Over two years ago, I read one of my favorite e-mail newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo design for the first time. I clicked on it and instantaneously started wrecking Beehiiv Zoominfo.
I had not been certain why I really felt so emotional.
Being a full time developer is difficult. I’m commonly obtaining pitched different devices and solutions that do not seem to be worth my time.
I guess I was emotional since I invested the last six months trying various e-mail and newsletter systems to aid construct my e-newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some terrific alternatives for writing newsletters. Yet I could not discover one that made me offer a definite “yes”.
The concern with many existing e-newsletter systems is that they don’t really feel creator-centered. I want an e-newsletter system that lets me fully personalize my e-newsletter designs, makes it super easy to create and send out emails, and offers me tools that aid me evaluate metrics and get more customers.
I believe I have actually ultimately discovered the ideal device.
Yet, I know beehiiv might not be for everyone. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s actually ideal for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one system for e-newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter system that makes it easy to layout, compose, send out, promote, monetize, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Developed by previous staff members at the popular e-newsletter firm Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to aid designers launch and monetize their very own newsletter– taking lots of development concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M clients.
In this write-up, I’m mosting likely to describe my personal experience with beehiiv, the things I like (and hate) regarding it, all of it’s features, and why I determined to ultimately go with it as my newsletter system of choice.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A few months ago, I inadvertently came across beehiiv. The amusing tale is that I have actually watched for a modern-day e-newsletter platform for fairly a long time currently. I’ve postponed hard when it pertained to ultimately launching my e-newsletter.
First, I attempted Mailchimp. After that, a couple of other indie platforms. Then, Substack. And ultimately, I wound up using beehiiv.
I make certain many newsletter creators appreciate preferred newsletters with millions of subscribers– I recognize I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I appreciated a great deal. They have fantastic content, tons of subscribers, and a brilliant referral program that allows them to get even much more customers.
So, I went on a quest to figure out how these huge newsletters established their logistics. What platform do they utilize? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they get even more clients? How do they develop an e-newsletter layout that remains on-brand?
When I discovered beehiiv for the very first time, it appeared to respond to all of my inquiries. I believed to myself, “damn individuals that built this tool actually comprehend e-newsletter production and growth.” I questioned who these makers 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 exploded.
I knew this was mosting likely to be a different newsletter platform. One that’s concentrated on developer growth.
Because, any type of designer recognizes, you require growth to be able to earn a living off of a newsletter. And discovering the right newsletter pile (that ranges) commonly means using several different devices to aid attain one goal– one system for your e-newsletter, one system to monetize, and one system to set up references. It can get pricey.
So when I found out beehiiv did all of these points in one platform, and it was cost-free to begin utilizing, 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 system that permits them to send out customized newsletters with or without needing to have a web site.
One of the most effective e-newsletters have the right devices to construct and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv focuses on giving you those tools.
If you’re an independent writer, media firm, startup, or web content developer, you should seriously taking into consideration trying out beehiiv. It’s entirely free to start and you only pay when you reach over 2,500 subscribers on your checklist.
If you in fact wind up having to pay for beehiiv it’s most likely a good sign that people love reviewing your things.
beehiiv vs Substack
You could be asking, “isn’t there currently a platform for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, of course there is. Substack is a terrific platform made use of by countless independent writers. With Substack you obtain your own website and make use of the platform as your all-in-one option for sending e-mails (while creating an archive of previous issues).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s dedication to growth. beehiiv enables you do to all the important things Substack can do, with the advantage of much better analytics, even more design flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing subscribers to get the word out.
beehiiv also provides you an internet site similar to Substack. But, if you have your very own internet site already, you can additionally utilize beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I utilize) to send your web site subscribers right to your beehiiv e-mail checklist. On the same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a device like Performance to enable people to register for your e-newsletter directly from Twitter.
This offers you the flexibility to utilize various marketing networks to get your e-newsletter out into the globe, making beehiiv an excellent Substack alternative.
Just how to begin making use of beehiiv e-mail marketing software program.
Sign up for a free plan
The very first step is to register for a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Begin trial” switch on beehiiv’s internet site.
The free plan will permit you to have up to 2,500 clients, offer you accessibility to internet site hosting, a newsletter CMS, breakthrough modification, analytics, external embed types, and more. It’s an extremely charitable offering for those simply starting (or for those searching for a new platform to move to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Zoominfo
After creating an account, you’ll undergo an onboarding process that will ask points like, “is this your first e-newsletter?”, “what various other systems have you made use of?”, “do you have any type of paying customers?”, and more.
You’ll after that develop a name and URL for your e-newsletter’s site. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will certainly reside on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your internet site URL could be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding procedure, you’ll also choose your brand name design and colors to make certain your e-newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your dashboard
Once you reach your main control panel, you’ll see every one of your analytics and setups.
You will certainly have outlined info on how many sign-ups you’re obtaining and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see options for “Begin writing,” “Messages,” “Target market,” “Expand,” “Generate income from,” “Style,” and” Assess.” And at the extremely lower you’ll see the settings choice.
Dashboard is your primary control center (screenshot over), Begin writing is where you develop and publish e-newsletters, Articles is where you can see all of your previous e-newsletter versions, Audience is where you can view who your customers are (and break them down right into sectors), Grow is where you have accessibility to a referral program (and growth tutorials) and boosts to run advertisements, Monetize is where you can access the beehiiv ad network and monetize your e-newsletter with ads, Style is where you create your newsletter landing page and article template, Examine is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can handle every one of your admin stuff.
Creating your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it very easy to start composing, with little to no friction. If you’re simply starting, and have an idea you want to write about, I recommend just mosting likely to the “Write” area in the navbar and clicking “Beginning creating”.
You can modify your template and designing later on– concentrate on the material initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor provides a tidy and easy to use user interface for composing.
Once you begin composing, you can enhance headings, include web links, and design your content how you like.
beehiiv provides you tons of alternatives for different sorts of web content like videos, links, images, and more.
The group at beehiiv is additionally continuously launching product feature and updates so I make sure there will be a lot more material features depending 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 design your email template and change some settings.
Below, you can update the name of your e-newsletter, provide it a description, add your logo design, turn on or off a welcome e-mail to very first time clients, and more.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your style.
You can modify history shades, boundaries, spacing, fonts, photo layouts, and a lot more. I’m not going to undergo ever solitary point you can maximize with your email template due to the fact that it’s a whole lot. Simply experiment with the system completely free and see it on your own!
Essential beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of impressive features that make it a fantastic publishing system for any newsletter maker.
Here are some of the essential features you can locate with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter publishing platform. It makes it super very easy to compose and send out emails. I discussed over some of the things you can do with your settings and email style so I’ll spare you some additional reading.
The important things to note with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has a really contemporary and minimalistic feeling. It’s certainly among the better email editors I have actually ever written in.
Internet site hosting
When you produce a beehiiv newsletter, all of your newsletters (if you desire) survive an internet site. Think of it as an internet site for your newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous problems of your e-newsletter, and a location where individuals can register for your newsletter.
If you recognize with Substack, it’s basically comparable to that.
All plans, including the cost-free one, give you an internet site. Nevertheless, the free plan places your web site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you want to include a custom domain name to eliminate all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting clients is essential. Nevertheless, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can register for your e-newsletter right from your beehiiv internet site or via embed types.
If you already have a site, and want individuals to sign up for your newsletter from your existing site, 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 post if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have 3 different alternatives– a complete width, a fixed size, and a slim installed. I personally use the slim embed.
You can find the code snippet for these embeds in the “Subscribe Types” tab in your settings.
There’s additionally an alternative for attribution monitoring if you want to forward UTM criteria for tracking functions– pretty cool.
Nevertheless, there are a couple of features I desire beehiiv had when it involved subscribe features. I make sure the team is servicing updates for these, but I discussed a few issues I had in the benefits and drawbacks area listed below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things regarding beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter system, is an option for developing a referral program.
You can encourage existing clients on your checklist to forward your emails to friends and colleagues and if they get other individuals to subscribe to your listing, you can award them. These incentives can be in whatever kind you desire. I have actually seem several newsletter companies provide benefits in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously turn your customers right into a word of mouth development engine for your newsletter– offering you an additional avenue for expanding your e-mail checklist.
Nevertheless, to obtain access to the referral program feature, you’ll need to update to a much more superior plan. I’ll go over all the plans later on in this post.
Premium memberships
They say all you require to earn a living online is 1,000 real followers. Registration revenue is certainly a beast of its own. If you’re seeking a system to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can develop “premium” problems of your newsletter that are just sent to paying clients. This can be really financially rewarding depending on what your newsletter has to supply. For instance, Trends.co is a popular costs e-newsletter that creates millions in earnings a year just by having pay-only e-newsletter content.
Data analytics
One of things I like about beehiiv is exactly how tidy and easy the analytics are. You obtain real-time date on exactly how your newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and subscriber count Beehiiv Zoominfo.
You obtain access to all the metrics you need to obtain a bird-eye sight on just how your e-newsletter is really doing. Logging right into your control panel and seeing that client count rise is definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv offers four various pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (cost-free) Launch plan gives you every little thing you need to get going and grow your e-newsletter (approximately 2,500 clients).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) provides you whatever in the Launch plan with the addition the ad network, referral program, customized domain name, surveys, and access to premium subscriptions. 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 quite charitable in my viewpoint.
For instance, if you have 100,000 subscribers you will certainly pay around $329 each month. In contrast to some competitors, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would charge $679 monthly for the very same amount– making beehiiv a great Kit option for numerous customers.
I’m uncertain how the unit business economics work with this, but beehiiv is certainly less expensive (presently) than what it can be.
beehiiv pros and cons
Obviously, with every platform, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Below are several of the advantages and disadvantages I’ve personally experienced while making use of beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Below are a few of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter platform of option:
Easy to set up and start sending out newsletters totally free.
Tidy and contemporary customer analytics.
Lots of adaptability with email styles.
Referral program feature.
Internet site hosting.
Create costs alternatives to monetize.
Surveys.
To be sincere, I have not seen an additional e-newsletter platform that has had the ability to package every one of these features together so well.
But certainly, I don’t wish to be biased so I’m mosting likely to point out some cons.
Cons of using beehiiv
Here are several of the disadvantages I have actually discovered while making use of beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around including custom-made typefaces.
I utilize Webflow as my internet site structure platform of choice (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a long period of time ago). I’m not going to enter way too much information why I love Webflow so much but you can read my Webflow evaluation if you would love to discover more.
Today, there actually is nothing else method I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow web site besides making use of an iframe embed. I personally don’t such as making use of iframe’s due to the fact that they tend to slow down my internet site a little bit. Every time a page on my site (with a beehiiv installed) loads, the sign-up installed is the last point to fill on the web page. It’s very visible when you’re on a sluggish internet link. Yet I can navigate that.
The main gripe I have is that I can’t utilize a routine Webflow form (which I enjoy utilizing). There are ways around this by using a device like Zapier yet that would certainly simply include extra prices that I do not need. To be truthful, this is even more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv disadvantage yet I thought I would state it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros much outweigh the disadvantages below. I’m also confident that Webflow will at some point create a better way to integrate with beehiiv.
Conclusion
In general, beehiiv is a terrific service for any individual wanting to dive into the globe of e-mail marketing and newsletters.
The performance of this newsletter system far exceeds lots of that are currently on the marketplace. And with a charitable free plan, you actually have nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are also fairly affordable of what they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 customers on your listing is unprecedented. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k subscribers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it might cost you well into the thousands each month.
Anyways, I do not compose testimonial articles frequently. I only do when I actually utilize the tool myself and would recommend it to a good friend.
I hope you found some clearness on whether beehiiv is a good platform for you.