Over 2 years ago, I was reading one of my favored e-mail e-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 promptly started tearing up Can You Blog on Beehiiv.
I had not been sure why I really felt so emotional.
Being a full-time developer is tough. I’m typically getting pitched different devices and solutions that don’t seem to be worth my time.
I guess I was emotional due to the fact that I invested the last six months trying out various e-mail and newsletter platforms to aid build my e-newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some terrific alternatives for composing e-newsletters. However I could not find one that made me offer a certain “yes”.
The concern with several existing newsletter platforms is that they don’t feel creator-centered. I desire a newsletter system that lets me totally customize my e-newsletter styles, makes it super easy to create and send out emails, and gives me tools that help me assess metrics and get even more subscribers.
I assume I’ve finally found the appropriate tool.
But, I know beehiiv may not be for every person. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s actually appropriate for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one system for newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter system that makes it very easy to style, write, send out, advertise, generate income from, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Developed by former workers at the famous e-newsletter firm Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to aid developers launch and monetize their own newsletter– taking lots of growth principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M customers.
In this short article, I’m going to describe my personal experience with beehiiv, the important things I enjoy (and hate) regarding it, all of it’s features, and why I made a decision to finally opt for it as my newsletter system of selection.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A few months earlier, I mistakenly stumbled across beehiiv. The amusing story is that I have actually watched for a modern-day e-newsletter platform for quite some time currently. I have actually procrastinated hard when it came to lastly launching my newsletter.
First, I attempted Mailchimp. Then, a couple of other indie systems. After that, Substack. And ultimately, I ended up using beehiiv.
I make certain lots of e-newsletter creators respect preferred e-newsletters with countless customers– I understand I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I looked up to a great deal. They have great content, lots of clients, and a creative referral program that enables them to get even a lot more customers.
So, I went on a hunt to identify how these large newsletters established their logistics. What platform do they utilize? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they obtain more clients? How do they develop an e-newsletter layout that remains on-brand?
When I uncovered beehiiv for the very first time, it appeared to answer all of my inquiries. I believed to myself, “damn the people that built this tool truly understand e-newsletter production and development.” I questioned who these developers of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were some of the very first marketing and development employees at Morning Brew– my mind blew up.
I understood this was going to be a various e-newsletter system. One that’s focused on maker growth.
Due to the fact that, any type of creator understands, you require development to be able to earn a living off of an e-newsletter. And finding the right e-newsletter pile (that scales) usually suggests making use of multiple different devices to aid accomplish one goal– one platform for your e-newsletter, one system to generate income from, and one platform to establish recommendations. It can obtain costly.
So when I found out beehiiv did every one of these things in one platform, and it was complimentary to begin using, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean content creator that wants a system that permits them to send out custom newsletters with or without requiring to have a site.
The most effective e-newsletters have the right devices to construct and scale their newsletters. beehiiv targets at offering you those tools.
If you’re an independent author, media firm, startup, or content maker, you ought to seriously thinking about checking out beehiiv. It’s completely cost-free to get going and you only pay when you get to over 2,500 clients on your checklist.
If you really wind up having to pay for beehiiv it’s possibly an excellent indicator that individuals enjoy reading your stuff.
beehiiv vs Substack
You might be asking, “isn’t there currently a system for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, of course there is. Substack is an excellent system utilized by thousands of independent writers. With Substack you obtain your very own site and use the system as your all-in-one option for sending e-mails (while developing an archive of previous issues).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s commitment to development. beehiiv enables you do to all the important things Substack can do, with the advantage of far better analytics, even more design flexibilty, and a referral program to urge your existing subscribers to obtain the word out.
beehiiv additionally provides you a web site comparable to Substack. However, if you have your own internet site currently, you can likewise utilize beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I make use of) to send your web site customers straight to your beehiiv e-mail list. On the exact same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a tool like Revue to permit individuals to register for your e-newsletter directly from Twitter.
This offers you the flexibility to leverage various marketing channels to get your e-newsletter out right into the world, making beehiiv a wonderful Substack alternative.
Just how to begin utilizing beehiiv e-mail marketing software application.
Sign up for a free plan
The very first step is to enroll in 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 subscribers, offer you accessibility to site hosting, a newsletter CMS, advance personalization, analytics, exterior embed types, and more. It’s a very generous offering for those just starting (or for those seeking a new system to move to).
Onboarding Can You Blog on Beehiiv
After producing an account, you’ll undergo an onboarding procedure that will ask points like, “is this your first newsletter?”, “what various other systems have you utilized?”, “do you have any type of paying clients?”, and a lot more.
You’ll then create a name and link for your e-newsletter’s internet site. On the free plan, your newsletter will certainly reside on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your internet site URL may 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 newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your dashboard
When you reach your major dashboard, you’ll see all of your analytics and settings.
You will certainly have described details on the number of sign-ups you’re getting and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see options for “Begin writing,” “Articles,” “Audience,” “Grow,” “Generate income from,” “Design,” and” Analyze.” And at the really bottom you’ll see the setups choice.
Control panel is your primary nerve center (screenshot over), Start writing is where you create and publish e-newsletters, Blog posts is where you can see every one of your previous e-newsletter editions, Audience is where you can view who your customers are (and damage them down right into sections), 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 e-newsletter with ads, Design is where you create your e-newsletter landing page and article template, Assess is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can handle every one of your admin things.
Writing your newsletter
beehiiv makes it simple to start writing, with little to no friction. If you’re just beginning, and have a concept you wish to blog about, I advise just going to the “Create” area in the navbar and clicking on “Start composing”.
You can fine-tune your template and styling later– focus on the material first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor uses a tidy and user-friendly interface for creating.
When you begin creating, you can enhance headings, add links, and design your content how you such as.
beehiiv offers you tons of options for different kinds of material like videos, links, photos, and a lot more.
The group at beehiiv is likewise constantly launching item feature and updates so I’m sure there will certainly be a whole lot more content features depending upon when you’re reading this.
Maximizing your setups and templates
When you have a newsletter that prepares to send, it’s time to make your email template and readjust some settings.
Here, you can update the name of your e-newsletter, give it a summary, add your logo, turn on or off a welcome email to first time subscribers, and extra.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can edit history shades, boundaries, spacing, font styles, picture styles, and a lot more. I’m not mosting likely to experience ever solitary thing you can enhance with your email template since it’s a lot. Just experiment with the platform absolutely free and see it on your own!
Crucial beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of amazing features that make it a great posting platform for any kind of newsletter developer.
Here are a few of the essential features you can find with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter publishing platform. It makes it incredibly easy to compose and send out emails. I discussed above some of things you can do with your settings and email design so I’ll save you some additional reading.
The thing to note with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has a truly modern and minimalistic feeling. It’s most definitely among the much better e-mail editors I have actually ever written in.
Website hosting
When you develop a beehiiv newsletter, every one of your newsletters (if you desire) live on a website. Consider it as a web site for your e-newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous problems of your newsletter, and a place where individuals can subscribe to your newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s virtually comparable to that.
All plans, consisting of the cost-free one, offer you a web site. Nonetheless, the free plan locations your web site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you want to include a custom-made domain to eliminate all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining subscribers is necessary. After all, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can sign up for your newsletter directly from your beehiiv internet site or via embed forms.
If you currently have an internet site, and want individuals to subscribe to your newsletter from your existing site, you’ll need to make use of an embed type. This is what I use on this internet site (you can see the sign-up embed on the right hand column of this article if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have three various alternatives– a complete size, a taken care of width, and a slim installed. I directly make use of the slim embed.
You can find the code fragment for these embeds in the “Subscribe Forms” tab in your settings.
There’s likewise an option for acknowledgment tracking if you intend to onward UTM parameters for tracking objectives– rather neat.
Nevertheless, there are a few features I want beehiiv had when it concerned subscribe features. I’m sure the team is working on updates for these, however I stated a couple of concerns I had in the pros and cons section below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things regarding beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter platform, is an option for producing a referral program.
You can motivate existing subscribers on your checklist to onward your emails to pals and associates and if they obtain other individuals to register for your list, you can compensate them. These incentives can be in whatever type you desire. I have actually appear many newsletter companies give rewards in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously turn your subscribers right into a word of mouth growth engine for your newsletter– offering you an additional method for expanding your email checklist.
Nevertheless, to obtain accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll have to upgrade to a much more premium plan. I’ll review all the plans later in this write-up.
Premium registrations
They state all you require to make a living online is 1,000 true fans. Registration income is certainly a monster of its very own. If you’re searching for a platform to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can develop “costs” concerns of your newsletter that are just sent out to paying clients. This can be really profitable depending upon what your newsletter has to supply. For instance, Trends.co is a prominent premium e-newsletter that generates millions in income a year merely by having pay-only e-newsletter material.
Information analytics
Among the important things I enjoy concerning beehiiv is just how tidy and straightforward the analytics are. You obtain real-time date on exactly how your newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and client matter Can You Blog on Beehiiv.
You obtain access to all the metrics you need to obtain a bird-eye sight on exactly how your newsletter is actually doing. Logging into your control panel and seeing that client count go up is most definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv uses 4 different pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (totally free) Launch plan gives you every little thing you require to get going and grow your newsletter (approximately 2,500 subscribers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) gives you everything in the Launch plan with the addition the ad network, referral program, custom domain, surveys, and accessibility 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 eliminating the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are quite generous in my point of view.
For example, if you have 100,000 subscribers you will certainly pay around $329 monthly. In contrast to some rivals, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would bill $679 monthly for the very same quantity– making beehiiv a wonderful Kit choice for lots of users.
I’m uncertain exactly how the device economics service this, yet beehiiv is most definitely less expensive (at the moment) than what it can be.
beehiiv benefits and drawbacks
Of course, with every system, it has its benefits and drawbacks. Right here are some of the benefits and drawbacks I’ve directly 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 choice:
Easy to set up and begin sending out e-newsletters completely free.
Tidy and contemporary client analytics.
Lots of versatility with email layouts.
Referral program feature.
Website hosting.
Produce costs alternatives to generate income from.
Surveys.
To be straightforward, I have not seen another e-newsletter platform that has had the ability to package all of these features together so well.
But obviously, I don’t intend to be prejudiced so I’m going to mention some disadvantages.
Cons of using beehiiv
Below are several of the cons I’ve located while using beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around including customized fonts.
I make use of Webflow as my web site structure system of selection (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a long time ago). I’m not mosting likely to go in excessive detail why I like Webflow so much but you can read my Webflow evaluation if you wish to find out more.
Now, there really is nothing else means I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow web site apart from using an iframe embed. I directly don’t like making use of iframe’s due to the fact that they often tend to decrease my internet site a little bit. Whenever a page on my site (with a beehiiv installed) lots, the sign-up embed is the last point to load on the page. It’s very recognizable when you’re on a slow-moving internet connection. But I can get around that.
The major gripe I have is that I can not use a normal Webflow kind (which I like making use of). There are methods around this by using a tool like Zapier however that would certainly simply include additional costs that I don’t require. To be straightforward, this is even more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv disadvantage however I assumed I would state it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros far surpass the disadvantages here. I’m likewise enthusiastic that Webflow will eventually develop a better means to incorporate with beehiiv.
Verdict
Overall, beehiiv is a terrific service for anybody wanting to study the globe of email marketing and newsletters.
The capability of this e-newsletter platform much surpasses many that are presently on the market. And with a charitable free plan, you truly have nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are likewise relatively cheap for what they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 subscribers on your checklist is unusual. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k subscribers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it could cost you well into the thousands monthly.
Anyways, I don’t create review blog posts often. I only do when I really use the device myself and would recommend it to a good friend.
I wish you discovered some quality on whether or not beehiiv is a good system for you.