Over 2 years back, I was reading among 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 on it and immediately started wrecking Beehiiv Vs Substack.
I had not been certain why I felt so emotional.
Being a full-time maker is difficult. I’m commonly getting pitched different tools and services 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 trying different e-mail and newsletter systems to assist construct my newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some terrific choices for creating newsletters. Yet I couldn’t find one that made me give a certain “yes”.
The issue with several existing e-newsletter platforms is that they do not feel creator-centered. I want an e-newsletter system that lets me totally personalize my e-newsletter styles, makes it very easy to write and send e-mails, and offers me tools that help me examine metrics and get more customers.
I assume I’ve lastly discovered the right device.
However, I understand beehiiv may not be for every person. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s really best 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 style, create, send, advertise, generate income from, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Produced by previous workers at the renowned e-newsletter business Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to assist developers launch and monetize their very own e-newsletter– taking great deals of development concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M subscribers.
In this write-up, I’m mosting likely to discuss my personal experience with beehiiv, the important things I enjoy (and hate) about it, all of it’s features, and why I decided to finally choose it as my e-newsletter system of selection.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A few months back, I mistakenly came across beehiiv. The amusing tale is that I’ve watched for a contemporary newsletter platform for rather some time currently. I have actually procrastinated hard when it involved lastly introducing my newsletter.
Initially, I attempted Mailchimp. Then, a few various other indie systems. After that, Substack. And finally, I wound up using beehiiv.
I make sure numerous newsletter makers admire popular e-newsletters with numerous clients– I understand I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I admired a great deal. They have great content, lots of clients, and a clever referral program that enables them to get even a lot more clients.
So, I took place a quest to figure out exactly how these big e-newsletters established their logistics. What platform do they utilize? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they get more customers? How do they develop an e-newsletter design that stays on-brand?
When I uncovered beehiiv for the first time, it appeared to answer all of my inquiries. I thought to myself, “damn individuals that developed this device actually understand newsletter production and growth.” I examined who these developers of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were several of the first marketing and development employees at Morning Brew– my mind exploded.
I understood this was mosting likely to be a different newsletter platform. One that’s concentrated on designer development.
Since, any kind of developer recognizes, you require growth to be able to make a living off of an e-newsletter. And discovering the appropriate e-newsletter pile (that scales) often suggests using several various tools to assist attain one objective– one platform for your newsletter, one system to monetize, and one system to establish recommendations. It can get costly.
So when I figured out beehiiv did all of these points in one system, and it was free to start making use of, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean material designer that desires a platform that enables them to send out customized e-newsletters with or without requiring to have a web site.
One of the most effective newsletters have the right devices to develop and scale their newsletters. beehiiv aims at offering you those tools.
If you’re an independent author, media firm, startup, or content creator, you must seriously considering trying out beehiiv. It’s totally cost-free to begin and you only pay when you reach over 2,500 clients on your list.
If you in fact wind up having to pay for beehiiv it’s possibly a great indication that individuals like reviewing your stuff.
beehiiv vs Substack
You might be asking, “isn’t there already a system for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, of course there is. Substack is an excellent platform utilized by hundreds of independent writers. With Substack you obtain your very own internet site and use the platform as your all-in-one remedy for sending e-mails (while creating an archive of previous issues).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s commitment to development. beehiiv permits you do to all the important things Substack can do, with the benefit of far better analytics, even more design flexibilty, and a referral program to encourage your existing customers to get words out.
beehiiv also provides you a website comparable to Substack. Yet, if you have your very own site currently, you can likewise utilize beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I use) to send your website customers straight to your beehiiv e-mail listing. On the very same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a device like Performance to allow individuals to subscribe to your newsletter directly from Twitter.
This provides you the flexibility to leverage different marketing channels to get your e-newsletter out into the globe, making beehiiv a great Substack choice.
Just how to begin using beehiiv e-mail marketing software.
Sign up for a free plan
The very first step is to enroll in a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Start trial” switch on beehiiv’s web site.
The free plan will certainly allow you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, give you access to internet site hosting, a newsletter CMS, breakthrough personalization, analytics, external embed forms, and more. It’s a very generous offering for those just starting out (or for those seeking a brand-new platform to move to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Vs Substack
After creating an account, you’ll go through an onboarding process that will ask points like, “is this your very first e-newsletter?”, “what various other systems have you used?”, “do you have any kind of paying subscribers?”, and more.
You’ll then create 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 web site link may be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding procedure, you’ll additionally select your brand design and colors to ensure your newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your control panel
When you reach your main control panel, you’ll see all of your analytics and setups.
You will have described information on the amount of sign-ups you’re obtaining and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see alternatives for “Start writing,” “Messages,” “Target market,” “Grow,” “Generate income from,” “Layout,” and” Evaluate.” And at the very lower you’ll see the settings alternative.
Dashboard is your primary nerve center (screenshot above), Start writing is where you develop and release e-newsletters, Messages is where you can see all of your previous newsletter editions, Audience is where you can see who your customers are (and break them down into segments), Grow 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 e-newsletter with advertisements, Layout is where you make your e-newsletter landing page and post template, Evaluate is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can take care of all of your admin stuff.
Writing your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it very easy to begin writing, with little to no friction. If you’re just starting out, and have an idea you intend to cover, I advise just mosting likely to the “Create” section in the navbar and clicking “Beginning writing”.
You can fine-tune your template and styling later– concentrate on the material initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor provides a tidy and easy to use user interface for writing.
When you begin creating, you can enhance headings, include links, and design your material how you such as.
beehiiv provides you tons of alternatives for various sorts of content like video clips, links, pictures, and more.
The team at beehiiv is additionally regularly releasing item feature and updates so I make certain there will certainly be a whole lot more material features relying on when you read this.
Enhancing your settings and templates
Once you have an e-newsletter that prepares to send out, it’s time to develop your e-mail template and readjust some settings.
Below, you can upgrade the name of your e-newsletter, offer it a description, add your logo, switch on or off a welcome email to first time subscribers, and a lot more.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your style.
You can edit background colors, boundaries, spacing, typefaces, image formats, and much more. I’m not mosting likely to go through ever single point you can optimize with your email template due to the fact that it’s a great deal. Just try the system for free and see it on your own!
Essential beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of incredible features that make it an excellent posting platform for any kind of e-newsletter designer.
Here are some of the essential features you can discover with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter posting system. It makes it extremely very easy to write and send e-mails. I stated over a few of the important things you can do with your settings and e-mail design so I’ll spare you some added analysis.
Things to keep in mind with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has a truly modern-day and minimalistic feel. It’s most definitely among the far better email editors I’ve ever written in.
Website hosting
When you create a beehiiv e-newsletter, every one of your e-newsletters (if you want) survive on a web site. Consider it as a website for your newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous problems of your e-newsletter, and a location where people can register for your e-newsletter.
If you’re familiar with Substack, it’s virtually similar to that.
All plans, consisting of the free one, give you a site. Nevertheless, the free plan locations your internet site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you intend to include a custom-made domain name to get rid of all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining clients is important. After all, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can subscribe to 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 site, you’ll need to utilize an embed type. This is what I make use of on this website (you can see the sign-up installed on the right hand column of this blog post if you scroll up).
With embed kinds, you have 3 different alternatives– a full size, a repaired size, and a slim installed. I personally use the slim embed.
You can discover the code snippet for these embeds in the “Subscribe Kinds” tab in your setups.
There’s also a choice for attribution monitoring if you wish to forward UTM criteria for tracking functions– rather neat.
Nonetheless, there are a few features I want beehiiv had when it concerned subscribe features. I make sure the group is working with updates for these, however I stated a couple of concerns I had in the benefits and drawbacks area listed below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things concerning beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter platform, is a service for developing a referral program.
You can urge existing clients on your listing to ahead your emails to good friends and colleagues and if they get other people to register for your checklist, you can reward them. These benefits can be in whatever form you want. I’ve seem numerous newsletter firms provide benefits in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously turn your clients right into a word of mouth growth engine for your newsletter– providing you one more method for expanding your e-mail listing.
Nevertheless, to get access to the referral program feature, you’ll have to update to a much more exceptional plan. I’ll go over all the plans later on in this article.
Premium subscriptions
They say all you need to earn a living online is 1,000 real followers. Subscription earnings is definitely a monster of its own. If you’re looking for a system to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can create “costs” problems of your e-newsletter that are only sent out to paying clients. This can be extremely lucrative relying on what your e-newsletter has to offer. For example, Trends.co is a preferred costs newsletter that creates millions in profits a year just by having pay-only newsletter content.
Information analytics
Among the important things I love concerning beehiiv is how clean and simple the analytics are. You get real-time day on exactly how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and subscriber matter Beehiiv Vs Substack.
You obtain accessibility to all the metrics you require to get a bird-eye sight on just how your e-newsletter is actually doing. Logging into your control panel and seeing that customer matter rise is absolutely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv offers four various pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (complimentary) Launch plan offers you every little thing you need to start and expand your newsletter (up to 2,500 clients).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) offers you whatever in the Launch plan with the addition the advertisement network, referral program, customized domain name, surveys, and accessibility to costs memberships. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) offers you whatever in the Grow plan with enhancement of concern assistance and getting rid of the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are fairly generous in my point of view.
For instance, if you have 100,000 subscribers you will pay around $329 each month. Rather than some competitors, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would charge $679 each month for the exact same amount– making beehiiv a fantastic Kit alternative for numerous customers.
I’m unsure exactly how the system economics work on this, yet beehiiv is absolutely cheaper (currently) than what it can be.
beehiiv advantages and disadvantages
Obviously, with every system, it has its pros and cons. Here are some of the pros and cons I’ve directly experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Below are a few of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter system of choice:
Easy to set up and begin sending e-newsletters free of charge.
Tidy and modern-day customer analytics.
Lots of versatility with e-mail layouts.
Referral program feature.
Web site hosting.
Develop costs choices to monetize.
Surveys.
To be sincere, I have not seen another newsletter system that has actually had the ability to package every one of these features with each other so well.
However certainly, I don’t wish to be biased so I’m going to point out some disadvantages.
Cons of using beehiiv
Below are several of the disadvantages I’ve located while utilizing beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around including custom fonts.
I utilize Webflow as my site building system of option (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a long time ago). I’m not going to enter too much detail why I enjoy Webflow a lot however you can read my Webflow evaluation if you ‘d like to learn more.
Now, there actually is nothing else method I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow site apart from utilizing an iframe embed. I directly don’t such as making use of iframe’s because they have a tendency to reduce my web site a little bit. Every time a web page on my site (with a beehiiv embed) lots, the sign-up installed is the last point to load on the web page. It’s really noticeable when you get on a slow-moving internet link. Yet I can get around that.
The primary gripe I have is that I can’t make use of a routine Webflow kind (which I love making use of). There are means around this by utilizing a tool like Zapier but that would just add extra expenses that I don’t need. To be honest, this is even more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv con but I believed I would state it.
Besides that, I still think the pros far surpass the cons below. I’m also confident that Webflow will ultimately develop a better means to integrate with beehiiv.
Final Thought
On the whole, beehiiv is a great option for anybody looking to dive into the world of e-mail marketing and e-newsletters.
The functionality of this newsletter platform much exceeds many that are currently on the marketplace. And with a charitable free plan, you truly have absolutely nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are additionally rather affordable wherefore they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 customers on your listing is uncommon. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k customers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it could cost you well into the thousands per month.
Anyways, I do not create review articles typically. I just do when I really make use of the tool myself and would advise it to a good friend.
I wish you located some clearness on whether beehiiv is a great platform for you.