Over two years earlier, I was reading one of my favored e-mail newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo for the first time. I clicked on it and promptly began destroying Is Beehiiv Profitable.
I wasn’t sure why I really felt so emotional.
Being a full time designer is difficult. I’m commonly obtaining pitched different devices and solutions that don’t appear to be worth my time.
I guess I was psychological due to the fact that I spent the last six months trying out different email and e-newsletter systems to assist build my e-newsletter. And to be fair, there are some great alternatives for composing e-newsletters. But I could not find one that made me offer a certain “yes”.
The problem with many existing e-newsletter systems is that they do not really feel creator-centered. I desire an e-newsletter system that lets me completely personalize my newsletter layouts, makes it extremely very easy 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 finally found the best tool.
Yet, I recognize beehiiv might not be for every person. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s actually appropriate for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one system for e-newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly e-newsletter platform that makes it easy to style, create, send out, advertise, monetize, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Produced by former workers at the famous e-newsletter business Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to aid creators launch and monetize their very own e-newsletter– taking lots of development principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M clients.
In this article, I’m going to discuss my personal experience with beehiiv, the important things I enjoy (and hate) about it, all of it’s features, and why I decided to lastly opt for it as my newsletter platform of selection.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A few months back, I unintentionally stumbled across beehiiv. The amusing story is that I have actually been on the lookout for a modern-day e-newsletter platform for rather a long time now. I have actually put things off hard when it pertained to lastly introducing my newsletter.
Initially, I tried Mailchimp. After that, a few other indie systems. After that, Substack. And lastly, I ended up using beehiiv.
I make sure numerous newsletter makers admire preferred e-newsletters with millions of subscribers– I know I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I appreciated a whole lot. They have excellent material, lots of clients, and a creative referral program that enables them to get back at more subscribers.
So, I went on a search to determine exactly how these huge newsletters established their logistics. What platform do they utilize? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they obtain more customers? How do they develop a newsletter design that remains on-brand?
When I found beehiiv for the first time, it seemed to address every one of my questions. I believed to myself, “damn individuals that built this tool really recognize newsletter development and growth.” I questioned who these makers of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were several of the first marketing and development staff members at Morning Brew– my mind took off.
I recognized this was mosting likely to be a various newsletter system. One that’s concentrated on designer growth.
Because, any creator understands, you require development to be able to make a living off of an e-newsletter. And discovering the appropriate e-newsletter pile (that ranges) typically indicates making use of multiple various devices to help attain one goal– one system for your newsletter, one platform to generate income from, and one platform to set up references. It can obtain pricey.
So when I learnt beehiiv did all of these points in one platform, and it was cost-free to start utilizing, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean content maker that desires a platform that allows them to send customized newsletters with or without requiring to have an internet site.
The most effective newsletters have the right tools to develop and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv targets at offering you those tools.
If you’re an independent writer, media company, start-up, or material developer, you need to seriously considering checking out beehiiv. It’s completely cost-free to get going and you just pay when you get to over 2,500 customers on your checklist.
If you actually end up needing to spend for beehiiv it’s most likely an excellent indication that people like reviewing your stuff.
beehiiv vs Substack
You could be asking, “isn’t there currently a system for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, indeed there is. Substack is a wonderful system used by countless independent authors. With Substack you obtain your own web site and utilize the platform as your all-in-one option for sending emails (while developing an archive of previous issues).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s commitment to growth. beehiiv allows you do to all things Substack can do, with the benefit of far better analytics, more design flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing customers to get words out.
beehiiv likewise offers you a website similar to Substack. Yet, if you have your own site already, you can also use beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I utilize) to send your internet site clients directly to your beehiiv email list. On the same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a tool like Performance to allow individuals to register for your newsletter directly from Twitter.
This offers you the adaptability to take advantage of different marketing channels to get your e-newsletter out right into the globe, making beehiiv a fantastic Substack choice.
How to begin using beehiiv email marketing software application.
Register for a free plan
The first step is to enroll in a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Beginning trial” switch on beehiiv’s website.
The free plan will allow you to have up to 2,500 clients, provide you access to website hosting, a newsletter CMS, advancement modification, analytics, external embed kinds, and more. It’s a very charitable offering for those simply beginning (or for those looking for a new platform to migrate to).
Onboarding Is Beehiiv Profitable
After creating an account, you’ll experience an onboarding process that will ask points like, “is this your first newsletter?”, “what various other systems have you used?”, “do you have any paying customers?”, and much more.
You’ll after that create a name and link for your newsletter’s internet site. On the free plan, your newsletter will live on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your internet site link could be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding procedure, you’ll also select your brand design and colors to ensure your e-newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your dashboard
Once you reach your major control panel, you’ll see all of your analytics and setups.
You will certainly have described information on the number of sign-ups you’re obtaining and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see choices for “Beginning composing,” “Posts,” “Audience,” “Grow,” “Monetize,” “Style,” and” Examine.” And at the very lower you’ll see the setups choice.
Control panel is your main nerve center (screenshot above), Start creating is where you create and publish e-newsletters, Blog posts is where you can see all of your previous newsletter versions, Target market is where you can watch who your subscribers are (and break them down right into sections), Grow is where you have accessibility 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 make your newsletter landing page and post template, Analyze is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can handle all of your admin things.
Creating your newsletter
beehiiv makes it easy to begin writing, with little to no rubbing. If you’re just starting, and have a concept you intend to blog about, I suggest just going to the “Write” area in the navbar and clicking on “Start writing”.
You can modify your template and designing later– focus on the content first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor offers a tidy and easy to use user interface for composing.
As soon as you begin composing, you can optimize headings, add web links, and style your content exactly how you such as.
beehiiv offers you lots of options for different sorts of web content like videos, links, photos, and a lot more.
The group at beehiiv is likewise regularly launching item feature and updates so I make certain there will be a great deal much more content features relying on when you read this.
Optimizing your setups and templates
As soon as you have an e-newsletter that prepares to send out, it’s time to develop your email template and adjust some settings.
Below, you can upgrade the name of your e-newsletter, give it a description, include your logo, switch on or off a welcome e-mail to very first time subscribers, and much more.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your style.
You can modify background shades, borders, spacing, typefaces, image styles, and extra. I’m not mosting likely to experience ever solitary thing you can optimize with your e-mail template since it’s a great deal. Just check out the platform free of cost and see it on your own!
Crucial beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of fantastic features that make it a wonderful posting system for any e-newsletter creator.
Here are several of the necessary features you can find with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter posting system. It makes it very simple to compose and send emails. I pointed out over several of the things you can do with your setups and e-mail layout so I’ll save you some added reading.
The important things to note with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has a truly modern and minimalistic feeling. It’s absolutely one of the far better e-mail editors I’ve ever written in.
Web site hosting
When you produce a beehiiv newsletter, all of your newsletters (if you desire) reside on a web site. Think of it as a website for your e-newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous issues of your e-newsletter, and an area where individuals can subscribe to your e-newsletter.
If you recognize with Substack, it’s pretty much comparable to that.
All plans, consisting of the cost-free one, provide you an internet site. However, the free plan locations your website on a beehiiv subdomain so if you want to add a custom-made domain to eliminate all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting subscribers is necessary. Besides, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can sign up for your e-newsletter directly from your beehiiv internet site or via embed types.
If you already have an internet site, and want people to subscribe to your e-newsletter from your existing website, you’ll have to utilize an embed kind. This is what I utilize on this web site (you can see the sign-up installed on the right-hand man column of this blog post if you scroll up).
With embed kinds, you have 3 different choices– a full size, a repaired width, and a slim installed. I personally use the slim installed.
You can discover the code snippet for these embeds in the “Subscribe Kinds” tab in your settings.
There’s also an alternative for attribution tracking if you want to ahead UTM specifications for tracking purposes– rather neat.
Nevertheless, there are a couple of features I desire beehiiv had when it came to subscribe features. I make certain the team is servicing updates for these, but I pointed out a few problems I had in the advantages and disadvantages area below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things about beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter platform, is a solution for creating a referral program.
You can urge existing subscribers on your listing to forward your emails to close friends and colleagues and if they obtain other individuals to subscribe to your checklist, you can reward them. These rewards can be in whatever form you desire. I’ve seem lots of e-newsletter companies offer rewards in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously turn your clients into a word of mouth growth engine for your e-newsletter– providing you one more opportunity for expanding your email listing.
However, to obtain accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll need to upgrade to a much more exceptional plan. I’ll look at all the plans later in this article.
Premium memberships
They claim all you need to earn a living online is 1,000 true followers. Membership profits is absolutely a beast of its very own. If you’re trying to find a platform to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can develop “costs” issues of your newsletter that are only sent to paying clients. This can be really lucrative depending upon what your e-newsletter has to use. For instance, Trends.co is a prominent premium newsletter that generates millions in income a year simply by having pay-only e-newsletter material.
Data analytics
Among the things I love concerning beehiiv is how clean and simple the analytics are. You get real-time date on exactly how your newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and client matter Is Beehiiv Profitable.
You get accessibility to all the metrics you require to obtain a bird-eye view on exactly how your newsletter is really doing. Logging right into your control panel and seeing that subscriber count increase is definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv supplies 4 various pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (free) Launch plan offers you everything you require to get going and expand your newsletter (up to 2,500 customers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) offers you everything in the Launch plan with the enhancement the ad network, referral program, custom-made domain, surveys, and accessibility to premium memberships. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) gives you everything 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 subscribers you will certainly pay around $329 each month. As opposed to some competitors, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would bill $679 per month for the exact same quantity– making beehiiv a great Kit choice for lots of individuals.
I’m not exactly sure exactly how the system business economics work on this, but beehiiv is absolutely less expensive (right now) than what it can be.
beehiiv pros and cons
Naturally, with every platform, it has its benefits and drawbacks. Below are some of the pros and cons I’ve directly experienced while utilizing beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Below are a few of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter platform of option:
Easy to establish and begin sending out newsletters completely free.
Tidy and contemporary client analytics.
Lots of adaptability with email layouts.
Referral program feature.
Website hosting.
Create premium options to monetize.
Polls.
To be honest, I haven’t seen an additional e-newsletter system that has actually been able to package every one of these features together so well.
Yet certainly, I do not want to be biased so I’m going to discuss some disadvantages.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Below are a few of the cons I have actually discovered while utilizing beehiiv:.
Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around including custom font styles.
I use Webflow as my web site building system of selection (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a very long time ago). I’m not going to enter too much information why I love Webflow a lot yet you can review my Webflow evaluation if you want to discover more.
Now, there really is no other method I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow site 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 reduce my internet site a bit. Every single time a web page on my website (with a beehiiv embed) lots, the sign-up embed is the last point to fill on the web page. It’s very recognizable when you get on a slow internet connection. But I can get around that.
The primary gripe I have is that I can’t use a routine Webflow kind (which I love using). There are methods around this by utilizing a device like Zapier however that would certainly simply include extra expenses that I don’t need. To be honest, this is more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv disadvantage but I assumed I would state it.
Besides that, I still think the pros far exceed the disadvantages here. I’m also enthusiastic that Webflow will ultimately develop a far better means to integrate with beehiiv.
Conclusion
On the whole, beehiiv is a fantastic option for any individual aiming to study the world of e-mail marketing and e-newsletters.
The functionality of this e-newsletter system much exceeds lots of that are presently on the market. And with a charitable free plan, you actually have absolutely nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are likewise fairly affordable of what they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 customers on your checklist 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 per month.
Anyways, I do not write evaluation blog posts commonly. I just do when I actually utilize the device myself and would certainly suggest it to a good friend.
I wish you found some clarity on whether or not beehiiv is an excellent platform for you.