Over 2 years ago, I was reading among my favorite 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 immediately began wrecking Scottie Scheffler WITB.
I had not been sure why I really felt so emotional.
Being a full time creator is tough. I’m frequently getting pitched different devices and solutions that do not appear to be worth my time.
I guess I was psychological because I invested the last six months trying various e-mail and e-newsletter platforms to aid construct my e-newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some fantastic alternatives for writing e-newsletters. Yet I could not locate one that made me offer a definite “yes”.
The concern with several existing newsletter platforms is that they don’t really feel creator-centered. I desire an e-newsletter platform that lets me fully tailor my newsletter styles, makes it very very easy to compose and send emails, and offers me devices that help me evaluate metrics and get even more clients.
I believe I’ve lastly located the right device.
Yet, I know beehiiv may not be for everybody. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s in fact ideal for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one system for newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter platform that makes it easy to design, create, send out, advertise, monetize, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Developed by former staff members at the well-known e-newsletter firm Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to help developers launch and monetize their very own e-newsletter– taking great deals of growth concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M clients.
In this article, I’m mosting likely to discuss my individual experience with beehiiv, the important things I enjoy (and hate) about it, all of it’s features, and why I decided to finally select it as my e-newsletter system of choice.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A couple of months ago, I unintentionally stumbled across beehiiv. The funny tale is that I’ve been on the lookout for a modern-day newsletter system for quite a long time currently. I have actually postponed hard when it concerned finally introducing my newsletter.
Initially, I attempted Mailchimp. Then, a couple of other indie systems. Then, Substack. And lastly, I wound up making use of beehiiv.
I make sure several e-newsletter makers appreciate preferred e-newsletters with millions of clients– I know I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I admired a great deal. They have excellent web content, lots of subscribers, and a smart referral program that allows them to get even a lot more customers.
So, I took place a quest to identify just how these huge e-newsletters established their logistics. What platform do they make use of? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they obtain even more customers? How do they create a newsletter style that remains on-brand?
When I found beehiiv for the first time, it appeared to respond to every one of my inquiries. I believed to myself, “damn individuals that developed this device actually recognize e-newsletter creation and development.” I questioned who these makers of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were several of the very first marketing and growth workers at Morning Brew– my brain exploded.
I recognized this was mosting likely to be a various e-newsletter system. One that’s concentrated on designer growth.
Since, any designer understands, you require growth to be able to earn a living off of a newsletter. And finding the right newsletter pile (that scales) often means using numerous various tools to aid accomplish one objective– one system for your e-newsletter, one platform to monetize, and one system to establish recommendations. It can get expensive.
So when I found out beehiiv did all of these points 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 web content designer that wants a platform that enables them to send customized newsletters with or without requiring to have a web site.
The most effective newsletters have the right tools to build and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv aims at providing you those devices.
If you’re an independent author, media business, start-up, or web content maker, you should seriously taking into consideration experimenting with beehiiv. It’s entirely free to begin and you only pay when you reach over 2,500 subscribers on your listing.
If you really end up having to spend for beehiiv it’s probably a good indication that individuals like reviewing your stuff.
beehiiv vs Substack
You may 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 writers. With Substack you obtain your own site and use the system as your all-in-one solution for sending emails (while creating an archive of previous concerns).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s commitment to development. beehiiv allows you do to all the important things Substack can do, with the advantage of much better analytics, more style flexibilty, and a referral program to encourage your existing clients to obtain words out.
beehiiv likewise provides you a website similar to Substack. But, if you have your very own web site already, you can likewise make use of beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I utilize) to send your website customers straight to your beehiiv email listing. On the same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a device like Revue to permit individuals to register for your newsletter straight from Twitter.
This offers you the adaptability to take advantage of various marketing channels to obtain your newsletter out right into the globe, making beehiiv a wonderful Substack alternative.
How to start utilizing beehiiv e-mail marketing software program.
Enroll in a free plan
The primary step is to enroll in a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Start trial” button on beehiiv’s site.
The free plan will certainly allow you to have up to 2,500 customers, give you access to web site hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, advance customization, analytics, exterior embed kinds, and a lot more. It’s an extremely generous offering for those simply starting out (or for those trying to find a new system to move to).
Onboarding Scottie Scheffler WITB
After producing an account, you’ll go through an onboarding process that will ask points like, “is this your initial e-newsletter?”, “what other systems have you utilized?”, “do you have any paying subscribers?”, and a lot more.
You’ll then produce a name and URL for your e-newsletter’s internet site. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will live on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your internet site URL could be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding procedure, you’ll also pick your brand colors and design to see to it your e-newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your dashboard
As soon as you reach your main control panel, you’ll see all of your analytics and settings.
You will certainly have detailed information on how many sign-ups you’re getting and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see alternatives for “Begin creating,” “Messages,” “Audience,” “Expand,” “Monetize,” “Design,” and” Assess.” And at the really lower you’ll see the setups option.
Control panel is your main nerve center (screenshot above), Beginning writing is where you develop 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 sections), 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, Style is where you make your newsletter landing page and blog post template, Analyze is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can handle all of your admin things.
Creating your newsletter
beehiiv makes it very easy to begin composing, with little to no rubbing. If you’re simply starting out, and have a concept you intend to write about, I suggest just mosting likely to the “Write” area in the navbar and clicking on “Start composing”.
You can modify your template and designing later– concentrate on the content initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor provides a clean and straightforward interface for composing.
When you begin composing, you can optimize headings, add links, and design your content how you like.
beehiiv gives you lots of options for various kinds of content like videos, links, images, and more.
The group at beehiiv is also continuously releasing product feature and updates so I make certain there will be a whole lot a lot more material features depending upon when you read this.
Optimizing your settings and templates
Once you have a newsletter that’s ready to send, it’s time to develop your e-mail template and change some settings.
Below, you can update the name of your newsletter, provide it a summary, include your logo design, turn on or off a welcome e-mail to first time clients, and more.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can modify background colors, boundaries, spacing, typefaces, picture styles, and more. I’m not going to experience ever single point you can optimize with your e-mail template because it’s a lot. Simply try the system for free and see it on your own!
Crucial beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of remarkable features that make it an excellent publishing platform for any type of newsletter maker.
Right here are several of the essential features you can locate with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter publishing system. It makes it very very easy to write and send out e-mails. I mentioned over several of the important things you can do with your setups and email style so I’ll spare you some additional reading.
The thing to keep in mind with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has a really contemporary and minimalistic feeling. It’s absolutely one of the much better email editors I have actually ever before written in.
Internet site hosting
When you produce a beehiiv newsletter, every one of your e-newsletters (if you want) live on a web site. Think of it as an internet site for your newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous issues of your e-newsletter, and a location where people can sign up for your e-newsletter.
If you’re familiar with Substack, it’s pretty much comparable to that.
All plans, including the cost-free one, provide you a website. Nevertheless, the free plan places your site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you wish to include a customized domain to remove all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting clients is necessary. Besides, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can sign up for your e-newsletter right from your beehiiv website or through embed types.
If you currently have a web site, and desire individuals to register for your e-newsletter from your existing website, you’ll need to utilize an embed kind. This is what I use on this website (you can see the sign-up installed on the right-hand man column of this blog post if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have 3 different alternatives– a complete size, a dealt with width, and a slim installed. I directly make use of the slim installed.
You can locate the code bit for these embeds in the “Subscribe Types” tab in your setups.
There’s likewise an alternative for attribution tracking if you want to ahead UTM specifications for tracking purposes– quite neat.
However, there are a few features I desire beehiiv had when it involved subscribe features. I make certain the team is working on updates for these, however I discussed a few problems I had in the advantages and disadvantages area listed below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things about beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter system, is a solution for developing a referral program.
You can encourage existing subscribers on your listing to onward your e-mails to buddies and colleagues and if they get other individuals to register for your checklist, you can award them. These rewards can be in whatever form you want. I’ve appear numerous e-newsletter firms offer incentives in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously turn your customers into a word of mouth growth engine for your e-newsletter– providing you an additional opportunity for expanding your email list.
However, to obtain accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll have to update to a more premium plan. I’ll look at all the plans later on in this post.
Premium subscriptions
They state all you require to earn a living online is 1,000 real fans. Registration earnings is absolutely a beast of its own. If you’re seeking a system to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can produce “premium” concerns of your newsletter that are only sent out to paying subscribers. This can be extremely lucrative relying on what your e-newsletter has to supply. For example, Trends.co is a popular premium newsletter that creates millions in profits a year just by having pay-only newsletter content.
Information analytics
One of things I like concerning beehiiv is how tidy and simple the analytics are. You get real-time day on exactly how your newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and customer count Scottie Scheffler WITB.
You obtain access to all the metrics you need to get a bird-eye view on how your newsletter is in fact doing. Logging into your control panel and seeing that subscriber count increase is most definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv uses four different pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (complimentary) Launch plan provides you whatever you require to get started and expand your newsletter (approximately 2,500 customers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) provides you whatever in the Launch plan with the addition the ad network, referral program, customized domain name, polls, and access to premium subscriptions. This is the plan I get 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 fairly charitable in my point of view.
As an example, if you have 100,000 customers you will pay around $329 monthly. Rather than some competitors, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would bill $679 per month for the very same quantity– making beehiiv a wonderful Kit choice for many customers.
I’m not exactly sure just how the system economics work on this, yet beehiiv is absolutely more affordable (currently) than what it can be.
beehiiv pros and cons
Of course, with every platform, it has its benefits and drawbacks. Below are a few of the pros and cons I’ve directly experienced while utilizing beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Below are some of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter system of option:
Easy to establish and begin sending e-newsletters free of charge.
Clean and modern subscriber analytics.
Lots of versatility with email layouts.
Referral program feature.
Site hosting.
Create premium alternatives to generate income from.
Surveys.
To be honest, I haven’t seen one more e-newsletter platform that has had the ability to package every one of these features together so well.
But obviously, I don’t want to be prejudiced so I’m mosting likely to mention some cons.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Below are some of the cons I’ve located while utilizing beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around adding customized font styles.
I make use of Webflow as my site building system of option (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a long time ago). I’m not mosting likely to enter way too much information why I love Webflow a lot yet you can read my Webflow review if you wish to discover more.
Right now, there really is nothing else means I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow web site apart from making use of an iframe embed. I directly do not such as utilizing iframe’s because they have a tendency to reduce my internet site a bit. Each time a web page on my site (with a beehiiv embed) lots, the sign-up embed is the last point to fill on the page. It’s extremely obvious when you get on a slow-moving internet link. But I can get around that.
The primary gripe I have is that I can not make use of a routine Webflow kind (which I enjoy using). There are ways around this by utilizing a device like Zapier however that would simply include extra expenses that I do not need. To be honest, this is even more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv con however I believed I would mention it.
Besides that, I still think the pros much exceed the cons below. I’m likewise enthusiastic that Webflow will eventually produce a much better way to incorporate with beehiiv.
Final Thought
Overall, beehiiv is a terrific service for any individual aiming to study the globe of e-mail marketing and newsletters.
The capability of this e-newsletter system far outweighs numerous that are currently on the marketplace. And with a generous free plan, you really have nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are likewise rather cheap of what they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 subscribers on your list 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 right into the thousands monthly.
Anyways, I don’t create evaluation articles frequently. I only do when I actually make use of the tool myself and would recommend it to a buddy.
I wish you located some clarity on whether or not beehiiv is a good system for you.