Over 2 years earlier, I was reading one of my favorite 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 on it and instantly began tearing up Git Cute Beehiiv.
I had not been certain why I really felt so emotional.
Being a full time creator is difficult. I’m often getting pitched various tools and services that don’t appear to be worth my time.
I presume I was psychological since I spent the last six months experimenting with various e-mail and e-newsletter platforms to assist build my e-newsletter. And to be fair, there are some great choices for writing e-newsletters. But I could not discover one that made me offer a definite “yes”.
The concern with many existing newsletter systems is that they do not really feel creator-centered. I want a newsletter platform that lets me completely tailor my e-newsletter styles, makes it extremely simple to create and send out emails, and provides me devices that assist me analyze metrics and obtain even more subscribers.
I believe I’ve finally located the appropriate tool.
However, I know beehiiv might not be for every person. 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 easy to design, compose, send out, advertise, generate income from, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Produced by former staff members at the renowned newsletter firm Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to assist creators launch and monetize their very own e-newsletter– taking lots of development concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M clients.
In this short 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 determined to lastly go with it as my e-newsletter system of option.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A few months earlier, I mistakenly stumbled across beehiiv. The amusing tale is that I have actually watched for a contemporary newsletter system for rather time now. I have actually put things off hard when it came to finally introducing my newsletter.
Initially, I attempted Mailchimp. After that, a couple of various other indie platforms. Then, Substack. And ultimately, I wound up utilizing beehiiv.
I make sure lots of newsletter developers look up to prominent newsletters with numerous customers– I understand I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I admired a lot. They have fantastic material, lots of clients, and a brilliant referral program that permits them to get even a lot more customers.
So, I went on a hunt to identify exactly how these big 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 customers? How do they create a newsletter design that remains on-brand?
When I found beehiiv for the very first time, it appeared to respond to every one of my inquiries. I thought to myself, “damn individuals that built this device truly understand newsletter creation and development.” I examined who these designers of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were a few of the initial marketing and growth staff members at Morning Brew– my mind took off.
I knew this was going to be a various e-newsletter system. One that’s focused on developer development.
Because, any designer understands, you need development to be able to earn a living off of an e-newsletter. And locating the right e-newsletter stack (that scales) usually implies utilizing several various devices to assist attain one objective– one platform for your e-newsletter, one system to generate income from, and one platform to set up referrals. It can obtain pricey.
So when I discovered beehiiv did every one of these things in one platform, and it was totally free to start making use of, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean content creator that desires a system that permits them to send out custom e-newsletters with or without needing to have a site.
The most effective e-newsletters have the right tools to develop and scale their newsletters. beehiiv targets at providing you those tools.
If you’re an independent writer, media business, startup, or material creator, you need to seriously taking into consideration trying beehiiv. It’s entirely free to get started and you just pay when you get to over 2,500 subscribers on your list.
If you really end up needing to spend for beehiiv it’s probably an excellent indicator that people like reading your stuff.
beehiiv vs Substack
You might be asking, “isn’t there already a system for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, indeed there is. Substack is a wonderful platform utilized by countless independent writers. With Substack you obtain your very own web site and utilize the platform as your all-in-one service for sending out emails (while producing an archive of previous issues).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s commitment to growth. beehiiv allows you do to all the things Substack can do, with the benefit of much better analytics, more layout flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing customers to get the word out.
beehiiv additionally gives you a website comparable to Substack. But, if you have your very own website currently, you can also utilize beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I make use of) to send your web site customers right to your beehiiv email checklist. On the very same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a tool like Revue to enable people to register for your newsletter directly from Twitter.
This gives you the flexibility to leverage various marketing channels to obtain your e-newsletter out into the world, making beehiiv an excellent Substack alternative.
Exactly how to start utilizing beehiiv e-mail marketing software.
Sign up for a free plan
The first step is to enroll in a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Start trial” switch on beehiiv’s website.
The free plan will enable you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, give you access to site hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, advance personalization, analytics, external embed types, and a lot more. It’s a very charitable offering for those just starting (or for those trying to find a new system to migrate to).
Onboarding Git Cute Beehiiv
After producing an account, you’ll go through an onboarding process that will ask things like, “is this your very first newsletter?”, “what various other systems have you used?”, “do you have any type of paying clients?”, and a lot more.
You’ll after that produce a name and link for your e-newsletter’s site. On the free plan, your newsletter will certainly reside on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your internet site link may be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding process, you’ll also pick your brand name design and colors to make certain your e-newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your dashboard
When you reach your major control panel, you’ll see every one of your analytics and setups.
You will have outlined information on how many sign-ups you’re obtaining and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see alternatives for “Start writing,” “Messages,” “Audience,” “Grow,” “Monetize,” “Design,” and” Examine.” And at the very bottom you’ll see the settings alternative.
Dashboard is your primary nerve center (screenshot over), Begin composing is where you produce and release newsletters, Articles is where you can see all of your previous newsletter editions, Audience is where you can watch who your clients are (and break them down right into sectors), Grow 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 e-newsletter with ads, Layout is where you develop your newsletter landing page and post template, Examine is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can manage all of your admin stuff.
Writing your newsletter
beehiiv makes it simple to start creating, with little to no rubbing. If you’re simply starting, and have a concept you wish to blog about, I suggest simply going to the “Compose” area in the navbar and clicking on “Begin creating”.
You can fine-tune your template and styling later– concentrate on the material initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor supplies a clean and straightforward user interface for writing.
When you begin creating, you can optimize headings, add web links, and style your content exactly how you like.
beehiiv gives you lots of options for various kinds of material like video clips, web links, photos, and more.
The team at beehiiv is likewise continuously releasing product feature and updates so I’m sure there will certainly be a whole lot much more content features depending on when you read this.
Maximizing your settings and templates
Once you have an e-newsletter that prepares to send, it’s time to create your email template and readjust some setups.
Below, you can upgrade the name of your newsletter, give it a summary, add your logo design, turn on or off a welcome email to first time clients, and much more.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your style.
You can edit background shades, boundaries, spacing, font styles, picture layouts, and a lot more. I’m not mosting likely to experience ever solitary point you can maximize with your e-mail template because it’s a lot. Simply experiment with the platform free of charge and see it on your own!
Vital beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of impressive features that make it a fantastic publishing platform for any newsletter maker.
Right here are some of the important features you can discover with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter publishing platform. It makes it extremely simple to create and send out emails. I discussed over some of things you can do with your settings and email style so I’ll spare you some added reading.
The important things to note with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has a really modern-day and minimalistic feel. It’s definitely one of the much better email editors I’ve ever written in.
Web site hosting
When you develop a beehiiv newsletter, every one of your e-newsletters (if you want) survive on a website. Think of it as a web site for your e-newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous problems of your newsletter, and a place where people can subscribe to your newsletter.
If you’re familiar with Substack, it’s virtually similar to that.
All plans, including the cost-free one, offer you a site. Nonetheless, the free plan areas your site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you want to add a custom-made domain to get rid of all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting clients is essential. After all, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can register for your e-newsletter straight from your beehiiv site or with embed types.
If you currently have an internet site, and desire people to subscribe to your newsletter from your existing site, you’ll have to utilize an embed kind. This is what I utilize on this site (you can see the sign-up embed on the right hand column of this blog post if you scroll up).
With embed kinds, you have three different options– a complete width, a taken care of width, and a slim embed. I directly utilize the slim installed.
You can discover the code fragment for these embeds in the “Subscribe Forms” tab in your settings.
There’s likewise a choice for acknowledgment monitoring if you wish to forward UTM specifications for tracking purposes– quite cool.
Nonetheless, there are a few features I want beehiiv had when it concerned subscribe features. I make certain the team is working on updates for these, yet I pointed out a couple of issues I had in the pros and cons area below.
Referral program
Among the amazing things concerning beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter platform, is a remedy for producing a referral program.
You can urge existing subscribers on your listing to forward your emails to pals and associates and if they obtain other people to register for your listing, you can compensate them. These rewards can be in whatever kind you desire. I’ve seem several e-newsletter firms give rewards in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously transform your customers into a word of mouth growth engine for your e-newsletter– giving you an additional opportunity for expanding your email listing.
Nonetheless, to get accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll have to update to a much more superior plan. I’ll go over all the plans later in this short article.
Premium memberships
They claim all you need to make a living online is 1,000 real fans. Registration profits is definitely a monster of its very own. If you’re searching for a system to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can create “costs” problems of your newsletter that are just sent out to paying customers. This can be very rewarding depending upon what your e-newsletter has to offer. For example, Trends.co is a preferred premium newsletter that creates millions in earnings a year simply by having pay-only newsletter content.
Information analytics
Among the things I love concerning beehiiv is just how clean and easy the analytics are. You get real-time day on just how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and customer matter Git Cute Beehiiv.
You get access to all the metrics you need to obtain a bird-eye view on exactly how your newsletter is really doing. Logging into your control panel and seeing that client matter go up is most definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv supplies four different pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (totally free) Launch plan provides you every little thing you need to get started and expand your newsletter (approximately 2,500 clients).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) gives you every little thing in the Launch plan with the enhancement the ad network, referral program, custom-made domain name, polls, and accessibility to costs memberships. This is the plan I am on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) offers you every little thing in the Grow plan with addition of concern support and getting rid of the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are quite charitable in my viewpoint.
For example, if you have 100,000 customers you will certainly pay around $329 per month. In contrast to some rivals, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would bill $679 per month for the very same amount– making beehiiv a great Kit alternative for many customers.
I’m not sure just how the system economics work on this, yet beehiiv is definitely cheaper (currently) than what it can be.
beehiiv benefits and drawbacks
Naturally, with every system, it has its pros and cons. Right here are a few of the advantages and disadvantages I have actually personally experienced while utilizing beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Below are several of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter system of option:
Easy to set up and start sending out newsletters free of charge.
Clean and contemporary client analytics.
Great deals of adaptability with e-mail styles.
Referral program feature.
Site hosting.
Produce premium choices to generate income from.
Polls.
To be truthful, I have not seen another newsletter platform that has had the ability to package every one of these features together so well.
However naturally, I do not want to be biased so I’m mosting likely to mention some disadvantages.
Cons of using beehiiv
Here are some of the disadvantages I’ve discovered while using beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around including personalized font styles.
I utilize Webflow as my site structure platform of choice (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a long time ago). I’m not mosting likely to enter too much detail why I enjoy Webflow a lot yet you can review my Webflow testimonial if you want to find out more.
Right now, there truly is nothing else method I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow website besides using an iframe embed. I directly don’t such as making use of iframe’s due to the fact that they tend to slow down my website a bit. Every single time a page on my site (with a beehiiv embed) lots, the sign-up embed is the last thing to load on the page. It’s very noticeable when you get on a slow web link. But I can navigate that.
The primary complaint I have is that I can’t utilize a regular Webflow type (which I enjoy making use of). There are means around this by utilizing a tool like Zapier yet that would certainly just include extra expenses that I don’t require. To be truthful, this is even more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv con yet I assumed I would certainly mention it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros far outweigh the cons right here. I’m also confident that Webflow will at some point develop a better method to incorporate with beehiiv.
Verdict
In general, beehiiv is a wonderful solution for anybody aiming to dive into the world of email marketing and e-newsletters.
The performance of this newsletter platform much exceeds numerous that are presently on the market. And with a charitable free plan, you actually have nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are additionally relatively cheap of what they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 subscribers on your listing is unheard of. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k clients, and all of these features beehiiv has, it can cost you well into the thousands per month.
Anyways, I do not create review posts often. I only do when I actually make use of the tool myself and would advise it to a close friend.
I hope you found some quality on whether or not beehiiv is a great platform for you.