Over 2 years ago, I was reading among my favored email newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo for the very first time. I clicked it and immediately started wrecking Generative AI Beehiiv.
I wasn’t certain why I felt so psychological.
Being a full time maker is difficult. I’m frequently obtaining pitched various devices and solutions that do not seem to be worth my time.
I presume I was psychological since I invested the last six months trying out different e-mail and newsletter platforms to aid develop my newsletter. And to be fair, there are some terrific alternatives for composing newsletters. But I couldn’t locate one that made me give a precise “yes”.
The issue with several existing newsletter platforms is that they do not feel creator-centered. I desire an e-newsletter system that lets me fully customize my e-newsletter layouts, makes it very easy to compose and send e-mails, and gives me devices that assist me evaluate metrics and get more clients.
I think I have actually finally discovered the right device.
However, I recognize beehiiv may not be for every person. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s actually appropriate 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, compose, send out, promote, generate income from, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Developed by previous employees at the famous e-newsletter firm Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to aid developers launch and monetize their very own newsletter– taking great deals of growth concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M customers.
In this article, I’m going to describe my individual experience with beehiiv, the things I like (and hate) regarding it, all of it’s features, and why I determined to finally opt for it as my e-newsletter platform of choice.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A few months back, I accidentally came across beehiiv. The amusing story is that I have actually been on the lookout for a modern-day newsletter system for fairly a long time now. I’ve hesitated hard when it came to finally releasing my e-newsletter.
First, I tried Mailchimp. After that, a couple of other indie systems. Then, Substack. And ultimately, I ended up using beehiiv.
I make certain numerous newsletter developers respect popular newsletters with millions of customers– I understand I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I looked up to a lot. They have wonderful web content, tons of subscribers, and a creative referral program that enables them to get even extra customers.
So, I went on a search to determine just how these large e-newsletters established their logistics. What platform do they utilize? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they obtain even more clients? How do they develop a newsletter layout that stays on-brand?
When I uncovered beehiiv for the first time, it seemed to address every one of my inquiries. I thought to myself, “damn individuals that constructed this tool actually recognize newsletter development and development.” I questioned who these designers of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were some of the initial marketing and growth employees at Morning Brew– my mind exploded.
I understood this was going to be a various newsletter platform. One that’s focused on maker development.
Because, any kind of creator understands, you require development to be able to make a living off of an e-newsletter. And discovering the right e-newsletter stack (that ranges) usually means utilizing several various devices to assist accomplish one goal– one platform for your e-newsletter, one system to generate income from, and one system to set up recommendations. It can get pricey.
So when I found out beehiiv did every one of these things in one system, and it was totally free to start using, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean content developer that desires a platform that allows them to send out custom-made newsletters with or without needing to have a website.
The most successful e-newsletters have the right tools to build and scale their newsletters. beehiiv targets at providing you those tools.
If you’re an independent author, media company, startup, or material developer, you should seriously considering trying beehiiv. It’s absolutely free to start and you only pay when you reach over 2,500 customers on your list.
If you actually end up needing to pay for beehiiv it’s most likely a good indication that individuals like reading your stuff.
beehiiv vs Substack
You might be asking, “isn’t there currently a system for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, yes there is. Substack is a great system made use of by hundreds of independent authors. With Substack you obtain your very own site and utilize the platform 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 growth. beehiiv permits you do to all things Substack can do, with the advantage of far better analytics, more layout flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing clients to get words out.
beehiiv also gives you a website similar to Substack. Yet, if you have your own internet site already, you can also use beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I utilize) to send your web site subscribers straight to your beehiiv email checklist. On the exact same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a tool like Performance to permit individuals to register for your e-newsletter directly from Twitter.
This offers you the flexibility to utilize various marketing networks to obtain your newsletter out right into the globe, making beehiiv a terrific Substack choice.
Exactly how to begin using beehiiv email marketing software.
Register for a free plan
The primary step is to register for a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Beginning trial” switch on beehiiv’s web site.
The free plan will enable you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, give you accessibility to internet site hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, advance personalization, analytics, exterior embed kinds, and much more. It’s a very charitable offering for those just starting (or for those trying to find a brand-new platform to migrate to).
Onboarding Generative AI Beehiiv
After producing an account, you’ll experience an onboarding process that will ask things like, “is this your first newsletter?”, “what other systems have you utilized?”, “do you have any kind of paying customers?”, and extra.
You’ll then produce a name and link for your e-newsletter’s internet site. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will certainly live on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your website link could be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding process, you’ll additionally choose your brand name colors and design to make sure your e-newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your dashboard
As soon as you reach your primary dashboard, you’ll see every one of your analytics and setups.
You will certainly have outlined info on how many sign-ups you’re obtaining and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see alternatives for “Start composing,” “Posts,” “Target market,” “Grow,” “Generate income from,” “Design,” and” Analyze.” And at the really bottom you’ll see the settings choice.
Control panel is your main control center (screenshot over), Start composing is where you create and publish newsletters, Messages is where you can see every one of your previous newsletter editions, Target market is where you can watch who your clients are (and break them down right into sections), Expand is where you have access 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, Design is where you create your newsletter landing page and article template, Assess is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can take care of all of your admin things.
Composing your newsletter
beehiiv makes it easy to start writing, with little to no rubbing. If you’re just starting, and have an idea you want to cover, I advise just going to the “Write” section in the navbar and clicking “Start composing”.
You can modify your template and styling later– concentrate on the content first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor provides a tidy and straightforward user interface for writing.
Once you begin composing, you can maximize headings, add links, and design your web content exactly how you like.
beehiiv offers you lots of options for different sorts of content like videos, links, photos, and extra.
The team at beehiiv is likewise constantly launching item feature and updates so I make sure there will certainly be a whole lot more material features depending on when you read this.
Maximizing your setups and templates
Once you have an e-newsletter that’s ready to send, it’s time to make your e-mail template and readjust some setups.
Right here, you can update the name of your e-newsletter, provide it a summary, add your logo, activate or off a welcome e-mail to very first time customers, and a lot more.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can modify history shades, boundaries, spacing, fonts, photo layouts, and more. I’m not going to go through ever before single thing you can optimize with your email template since it’s a whole lot. Just experiment with the system completely free and see it on your own!
Necessary beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of fantastic features that make it an excellent posting system for any kind of newsletter developer.
Below are a few of the crucial features you can locate with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter publishing system. It makes it extremely easy to create and send e-mails. I stated above some of the important things you can do with your settings and email layout so I’ll save you some extra reading.
The important things to note with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has an actually modern-day and minimalistic feel. It’s absolutely one of the far better e-mail editors I’ve ever written in.
Internet site hosting
When you produce a beehiiv e-newsletter, all of your e-newsletters (if you want) live on a site. Think about it as a website for your newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous issues of your newsletter, and a location where people can register for your newsletter.
If you recognize with Substack, it’s virtually comparable to that.
All plans, consisting of the complimentary one, provide you a website. However, the free plan places your internet site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you wish to add a personalized domain name to get rid of all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining customers is essential. After all, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can sign up for your newsletter directly from your beehiiv web site or with embed types.
If you currently have a site, and want people to sign up for your e-newsletter from your existing website, you’ll need to make use of an embed type. This is what I make use of on this web 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 3 various alternatives– a full size, a fixed size, and a slim installed. I directly use the slim embed.
You can locate the code fragment for these embeds in the “Subscribe Types” tab in your setups.
There’s likewise a choice for acknowledgment monitoring if you want to forward UTM criteria for tracking objectives– rather cool.
Nevertheless, there are a couple of features I desire beehiiv had when it came to subscribe features. I make certain the group is working with updates for these, yet I pointed out a couple of issues I had in the advantages and disadvantages section listed below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things about beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter system, is a remedy for creating a referral program.
You can motivate existing customers on your list to onward your e-mails to buddies and colleagues and if they obtain other people to subscribe to your list, you can compensate them. These benefits can be in whatever kind you desire. I have actually seem several e-newsletter firms provide incentives in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously turn your customers right into a word of mouth development engine for your newsletter– providing you an additional avenue for growing your e-mail list.
However, to obtain accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll need to update to an extra superior plan. I’ll go over all the plans later on in this article.
Premium registrations
They say all you need to make a living online is 1,000 true followers. Subscription revenue is most definitely a monster of its own. If you’re searching for a platform to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can create “premium” issues of your e-newsletter that are only sent out to paying clients. This can be extremely profitable depending upon what your newsletter needs to offer. As an example, Trends.co is a preferred costs e-newsletter that produces millions in earnings a year merely by having pay-only e-newsletter web content.
Information analytics
Among the important things I like regarding beehiiv is how clean and straightforward the analytics are. You get real-time day on just how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and client count Generative AI Beehiiv.
You get access to all the metrics you need to get a bird-eye view on just how your newsletter is really doing. Logging into your control panel and seeing that subscriber count rise is absolutely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv provides 4 various pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (cost-free) Launch plan gives you every little thing you require to begin and expand your newsletter (approximately 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, customized domain name, polls, and accessibility to premium subscriptions. This is the plan I am on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) gives you every little thing in the Grow plan with addition of priority assistance and getting rid of the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are rather generous in my viewpoint.
For instance, if you have 100,000 clients you will pay around $329 per month. As opposed to some competitors, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would charge $679 each month for the same amount– making beehiiv a wonderful Kit choice for lots of customers.
I’m uncertain just how the system business economics work on this, yet beehiiv is certainly more affordable (presently) than what it can be.
beehiiv benefits and drawbacks
Certainly, with every platform, it has its pros and cons. Below are several of the pros and cons I have actually personally experienced while making use of beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Here are a few of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter platform of choice:
Easy to set up and start sending e-newsletters totally free.
Tidy and modern subscriber analytics.
Lots of versatility with e-mail styles.
Referral program feature.
Site hosting.
Create premium options to monetize.
Polls.
To be honest, I haven’t seen another e-newsletter system that has had the ability to package all of these features with each other so well.
Yet certainly, I don’t want to be prejudiced so I’m going to point out some cons.
Cons of using beehiiv
Here are some of the cons I’ve discovered while utilizing beehiiv:.
Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around adding custom-made fonts.
I utilize Webflow as my site structure platform of option (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a very long time ago). I’m not going to enter way too much detail why I love Webflow a lot however you can review my Webflow testimonial if you want to learn more.
Right now, there really is no other method I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow internet site other than making use of an iframe embed. I directly do not such as utilizing iframe’s due to the fact that they have a tendency to slow down my internet site a little bit. Every single time a web page on my website (with a beehiiv embed) tons, the sign-up installed is the last point to pack on the page. It’s extremely visible when you’re on a slow net connection. However I can get around that.
The major complaint I have is that I can’t use a normal Webflow kind (which I love using). There are methods around this by using a device like Zapier but that would certainly simply include added prices that I don’t need. To be straightforward, this is even more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv disadvantage however I assumed I would certainly discuss it.
Besides that, I still think the pros much surpass the disadvantages below. I’m also confident that Webflow will eventually develop a far better way to incorporate with beehiiv.
Final Thought
On the whole, beehiiv is a fantastic service for any person seeking to dive into the world of email marketing and e-newsletters.
The functionality of this newsletter system far outweighs many that are currently on the market. And with a generous free plan, you truly have absolutely nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are additionally relatively low-cost wherefore they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 subscribers on your checklist is uncommon. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k subscribers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it can cost you well right into the thousands per month.
Anyways, I do not create evaluation articles typically. I only do when I really utilize the tool myself and would advise it to a friend.
I hope you found some clarity on whether or not beehiiv is a great platform for you.