Over two years ago, I was reading among my preferred email newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the e-mail and saw the beehiiv logo design for the first time. I clicked on it and instantaneously began wrecking How Much Does It Cost To Use Beehiiv.
I had not been sure why I felt so emotional.
Being a permanent designer is tough. I’m commonly getting pitched different tools and solutions that don’t seem to be worth my time.
I think I was emotional because I spent the last 6 months trying various e-mail and e-newsletter systems to help construct my newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some wonderful choices for composing newsletters. But I could not locate one that made me provide a certain “yes”.
The problem with several existing newsletter platforms is that they do not feel creator-centered. I want an e-newsletter system that lets me fully tailor my e-newsletter styles, makes it very simple to write and send e-mails, and offers me tools that aid me evaluate metrics and get more subscribers.
I think I’ve lastly discovered the appropriate tool.
However, I know beehiiv may not be for everyone. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s really ideal for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one platform for e-newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly e-newsletter platform that makes it easy to layout, compose, send out, promote, generate income from, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Produced by former workers at the famous e-newsletter business Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to help creators launch and monetize their own e-newsletter– taking lots of development concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M customers.
In this article, I’m mosting likely to explain my personal experience with beehiiv, the important things I like (and hate) regarding it, all of it’s features, and why I chose to ultimately go with it as my newsletter platform of option.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A few months earlier, I mistakenly stumbled across beehiiv. The funny story is that I have actually been on the lookout for a contemporary newsletter system for fairly a long time currently. I’ve put things off hard when it pertained to finally launching my e-newsletter.
First, I attempted Mailchimp. Then, a couple of other indie systems. After that, Substack. And ultimately, I ended up utilizing beehiiv.
I make certain numerous newsletter designers look up to preferred e-newsletters with countless clients– I know I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I admired a great deal. They have excellent content, lots of clients, and a clever referral program that permits them to get back at much more subscribers.
So, I took place a hunt to determine exactly how these large e-newsletters set up their logistics. What platform do they use? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they get even more subscribers? How do they create an e-newsletter design that stays on-brand?
When I discovered beehiiv for the very first time, it appeared to address all of my inquiries. I thought to myself, “damn the people that built this tool actually comprehend newsletter production and development.” I examined who these designers of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were several of the very first marketing and growth workers at Morning Brew– my brain blew up.
I recognized this was mosting likely to be a various newsletter system. One that’s concentrated on developer development.
Due to the fact that, any maker knows, you need development to be able to make a living off of a newsletter. And discovering the best e-newsletter stack (that scales) usually implies utilizing numerous various tools to aid attain one goal– one platform for your e-newsletter, one platform to generate income from, and one system to establish referrals. It can obtain expensive.
So when I found out beehiiv did all of these things in one platform, and it was cost-free to start using, it was a piece of cake to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean web content designer that desires a system that allows them to send custom newsletters with or without requiring to have a website.
The most effective newsletters have the right devices to build and scale their newsletters. beehiiv targets at offering you those tools.
If you’re an independent author, media firm, startup, or material designer, you need to seriously taking into consideration trying beehiiv. It’s entirely cost-free to get going and you just pay when you get to over 2,500 clients on your list.
If you in fact end up needing to spend for beehiiv it’s most likely an excellent indication that individuals love reading your things.
beehiiv vs Substack
You may be asking, “isn’t there already a system for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, of course there is. Substack is a great platform made use of by thousands of independent writers. With Substack you get your very own internet site and use the system as your all-in-one service for sending emails (while producing an archive of previous issues).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s commitment to growth. beehiiv allows you do to all the important things Substack can do, with the benefit of much better analytics, even more design flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing clients to get the word out.
beehiiv additionally gives you an internet site comparable to Substack. But, if you have your own internet site already, you can likewise utilize beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I utilize) to send your web site clients right to your beehiiv email checklist. On the very same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a tool like Performance to enable people to register for your newsletter straight from Twitter.
This gives you the adaptability to utilize different marketing channels to get your e-newsletter out right into the world, making beehiiv a great Substack option.
Exactly how to begin utilizing beehiiv e-mail marketing software program.
Sign up for a free plan
The first step is to register for a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Begin trial” button on beehiiv’s web site.
The free plan will certainly allow you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, provide you accessibility to website hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, development personalization, analytics, external embed forms, and more. It’s a very generous offering for those simply starting (or for those trying to find a new platform to move to).
Onboarding How Much Does It Cost To Use Beehiiv
After developing an account, you’ll experience an onboarding process that will ask points like, “is this your very first newsletter?”, “what various other platforms have you made use of?”, “do you have any paying customers?”, and extra.
You’ll then produce a name and URL for your newsletter’s internet site. On the free plan, your newsletter will survive a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your web site link may be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding process, you’ll likewise pick your brand colors and design to see to it your e-newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your dashboard
When you reach your main control panel, you’ll see all of your analytics and setups.
You will have detailed details on the amount of sign-ups you’re obtaining and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see options for “Start composing,” “Blog posts,” “Audience,” “Grow,” “Monetize,” “Layout,” and” Examine.” And at the very bottom you’ll see the settings option.
Control panel is your primary control center (screenshot above), Begin creating is where you develop and release e-newsletters, Messages is where you can see all of your previous newsletter editions, Audience is where you can watch who your subscribers are (and damage them down into segments), Expand is where you have accessibility to a referral program (and development tutorials) and boosts to run ads, Monetize is where you can access the beehiiv ad network and monetize your newsletter with advertisements, Design is where you design 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 things.
Composing your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it easy to start creating, with little to no rubbing. If you’re simply starting out, and have an idea you intend to write about, I advise simply mosting likely to the “Write” section in the navbar and clicking on “Begin writing”.
You can modify your template and styling later– focus on the web content initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor provides a tidy and easy to use interface for creating.
Once you begin composing, you can maximize headings, include web links, and style your web content exactly how you like.
beehiiv offers you tons of alternatives for different kinds of content like videos, links, images, and a lot more.
The group at beehiiv is likewise frequently launching product feature and updates so I make sure there will certainly be a great deal more material features depending upon when you’re reading this.
Optimizing your settings and templates
When you have a newsletter that’s ready to send out, it’s time to design your email template and adjust some settings.
Here, you can update the name of your newsletter, offer it a description, add your logo, turn on or off a welcome e-mail to first time clients, and much more.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your design.
You can edit history shades, borders, spacing, font styles, image layouts, and a lot more. I’m not mosting likely to undergo ever before solitary point you can maximize with your email template due to the fact that it’s a whole lot. Simply try the system free of cost and see it on your own!
Vital beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of remarkable features that make it a terrific posting system for any newsletter developer.
Here are a few of the essential features you can locate with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter publishing system. It makes it super easy to create and send e-mails. I discussed over some of things you can do with your settings and e-mail design so I’ll spare you some added analysis.
The thing to keep in mind with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has a really modern-day and minimalistic feeling. It’s most definitely one of the better email editors I have actually ever before written in.
Website hosting
When you create a beehiiv newsletter, every one of your newsletters (if you want) live on a site. Think about it as an internet site for your newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous issues of your e-newsletter, and a location where individuals can sign up for your e-newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s practically comparable to that.
All plans, including the totally free one, offer you a website. However, the free plan areas your internet site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you intend to include a customized domain name to eliminate all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting customers is very important. Nevertheless, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can sign up for your e-newsletter directly from your beehiiv site or via embed types.
If you already have an internet site, and want individuals to register for your e-newsletter from your existing site, you’ll need to use an embed kind. This is what I utilize on this website (you can see the sign-up installed on the right-hand man column of this article if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have 3 different alternatives– a complete width, a repaired size, and a slim embed. I directly utilize the slim installed.
You can find the code snippet for these embeds in the “Subscribe Types” tab in your settings.
There’s also an alternative for attribution monitoring if you intend to forward UTM specifications for tracking purposes– rather neat.
Nonetheless, there are a couple of features I desire beehiiv had when it concerned subscribe features. I make sure the team is dealing with updates for these, yet I stated a couple of problems I had in the benefits and drawbacks section below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things about beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter system, is a solution for developing a referral program.
You can motivate existing customers on your list to forward your e-mails to pals and colleagues and if they obtain other people to subscribe to your listing, you can compensate them. These benefits can be in whatever kind you want. I have actually appear several newsletter companies give rewards in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously turn your clients right into a word of mouth growth engine for your e-newsletter– providing you an additional opportunity for expanding your email listing.
Nevertheless, to obtain access to the referral program feature, you’ll need to upgrade to an extra superior plan. I’ll discuss all the plans later on in this post.
Premium registrations
They state all you need to make a living online is 1,000 real followers. Membership earnings 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 “costs” issues of your e-newsletter that are just sent to paying customers. This can be really profitable depending upon what your newsletter needs to offer. For instance, Trends.co is a popular costs e-newsletter that produces millions in revenue a year simply by having pay-only e-newsletter material.
Data analytics
One of the important things I like about beehiiv is exactly how clean and straightforward the analytics are. You obtain real-time day on just how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and customer matter How Much Does It Cost To Use Beehiiv.
You obtain accessibility to all the metrics you need to get a bird-eye sight on exactly how your newsletter is actually doing. Logging into your control panel and seeing that client matter rise is absolutely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv uses 4 various pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (complimentary) Launch plan gives you everything you need to get going and expand your newsletter (approximately 2,500 subscribers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) provides you every little thing in the Launch plan with the addition the ad network, referral program, custom domain name, surveys, and access to costs registrations. This is the plan I am on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) offers you whatever in the Grow plan with enhancement of top priority assistance and removing the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are rather generous in my opinion.
As an example, if you have 100,000 subscribers you will certainly pay around $329 each month. Instead of some competitors, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would certainly bill $679 each month for the same amount– making beehiiv a wonderful Kit alternative for lots of users.
I’m uncertain exactly how the unit business economics work on this, but beehiiv is definitely less costly (right now) than what it can be.
beehiiv advantages and disadvantages
Naturally, with every system, it has its benefits and drawbacks. Below are some of the advantages and disadvantages I’ve personally experienced while utilizing beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Here are a few of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter platform of selection:
Easy to establish and begin sending e-newsletters for free.
Clean and contemporary subscriber analytics.
Great deals of versatility with email layouts.
Referral program feature.
Internet site hosting.
Create premium choices to generate income from.
Polls.
To be honest, I have not seen an additional e-newsletter system that has been able to package every one of these features with each other so well.
But naturally, I don’t intend to be prejudiced so I’m going to discuss some cons.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Here are a few of the cons I’ve discovered while making use of beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around adding custom-made font styles.
I use Webflow as my website structure platform of choice (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a long time ago). I’m not going to go in too much information why I like Webflow a lot but you can read my Webflow review if you wish to find out more.
Today, there really is nothing else method I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow web site apart from making use of an iframe embed. I personally do not such as making use of iframe’s since they often tend to reduce my web site a bit. Each time a page on my site (with a beehiiv embed) lots, the sign-up embed is the last point to load on the web page. It’s very visible when you’re on a slow-moving net connection. But I can get around that.
The main gripe I have is that I can not utilize a regular Webflow type (which I love using). There are methods around this by using a tool like Zapier but that would certainly just include additional prices that I don’t require. To be honest, this is more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv con however I thought I would state it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros far surpass the disadvantages below. I’m additionally enthusiastic that Webflow will at some point create a much better means to integrate with beehiiv.
Conclusion
In general, beehiiv is a terrific solution for any individual wanting to dive into the world of email marketing and newsletters.
The functionality of this newsletter system far outweighs lots of that are presently on the marketplace. And with a generous free plan, you truly have nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are also rather low-cost for what they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 customers on your checklist is uncommon. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k subscribers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it might cost you well right into the thousands per month.
Anyways, I do not create testimonial posts commonly. I just do when I really utilize the tool myself and would suggest it to a friend.
I wish you located some clarity on whether or not beehiiv is a great system for you.