Over two years back, I was reading one of my preferred email newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the e-mail and saw the beehiiv logo for the very first time. I clicked it and instantaneously started destroying Prompt Warrior Beehiiv.
I wasn’t sure why I really felt so psychological.
Being a permanent designer is difficult. I’m often obtaining pitched various tools and services that do not seem to be worth my time.
I presume I was psychological due to the fact that I spent the last six months checking out different e-mail and e-newsletter systems to help develop my newsletter. And to be fair, there are some terrific choices for creating e-newsletters. However I couldn’t find one that made me offer a precise “yes”.
The issue with several existing newsletter platforms is that they don’t feel creator-centered. I want an e-newsletter platform that lets me completely tailor my newsletter styles, makes it incredibly easy to write and send emails, and offers me devices that help me assess metrics and get more clients.
I think I have actually ultimately found the best tool.
Yet, I know beehiiv may not be for everybody. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s really best for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one platform for newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter system that makes it easy to layout, compose, send out, promote, generate income from, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Developed by previous staff members at the famous e-newsletter business Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to help designers launch and monetize their very own newsletter– taking lots of growth principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M customers.
In this short article, I’m going to explain my personal experience with beehiiv, things I like (and hate) about it, all of it’s features, and why I decided to ultimately go with it as my newsletter platform of selection.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A couple of months ago, I mistakenly stumbled across beehiiv. The amusing story is that I have actually been on the lookout for a modern-day newsletter system for fairly some time now. I have actually hesitated hard when it came to finally introducing my e-newsletter.
First, I attempted Mailchimp. After that, a few other indie platforms. Then, Substack. And finally, I ended up using beehiiv.
I’m sure lots of e-newsletter creators look up to prominent e-newsletters with millions of subscribers– I know I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I respected a lot. They have excellent web content, tons of clients, and a creative referral program that enables them to get even extra clients.
So, I went on a quest to identify just how these big newsletters set up their logistics. What system 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 an e-newsletter layout that stays on-brand?
When I discovered beehiiv for the very first time, it appeared to address all of my concerns. I believed to myself, “damn the people that constructed this tool really comprehend e-newsletter creation and development.” I questioned who these creators of beehiiv were.
So I went 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 understood this was mosting likely to be a various newsletter system. One that’s focused on maker growth.
Since, any creator recognizes, you require development to be able to make a living off of an e-newsletter. And locating the ideal e-newsletter stack (that scales) frequently means using several various devices to assist achieve one goal– one platform for your newsletter, one system to generate income from, and one system to establish referrals. It can obtain expensive.
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 content creator that wants a system that allows them to send custom e-newsletters with or without needing to have an internet site.
The most successful newsletters have the right devices to build and scale their newsletters. beehiiv focuses on giving you those tools.
If you’re an independent author, media firm, start-up, or web content developer, you should seriously taking into consideration checking out beehiiv. It’s absolutely cost-free to begin and you just pay when you reach over 2,500 customers on your listing.
If you really wind up needing to pay for beehiiv it’s most likely a good sign that individuals love reading your things.
beehiiv vs Substack
You could be asking, “isn’t there already a system for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, indeed there is. Substack is a terrific system made use of by countless independent authors. With Substack you get your own internet site and make use of the system as your all-in-one service for sending out e-mails (while producing an archive of previous problems).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s dedication to development. beehiiv enables you do to all the important things Substack can do, with the advantage of better analytics, more style flexibilty, and a referral program to encourage your existing customers to get words out.
beehiiv additionally offers you a site comparable to Substack. Yet, if you have your very own site already, you can additionally make use of beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I make use of) to send your web site subscribers right to your beehiiv email list. On the same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a device like Revue to enable individuals to register for your e-newsletter directly from Twitter.
This provides you the versatility to take advantage of different marketing networks to get your e-newsletter out right into the world, making beehiiv a great Substack alternative.
Exactly how to start using beehiiv e-mail marketing software application.
Register for a free plan
The initial step is to sign up for a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Start trial” switch on beehiiv’s internet site.
The free plan will certainly enable you to have up to 2,500 clients, provide you accessibility to website hosting, a newsletter CMS, development personalization, analytics, external embed kinds, and extra. It’s an extremely charitable offering for those simply starting (or for those looking for a new platform to move to).
Onboarding Prompt Warrior Beehiiv
After producing an account, you’ll undergo an onboarding process that will ask things like, “is this your very first e-newsletter?”, “what other systems have you utilized?”, “do you have any type of paying subscribers?”, and a lot more.
You’ll then develop a name and URL for your e-newsletter’s website. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will certainly reside on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your web site link could be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding process, you’ll likewise select your brand name colors and design to see to it your e-newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your control panel
As soon as you reach your major control panel, you’ll see all of your analytics and settings.
You will certainly have detailed info on how many sign-ups you’re getting and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see options for “Begin creating,” “Blog posts,” “Target market,” “Grow,” “Generate income from,” “Design,” and” Analyze.” And at the extremely bottom you’ll see the settings alternative.
Control panel is your primary nerve center (screenshot above), Begin writing is where you create and publish newsletters, Messages is where you can see all of your previous e-newsletter editions, Target market is where you can view who your subscribers are (and damage them down right into sectors), Expand 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 newsletter with advertisements, Style is where you create your newsletter landing page and message template, Analyze is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can manage every one of your admin things.
Composing your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it very easy to start writing, with little to no rubbing. If you’re just starting out, and have a concept you intend to blog about, I suggest simply going to the “Write” area in the navbar and clicking on “Beginning composing”.
You can modify your template and styling later– concentrate on the web content first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor offers a tidy and easy to use user interface for composing.
As soon as you begin creating, you can enhance headings, include links, and style your web content exactly how you like.
beehiiv gives you lots of choices for different kinds of content like videos, links, images, and more.
The group at beehiiv is also frequently launching item feature and updates so I make sure there will certainly be a whole lot a lot more material features relying on when you read this.
Maximizing your setups and templates
When you have a newsletter that’s ready to send out, it’s time to design your e-mail template and adjust some settings.
Right here, you can update the name of your e-newsletter, provide it a description, add your logo, switch on or off a welcome e-mail to first time customers, and extra.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can edit background shades, boundaries, spacing, typefaces, photo layouts, and extra. I’m not mosting likely to undergo ever before single thing you can enhance with your e-mail template since it’s a whole lot. Simply try out the platform totally free and see it on your own!
Important beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of amazing features that make it a great posting system for any newsletter creator.
Right here are some of the essential features you can discover with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter publishing system. It makes it very easy to compose and send e-mails. I pointed out above some of the things you can do with your settings and email style so I’ll spare you some additional reading.
The important things to keep in mind with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has a really modern-day and minimalistic feeling. It’s most definitely one of the much better email editors I have actually ever written in.
Internet site hosting
When you produce a beehiiv e-newsletter, all of your e-newsletters (if you want) reside on a web site. Think about it as a site for your newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous problems of your newsletter, and a place where individuals can subscribe to your e-newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s pretty much similar to that.
All plans, including the free one, provide you a web site. Nonetheless, the free plan places your site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you wish to add a custom-made domain to get rid of all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining customers is essential. Besides, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can sign up for your e-newsletter right from your beehiiv website or through embed kinds.
If you already have a website, and want individuals to subscribe to your e-newsletter from your existing website, you’ll have to utilize an embed kind. This is what I make use of on this internet site (you can see the sign-up embed on the right-hand man column of this article if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have three different choices– a complete size, a fixed size, and a slim installed. I directly use the slim installed.
You can locate the code snippet for these embeds in the “Subscribe Kinds” tab in your settings.
There’s likewise a choice for attribution monitoring if you wish to forward UTM specifications for tracking functions– pretty cool.
However, there are a couple of features I desire beehiiv had when it concerned subscribe features. I’m sure the team is dealing with updates for these, yet I mentioned a few concerns I had in the pros and cons section listed below.
Referral program
Among the amazing things regarding beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter platform, is an option for producing a referral program.
You can motivate existing clients on your checklist to forward your emails to close friends and coworkers and if they get other people to subscribe to your list, you can compensate them. These benefits can be in whatever type you desire. I have actually appear many e-newsletter firms offer rewards in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously turn your customers right into a word of mouth development engine for your newsletter– providing you an additional method for expanding your e-mail list.
However, to obtain accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll have to upgrade to a more premium plan. I’ll look at all the plans later in this write-up.
Costs registrations
They say all you require to make a living online is 1,000 true followers. Membership profits is definitely a beast of its very own. If you’re looking for a system to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can create “costs” concerns of your newsletter that are only sent out to paying customers. This can be extremely profitable depending on what your newsletter has to offer. For instance, Trends.co is a popular premium e-newsletter that creates millions in revenue a year simply by having pay-only newsletter content.
Information analytics
Among things I love regarding beehiiv is just how tidy 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 Prompt Warrior Beehiiv.
You obtain access to all the metrics you require to obtain a bird-eye sight on how your newsletter is really doing. Logging into your control panel and seeing that customer count increase is absolutely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv offers 4 different pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (complimentary) Launch plan provides you whatever you require to begin and expand your e-newsletter (as much as 2,500 subscribers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) provides you every little thing in the Launch plan with the enhancement the advertisement network, referral program, customized domain, polls, and accessibility to premium memberships. This is the plan I am on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) gives you every little thing in the Grow plan with enhancement of concern support and eliminating the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are quite charitable in my opinion.
For instance, if you have 100,000 clients you will certainly pay around $329 monthly. Instead of some competitors, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would bill $679 monthly for the exact same quantity– making beehiiv a fantastic Kit alternative for numerous customers.
I’m uncertain just how the device economics work on this, but beehiiv is absolutely less costly (presently) than what it can be.
beehiiv benefits and drawbacks
Naturally, with every system, it has its pros and cons. Below are several of the pros and cons I have actually personally experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Here are a few of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter system of selection:
Easy to set up and begin sending out newsletters totally free.
Tidy and modern-day customer analytics.
Lots of flexibility with e-mail styles.
Referral program feature.
Internet site hosting.
Create costs choices to monetize.
Surveys.
To be sincere, I haven’t seen another e-newsletter platform that has actually had the ability to package all of these features together so well.
Yet of course, I don’t want to be prejudiced so I’m going to state some cons.
Cons of using beehiiv
Right here are a few of the cons I have actually discovered while making use of beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around including custom fonts.
I utilize Webflow as my web site structure system of option (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a long period of time ago). I’m not mosting likely to enter way too much information why I enjoy Webflow so much but you can read my Webflow testimonial if you would love to find out more.
Right now, there truly is no other method I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow site aside from using an iframe embed. I personally don’t such as using iframe’s due to the fact that they tend to decrease my website a bit. Every single time a page on my website (with a beehiiv installed) lots, the sign-up installed is the last thing to pack on the web page. It’s extremely recognizable when you’re on a sluggish web connection. Yet I can get around that.
The primary complaint I have is that I can’t make use of a regular Webflow form (which I like utilizing). There are ways around this by utilizing a device like Zapier yet that would certainly simply include extra prices that I do not require. To be straightforward, this is even more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv disadvantage yet I thought I would certainly state it.
Besides that, I still think the pros far surpass the disadvantages below. I’m additionally hopeful that Webflow will eventually create a better way to incorporate with beehiiv.
Final Thought
Overall, beehiiv is a terrific service for any individual wanting to dive into the globe of email marketing and newsletters.
The capability of this newsletter platform much surpasses many that are currently on the marketplace. And with a generous free plan, you actually have nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are additionally rather affordable for what they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 clients on your listing is uncommon. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k customers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it can cost you well into the thousands per month.
Anyways, I don’t compose evaluation posts frequently. I just do when I in fact use the device myself and would advise it to a close friend.
I wish you found some clearness on whether beehiiv is an excellent system for you.