Over two years earlier, I was reading one of my preferred email e-newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the e-mail and saw the beehiiv logo for the very first time. I clicked it and instantly began tearing up Female Startup Club Beehiiv.
I had not been sure why I felt so emotional.
Being a full time developer is difficult. I’m typically getting pitched various tools and solutions that do not seem to be worth my time.
I think I was psychological due to the fact that I invested the last 6 months trying various email and newsletter systems to help construct my e-newsletter. And to be fair, there are some wonderful alternatives for composing newsletters. But I couldn’t locate one that made me offer a definite “yes”.
The problem with several existing newsletter platforms is that they don’t feel creator-centered. I desire an e-newsletter system that lets me fully personalize my newsletter styles, makes it super easy to compose and send emails, and offers me devices that assist me analyze metrics and get even more clients.
I assume I have actually finally found the best tool.
However, I understand beehiiv might not be for everyone. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s actually 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 style, compose, send out, promote, generate income from, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Developed by previous staff members at the famous e-newsletter company Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to assist makers launch and monetize their very own newsletter– taking lots of development concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M customers.
In this article, I’m mosting likely to describe my individual experience with beehiiv, the important things I enjoy (and hate) about it, all of it’s features, and why I made a decision to lastly choose it as my newsletter platform of option.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A few months back, I accidentally stumbled across beehiiv. The amusing tale is that I’ve watched for a modern newsletter system for fairly time now. I have actually procrastinated hard when it pertained to lastly introducing my e-newsletter.
Initially, I tried Mailchimp. After that, a few other indie platforms. After that, Substack. And lastly, I ended up utilizing beehiiv.
I make sure many e-newsletter designers appreciate popular newsletters with countless subscribers– I understand I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I respected a whole lot. They have fantastic web content, tons of subscribers, and a brilliant referral program that allows them to get even much more clients.
So, I went on a hunt to determine exactly how these large e-newsletters set up their logistics. What platform do they make use of? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they obtain even more subscribers? How do they create a newsletter design that stays on-brand?
When I found beehiiv for the first time, it appeared to address all of my inquiries. I thought to myself, “damn the people that developed this tool actually comprehend e-newsletter development and growth.” I examined who these makers of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were some of the first marketing and growth staff members at Morning Brew– my brain blew up.
I recognized this was mosting likely to be a different newsletter system. One that’s concentrated on developer development.
Due to the fact that, any designer understands, you need growth to be able to earn a living off of a newsletter. And discovering the ideal newsletter stack (that ranges) usually indicates utilizing numerous various devices to aid attain one objective– one platform for your newsletter, one platform to generate income from, and one system to establish references. It can get costly.
So when I figured out beehiiv did all of these points in one system, and it was cost-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 maker that wants a platform that enables them to send out personalized newsletters with or without needing to have a web site.
One of the most successful newsletters have the right devices to build and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv aims at providing you those devices.
If you’re an independent writer, media firm, start-up, or web content developer, you ought to seriously considering checking out beehiiv. It’s completely cost-free to get going and you just pay when you reach over 2,500 subscribers on your checklist.
If you actually wind up having to spend for beehiiv it’s probably a great sign that individuals like reviewing your things.
beehiiv vs Substack
You may be asking, “isn’t there currently a platform for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, indeed there is. Substack is a wonderful system utilized by thousands of independent writers. With Substack you obtain your own website and use the platform as your all-in-one option for sending out e-mails (while creating an archive of previous concerns).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s commitment to growth. beehiiv permits you do to all the important 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 also offers you an internet site similar to Substack. Yet, if you have your own internet site currently, you can additionally make use of beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I use) to send your web site customers directly to your beehiiv email checklist. On the exact same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a device like Revue to allow people to sign up for your newsletter directly from Twitter.
This offers you the adaptability to utilize different marketing channels to get your newsletter out into the world, making beehiiv a fantastic Substack alternative.
Just how to begin using beehiiv email marketing software.
Sign up for a free plan
The primary step is to enroll in a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Beginning trial” button on beehiiv’s site.
The free plan will allow you to have up to 2,500 clients, offer you access to web site hosting, a newsletter CMS, breakthrough customization, analytics, external embed kinds, and more. It’s a really generous offering for those just starting (or for those trying to find a new platform to move to).
Onboarding Female Startup Club Beehiiv
After producing an account, you’ll experience an onboarding procedure that will ask things like, “is this your very first e-newsletter?”, “what other systems have you utilized?”, “do you have any kind of paying subscribers?”, and extra.
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 newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your website URL might be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding procedure, you’ll likewise select your brand design and colors to make sure your newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your dashboard
Once you reach your primary dashboard, you’ll see all of your analytics and settings.
You will certainly have detailed details on the amount of sign-ups you’re getting and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see choices for “Start creating,” “Posts,” “Target market,” “Expand,” “Generate income from,” “Design,” and” Examine.” And at the extremely bottom you’ll see the setups option.
Control panel is your major nerve center (screenshot over), Start writing is where you develop and publish newsletters, Blog posts is where you can see all of your previous newsletter editions, Target market is where you can see who your customers are (and damage them down right into sections), Expand is where you have accessibility to a referral program (and growth tutorials) and boosts to run ads, Monetize is where you can access the beehiiv ad network and monetize your e-newsletter with advertisements, Style is where you design your e-newsletter landing page and blog post template, Examine is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can manage every one of your admin stuff.
Composing your newsletter
beehiiv makes it simple to start writing, with little to no rubbing. If you’re simply starting out, and have a concept you intend to cover, I suggest just mosting likely to the “Compose” section in the navbar and clicking “Beginning creating”.
You can tweak your template and styling later– concentrate on the material initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor provides a tidy and straightforward interface for writing.
When you start writing, you can maximize headings, include links, and style your material exactly how you like.
beehiiv offers you tons of choices for various kinds of content like videos, web links, pictures, and a lot more.
The team at beehiiv is also regularly releasing product feature and updates so I’m sure there will certainly be a great deal much more material features depending upon when you read this.
Maximizing your settings and templates
Once you have an e-newsletter that prepares to send out, it’s time to make your e-mail template and readjust some setups.
Here, you can update the name of your e-newsletter, offer it a description, add your logo design, activate or off a welcome e-mail to first time clients, and extra.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can edit history colors, boundaries, spacing, fonts, photo layouts, and much more. I’m not mosting likely to undergo ever solitary thing you can optimize with your e-mail template due to the fact that it’s a great deal. Simply try out the system free of charge and see it for yourself!
Important beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of outstanding features that make it a great publishing platform for any newsletter maker.
Right here are several of the essential features you can locate with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter publishing system. It makes it super very easy to write and send emails. I discussed over a few of things you can do with your setups and email style so I’ll spare you some extra analysis.
Things to note with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has a really contemporary and minimalistic feeling. It’s most definitely one of the much better email editors I have actually ever written in.
Web site hosting
When you develop a beehiiv newsletter, every one of your e-newsletters (if you desire) survive on a website. Consider it as an internet site for your e-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’re familiar with Substack, it’s basically comparable to that.
All plans, consisting of the totally free one, offer you a site. Nonetheless, the free plan locations your web site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you intend to include a custom domain to eliminate all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting customers is important. Besides, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can subscribe to your newsletter straight from your beehiiv website or via embed forms.
If you already have an internet site, and desire individuals to subscribe to your newsletter from your existing site, you’ll need to utilize an embed kind. This is what I use on this site (you can see the sign-up embed on the right-hand man column of this article if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have three different options– a complete size, a dealt with width, and a slim installed. I personally make use of the slim embed.
You can find the code snippet for these embeds in the “Subscribe Kinds” tab in your setups.
There’s also an alternative for attribution monitoring if you intend to ahead UTM specifications for tracking objectives– quite neat.
Nevertheless, there are a few features I want beehiiv had when it concerned subscribe features. I make sure the group is dealing with updates for these, but I pointed out a couple of worries I had in the benefits and drawbacks section listed below.
Referral program
Among the amazing things about beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter platform, is a remedy for creating a referral program.
You can urge existing customers on your list to forward your e-mails to close friends and coworkers 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’ve appear lots of e-newsletter business offer incentives in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously turn your subscribers right into a word of mouth growth engine for your e-newsletter– providing you another method for expanding your e-mail listing.
Nonetheless, to obtain access to the referral program feature, you’ll have to upgrade to a much more premium plan. I’ll review all the plans later on in this article.
Costs memberships
They state all you need to earn a living online is 1,000 true followers. Registration revenue is most definitely a monster of its own. If you’re seeking a system to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can produce “costs” issues of your newsletter that are only sent to paying subscribers. This can be very financially rewarding depending on what your newsletter has to provide. For instance, Trends.co is a prominent costs e-newsletter that produces millions in income a year just by having pay-only e-newsletter web content.
Information analytics
One of the important things I enjoy about beehiiv is exactly how clean and easy the analytics are. You get real-time day on just how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and customer count Female Startup Club Beehiiv.
You get accessibility to all the metrics you need to get a bird-eye sight on how your newsletter is in fact doing. Logging right into your dashboard and seeing that subscriber count rise is most definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv uses 4 various pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (complimentary) Launch plan gives you whatever you need to begin and grow your e-newsletter (approximately 2,500 customers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) gives you whatever in the Launch plan with the addition the advertisement 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 every little thing in the Grow plan with addition of concern assistance and eliminating the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are rather generous in my viewpoint.
For instance, if you have 100,000 customers you will pay around $329 monthly. In contrast to some competitors, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would certainly bill $679 per month for the very same quantity– making beehiiv a wonderful Kit choice for lots of customers.
I’m not sure just how the system economics work with this, yet beehiiv is most definitely less expensive (currently) than what it can be.
beehiiv benefits and drawbacks
Of course, with every system, it has its pros and cons. Right here are several of the benefits and drawbacks I’ve personally experienced while making use of beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Here are several of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter platform of choice:
Easy to set up and begin sending newsletters totally free.
Clean and contemporary subscriber analytics.
Great deals of flexibility with email layouts.
Referral program feature.
Website hosting.
Produce costs choices to monetize.
Polls.
To be straightforward, I haven’t seen another newsletter system that has been able to package all of these features with each other so well.
Yet naturally, I don’t wish to be prejudiced so I’m mosting likely to discuss some cons.
Cons of using beehiiv
Below are some of the disadvantages I have actually found while utilizing beehiiv:.
Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around adding personalized fonts.
I use Webflow as my site building system of choice (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a very long time ago). I’m not going to go in too much detail why I love Webflow a lot however you can review my Webflow evaluation if you wish to discover more.
Today, there really is nothing else method I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow website other than utilizing an iframe embed. I directly do not such as making use of iframe’s due to the fact that they often tend to slow down my site a little bit. Whenever a web page on my site (with a beehiiv installed) loads, the sign-up embed is the last point to load on the page. It’s very visible when you get on a slow-moving internet link. But I can get around that.
The major complaint I have is that I can’t use a regular Webflow form (which I like utilizing). There are means around this by using a device like Zapier but that would certainly just include extra costs that I don’t need. To be sincere, this is more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv disadvantage but I assumed I would discuss it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros far exceed the disadvantages here. I’m additionally hopeful that Webflow will at some point produce a better way to incorporate with beehiiv.
Verdict
Overall, beehiiv is a fantastic option for any individual aiming to study the globe of email marketing and e-newsletters.
The performance of this e-newsletter platform much surpasses several that are currently on the marketplace. And with a charitable free plan, you truly have nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are also fairly low-cost wherefore they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 subscribers on your listing is uncommon. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k customers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it could cost you well into the thousands per month.
Anyways, I do not write testimonial articles usually. I just do when I really make use of the device myself and would advise it to a close friend.
I hope you discovered some clarity on whether or not beehiiv is a good platform for you.