Over two years earlier, I was reading one of my preferred e-mail 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 began tearing up Frame and Flame Beehiiv.
I had not been certain why I really felt so emotional.
Being a full-time developer is tough. I’m often getting pitched various devices and solutions that don’t appear to be worth my time.
I guess I was psychological since I spent the last six months experimenting with various email and newsletter systems to aid develop my newsletter. And to be fair, there are some great alternatives for composing e-newsletters. But I couldn’t locate one that made me offer a precise “yes”.
The problem with lots of existing newsletter systems is that they do not really feel creator-centered. I want an e-newsletter system that lets me totally customize my newsletter styles, makes it incredibly very easy to create and send out emails, and offers me devices that assist me examine metrics and obtain more customers.
I assume I have actually ultimately located the best tool.
Yet, I know beehiiv might not be for everyone. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s in fact best for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one system for newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly e-newsletter system that makes it very easy to layout, create, send out, advertise, monetize, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Produced by previous employees at the well-known newsletter business Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to help makers launch and monetize their very own e-newsletter– taking great deals of development principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M clients.
In this write-up, I’m going to describe my personal experience with beehiiv, things I like (and hate) regarding it, all of it’s features, and why I determined to finally choose it as my newsletter platform of choice.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A couple of months ago, I unintentionally stumbled across beehiiv. The amusing tale is that I have actually watched for a modern e-newsletter platform for rather time now. I’ve put things off hard when it came to lastly releasing my e-newsletter.
Initially, I tried Mailchimp. Then, a few other indie platforms. After that, Substack. And ultimately, I ended up using beehiiv.
I make sure many newsletter creators admire preferred e-newsletters with countless customers– I know I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I appreciated a whole lot. They have wonderful material, lots of clients, and a clever referral program that permits them to get back at a lot more subscribers.
So, I went on a hunt to figure out just how these huge newsletters established their logistics. What system do they make use of? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they obtain more customers? How do they create a newsletter design that remains on-brand?
When I discovered beehiiv for the first time, it appeared to respond to every one of my questions. I believed to myself, “damn individuals that built this tool truly recognize e-newsletter production and development.” I questioned who these developers of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were several of the first marketing and development workers at Morning Brew– my brain exploded.
I recognized this was mosting likely to be a various newsletter platform. One that’s focused on designer development.
Due to the fact that, any kind of maker recognizes, you require growth to be able to earn a living off of an e-newsletter. And discovering the right e-newsletter stack (that ranges) typically indicates using several various devices to aid attain one goal– one platform for your e-newsletter, one platform to monetize, and one platform to set up references. It can get expensive.
So when I found out 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 web content designer that wants a system that allows them to send custom newsletters with or without needing to have a site.
The most effective newsletters have the right devices to develop and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv targets at offering you those devices.
If you’re an independent writer, media company, start-up, or content creator, you need to seriously taking into consideration experimenting with beehiiv. It’s absolutely cost-free to start and you only pay when you get to over 2,500 customers on your checklist.
If you really end up needing to spend for beehiiv it’s probably an excellent indication that individuals enjoy reviewing your things.
beehiiv vs Substack
You may be asking, “isn’t there already a system for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, of course there is. Substack is an excellent system made use of by thousands of independent writers. With Substack you obtain your own web site and make use of the system as your all-in-one remedy for sending out e-mails (while creating an archive of previous concerns).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s commitment to development. beehiiv enables you do to all the important things Substack can do, with the advantage of better analytics, even more layout flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing clients to obtain the word out.
beehiiv also gives you an internet site similar to Substack. But, if you have your own internet site already, you can likewise make use of beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I use) to send your website subscribers directly to your beehiiv email checklist. On the very same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a device like Revue to permit individuals to sign up for your e-newsletter straight from Twitter.
This offers you the flexibility to take advantage of various marketing channels to obtain your newsletter out into the world, making beehiiv an excellent Substack alternative.
Exactly how to begin making use of beehiiv e-mail marketing software application.
Enroll in a free plan
The first step is to enroll in a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Beginning trial” switch on beehiiv’s web site.
The free plan will allow you to have up to 2,500 clients, provide you access to website hosting, a newsletter CMS, development customization, analytics, external embed types, and more. It’s a really generous offering for those just beginning (or for those trying to find a brand-new system to migrate to).
Onboarding Frame and Flame Beehiiv
After developing an account, you’ll undergo an onboarding process that will ask things like, “is this your very first e-newsletter?”, “what various other systems have you made use of?”, “do you have any kind of paying clients?”, and much more.
You’ll after that develop a name and URL for your newsletter’s internet site. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will certainly survive a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your website URL might be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding procedure, you’ll also select your brand name colors and design to ensure your newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your control panel
Once you reach your primary control panel, you’ll see every one of your analytics and settings.
You will certainly have detailed details on how many sign-ups you’re obtaining and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see options for “Begin creating,” “Blog posts,” “Target market,” “Grow,” “Monetize,” “Design,” and” Examine.” And at the very lower you’ll see the settings option.
Dashboard is your primary nerve center (screenshot over), Beginning writing is where you create and publish e-newsletters, Posts is where you can see all of your previous e-newsletter versions, Target market is where you can watch who your customers are (and break them down right into sectors), Grow is where you have accessibility 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 newsletter with ads, Style is where you develop your newsletter landing page and message template, Evaluate is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can handle every one of your admin things.
Creating your newsletter
beehiiv makes it simple to start writing, with little to no friction. If you’re simply starting out, and have a concept you want to write about, I suggest simply mosting likely to the “Write” area in the navbar and clicking “Start creating”.
You can modify your template and styling later on– focus on the content first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor supplies a tidy and user-friendly interface for writing.
As soon as you begin creating, you can maximize headings, include links, and design your web content just how you such as.
beehiiv offers you tons of alternatives for various types of content like videos, links, photos, and extra.
The team at beehiiv is likewise continuously launching item feature and updates so I make certain there will be a lot extra material features depending on when you read this.
Maximizing your settings and templates
Once you have a newsletter that’s ready to send out, it’s time to design your email template and readjust some settings.
Right here, you can update the name of your e-newsletter, provide it a summary, include your logo, activate or off a welcome e-mail to very first time subscribers, and extra.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your style.
You can modify background shades, borders, spacing, font styles, image layouts, and extra. I’m not going to go through ever single point you can maximize with your e-mail template due to the fact that it’s a great deal. Simply try the platform for free and see it on your own!
Crucial beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of amazing features that make it a great posting platform for any e-newsletter developer.
Right here are a few of the crucial features you can locate with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter publishing platform. It makes it super very easy to write and send e-mails. I pointed out above several of the important things you can do with your settings and e-mail layout so I’ll save you some additional reading.
Things to keep in mind with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has a really modern-day and minimalistic feel. It’s absolutely one of 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 e-newsletters (if you desire) survive on an internet site. Think about it as a website for your newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous concerns of your e-newsletter, and a location where individuals can sign up for your newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s practically comparable to that.
All plans, including the cost-free one, provide you a site. Nonetheless, the free plan locations your site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you intend to add a customized domain to get rid of all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting clients is essential. Besides, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can register for your e-newsletter straight from your beehiiv web site or via embed forms.
If you currently have a site, and want individuals to subscribe to your newsletter from your existing site, you’ll need to make use of an embed kind. This is what I use on this website (you can see the sign-up installed on the right-hand man column of this blog post if you scroll up).
With embed types, you have three different choices– a full width, a repaired width, and a slim embed. I directly use the slim embed.
You can discover the code fragment for these embeds in the “Subscribe Types” tab in your settings.
There’s likewise a choice for attribution monitoring if you intend to onward UTM specifications for tracking objectives– rather neat.
Nevertheless, there are a few features I desire beehiiv had when it came to subscribe features. I make certain the team is working with updates for these, but I mentioned a few problems I had in the benefits and drawbacks section listed below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things concerning 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 checklist to forward your emails to buddies and associates and if they get other people to register for your checklist, you can reward them. These incentives can be in whatever kind you desire. I have actually seem numerous e-newsletter companies give benefits in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously transform your customers right into a word of mouth growth engine for your newsletter– offering you another method for growing your email list.
However, to obtain accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll have to update to a more premium plan. I’ll review all the plans later in this post.
Premium registrations
They say all you require to make a living online is 1,000 true fans. Membership revenue is certainly a monster of its very own. If you’re seeking a system to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can produce “premium” problems of your e-newsletter that are just sent out to paying clients. This can be really profitable depending upon what your newsletter needs to provide. For example, Trends.co is a preferred costs newsletter that creates millions in profits a year simply by having pay-only e-newsletter material.
Information analytics
One of the important things I love regarding beehiiv is how tidy and straightforward the analytics are. You obtain real-time day on just how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and customer count Frame and Flame Beehiiv.
You get accessibility to all the metrics you need to get a bird-eye sight on how your e-newsletter is actually doing. Logging into your dashboard and seeing that client count go up is definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv provides four various pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (cost-free) Launch plan gives you whatever you need to get going and grow your e-newsletter (as much as 2,500 clients).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) provides you everything in the Launch plan with the enhancement the advertisement network, referral program, customized 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 enhancement of priority assistance and getting rid of the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are rather generous in my opinion.
As an example, if you have 100,000 subscribers you will pay around $329 per month. In contrast to some competitors, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would certainly charge $679 per month for the same quantity– making beehiiv a wonderful Kit alternative for many customers.
I’m unsure exactly how the system business economics work with this, but beehiiv is absolutely cheaper (at the moment) than what it can be.
beehiiv advantages and disadvantages
Certainly, with every platform, it has its pros and cons. Right here are a few of the advantages and disadvantages I’ve personally experienced while using 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 start sending e-newsletters for free.
Clean and contemporary subscriber analytics.
Lots of adaptability with email layouts.
Referral program feature.
Internet site hosting.
Create premium choices to generate income from.
Polls.
To be truthful, I have not seen one more newsletter system that has actually been able to package every one of these features together so well.
However certainly, I don’t want to be prejudiced so I’m mosting likely to mention some cons.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Here are a few of the disadvantages I’ve discovered while making use of beehiiv:.
Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around adding custom fonts.
I make use of Webflow as my web site structure platform of option (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a very long time ago). I’m not going to go in way too much detail why I like Webflow a lot but you can review my Webflow testimonial if you would love to find out more.
Right now, there truly is nothing else means I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow website besides using an iframe embed. I directly do not such as utilizing iframe’s because they tend to decrease my web site a little bit. Each time a page on my site (with a beehiiv installed) tons, the sign-up embed is the last thing to pack on the web page. It’s extremely obvious when you’re on a slow net connection. However I can navigate that.
The primary complaint I have is that I can not make use of a routine Webflow kind (which I like using). There are methods around this by using a device like Zapier yet that would certainly simply add additional expenses that I don’t require. To be truthful, this is even more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv con but I believed I would state it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros far exceed the disadvantages right here. I’m likewise confident that Webflow will ultimately create a better method to incorporate with beehiiv.
Verdict
Overall, beehiiv is a fantastic solution for any individual wanting to dive into the world of e-mail marketing and e-newsletters.
The functionality of this e-newsletter system much exceeds many that are currently on the marketplace. And with a generous free plan, you actually have nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are also rather affordable of what they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 clients on your listing is unheard of. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k customers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it might cost you well right into the thousands per month.
Anyways, I don’t compose testimonial articles commonly. I only do when I really use the tool myself and would suggest it to a friend.
I hope you found some clarity on whether beehiiv is a good system for you.