Over two years ago, I was reading one of my favorite email 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 immediately started destroying Can You Have A Blog on Beehiiv.
I had not been sure why I felt so emotional.
Being a permanent designer is tough. I’m commonly getting pitched different tools and services that don’t appear to be worth my time.
I guess I was emotional because I invested the last six months experimenting with various e-mail and newsletter platforms to help construct my e-newsletter. And to be fair, there are some terrific options for composing e-newsletters. Yet I couldn’t locate one that made me offer a certain “yes”.
The problem with many existing e-newsletter platforms is that they do not really feel creator-centered. I desire a newsletter system that lets me fully personalize my e-newsletter styles, makes it incredibly simple to create and send out emails, and provides me devices that assist me examine metrics and obtain even more clients.
I believe I’ve ultimately discovered the best tool.
But, I recognize 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 newsletter platform that makes it simple to layout, write, send, promote, monetize, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Produced by previous staff members at the popular newsletter company Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to assist developers launch and monetize their own e-newsletter– taking lots of development principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M subscribers.
In this article, I’m mosting likely to clarify my individual experience with beehiiv, things I love (and hate) about it, all of it’s features, and why I made a decision to ultimately choose it as my newsletter system of selection.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A couple of months ago, I unintentionally came across beehiiv. The amusing story is that I have actually watched for a contemporary newsletter system for fairly a long time now. I have actually procrastinated hard when it involved finally introducing my newsletter.
First, I tried Mailchimp. After that, a couple of various other indie systems. Then, Substack. And ultimately, I wound up making use of beehiiv.
I make certain several e-newsletter designers look up to preferred e-newsletters with millions of clients– I recognize I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I admired a lot. They have terrific material, lots of subscribers, and a creative referral program that enables them to get back at much more clients.
So, I went on a search to identify just how these large e-newsletters set up their logistics. What system do they make use of? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they get even more clients? How do they develop a newsletter design that remains on-brand?
When I discovered beehiiv for the very first time, it seemed to address every one of my concerns. I thought to myself, “damn the people that built this tool truly comprehend newsletter creation and development.” I examined who these creators of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were several of the very first marketing and development staff members at Morning Brew– my mind took off.
I knew this was mosting likely to be a different e-newsletter system. One that’s concentrated on designer growth.
Because, any type of creator recognizes, you need growth to be able to make a living off of an e-newsletter. And discovering the best e-newsletter pile (that ranges) usually indicates using numerous different tools to aid accomplish one objective– one platform for your newsletter, one system to monetize, and one system to set up recommendations. It can get expensive.
So when I learnt beehiiv did every one of these things in one platform, and it was totally free to begin utilizing, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean web content developer that desires a platform that enables them to send out custom e-newsletters with or without requiring to have a site.
The most effective e-newsletters have the right devices to build and scale their newsletters. beehiiv focuses on giving you those tools.
If you’re an independent author, media company, start-up, or content creator, you should seriously taking into consideration trying beehiiv. It’s completely cost-free to start and you just pay when you get to over 2,500 customers on your checklist.
If you in fact end up needing to spend for beehiiv it’s probably an excellent indication that individuals love reading your things.
beehiiv vs Substack
You may be asking, “isn’t there currently a system for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, of course there is. Substack is a great system made use of by countless independent authors. With Substack you obtain your own site and utilize the system as your all-in-one option for sending emails (while developing an archive of previous concerns).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s dedication to growth. beehiiv allows you do to all the things Substack can do, with the benefit of far better analytics, more design flexibilty, and a referral program to urge your existing subscribers to obtain words out.
beehiiv likewise offers you an internet site similar to Substack. But, if you have your own website currently, you can likewise make use of beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I use) to send your internet site customers straight to your beehiiv email listing. On the very same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a tool like Revue to permit individuals to sign up for your e-newsletter directly from Twitter.
This provides you the adaptability to leverage various marketing networks to obtain your e-newsletter out right into the globe, making beehiiv a great Substack choice.
Just how to begin utilizing beehiiv e-mail marketing software application.
Register for a free plan
The very first step is to register for a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Beginning trial” switch on beehiiv’s site.
The free plan will permit you to have up to 2,500 customers, give you accessibility to internet site hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, advancement customization, analytics, outside embed forms, and much more. It’s a very charitable offering for those simply beginning (or for those looking for a new system to migrate to).
Onboarding Can You Have A Blog on Beehiiv
After producing an account, you’ll undergo an onboarding process that will ask things like, “is this your first newsletter?”, “what other systems have you used?”, “do you have any kind of paying customers?”, and extra.
You’ll after that create a name and link for your newsletter’s internet site. On the free plan, your newsletter will certainly survive a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your internet site link could be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding process, you’ll additionally select your brand design and colors to ensure your e-newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your control panel
When you reach your main dashboard, you’ll see every one of your analytics and settings.
You will certainly have detailed details on the amount of sign-ups you’re obtaining and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see choices for “Beginning creating,” “Articles,” “Target market,” “Expand,” “Monetize,” “Design,” and” Analyze.” And at the very lower you’ll see the settings choice.
Control panel is your major control center (screenshot over), Beginning composing is where you produce and release newsletters, Articles is where you can see every one of your previous e-newsletter versions, Audience is where you can see who your customers are (and damage them down into sectors), Expand is where you have access 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 advertisements, Layout is where you design your newsletter landing page and message template, Evaluate is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can handle all of your admin stuff.
Creating your newsletter
beehiiv makes it very easy to begin composing, with little to no rubbing. If you’re simply starting, and have a concept you want to blog about, I suggest simply mosting likely to the “Create” section in the navbar and clicking on “Begin creating”.
You can tweak your template and designing later– concentrate on the web content first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor uses a tidy and easy to use interface for writing.
As soon as you start writing, you can maximize headings, add web links, and style your material how you such as.
beehiiv gives you lots of alternatives for different types of material like videos, web links, pictures, and extra.
The group at beehiiv is additionally constantly launching product feature and updates so I make sure there will certainly be a great deal more material features depending upon when you’re reading this.
Optimizing your setups and templates
When you have a newsletter that’s ready to send, it’s time to develop your email template and adjust some settings.
Right here, you can update the name of your e-newsletter, offer it a summary, include your logo design, turn on or off a welcome e-mail to very first time customers, and a lot more.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can edit background colors, boundaries, spacing, fonts, picture formats, and much more. I’m not going to experience ever before solitary point you can enhance with your email template since it’s a great deal. Just check out the system absolutely free and see it on your own!
Essential beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of fantastic features that make it a terrific posting system for any kind of newsletter designer.
Here are some of the crucial features you can discover with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter posting platform. It makes it super simple to compose and send out e-mails. I discussed above several of the important things you can do with your setups and e-mail design so I’ll save you some added reading.
Things to note with beehiiv’s 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 produce a beehiiv newsletter, every one of your newsletters (if you want) live on an internet site. Consider it as a site for your e-newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous issues of your e-newsletter, and a location where individuals can sign up for your e-newsletter.
If you’re familiar with Substack, it’s pretty much comparable to that.
All plans, including the complimentary one, give you a web site. Nonetheless, the free plan areas your web site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you want to include a custom domain to eliminate all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting clients is important. After all, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can register for your e-newsletter right from your beehiiv web site or with embed forms.
If you currently have a website, and desire individuals to subscribe to your e-newsletter from your existing website, you’ll have to utilize an embed type. This is what I use on this website (you can see the sign-up embed on the right hand column of this blog post if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have 3 different choices– a complete width, a fixed size, and a slim installed. I directly utilize the slim installed.
You can locate the code snippet for these embeds in the “Subscribe Forms” tab in your settings.
There’s likewise a choice for attribution tracking if you want to forward UTM parameters for tracking functions– rather neat.
Nonetheless, there are a couple of features I wish beehiiv had when it pertained to subscribe features. I’m sure the group is working on updates for these, however I mentioned a couple of issues 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 producing a referral program.
You can motivate existing subscribers on your list to ahead your emails to pals and colleagues and if they obtain other people to sign up for your listing, you can reward them. These incentives can be in whatever kind you want. I’ve seem numerous e-newsletter companies offer incentives in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously turn your customers into a word of mouth growth engine for your e-newsletter– providing you an additional avenue for growing your e-mail checklist.
However, to get access to the referral program feature, you’ll need to update to a much more superior plan. I’ll review all the plans later on in this write-up.
Costs subscriptions
They say all you need to earn a living online is 1,000 real fans. Subscription income is certainly a beast of its very own. If you’re looking for a system to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can create “premium” issues of your newsletter that are just sent to paying customers. This can be very financially rewarding depending on what your e-newsletter has to supply. For example, Trends.co is a popular costs newsletter that produces millions in income a year simply by having pay-only newsletter web content.
Data analytics
Among the things I like concerning beehiiv is exactly how tidy and straightforward the analytics are. You get real-time day on exactly how your newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and subscriber count Can You Have A Blog on Beehiiv.
You get access to all the metrics you require to obtain a bird-eye view on just how your newsletter is really doing. Logging right into your dashboard and seeing that customer matter increase is definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv provides 4 different pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (cost-free) Launch plan provides you whatever you require to get started and grow your newsletter (approximately 2,500 clients).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) offers you everything in the Launch plan with the enhancement the ad network, referral program, personalized domain name, polls, and access to costs subscriptions. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) offers you whatever in the Grow plan with addition of concern support and eliminating the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are fairly charitable in my point of view.
For example, if you have 100,000 customers you will certainly pay around $329 each month. Rather than some rivals, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would certainly charge $679 each month for the exact same amount– making beehiiv an excellent Kit alternative for many individuals.
I’m unsure exactly how the device business economics work on this, but beehiiv is definitely less costly (right now) than what it can be.
beehiiv benefits and drawbacks
Of course, with every platform, it has its pros and cons. Here are a few of the benefits and drawbacks I’ve directly experienced while utilizing beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Here are a few of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter platform of selection:
Easy to establish and begin sending out e-newsletters free of charge.
Tidy and modern-day customer analytics.
Great deals of flexibility with e-mail layouts.
Referral program feature.
Site hosting.
Produce premium alternatives to generate income from.
Polls.
To be straightforward, I haven’t seen an additional newsletter platform that has had the ability to package every one of these features with each other so well.
Yet of course, I don’t intend to be biased so I’m going to state some cons.
Cons of using beehiiv
Below are a few of the disadvantages I’ve located while utilizing beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around including personalized fonts.
I make use of Webflow as my website building system of choice (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a long period of time ago). I’m not mosting likely to enter way too much information why I enjoy Webflow so much yet you can read my Webflow review if you would love to find out more.
Right now, there actually is nothing else means I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow website apart from utilizing an iframe embed. I personally don’t like utilizing iframe’s due to the fact that they tend to slow down my internet site a bit. Every single time a web page on my site (with a beehiiv installed) tons, the sign-up embed is the last thing to pack on the page. It’s extremely noticeable when you’re on a slow-moving internet link. However I can navigate that.
The major gripe I have is that I can not use a normal Webflow kind (which I enjoy using). There are means around this by using a device like Zapier but that would certainly simply add added prices that I do not need. To be straightforward, this is more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv con but I thought I would certainly state it.
Besides that, I still think the pros much outweigh the cons right here. I’m likewise hopeful that Webflow will at some point create a much better method to integrate with beehiiv.
Verdict
Generally, beehiiv is an excellent option for anybody aiming to dive into the globe of e-mail marketing and newsletters.
The functionality of this e-newsletter system far surpasses several that are currently on the market. And with a charitable free plan, you actually have nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are also fairly low-cost for what they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 customers on your list is uncommon. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k clients, and all of these features beehiiv has, it can cost you well right into the thousands each month.
Anyways, I don’t compose testimonial messages frequently. I only do when I actually use the tool myself and would suggest it to a buddy.
I hope you located some clarity on whether beehiiv is an excellent platform for you.