Over 2 years ago, I read among my favorite email newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the e-mail and saw the beehiiv logo design for the very first time. I clicked on it and immediately started wrecking Beehiiv Webhooks.
I wasn’t certain why I felt so psychological.
Being a full time developer is difficult. I’m frequently obtaining pitched various tools and services that don’t seem to be worth my time.
I presume I was emotional since I invested the last 6 months checking out different e-mail and e-newsletter platforms to assist build my newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some excellent options for writing e-newsletters. Yet I couldn’t find one that made me offer a definite “yes”.
The concern with numerous existing e-newsletter systems is that they don’t feel creator-centered. I want a newsletter system that lets me totally personalize my e-newsletter styles, makes it very easy to write and send out emails, and provides me devices that assist me analyze metrics and get more clients.
I assume I have actually lastly located the appropriate device.
However, I understand beehiiv might not be for everyone. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s in fact appropriate for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one platform for newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter platform that makes it simple to design, write, send, advertise, generate income from, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Produced by former workers at the popular newsletter business Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to aid developers launch and monetize their own newsletter– taking great deals of growth concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M customers.
In this post, I’m mosting likely to describe my individual experience with beehiiv, the important things I enjoy (and hate) regarding it, all of it’s features, and why I determined to ultimately go with it as my e-newsletter system of option.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A couple of months earlier, I mistakenly came across beehiiv. The amusing story is that I have actually watched for a modern e-newsletter platform for quite time currently. I have actually postponed hard when it concerned finally introducing my e-newsletter.
Initially, I tried Mailchimp. Then, a few other indie platforms. After that, Substack. And lastly, I wound up utilizing beehiiv.
I’m sure lots of newsletter developers admire popular newsletters with numerous customers– I know I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I looked up to a great deal. They have wonderful web content, lots of customers, and a brilliant referral program that permits them to get even extra clients.
So, I went on a search to find out how these huge newsletters set up their logistics. What system do they use? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they obtain more customers? How do they develop an e-newsletter style that remains on-brand?
When I uncovered beehiiv for the very first time, it seemed to respond to every one of my questions. I thought to myself, “damn individuals that constructed this tool actually recognize newsletter development and development.” I examined who these designers of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were several of the first marketing and growth employees at Morning Brew– my mind took off.
I recognized this was mosting likely to be a different newsletter system. One that’s focused on developer growth.
Since, any maker recognizes, you need development to be able to make a living off of an e-newsletter. And finding the ideal newsletter stack (that scales) often indicates using several different tools to assist attain one objective– 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 learnt beehiiv did all of these things in one platform, and it was complimentary to begin utilizing, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean material creator that desires a system that allows them to send customized e-newsletters with or without needing to have a web site.
One of the most effective e-newsletters have the right tools to build and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv focuses on offering you those tools.
If you’re an independent author, media business, start-up, or content designer, you ought to seriously taking into consideration trying out beehiiv. It’s totally free to get going and you just pay when you get to over 2,500 subscribers on your listing.
If you actually end up needing to spend for beehiiv it’s most likely an excellent indicator that people like reviewing your stuff.
beehiiv vs Substack
You could be asking, “isn’t there already a platform for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, yes there is. Substack is a fantastic system made use of by thousands of independent authors. With Substack you get your very own website and utilize the system as your all-in-one solution for sending emails (while producing an archive of previous problems).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s devotion to growth. beehiiv permits you do to all things Substack can do, with the benefit of much better analytics, even more style flexibilty, and a referral program to urge your existing subscribers to obtain the word out.
beehiiv also offers you a site comparable to Substack. However, if you have your own internet site currently, you can likewise use beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I make use of) to send your website clients straight to your beehiiv e-mail listing. On the exact same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a device like Performance to permit individuals to register for your e-newsletter straight from Twitter.
This gives you the flexibility to leverage different marketing channels to get your newsletter out right into the globe, making beehiiv an excellent Substack choice.
Just how to begin using beehiiv e-mail marketing software application.
Enroll in a free plan
The primary step is to enroll in a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Begin trial” button on beehiiv’s internet site.
The free plan will certainly enable you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, offer you access to web site hosting, a newsletter CMS, development customization, analytics, external embed kinds, and a lot more. It’s a really generous offering for those simply starting out (or for those searching for a brand-new system to migrate to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Webhooks
After producing an account, you’ll undergo an onboarding process that will ask points like, “is this your very first newsletter?”, “what various other systems have you utilized?”, “do you have any kind of paying customers?”, and extra.
You’ll after that produce a name and link for your newsletter’s site. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will certainly survive on 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 process, you’ll likewise select your brand name colors and design to make sure your newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your dashboard
When you reach your major dashboard, you’ll see every one of your analytics and setups.
You will certainly have detailed information on the amount of sign-ups you’re obtaining and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see choices for “Start writing,” “Posts,” “Audience,” “Grow,” “Monetize,” “Design,” and” Examine.” And at the very bottom you’ll see the setups option.
Control panel is your primary control center (screenshot over), Beginning composing is where you create and publish e-newsletters, Messages is where you can see every one of your previous e-newsletter versions, Audience is where you can view who your subscribers are (and damage them down into segments), Expand is where you have access to a referral program (and development tutorials) and boosts to run advertisements, Monetize is where you can access the beehiiv ad network and monetize your newsletter with advertisements, Layout is where you develop your e-newsletter landing page and message template, Examine is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can handle all of your admin stuff.
Creating your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it easy to start creating, with little to no rubbing. If you’re just starting out, and have a concept you intend to write about, I suggest just going to the “Create” area in the navbar and clicking on “Start writing”.
You can tweak your template and styling later– focus on the material initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor provides a clean and straightforward interface for writing.
When you begin creating, you can maximize headings, add web links, and design your material how you such as.
beehiiv gives you lots of choices for various sorts of content like videos, links, pictures, and more.
The group at beehiiv is additionally frequently releasing item feature and updates so I’m sure there will be a great deal extra material features depending upon when you read this.
Optimizing your settings and templates
When you have a newsletter that’s ready to send, it’s time to develop your email template and adjust some settings.
Below, you can upgrade the name of your newsletter, offer it a description, add your logo design, turn on or off a welcome e-mail to very first time clients, and extra.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your style.
You can modify background colors, borders, spacing, typefaces, picture formats, and much more. I’m not mosting likely to go through ever before single point you can maximize with your email template since it’s a whole lot. Simply try the platform absolutely free and see it on your own!
Crucial beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of incredible features that make it a fantastic posting platform for any newsletter designer.
Right here are several of the essential features you can find with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter publishing system. It makes it incredibly very easy to write and send emails. I mentioned over several of the important things you can do with your setups and email style 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 truly contemporary and minimalistic feel. It’s certainly among the much better email editors I’ve ever before written in.
Site hosting
When you develop a beehiiv newsletter, every one of your newsletters (if you desire) survive a web site. Think of it as a site for your newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous concerns of your e-newsletter, and an area where individuals can register for your newsletter.
If you’re familiar with Substack, it’s pretty much comparable to that.
All plans, consisting of the complimentary one, give you a site. Nevertheless, the free plan areas your internet site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you want to add a custom-made domain name to remove all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting customers is essential. After all, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can sign up for your e-newsletter right from your beehiiv web site or through embed forms.
If you currently have a site, and want people to subscribe to your newsletter from your existing website, you’ll have to utilize an embed kind. This is what I use on this site (you can see the sign-up embed on the right-hand man column of this post if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have three different choices– a full size, a repaired width, and a slim embed. I personally utilize the slim embed.
You can find the code bit for these embeds in the “Subscribe Types” tab in your settings.
There’s likewise a choice for acknowledgment monitoring if you intend to ahead UTM specifications for tracking purposes– quite neat.
Nevertheless, there are a couple of features I desire beehiiv had when it involved subscribe features. I make sure the team is working on updates for these, but I stated 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 e-newsletter platform, is a service for creating a referral program.
You can motivate existing clients on your checklist to onward your emails to buddies and associates and if they get other people to subscribe to your listing, you can reward them. These incentives can be in whatever form you desire. I’ve appear several e-newsletter companies provide benefits in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously turn your customers right into a word of mouth development engine for your newsletter– giving you another method for growing your e-mail listing.
Nevertheless, to get accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll need to upgrade to an extra premium plan. I’ll look at all the plans later on in this short article.
Premium memberships
They say all you need to make a living online is 1,000 real followers. Subscription revenue is certainly a beast of its very own. If you’re trying to find a system to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can create “costs” problems of your e-newsletter that are just sent to paying clients. This can be extremely lucrative depending on what your newsletter needs to use. As an example, Trends.co is a popular premium newsletter that creates millions in earnings a year merely by having pay-only e-newsletter web content.
Data analytics
One of the important things I love concerning beehiiv is just how tidy and basic the analytics are. You get real-time day on just how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and client matter Beehiiv Webhooks.
You get accessibility to all the metrics you need to get a bird-eye sight on how your newsletter is really doing. Logging right into your dashboard and seeing that customer count increase is absolutely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv offers four various pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (cost-free) Launch plan provides you everything you require to begin and expand your newsletter (as much as 2,500 customers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) offers you whatever in the Launch plan with the addition the advertisement network, referral program, personalized domain, polls, and access to premium memberships. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) provides you everything in the Grow plan with addition of top priority assistance and eliminating the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are fairly charitable in my viewpoint.
For instance, if you have 100,000 customers you will certainly pay around $329 monthly. As opposed to some competitors, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would bill $679 per month for the same amount– making beehiiv a great Kit choice for several users.
I’m not sure how the device business economics work on this, but beehiiv is certainly less expensive (right now) than what it can be.
beehiiv pros and cons
Certainly, with every platform, it has its benefits and drawbacks. Below are some of the advantages and disadvantages I have actually directly experienced while utilizing beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Below are several of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter platform of selection:
Easy to set up and start sending out e-newsletters free of charge.
Clean and modern subscriber analytics.
Great deals of flexibility with email layouts.
Referral program feature.
Site hosting.
Develop costs alternatives to monetize.
Polls.
To be honest, I haven’t seen one more newsletter system that has actually been able to package every one of these features together so well.
However of course, I don’t intend to be prejudiced so I’m mosting likely to point out some cons.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Below are several of the cons I’ve located while using beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around including custom fonts.
I make use of Webflow as my website building system of choice (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a long period of time ago). I’m not going to enter way too much detail why I like Webflow a lot however you can review my Webflow evaluation if you ‘d like to find out more.
Right now, there actually is nothing else way I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow website aside from making use of an iframe embed. I directly don’t such as making use of iframe’s due to the fact that they often tend to slow down my web site a little bit. Whenever a web page on my site (with a beehiiv embed) lots, the sign-up embed is the last point to load on the page. It’s really visible when you’re on a sluggish net link. But I can navigate that.
The main gripe I have is that I can not utilize a normal Webflow kind (which I enjoy using). There are methods around this by using a device like Zapier however that would certainly simply add extra costs that I don’t need. To be honest, this is even more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv disadvantage yet I thought I would certainly mention it.
Besides that, I still think the pros far exceed the disadvantages below. I’m likewise confident that Webflow will ultimately create a far better means to integrate with beehiiv.
Final Thought
In general, beehiiv is a terrific service for anybody wanting to study the globe of email marketing and newsletters.
The performance of this e-newsletter system much surpasses several that are presently on the marketplace. And with a generous free plan, you truly have nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are also rather inexpensive of what they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 clients on your list is uncommon. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k subscribers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it can cost you well into the thousands per month.
Anyways, I don’t write review posts frequently. I only do when I in fact utilize the device myself and would certainly advise it to a friend.
I wish you found some clearness on whether beehiiv is a good platform for you.