Over two years ago, I read one of my favorite email newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo design for the first time. I clicked it and instantaneously began destroying Beehiiv Special Offer.
I had not been sure why I felt so emotional.
Being a full time developer is tough. I’m usually getting pitched different devices and services that don’t appear to be worth my time.
I guess I was psychological since I invested the last six months experimenting with various email and newsletter platforms to assist construct my e-newsletter. And to be fair, there are some great alternatives for writing e-newsletters. Yet I could not locate one that made me provide a precise “yes”.
The issue with lots of existing e-newsletter platforms is that they don’t feel creator-centered. I want a newsletter system that lets me completely tailor my newsletter layouts, makes it extremely easy to create and send emails, and gives me devices that assist me assess metrics and obtain more clients.
I believe I have actually lastly located the best device.
However, I understand beehiiv may not be for every person. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s really appropriate for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one system for e-newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly e-newsletter system that makes it simple to layout, write, send, advertise, generate income from, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Developed by previous employees at the well-known e-newsletter business Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to help developers launch and monetize their very own e-newsletter– taking lots of development principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M customers.
In this write-up, I’m going to describe my personal experience with beehiiv, the important things I love (and hate) regarding it, all of it’s features, and why I chose to ultimately go with it as my newsletter system of selection.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A couple of months ago, I inadvertently came across beehiiv. The funny tale is that I’ve been on the lookout for a contemporary newsletter platform for quite time now. I’ve hesitated hard when it came to finally launching my newsletter.
Initially, I tried Mailchimp. Then, a couple of other indie platforms. Then, Substack. And finally, I ended up using beehiiv.
I’m sure lots of newsletter creators admire prominent newsletters with countless clients– I know I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I appreciated a lot. They have fantastic content, lots of clients, and a brilliant referral program that allows them to get even extra subscribers.
So, I went on a search to determine exactly how these big e-newsletters set up their logistics. What system do they utilize? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they obtain more subscribers? How do they develop a newsletter layout that stays on-brand?
When I discovered beehiiv for the first time, it appeared to address all of my concerns. I thought to myself, “damn individuals that developed this tool really understand e-newsletter production and development.” I questioned who these designers of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were some of the first marketing and growth workers at Morning Brew– my mind blew up.
I understood this was mosting likely to be a various newsletter system. One that’s concentrated on maker development.
Since, any kind of developer understands, you need development to be able to earn a living off of a newsletter. And finding the appropriate newsletter pile (that scales) commonly implies utilizing multiple various devices to help achieve one objective– one platform for your newsletter, one system to generate income from, and one platform to set up referrals. It can obtain expensive.
So when I discovered beehiiv did every one of these points in one platform, 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 developer that wants a platform that allows them to send custom-made newsletters with or without needing to have a website.
The most successful newsletters have the right devices to build and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv targets at offering you those devices.
If you’re an independent author, media business, startup, or web content maker, you need to seriously considering experimenting with beehiiv. It’s entirely complimentary to get started and you just pay when you get to over 2,500 customers on your checklist.
If you really end up needing to spend for beehiiv it’s most likely an excellent sign that individuals like reading your things.
beehiiv vs Substack
You may be asking, “isn’t there already a platform for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, indeed there is. Substack is an excellent system made use of by countless independent writers. With Substack you obtain your very own site and make use of the system as your all-in-one service for sending out emails (while developing an archive of previous problems).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s dedication to growth. beehiiv enables you do to all the important things Substack can do, with the advantage of much better analytics, even more layout flexibilty, and a referral program to urge your existing clients to get words out.
beehiiv also provides you a website similar to Substack. But, if you have your own website currently, you can also utilize beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I make use of) to send your internet site customers directly to your beehiiv e-mail checklist. On the very same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a tool like Performance to enable individuals to register for your newsletter straight from Twitter.
This offers you the versatility to leverage different marketing channels to get your e-newsletter out right into the world, making beehiiv a fantastic Substack option.
How to begin making use of beehiiv email marketing software program.
Enroll in a free plan
The first step is to register for a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Begin trial” button on beehiiv’s internet site.
The free plan will allow you to have up to 2,500 clients, provide you accessibility to website hosting, a newsletter CMS, advancement customization, analytics, exterior embed kinds, and much more. It’s a very charitable offering for those simply starting (or for those searching for a new system to migrate to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Special Offer
After producing an account, you’ll experience an onboarding process that will ask things like, “is this your very first e-newsletter?”, “what other systems have you utilized?”, “do you have any paying clients?”, and more.
You’ll after that produce a name and link for your e-newsletter’s web site. On the free plan, your newsletter will certainly reside on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your site link may be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding procedure, you’ll additionally select your brand name design and colors to ensure your newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your dashboard
Once you reach your main dashboard, you’ll see all of your analytics and settings.
You will certainly have outlined information on how many sign-ups you’re getting and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see alternatives for “Begin composing,” “Posts,” “Audience,” “Grow,” “Monetize,” “Style,” and” Assess.” And at the very lower you’ll see the setups option.
Dashboard is your major control center (screenshot over), Beginning writing is where you create and publish newsletters, Posts is where you can see all of your previous e-newsletter versions, Target market is where you can watch who your subscribers are (and break them down right into segments), Grow 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 e-newsletter with advertisements, Design is where you make your e-newsletter landing page and post template, Examine is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can handle all of your admin stuff.
Writing your newsletter
beehiiv makes it simple to begin creating, with little to no friction. If you’re just starting, and have an idea you intend to write about, I suggest just mosting likely to the “Write” area in the navbar and clicking on “Begin composing”.
You can fine-tune your template and styling later– concentrate on the content initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor uses a tidy and user-friendly user interface for creating.
Once you begin creating, you can enhance headings, add web links, and design your web content how you such as.
beehiiv offers you lots of alternatives for different types of web content like videos, links, pictures, and more.
The team at beehiiv is likewise regularly releasing item feature and updates so I’m sure there will certainly be a great deal much more content features depending on when you read this.
Optimizing your settings and templates
Once you have an e-newsletter that prepares to send, it’s time to develop your email template and adjust some setups.
Here, you can update the name of your e-newsletter, offer it a summary, include your logo, activate or off a welcome e-mail to first time subscribers, and much more.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your design.
You can modify history shades, borders, spacing, font styles, picture layouts, and a lot more. I’m not mosting likely to experience ever solitary point you can enhance with your email template because it’s a lot. Just try out the platform completely free and see it for yourself!
Essential beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of outstanding features that make it a fantastic publishing system for any kind of newsletter creator.
Below are some of the crucial features you can locate with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter publishing platform. It makes it super very easy to write and send out e-mails. I discussed above some of the important things you can do with your settings and e-mail layout so I’ll save you some additional reading.
The thing to keep in mind with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has a really contemporary and minimalistic feeling. It’s absolutely one of the much better e-mail editors I’ve ever written in.
Web site hosting
When you produce a beehiiv e-newsletter, every one of your newsletters (if you desire) live on a website. Consider it as a website for your newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous problems of your newsletter, and a place where individuals can subscribe to your e-newsletter.
If you recognize with Substack, it’s practically comparable to that.
All plans, consisting of the totally free one, offer you a website. Nonetheless, the free plan places your internet site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you want to add a personalized domain name to eliminate all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining subscribers is necessary. After all, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can subscribe to your newsletter directly from your beehiiv website or with embed forms.
If you already have an internet site, and want people to subscribe to your newsletter from your existing site, you’ll need to use 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 article if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have three different alternatives– a complete size, a taken care of width, and a slim installed. I personally make use of the slim embed.
You can find the code bit for these embeds in the “Subscribe Types” tab in your settings.
There’s additionally an alternative for attribution tracking if you want to ahead UTM parameters for tracking purposes– pretty cool.
However, there are a few features I want beehiiv had when it came to subscribe features. I make sure the team is servicing updates for these, however I discussed a couple of concerns I had in the advantages and disadvantages section listed below.
Referral program
Among the amazing things regarding beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter system, is an option for developing a referral program.
You can motivate existing clients on your checklist to onward your emails to buddies and coworkers and if they obtain other individuals to sign up for your checklist, you can compensate them. These rewards can be in whatever kind you desire. I’ve seem lots of e-newsletter companies give benefits in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously turn your clients into a word of mouth growth engine for your e-newsletter– providing you another method for expanding your email listing.
However, to obtain access to the referral program feature, you’ll need to upgrade to an extra superior plan. I’ll discuss all the plans later on in this short article.
Costs subscriptions
They say all you require to make a living online is 1,000 true fans. Registration profits is absolutely a monster of its very own. If you’re seeking a platform to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can produce “premium” problems of your e-newsletter that are only sent out to paying customers. This can be extremely rewarding depending on what your newsletter needs to offer. For instance, Trends.co is a preferred premium e-newsletter that generates millions in profits a year just by having pay-only newsletter material.
Information analytics
One of the important things I love concerning beehiiv is how clean and straightforward the analytics are. You get real-time date on how your newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and customer matter Beehiiv Special Offer.
You obtain accessibility to all the metrics you require to obtain a bird-eye sight on how your newsletter is really doing. Logging into your control panel and seeing that client matter increase is most definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv supplies four various pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (totally free) Launch plan offers you every little thing you require to get going and expand your e-newsletter (approximately 2,500 clients).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) provides you whatever in the Launch plan with the enhancement the advertisement network, referral program, personalized domain, polls, and accessibility to premium memberships. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) offers you everything in the Grow plan with addition of concern assistance and eliminating the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are fairly generous in my point of view.
As an example, if you have 100,000 subscribers you will pay around $329 each month. Rather than some rivals, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would certainly bill $679 each month for the same quantity– making beehiiv an excellent Kit option for lots of individuals.
I’m uncertain how the system business economics service this, however beehiiv is most definitely less expensive (at the moment) than what it can be.
beehiiv advantages and disadvantages
Of course, with every system, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Below are a few of the benefits and drawbacks I’ve directly experienced while making use of beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Right here are a few of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter system of selection:
Easy to set up and start sending e-newsletters free of cost.
Tidy and modern-day subscriber analytics.
Lots of adaptability with email layouts.
Referral program feature.
Site hosting.
Produce premium choices to generate income from.
Surveys.
To be straightforward, I haven’t seen one more e-newsletter platform that has had the ability to package every one of these features together so well.
However naturally, I don’t want to be biased so I’m mosting likely to mention some cons.
Cons of using beehiiv
Below are a few of the cons I have actually located while utilizing beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around adding customized font styles.
I make use of Webflow as my site structure platform of option (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a very long time ago). I’m not mosting likely to enter too much information why I love Webflow a lot yet you can review my Webflow evaluation if you ‘d like to discover more.
Now, there really is no other means I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow web site apart from utilizing an iframe embed. I personally don’t such as using iframe’s because they tend to slow down my web site a little bit. Every time a page on my site (with a beehiiv embed) lots, the sign-up embed is the last thing to pack on the page. It’s very recognizable when you get on a slow-moving internet link. But I can get around that.
The main gripe I have is that I can not utilize a normal Webflow kind (which I enjoy using). There are methods around this by utilizing a tool like Zapier however that would certainly simply add added expenses that I don’t need. To be straightforward, this is even more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv con but I assumed I would state it.
Besides that, I still think the pros far outweigh the disadvantages here. I’m also enthusiastic that Webflow will at some point develop a much better means to integrate with beehiiv.
Final Thought
Overall, beehiiv is a fantastic remedy for anybody seeking to dive into the globe of email marketing and newsletters.
The functionality of this newsletter system much surpasses numerous that are currently on the marketplace. And with a charitable free plan, you really have nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are likewise rather low-cost of what they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 customers on your listing is uncommon. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k customers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it can cost you well into the thousands each month.
Anyways, I don’t compose testimonial blog posts typically. I just do when I in fact make use of the tool myself and would advise it to a buddy.
I wish you located some quality on whether or not beehiiv is a good system for you.