Over two 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 instantly started wrecking Beehiiv Top Newsletters.
I wasn’t sure why I really felt so emotional.
Being a permanent developer is tough. I’m commonly getting pitched various devices and services that don’t seem to be worth my time.
I guess I was emotional because I spent the last six months checking out different e-mail and e-newsletter platforms to assist develop my newsletter. And to be fair, there are some fantastic options for composing newsletters. However I could not find one that made me give a precise “yes”.
The problem with numerous existing newsletter systems is that they do not really feel creator-centered. I want a newsletter system that lets me totally customize my e-newsletter layouts, makes it extremely very easy to create and send emails, and provides me tools that aid me analyze metrics and get even more customers.
I assume I’ve finally located the appropriate tool.
However, I recognize beehiiv might not be for everybody. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s in fact right 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 very easy to layout, write, send out, advertise, generate income from, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Created by previous workers at the popular newsletter company Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to help developers launch and monetize their own newsletter– taking great deals of growth concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M customers.
In this article, I’m going to clarify my personal experience with beehiiv, the things I enjoy (and hate) about it, all of it’s features, and why I determined to ultimately choose it as my newsletter platform of choice.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A couple of months earlier, I unintentionally came across beehiiv. The funny tale is that I have actually been on the lookout for a modern newsletter platform for fairly time currently. I’ve postponed hard when it came to lastly launching my newsletter.
First, I attempted Mailchimp. After that, a few other indie systems. After that, Substack. And ultimately, I wound up utilizing beehiiv.
I make certain numerous e-newsletter makers respect preferred e-newsletters with countless subscribers– I recognize I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I admired a whole lot. They have great web content, lots of clients, and a brilliant referral program that allows them to get back at more subscribers.
So, I went on a quest to determine how these huge newsletters established their logistics. What platform do they make use of? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they obtain even more subscribers? How do they produce a newsletter layout that stays on-brand?
When I found beehiiv for the very first time, it appeared to answer all of my concerns. I thought to myself, “damn the people that developed this device really comprehend e-newsletter production 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 very first marketing and development staff members at Morning Brew– my brain took off.
I knew this was mosting likely to be a different e-newsletter system. One that’s focused on creator development.
Since, any creator understands, you require development to be able to earn a living off of a newsletter. And discovering the best newsletter stack (that ranges) commonly means making use of multiple various tools to help attain one goal– one platform for your e-newsletter, one system to generate income from, and one platform to set up references. It can get costly.
So when I figured out beehiiv did all of these things in one system, and it was cost-free to start using, it was a piece of cake to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean content designer that desires a system that permits them to send out personalized newsletters with or without requiring to have a website.
The most successful e-newsletters have the right tools to develop and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv focuses on providing you those devices.
If you’re an independent writer, media firm, startup, or content developer, you need to seriously considering experimenting with beehiiv. It’s totally cost-free to get going and you only pay when you get to over 2,500 clients on your listing.
If you in fact wind up having to pay for beehiiv it’s probably a good indication that individuals like reviewing your things.
beehiiv vs Substack
You might be asking, “isn’t there currently a system for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, yes there is. Substack is a terrific platform utilized by thousands of independent writers. With Substack you obtain your very own internet site and make use of the system as your all-in-one service for sending out emails (while producing an archive of previous problems).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s commitment to growth. beehiiv enables you do to all the things Substack can do, with the advantage of better analytics, even more layout flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing customers to get words out.
beehiiv also provides you a web site similar to Substack. However, if you have your very own website already, you can also make use of beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I utilize) to send your web site clients directly to your beehiiv email checklist. On the exact same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a device like Performance to enable individuals to register for your e-newsletter directly from Twitter.
This gives you the versatility to utilize various marketing channels to get your newsletter out right into the world, making beehiiv a wonderful Substack choice.
Just how to begin using beehiiv email marketing software program.
Register for a free plan
The very first step is to enroll in a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Begin trial” switch on beehiiv’s internet site.
The free plan will enable you to have up to 2,500 clients, give you access to web site hosting, a newsletter CMS, advance personalization, analytics, external embed forms, and extra. It’s a very charitable offering for those just starting out (or for those seeking a new system to migrate to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Top Newsletters
After creating an account, you’ll experience an onboarding process that will ask points like, “is this your initial newsletter?”, “what various other platforms have you utilized?”, “do you have any kind of paying subscribers?”, and much more.
You’ll after that develop a name and URL for your newsletter’s internet site. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will certainly survive on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your internet site link could be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding procedure, you’ll also pick your brand design and colors to see to it your newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your dashboard
Once you reach your major dashboard, you’ll see every one of your analytics and setups.
You will certainly have detailed details on how many sign-ups you’re getting and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see choices for “Beginning creating,” “Articles,” “Target market,” “Grow,” “Generate income from,” “Style,” and” Evaluate.” And at the very lower you’ll see the settings choice.
Control panel is your major nerve center (screenshot over), Beginning creating is where you produce and publish newsletters, Messages is where you can see every one of your previous newsletter editions, Audience is where you can watch who your customers are (and break them down right 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 create your e-newsletter landing page and blog post template, Analyze is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can take care of all of your admin stuff.
Creating your newsletter
beehiiv makes it easy to start creating, with little to no rubbing. If you’re just beginning, and have a concept you intend to write about, I recommend just going to the “Write” section in the navbar and clicking “Beginning composing”.
You can modify your template and styling later on– concentrate on the web content first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor uses a clean and easy to use interface for writing.
As soon as you start composing, you can maximize headings, include links, and style your web content exactly how you like.
beehiiv gives you tons of alternatives for different sorts of content like videos, links, images, and a lot more.
The team at beehiiv is additionally frequently launching item feature and updates so I make certain there will certainly be a great deal extra material features relying on when you read this.
Enhancing your setups and templates
When you have a newsletter that’s ready to send out, it’s time to design your e-mail template and adjust some setups.
Below, you can update the name of your e-newsletter, offer it a summary, add your logo, activate or off a welcome email to first time customers, and much more.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your design.
You can modify background colors, boundaries, spacing, fonts, image styles, and extra. I’m not mosting likely to go through ever single thing you can optimize with your e-mail template due to the fact that it’s a lot. Just try out the platform free of charge and see it on your own!
Crucial beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of amazing features that make it a terrific posting platform for any newsletter designer.
Below are several of the vital features you can discover with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter posting platform. It makes it super very easy to compose and send out emails. 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 keep in mind with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has a really contemporary and minimalistic feel. It’s absolutely among the far better email editors I have actually ever before written in.
Internet site hosting
When you create a beehiiv newsletter, all of your newsletters (if you want) survive a web site. Consider it as a web site for your e-newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous problems of your newsletter, and a location where people can register for your newsletter.
If you’re familiar with Substack, it’s virtually comparable to that.
All plans, including the cost-free one, offer you a site. However, the free plan locations your internet site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you intend to include a personalized domain name to eliminate all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting subscribers is essential. After all, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can register for your newsletter directly from your beehiiv web site or through embed forms.
If you currently have a website, and desire individuals to subscribe to your newsletter from your existing website, you’ll have to utilize an embed kind. This is what I make use of on this website (you can see the sign-up installed on the right hand column of this article if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have 3 different choices– a full size, a fixed width, and a slim embed. I directly make use of the slim installed.
You can discover the code bit for these embeds in the “Subscribe Forms” tab in your settings.
There’s likewise a choice for acknowledgment monitoring if you wish to forward UTM criteria for tracking purposes– rather neat.
Nevertheless, there are a couple of features I wish beehiiv had when it came to subscribe features. I’m sure the group is dealing with updates for these, however I stated a few issues I had in the advantages and disadvantages area below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things concerning beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter platform, is a service for creating a referral program.
You can encourage existing subscribers on your listing to forward your e-mails to good friends and coworkers and if they get other people to register for your listing, you can compensate them. These rewards can be in whatever type you want. I have actually seem lots of newsletter business offer incentives in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously turn your subscribers into a word of mouth development engine for your e-newsletter– offering you one more method for growing your email checklist.
Nevertheless, to obtain access to the referral program feature, you’ll have to update to a much more superior plan. I’ll discuss all the plans later in this article.
Premium subscriptions
They say all you need to earn a living online is 1,000 real fans. Membership income is certainly a monster of its very own. If you’re trying to find a platform to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can create “costs” concerns of your e-newsletter that are only sent out to paying customers. This can be extremely lucrative relying on what your e-newsletter needs to provide. For example, Trends.co is a preferred premium newsletter that generates millions in income a year simply by having pay-only newsletter material.
Data analytics
One of things I love concerning beehiiv is just how tidy and simple the analytics are. You get real-time day on how your newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and client count Beehiiv Top Newsletters.
You get access to all the metrics you need to obtain a bird-eye sight on how your e-newsletter is really doing. Logging right into your control panel and seeing that customer matter rise is certainly a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv uses four various pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (cost-free) Launch plan provides you everything you need to get going and expand your newsletter (up to 2,500 clients).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) offers you everything in the Launch plan with the addition the ad network, referral program, personalized domain, polls, and accessibility to premium subscriptions. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) offers you every little thing in the Grow plan with addition of top priority assistance and getting rid of the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are rather generous in my opinion.
For instance, if you have 100,000 clients you will pay around $329 each month. In contrast to some rivals, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would charge $679 per month for the very same amount– making beehiiv a wonderful Kit option for many customers.
I’m not sure exactly how the system business economics work with this, yet beehiiv is most definitely cheaper (at the moment) than what it can be.
beehiiv pros and cons
Certainly, with every system, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Right here are some of the benefits and drawbacks I have actually directly experienced while making use of beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Below are several of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter platform of selection:
Easy to establish and begin sending e-newsletters for free.
Clean and modern subscriber analytics.
Lots of adaptability with email designs.
Referral program feature.
Website hosting.
Develop premium alternatives to generate income from.
Polls.
To be straightforward, I have not seen an additional newsletter system that has had the ability to package every one of these features together so well.
But of course, I don’t intend to be prejudiced so I’m going to state some disadvantages.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Right here are some of the cons I’ve located while making use of beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around adding custom-made fonts.
I use Webflow as my web site building system of choice (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a very long time ago). I’m not mosting likely to go in excessive detail why I enjoy Webflow so much however you can read my Webflow testimonial if you wish to learn more.
Right now, there actually is no other way I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow site besides making use of an iframe embed. I directly do not like utilizing iframe’s due to the fact that they often tend to decrease my website a bit. Every single time a web page on my website (with a beehiiv installed) lots, the sign-up embed is the last point to pack on the web page. It’s very recognizable when you’re on a slow net connection. However I can navigate that.
The main gripe I have is that I can’t use a normal Webflow kind (which I love using). There are means around this by utilizing a tool like Zapier yet that would certainly simply include additional prices that I don’t require. To be honest, this is even more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv disadvantage however I thought I would certainly discuss it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros far surpass the disadvantages below. I’m likewise enthusiastic that Webflow will at some point create a better way to integrate with beehiiv.
Final Thought
Generally, beehiiv is a great solution for anybody looking to study the world of e-mail marketing and e-newsletters.
The functionality of this newsletter system far exceeds lots of that are presently on the marketplace. And with a charitable free plan, you really have absolutely nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are likewise relatively cheap wherefore they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 subscribers on your list is unusual. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k subscribers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it can cost you well into the thousands monthly.
Anyways, I do not create review articles frequently. I only do when I in fact make use of the device myself and would suggest it to a buddy.
I hope you found some clarity on whether beehiiv is a great platform for you.