Over 2 years ago, I read among my favored 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 on it and promptly began destroying Jake Hurd Beehiiv.
I had not been sure why I felt so psychological.
Being a full time designer is tough. I’m typically obtaining pitched various tools and services that don’t appear to be worth my time.
I guess I was psychological since I spent the last 6 months experimenting with different e-mail and e-newsletter systems to help build my e-newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some terrific options for writing newsletters. However I could not find one that made me provide a guaranteed “yes”.
The problem with lots of existing newsletter systems is that they don’t feel creator-centered. I want a newsletter system that lets me fully customize my newsletter layouts, makes it very simple to write and send out emails, and provides me devices that assist me assess metrics and obtain more subscribers.
I assume I’ve finally found the right tool.
But, I understand beehiiv might not be for everybody. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s in fact right for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one platform for newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter platform that makes it very easy to design, compose, send out, advertise, generate income from, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Created by former workers at the popular e-newsletter company Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to assist designers launch and monetize their very own newsletter– taking great deals of growth concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M clients.
In this write-up, I’m mosting likely to describe my personal experience with beehiiv, the things I love (and hate) about it, all of it’s features, and why I determined to finally select it as my e-newsletter system of choice.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A few months ago, I unintentionally stumbled across beehiiv. The funny story is that I’ve watched for a modern newsletter platform for quite some time now. I have actually postponed hard when it came to lastly launching my e-newsletter.
First, I attempted Mailchimp. Then, a few other indie systems. Then, Substack. And ultimately, I ended up making use of beehiiv.
I make sure several newsletter developers admire prominent e-newsletters with numerous subscribers– I recognize I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I appreciated a lot. They have terrific material, tons of clients, and a clever referral program that permits them to get even a lot more clients.
So, I went on a search to determine exactly how these big newsletters established their logistics. What platform do they make use of? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they obtain even more customers? How do they develop a newsletter design that stays on-brand?
When I found beehiiv for the very first time, it seemed to respond to every one of my concerns. I thought to myself, “damn the people that developed this device actually recognize newsletter development and development.” I examined who these creators of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were some of the initial marketing and growth staff members at Morning Brew– my brain exploded.
I knew this was mosting likely to be a different e-newsletter system. One that’s focused on creator development.
Because, any kind of creator understands, you require growth to be able to make a living off of an e-newsletter. And discovering the ideal e-newsletter pile (that ranges) commonly means making use of several different devices to help achieve one goal– one system for your e-newsletter, one system to monetize, and one platform to set up references. It can get costly.
So when I learnt beehiiv did every one of these things in one system, and it was cost-free to begin using, 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 platform that allows them to send customized newsletters with or without needing to have a site.
One of the most effective newsletters have the right tools to build and scale their newsletters. beehiiv aims at offering you those devices.
If you’re an independent writer, media firm, startup, or content maker, you should seriously thinking about trying beehiiv. It’s totally cost-free to start and you only pay when you get to over 2,500 customers on your checklist.
If you actually end up needing to pay for beehiiv it’s most likely a great indication that people like reviewing your things.
beehiiv vs Substack
You could be asking, “isn’t there already a system for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, yes there is. Substack is a terrific system made use of by countless independent authors. With Substack you get your own internet site and utilize the system as your all-in-one option for sending out e-mails (while creating an archive of previous concerns).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s dedication to growth. beehiiv enables you do to all the things Substack can do, with the advantage of far better analytics, more style flexibilty, and a referral program to encourage your existing customers to get words out.
beehiiv additionally offers you a site similar to Substack. Yet, if you have your own site currently, you can also make use of beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I use) to send your website clients right to your beehiiv email list. On the very same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a tool like Performance to permit individuals to register for your newsletter straight from Twitter.
This provides you the versatility to utilize various marketing networks to obtain your newsletter out right into the globe, making beehiiv an excellent Substack option.
Exactly how to begin using beehiiv e-mail marketing software application.
Enroll in a free plan
The very first step is to enroll in a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Beginning trial” switch on beehiiv’s website.
The free plan will permit you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, give you accessibility to site hosting, a newsletter CMS, breakthrough modification, analytics, exterior embed forms, and much more. It’s a really charitable offering for those just starting (or for those searching for a brand-new system to migrate to).
Onboarding Jake Hurd Beehiiv
After developing an account, you’ll go through an onboarding process that will ask points like, “is this your first e-newsletter?”, “what other systems have you used?”, “do you have any kind of paying subscribers?”, and a lot more.
You’ll then create a name and URL for your e-newsletter’s site. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will certainly live on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your site URL may be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding procedure, you’ll also pick your brand colors and design to make sure your newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your dashboard
As soon as you reach your major dashboard, you’ll see every one of your analytics and settings.
You will certainly have outlined details on how many sign-ups you’re obtaining and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see alternatives for “Begin creating,” “Messages,” “Target market,” “Grow,” “Generate income from,” “Design,” and” Assess.” And at the very lower you’ll see the settings choice.
Dashboard is your main control center (screenshot above), Begin composing is where you produce and publish newsletters, Messages is where you can see every one of your previous e-newsletter editions, Audience is where you can see who your subscribers are (and break them down right into sectors), Grow is where you have access to a referral program (and development tutorials) and boosts to run advertisements, Monetize is where you can access the beehiiv ad network and monetize your e-newsletter with advertisements, Layout is where you design your e-newsletter landing page and post template, Assess is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can handle every one of your admin things.
Composing your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it easy to begin writing, with little to no rubbing. If you’re simply beginning, and have an idea you intend to cover, I suggest simply mosting likely to the “Compose” area in the navbar and clicking “Beginning creating”.
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 interface for creating.
When you begin writing, you can maximize headings, add web links, and design your content exactly how you like.
beehiiv provides you tons of options for various kinds of web content like video clips, web links, pictures, and a lot more.
The group at beehiiv is additionally continuously launching product feature and updates so I make certain there will certainly be a great deal more material features depending upon when you read this.
Optimizing your settings and templates
When you have an e-newsletter that prepares to send out, it’s time to make your e-mail template and change some setups.
Below, you can update the name of your e-newsletter, offer it a summary, add your logo, switch on or off a welcome email to first time subscribers, and more.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your style.
You can modify history shades, borders, spacing, typefaces, image formats, and a lot more. I’m not going to undergo ever solitary point you can optimize with your e-mail template due to the fact that it’s a lot. Simply check out the platform free of charge and see it on your own!
Essential beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of incredible features that make it a fantastic publishing system for any type of e-newsletter maker.
Below are a few of the important features you can find with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter publishing system. It makes it very simple to create and send out e-mails. I pointed out above some of the important things you can do with your settings and e-mail design so I’ll save you some additional analysis.
The thing to keep in mind with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has a really contemporary and minimalistic feel. It’s definitely among the better e-mail editors I have actually ever written in.
Web site hosting
When you develop a beehiiv e-newsletter, every one of your e-newsletters (if you want) survive an internet site. Think of it as a website for your e-newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous concerns of your e-newsletter, and a location where people can sign up for your e-newsletter.
If you recognize with Substack, it’s basically similar to that.
All plans, consisting of the cost-free one, offer you a web site. However, the free plan areas your web site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you want to add a personalized domain to remove all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining clients is important. Nevertheless, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can sign up for your newsletter straight from your beehiiv site or with embed forms.
If you already have an internet site, and want individuals to sign up for your newsletter from your existing website, you’ll need to use an embed type. This is what I utilize on this internet site (you can see the sign-up installed on the right hand column of this blog post if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have three various options– a full size, a repaired size, and a slim installed. I directly make use of the slim embed.
You can discover the code fragment for these embeds in the “Subscribe Forms” tab in your settings.
There’s likewise an alternative for attribution monitoring if you wish to onward UTM criteria for tracking functions– rather cool.
However, there are a few features I wish beehiiv had when it pertained to subscribe features. I make sure the team is servicing updates for these, however I mentioned a few concerns I had in the advantages and disadvantages area below.
Referral program
Among the amazing things concerning beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter platform, is a solution for producing a referral program.
You can encourage existing subscribers on your checklist to ahead your emails to pals and colleagues and if they obtain other people to subscribe to your listing, you can reward them. These incentives can be in whatever type you want. I have actually seem numerous newsletter firms offer rewards in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously transform your clients right into a word of mouth development engine for your e-newsletter– offering you an additional avenue for expanding your e-mail checklist.
Nevertheless, to get accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll need to update to an extra exceptional plan. I’ll go over all the plans later in this write-up.
Premium memberships
They claim all you need to make a living online is 1,000 true followers. Registration income is absolutely a monster of its own. If you’re trying to find a system to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can produce “costs” concerns of your newsletter that are just sent out to paying subscribers. This can be extremely lucrative depending upon what your e-newsletter has to use. For instance, Trends.co is a popular premium newsletter that produces millions in income a year merely by having pay-only e-newsletter web content.
Data analytics
Among things I enjoy concerning beehiiv is how tidy and straightforward the analytics are. You get real-time day on how your newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and client matter Jake Hurd Beehiiv.
You obtain access to all the metrics you require to get a bird-eye sight on just how your newsletter is in fact doing. Logging into your control panel and seeing that client count increase is definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv uses four various pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (complimentary) Launch plan offers you everything you need to start and expand your e-newsletter (up to 2,500 clients).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) offers you every little thing in the Launch plan with the addition the ad network, referral program, personalized domain, polls, and accessibility to premium subscriptions. This is the plan I am on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) offers you whatever in the Grow plan with addition of concern support and removing the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are fairly generous in my point of view.
As an example, if you have 100,000 subscribers you will pay around $329 monthly. In contrast to some competitors, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would certainly bill $679 each month for the exact same quantity– making beehiiv a terrific Kit option for numerous individuals.
I’m unsure just how the device economics deal with this, however beehiiv is definitely more affordable (currently) than what it can be.
beehiiv benefits and drawbacks
Obviously, with every system, it has its benefits and drawbacks. Below are several of the benefits and drawbacks I’ve personally experienced while utilizing beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Below are several of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter system of choice:
Easy to establish and start sending out e-newsletters absolutely free.
Tidy and modern-day customer analytics.
Great deals of versatility with e-mail designs.
Referral program feature.
Site hosting.
Produce costs alternatives to monetize.
Polls.
To be honest, I have not seen an additional e-newsletter system that has been able to package every one of these features together so well.
However obviously, I don’t intend to be prejudiced so I’m going to discuss some disadvantages.
Cons of using beehiiv
Below are a few of the cons I’ve found while making use of beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around including personalized typefaces.
I utilize Webflow as my internet site building platform of choice (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a long time ago). I’m not going to go in way too much information why I love Webflow so much however you can review my Webflow evaluation if you ‘d like to find out more.
Now, there really is no other means I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow site aside from using an iframe embed. I personally don’t like making use of iframe’s because they often tend to reduce my site a bit. Whenever a page on my website (with a beehiiv embed) lots, the sign-up installed is the last thing to pack on the web page. It’s extremely obvious when you get on a slow internet connection. But I can navigate that.
The main gripe I have is that I can not make use of a regular Webflow type (which I enjoy using). There are methods around this by using a tool like Zapier yet that would certainly simply include extra expenses that I don’t need. To be sincere, this is even more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv disadvantage however I believed I would certainly discuss it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros much outweigh the disadvantages below. I’m likewise hopeful that Webflow will ultimately develop a far better method to integrate with beehiiv.
Conclusion
In general, beehiiv is a fantastic service for any individual aiming to dive into the world of e-mail marketing and e-newsletters.
The functionality of this newsletter platform far outweighs numerous that are currently on the market. And with a charitable free plan, you really have nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are likewise relatively low-cost for what they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 customers on your listing is unheard of. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k customers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it can cost you well right into the thousands each month.
Anyways, I do not write testimonial blog posts typically. I only do when I really utilize the device myself and would certainly suggest it to a good friend.
I hope you discovered some clearness on whether beehiiv is a great platform for you.