Over 2 years back, I was reading one of my favorite email e-newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo design for the very first time. I clicked on it and promptly started wrecking Beehiiv Showcase.
I wasn’t sure why I really felt so psychological.
Being a permanent creator is tough. I’m frequently getting pitched various devices and solutions that don’t seem to be worth my time.
I presume I was psychological since I spent the last 6 months trying different e-mail and e-newsletter platforms to assist build my newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some terrific choices for composing newsletters. Yet I could not discover one that made me provide a guaranteed “yes”.
The concern with numerous existing e-newsletter systems is that they do not feel creator-centered. I desire an e-newsletter system that lets me fully customize my newsletter designs, makes it super easy to create and send out e-mails, and offers me tools that assist me analyze metrics and get more subscribers.
I believe I have actually ultimately located the appropriate device.
Yet, I understand beehiiv might not be for everybody. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s in fact appropriate for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one system for newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly e-newsletter platform that makes it easy to style, create, send out, advertise, generate income from, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Produced by previous workers at the renowned newsletter firm Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to help makers launch and monetize their very own e-newsletter– taking great deals of growth principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M subscribers.
In this write-up, I’m going to discuss my individual experience with beehiiv, the things I like (and hate) about it, all of it’s features, and why I determined to finally choose it as my e-newsletter system of option.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A few months ago, I accidentally came across beehiiv. The amusing story is that I have actually watched for a modern newsletter platform for fairly some time now. I’ve put things off hard when it involved lastly releasing my newsletter.
First, I tried Mailchimp. Then, a couple of other indie platforms. Then, Substack. And finally, I ended up making use of beehiiv.
I make sure numerous e-newsletter makers look up to popular newsletters with countless customers– I know I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I respected a great deal. They have wonderful web content, tons of customers, and a creative referral program that enables them to get back at a lot more clients.
So, I took place a quest to find out just how these huge e-newsletters established their logistics. What system do they use? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they obtain even more customers? How do they create an e-newsletter design that stays on-brand?
When I uncovered beehiiv for the very first time, it seemed to respond to all of my concerns. I thought to myself, “damn the people that developed this device truly comprehend newsletter production and development.” I questioned who these developers of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were a few of the very first marketing and development employees at Morning Brew– my mind took off.
I knew this was mosting likely to be a various e-newsletter platform. One that’s focused on creator growth.
Because, any type of designer understands, you require growth to be able to make a living off of an e-newsletter. And discovering the right e-newsletter pile (that scales) often suggests utilizing multiple different tools to aid achieve one objective– one platform for your newsletter, one platform to monetize, and one platform to establish references. It can get costly.
So when I discovered beehiiv did all of these things in one system, 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 web content creator that wants a platform that allows them to send out custom-made newsletters with or without requiring to have a website.
One of the most effective e-newsletters have the right devices to develop and scale their newsletters. beehiiv aims at offering you those tools.
If you’re an independent author, media firm, startup, or material creator, you should seriously considering trying beehiiv. It’s completely free to begin and you only pay when you reach over 2,500 customers on your list.
If you really end up having to pay for beehiiv it’s most likely an excellent indication that people love reviewing your stuff.
beehiiv vs Substack
You could be asking, “isn’t there currently a system for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, yes there is. Substack is a terrific platform made use of by countless independent writers. With Substack you get your own web site and make use of the system as your all-in-one remedy for sending e-mails (while developing an archive of previous issues).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s devotion to growth. beehiiv permits you do to all the things Substack can do, with the benefit of far better analytics, even more style flexibilty, and a referral program to encourage your existing clients to get the word out.
beehiiv additionally provides you an internet site similar to Substack. However, if you have your very own internet site already, you can likewise utilize beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I use) to send your site customers directly to your beehiiv e-mail list. On the exact same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a device like Performance to allow individuals to sign up for your newsletter straight from Twitter.
This offers you the flexibility to leverage various marketing networks to get your newsletter out into the world, making beehiiv a wonderful Substack alternative.
Just how to begin using beehiiv e-mail marketing software.
Register for a free plan
The very first step is to register for a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Begin trial” switch on beehiiv’s site.
The free plan will certainly enable you to have up to 2,500 customers, offer you accessibility to web site hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, breakthrough customization, analytics, exterior embed kinds, and a lot more. It’s a very charitable offering for those simply beginning (or for those seeking a new system to migrate to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Showcase
After creating an account, you’ll experience an onboarding process that will ask points like, “is this your initial newsletter?”, “what various other systems have you used?”, “do you have any paying clients?”, and extra.
You’ll then develop a name and URL for your e-newsletter’s site. On the free plan, your newsletter will survive 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 select your brand colors and design to see to it your e-newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your dashboard
When you reach your primary control panel, you’ll see all of your analytics and setups.
You will certainly have outlined details on the number of sign-ups you’re obtaining and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see choices for “Start creating,” “Blog posts,” “Target market,” “Grow,” “Monetize,” “Style,” and” Analyze.” And at the very bottom you’ll see the setups choice.
Dashboard is your primary control center (screenshot above), Start writing is where you create and release newsletters, Articles is where you can see every one of your previous newsletter editions, Audience is where you can view who your customers are (and damage them down into sections), Expand is where you have access 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 ads, Style is where you develop your newsletter landing page and message template, Assess is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can manage every one of your admin stuff.
Writing your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it easy to begin composing, with little to no rubbing. If you’re just beginning, and have a concept you want to cover, I recommend simply mosting likely to the “Create” area in the navbar and clicking on “Start writing”.
You can fine-tune your template and designing later on– focus on the content first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor uses a clean and easy to use interface for writing.
Once you start creating, you can enhance headings, include links, and design your content exactly how you like.
beehiiv gives you tons of alternatives for different kinds of web content like video clips, links, pictures, and a lot more.
The group at beehiiv is additionally continuously launching product feature and updates so I make sure there will be a whole lot extra content features relying on when you’re reading this.
Maximizing your setups and templates
As soon as you have a newsletter that’s ready to send, it’s time to make your email template and change some setups.
Here, you can update the name of your e-newsletter, offer it a summary, add your logo design, switch on or off a welcome e-mail to first time clients, and a lot more.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can modify background shades, borders, spacing, fonts, photo layouts, and much more. I’m not going to experience ever solitary thing you can maximize with your email template since it’s a great deal. Simply check out the platform for free and see it on your own!
Vital beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of impressive features that make it a wonderful publishing platform for any type of newsletter designer.
Here are some of the necessary features you can find with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter publishing platform. It makes it very very easy to write and send out emails. I pointed out above a few of things you can do with your settings and email layout so I’ll save you some added analysis.
The thing to note with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has an actually modern and minimalistic feel. It’s certainly one of the far better email editors I have actually ever written in.
Internet site hosting
When you produce a beehiiv e-newsletter, every one of your newsletters (if you want) survive on a web site. Think of it as a site for your newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous problems of your newsletter, and a location where people can sign up for your e-newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s practically similar to that.
All plans, consisting of the cost-free one, give you a website. Nevertheless, the free plan places your web site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you intend to add a customized domain name to remove all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting customers is essential. Besides, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can subscribe to your newsletter right from your beehiiv site or via embed kinds.
If you currently have an internet site, and desire individuals to register for your newsletter from your existing site, you’ll have to use an embed form. This is what I use on this web site (you can see the sign-up embed on the right hand column of this blog post if you scroll up).
With embed kinds, you have three different choices– a complete width, a fixed width, and a slim installed. I personally use the slim embed.
You can discover the code bit for these embeds in the “Subscribe Types” tab in your settings.
There’s likewise an alternative for acknowledgment tracking if you wish to ahead UTM criteria for tracking functions– rather cool.
However, there are a few features I desire beehiiv had when it came to subscribe features. I make certain the group is dealing with updates for these, however I stated a couple of problems I had in the pros and cons area listed below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things concerning beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter platform, is an option for developing a referral program.
You can motivate existing customers on your checklist to ahead your e-mails to good friends and colleagues and if they obtain other people to subscribe to your list, you can compensate them. These incentives can be in whatever kind you desire. I have actually seem numerous e-newsletter business provide benefits in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously turn your subscribers into a word of mouth growth engine for your newsletter– providing you an additional opportunity for expanding your e-mail list.
Nonetheless, to get accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll need to update to an extra exceptional plan. I’ll review all the plans later on in this short article.
Costs registrations
They state all you require to make a living online is 1,000 real fans. Subscription revenue is certainly a monster of its very own. If you’re seeking a system to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can create “premium” problems of your e-newsletter that are only sent out to paying clients. This can be very profitable depending upon what your newsletter needs to use. For instance, Trends.co is a popular costs e-newsletter that creates millions in income a year simply by having pay-only e-newsletter web content.
Information analytics
Among things I like regarding beehiiv is just how clean and basic the analytics are. You obtain real-time day on exactly how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and subscriber matter Beehiiv Showcase.
You get accessibility to all the metrics you need to obtain a bird-eye sight on how your e-newsletter is in fact doing. Logging right into your control panel and seeing that client count go up is absolutely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv provides four different pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (complimentary) Launch plan provides you whatever you require to get started and expand your e-newsletter (as much as 2,500 customers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) offers you every little thing in the Launch plan with the addition the advertisement network, referral program, custom domain name, polls, and access to costs subscriptions. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) gives you everything in the Grow plan with enhancement of top priority assistance and removing the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are fairly generous in my opinion.
For example, if you have 100,000 customers you will certainly pay around $329 each month. As opposed to some competitors, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would certainly charge $679 per month for the same quantity– making beehiiv a fantastic Kit alternative for many customers.
I’m not sure how the device business economics deal with this, however beehiiv is absolutely less costly (presently) than what it can be.
beehiiv benefits and drawbacks
Naturally, with every platform, it has its benefits and drawbacks. Right here are a few of the pros and cons I’ve personally experienced while utilizing beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Here are a few of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter system of option:
Easy to establish and start sending out e-newsletters free of charge.
Clean and modern-day client analytics.
Great deals of flexibility with e-mail layouts.
Referral program feature.
Site hosting.
Produce costs choices to monetize.
Surveys.
To be honest, I have not seen another newsletter platform that has had the ability to package every one of these features with each other so well.
Yet naturally, I don’t want to be biased so I’m going to mention some cons.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Below are several of the disadvantages I have actually discovered while using beehiiv:.
Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around including customized typefaces.
I utilize Webflow as my web site structure system of choice (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a long period of time ago). I’m not mosting likely to go in way too much information why I like Webflow a lot yet you can read my Webflow evaluation if you would love to find out more.
Now, there actually is no other method I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow internet site apart from making use of an iframe embed. I personally do not such as using iframe’s since they have a tendency to reduce my site a little bit. Every time a web page on my site (with a beehiiv embed) loads, the sign-up installed is the last thing to fill on the page. It’s really visible when you get on a sluggish web connection. But I can get around that.
The main complaint I have is that I can not make use of a regular Webflow kind (which I enjoy using). There are means around this by using a device like Zapier yet that would just include added prices that I do not need. To be truthful, this is even more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv con but I believed I would certainly state it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros far exceed the cons right here. I’m additionally hopeful that Webflow will eventually develop a far better means to integrate with beehiiv.
Conclusion
On the whole, beehiiv is an excellent option for any individual aiming to dive into the globe of e-mail marketing and newsletters.
The performance of this e-newsletter platform far surpasses several that are presently on the market. And with a charitable free plan, you truly have 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 clients on your list is unprecedented. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k clients, and all of these features beehiiv has, it could cost you well right into the thousands per month.
Anyways, I do not compose review articles often. I only do when I in fact utilize the tool myself and would recommend it to a friend.
I wish you discovered some clarity on whether beehiiv is a good platform for you.