Over 2 years back, I was reading one of my preferred e-mail e-newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo design for the first time. I clicked it and promptly began destroying Jack Raines Beehiiv.
I wasn’t sure why I really felt so psychological.
Being a permanent creator is difficult. I’m typically obtaining pitched different tools and services that do not appear to be worth my time.
I think I was emotional due to the fact that I invested the last six months experimenting with different e-mail and e-newsletter platforms to help construct my e-newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some fantastic options for creating newsletters. However I couldn’t discover one that made me give a certain “yes”.
The problem with many existing e-newsletter systems is that they do not feel creator-centered. I want a newsletter platform that lets me completely tailor my e-newsletter layouts, makes it extremely very easy to write and send out emails, and provides me tools that help me analyze metrics and obtain even more customers.
I think I have actually ultimately discovered the appropriate device.
But, I understand 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 platform for e-newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly e-newsletter platform that makes it very easy to layout, write, send, advertise, generate income from, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Created by former workers at the well-known newsletter company Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to help makers launch and monetize their own e-newsletter– taking lots of growth principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M customers.
In this post, I’m mosting likely to discuss my personal experience with beehiiv, the things I like (and hate) concerning it, all of it’s features, and why I chose to ultimately choose it as my e-newsletter system of selection.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A few months earlier, I unintentionally stumbled across beehiiv. The amusing story is that I have actually been on the lookout for a modern newsletter system for fairly a long time currently. I have actually hesitated hard when it came to ultimately introducing my e-newsletter.
Initially, I tried Mailchimp. Then, a couple of various other indie systems. After that, Substack. And ultimately, I wound up making use of beehiiv.
I make certain many newsletter designers appreciate prominent newsletters with numerous subscribers– I know I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I appreciated a great deal. They have terrific web content, tons of customers, and a brilliant referral program that permits them to get back at extra clients.
So, I took place a quest to determine how these huge e-newsletters set up their logistics. What system do they utilize? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they get more subscribers? How do they produce a newsletter design that remains on-brand?
When I found beehiiv for the first time, it seemed to answer all of my inquiries. I believed to myself, “damn individuals that developed this tool really understand newsletter creation and development.” I examined who these creators of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were several of the initial marketing and development workers at Morning Brew– my mind took off.
I knew this was going to be a various newsletter system. One that’s focused on designer growth.
Because, any kind of developer understands, you require development to be able to make a living off of a newsletter. And discovering the appropriate newsletter stack (that ranges) typically indicates using numerous different tools to aid accomplish one objective– one platform for your e-newsletter, one system to monetize, and one system to set up recommendations. It can get pricey.
So when I discovered beehiiv did every one of these things in one platform, and it was free to start using, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean material designer that wants a platform that allows them to send out personalized e-newsletters with or without requiring to have a website.
The most effective e-newsletters have the right devices to build and scale their newsletters. beehiiv aims at giving you those devices.
If you’re an independent author, media company, start-up, or content creator, you ought to seriously thinking about experimenting with beehiiv. It’s completely cost-free to begin and you just pay when you get to over 2,500 clients on your checklist.
If you actually end up needing to pay for beehiiv it’s probably an excellent indicator that people enjoy reading your stuff.
beehiiv vs Substack
You could be asking, “isn’t there currently a system for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, yes there is. Substack is a wonderful system made use of by countless independent authors. With Substack you get your very own internet site and utilize the platform as your all-in-one solution for sending out emails (while creating an archive of previous issues).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s dedication to development. beehiiv permits you do to all things Substack can do, with the benefit of better analytics, even more design flexibilty, and a referral program to urge your existing subscribers to get words out.
beehiiv also offers you a website similar to Substack. Yet, if you have your own website currently, you can also utilize beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I use) to send your site clients right to your beehiiv e-mail list. On the exact same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a device like Performance to enable people to sign up for your newsletter straight from Twitter.
This gives you the adaptability to utilize various marketing channels to get your newsletter out into the world, making beehiiv an excellent Substack option.
Just how to begin using beehiiv email marketing software application.
Register for a free plan
The very first step is to enroll in a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Begin trial” button on beehiiv’s internet site.
The free plan will allow you to have up to 2,500 customers, offer you access to internet site hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, advance customization, analytics, exterior embed types, and much more. It’s an extremely generous offering for those just starting (or for those searching for a brand-new system to migrate to).
Onboarding Jack Raines Beehiiv
After creating an account, you’ll undergo an onboarding procedure that will ask things like, “is this your very first e-newsletter?”, “what various other systems have you used?”, “do you have any kind of paying customers?”, and more.
You’ll then produce a name and link for your newsletter’s internet site. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will certainly survive on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your site URL might be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding process, you’ll additionally pick your brand name colors and design to see to it your e-newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your dashboard
As soon as you reach your main control panel, you’ll see all of your analytics and setups.
You will certainly have detailed info on the amount of sign-ups you’re getting and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see choices for “Begin creating,” “Messages,” “Audience,” “Expand,” “Generate income from,” “Style,” and” Assess.” And at the really lower you’ll see the settings option.
Control panel is your primary nerve center (screenshot over), Beginning writing is where you create and publish newsletters, Articles is where you can see all of your previous e-newsletter versions, Audience is where you can watch who your clients are (and damage them down 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 newsletter with ads, Layout is where you create your e-newsletter landing page and article template, Analyze is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can manage every one of your admin stuff.
Composing your newsletter
beehiiv makes it very easy to begin composing, with little to no rubbing. If you’re just beginning, and have an idea you intend to cover, I advise just mosting likely to the “Create” section in the navbar and clicking “Begin writing”.
You can fine-tune your template and designing later– concentrate on the web content first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor supplies a tidy and straightforward user interface for writing.
As soon as you start writing, you can optimize headings, add links, and design your material exactly how you such as.
beehiiv offers you tons of alternatives for various types of material like video clips, web links, photos, and more.
The team at beehiiv is also regularly releasing product feature and updates so I make certain there will certainly be a whole lot extra content features relying on when you read this.
Enhancing your settings and templates
When you have an e-newsletter that’s ready to send, it’s time to develop your e-mail template and change some setups.
Here, you can update the name of your newsletter, offer it a summary, include your logo, activate or off a welcome email to very first time clients, and a lot more.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your style.
You can edit background shades, boundaries, spacing, fonts, photo styles, and extra. I’m not mosting likely to go through ever before solitary thing you can optimize with your email template since it’s a lot. Just check out the system completely free and see it on your own!
Crucial beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of amazing features that make it a fantastic posting system for any kind of newsletter developer.
Here are several of the crucial features you can locate with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter publishing platform. It makes it extremely very easy to create and send out e-mails. I stated over several of the things you can do with your setups and email design so I’ll spare you some added reading.
The thing to note with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has a really modern and minimalistic feel. It’s definitely one of the far better email editors I have actually ever written in.
Internet site hosting
When you create a beehiiv e-newsletter, every one of your e-newsletters (if you desire) reside on an internet site. Think about it as a site for your newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous concerns of your e-newsletter, and an area where individuals can sign up for your newsletter.
If you’re familiar with Substack, it’s virtually comparable to that.
All plans, including the complimentary one, provide you a website. Nonetheless, the free plan areas your web site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you intend to include a customized domain name to get rid of all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining subscribers is important. Besides, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can subscribe to your newsletter right from your beehiiv website or via embed forms.
If you already have an internet site, and want people to register for your e-newsletter from your existing site, you’ll need to utilize an embed form. This is what I use 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 types, you have 3 different choices– a complete size, a repaired width, and a slim embed. I directly utilize the slim installed.
You can discover the code snippet for these embeds in the “Subscribe Kinds” tab in your setups.
There’s additionally an option for attribution monitoring if you want to onward UTM specifications for tracking objectives– quite neat.
Nevertheless, there are a few features I desire beehiiv had when it pertained to subscribe features. I’m sure the team is servicing updates for these, but I mentioned a few issues 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 platform, is a remedy for creating a referral program.
You can encourage existing customers on your list to onward your emails to friends and colleagues and if they obtain other individuals to subscribe to your list, you can compensate them. These rewards can be in whatever type you want. I have actually seem numerous e-newsletter companies provide incentives in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously turn your customers right into a word of mouth growth engine for your e-newsletter– offering you one more avenue for expanding your email list.
Nevertheless, to get 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 on in this article.
Costs subscriptions
They claim all you require to earn a living online is 1,000 real fans. Subscription profits is definitely a monster of its very own. If you’re seeking a system to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can develop “premium” concerns of your e-newsletter that are only sent to paying subscribers. This can be really lucrative relying on what your newsletter needs to offer. For example, Trends.co is a popular premium e-newsletter that generates millions in revenue a year merely by having pay-only e-newsletter web content.
Information analytics
One of the things I enjoy concerning beehiiv is exactly how tidy and simple the analytics are. You obtain real-time date on exactly how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and client matter Jack Raines Beehiiv.
You obtain accessibility to all the metrics you need to obtain a bird-eye sight on just how your e-newsletter is in fact doing. Logging right into your dashboard and seeing that customer matter rise is certainly a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv uses 4 different pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (cost-free) Launch plan gives you whatever you need to get going and grow your e-newsletter (approximately 2,500 customers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) provides you whatever in the Launch plan with the enhancement the advertisement network, referral program, custom domain, polls, and accessibility to costs memberships. This is the plan I am on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) offers you everything in the Grow plan with addition of concern assistance and getting rid of the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are fairly charitable in my point of view.
For example, if you have 100,000 subscribers you will certainly pay around $329 monthly. As opposed to some rivals, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would bill $679 monthly for the very same amount– making beehiiv a wonderful Kit option for several customers.
I’m uncertain just how the device business economics service this, however beehiiv is absolutely less expensive (presently) than what it can be.
beehiiv advantages and disadvantages
Obviously, with every system, it has its benefits and drawbacks. Here are several of the pros and cons I’ve personally experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Here are some of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter platform of option:
Easy to set up and begin sending out e-newsletters completely free.
Clean and modern-day subscriber analytics.
Lots of flexibility with email designs.
Referral program feature.
Internet site hosting.
Create costs alternatives to generate income from.
Polls.
To be straightforward, I haven’t seen an additional e-newsletter platform that has had the ability to package every one of these features together so well.
But certainly, I don’t want to be biased so I’m mosting likely to mention some disadvantages.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Here are several of the disadvantages I have actually located while making use of beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around including personalized font styles.
I utilize Webflow as my internet site structure platform of choice (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a long period of time ago). I’m not going to enter excessive detail why I love Webflow a lot however you can review my Webflow evaluation if you want to discover more.
Right now, there really is nothing else means I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow website aside from using an iframe embed. I personally don’t such as making use of iframe’s because they have a tendency to reduce my internet 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 page. It’s extremely obvious when you get on a slow internet connection. However I can navigate that.
The major gripe I have is that I can not use a regular Webflow kind (which I love making use of). There are methods around this by utilizing a tool like Zapier but that would certainly just include extra costs that I don’t require. To be sincere, this is more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv con yet I assumed I would mention it.
Besides that, I still think the pros far exceed the disadvantages here. I’m additionally confident that Webflow will ultimately develop a better method to incorporate with beehiiv.
Verdict
In general, beehiiv is a wonderful solution for any individual wanting to dive into the world of email marketing and e-newsletters.
The functionality of this newsletter system far exceeds lots of that are presently on the market. And with a charitable free plan, you truly have nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are likewise fairly economical for what they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 clients on your list is unprecedented. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k subscribers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it could cost you well right into the thousands monthly.
Anyways, I don’t create review messages usually. I just do when I actually use the tool myself and would suggest it to a buddy.
I hope you discovered some quality on whether beehiiv is a great system for you.