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 it and instantaneously began tearing up Beehiiv Stocktwits.
I had not been sure why I really felt so psychological.
Being a permanent maker is tough. I’m usually obtaining pitched different devices and services that do not seem to be worth my time.
I presume I was psychological since I invested the last 6 months trying different e-mail and newsletter systems to aid build my newsletter. And to be fair, there are some fantastic alternatives for creating newsletters. However I could not discover one that made me provide a precise “yes”.
The problem with lots of existing newsletter systems is that they don’t really feel creator-centered. I want an e-newsletter platform that lets me fully personalize my e-newsletter designs, makes it super very easy to create and send e-mails, and provides me devices that aid me assess metrics and obtain more clients.
I think I’ve finally located the ideal device.
Yet, I understand beehiiv might not be for everyone. 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 e-newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly e-newsletter system that makes it easy to layout, compose, send, advertise, generate income from, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Developed by previous employees at the well-known e-newsletter company Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to help developers launch and monetize their own e-newsletter– taking lots of growth principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M clients.
In this article, I’m going to discuss my individual experience with beehiiv, the important things I like (and hate) concerning it, all of it’s features, and why I chose to finally choose it as my newsletter system of selection.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A few months ago, I unintentionally came across beehiiv. The funny story is that I’ve been on the lookout for a modern-day e-newsletter platform for fairly time now. I have actually procrastinated hard when it pertained to finally introducing my e-newsletter.
First, I attempted Mailchimp. Then, a couple of various other indie systems. Then, Substack. And ultimately, I wound up utilizing beehiiv.
I’m sure many e-newsletter creators appreciate prominent e-newsletters with numerous subscribers– I understand I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I appreciated a lot. They have excellent web content, tons of subscribers, and a brilliant referral program that allows them to get even a lot more customers.
So, I took place a quest to determine exactly how these huge e-newsletters established their logistics. What platform do they utilize? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they get even more subscribers? How do they develop an e-newsletter layout that stays on-brand?
When I discovered beehiiv for the first time, it seemed to respond to every one of my questions. I thought to myself, “damn the people that developed this tool really understand e-newsletter production and development.” I questioned who these designers of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were several of the initial marketing and growth staff members at Morning Brew– my brain blew up.
I understood this was going to be a different newsletter system. One that’s concentrated on developer development.
Since, any kind of developer recognizes, you need development to be able to earn a living off of an e-newsletter. And locating the appropriate newsletter pile (that scales) commonly implies using multiple different tools to help accomplish one goal– one platform for your e-newsletter, one system to generate income from, and one platform to set up recommendations. It can get pricey.
So when I figured out beehiiv did every one of these points in one platform, and it was cost-free 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 material maker that desires a platform that permits them to send out custom newsletters with or without needing to have a website.
The most successful newsletters have the right devices to develop and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv aims at providing you those devices.
If you’re an independent author, media firm, startup, or content designer, you must seriously taking into consideration checking out beehiiv. It’s completely free to start and you just pay when you get to over 2,500 clients on your listing.
If you actually end up having to spend for beehiiv it’s probably an excellent indicator that people love reviewing your things.
beehiiv vs Substack
You could be asking, “isn’t there currently a system for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, yes there is. Substack is a fantastic system made use of by thousands of independent authors. With Substack you obtain your very own internet site and utilize the platform as your all-in-one remedy for sending emails (while producing an archive of previous concerns).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s commitment to growth. beehiiv allows you do to all the important things Substack can do, with the benefit of better analytics, more layout flexibilty, and a referral program to urge your existing subscribers to get words out.
beehiiv additionally offers you a web site comparable to Substack. But, if you have your very own internet site currently, you can likewise make use of beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I utilize) to send your site subscribers directly to your beehiiv e-mail checklist. On the very same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a tool like Revue to allow individuals to register for your newsletter straight from Twitter.
This gives you the flexibility to leverage various marketing channels to obtain your newsletter out into the world, making beehiiv a terrific Substack alternative.
Just how to begin using beehiiv email marketing software application.
Sign up for a free plan
The initial step is to sign up for a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Start trial” button on beehiiv’s web site.
The free plan will allow you to have up to 2,500 clients, give you access to website hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, advancement personalization, analytics, exterior embed types, and much more. It’s a really charitable offering for those just starting out (or for those trying to find a brand-new platform to move to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Stocktwits
After developing an account, you’ll experience an onboarding process that will ask points like, “is this your first e-newsletter?”, “what various other platforms have you made use of?”, “do you have any type of paying customers?”, and extra.
You’ll after that produce a name and URL for your newsletter’s website. On the free plan, your newsletter will certainly survive a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your web site URL could be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding process, you’ll also pick your brand colors and design to see to it your newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your control panel
Once you reach your primary dashboard, you’ll see all of your analytics and settings.
You will certainly have described details on the amount of sign-ups you’re getting and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see alternatives for “Beginning composing,” “Posts,” “Target market,” “Grow,” “Generate income from,” “Style,” and” Evaluate.” And at the really bottom you’ll see the settings alternative.
Control panel is your main control center (screenshot over), Begin writing is where you create and release newsletters, Messages is where you can see all of your previous e-newsletter editions, Audience is where you can watch who your subscribers are (and break them down into sectors), 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 ads, Layout is where you create your e-newsletter landing page and post template, Evaluate is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can manage every one of your admin stuff.
Creating your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it simple to begin writing, with little to no rubbing. If you’re simply starting out, and have an idea you intend to cover, I recommend just going to the “Create” area in the navbar and clicking on “Begin writing”.
You can modify your template and designing later on– focus on the content initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor uses a clean and easy to use interface for writing.
As soon as you start writing, you can maximize headings, include web links, and style your material how you like.
beehiiv provides you lots of alternatives for various sorts of material like videos, web links, images, and much more.
The team at beehiiv is also continuously releasing product feature and updates so I make certain there will certainly be a lot much more content features relying on when you’re reading this.
Maximizing your settings and templates
When you have a newsletter that’s ready to send, it’s time to make your e-mail template and change some setups.
Below, you can upgrade the name of your newsletter, offer it a summary, include your logo design, switch 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 modify history colors, boundaries, spacing, fonts, picture layouts, and more. I’m not going to experience ever before single point you can enhance with your email template since it’s a lot. Simply check out the system free of cost and see it for yourself!
Vital beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of outstanding features that make it a great posting platform for any type of e-newsletter developer.
Right here are a few of the crucial features you can discover with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter posting platform. It makes it very very easy to create and send emails. I mentioned above several of the things you can do with your settings and email style so I’ll spare you some extra reading.
Things to note with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has a truly contemporary and minimalistic feel. It’s most definitely one of the much better e-mail editors I have actually ever written in.
Web site hosting
When you produce a beehiiv e-newsletter, every one of your e-newsletters (if you want) survive a web site. Think of it as a site for your newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous concerns of your newsletter, and a place where individuals can register for your newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s practically similar to that.
All plans, including the cost-free one, provide you a site. However, the free plan areas your website on a beehiiv subdomain so if you wish to include a custom-made domain to remove all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting subscribers is very important. After all, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can register for your e-newsletter directly from your beehiiv website or through embed kinds.
If you already have an internet site, and want individuals to subscribe to your e-newsletter from your existing website, you’ll have to make use of an embed type. This is what I use on this website (you can see the sign-up installed on the right hand column of this post if you scroll up).
With embed types, you have three various options– a full width, a dealt with width, and a slim installed. I directly make use of the slim embed.
You can locate the code bit for these embeds in the “Subscribe Kinds” tab in your setups.
There’s likewise an alternative for attribution monitoring if you wish to onward UTM parameters for tracking objectives– rather cool.
Nonetheless, 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, yet I discussed a few issues I had in the pros and cons area below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things regarding beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter system, is a service for developing a referral program.
You can motivate existing subscribers on your list to forward your e-mails to good friends and coworkers and if they get other individuals to subscribe to your checklist, you can reward them. These benefits can be in whatever form you desire. I’ve seem lots of newsletter companies provide incentives in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously turn your subscribers right into a word of mouth growth engine for your e-newsletter– providing you an additional method for growing your e-mail checklist.
However, to obtain accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll need to update to a much more exceptional plan. I’ll look at all the plans later on in this short article.
Costs memberships
They claim all you need to make a living online is 1,000 real followers. Registration earnings is most definitely a beast of its very own. If you’re trying to find a platform to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can create “costs” issues of your e-newsletter that are only sent out to paying clients. This can be extremely lucrative depending on what your e-newsletter needs to use. For instance, Trends.co is a preferred premium e-newsletter that generates millions in revenue a year simply by having pay-only e-newsletter material.
Information analytics
One of the important things I like about beehiiv is just how clean and easy the analytics are. You obtain real-time date on how your newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and client matter Beehiiv Stocktwits.
You obtain accessibility to all the metrics you require to obtain a bird-eye view on exactly how your e-newsletter is actually doing. Logging right into your control panel and seeing that client count go up is absolutely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv uses four various pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (totally free) Launch plan offers you everything you require to get going and expand your newsletter (as much as 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, custom domain, polls, and access to premium registrations. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) gives you everything in the Grow plan with enhancement of top priority support and getting rid of the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are fairly charitable in my opinion.
As an example, if you have 100,000 clients you will certainly pay around $329 per month. In contrast to some competitors, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would certainly charge $679 per month for the same amount– making beehiiv a great Kit option for several users.
I’m not sure how the device business economics work on this, however beehiiv is certainly cheaper (at the moment) than what it can be.
beehiiv pros and cons
Of course, with every system, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Right here are a few of the advantages and disadvantages I have actually personally experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Here are a few of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter system of option:
Easy to set up and begin sending newsletters totally free.
Clean and modern-day subscriber analytics.
Great deals of flexibility with e-mail styles.
Referral program feature.
Site hosting.
Create premium choices to monetize.
Polls.
To be sincere, I have not seen an additional newsletter platform that has had the ability to package all of these features together so well.
But obviously, I don’t wish to be prejudiced so I’m going to mention some cons.
Cons of using beehiiv
Below are some of the disadvantages I’ve discovered while using beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around including personalized typefaces.
I use Webflow as my site structure platform of option (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a long period of time ago). I’m not going to enter way too much detail why I enjoy Webflow so much but you can review my Webflow evaluation if you want to learn more.
Right now, there really is no other way I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow web site besides making use of an iframe embed. I personally do not like making use of iframe’s since they tend to slow down my site a bit. Every single time a page on my site (with a beehiiv installed) tons, the sign-up embed is the last point to pack on the page. It’s extremely recognizable when you’re on a sluggish web link. But I can navigate that.
The primary complaint I have is that I can not use a regular Webflow kind (which I like utilizing). There are ways around this by utilizing a tool like Zapier but that would certainly just include extra expenses that I don’t require. To be truthful, this is even more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv disadvantage but I thought I would certainly discuss it.
Besides that, I still think the pros far exceed the disadvantages below. I’m likewise confident that Webflow will eventually create a better method to integrate with beehiiv.
Final Thought
Generally, beehiiv is a wonderful option for any person seeking to study the world of e-mail marketing and newsletters.
The performance of this e-newsletter platform much surpasses several that are currently on the market. And with a generous free plan, you actually have absolutely nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are additionally fairly inexpensive for what they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 subscribers on your listing is unusual. 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 per month.
Anyways, I don’t compose testimonial articles typically. I just do when I in fact utilize the device myself and would certainly recommend it to a friend.
I wish you located some quality on whether beehiiv is an excellent system for you.