Over two years earlier, I was reading among my favored email newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo for the first time. I clicked it and instantly started destroying Invest in Beehiiv.
I had not been sure why I felt so psychological.
Being a full-time creator is tough. I’m frequently obtaining pitched various devices and services that do not appear to be worth my time.
I guess I was psychological due to the fact that I invested the last 6 months trying out various email and e-newsletter systems to aid build my e-newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some wonderful options for writing e-newsletters. However I couldn’t locate one that made me provide a definite “yes”.
The issue with numerous existing newsletter platforms is that they don’t really feel creator-centered. I desire a newsletter platform that lets me totally personalize my e-newsletter layouts, makes it super simple to compose and send out emails, and provides me tools that help me examine metrics and obtain even more clients.
I assume I have actually lastly found the appropriate device.
But, I understand beehiiv may not be for everybody. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s really right 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.
Developed by former staff members at the famous e-newsletter firm Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to aid makers launch and monetize their very own e-newsletter– taking great deals of growth concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M customers.
In this write-up, I’m going to explain my individual experience with beehiiv, the things I enjoy (and hate) about it, all of it’s features, and why I determined to lastly opt for it as my e-newsletter system of choice.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A couple of months ago, I accidentally came across beehiiv. The amusing tale is that I have actually been on the lookout for a modern-day newsletter platform for rather time now. I’ve procrastinated hard when it involved ultimately launching my e-newsletter.
First, I attempted Mailchimp. Then, a couple of various other indie platforms. After that, Substack. And finally, I wound up using beehiiv.
I make certain several e-newsletter developers admire prominent e-newsletters with numerous subscribers– I understand I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I appreciated a lot. They have great content, tons of customers, and a smart referral program that permits them to get back at much more customers.
So, I went on a hunt to determine how these big newsletters established their logistics. What platform do they utilize? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they obtain more subscribers? How do they develop an e-newsletter design that remains on-brand?
When I found beehiiv for the first time, it appeared to answer every one of my inquiries. I believed to myself, “damn the people that constructed this tool truly comprehend newsletter development and growth.” I examined who these makers of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were a few of the very first marketing and growth employees at Morning Brew– my mind took off.
I understood this was mosting likely to be a different newsletter system. One that’s focused on maker growth.
Because, any designer understands, you need growth to be able to earn a living off of an e-newsletter. And discovering the ideal newsletter stack (that scales) often suggests using multiple different devices to help accomplish one objective– one platform for your newsletter, one system to monetize, and one system to establish references. It can get pricey.
So when I figured out beehiiv did every one of these things in one platform, and it was totally free to begin utilizing, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean material developer that wants a platform that allows them to send out custom-made e-newsletters with or without needing to have a web site.
The most successful newsletters have the right tools to build and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv targets at providing you those devices.
If you’re an independent writer, media firm, start-up, or web content maker, you need to seriously considering checking out beehiiv. It’s completely complimentary to get going and you only pay when you get to over 2,500 subscribers on your listing.
If you in fact end up needing to pay for beehiiv it’s possibly a great indicator that individuals like reviewing your things.
beehiiv vs Substack
You may be asking, “isn’t there already a platform for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, yes there is. Substack is a wonderful system made use of by hundreds of independent authors. With Substack you get your own web site and utilize the system as your all-in-one option for sending e-mails (while developing an archive of previous problems).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s commitment to growth. beehiiv permits you do to all the things Substack can do, with the advantage of better analytics, even more style flexibilty, and a referral program to encourage your existing customers to get words out.
beehiiv also provides you a web site similar to Substack. However, if you have your very own site currently, you can also make use of beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I utilize) to send your internet site subscribers right to your beehiiv email checklist. On the exact same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a tool like Performance to allow individuals to subscribe to your e-newsletter straight from Twitter.
This offers you the adaptability to utilize different marketing networks to get your newsletter out into the globe, making beehiiv a fantastic Substack choice.
Exactly how to begin utilizing beehiiv e-mail marketing software application.
Sign up for a free plan
The initial step is to register for a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Begin trial” button on beehiiv’s website.
The free plan will allow you to have up to 2,500 clients, provide you accessibility to site hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, development modification, analytics, external embed types, and extra. It’s a very generous offering for those simply starting out (or for those seeking a brand-new system to move to).
Onboarding Invest in Beehiiv
After producing an account, you’ll experience an onboarding process that will ask points like, “is this your initial e-newsletter?”, “what various other systems have you utilized?”, “do you have any paying clients?”, and extra.
You’ll after that create a name and URL for your newsletter’s web site. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will survive on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your site URL could be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding procedure, you’ll likewise choose your brand name colors and design to see to it your e-newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your dashboard
When you reach your major control panel, you’ll see all of your analytics and setups.
You will have described details on the number of sign-ups you’re getting and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see choices for “Begin creating,” “Posts,” “Audience,” “Grow,” “Generate income from,” “Design,” and” Assess.” And at the very lower you’ll see the setups choice.
Control panel is your primary control center (screenshot over), Start composing is where you produce and publish newsletters, Blog posts is where you can see every one of your previous newsletter editions, Target market is where you can see who your subscribers are (and damage them down into segments), Expand is where you have access 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 advertisements, Design is where you create your e-newsletter landing page and message template, Analyze is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can take care of all of your admin things.
Writing your newsletter
beehiiv makes it easy to begin creating, with little to no friction. If you’re simply beginning, and have an idea you intend to write about, I recommend just mosting likely to the “Create” area in the navbar and clicking “Begin creating”.
You can fine-tune your template and designing later– focus on the web content first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor offers a tidy and user-friendly user interface for writing.
When you start composing, you can enhance headings, include links, and design your material how you such as.
beehiiv gives you tons of choices for various kinds of material like videos, links, pictures, and more.
The group at beehiiv is also frequently releasing item feature and updates so I make certain there will be a lot a lot more material features relying on when you’re reading this.
Enhancing your setups and templates
As soon as you have an e-newsletter that’s ready to send out, it’s time to make your email template and readjust some settings.
Below, you can update the name of your e-newsletter, give it a description, include your logo, switch on or off a welcome e-mail to first time subscribers, and a lot more.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your style.
You can modify history colors, borders, spacing, typefaces, image formats, and a lot more. I’m not going to undergo ever before solitary thing you can enhance with your email template due to the fact that it’s a great deal. Just try out the system completely free and see it for yourself!
Crucial beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of amazing features that make it a fantastic posting platform for any e-newsletter designer.
Right here are several of the essential features you can find with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter publishing platform. It makes it super simple to write and send out e-mails. I stated over some of the things you can do with your setups and e-mail layout so I’ll save you some extra reading.
Things to keep in mind with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has a really contemporary and minimalistic feeling. It’s most definitely one of the better email editors I have actually ever written in.
Web site hosting
When you produce a beehiiv newsletter, all of your e-newsletters (if you want) live on a site. Think about it as a site for your e-newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous concerns of your newsletter, and a location where people can sign up for your e-newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s basically comparable to that.
All plans, including the free one, give you a web site. Nonetheless, the free plan places your site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you wish to include a customized domain name to remove all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining customers is very important. Nevertheless, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can subscribe to your e-newsletter straight from your beehiiv site or with embed kinds.
If you already have an internet site, and desire people to register for your newsletter from your existing website, you’ll have to utilize an embed kind. This is what I utilize on this internet site (you can see the sign-up installed on the right hand column of this post if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have 3 different choices– a full width, a repaired width, and a slim embed. I personally utilize the slim embed.
You can discover the code bit for these embeds in the “Subscribe Kinds” tab in your settings.
There’s also a choice for acknowledgment monitoring if you want to forward UTM parameters for tracking functions– rather cool.
However, there are a couple of features I wish beehiiv had when it came to subscribe features. I make sure the team is working on updates for these, however I mentioned a few issues I had in the pros and cons section listed 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 motivate existing subscribers on your checklist to ahead your emails to buddies and associates and if they obtain other individuals to subscribe to your list, you can compensate them. These benefits can be in whatever kind you desire. I’ve seem several e-newsletter companies offer rewards in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously transform your subscribers right into a word of mouth development engine for your newsletter– providing you another method for growing your email listing.
Nonetheless, to obtain accessibility 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 short article.
Costs memberships
They claim all you require to make a living online is 1,000 true fans. Membership income is certainly a beast of its very own. If you’re looking for a system to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can produce “costs” problems of your newsletter that are only sent to paying clients. This can be really financially rewarding depending on what your newsletter has to use. For instance, Trends.co is a preferred premium e-newsletter that creates millions in revenue a year simply by having pay-only e-newsletter material.
Information analytics
Among things I like regarding beehiiv is how clean and easy the analytics are. You obtain real-time date on exactly how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and customer matter Invest in Beehiiv.
You get access to all the metrics you require to get a bird-eye sight on how your e-newsletter is really doing. Logging into your control panel and seeing that customer matter go up is absolutely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv uses four various pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (free) Launch plan offers you every little thing you require to get going and grow your e-newsletter (approximately 2,500 customers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) provides you every little thing in the Launch plan with the enhancement the ad network, referral program, custom domain name, surveys, and accessibility to costs subscriptions. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) offers you every little thing in the Grow plan with addition of concern support and removing the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are fairly charitable in my viewpoint.
For instance, if you have 100,000 customers you will certainly pay around $329 per month. In contrast to some competitors, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would certainly charge $679 per month for the exact same quantity– making beehiiv a wonderful Kit alternative for several customers.
I’m not sure just how the unit economics work on this, but beehiiv is certainly less costly (right now) than what it can be.
beehiiv pros and cons
Certainly, with every platform, it has its benefits and drawbacks. Here are some of the advantages and disadvantages I’ve personally experienced while making use of beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Right here are some of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter platform of choice:
Easy to set up and begin sending out e-newsletters completely free.
Tidy and modern subscriber analytics.
Lots of flexibility with e-mail designs.
Referral program feature.
Web site hosting.
Create costs options to generate income from.
Polls.
To be honest, I have not seen another newsletter platform that has actually been able to package every one of these features with each other so well.
Yet certainly, I do not wish to be prejudiced so I’m mosting likely to point out some disadvantages.
Cons of using beehiiv
Here are some of the disadvantages I’ve discovered while making use of beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around including customized fonts.
I use Webflow as my website building system of option (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a long time ago). I’m not going to enter excessive information why I like Webflow so much but you can review my Webflow evaluation if you would love to learn more.
Today, there really is nothing else method I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow internet site besides utilizing an iframe embed. I personally do not such as using iframe’s since they tend to slow down my site a little bit. Each time a page on my site (with a beehiiv embed) loads, the sign-up installed is the last thing to pack on the web page. It’s very recognizable when you get on a slow-moving web link. Yet I can navigate that.
The major gripe I have is that I can not use a routine Webflow kind (which I enjoy making use of). There are ways around this by utilizing a device like Zapier however that would certainly just include extra prices that I don’t require. To be honest, this is even more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv con however I believed I would mention it.
Besides that, I still think the pros much exceed the disadvantages below. I’m likewise hopeful that Webflow will at some point develop a better means to integrate with beehiiv.
Verdict
In general, beehiiv is an excellent solution for any individual wanting to study the world of email marketing and e-newsletters.
The capability of this e-newsletter system far outweighs lots of that are currently on the market. And with a generous free plan, you actually have nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are also rather economical wherefore they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 clients on your checklist is unusual. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k subscribers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it can cost you well into the thousands each month.
Anyways, I do not compose testimonial blog posts commonly. I just do when I in fact utilize the tool myself and would advise it to a close friend.
I hope you located some quality on whether or not beehiiv is a great system for you.