Over 2 years ago, I was reading among my favorite e-mail e-newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo design for the very first time. I clicked it and promptly started destroying Fynch Beehiiv.
I had not been sure why I really felt so psychological.
Being a full time maker is tough. I’m typically obtaining pitched various tools and services that don’t appear to be worth my time.
I presume I was psychological due to the fact that I spent the last six months experimenting with various email and newsletter platforms to help build my e-newsletter. And to be fair, there are some great choices for writing e-newsletters. However I couldn’t locate one that made me offer a guaranteed “yes”.
The issue with lots of existing e-newsletter platforms is that they don’t feel creator-centered. I desire a newsletter platform that lets me totally tailor my newsletter layouts, makes it super simple to compose and send out e-mails, and offers me devices that aid me examine metrics and obtain even more subscribers.
I assume I’ve finally located the best device.
But, I understand beehiiv may 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 platform for newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter system that makes it simple to layout, write, send, advertise, monetize, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Produced by previous employees at the popular e-newsletter firm Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to aid makers launch and monetize their own e-newsletter– taking great deals of growth principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M clients.
In this post, I’m going to explain my personal experience with beehiiv, the important things I love (and hate) about it, all of it’s features, and why I decided to ultimately select it as my newsletter system of selection.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A few months ago, I inadvertently stumbled across beehiiv. The funny story is that I’ve watched for a modern-day e-newsletter platform for quite some time currently. I’ve hesitated hard when it came to ultimately launching my newsletter.
Initially, I tried Mailchimp. Then, a couple of other indie systems. After that, Substack. And lastly, I ended up using beehiiv.
I’m sure several newsletter makers look up to popular e-newsletters with countless subscribers– I recognize I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I respected a great deal. They have excellent content, lots of clients, and a smart referral program that allows them to get even much more subscribers.
So, I went on a search to identify just how these big newsletters established 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 customers? How do they create a newsletter layout that remains on-brand?
When I discovered beehiiv for the first time, it seemed to respond to every one of my inquiries. I believed to myself, “damn the people that built this tool truly understand newsletter development and development.” I questioned who these makers of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were a few of the first marketing and growth employees at Morning Brew– my mind blew up.
I understood this was going to be a various e-newsletter platform. One that’s concentrated on maker development.
Because, any type of designer recognizes, you need development to be able to earn a living off of an e-newsletter. And locating the appropriate e-newsletter stack (that ranges) often implies making use of several different devices to help accomplish one objective– one platform for your e-newsletter, one platform to generate income from, and one platform to set up references. It can get costly.
So when I learnt beehiiv did every one of these things in one platform, and it was complimentary to start utilizing, it was a piece of cake to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean content creator that desires a system that enables them to send custom newsletters with or without needing to have a website.
One of the most successful newsletters have the right devices to construct and scale their newsletters. beehiiv targets at offering you those tools.
If you’re an independent writer, media company, start-up, or material designer, you should seriously taking into consideration trying out beehiiv. It’s entirely cost-free to get going and you just pay when you reach over 2,500 subscribers on your checklist.
If you really end up needing to spend for beehiiv it’s most likely a good sign that individuals like reviewing your stuff.
beehiiv vs Substack
You might be asking, “isn’t there already a system for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, yes there is. Substack is an excellent platform made use of by thousands of independent authors. With Substack you obtain your very own web site and utilize the platform as your all-in-one solution for sending e-mails (while creating an archive of previous issues).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s devotion to development. beehiiv allows you do to all things Substack can do, with the advantage of far better analytics, even more style flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing subscribers to obtain the word out.
beehiiv likewise offers you a web site comparable to Substack. However, if you have your very own website currently, you can likewise use beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I use) to send your website subscribers straight to your beehiiv e-mail list. On the same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a device like Performance to permit individuals to sign up for your e-newsletter directly from Twitter.
This gives you the versatility to leverage various marketing channels to get your newsletter out right into the world, making beehiiv an excellent Substack choice.
Just how to start making use of beehiiv email marketing software program.
Enroll in a free plan
The initial step is to register for a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Start trial” button on beehiiv’s internet site.
The free plan will allow you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, provide you accessibility to internet site hosting, a newsletter CMS, development modification, analytics, outside embed forms, and extra. It’s an extremely charitable offering for those just beginning (or for those seeking a new system to move to).
Onboarding Fynch Beehiiv
After developing an account, you’ll experience an onboarding procedure that will ask points like, “is this your initial newsletter?”, “what other platforms 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 web site. On the free plan, your newsletter will survive on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your website link may be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding procedure, you’ll also select your brand design and colors to make sure your e-newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your dashboard
As soon as you reach your major dashboard, you’ll see every one of your analytics and settings.
You will have detailed details on the number of sign-ups you’re obtaining and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see choices for “Beginning creating,” “Posts,” “Audience,” “Grow,” “Generate income from,” “Style,” and” Analyze.” And at the really lower you’ll see the settings alternative.
Control panel is your major control center (screenshot over), Start creating is where you create and release e-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 damage them down right into segments), Grow 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 newsletter with ads, Style is where you make your newsletter landing page and article template, Examine is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can manage all of your admin stuff.
Creating your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it simple to start writing, with little to no friction. If you’re just beginning, and have a concept you wish to discuss, I advise just mosting likely to the “Create” area in the navbar and clicking “Start writing”.
You can tweak your template and designing later on– concentrate on the material initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor uses a tidy and user-friendly interface for creating.
When you start creating, you can optimize headings, add links, and design your content exactly how you such as.
beehiiv offers you tons of options for different kinds of content like video clips, links, photos, and much more.
The group at beehiiv is also continuously launching item feature and updates so I make certain there will be a lot more material features relying on when you’re reading this.
Optimizing your settings and templates
When you have a newsletter that’s ready to send, it’s time to create your email template and readjust some settings.
Here, you can upgrade the name of your newsletter, provide it a summary, include your logo, switch on or off a welcome e-mail to first time clients, and a lot more.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your design.
You can modify history shades, boundaries, spacing, font styles, photo layouts, and a lot more. I’m not going to undergo ever before single point you can optimize with your e-mail template because it’s a great deal. Just experiment with the platform totally free and see it for yourself!
Crucial beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of amazing features that make it a terrific publishing platform for any e-newsletter creator.
Right here are some of the necessary features you can find with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter publishing system. It makes it extremely very easy to write and send out emails. I stated above some of the things you can do with your setups and e-mail design so I’ll spare you some extra analysis.
Things to note with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has a really modern-day and minimalistic feeling. It’s absolutely among the much better e-mail editors I’ve ever before written in.
Website hosting
When you develop a beehiiv newsletter, all of your newsletters (if you desire) survive on a web site. Think of it as a web site for your e-newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous issues of your newsletter, and a place where individuals can register for your newsletter.
If you recognize with Substack, it’s pretty much comparable to that.
All plans, consisting of the totally free one, give you a web site. However, the free plan places your web site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you want to add a custom domain to get rid of all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining subscribers is necessary. Besides, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can subscribe to your newsletter straight from your beehiiv site or through embed kinds.
If you currently have a web site, and desire people to sign up for your e-newsletter from your existing website, you’ll have to utilize an embed type. This is what I utilize 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 types, you have 3 different alternatives– a complete width, a fixed size, and a slim embed. I personally use the slim embed.
You can find the code snippet for these embeds in the “Subscribe Kinds” tab in your settings.
There’s likewise an alternative for attribution tracking if you intend to ahead UTM parameters for tracking objectives– pretty neat.
However, there are a few features I desire beehiiv had when it concerned subscribe features. I’m sure the team is servicing updates for these, however I discussed a couple of issues I had in the benefits and drawbacks area below.
Referral program
Among the amazing things regarding beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter system, is a solution for producing a referral program.
You can urge existing clients on your checklist to ahead your emails to close friends and associates and if they get other people to sign up for your listing, you can reward them. These rewards can be in whatever kind you desire. I’ve appear lots of e-newsletter firms give rewards in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously turn your subscribers right into a word of mouth development engine for your e-newsletter– offering you one more avenue for growing your e-mail checklist.
Nonetheless, to obtain accessibility 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 write-up.
Costs memberships
They claim all you need to make a living online is 1,000 real fans. Membership revenue is certainly a monster of its very own. If you’re looking for a system to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can create “premium” problems of your newsletter that are just sent out to paying subscribers. This can be extremely profitable depending on what your e-newsletter needs to provide. For instance, Trends.co is a popular costs e-newsletter that produces millions in revenue a year merely by having pay-only e-newsletter material.
Information analytics
Among things I enjoy concerning beehiiv is exactly how tidy and straightforward the analytics are. You obtain real-time date on just how your newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and customer matter Fynch Beehiiv.
You obtain access to all the metrics you require to get a bird-eye sight on just how your newsletter is really doing. Logging right into your control panel and seeing that customer matter rise is certainly a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv offers four different pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (free) Launch plan offers you everything you require to start and expand your e-newsletter (as much as 2,500 customers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) gives you every little thing in the Launch plan with the addition the advertisement network, referral program, custom domain name, polls, 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 addition of top priority assistance and removing the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are rather generous in my point of view.
For instance, if you have 100,000 subscribers you will pay around $329 per month. In contrast to some rivals, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would certainly charge $679 each month for the same quantity– making beehiiv an excellent Kit choice for numerous individuals.
I’m uncertain how the unit economics deal with this, however beehiiv is absolutely less costly (at the moment) than what it can be.
beehiiv benefits and drawbacks
Naturally, with every system, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Right here are some of the pros and cons I have actually directly experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Right here are some of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter platform of option:
Easy to set up and begin sending newsletters completely free.
Clean and modern-day client analytics.
Lots of versatility with email layouts.
Referral program feature.
Internet site hosting.
Create premium choices to monetize.
Polls.
To be sincere, I haven’t seen one more e-newsletter platform that has actually had the ability to package all of these features with each other so well.
However of course, I do not intend to be prejudiced so I’m mosting likely to discuss some disadvantages.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Right here are a few of the cons I’ve found while making use of beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around including personalized typefaces.
I use Webflow as my site structure system of choice (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a very long time ago). I’m not mosting likely to enter excessive detail why I love Webflow so much however you can read my Webflow testimonial if you want to learn more.
Right now, there really is nothing else method I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow web site apart from making use of an iframe embed. I directly do not such as making use of iframe’s since they often tend to slow down my web site a little bit. Every single time a page on my site (with a beehiiv installed) loads, the sign-up installed is the last thing to load on the page. It’s very obvious when you get on a slow web connection. However I can navigate that.
The primary complaint I have is that I can not make use of a regular Webflow kind (which I like utilizing). There are methods around this by utilizing a device like Zapier however that would simply add added expenses that I don’t need. To be straightforward, this is more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv disadvantage but I believed I would state it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros far exceed the cons below. I’m likewise enthusiastic that Webflow will ultimately create a better method to incorporate with beehiiv.
Verdict
Overall, beehiiv is a great option for anybody aiming to dive into the world of e-mail marketing and e-newsletters.
The performance of this e-newsletter platform far exceeds numerous that are currently on the market. And with a generous free plan, you really have absolutely nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are likewise rather inexpensive of what they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 customers on your checklist is unusual. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k clients, and all of these features beehiiv has, it might cost you well right into the thousands per month.
Anyways, I do not compose review blog posts commonly. I just do when I really use the tool myself and would certainly recommend it to a good friend.
I hope you located some clarity on whether or not beehiiv is a great platform for you.