Over 2 years back, I was reading one of my favorite email newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo for the first time. I clicked on it and instantly began wrecking N8 Ventures Beehiiv.
I wasn’t sure why I really felt so emotional.
Being a permanent designer is tough. I’m often obtaining pitched various tools and services that do not seem to be worth my time.
I guess I was emotional because I spent the last six months trying different email and e-newsletter platforms to assist build my e-newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some wonderful choices for writing newsletters. But I could not find one that made me offer a definite “yes”.
The concern with lots of existing newsletter systems is that they don’t really feel creator-centered. I desire an e-newsletter platform that lets me totally customize my newsletter designs, makes it incredibly very easy to write and send out emails, and offers me devices that assist me assess metrics and get more subscribers.
I assume I have actually ultimately found the appropriate tool.
However, I know beehiiv might not be for everyone. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s in fact appropriate for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one platform for e-newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly e-newsletter system that makes it easy to style, write, send, promote, generate income from, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Produced by former workers at the renowned newsletter firm Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to help 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 going to describe my individual experience with beehiiv, the important things I love (and hate) regarding it, all of it’s features, and why I made a decision to finally choose it as my newsletter platform of option.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A few months ago, I unintentionally stumbled across beehiiv. The amusing story is that I have actually watched for a modern-day newsletter system for quite some time currently. I’ve postponed hard when it came to lastly introducing my newsletter.
First, I tried Mailchimp. Then, a few other indie platforms. After that, Substack. And ultimately, I ended up utilizing beehiiv.
I’m sure many newsletter developers admire preferred newsletters with countless subscribers– I know I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I respected a whole lot. They have great material, tons of subscribers, and a creative referral program that allows them to get back at a lot more subscribers.
So, I took place a quest to figure out how these large e-newsletters established their logistics. What system do they make use of? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they obtain even more subscribers? How do they produce an e-newsletter style that stays on-brand?
When I uncovered beehiiv for the very first time, it appeared to respond to all of my inquiries. I believed to myself, “damn the people that constructed this tool really comprehend e-newsletter creation and development.” I questioned who these makers of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were several of the first marketing and development staff members at Morning Brew– my mind blew up.
I understood this was going to be a different newsletter system. One that’s concentrated on designer growth.
Due to the fact that, any kind of designer knows, you require growth to be able to earn a living off of an e-newsletter. And locating the best newsletter pile (that scales) commonly indicates utilizing numerous various tools to assist attain one goal– one system for your newsletter, one platform to monetize, and one system to set up references. It can obtain costly.
So when I discovered beehiiv did all of these things in one system, and it was complimentary to start making use of, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean web content developer that desires a platform that allows them to send out custom newsletters with or without needing to have a website.
The most effective newsletters have the right devices to develop and scale their newsletters. beehiiv targets at offering you those devices.
If you’re an independent writer, media company, startup, or material maker, you ought to seriously taking into consideration trying beehiiv. It’s completely complimentary to begin and you only pay when you get to over 2,500 clients on your list.
If you in fact end up needing to spend for beehiiv it’s possibly a great indicator that people enjoy reviewing your things.
beehiiv vs Substack
You may be asking, “isn’t there already a platform for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, yes there is. Substack is an excellent platform used by countless independent authors. With Substack you get your own internet site and use the platform as your all-in-one solution for sending out emails (while creating an archive of previous problems).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s dedication to development. beehiiv allows you do to all the important things Substack can do, with the advantage of far better analytics, more layout flexibilty, and a referral program to urge your existing subscribers to get the word out.
beehiiv additionally offers you a site comparable to Substack. However, if you have your own internet site already, you can likewise utilize beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I utilize) to send your web site customers right to your beehiiv e-mail checklist. On the same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a device like Performance to enable people to subscribe to your newsletter straight from Twitter.
This gives you the adaptability to leverage different marketing channels to obtain your newsletter out into the globe, making beehiiv a terrific Substack alternative.
Exactly how to begin making use of beehiiv e-mail marketing software.
Enroll in a free plan
The first step is to register for a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Begin trial” switch on beehiiv’s site.
The free plan will certainly allow you to have up to 2,500 customers, give you accessibility to site hosting, a newsletter CMS, breakthrough customization, analytics, exterior embed forms, and much more. It’s a very generous offering for those simply beginning (or for those trying to find a brand-new platform to migrate to).
Onboarding N8 Ventures Beehiiv
After creating an account, you’ll undergo an onboarding process that will ask things like, “is this your very first e-newsletter?”, “what various other systems have you utilized?”, “do you have any kind of paying subscribers?”, and much more.
You’ll then create a name and URL for your e-newsletter’s site. On the free plan, your newsletter will certainly survive on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your site URL might be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding procedure, you’ll additionally pick your brand design and colors to see to it your newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your dashboard
Once you reach your primary dashboard, you’ll see all of your analytics and settings.
You will have detailed info on the amount of sign-ups you’re getting and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see options for “Start composing,” “Posts,” “Target market,” “Grow,” “Monetize,” “Design,” and” Analyze.” And at the really bottom you’ll see the setups option.
Dashboard is your major nerve center (screenshot over), Begin writing is where you create and release newsletters, Posts is where you can see all of your previous e-newsletter editions, Audience is where you can watch who your subscribers are (and damage them down right into segments), Grow is where you have access to a referral program (and development tutorials) and boosts to run ads, Monetize is where you can access the beehiiv ad network and monetize your e-newsletter with ads, Layout is where you create your newsletter landing page and message template, Evaluate is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can take care of every one of your admin things.
Writing your newsletter
beehiiv makes it very easy to begin creating, with little to no friction. If you’re simply starting, and have an idea you want to blog about, I suggest simply mosting likely to the “Create” area in the navbar and clicking on “Begin writing”.
You can modify your template and styling later– concentrate on the content first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor supplies a tidy and user-friendly interface for writing.
As soon as you begin composing, you can maximize headings, include web links, and design your content exactly how you like.
beehiiv provides you lots of choices for various kinds of material like videos, links, images, and a lot more.
The group at beehiiv is additionally regularly releasing item feature and updates so I’m sure there will certainly be a great deal extra material features relying on when you read this.
Enhancing your setups and templates
As soon as you have an e-newsletter that prepares to send out, it’s time to make your e-mail template and adjust some settings.
Here, you can upgrade the name of your e-newsletter, give it a description, add your logo, turn on or off a welcome e-mail to very first time customers, and much more.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your style.
You can modify history colors, boundaries, spacing, font styles, picture formats, and more. I’m not going to undergo ever before single point you can optimize with your email template since it’s a whole lot. Simply try out the system free of cost and see it for yourself!
Important beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of impressive features that make it a fantastic posting platform for any kind of e-newsletter maker.
Right here are several of the necessary features you can discover with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter publishing system. It makes it very simple to create and send emails. I discussed over a few of things you can do with your setups and e-mail design so I’ll save you some extra reading.
Things to note with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has an actually contemporary and minimalistic feel. It’s absolutely among the much better e-mail editors I have actually ever before written in.
Web site hosting
When you develop a beehiiv newsletter, every one of your e-newsletters (if you desire) survive on a website. Think about it as a web site for your e-newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous problems of your e-newsletter, and an area where people can register for your newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s basically similar to that.
All plans, consisting of the cost-free one, give you a web site. Nonetheless, the free plan locations your website on a beehiiv subdomain so if you intend to add a custom domain to remove all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting clients is important. Nevertheless, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can register for your e-newsletter straight from your beehiiv website or with embed kinds.
If you already have a web site, and desire individuals to subscribe to your e-newsletter from your existing website, you’ll need to utilize an embed kind. This is what I utilize on this website (you can see the sign-up installed on the right hand column of this post if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have 3 different alternatives– a full width, a taken care of width, and a slim installed. I directly utilize the slim installed.
You can discover the code fragment for these embeds in the “Subscribe Types” tab in your settings.
There’s additionally an option for acknowledgment monitoring if you want to forward UTM specifications for tracking purposes– quite cool.
Nevertheless, there are a couple of features I want beehiiv had when it pertained to subscribe features. I’m sure the group is working on updates for these, however I discussed a couple of worries I had in the advantages and disadvantages area listed below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things regarding beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter platform, is a solution for creating a referral program.
You can motivate existing customers on your listing to onward your emails to buddies and colleagues and if they obtain other people to register for your checklist, you can award them. These benefits can be in whatever type you want. I’ve seem numerous newsletter companies give incentives in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously transform your subscribers into a word of mouth growth engine for your e-newsletter– offering you an additional method for growing your e-mail list.
However, to obtain access to the referral program feature, you’ll need to upgrade to an extra superior plan. I’ll look at all the plans later on in this article.
Premium registrations
They state all you need to earn a living online is 1,000 real fans. Subscription profits is most definitely a monster of its very own. If you’re looking for a system to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can develop “premium” issues of your newsletter that are just sent to paying clients. This can be extremely financially rewarding relying on what your newsletter has to supply. For example, Trends.co is a preferred costs newsletter that produces millions in earnings a year simply by having pay-only newsletter web content.
Information analytics
One of things I love about beehiiv is just how clean and basic the analytics are. You obtain real-time day on just how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and customer matter N8 Ventures Beehiiv.
You obtain accessibility to all the metrics you require to get a bird-eye sight on exactly how your newsletter is really doing. Logging into your control panel and seeing that client matter rise is definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv provides four different pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (complimentary) Launch plan offers you everything you require to get started and grow your newsletter (up to 2,500 customers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) provides you every little thing in the Launch plan with the addition the ad network, referral program, personalized domain, polls, and accessibility to premium memberships. This is the plan I get 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 quite generous in my viewpoint.
For instance, if you have 100,000 customers you will certainly pay around $329 per month. Instead of some competitors, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would charge $679 monthly for the very same amount– making beehiiv a fantastic Kit alternative for numerous individuals.
I’m uncertain just how the device business economics deal with this, yet beehiiv is certainly less costly (currently) than what it can be.
beehiiv benefits and drawbacks
Obviously, with every platform, it has its pros and cons. Right here are several of the advantages and disadvantages I’ve directly experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Right here are a few of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter system of selection:
Easy to establish and begin sending newsletters absolutely free.
Tidy and modern subscriber analytics.
Lots of adaptability with e-mail designs.
Referral program feature.
Website hosting.
Create costs options to monetize.
Polls.
To be truthful, I have not seen one more e-newsletter platform that has had the ability to package every one of these features with each other so well.
Yet naturally, I don’t intend to be biased so I’m mosting likely to discuss some disadvantages.
Cons of using beehiiv
Here are several of the disadvantages I’ve found while utilizing beehiiv:.
Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around including customized font styles.
I make use of Webflow as my website structure platform of option (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a long time ago). I’m not mosting likely to go in way too much detail why I enjoy Webflow a lot but you can read my Webflow evaluation if you want to learn more.
Now, there actually is nothing else way I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow web site aside from making use of an iframe embed. I personally don’t such as using iframe’s due to the fact that they have a tendency to slow down my site a bit. Each time a page on my site (with a beehiiv embed) tons, the sign-up installed is the last point to fill on the web page. It’s really visible when you’re on a sluggish net connection. However I can get around that.
The major gripe I have is that I can not make use of a routine Webflow kind (which I like making use of). There are ways around this by utilizing a tool like Zapier yet that would simply add additional prices that I don’t require. To be straightforward, this is more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv disadvantage however I assumed I would discuss it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros far outweigh the disadvantages right here. I’m likewise enthusiastic that Webflow will at some point develop a far better method to integrate with beehiiv.
Conclusion
Overall, beehiiv is a terrific option for any person aiming to dive into the globe of email marketing and newsletters.
The capability of this e-newsletter system far exceeds lots of that are presently on the market. And with a charitable free plan, you really have nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are additionally fairly affordable of what they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 customers on your list is uncommon. 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 monthly.
Anyways, I don’t create testimonial posts often. I just do when I really utilize the device myself and would certainly advise it to a pal.
I wish you discovered some clarity on whether or not beehiiv is a great system for you.