Over 2 years back, I read one of my favored email newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the e-mail and saw the beehiiv logo design for the first time. I clicked it and promptly started wrecking Beehiiv Status.
I had not been sure why I really felt so emotional.
Being a full-time developer is tough. I’m typically obtaining pitched various devices and solutions that do not appear to be worth my time.
I presume I was psychological due to the fact that I spent the last six months checking out various email and e-newsletter systems to help construct my e-newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some great choices for writing newsletters. Yet I couldn’t find one that made me offer a certain “yes”.
The issue with many existing newsletter platforms is that they don’t feel creator-centered. I desire an e-newsletter system that lets me completely personalize my newsletter layouts, makes it extremely very easy to create and send out emails, and provides me devices that help me examine metrics and obtain more clients.
I assume I have actually ultimately found the best device.
But, I recognize beehiiv might not be for every person. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s in fact right 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 layout, create, send, advertise, generate income from, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Developed by former employees at the well-known e-newsletter firm Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to help designers launch and monetize their very own e-newsletter– taking lots of development concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M customers.
In this post, I’m going to clarify my individual experience with beehiiv, the important things I enjoy (and hate) regarding it, all of it’s features, and why I chose to lastly opt for it as my e-newsletter system of selection.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A couple of months ago, I mistakenly stumbled across beehiiv. The funny tale is that I’ve watched for a modern-day newsletter platform for rather time currently. I’ve put things off hard when it pertained to lastly introducing my e-newsletter.
First, I tried Mailchimp. After that, a couple of other indie platforms. Then, Substack. And lastly, I ended up making use of beehiiv.
I make sure many newsletter creators look up to prominent newsletters with millions of clients– I recognize I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I respected a whole lot. They have wonderful content, tons of clients, and a creative referral program that allows them to get even a lot more clients.
So, I went on a search to figure out how these large e-newsletters set up their logistics. What system do they utilize? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they get more customers? How do they produce a newsletter design that remains on-brand?
When I found beehiiv for the first time, it seemed to respond to all of my questions. I believed to myself, “damn individuals that constructed this tool actually comprehend e-newsletter creation and growth.” I examined who these creators of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were several of the initial marketing and development staff members at Morning Brew– my brain exploded.
I knew this was going to be a different e-newsletter system. One that’s focused on maker development.
Because, any designer understands, you need growth to be able to make a living off of a newsletter. And discovering the ideal newsletter pile (that ranges) usually suggests using numerous various tools to aid achieve one goal– one platform for your newsletter, one system to monetize, and one system to establish references. It can get costly.
So when I figured out beehiiv did every one of these things in one platform, and it was complimentary to begin utilizing, it was a piece of cake 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 out customized e-newsletters with or without needing to have a website.
The most effective e-newsletters have the right devices to construct and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv aims at offering you those devices.
If you’re an independent writer, media company, start-up, or web content developer, you should seriously thinking about experimenting with beehiiv. It’s entirely complimentary to get started and you just pay when you get to over 2,500 subscribers on your list.
If you actually end up having to pay for beehiiv it’s most likely an excellent indication that people enjoy reading your things.
beehiiv vs Substack
You might be asking, “isn’t there already a system for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, indeed there is. Substack is a fantastic system used by thousands of independent writers. With Substack you obtain your own website and use the system as your all-in-one service for sending out emails (while producing an archive of previous issues).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s devotion to growth. beehiiv allows you do to all things Substack can do, with the benefit of much better analytics, even more style flexibilty, and a referral program to encourage your existing customers to obtain the word out.
beehiiv additionally provides you a web site similar to Substack. But, if you have your very own website already, you can also make use of beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I use) to send your web site subscribers straight to your beehiiv email checklist. On the very same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a device like Revue to allow people to sign up for your newsletter straight from Twitter.
This gives you the flexibility to utilize different marketing networks to get your e-newsletter out into the world, making beehiiv a great Substack alternative.
Exactly how to begin utilizing beehiiv e-mail marketing software.
Enroll in a free plan
The primary step is to sign up for a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Beginning trial” switch on beehiiv’s site.
The free plan will allow you to have up to 2,500 clients, give you access to website hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, breakthrough customization, analytics, exterior embed kinds, and extra. It’s a really charitable offering for those simply beginning (or for those searching for a new system to migrate to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Status
After developing an account, you’ll undergo an onboarding procedure that will ask points like, “is this your first e-newsletter?”, “what various other systems have you used?”, “do you have any paying clients?”, and a lot more.
You’ll after that produce a name and URL for your e-newsletter’s web site. On the free plan, your newsletter will certainly live on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your internet site link might be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding process, you’ll also pick your brand design and colors to make sure your newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your control panel
Once you reach your major control panel, you’ll see every one of your analytics and settings.
You will certainly have detailed info on how many sign-ups you’re obtaining and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see options for “Start writing,” “Articles,” “Target market,” “Grow,” “Monetize,” “Style,” and” Assess.” And at the extremely lower you’ll see the settings choice.
Dashboard is your primary control center (screenshot over), Begin creating is where you produce and release e-newsletters, Articles is where you can see every one of your previous e-newsletter editions, Audience is where you can watch who your clients are (and damage them down right into segments), Grow is where you have access to a referral program (and development tutorials) and boosts to run advertisements, Monetize is where you can access the beehiiv ad network and monetize your e-newsletter with ads, Layout is where you design your e-newsletter landing page and post template, Evaluate is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can take care of every one of your admin stuff.
Creating your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it easy to begin creating, with little to no friction. If you’re simply starting, and have an idea you want to write about, I advise just mosting likely to the “Compose” area in the navbar and clicking on “Begin creating”.
You can modify your template and designing later– focus on the content initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor uses a tidy and user-friendly interface for writing.
Once you begin composing, you can maximize headings, add web links, and design your web content just how you such as.
beehiiv gives you lots of alternatives for various types of web content like video clips, links, images, and much more.
The team at beehiiv is also continuously launching item feature and updates so I make certain there will be a lot extra content features depending on when you’re reading this.
Optimizing your setups and templates
Once you have a newsletter that’s ready to send, it’s time to create your e-mail template and readjust some settings.
Right here, you can upgrade the name of your newsletter, provide it a summary, include your logo design, switch on or off a welcome e-mail to first time customers, and a lot more.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your design.
You can edit background shades, borders, spacing, fonts, image layouts, and a lot more. I’m not going to experience ever single thing you can maximize with your email template because it’s a whole lot. Simply experiment with the platform for free and see it for yourself!
Necessary beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of incredible features that make it a great publishing system for any kind of e-newsletter maker.
Below are several of the important features you can discover with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter publishing platform. It makes it very very easy to write and send out e-mails. I stated over a few of things you can do with your setups and email style 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-day and minimalistic feeling. It’s definitely one of the better email editors I’ve ever before written in.
Internet site hosting
When you produce a beehiiv e-newsletter, all of your e-newsletters (if you desire) survive an internet site. Think about it as an internet site for your e-newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous problems of your newsletter, and an area where people can subscribe to your newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s pretty much comparable to that.
All plans, including the cost-free one, provide you a website. However, the free plan areas your website on a beehiiv subdomain so if you intend to add a customized domain name to remove all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting customers is necessary. After all, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can register for your e-newsletter right from your beehiiv site or through embed kinds.
If you already have a site, and want people to sign up for your e-newsletter from your existing website, you’ll need to make use of an embed type. This is what I utilize on this website (you can see the sign-up embed on the right-hand man column of this article if you scroll up).
With embed kinds, you have three different alternatives– a complete size, a repaired width, and a slim embed. I directly use the slim embed.
You can locate the code bit for these embeds in the “Subscribe Types” tab in your settings.
There’s likewise an alternative for attribution monitoring if you intend to onward UTM criteria for tracking functions– rather cool.
However, there are a few features I want beehiiv had when it involved subscribe features. I make certain the team is working with updates for these, however I pointed out a few problems I had in the advantages and disadvantages section listed below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things concerning beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter platform, is a solution for producing a referral program.
You can urge existing clients on your listing to onward your e-mails to good friends and colleagues and if they get other people to register for your checklist, you can award them. These rewards can be in whatever type you want. I have actually appear numerous newsletter companies give benefits in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously transform your customers into a word of mouth development engine for your newsletter– providing you an additional avenue for growing your email checklist.
Nonetheless, to obtain access to the referral program feature, you’ll have to upgrade to an extra premium plan. I’ll discuss all the plans later in this post.
Costs memberships
They say all you need to earn a living online is 1,000 real followers. Registration earnings is definitely a monster of its own. If you’re looking for a platform to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can produce “premium” concerns of your e-newsletter that are just sent to paying subscribers. This can be really lucrative relying on what your e-newsletter needs to offer. For instance, Trends.co is a popular costs e-newsletter that produces millions in revenue a year merely by having pay-only newsletter web content.
Information analytics
Among the things I like regarding beehiiv is 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 count Beehiiv Status.
You obtain access to all the metrics you need to get a bird-eye view on just how your newsletter is really doing. Logging into your dashboard and seeing that subscriber count go up is definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv provides 4 different pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (complimentary) Launch plan gives you every little thing you require to get started and expand your e-newsletter (up to 2,500 subscribers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) gives you everything in the Launch plan with the enhancement the ad network, referral program, personalized domain, surveys, and access to costs registrations. This is the plan I am on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) offers you every little thing in the Grow plan with enhancement of concern support and removing the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are fairly generous in my point of view.
For instance, if you have 100,000 clients you will pay around $329 monthly. Rather than some rivals, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would certainly charge $679 per month for the very same amount– making beehiiv a wonderful Kit choice for many individuals.
I’m not exactly sure exactly how the system economics deal with this, however beehiiv is definitely less costly (currently) than what it can be.
beehiiv pros and cons
Obviously, with every platform, it has its benefits and drawbacks. Below are several of the advantages and disadvantages I’ve personally experienced while utilizing beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Here are a few of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter platform of option:
Easy to establish and begin sending newsletters completely free.
Clean and modern customer analytics.
Great deals of adaptability with e-mail styles.
Referral program feature.
Website hosting.
Produce premium alternatives to monetize.
Surveys.
To be honest, I haven’t seen another e-newsletter platform that has actually had the ability to package all of these features with each other so well.
However certainly, I do not wish to be prejudiced so I’m going to state some disadvantages.
Cons of using beehiiv
Right here are some of the cons I’ve discovered while utilizing beehiiv:.
Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around adding custom-made font styles.
I utilize Webflow as my web site structure system of selection (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a long time ago). I’m not mosting likely to enter excessive detail why I enjoy Webflow so much yet you can review my Webflow evaluation if you want to discover more.
Today, there really is nothing else way I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow web site apart from utilizing an iframe embed. I personally do not such as making use of iframe’s due to the fact that they have a tendency to decrease my website a little bit. Whenever a page on my website (with a beehiiv installed) tons, the sign-up embed is the last point to load on the page. It’s very obvious when you’re on a sluggish internet connection. However I can navigate that.
The main gripe I have is that I can not make use of a regular Webflow kind (which I love making use of). There are means around this by using a tool like Zapier yet that would certainly just add added expenses that I do not require. To be truthful, this is more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv disadvantage however I thought I would certainly state it.
Besides that, I still think the pros far outweigh the cons below. I’m also enthusiastic that Webflow will ultimately develop a better means to incorporate with beehiiv.
Conclusion
Overall, beehiiv is a fantastic remedy for anyone wanting to study the world of email marketing and newsletters.
The capability of this newsletter system far exceeds numerous that are currently on the market. And with a charitable free plan, you truly have absolutely nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are likewise relatively low-cost for what they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 clients on your listing is unheard of. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k clients, and all of these features beehiiv has, it might cost you well right into the thousands monthly.
Anyways, I do not write testimonial posts often. I only do when I really utilize the tool myself and would advise it to a good friend.
I hope you discovered some clearness on whether or not beehiiv is a good platform for you.