Over two years back, I read among my favored e-mail newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo for the first time. I clicked it and promptly started destroying Dan Koe Beehiiv.
I had not been certain why I really felt so psychological.
Being a permanent maker is tough. I’m typically getting pitched different devices and solutions that do not appear to be worth my time.
I presume I was psychological due to the fact that I invested the last six months trying various email and newsletter platforms to help construct my e-newsletter. And to be fair, there are some terrific options for writing e-newsletters. However I couldn’t locate one that made me offer a guaranteed “yes”.
The issue with many existing newsletter platforms is that they do not really feel creator-centered. I desire an e-newsletter system that lets me totally tailor my newsletter layouts, makes it very very easy to compose and send out emails, and provides me tools that aid me evaluate metrics and obtain more clients.
I assume I’ve finally located the right device.
However, I understand beehiiv may not be for everybody. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s really right for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one platform for newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter system that makes it very easy to layout, compose, send out, advertise, monetize, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Created by former workers at the famous newsletter company Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to help developers launch and monetize their own newsletter– taking great deals of growth concepts 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 go with it as my newsletter system of selection.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A couple of months earlier, I mistakenly stumbled across beehiiv. The funny story is that I’ve been on the lookout for a modern-day newsletter system for quite time currently. I’ve procrastinated hard when it concerned finally launching my e-newsletter.
Initially, I attempted Mailchimp. After that, a few other indie platforms. After that, Substack. And finally, I wound up using beehiiv.
I make certain many newsletter makers respect prominent newsletters with millions of customers– I know I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I admired a whole lot. They have fantastic material, tons of clients, and a creative referral program that allows them to get back at more clients.
So, I took place a quest to determine exactly how these big 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 obtain even more customers? How do they create an e-newsletter style that remains on-brand?
When I uncovered beehiiv for the first time, it seemed to respond to every one of my questions. I believed to myself, “damn individuals that developed this device really understand e-newsletter production and development.” I questioned who these makers of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were several of the initial marketing and growth staff members at Morning Brew– my mind took off.
I recognized this was mosting likely to be a various newsletter system. One that’s focused on creator growth.
Due to the fact that, any creator knows, you need development to be able to make a living off of a newsletter. And locating the best newsletter pile (that scales) frequently suggests making use of numerous different tools to help accomplish one goal– one platform for your newsletter, one platform to monetize, and one system to set up references. It can get pricey.
So when I discovered beehiiv did all of these points in one system, and it was complimentary to start using, it was a piece of cake to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean web content maker that wants a system that enables them to send out custom-made newsletters with or without requiring to have an internet site.
The most successful e-newsletters have the right devices to construct and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv targets at giving you those tools.
If you’re an independent author, media firm, startup, or material developer, you must seriously considering checking out beehiiv. It’s absolutely free to begin and you only pay when you reach over 2,500 customers on your listing.
If you in fact wind up having to spend for beehiiv it’s probably a good sign that people like reviewing your things.
beehiiv vs Substack
You might be asking, “isn’t there currently a system for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, indeed there is. Substack is a fantastic platform utilized by countless independent writers. With Substack you get your very own site and make use of the system as your all-in-one service for sending e-mails (while developing an archive of previous issues).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s devotion to development. beehiiv enables you do to all things Substack can do, with the benefit of far better analytics, more layout flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing subscribers to obtain words out.
beehiiv additionally provides you a website comparable to Substack. But, if you have your own site currently, you can likewise use beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I make use of) to send your site customers directly to your beehiiv email list. On the very same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a device like Performance to allow people to sign up for your e-newsletter directly from Twitter.
This gives you the versatility to utilize different marketing networks to get your newsletter out right into the globe, making beehiiv an excellent Substack alternative.
Exactly how to begin using beehiiv e-mail marketing software program.
Enroll in a free plan
The very first step is to enroll in a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Start trial” button on beehiiv’s website.
The free plan will allow you to have up to 2,500 clients, offer you access to internet site hosting, a newsletter CMS, advance customization, analytics, external embed kinds, and much more. It’s a really generous offering for those simply beginning (or for those looking for a brand-new system to move to).
Onboarding Dan Koe Beehiiv
After creating an account, you’ll experience an onboarding process that will ask points like, “is this your first e-newsletter?”, “what other platforms have you used?”, “do you have any type of paying subscribers?”, and more.
You’ll after that produce a name and URL for your e-newsletter’s website. On the free plan, your newsletter will reside on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your site URL may be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding procedure, you’ll additionally pick your brand name design and colors to ensure your newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your dashboard
When you reach your main dashboard, you’ll see all of your analytics and setups.
You will have detailed details on how many sign-ups you’re obtaining and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see alternatives for “Begin creating,” “Blog posts,” “Target market,” “Grow,” “Generate income from,” “Layout,” and” Assess.” And at the very bottom you’ll see the setups alternative.
Control panel is your major nerve center (screenshot above), Beginning writing is where you develop and release newsletters, Messages is where you can see every one of your previous e-newsletter editions, Audience is where you can watch who your customers are (and break them down into sectors), Grow 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 ads, Layout is where you create your newsletter landing page and article template, Evaluate is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can take care of all of your admin things.
Creating your newsletter
beehiiv makes it easy to begin writing, with little to no friction. If you’re just starting out, and have a concept you want to discuss, I advise simply mosting likely to the “Write” section in the navbar and clicking on “Beginning composing”.
You can tweak your template and styling later on– focus on the web content first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor provides a clean and easy to use user interface for writing.
When you begin creating, you can enhance headings, include web links, and design your content how you like.
beehiiv offers you tons of choices for various types of content like videos, web links, pictures, and a lot more.
The group at beehiiv is likewise continuously launching item feature and updates so I make certain there will certainly be a lot a lot more material features depending on when you read this.
Optimizing your setups and templates
As soon as you have an e-newsletter that’s ready to send, it’s time to develop your email template and change some setups.
Below, you can update the name of your e-newsletter, offer it a description, add your logo design, activate or off a welcome email to very first time subscribers, and more.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your design.
You can modify background colors, borders, spacing, typefaces, image formats, and much more. I’m not going to go through ever single point you can maximize with your email template because it’s a whole lot. Just check out the system completely free and see it for yourself!
Necessary beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of fantastic features that make it an excellent posting platform for any type of newsletter designer.
Right here are several of the crucial features you can find with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter publishing platform. It makes it very very easy to write and send emails. I stated over several of the important things you can do with your setups and email style so I’ll spare you some additional reading.
The thing to note with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has a truly contemporary and minimalistic feeling. It’s definitely among the much better email editors I have actually ever written in.
Internet site hosting
When you produce a beehiiv newsletter, all of your newsletters (if you want) live on a web site. Consider it as an internet site for your newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous problems of your e-newsletter, and an area where individuals can sign up for your newsletter.
If you recognize with Substack, it’s basically comparable to that.
All plans, consisting of the complimentary one, offer you a site. However, the free plan areas your site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you want to include a custom-made domain to get rid of all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting customers is very important. Nevertheless, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can register for your e-newsletter directly from your beehiiv web site or via embed forms.
If you already have an internet site, and desire people to subscribe to your newsletter from your existing website, you’ll need to make use of an embed type. This is what I make use of on this internet site (you can see the sign-up installed on the right hand column of this post if you scroll up).
With embed types, you have three various alternatives– a full width, a taken care of width, and a slim installed. I directly utilize the slim embed.
You can find the code snippet for these embeds in the “Subscribe Kinds” tab in your setups.
There’s likewise a choice for attribution monitoring if you want to ahead UTM parameters for tracking objectives– pretty neat.
Nevertheless, there are a couple of features I desire beehiiv had when it concerned subscribe features. I make sure the team is working on updates for these, yet I pointed out a couple of problems I had in the pros and cons section listed below.
Referral program
Among the amazing things regarding beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter platform, is a service for developing a referral program.
You can encourage existing subscribers on your list to forward your e-mails to buddies and colleagues and if they obtain other individuals to sign up for your listing, you can award them. These rewards can be in whatever kind you want. I’ve seem many e-newsletter firms offer benefits in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously turn your subscribers into a word of mouth development engine for your newsletter– providing you an additional avenue for growing your email listing.
Nonetheless, to obtain access to the referral program feature, you’ll need to update to an extra premium plan. I’ll look at all the plans later in this article.
Premium memberships
They state all you require to earn a living online is 1,000 real fans. Membership earnings is certainly a beast of its own. If you’re searching for a platform to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can develop “premium” issues of your newsletter that are just sent out to paying customers. This can be extremely financially rewarding depending on what your newsletter has to provide. For example, Trends.co is a prominent premium e-newsletter that produces millions in earnings a year simply by having pay-only e-newsletter material.
Information analytics
Among the things I love concerning beehiiv is how tidy and straightforward the analytics are. You obtain real-time date on exactly how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and client count Dan Koe Beehiiv.
You get access to all the metrics you need to obtain a bird-eye view on exactly how your newsletter is in fact doing. Logging right into your dashboard and seeing that client count rise is certainly a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv supplies four different pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (free) Launch plan provides you everything you need to begin and grow your newsletter (as much as 2,500 subscribers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) offers you everything in the Launch plan with the addition the ad network, referral program, custom domain, polls, and access to costs memberships. This is the plan I am on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) offers you everything in the Grow plan with enhancement of priority assistance and getting rid of the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are rather charitable in my point of view.
As an example, if you have 100,000 customers you will certainly pay around $329 per month. In contrast to some competitors, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would certainly bill $679 each month for the exact same amount– making beehiiv a great Kit alternative for lots of users.
I’m unsure just how the unit economics work on this, however beehiiv is definitely cheaper (at the moment) than what it can be.
beehiiv pros and cons
Naturally, with every platform, it has its benefits and drawbacks. Right here are some of the advantages and disadvantages I’ve personally experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Right here are several of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter platform of selection:
Easy to set up and begin sending newsletters absolutely free.
Clean and modern-day customer analytics.
Great deals of flexibility with email styles.
Referral program feature.
Internet site hosting.
Produce costs options to monetize.
Surveys.
To be honest, I have not seen an additional newsletter platform that has actually been able to package every one of these features with each other so well.
Yet obviously, I don’t intend to be prejudiced so I’m mosting likely to state some disadvantages.
Cons of using beehiiv
Below are some of the cons I have actually found while utilizing beehiiv:.
Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around including customized font styles.
I utilize Webflow as my internet site building system of option (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a long period of time ago). I’m not going to enter excessive information why I like Webflow a lot but you can review my Webflow testimonial if you want to learn more.
Today, there actually is nothing else method I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow website besides utilizing an iframe embed. I personally don’t like making use of iframe’s due to the fact that they often tend to decrease my site a little bit. Whenever a web page on my site (with a beehiiv embed) tons, the sign-up embed is the last point to fill on the page. It’s very noticeable when you get on a sluggish net link. Yet I can get around that.
The major complaint I have is that I can not make use of a routine Webflow type (which I like using). There are ways around this by using a tool like Zapier but that would certainly simply include additional prices that I don’t require. To be straightforward, this is more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv con but I believed I would certainly mention it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros much surpass the cons right here. I’m likewise confident that Webflow will at some point produce a much better method to integrate with beehiiv.
Verdict
Overall, beehiiv is an excellent remedy for anyone looking to study the world of e-mail marketing and newsletters.
The performance of this newsletter platform much exceeds lots of that are currently on the marketplace. And with a charitable free plan, you actually have absolutely nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are likewise rather economical for what they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 customers on your list is unusual. 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 do not compose evaluation blog posts typically. I just do when I really use the tool myself and would suggest it to a good friend.
I wish you discovered some clearness on whether beehiiv is an excellent platform for you.