Over 2 years back, I was reading one of my preferred e-mail 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 promptly began wrecking Link Mail Beehiiv.
I wasn’t sure why I felt so emotional.
Being a permanent maker is tough. I’m commonly obtaining pitched different tools and services that don’t seem to be worth my time.
I guess I was psychological since I spent the last 6 months trying out various email and newsletter platforms to help build my e-newsletter. And to be fair, there are some wonderful options for composing newsletters. However I couldn’t locate one that made me offer a definite “yes”.
The concern with many existing newsletter platforms is that they do not really feel creator-centered. I desire an e-newsletter platform that lets me totally customize my e-newsletter layouts, makes it super easy to write and send e-mails, and gives me tools that help me evaluate metrics and obtain more customers.
I think I have actually finally discovered the best tool.
However, I understand beehiiv may not be for everybody. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s in fact best for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one platform for newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly e-newsletter system that makes it simple to layout, create, send out, advertise, monetize, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Produced by former staff members at the well-known newsletter company Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to aid developers launch and monetize their very own newsletter– taking lots of development concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M customers.
In this write-up, I’m mosting likely to explain my individual experience with beehiiv, the important things I like (and hate) concerning it, all of it’s features, and why I chose to finally go with it as my newsletter system of option.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A couple of months back, I inadvertently stumbled across beehiiv. The amusing story is that I have actually watched for a modern-day e-newsletter system for rather time now. I’ve procrastinated hard when it pertained to finally introducing my newsletter.
Initially, I attempted Mailchimp. Then, a few other indie platforms. Then, Substack. And lastly, I ended up utilizing beehiiv.
I’m sure many newsletter creators respect prominent e-newsletters with countless subscribers– I understand I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I appreciated a lot. They have fantastic web content, lots of clients, and a brilliant referral program that enables them to get back at a lot more subscribers.
So, I took place a hunt to determine exactly how these large newsletters set up their logistics. What system do they make use of? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they obtain more customers? How do they produce 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 inquiries. I thought to myself, “damn the people that developed this tool actually recognize e-newsletter production and development.” I examined who these developers of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were some of the very first marketing and growth staff members at Morning Brew– my mind took off.
I understood this was going to be a various e-newsletter platform. One that’s focused on maker growth.
Due to the fact that, any type of designer understands, you need growth to be able to earn a living off of an e-newsletter. And finding the right e-newsletter stack (that scales) commonly indicates utilizing multiple various tools to help accomplish one objective– one platform for your newsletter, one platform to generate income from, and one system to set up recommendations. It can obtain costly.
So when I discovered beehiiv did all of these things 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 material creator that wants a platform that permits them to send custom-made newsletters with or without requiring to have a website.
One of the most effective newsletters have the right tools to build and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv aims at giving you those devices.
If you’re an independent writer, media firm, startup, or material maker, you need to seriously thinking about trying out beehiiv. It’s absolutely free to get started and you just pay when you get to over 2,500 customers on your listing.
If you in fact wind up needing to pay for beehiiv it’s probably a good indication that individuals enjoy reviewing your stuff.
beehiiv vs Substack
You may be asking, “isn’t there currently a system for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, yes there is. Substack is a great platform used by countless independent writers. With Substack you obtain your very own site and use the system as your all-in-one solution for sending out e-mails (while developing an archive of previous concerns).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s dedication to growth. beehiiv allows you do to all the important things Substack can do, with the benefit of far better analytics, more style flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing subscribers to get words out.
beehiiv additionally provides you a website similar to Substack. But, if you have your own web site already, you can likewise make use of beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I use) to send your web site customers directly to your beehiiv e-mail checklist. On the same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a device like Revue to permit individuals to subscribe to your e-newsletter directly from Twitter.
This gives you the adaptability to leverage different marketing networks to get your e-newsletter out into the globe, making beehiiv a wonderful Substack alternative.
Just how to begin utilizing beehiiv email marketing software program.
Sign up for a free plan
The primary step is to register for a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Start trial” button on beehiiv’s site.
The free plan will enable you to have up to 2,500 clients, provide you access to site hosting, a newsletter CMS, advance customization, analytics, outside embed types, and extra. It’s an extremely charitable offering for those just starting out (or for those searching for a new platform to migrate to).
Onboarding Link Mail Beehiiv
After creating an account, you’ll experience an onboarding process that will ask things like, “is this your first e-newsletter?”, “what various other platforms have you used?”, “do you have any kind of paying clients?”, and extra.
You’ll then create a name and link for your newsletter’s web 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 website URL could be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding process, you’ll likewise select your brand name colors and design to see to it your newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your control panel
When you reach your major dashboard, you’ll see every one of your analytics and setups.
You will certainly have outlined details on how many sign-ups you’re obtaining and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see options for “Beginning writing,” “Messages,” “Target market,” “Grow,” “Monetize,” “Layout,” and” Analyze.” And at the very bottom you’ll see the setups option.
Dashboard is your main control center (screenshot over), Begin writing is where you create and publish newsletters, Messages is where you can see every one of your previous e-newsletter versions, Audience is where you can see who your customers are (and damage them down right into sections), Grow is where you have accessibility 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, Design is where you develop your newsletter landing page and article template, Examine is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can handle every one of your admin things.
Composing your newsletter
beehiiv makes it simple to start composing, with little to no rubbing. If you’re simply starting, and have a concept you want to write about, I suggest simply mosting likely to the “Create” area in the navbar and clicking on “Start writing”.
You can tweak your template and styling later on– concentrate on the web content first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor provides a tidy and straightforward user interface for creating.
As soon as you start writing, you can enhance headings, add web links, and design your content just how you like.
beehiiv offers you tons of alternatives for different types of content like videos, web links, images, and a lot more.
The team at beehiiv is likewise continuously launching product feature and updates so I’m sure there will be a great deal a lot more content features relying on when you read this.
Maximizing your setups and templates
As soon as you have a newsletter that’s ready to send, it’s time to create your e-mail template and readjust some setups.
Right here, you can update the name of your newsletter, provide it a description, include your logo, activate or off a welcome e-mail to very first time customers, and extra.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your style.
You can modify background colors, boundaries, spacing, font styles, image formats, and much more. I’m not mosting likely to experience ever before single point you can maximize with your e-mail template due to the fact that it’s a great deal. Just try the system totally free and see it on your own!
Vital beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of fantastic features that make it a wonderful publishing platform for any kind of e-newsletter creator.
Below are a few of the vital features you can locate with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter posting system. It makes it very easy to create and send out e-mails. I pointed out above a few of things you can do with your setups and e-mail style so I’ll spare you some additional reading.
Things to keep in mind with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has an actually contemporary and minimalistic feel. It’s definitely among the far better email editors I’ve ever written in.
Web site hosting
When you produce a beehiiv newsletter, all of your newsletters (if you desire) live on a site. Think about it as a website for your e-newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous concerns of your e-newsletter, and an area where individuals can sign up for your newsletter.
If you recognize with Substack, it’s pretty much similar to that.
All plans, including the free one, give you an internet site. Nevertheless, the free plan locations your website on a beehiiv subdomain so if you intend to add a customized domain to eliminate all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting clients is very important. Nevertheless, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can sign up for your newsletter straight from your beehiiv site or via embed types.
If you already have a web site, and want people to subscribe to your newsletter from your existing website, you’ll need to make use of an embed kind. This is what I make use of on this 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 3 various options– a full size, a taken care of size, and a slim embed. I personally use the slim embed.
You can locate the code bit for these embeds in the “Subscribe Forms” tab in your settings.
There’s also a choice for attribution tracking if you intend to forward UTM specifications for tracking functions– pretty cool.
However, there are a couple of features I want beehiiv had when it came to subscribe features. I make certain the team is working on updates for these, but I stated a couple of problems I had in the benefits and drawbacks area listed below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things regarding beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter system, is a solution for creating a referral program.
You can urge existing subscribers on your list to onward your e-mails to pals and associates and if they get other people to sign up for your listing, you can reward them. These incentives can be in whatever type you desire. I have actually appear several newsletter business offer benefits in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously turn your subscribers right into a word of mouth development engine for your newsletter– giving you one more method for growing your e-mail listing.
Nevertheless, to obtain accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll have to update to an extra premium plan. I’ll discuss all the plans later on in this article.
Costs registrations
They state all you require to earn a living online is 1,000 true fans. Registration earnings is most definitely a monster of its own. If you’re seeking a system to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can develop “premium” problems of your e-newsletter that are just sent to paying clients. This can be extremely rewarding relying on what your e-newsletter has to supply. For instance, Trends.co is a prominent premium newsletter that generates millions in income a year merely by having pay-only newsletter web content.
Information analytics
One of things I love concerning beehiiv is how clean and straightforward the analytics are. You obtain real-time day on exactly how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and customer count Link Mail Beehiiv.
You obtain accessibility to all the metrics you need to obtain a bird-eye view on just how your e-newsletter is really doing. Logging right into your dashboard and seeing that customer count go up is definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv offers four different pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (free) Launch plan offers you whatever you require to get going and grow your newsletter (approximately 2,500 customers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) offers you every little thing in the Launch plan with the enhancement the advertisement network, referral program, custom-made domain name, surveys, and access to costs memberships. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) provides you every little thing in the Grow plan with enhancement of top priority support and getting rid of the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are quite charitable in my point of view.
For instance, if you have 100,000 subscribers you will pay around $329 per month. Instead of some rivals, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would bill $679 monthly for the exact same amount– making beehiiv a terrific Kit option for several users.
I’m uncertain just how the unit business economics deal with this, yet beehiiv is absolutely more affordable (presently) than what it can be.
beehiiv advantages and disadvantages
Naturally, with every platform, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Right here are some of the advantages and disadvantages I have actually directly experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Below are a few of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter platform of option:
Easy to set up and begin sending e-newsletters totally free.
Tidy and modern customer analytics.
Lots of adaptability with email designs.
Referral program feature.
Site hosting.
Develop premium choices to monetize.
Polls.
To be honest, I have not seen an additional newsletter platform that has been able to package all of these features together so well.
However of course, I do not want to be biased so I’m going to discuss some disadvantages.
Cons of using beehiiv
Right here are several of the disadvantages I have actually located while making use of beehiiv:.
Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around including personalized typefaces.
I utilize Webflow as my site building system of selection (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a long period of time ago). I’m not going to enter way too much information why I enjoy Webflow a lot yet you can read my Webflow review if you want to learn more.
Now, there truly is no other way I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow web site besides utilizing an iframe embed. I personally do not like utilizing iframe’s because they have a tendency to reduce my website a bit. Each time a page on my website (with a beehiiv installed) tons, the sign-up installed is the last thing to pack on the page. It’s very visible when you get on a slow web connection. However I can get around that.
The main complaint I have is that I can’t utilize a routine Webflow type (which I love using). There are means around this by using a device like Zapier however that would just include extra expenses that I do not require. To be truthful, this is more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv con yet I assumed I would certainly discuss it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros much outweigh the disadvantages below. I’m likewise confident that Webflow will at some point create a far better way to integrate with beehiiv.
Conclusion
In general, beehiiv is a wonderful solution for anyone wanting to dive into the world of email marketing and e-newsletters.
The functionality of this newsletter system much outweighs many that are presently on the market. And with a generous free plan, you actually have absolutely nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are also rather inexpensive for 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 clients, and all of these features beehiiv has, it can cost you well right into the thousands per month.
Anyways, I don’t compose evaluation posts typically. I just do when I in fact make use of the device myself and would certainly advise it to a buddy.
I wish you found some clearness on whether or not beehiiv is a good system for you.