Over 2 years ago, I was reading one of my favorite email newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the e-mail and saw the beehiiv logo for the first time. I clicked it and quickly began destroying Beehiiv Stock.
I had not been certain why I really felt so emotional.
Being a full time creator is tough. I’m typically getting pitched different devices and services that do not appear to be worth my time.
I think I was emotional since I spent the last 6 months checking out different email and e-newsletter systems to aid develop my e-newsletter. And to be fair, there are some terrific alternatives for composing e-newsletters. However I could not find one that made me offer a certain “yes”.
The concern with several existing e-newsletter systems is that they don’t really feel creator-centered. I desire a newsletter system that lets me completely customize my e-newsletter designs, makes it super easy to create and send out e-mails, and provides me devices that assist me evaluate metrics and get even more customers.
I assume I have actually lastly located the ideal device.
But, I know beehiiv might not be for everyone. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s actually best for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one platform for e-newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly e-newsletter platform that makes it very easy to style, write, send, promote, generate income from, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Developed by former staff members at the renowned newsletter firm Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to aid designers launch and monetize their own newsletter– taking lots of growth concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M customers.
In this short article, I’m mosting likely to discuss my personal experience with beehiiv, the important things I like (and hate) concerning it, all of it’s features, and why I decided to finally select it as my newsletter system of option.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A couple of months earlier, I accidentally stumbled across beehiiv. The amusing tale is that I’ve watched for a contemporary e-newsletter platform for rather time currently. I have actually postponed hard when it came to lastly introducing my newsletter.
First, I tried Mailchimp. After that, a few various other indie systems. Then, Substack. And lastly, I wound up using beehiiv.
I make certain many e-newsletter creators look up to prominent e-newsletters with countless subscribers– I recognize I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I admired a great deal. They have terrific material, tons of clients, and a brilliant referral program that permits them to get back at more subscribers.
So, I went on a quest to figure out exactly how these large newsletters established their logistics. What platform do they utilize? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they obtain even more subscribers? How do they create an e-newsletter layout that remains on-brand?
When I discovered beehiiv for the very first time, it seemed to address all of my questions. I thought to myself, “damn individuals that developed this device actually recognize newsletter creation and growth.” I examined who these creators of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were a few of the first marketing and growth workers at Morning Brew– my brain exploded.
I knew this was going to be a different newsletter platform. One that’s focused on developer growth.
Due to the fact that, any kind of developer understands, you require development to be able to earn a living off of an e-newsletter. And locating the right e-newsletter pile (that ranges) frequently means making use of multiple various tools to aid achieve one objective– one platform for your newsletter, one platform to generate income from, and one system to set up references. It can obtain expensive.
So when I discovered beehiiv did every one of these things in one system, and it was cost-free to start using, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean content creator that wants a platform that allows them to send custom-made newsletters with or without needing to have a web site.
The most successful newsletters have the right tools to construct and scale their newsletters. beehiiv focuses on providing you those devices.
If you’re an independent writer, media firm, start-up, or material maker, you need to seriously taking into consideration experimenting with beehiiv. It’s completely free to start and you only pay when you reach over 2,500 subscribers on your checklist.
If you actually end up having to pay for beehiiv it’s probably a great indication that people like reviewing your stuff.
beehiiv vs Substack
You might be asking, “isn’t there currently a system for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, yes there is. Substack is a great system made use of by thousands of independent authors. With Substack you obtain your own site and make use of the system as your all-in-one remedy for sending out emails (while producing an archive of previous problems).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s dedication to development. beehiiv permits you do to all the important things Substack can do, with the benefit of better analytics, more design flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing customers to get words out.
beehiiv also offers you an internet site comparable to Substack. However, if you have your very own site already, you can likewise utilize beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I utilize) to send your site customers right to your beehiiv email checklist. On the exact same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a device like Performance to enable people to register for your newsletter directly from Twitter.
This gives you the adaptability to take advantage of various marketing channels to obtain your newsletter out into the globe, making beehiiv a great Substack option.
Exactly how to start making use of beehiiv email marketing software.
Register for a free plan
The primary step is to sign up for a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Start trial” button on beehiiv’s website.
The free plan will allow you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, give you access to web site hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, breakthrough modification, analytics, external embed forms, and more. It’s a very generous offering for those just beginning (or for those searching for a new platform to move to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Stock
After creating an account, you’ll experience an onboarding process that will ask points like, “is this your first newsletter?”, “what other platforms have you made use of?”, “do you have any kind of paying customers?”, and more.
You’ll then produce a name and link for your e-newsletter’s site. On the free plan, your newsletter will certainly reside on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your website URL may be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding procedure, you’ll additionally pick your brand colors and design to ensure your newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your control panel
When you reach your primary control panel, you’ll see every one of your analytics and settings.
You will have detailed details on the amount of sign-ups you’re getting and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see options for “Start writing,” “Blog posts,” “Audience,” “Grow,” “Generate income from,” “Style,” and” Analyze.” And at the really lower you’ll see the setups option.
Dashboard is your main nerve center (screenshot over), Start composing is where you create and release e-newsletters, Messages is where you can see every one of your previous newsletter versions, Target market is where you can see who your customers are (and break them down into sections), 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, Design is where you design your e-newsletter landing page and article template, Analyze is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can handle all of your admin stuff.
Composing your newsletter
beehiiv makes it easy to start creating, with little to no rubbing. If you’re just beginning, and have a concept you want to write about, I advise simply going to the “Create” area in the navbar and clicking “Beginning writing”.
You can fine-tune your template and designing later– focus on the web content initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor provides a clean and user-friendly interface for composing.
As soon as you start composing, you can enhance headings, add links, and style your content how you such as.
beehiiv provides you lots of choices for various kinds of material like video clips, links, pictures, and much more.
The team at beehiiv is likewise continuously launching product feature and updates so I make certain there will be a great deal extra material features relying on when you read this.
Maximizing your setups and templates
When you have an e-newsletter that’s ready to send, it’s time to develop your e-mail template and readjust some settings.
Here, you can update the name of your e-newsletter, give it a summary, include your logo design, turn on or off a welcome email to first time subscribers, and extra.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your design.
You can edit history colors, borders, spacing, font styles, photo styles, and a lot more. I’m not going to go through ever single thing you can optimize with your e-mail template due to the fact that it’s a great deal. Simply try the system absolutely free and see it on your own!
Vital beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of incredible features that make it a fantastic publishing system for any type of e-newsletter designer.
Below are some of the crucial features you can discover with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter publishing system. It makes it incredibly simple to write and send out e-mails. I pointed out over a few of things you can do with your settings and email layout so I’ll save you some extra reading.
The thing to note with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has a really modern and minimalistic feel. It’s absolutely among the far better email editors I’ve ever before written in.
Website hosting
When you create a beehiiv newsletter, every one of your newsletters (if you desire) live on a web site. Think of it as a web 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 sign up for your e-newsletter.
If you’re familiar with Substack, it’s basically similar to that.
All plans, including the complimentary one, give you a site. Nonetheless, the free plan locations your internet site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you intend to include a custom-made domain name to eliminate all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining customers is essential. After all, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can subscribe to your newsletter directly from your beehiiv site or with embed forms.
If you already have a web site, and desire people to subscribe to your e-newsletter from your existing site, you’ll have to utilize an embed kind. This is what I utilize on this website (you can see the sign-up installed on the right-hand man column of this post if you scroll up).
With embed kinds, you have 3 various options– a complete size, a taken care of width, and a slim embed. I personally utilize the slim embed.
You can discover the code bit for these embeds in the “Subscribe Types” tab in your setups.
There’s additionally an option for attribution monitoring if you wish to forward UTM parameters for tracking objectives– rather neat.
Nevertheless, there are a few features I desire beehiiv had when it came to subscribe features. I’m sure the team is working on updates for these, but I discussed a couple of problems I had in the benefits and drawbacks area listed below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things about beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter system, is a remedy for developing a referral program.
You can urge existing clients on your listing to forward your emails to close friends and colleagues and if they get other people to sign up for your list, you can award them. These incentives can be in whatever type you desire. I have actually appear several newsletter business provide benefits in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously turn your subscribers right into a word of mouth growth engine for your newsletter– offering you another avenue for expanding your e-mail listing.
However, to get access to the referral program feature, you’ll have to update to a much more exceptional plan. I’ll look at all the plans later in this article.
Costs registrations
They claim all you require to earn a living online is 1,000 true followers. Membership income is certainly a beast of its very own. If you’re trying to find a platform to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can produce “costs” concerns of your e-newsletter that are only sent out to paying clients. This can be really profitable depending upon what your e-newsletter needs to provide. For example, Trends.co is a popular premium newsletter that creates millions in income a year simply by having pay-only newsletter content.
Information analytics
One of the important things I like regarding beehiiv is exactly how clean and easy the analytics are. You get real-time date on how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and customer count Beehiiv Stock.
You obtain accessibility to all the metrics you need to get a bird-eye sight on just how your e-newsletter is actually doing. Logging into your dashboard and seeing that client count go up is most definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv offers four different pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (cost-free) Launch plan gives you every little thing you require to begin and expand your e-newsletter (approximately 2,500 clients).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) gives you every little thing in the Launch plan with the addition the ad network, referral program, customized domain name, surveys, and accessibility to costs subscriptions. This is the plan I am on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) gives you every little thing in the Grow plan with addition of concern assistance and getting rid of the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are rather generous in my viewpoint.
For example, if you have 100,000 clients you will certainly pay around $329 each month. Rather than some rivals, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would certainly bill $679 per month for the exact same quantity– making beehiiv an excellent Kit alternative for numerous users.
I’m unsure exactly how the device economics deal with this, yet beehiiv is most definitely less expensive (presently) than what it can be.
beehiiv pros and cons
Obviously, with every platform, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Right here are several of the benefits and drawbacks I have actually personally experienced while utilizing beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Right here are a few of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter system of choice:
Easy to establish and begin sending e-newsletters completely free.
Tidy and modern subscriber analytics.
Lots of adaptability with e-mail styles.
Referral program feature.
Site hosting.
Develop premium alternatives to generate income from.
Polls.
To be straightforward, I have not seen an additional e-newsletter system that has had the ability to package all of these features together so well.
Yet certainly, I do not wish to be biased so I’m going to point out some disadvantages.
Cons of using beehiiv
Right here are several of the cons I’ve located while using beehiiv:.
Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around including personalized fonts.
I use Webflow as my internet site building system of selection (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a very long time ago). I’m not going to go in too much detail why I like Webflow so much but you can review my Webflow review if you wish to discover more.
Now, there really is nothing else means I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow internet site besides using an iframe embed. I directly don’t like making use of iframe’s since they tend to slow down my site a little bit. Every time a page on my site (with a beehiiv installed) tons, the sign-up installed is the last point to fill on the page. It’s very noticeable when you’re on a slow-moving web connection. But I can get around that.
The primary gripe I have is that I can’t use a routine Webflow form (which I love making use of). There are ways around this by using a tool like Zapier but that would just include added prices that I don’t need. To be sincere, this is more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv disadvantage however I assumed I would certainly discuss it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros much exceed the disadvantages below. I’m additionally enthusiastic that Webflow will eventually produce a much better way to incorporate with beehiiv.
Final Thought
Overall, beehiiv is a great remedy for anybody seeking to study the world of e-mail marketing and newsletters.
The functionality of this e-newsletter platform much surpasses several that are currently on the market. And with a charitable free plan, you truly have absolutely nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are also rather low-cost of what they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 customers on your list is uncommon. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k subscribers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it could cost you well right into the thousands each month.
Anyways, I do not create evaluation blog posts commonly. I just do when I actually utilize the tool myself and would advise it to a buddy.
I wish you located some clarity on whether beehiiv is a good system for you.