Over 2 years back, I read among my favored email e-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 started tearing up Beehiiv Users.
I wasn’t certain why I really felt so psychological.
Being a permanent 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 psychological since I spent the last six months experimenting with various email and e-newsletter platforms to assist build my e-newsletter. And to be fair, there are some terrific alternatives for writing e-newsletters. But I couldn’t find one that made me give a guaranteed “yes”.
The concern with lots of existing e-newsletter platforms is that they do not really feel creator-centered. I want an e-newsletter system that lets me fully personalize my e-newsletter layouts, makes it very simple to create and send out emails, and offers me tools that assist me examine metrics and get even more clients.
I think I’ve finally found the ideal tool.
However, I know beehiiv might not be for everybody. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s really right for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one platform for newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter platform that makes it very easy to layout, compose, send, promote, monetize, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Produced by former workers at the well-known e-newsletter company Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to aid creators launch and monetize their very own newsletter– taking great deals of growth principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M customers.
In this short article, I’m going to discuss my individual experience with beehiiv, the important things I love (and hate) regarding it, all of it’s features, and why I made a decision to finally go with it as my e-newsletter platform of choice.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A couple of months earlier, I unintentionally came across beehiiv. The funny tale is that I’ve watched for a modern-day e-newsletter system for fairly some time now. I have actually put things off hard when it came to ultimately launching my e-newsletter.
First, I attempted Mailchimp. After that, a few various other indie platforms. Then, Substack. And finally, I ended up using beehiiv.
I make certain several e-newsletter makers appreciate prominent e-newsletters with millions of clients– I understand I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I appreciated a great deal. They have excellent content, lots of clients, and a brilliant referral program that allows them to get back at extra subscribers.
So, I went on a quest to determine how these huge newsletters established their logistics. What platform do they use? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they get more customers? How do they produce an e-newsletter style that remains on-brand?
When I found beehiiv for the first time, it seemed to address every one of my inquiries. I believed to myself, “damn individuals that constructed this tool truly comprehend e-newsletter creation and growth.” I questioned who these designers of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were some of the initial marketing and growth employees at Morning Brew– my brain exploded.
I understood this was going to be a various newsletter platform. One that’s focused on creator development.
Due to the fact that, any kind of developer knows, you need development to be able to make a living off of an e-newsletter. And discovering the appropriate newsletter pile (that scales) typically suggests using numerous different devices to aid accomplish one objective– one system for your e-newsletter, one platform to generate income from, and one platform to set up references. It can get costly.
So when I learnt beehiiv did all of these points in one platform, 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 web content designer that wants a platform that enables them to send out custom newsletters with or without requiring to have a website.
The most effective newsletters have the right tools to construct and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv targets at giving you those devices.
If you’re an independent author, media company, startup, or web content developer, you ought to seriously thinking about trying out beehiiv. It’s totally free to get started and you just pay when you get to over 2,500 customers on your list.
If you in fact wind up needing to pay for beehiiv it’s probably an excellent sign that people like reviewing your stuff.
beehiiv vs Substack
You might be asking, “isn’t there already a platform for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, of course there is. Substack is a great platform used by hundreds of independent authors. With Substack you obtain your very own site and use the system as your all-in-one solution for sending out e-mails (while producing an archive of previous issues).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s devotion to development. beehiiv enables you do to all things Substack can do, with the benefit of better analytics, even more design flexibilty, and a referral program to urge your existing subscribers to obtain the word out.
beehiiv also provides you a web site comparable to Substack. But, if you have your very own website currently, you can also utilize beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I make use of) to send your website customers right to your beehiiv e-mail listing. On the exact same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a tool like Revue to enable individuals to register for your newsletter directly from Twitter.
This offers you the adaptability to take advantage of different marketing channels to obtain your newsletter out right into the globe, making beehiiv a terrific Substack alternative.
Exactly how to begin using beehiiv e-mail marketing software.
Enroll in a free plan
The first step is to register for a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Start trial” button on beehiiv’s site.
The free plan will enable you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, provide you access to internet site hosting, a newsletter CMS, advance modification, analytics, outside embed types, and more. It’s an extremely charitable offering for those just starting out (or for those looking for a brand-new system to migrate to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Users
After developing an account, you’ll experience an onboarding process that will ask points like, “is this your initial newsletter?”, “what other systems have you utilized?”, “do you have any kind of paying customers?”, and more.
You’ll after that produce a name and link for your newsletter’s internet site. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will survive a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your website URL might be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding procedure, you’ll additionally select your brand name colors and design to ensure your newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your control panel
As soon as you reach your main control panel, you’ll see every one of your analytics and setups.
You will certainly have outlined details on the number of sign-ups you’re obtaining and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see options for “Start composing,” “Posts,” “Target market,” “Expand,” “Generate income from,” “Design,” and” Examine.” And at the extremely bottom you’ll see the settings alternative.
Dashboard is your main control center (screenshot above), Start creating is where you produce and release e-newsletters, Posts is where you can see every one of your previous newsletter versions, Target market is where you can watch who your customers are (and break them down into sectors), 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 e-newsletter with advertisements, Design is where you design your newsletter landing page and message template, Examine is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can take care of every one of your admin things.
Writing your newsletter
beehiiv makes it easy to start creating, with little to no friction. If you’re simply beginning, and have a concept you wish to cover, I suggest just mosting likely to the “Create” section in the navbar and clicking on “Begin composing”.
You can fine-tune your template and styling later– focus on the web content first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor provides a clean and user-friendly user interface for creating.
When you start composing, you can maximize headings, add web links, and design your web content just how you such as.
beehiiv offers you tons of options for various sorts of web content like video clips, links, images, and more.
The team at beehiiv is likewise regularly releasing item feature and updates so I make sure there will certainly be a lot extra material features depending upon when you read this.
Optimizing your setups and templates
When you have an e-newsletter that prepares to send, it’s time to develop your email template and change some setups.
Here, you can upgrade the name of your newsletter, offer it a summary, include your logo design, turn on or off a welcome email to first time clients, and a lot more.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your style.
You can modify history shades, boundaries, spacing, font styles, photo formats, and a lot more. I’m not going to experience ever before solitary thing you can optimize with your email template since it’s a whole lot. Simply try the system completely free and see it for yourself!
Crucial beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of remarkable features that make it a terrific publishing platform for any kind of newsletter creator.
Right here are several of the necessary features you can find with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter posting platform. It makes it very very easy to compose and send emails. I mentioned over several of things you can do with your setups and email layout so I’ll spare you some extra analysis.
Things to keep in mind with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has a really modern and minimalistic feel. It’s most definitely one of the better e-mail editors I’ve ever before written in.
Web site hosting
When you create a beehiiv e-newsletter, every one of your newsletters (if you desire) survive an internet site. Think about it as an internet site for your newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous issues of your newsletter, and a place where individuals can sign up for your newsletter.
If you’re familiar with Substack, it’s practically comparable to that.
All plans, including the cost-free one, offer you a website. Nevertheless, the free plan locations your web site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you want to include a custom domain name to get rid of all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining clients is important. Besides, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can register for your newsletter right from your beehiiv internet site or with embed types.
If you already have an internet site, and desire people to register 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 internet site (you can see the sign-up installed on the right-hand man column of this blog post if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have 3 different choices– a complete size, a fixed width, and a slim embed. I directly use the slim embed.
You can locate the code snippet for these embeds in the “Subscribe Kinds” tab in your setups.
There’s likewise an alternative for acknowledgment monitoring if you wish to ahead UTM parameters for tracking functions– rather neat.
Nevertheless, there are a couple of features I want beehiiv had when it concerned subscribe features. I make sure the group is working with updates for these, yet I pointed out a few concerns I had in the benefits and drawbacks section listed below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things concerning beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter platform, is an option for producing a referral program.
You can encourage existing subscribers on your checklist to onward your e-mails to pals and colleagues and if they get other individuals to subscribe to your checklist, you can award them. These incentives can be in whatever type you want. I’ve seem several newsletter firms give incentives in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously transform your customers right into a word of mouth development engine for your e-newsletter– offering you an additional avenue for expanding your e-mail listing.
However, to obtain accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll have to update to an extra premium plan. I’ll review all the plans later in this short article.
Premium subscriptions
They state all you need to make a living online is 1,000 true fans. Membership revenue is most definitely a beast of its very own. If you’re looking for a platform to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can create “costs” problems of your newsletter that are just sent out to paying subscribers. This can be really rewarding depending upon what your newsletter has to supply. For example, Trends.co is a prominent premium e-newsletter that generates millions in income a year simply by having pay-only newsletter web content.
Information analytics
Among the important things I love about beehiiv is exactly how clean and simple the analytics are. You obtain real-time date on how your newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and client count Beehiiv Users.
You obtain accessibility to all the metrics you need to get a bird-eye sight on how your newsletter is in fact doing. Logging into your control panel and seeing that client matter rise is absolutely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv provides 4 different pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (totally free) Launch plan gives you whatever you require to start and grow your e-newsletter (as much as 2,500 clients).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) provides you every little thing in the Launch plan with the addition the ad network, referral program, personalized domain, surveys, and access to premium memberships. This is the plan I am on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) gives you whatever in the Grow plan with addition of top priority support and eliminating the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are quite charitable in my opinion.
For example, if you have 100,000 customers you will certainly pay around $329 monthly. Rather than some competitors, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would charge $679 per month for the exact same quantity– making beehiiv a great Kit option for several users.
I’m not exactly sure how the system business economics work on this, but beehiiv is certainly less costly (right now) than what it can be.
beehiiv pros and cons
Of course, with every platform, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Here are some of the advantages and disadvantages I have actually directly experienced while making use of beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Right here are several of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter platform of choice:
Easy to establish and begin sending out newsletters for free.
Clean and modern-day customer analytics.
Lots of adaptability with email designs.
Referral program feature.
Internet site hosting.
Create premium options to monetize.
Surveys.
To be straightforward, I haven’t seen another newsletter platform that has actually been able to package every one of these features with each other so well.
Yet naturally, I don’t want to be biased so I’m mosting likely to state some disadvantages.
Cons of using beehiiv
Here are some of the disadvantages I have actually found while using beehiiv:.
Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around adding custom font styles.
I use Webflow as my web site structure platform of selection (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a long time ago). I’m not going to enter too much information why I like Webflow a lot however you can review my Webflow testimonial if you would love to discover more.
Now, there really is no other method I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow web site apart from utilizing an iframe embed. I personally do not like making use of iframe’s since they often tend to slow down my internet site a little bit. Whenever a page on my website (with a beehiiv embed) lots, the sign-up embed is the last thing to pack on the web page. It’s very obvious when you’re on a slow net link. Yet I can navigate that.
The main complaint I have is that I can’t utilize a normal Webflow form (which I enjoy using). There are ways around this by utilizing a tool like Zapier yet that would simply include extra expenses that I do not need. To be sincere, this is even more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv con but I thought I would certainly state it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros much exceed the cons here. I’m likewise confident that Webflow will ultimately develop a far better way to incorporate with beehiiv.
Final Thought
In general, beehiiv is a great solution for any individual aiming to study the globe of email marketing and e-newsletters.
The functionality of this newsletter system much surpasses lots of that are currently on the market. And with a generous free plan, you truly have absolutely nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are also fairly cheap for what they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 customers on your listing is uncommon. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k clients, and all of these features beehiiv has, it could cost you well into the thousands per month.
Anyways, I don’t create testimonial blog posts usually. I only do when I in fact make use of the device myself and would advise it to a good friend.
I hope you discovered some clearness on whether beehiiv is a good system for you.