Over two years back, I read one of my favored email e-newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the e-mail and saw the beehiiv logo for the first time. I clicked on it and quickly began wrecking Does Beehiiv Use PayPal.
I had not been sure why I felt so emotional.
Being a full time developer is tough. I’m commonly obtaining pitched different tools and solutions that do not appear to be worth my time.
I think I was psychological because I spent the last six months trying different e-mail and newsletter systems to help build my e-newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some wonderful choices for creating newsletters. However I could not locate one that made me offer a certain “yes”.
The issue with many existing newsletter systems is that they do not feel creator-centered. I want a newsletter system that lets me completely customize my e-newsletter styles, makes it incredibly very easy to create and send emails, and gives me tools that assist me examine metrics and get more customers.
I think I’ve lastly located the right tool.
But, I know beehiiv may not be for everybody. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s in fact ideal for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one platform for newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly e-newsletter platform that makes it easy to style, create, send, advertise, generate income from, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Produced by previous employees at the popular newsletter business Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to help developers launch and monetize their own e-newsletter– taking lots of growth concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M subscribers.
In this post, I’m mosting likely to discuss my individual experience with beehiiv, the important things I like (and hate) about it, all of it’s features, and why I made a decision to lastly choose it as my e-newsletter platform of choice.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A few months ago, I unintentionally came across beehiiv. The amusing tale is that I have actually been on the lookout for a contemporary e-newsletter platform for quite a long time currently. I have actually put things off hard when it concerned ultimately launching my e-newsletter.
First, I tried Mailchimp. After that, a few various other indie platforms. Then, Substack. And finally, I wound up using beehiiv.
I make certain lots of newsletter creators look up to popular newsletters with numerous customers– I understand I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I admired a great deal. They have wonderful web content, lots of customers, and a brilliant referral program that permits them to get back at much more subscribers.
So, I went on a search to find out how these big newsletters set up their logistics. What platform do they utilize? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they get more customers? How do they create a newsletter layout that stays on-brand?
When I uncovered beehiiv for the first time, it appeared to respond to all of my concerns. I believed to myself, “damn the people that developed this device actually recognize e-newsletter creation and growth.” I examined who these developers of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were some of the first marketing and growth staff members at Morning Brew– my mind blew up.
I understood this was mosting likely to be a different newsletter system. One that’s concentrated on developer development.
Due to the fact that, any designer recognizes, you require growth to be able to make a living off of an e-newsletter. And finding the appropriate newsletter stack (that ranges) usually means using numerous various tools to help accomplish one goal– one system for your e-newsletter, one platform to generate income from, and one system to establish recommendations. It can obtain expensive.
So when I learnt beehiiv did all of these things in one platform, and it was free to begin making use of, it was a piece of cake to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean material creator that desires a system that permits them to send out personalized e-newsletters with or without needing to have a website.
One of the most successful newsletters have the right devices to develop and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv targets at giving you those tools.
If you’re an independent writer, media company, startup, or content designer, you should seriously taking into consideration trying out beehiiv. It’s totally complimentary to get going and you only pay when you reach over 2,500 customers on your list.
If you really wind up having to pay for beehiiv it’s probably a great indication that individuals enjoy reviewing your stuff.
beehiiv vs Substack
You might be asking, “isn’t there already a system for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, indeed there is. Substack is a great platform used by hundreds of independent writers. With Substack you get your very own site and utilize the system as your all-in-one solution for sending out emails (while producing an archive of previous concerns).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s devotion to development. beehiiv permits you do to all things Substack can do, with the advantage of far better analytics, more style flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing subscribers to get the word out.
beehiiv additionally gives you a site comparable to Substack. However, if you have your own web site already, you can likewise utilize beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I utilize) to send your website customers straight to your beehiiv e-mail listing. On the very same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a device like Revue to enable people to subscribe to your newsletter straight from Twitter.
This gives you the adaptability to leverage different marketing channels to get your e-newsletter out into the world, making beehiiv an excellent Substack alternative.
Exactly how to start making use of beehiiv email marketing software application.
Enroll in a free plan
The initial step is to enroll in a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Beginning trial” button on beehiiv’s website.
The free plan will enable you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, provide you accessibility to web site hosting, a newsletter CMS, development customization, analytics, exterior embed kinds, and extra. It’s a really generous offering for those simply starting (or for those looking for a new system to migrate to).
Onboarding Does Beehiiv Use PayPal
After developing an account, you’ll undergo an onboarding procedure that will ask things like, “is this your first e-newsletter?”, “what other systems have you made use of?”, “do you have any type of paying clients?”, 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 reside on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your site URL may be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding process, you’ll also select your brand design and colors to see to it your e-newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your control panel
Once you reach your major dashboard, you’ll see all of your analytics and settings.
You will have described details on the number of sign-ups you’re getting and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see choices for “Start creating,” “Blog posts,” “Target market,” “Grow,” “Generate income from,” “Style,” and” Examine.” And at the very bottom you’ll see the settings alternative.
Dashboard is your primary control center (screenshot over), Start composing is where you produce and publish newsletters, Articles is where you can see every one of your previous e-newsletter versions, Target market is where you can view who your clients are (and damage them down right into segments), Grow is where you have accessibility 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, Style is where you make your e-newsletter landing page and blog post template, Evaluate is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can take care of every one of your admin stuff.
Writing your newsletter
beehiiv makes it easy to begin writing, with little to no rubbing. If you’re simply beginning, and have an idea you want to cover, I advise just mosting likely to the “Write” area in the navbar and clicking “Beginning writing”.
You can fine-tune your template and designing later– focus on the material initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor supplies a tidy and user-friendly user interface for composing.
As soon as you begin creating, you can optimize headings, include web links, and style your web content just how you like.
beehiiv gives you tons of alternatives for various sorts of material like video clips, links, images, and much more.
The team at beehiiv is additionally constantly launching item feature and updates so I’m sure there will be a great deal a lot more material features depending upon when you’re reading this.
Optimizing your settings and templates
As soon as you have a newsletter that’s ready to send out, it’s time to design your email template and adjust some setups.
Below, you can upgrade the name of your e-newsletter, offer it a summary, include your logo design, turn on or off a welcome email 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 modify history shades, borders, spacing, fonts, image layouts, and much more. I’m not mosting likely to experience ever before solitary thing you can enhance with your email template since it’s a lot. Just try the platform totally free and see it on your own!
Vital beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of amazing features that make it a great posting system for any e-newsletter maker.
Here are a few of the essential features you can find with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter publishing system. It makes it incredibly simple to create and send emails. I discussed above several of the important things you can do with your settings and e-mail design so I’ll save you some additional reading.
Things to keep in mind with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has a truly modern and minimalistic feel. It’s absolutely among the far better email editors I’ve ever before written in.
Internet site hosting
When you develop a beehiiv e-newsletter, every one of your newsletters (if you want) reside on an internet site. Consider it as a site for your e-newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous problems of your e-newsletter, and a location where people can register for your e-newsletter.
If you’re familiar with Substack, it’s virtually comparable to that.
All plans, including the totally free one, provide you a web site. Nonetheless, the free plan areas your internet site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you wish to include a custom-made domain name to remove all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining clients is necessary. After all, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can sign up for your newsletter directly from your beehiiv internet site or via embed forms.
If you already have a web site, and desire people to register for your e-newsletter from your existing website, you’ll have to use an embed type. This is what I use on this internet 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 complete width, a repaired size, and a slim embed. I personally utilize the slim installed.
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 forward UTM criteria for tracking purposes– pretty neat.
However, there are a few features I want beehiiv had when it concerned subscribe features. I make certain the team is dealing with updates for these, but I pointed out a few problems I had in the benefits and drawbacks area below.
Referral program
Among the amazing things about beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter system, is a service for producing a referral program.
You can motivate existing clients on your list to forward your emails to close friends and colleagues and if they obtain other individuals to register for your list, you can award them. These incentives can be in whatever type you want. I have actually appear numerous e-newsletter companies provide rewards in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously turn your customers right into a word of mouth development engine for your e-newsletter– providing you another opportunity for growing your e-mail listing.
Nevertheless, to get access to the referral program feature, you’ll have to upgrade to a more exceptional plan. I’ll look at all the plans later on in this article.
Premium subscriptions
They state all you need to make a living online is 1,000 true followers. Subscription earnings is absolutely a beast of its own. If you’re looking for a platform to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can produce “premium” issues of your newsletter that are only sent out to paying customers. This can be extremely profitable relying on what your e-newsletter has to supply. For example, Trends.co is a prominent premium newsletter that produces millions in income a year simply by having pay-only e-newsletter material.
Data analytics
One of things I like about beehiiv is exactly how tidy and basic the analytics are. You obtain real-time date on how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and customer matter Does Beehiiv Use PayPal.
You obtain accessibility to all the metrics you require to get a bird-eye view on how your newsletter is actually doing. Logging into your dashboard and seeing that customer count increase is certainly a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv offers four various pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (cost-free) Launch plan provides you everything you need to begin and grow your newsletter (approximately 2,500 subscribers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) gives you everything in the Launch plan with the addition the advertisement network, referral program, custom-made domain name, surveys, and access to costs registrations. This is the plan I am on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) provides you everything in the Grow plan with enhancement of top priority support and getting rid of the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are fairly generous in my viewpoint.
For example, if you have 100,000 clients you will pay around $329 each month. Rather than some rivals, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would certainly bill $679 per month for the same quantity– making beehiiv a terrific Kit option for several customers.
I’m unsure exactly how the unit economics work on this, yet beehiiv is most definitely less expensive (right now) than what it can be.
beehiiv pros and cons
Of course, with every system, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Below are some of the benefits and drawbacks I have actually personally experienced while utilizing beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Right here 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 modern-day subscriber analytics.
Great deals of adaptability with email styles.
Referral program feature.
Web site hosting.
Create premium alternatives to generate income from.
Polls.
To be straightforward, I have not seen one more e-newsletter system that has had the ability to package every one of these features together so well.
But of course, I do not want to be prejudiced so I’m going to point out some cons.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Below are several of the cons I have actually located while making use of beehiiv:.
Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around including custom-made fonts.
I use Webflow as my web site structure platform of option (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a long time ago). I’m not mosting likely to go in way too much detail why I enjoy Webflow a lot yet you can read my Webflow review if you wish to learn more.
Right now, there actually is no other method I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow web site besides making use of an iframe embed. I directly don’t like using iframe’s due to the fact that they have a tendency to decrease my website a bit. Every time a page on my site (with a beehiiv installed) loads, the sign-up embed is the last thing to load on the web page. It’s really noticeable when you’re on a slow-moving web connection. Yet I can navigate that.
The primary gripe I have is that I can’t use a routine Webflow form (which I like using). There are means around this by using a tool like Zapier yet that would simply include added prices that I do not need. To be straightforward, this is even more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv con but I thought I would certainly mention it.
Besides that, I still think the pros much outweigh the disadvantages here. I’m also confident that Webflow will eventually produce a better means to incorporate with beehiiv.
Conclusion
Generally, beehiiv is a wonderful remedy for anyone seeking to study the globe of e-mail marketing and e-newsletters.
The capability of this e-newsletter platform much exceeds many that are currently on the marketplace. And with a generous free plan, you really have absolutely nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are likewise relatively low-cost for what they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 subscribers on your listing is unprecedented. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k clients, and all of these features beehiiv has, it might cost you well into the thousands per month.
Anyways, I don’t compose review posts frequently. I only do when I actually use the device myself and would certainly suggest it to a close friend.
I wish you found some clearness on whether or not beehiiv is a good system for you.