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one platform for newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter platform that makes it very easy to layout, write, send, promote, monetize, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Created by former employees at the well-known newsletter business Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to aid creators launch and monetize their own newsletter– taking lots of growth principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M clients.
In this article, I’m mosting likely to clarify my personal experience with beehiiv, the things I love (and hate) regarding it, all of it’s features, and why I made a decision to finally choose it as my newsletter system of option.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A few months earlier, I mistakenly stumbled across beehiiv. The funny tale is that I have actually been on the lookout for a contemporary e-newsletter system for quite a long time now. I’ve put things off hard when it came to lastly launching my e-newsletter.
First, I attempted Mailchimp. After that, a couple of various other indie systems. Then, Substack. And finally, I wound up using beehiiv.
I make certain several e-newsletter creators look up to popular e-newsletters with numerous clients– I understand I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I admired a great deal. They have great content, tons of clients, and a creative referral program that permits them to get back at more subscribers.
So, I took place a hunt to identify how these large newsletters established their logistics. What platform do they use? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they obtain more customers? How do they develop a newsletter design that remains on-brand?
When I found beehiiv for the first time, it seemed to address every one of my inquiries. I believed to myself, “damn individuals that built this tool really comprehend newsletter development and growth.” I examined who these designers of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were a few of the initial marketing and development employees at Morning Brew– my brain exploded.
I knew this was going to be a various e-newsletter system. One that’s concentrated on maker growth.
Because, any type of developer recognizes, you need growth to be able to make a living off of a newsletter. And discovering the appropriate e-newsletter stack (that ranges) usually means making use of several different devices to help attain one goal– one platform for your e-newsletter, one platform to monetize, and one system to set up references. It can obtain costly.
So when I discovered beehiiv did all of these things in one system, and it was totally free to begin making use of, it was a piece of cake to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean material developer that desires a platform that allows them to send out customized newsletters with or without requiring to have a web site.
One of the most successful newsletters have the right tools to build and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv aims at providing you those tools.
If you’re an independent author, media business, start-up, or web content maker, you ought to seriously taking into consideration experimenting with beehiiv. It’s completely cost-free to get started and you only pay when you reach over 2,500 customers on your list.
If you actually wind up needing to pay for beehiiv it’s possibly a great indication that individuals like reading your stuff.
beehiiv vs Substack
You might be asking, “isn’t there currently a platform for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, yes there is. Substack is a terrific system utilized by thousands of independent authors. With Substack you obtain your very own internet site and use the platform as your all-in-one service for sending out e-mails (while developing an archive of previous issues).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s commitment to development. beehiiv permits you do to all the important things Substack can do, with the benefit of far better analytics, more layout flexibilty, and a referral program to urge your existing customers to get words out.
beehiiv likewise gives you a site similar to Substack. However, if you have your own internet site already, you can also use beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I make use of) to send your internet site customers directly to your beehiiv email list. On the exact same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a device like Revue to permit individuals to subscribe to your newsletter directly from Twitter.
This provides you the versatility to leverage various marketing channels to obtain your newsletter out into the globe, making beehiiv a wonderful Substack alternative.
Just how to begin utilizing beehiiv e-mail marketing software program.
Sign up for a free plan
The first step is to register for a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Start trial” button on beehiiv’s site.
The free plan will certainly allow you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, give you access to web site hosting, a newsletter CMS, breakthrough customization, analytics, exterior embed forms, and extra. It’s an extremely charitable offering for those just beginning (or for those searching for a brand-new platform to migrate to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Shop
After developing an account, you’ll go through an onboarding process that will ask things like, “is this your first e-newsletter?”, “what other platforms have you utilized?”, “do you have any type of paying clients?”, and more.
You’ll then produce a name and link for your newsletter’s site. On the free plan, your newsletter will reside on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your site URL could be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding process, you’ll also choose your brand colors and design to ensure your e-newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your control panel
When you reach your main control panel, you’ll see every one of your analytics and settings.
You will have outlined info on the number of sign-ups you’re getting and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see options for “Start composing,” “Blog posts,” “Target market,” “Grow,” “Generate income from,” “Design,” and” Assess.” And at the very lower you’ll see the settings alternative.
Control panel is your main nerve center (screenshot above), Start writing is where you develop and release e-newsletters, Blog posts is where you can see every one of your previous newsletter versions, Audience is where you can see who your customers are (and damage them down into segments), Grow is where you have accessibility 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 e-newsletter with ads, Design is where you design your newsletter landing page and post template, Examine is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can manage all of your admin stuff.
Composing your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it very easy to begin writing, with little to no rubbing. If you’re just beginning, and have an idea you intend to discuss, I advise simply mosting likely to the “Compose” area in the navbar and clicking on “Start writing”.
You can fine-tune your template and styling later on– concentrate on the content first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor uses a clean and straightforward interface for composing.
When you start creating, you can enhance headings, add links, and design your web content just how you like.
beehiiv offers you tons of choices for different sorts of content like videos, links, photos, and more.
The team at beehiiv is additionally constantly releasing product feature and updates so I make sure there will be a great deal much more material features relying on when you read this.
Optimizing your setups and templates
Once you have a newsletter that’s ready to send, it’s time to design your e-mail template and change some setups.
Right here, you can upgrade the name of your newsletter, give it a description, include your logo design, turn on or off a welcome email to very first time clients, and more.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can edit background colors, borders, spacing, font styles, photo layouts, and more. I’m not going to experience ever before single thing you can maximize with your email template due to the fact that it’s a whole lot. Simply experiment with the system free of charge and see it for yourself!
Important beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of remarkable features that make it a great posting system for any kind of e-newsletter creator.
Right here are several of the vital features you can locate with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter posting system. It makes it extremely easy to compose and send e-mails. I mentioned above a few of the important things you can do with your settings and e-mail layout so I’ll save you some extra reading.
Things to keep in mind with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has a really modern and minimalistic feeling. It’s certainly among the better email editors I have actually ever written in.
Web site hosting
When you produce a beehiiv e-newsletter, all of your e-newsletters (if you desire) survive on a web site. Think of it as a site for your newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous concerns of your e-newsletter, and a place where individuals can register for your newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s virtually comparable to that.
All plans, including the complimentary one, offer you a web site. Nonetheless, the free plan locations your website on a beehiiv subdomain so if you intend to add a custom domain name to get rid of all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining subscribers is essential. Besides, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can subscribe to your newsletter directly from your beehiiv site or with embed kinds.
If you already have a site, and want individuals to sign up for your newsletter from your existing site, you’ll have to use an embed form. This is what I make use of on this site (you can see the sign-up embed on the right-hand man column of this post if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have three different options– a complete size, a repaired size, and a slim embed. I personally use the slim installed.
You can discover the code snippet for these embeds in the “Subscribe Forms” tab in your setups.
There’s likewise an alternative for acknowledgment tracking if you want to forward UTM parameters for tracking purposes– quite cool.
Nevertheless, there are a few features I want beehiiv had when it concerned subscribe features. I make certain the team is servicing updates for these, but I stated a couple of issues I had in the pros and cons area below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things concerning beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter system, is an option for creating a referral program.
You can urge existing clients on your listing to ahead your emails to good friends and coworkers and if they get other individuals to sign up for your list, you can award them. These rewards can be in whatever type you want. I have actually seem lots of newsletter firms 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 e-newsletter– providing you one more opportunity for growing your e-mail checklist.
Nonetheless, to obtain access to the referral program feature, you’ll need to update to a more premium plan. I’ll review all the plans later in this article.
Premium memberships
They say all you need to make a living online is 1,000 true fans. Membership income is absolutely a beast of its very own. If you’re seeking a system to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can produce “premium” concerns of your newsletter that are just sent out to paying clients. This can be very profitable relying on what your newsletter has to offer. As an example, Trends.co is a popular costs newsletter that generates millions in earnings a year just by having pay-only e-newsletter content.
Data analytics
One of things I love regarding beehiiv is exactly how clean and simple the analytics are. You obtain real-time day on how your newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and subscriber matter Beehiiv Shop.
You obtain access to all the metrics you require to obtain a bird-eye view on just how your newsletter is really doing. Logging right into your control panel and seeing that client matter rise is most definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv supplies 4 different pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (totally free) Launch plan gives you every little thing you need to begin and expand your e-newsletter (up to 2,500 subscribers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) provides you every little thing in the Launch plan with the addition the ad network, referral program, personalized domain, surveys, and access to costs subscriptions. 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 getting rid of the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are quite generous in my point of view.
As an example, if you have 100,000 subscribers you will certainly pay around $329 per month. In contrast to some competitors, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would certainly bill $679 per month for the very same amount– making beehiiv a terrific Kit option for lots of individuals.
I’m not exactly sure how the system business economics work with this, yet beehiiv is absolutely less expensive (currently) than what it can be.
beehiiv pros and cons
Certainly, with every system, it has its benefits and drawbacks. Here are several of the advantages and disadvantages I have actually directly experienced while utilizing beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Below are a few of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter platform of option:
Easy to establish and start sending out newsletters absolutely free.
Tidy and contemporary customer analytics.
Lots of versatility with e-mail layouts.
Referral program feature.
Site hosting.
Develop costs choices to monetize.
Surveys.
To be sincere, I haven’t seen one more newsletter platform that has actually been able to package all of these features with each other so well.
Yet obviously, I do not want to be prejudiced so I’m mosting likely to discuss some cons.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Right here are several of the cons I’ve located while utilizing beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around including personalized fonts.
I utilize Webflow as my internet site building platform of option (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a long time ago). I’m not going to go in way too much detail why I enjoy Webflow so much but you can review my Webflow review if you would love to find out more.
Now, there actually is nothing else method I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow web site aside from utilizing an iframe embed. I directly do not such as making use of iframe’s due to the fact that they have a tendency to slow down my website a bit. Every single time a web page on my site (with a beehiiv installed) tons, the sign-up embed is the last thing to pack on the web page. It’s very noticeable when you get on a slow-moving internet link. However I can get around that.
The major gripe I have is that I can not use a regular Webflow kind (which I like utilizing). There are methods around this by utilizing a device like Zapier however that would simply add added prices that I don’t require. To be straightforward, this is even more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv con yet I believed I would certainly discuss it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros far exceed the cons right here. I’m additionally confident that Webflow will ultimately develop a far better way to integrate with beehiiv.
Conclusion
In general, beehiiv is a wonderful service for any person seeking to study the globe of email marketing and e-newsletters.
The capability of this newsletter platform much surpasses several that are presently on the market. And with a charitable free plan, you really have nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are additionally rather economical of what they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 subscribers on your list is unusual. 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 each month.
Anyways, I do not compose evaluation articles typically. I just do when I really make use of the device myself and would certainly recommend it to a buddy.
I hope you discovered some clarity on whether or not beehiiv is a great platform for you.