Over two years back, I read one of my favored e-mail e-newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo design for the very first time. I clicked on it and instantly started tearing up Kristi Digital Beehiiv.
I wasn’t sure why I really felt so emotional.
Being a full time designer is tough. I’m usually obtaining pitched different devices and solutions that do not seem to be worth my time.
I guess I was psychological because I invested the last six months trying different e-mail and e-newsletter platforms to help build my newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some excellent choices for creating e-newsletters. However I couldn’t find one that made me offer a definite “yes”.
The problem with several existing newsletter systems is that they do not really feel creator-centered. I desire a newsletter platform that lets me totally personalize my e-newsletter designs, makes it super easy to write and send e-mails, and gives me devices that assist me evaluate metrics and get even more subscribers.
I think I’ve lastly discovered the appropriate device.
But, I know beehiiv may not be for everybody. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s actually best 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 easy to layout, write, send, advertise, monetize, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Created by previous workers at the renowned newsletter firm Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to aid makers launch and monetize their very own e-newsletter– taking great deals of growth principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M subscribers.
In this write-up, I’m mosting likely to discuss my individual experience with beehiiv, the things I love (and hate) concerning it, all of it’s features, and why I decided to lastly select it as my e-newsletter platform of option.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A few months back, I inadvertently came across beehiiv. The amusing story is that I have actually been on the lookout for a contemporary e-newsletter platform for rather a long time now. I’ve postponed hard when it came to finally launching my e-newsletter.
First, I attempted Mailchimp. Then, a couple of various other indie platforms. After that, Substack. And ultimately, I wound up utilizing beehiiv.
I’m sure lots of e-newsletter developers appreciate popular newsletters with millions of clients– I understand I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I admired a whole lot. They have excellent web content, lots of customers, and a brilliant referral program that allows them to get even a lot more subscribers.
So, I took place a hunt to figure out exactly how these huge e-newsletters set up 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 create an e-newsletter design that stays on-brand?
When I discovered beehiiv for the very first time, it seemed to respond to every one of my concerns. I believed to myself, “damn individuals that built this device truly understand newsletter development and development.” I examined who these designers of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were a few of the initial marketing and growth employees at Morning Brew– my brain exploded.
I recognized this was mosting likely to be a different e-newsletter platform. One that’s concentrated on maker development.
Because, any kind of creator recognizes, you need development to be able to earn a living off of a newsletter. And finding the appropriate e-newsletter stack (that ranges) frequently indicates utilizing numerous different tools to aid achieve one objective– one platform for your e-newsletter, one platform to monetize, and one platform to establish references. It can obtain expensive.
So when I found out beehiiv did all of these things in one platform, and it was free to start utilizing, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean web content maker that desires a system that permits them to send out custom newsletters with or without needing to have an internet site.
One of the most effective e-newsletters have the right devices to develop and scale their newsletters. beehiiv focuses on offering you those devices.
If you’re an independent writer, media firm, start-up, or material creator, you ought to seriously considering trying beehiiv. It’s completely complimentary to start and you only pay when you get to over 2,500 customers on your list.
If you really end up having to pay for beehiiv it’s most likely a good sign that people enjoy reviewing your things.
beehiiv vs Substack
You could be asking, “isn’t there already a platform for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, yes there is. Substack is a great platform made use of by hundreds of independent writers. With Substack you get your own website and utilize the system as your all-in-one remedy for sending e-mails (while producing an archive of previous issues).
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 much better analytics, even more design flexibilty, and a referral program to encourage your existing customers to obtain words out.
beehiiv likewise gives you an internet site similar to Substack. Yet, if you have your very own web site currently, you can additionally utilize beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I make use of) to send your site subscribers straight to your beehiiv email checklist. On the very same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a device like Performance to permit people to sign up for your newsletter straight from Twitter.
This provides you the adaptability to utilize different marketing networks to obtain your newsletter out right into the globe, making beehiiv an excellent Substack option.
How to begin using beehiiv e-mail marketing software application.
Sign up for a free plan
The primary step is to enroll in a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Start trial” switch on beehiiv’s site.
The free plan will certainly allow you to have up to 2,500 clients, offer you access to web site hosting, a newsletter CMS, advancement customization, analytics, external embed forms, and more. It’s a really charitable offering for those just beginning (or for those seeking a brand-new system to migrate to).
Onboarding Kristi Digital Beehiiv
After producing an account, you’ll undergo an onboarding process that will ask points like, “is this your very first newsletter?”, “what other platforms have you utilized?”, “do you have any kind of paying clients?”, and a lot more.
You’ll after that develop a name and URL for your newsletter’s internet site. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will survive a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your site URL could be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding process, you’ll also select your brand name colors and design to see to it your newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your dashboard
Once you reach your main dashboard, you’ll see all of your analytics and setups.
You will have outlined information on the number of sign-ups you’re getting and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see alternatives for “Beginning creating,” “Messages,” “Target market,” “Expand,” “Generate income from,” “Style,” and” Assess.” And at the very lower you’ll see the settings option.
Control panel is your primary control center (screenshot over), Beginning composing is where you create and release newsletters, Messages is where you can see all of your previous newsletter editions, Audience is where you can view who your subscribers are (and damage them down into segments), Expand is where you have accessibility 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 e-newsletter with advertisements, Layout is where you make 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.
Composing your newsletter
beehiiv makes it simple to begin composing, with little to no friction. If you’re just starting, and have an idea you want to blog about, I suggest just going to the “Compose” section in the navbar and clicking on “Start composing”.
You can modify your template and designing later– concentrate on the web content initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor provides a tidy and user-friendly user interface for creating.
When you begin composing, you can optimize headings, include links, and design your web content just how you such as.
beehiiv provides you lots of options for various kinds of material like video clips, web links, photos, and more.
The group at beehiiv is also frequently launching product feature and updates so I make certain there will be a whole lot more content features depending upon when you’re reading this.
Maximizing your setups and templates
When you have a newsletter that prepares to send out, it’s time to develop your e-mail template and adjust some settings.
Here, you can update the name of your e-newsletter, provide it a summary, add your logo, turn on or off a welcome email to first time subscribers, and a lot more.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can modify history shades, boundaries, spacing, fonts, picture layouts, and extra. I’m not going to go through ever single thing you can maximize with your email template due to the fact that it’s a whole lot. Simply check out the platform for free and see it for yourself!
Necessary beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of incredible features that make it an excellent posting system for any type of newsletter creator.
Below are a few of the necessary features you can find with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter publishing platform. It makes it super very easy to create and send out emails. I stated above a few of things you can do with your settings and e-mail layout so I’ll save you some added reading.
The important things to note with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has an actually contemporary and minimalistic feel. It’s most definitely one of the far better email editors I’ve ever written in.
Internet site hosting
When you create a beehiiv e-newsletter, all of your newsletters (if you desire) reside on an internet site. Think of it as a site for your newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous problems of your e-newsletter, and an area where individuals can subscribe to your newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s pretty much comparable to that.
All plans, consisting of the complimentary one, provide you a website. However, the free plan locations your website on a beehiiv subdomain so if you intend to add a custom-made domain name to remove all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining clients is necessary. Nevertheless, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can register for your e-newsletter right from your beehiiv site or with embed types.
If you already have a website, and want individuals to sign up for your e-newsletter from your existing website, you’ll need to utilize an embed type. This is what I use on this website (you can see the sign-up embed on the right hand column of this post if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have three various options– a complete width, a dealt with width, and a slim installed. I directly make use of the slim installed.
You can locate the code fragment for these embeds in the “Subscribe Types” tab in your setups.
There’s likewise an option for attribution monitoring if you wish to onward UTM parameters for tracking functions– rather neat.
Nonetheless, there are a couple of features I desire beehiiv had when it pertained to subscribe features. I make certain the group is servicing updates for these, but I discussed a couple of issues I had in the advantages and disadvantages section below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things regarding beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter platform, is an option for producing a referral program.
You can encourage existing customers on your list to ahead your e-mails to pals and associates and if they get other people to subscribe to your list, you can award them. These benefits can be in whatever form you desire. I’ve appear many newsletter companies 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 another avenue for expanding your e-mail listing.
However, to get access to the referral program feature, you’ll have to update to a much more premium plan. I’ll discuss all the plans later in this article.
Costs registrations
They say all you need to make a living online is 1,000 true followers. Registration revenue is certainly a monster of its very own. If you’re looking for a platform to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can develop “costs” issues of your e-newsletter that are only sent out to paying subscribers. This can be extremely profitable depending upon what your newsletter has to use. For instance, Trends.co is a prominent premium e-newsletter that creates millions in revenue a year merely by having pay-only e-newsletter material.
Information analytics
Among the things I like concerning beehiiv is how clean and basic the analytics are. You obtain real-time day on just how your newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and subscriber matter Kristi Digital Beehiiv.
You obtain accessibility to all the metrics you need to get a bird-eye sight on how your e-newsletter is actually doing. Logging right into your control panel and seeing that subscriber count increase is most definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv provides 4 different pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (totally free) Launch plan offers you whatever you need to start and grow your newsletter (up to 2,500 subscribers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) offers you everything in the Launch plan with the enhancement the advertisement network, referral program, customized domain, polls, and accessibility to costs memberships. This is the plan I am on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) offers you whatever in the Grow plan with enhancement of concern assistance and removing the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are quite generous in my opinion.
As an example, if you have 100,000 subscribers you will pay around $329 monthly. Rather than some rivals, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would certainly charge $679 per month for the exact same quantity– making beehiiv an excellent Kit option for numerous users.
I’m not exactly sure how the device business economics work with this, however beehiiv is absolutely more affordable (at the moment) than what it can be.
beehiiv advantages and disadvantages
Certainly, with every system, it has its benefits and drawbacks. Below are several of the advantages and disadvantages I’ve directly experienced while utilizing beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Below are a few of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter system of choice:
Easy to establish and start sending out newsletters absolutely free.
Clean and modern customer analytics.
Lots of versatility with e-mail layouts.
Referral program feature.
Website hosting.
Develop premium choices to monetize.
Surveys.
To be truthful, I haven’t seen one more e-newsletter system that has actually had the ability to package all of these features together so well.
But obviously, I don’t want to be prejudiced so I’m mosting likely to mention some cons.
Cons of using beehiiv
Here are several of the disadvantages I’ve located while making use of beehiiv:.
Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around including custom fonts.
I use Webflow as my web site building platform of choice (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a very long time ago). I’m not going to go in way too much detail why I love Webflow a lot yet you can read my Webflow evaluation if you want to discover more.
Today, there really is nothing else method I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow site other than making use of an iframe embed. I directly don’t such as making use of iframe’s due to the fact that they have a tendency to reduce my site a bit. Every single time a web page on my website (with a beehiiv embed) lots, the sign-up installed is the last point to fill on the web page. It’s extremely recognizable when you’re on a slow-moving internet link. But I can navigate that.
The main complaint I have is that I can’t make use of a normal Webflow type (which I enjoy utilizing). There are means around this by utilizing a tool like Zapier however that would just add additional costs that I don’t need. To be sincere, this is even more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv con yet I believed I would certainly discuss it.
Besides that, I still think the pros much outweigh the cons right here. I’m likewise confident that Webflow will ultimately produce a much better method to integrate with beehiiv.
Conclusion
Overall, beehiiv is a fantastic solution for anyone looking to dive into the globe of email marketing and newsletters.
The functionality of this e-newsletter system far surpasses several that are currently on the market. And with a generous free plan, you actually have nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are also relatively economical wherefore they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 clients on your listing is unheard of. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k subscribers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it can cost you well right into the thousands monthly.
Anyways, I don’t create review messages commonly. I only do when I actually make use of the tool myself and would certainly recommend it to a buddy.
I wish you discovered some quality on whether or not beehiiv is an excellent platform for you.