Over two years back, I was reading one of my preferred e-mail e-newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the e-mail and saw the beehiiv logo design for the very first time. I clicked it and immediately started destroying Is Beehiiv Free.
I wasn’t certain why I felt so psychological.
Being a full-time creator is difficult. I’m typically obtaining pitched various tools and services that do not seem to be worth my time.
I think I was psychological due to the fact that I invested the last six months trying out different e-mail and e-newsletter platforms to help develop my newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some great options for creating newsletters. However I couldn’t find one that made me provide a precise “yes”.
The issue with numerous existing e-newsletter systems is that they do not really feel creator-centered. I desire an e-newsletter platform that lets me totally personalize my e-newsletter layouts, makes it super simple to create and send out e-mails, and gives me tools that assist me assess metrics and get even more customers.
I assume I have actually ultimately discovered the appropriate tool.
Yet, I recognize beehiiv may not be for everybody. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s in fact appropriate 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 very easy to style, create, send out, promote, generate income from, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Produced by former employees at the renowned e-newsletter company Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to aid developers launch and monetize their own newsletter– taking great deals of development concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M clients.
In this post, I’m mosting likely to explain my personal experience with beehiiv, the things I love (and hate) regarding it, all of it’s features, and why I made a decision to ultimately go with it as my newsletter platform of option.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A couple of months earlier, I inadvertently stumbled across beehiiv. The amusing story is that I’ve watched for a modern e-newsletter platform for quite time now. I have actually hesitated hard when it pertained to lastly launching my newsletter.
Initially, I attempted Mailchimp. Then, a couple of other indie platforms. After that, Substack. And lastly, I ended up utilizing beehiiv.
I make certain many newsletter creators appreciate popular newsletters with countless subscribers– I recognize I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I admired a whole lot. They have excellent material, lots of customers, and a smart referral program that permits them to get back at much more clients.
So, I took place a hunt to determine just how these big newsletters set up their logistics. What system do they use? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they obtain more customers? How do they create an e-newsletter style that stays on-brand?
When I found beehiiv for the very first time, it appeared to answer every one of my concerns. I thought to myself, “damn individuals that built this device really recognize newsletter production and development.” I questioned who these developers of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were several of the very first marketing and growth workers at Morning Brew– my brain took off.
I understood this was going to be a various newsletter platform. One that’s concentrated on creator growth.
Since, any kind of designer understands, you require development to be able to make a living off of a newsletter. And locating the right newsletter pile (that scales) frequently implies utilizing numerous various devices to aid accomplish one objective– one system for your e-newsletter, one system to generate income from, and one system to set up referrals. It can get costly.
So when I learnt beehiiv did all of these points in one platform, and it was totally free to start utilizing, it was a piece of cake to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean content designer that desires a system that enables them to send custom-made newsletters with or without needing to have a website.
One of the most successful e-newsletters have the right devices to construct and scale their newsletters. beehiiv focuses on giving you those tools.
If you’re an independent writer, media firm, start-up, or material developer, you should seriously taking into consideration checking out beehiiv. It’s absolutely cost-free to get started and you just pay when you get to over 2,500 clients on your checklist.
If you really end up needing to pay for beehiiv it’s most likely a great sign that individuals enjoy reviewing your stuff.
beehiiv vs Substack
You may be asking, “isn’t there currently a system for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, indeed there is. Substack is a fantastic system made use of by countless independent authors. With Substack you obtain your very own web site and use the system as your all-in-one option for sending out emails (while creating an archive of previous concerns).
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, even more design flexibilty, and a referral program to encourage your existing customers to get words out.
beehiiv additionally offers you a web site comparable to Substack. However, if you have your very own site currently, you can likewise make use of beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I use) to send your site clients straight to your beehiiv e-mail list. On the very same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a tool like Performance to allow people to register for your newsletter directly from Twitter.
This provides you the flexibility to utilize various marketing networks to obtain your newsletter out into the world, making beehiiv a fantastic Substack choice.
How to begin making use of beehiiv email marketing software program.
Register for a free plan
The primary step is to sign up for a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Beginning trial” switch on beehiiv’s internet site.
The free plan will certainly permit you to have up to 2,500 clients, give you access to website hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, advance modification, analytics, outside embed forms, and extra. It’s an extremely charitable offering for those simply beginning (or for those seeking a new platform to migrate to).
Onboarding Is Beehiiv Free
After creating an account, you’ll go through an onboarding process that will ask points like, “is this your first newsletter?”, “what other platforms have you made use of?”, “do you have any type of paying customers?”, and much more.
You’ll then produce a name and link for your newsletter’s web site. On the free plan, your newsletter will survive on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your internet site link could be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding process, you’ll likewise select your brand colors and design to make certain your newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your dashboard
When you reach your major control panel, you’ll see every one of your analytics and settings.
You will have detailed information on the amount of sign-ups you’re getting and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see choices for “Begin creating,” “Posts,” “Target market,” “Expand,” “Monetize,” “Design,” and” Evaluate.” And at the extremely bottom you’ll see the setups choice.
Dashboard is your major control center (screenshot above), Start writing is where you create and release e-newsletters, Messages is where you can see all of your previous e-newsletter editions, Audience is where you can see who your clients are (and break them down into segments), Grow 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 ads, Style is where you create your newsletter landing page and blog post template, Assess is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can manage all of your admin things.
Composing your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it very easy to begin composing, with little to no friction. If you’re simply starting out, and have a concept you want to discuss, I suggest just mosting likely to the “Create” section in the navbar and clicking “Beginning writing”.
You can tweak your template and styling later– focus on the material initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor provides a tidy and straightforward interface for writing.
As soon as you start creating, you can enhance headings, add web links, and design your material exactly how you like.
beehiiv gives you tons of options for different sorts of content like video clips, web links, pictures, and a lot more.
The group at beehiiv is also frequently launching item feature and updates so I’m sure there will be a whole lot more content features depending on when you read this.
Maximizing your setups and templates
As soon as you have a newsletter that prepares to send, it’s time to make your e-mail template and readjust some setups.
Below, you can upgrade the name of your newsletter, provide it a description, add your logo design, activate or off a welcome e-mail to very first time subscribers, and a lot more.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your style.
You can edit history colors, boundaries, spacing, font styles, picture layouts, and more. I’m not going to go through ever single point you can optimize with your e-mail template since it’s a lot. Simply check out the platform completely free and see it for yourself!
Crucial beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of fantastic features that make it a terrific publishing system for any newsletter designer.
Below are a few of the vital features you can discover with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter publishing system. It makes it extremely very easy to compose and send emails. I discussed above several of the important things you can do with your setups and e-mail style so I’ll spare you some additional analysis.
The thing to keep in mind with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has a truly modern and minimalistic feeling. It’s definitely one of the much better e-mail editors I’ve ever before written in.
Website hosting
When you produce a beehiiv newsletter, every one of your e-newsletters (if you desire) survive on a web site. Consider it as a website for your newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous concerns of your e-newsletter, and a location where people can register for your e-newsletter.
If you recognize with Substack, it’s basically similar to that.
All plans, including the totally free one, provide you a web site. However, the free plan areas your web site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you intend to add a custom domain to eliminate all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining clients is necessary. After all, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can register for your e-newsletter straight from your beehiiv site or via embed forms.
If you already have a site, and want individuals to register for your e-newsletter from your existing site, you’ll need to use an embed form. 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 kinds, you have three different options– a complete width, a fixed width, and a slim embed. I personally make use of the slim installed.
You can locate the code fragment for these embeds in the “Subscribe Forms” tab in your setups.
There’s also an option for acknowledgment tracking if you intend to forward UTM criteria for tracking functions– rather neat.
Nevertheless, there are a couple of features I desire beehiiv had when it concerned subscribe features. I’m sure the team is servicing updates for these, however I discussed a few problems I had in the pros and cons area below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things regarding beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter system, is a remedy for producing a referral program.
You can motivate existing subscribers on your checklist to forward your e-mails to good friends and colleagues and if they obtain other individuals to subscribe to your list, you can compensate them. These rewards can be in whatever kind you want. I’ve appear several e-newsletter business provide rewards in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously transform your clients into a word of mouth growth engine for your e-newsletter– giving you an additional opportunity for growing your email checklist.
However, to get access to the referral program feature, you’ll need to upgrade to a more exceptional plan. I’ll review all the plans later in this short article.
Premium subscriptions
They state all you require to make a living online is 1,000 true fans. Registration income is certainly a monster of its own. If you’re looking for a system to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can develop “premium” concerns of your e-newsletter that are only sent out to paying clients. This can be really rewarding relying on what your e-newsletter has to use. For instance, Trends.co is a preferred premium newsletter that creates millions in revenue a year merely by having pay-only newsletter content.
Information analytics
One of the important things I enjoy about beehiiv is how tidy and easy the analytics are. You get real-time day on how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and subscriber count Is Beehiiv Free.
You obtain access to all the metrics you require to obtain a bird-eye view on how your newsletter is really doing. Logging into your control panel and seeing that subscriber matter rise is certainly a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv offers four various pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (totally free) Launch plan offers you every little thing you need to begin and grow your e-newsletter (as much as 2,500 clients).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) gives you whatever in the Launch plan with the addition the advertisement network, referral program, customized domain name, surveys, and accessibility to premium subscriptions. This is the plan I am on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) offers you every little thing in the Grow plan with enhancement of priority support and eliminating the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are rather generous in my viewpoint.
For instance, if you have 100,000 customers you will certainly pay around $329 each month. Instead of some rivals, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would bill $679 monthly for the same amount– making beehiiv a fantastic Kit option for lots of users.
I’m not exactly sure how the unit economics work with this, however beehiiv is definitely less expensive (right now) than what it can be.
beehiiv benefits and drawbacks
Certainly, with every platform, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Below are a few of the advantages and disadvantages I have actually directly experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Below are several of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter platform of choice:
Easy to establish and start sending e-newsletters for free.
Clean and modern-day client analytics.
Great deals of adaptability with e-mail styles.
Referral program feature.
Website hosting.
Develop costs choices to generate income from.
Surveys.
To be straightforward, I have not seen another e-newsletter platform that has actually had the ability to package all of these features together so well.
But of course, I don’t wish to be biased so I’m going to discuss some disadvantages.
Cons of using beehiiv
Below are some of the disadvantages I’ve located while making use of beehiiv:.
Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around adding personalized font styles.
I use Webflow as my site structure system of choice (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a long time ago). I’m not mosting likely to go in way too much detail why I enjoy Webflow a lot however you can review my Webflow review if you want to find out more.
Right now, there really is no other way I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow website besides making use of an iframe embed. I personally do not such as utilizing iframe’s due to the fact that they often tend to decrease my internet site a little bit. Each time a web page on my site (with a beehiiv installed) loads, the sign-up embed is the last thing to fill on the web page. It’s very visible when you’re on a sluggish net link. Yet I can navigate that.
The primary gripe I have is that I can’t utilize a regular Webflow type (which I love using). There are methods around this by using a device like Zapier but that would just include added expenses that I don’t require. To be straightforward, this is even more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv disadvantage yet I believed I would mention it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros far exceed the disadvantages below. I’m additionally enthusiastic that Webflow will at some point create a much better means to incorporate with beehiiv.
Final Thought
Overall, beehiiv is a fantastic service for any individual seeking to dive into the world of email marketing and e-newsletters.
The capability of this e-newsletter system much outweighs many 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 likewise relatively economical of what they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 clients on your listing is unusual. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k customers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it could cost you well right into the thousands monthly.
Anyways, I don’t create testimonial blog posts often. I just do when I actually utilize the tool myself and would advise it to a friend.
I hope you discovered some quality on whether or not beehiiv is a great system for you.