Over 2 years back, I read one of my preferred email newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo design for the very first time. I clicked on it and immediately started wrecking Ghost Vs Substack Vs Beehiiv.
I wasn’t sure why I really felt so emotional.
Being a permanent designer is difficult. I’m typically obtaining pitched different tools and solutions that do not seem to be worth my time.
I think I was emotional due to the fact that I invested the last six months trying different e-mail and e-newsletter platforms to assist develop my newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some great choices for writing e-newsletters. But I could not locate one that made me give a precise “yes”.
The problem with numerous existing newsletter systems is that they don’t feel creator-centered. I desire an e-newsletter platform that lets me fully customize my e-newsletter layouts, makes it incredibly simple to create and send emails, and gives me devices that assist me examine metrics and get even more customers.
I believe I’ve ultimately discovered the ideal device.
However, 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 e-newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter platform that makes it easy to layout, create, send out, advertise, generate income from, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Developed by previous workers at the popular e-newsletter company Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to aid creators launch and monetize their own e-newsletter– taking lots of growth principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M subscribers.
In this post, I’m mosting likely to describe my personal experience with beehiiv, the things I enjoy (and hate) concerning it, all of it’s features, and why I chose to lastly select it as my e-newsletter platform of choice.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A couple of months back, I unintentionally stumbled across beehiiv. The funny tale is that I have actually been on the lookout for a modern-day e-newsletter system for fairly time currently. I have actually procrastinated hard when it involved ultimately releasing my newsletter.
First, I attempted Mailchimp. Then, a few various other indie systems. After that, Substack. And lastly, I wound up utilizing beehiiv.
I’m sure lots of e-newsletter makers look up to prominent e-newsletters with countless customers– I know I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I appreciated a whole lot. They have fantastic content, tons of customers, and a smart referral program that allows them to get back at extra customers.
So, I took place a hunt to determine just how these large e-newsletters set up their logistics. What platform do they utilize? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they get even more clients? How do they develop a newsletter design that remains on-brand?
When I discovered beehiiv for the first time, it seemed to respond to all of my questions. I believed to myself, “damn individuals that built this device truly comprehend newsletter production and growth.” I questioned who these designers of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were some of the first marketing and development employees at Morning Brew– my brain took off.
I recognized this was mosting likely to be a various e-newsletter system. One that’s focused on designer development.
Due to the fact that, any kind of creator recognizes, you need growth to be able to make a living off of a newsletter. And locating the right e-newsletter stack (that ranges) often indicates making use of multiple different tools to assist accomplish one goal– one system for your e-newsletter, one system to generate income from, and one platform to set up references. It can get expensive.
So when I learnt beehiiv did every one of these points in one platform, and it was totally free to begin utilizing, it was a piece of cake to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean material designer that wants a platform that enables them to send out personalized newsletters with or without needing to have a site.
The most successful e-newsletters have the right devices to develop and scale their newsletters. beehiiv targets at giving you those devices.
If you’re an independent writer, media firm, startup, or web content designer, you should seriously taking into consideration trying beehiiv. It’s completely complimentary to start and you only pay when you get to over 2,500 clients on your listing.
If you actually wind up having to spend for beehiiv it’s most likely a good sign that people enjoy reviewing your stuff.
beehiiv vs Substack
You could be asking, “isn’t there currently a platform for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, of course there is. Substack is a wonderful platform made use of by hundreds of independent authors. With Substack you get your very own site and utilize the platform as your all-in-one solution for sending e-mails (while developing an archive of previous problems).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s commitment to development. beehiiv permits you do to all things Substack can do, with the advantage of better analytics, more design flexibilty, and a referral program to urge your existing clients to obtain words out.
beehiiv also provides you a site comparable to Substack. However, if you have your own web site currently, you can likewise use beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I use) to send your web site clients straight to your beehiiv email checklist. On the very same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a device like Performance to permit people to sign up for your newsletter straight from Twitter.
This offers you the versatility to leverage different marketing networks to obtain your newsletter out into the globe, making beehiiv a fantastic Substack alternative.
Just how to begin utilizing beehiiv email marketing software application.
Sign up for a free plan
The first step is to sign up for a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Beginning trial” button on beehiiv’s site.
The free plan will certainly enable you to have up to 2,500 customers, provide you accessibility to web site hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, advance customization, analytics, external embed forms, and a lot more. It’s an extremely charitable offering for those just starting (or for those trying to find a brand-new system to move to).
Onboarding Ghost Vs Substack Vs Beehiiv
After creating an account, you’ll undergo an onboarding procedure that will ask points like, “is this your initial newsletter?”, “what various other platforms have you made use of?”, “do you have any paying customers?”, and a lot more.
You’ll then develop a name and URL for your e-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 site link could be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding procedure, you’ll likewise pick your brand name colors and design to make sure your e-newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your dashboard
When you reach your major dashboard, you’ll see all of your analytics and settings.
You will have detailed details on the number of sign-ups you’re getting and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see alternatives for “Begin creating,” “Articles,” “Target market,” “Expand,” “Monetize,” “Layout,” and” Examine.” And at the really lower you’ll see the setups option.
Dashboard is your main control center (screenshot over), Beginning composing is where you produce and publish newsletters, Messages is where you can see every one of your previous e-newsletter versions, Target market is where you can see who your customers are (and break them down into segments), 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 advertisements, Style is where you create your newsletter landing page and post template, Evaluate is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can take care of all of your admin things.
Writing your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it very easy to begin composing, with little to no friction. If you’re just beginning, and have an idea you wish to write about, I recommend just mosting likely to the “Create” section in the navbar and clicking “Begin writing”.
You can fine-tune your template and styling later on– concentrate on the material first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor uses a clean and easy to use user interface for creating.
When you begin writing, you can optimize headings, add links, and design your web content just how you like.
beehiiv offers you tons of options for various sorts of material like video clips, web links, pictures, and much more.
The group at beehiiv is likewise regularly releasing product feature and updates so I make certain there will certainly be a whole lot much more content features relying on when you read this.
Maximizing your setups and templates
When you have an e-newsletter that prepares to send out, it’s time to create your email template and change some settings.
Below, you can upgrade the name of your newsletter, provide it a summary, include your logo design, switch on or off a welcome email to very first time clients, and a lot more.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can modify background colors, borders, spacing, typefaces, image styles, and a lot more. I’m not going to experience ever solitary thing you can enhance with your email template because it’s a lot. Simply experiment with the system for free and see it on your own!
Necessary beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of fantastic features that make it a great publishing system for any type of e-newsletter creator.
Right here are some of the essential features you can find with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter posting system. It makes it super simple to write and send emails. I discussed over several of things you can do with your settings and e-mail design so I’ll save you some extra analysis.
Things to note with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has a truly contemporary and minimalistic feeling. It’s definitely among the far better email editors I’ve ever written in.
Website hosting
When you produce a beehiiv e-newsletter, every one of your newsletters (if you want) survive a website. Consider it as a website for your newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous concerns of your newsletter, and an area where people can register for your newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s practically similar to that.
All plans, including the cost-free one, offer you a web site. Nonetheless, the free plan locations your website on a beehiiv subdomain so if you intend to add a custom domain to eliminate all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting customers is important. Nevertheless, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can sign up for your e-newsletter straight from your beehiiv web site or via embed kinds.
If you currently have a web site, and desire individuals to register for your newsletter from your existing website, you’ll need 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 blog post if you scroll up).
With embed kinds, you have three various options– a complete width, a repaired size, and a slim embed. I personally utilize the slim embed.
You can locate the code fragment for these embeds in the “Subscribe Forms” tab in your setups.
There’s also a choice for acknowledgment monitoring if you want to forward UTM parameters for tracking objectives– quite neat.
Nevertheless, there are a couple of features I desire beehiiv had when it came to subscribe features. I’m sure the group is working with updates for these, but I discussed a few concerns I had in the advantages and disadvantages section listed below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things regarding beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter system, is an option for creating a referral program.
You can motivate existing clients on your listing to forward your emails to buddies and coworkers and if they get other people to subscribe to your checklist, you can reward them. These incentives can be in whatever form you desire. I’ve seem many newsletter business provide incentives in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously transform your customers right into a word of mouth development engine for your e-newsletter– giving you another opportunity for expanding your e-mail list.
However, to obtain accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll need to update to a much more superior plan. I’ll discuss all the plans later in this post.
Premium registrations
They claim all you require to make a living online is 1,000 real followers. Registration profits is absolutely a beast of its own. If you’re seeking a system to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can create “premium” concerns of your newsletter that are only sent to paying subscribers. This can be really rewarding relying on what your e-newsletter has to supply. For example, Trends.co is a preferred costs newsletter that produces millions in revenue a year simply by having pay-only newsletter material.
Information analytics
One of the things I like concerning beehiiv is just how clean and basic the analytics are. You get real-time date on just how your newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and client count Ghost Vs Substack Vs Beehiiv.
You obtain accessibility to all the metrics you require to get a bird-eye sight on how your e-newsletter is actually doing. Logging right into your dashboard and seeing that subscriber count go up is absolutely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv offers 4 various pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (free) Launch plan provides you every little thing you require to get started and expand your e-newsletter (up to 2,500 customers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) gives you whatever in the Launch plan with the addition the advertisement network, referral program, custom domain name, surveys, and access to premium memberships. This is the plan I am on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) gives you every little thing in the Grow plan with enhancement of top priority assistance and eliminating the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are quite charitable in my point of view.
As an example, if you have 100,000 clients you will certainly pay around $329 per month. Instead of some rivals, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would certainly charge $679 each month for the same amount– making beehiiv a great Kit choice for many individuals.
I’m not exactly sure just how the unit business economics service this, however beehiiv is absolutely less costly (right now) than what it can be.
beehiiv pros and cons
Naturally, with every platform, it has its pros and cons. Right here are some of the pros and cons I’ve directly experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Below are some of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter platform of selection:
Easy to establish and begin sending out e-newsletters totally free.
Tidy and modern client analytics.
Lots of flexibility with email styles.
Referral program feature.
Internet site hosting.
Develop costs options to monetize.
Polls.
To be truthful, I have not seen an additional e-newsletter system that has had the ability to package all of these features with each other so well.
Yet naturally, I do not intend to be biased so I’m mosting likely to state some disadvantages.
Cons of using beehiiv
Here are some of the cons I have actually found while making use of beehiiv:.
Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around including personalized fonts.
I utilize Webflow as my internet site structure system of selection (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a long time ago). I’m not going to go in way too much detail why I love Webflow a lot however you can read my Webflow review if you ‘d like to find out more.
Right now, there truly is nothing else way I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow website other than making use of an iframe embed. I personally don’t such as using iframe’s due to the fact that they tend to slow down my site a little bit. Every time a web page on my website (with a beehiiv installed) lots, the sign-up installed is the last thing to load on the page. It’s very obvious when you get on a sluggish web connection. However I can get around that.
The primary gripe I have is that I can not make use of a normal Webflow type (which I love making use of). There are ways around this by utilizing a tool like Zapier however that would just include extra prices that I do not need. To be honest, this is even more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv con yet I thought I would state it.
Besides that, I still think the pros far surpass the disadvantages here. I’m also enthusiastic that Webflow will eventually develop a far better way to integrate with beehiiv.
Verdict
In general, beehiiv is an excellent solution for any person aiming to study the globe of e-mail marketing and newsletters.
The performance of this e-newsletter system much exceeds numerous that are presently on the market. And with a generous free plan, you truly have nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are additionally fairly economical for what they are. Paying just $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 might cost you well right into the thousands monthly.
Anyways, I do not write testimonial blog posts commonly. I just do when I really utilize 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 good platform for you.