Over 2 years ago, I read among 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 on it and promptly began wrecking Substack or Beehiiv.
I had not been certain why I really felt so psychological.
Being a full-time designer is tough. I’m commonly obtaining pitched various devices and services that do not seem to be worth my time.
I think I was psychological since I invested the last 6 months experimenting with different email and newsletter platforms to help build my newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some fantastic alternatives for writing newsletters. Yet I couldn’t find one that made me offer a precise “yes”.
The problem with several existing newsletter systems is that they don’t really feel creator-centered. I want an e-newsletter platform that lets me completely tailor my e-newsletter styles, makes it extremely very easy to compose and send e-mails, and provides me devices that aid me assess metrics and get more clients.
I assume I’ve finally discovered the ideal device.
Yet, I understand beehiiv may not be for every person. 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 newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter platform that makes it easy to style, compose, send out, promote, monetize, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Produced by former staff members at the renowned newsletter firm Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to aid developers launch and monetize their very own newsletter– taking lots of growth concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M clients.
In this short article, I’m mosting likely to clarify my personal experience with beehiiv, the things I love (and hate) regarding it, all of it’s features, and why I decided to finally select it as my e-newsletter platform of option.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A couple of months ago, I unintentionally stumbled across beehiiv. The funny tale is that I have actually watched for a modern-day e-newsletter platform for rather some time currently. I’ve procrastinated hard when it concerned ultimately releasing my newsletter.
Initially, I attempted Mailchimp. After that, a couple of other indie platforms. Then, Substack. And lastly, I wound up utilizing beehiiv.
I make sure numerous e-newsletter makers appreciate preferred newsletters with countless customers– I know I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I respected a whole lot. They have terrific material, tons of subscribers, and a clever referral program that enables them to get back at a lot more clients.
So, I went on a search to figure out exactly how these big e-newsletters set up their logistics. What platform do they use? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they obtain more subscribers? How do they develop a newsletter design that remains on-brand?
When I found beehiiv for the first time, it appeared to answer all of my concerns. I thought to myself, “damn individuals that constructed this device really understand e-newsletter production and development.” I examined who these creators of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were a few of the very first marketing and development workers at Morning Brew– my mind blew up.
I knew this was going to be a different newsletter platform. One that’s concentrated on developer growth.
Due to the fact that, any developer understands, you need development to be able to make a living off of an e-newsletter. And discovering the ideal e-newsletter stack (that ranges) commonly suggests making use of numerous different tools to assist achieve one goal– 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 found out beehiiv did all of these points in one platform, and it was cost-free to begin using, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean web content developer that wants a platform that allows them to send custom-made newsletters with or without requiring to have an internet site.
One of the most effective e-newsletters have the right devices to build and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv targets at providing you those tools.
If you’re an independent writer, media firm, start-up, or material maker, you should seriously thinking about trying beehiiv. It’s entirely free to get going and you only pay when you get to over 2,500 customers on your listing.
If you in fact end up having to spend for beehiiv it’s probably a great sign that individuals enjoy reviewing your things.
beehiiv vs Substack
You could be asking, “isn’t there already a system for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, yes there is. Substack is an excellent platform utilized by thousands of independent writers. With Substack you get your own internet site and make use of the platform as your all-in-one option for sending out e-mails (while producing an archive of previous problems).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s commitment to development. beehiiv allows you do to all the important things Substack can do, with the advantage of far better analytics, even more layout flexibilty, and a referral program to encourage your existing customers to get the word out.
beehiiv also provides you a site similar to Substack. However, if you have your very own internet site already, you can additionally use beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I use) to send your web site customers straight to your beehiiv email listing. On the very same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a device like Revue to permit people to register for your newsletter directly from Twitter.
This offers you the adaptability to take advantage of different marketing networks to obtain your e-newsletter out into the globe, making beehiiv a terrific Substack alternative.
Exactly how to start using beehiiv e-mail marketing software.
Sign up for a free plan
The initial step is to sign up for a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Beginning trial” switch on beehiiv’s internet site.
The free plan will enable you to have up to 2,500 clients, give you access to web site hosting, a newsletter CMS, development personalization, analytics, outside embed forms, and much more. It’s a very charitable offering for those simply starting out (or for those searching for a brand-new system to move to).
Onboarding Substack or Beehiiv
After creating an account, you’ll undergo an onboarding process that will ask points like, “is this your initial newsletter?”, “what various other systems have you utilized?”, “do you have any kind of paying clients?”, and much more.
You’ll after that produce a name and link for your e-newsletter’s website. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will survive on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your site URL could be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding process, you’ll likewise select your brand design and colors to see to it your newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your dashboard
As soon as you reach your primary control panel, you’ll see all of your analytics and setups.
You will certainly have detailed details on the number of 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,” “Layout,” and” Assess.” And at the very lower you’ll see the setups option.
Dashboard is your main control center (screenshot over), Beginning creating is where you produce and release newsletters, Articles is where you can see all of your previous e-newsletter editions, Target market is where you can view who your clients are (and damage them down into sections), 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 newsletter with ads, Layout is where you make 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 stuff.
Creating your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it very easy to begin writing, with little to no friction. If you’re simply starting, and have an idea you intend to write about, I advise just mosting likely to the “Write” section in the navbar and clicking on “Beginning creating”.
You can fine-tune your template and styling later– focus on the content first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor uses a tidy and straightforward interface for composing.
As soon as you begin writing, you can enhance headings, include web links, and design your content just how you such as.
beehiiv offers you lots of choices for different sorts of web content like video clips, links, pictures, and much more.
The group at beehiiv is additionally continuously launching item feature and updates so I make certain there will be a great deal much more material features depending on when you’re reading this.
Enhancing your setups and templates
As soon as you have an e-newsletter that’s ready to send out, it’s time to design your email 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 a lot more.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your design.
You can edit background shades, borders, spacing, font styles, picture formats, and much more. I’m not mosting likely to undergo ever before solitary point you can enhance with your email template since it’s a lot. Just check out the system free of cost and see it for yourself!
Essential beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of amazing features that make it a great publishing system for any kind of e-newsletter maker.
Below are several of the essential features you can find with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter publishing system. It makes it extremely very easy to write and send emails. I mentioned above several of things you can do with your setups and e-mail style so I’ll spare you some extra reading.
Things to keep in mind with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has a really contemporary and minimalistic feeling. It’s definitely one of the far better e-mail editors I have actually ever before written in.
Internet site hosting
When you produce a beehiiv e-newsletter, all of your e-newsletters (if you desire) survive a site. Think of it as a web site for your e-newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous concerns of your newsletter, and an area where individuals can register for your e-newsletter.
If you recognize with Substack, it’s practically comparable to that.
All plans, including the complimentary one, give you a site. Nonetheless, the free plan places your internet site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you intend to include a custom domain name to remove all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting clients is important. After all, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can register for your e-newsletter right from your beehiiv internet site or through embed forms.
If you already have a website, and desire individuals to register for your e-newsletter from your existing site, you’ll need to make use of an embed type. This is what I utilize on this internet site (you can see the sign-up installed on the right hand column of this blog post if you scroll up).
With embed kinds, you have 3 various options– a full size, a repaired width, and a slim embed. I directly make use of the slim installed.
You can locate the code fragment for these embeds in the “Subscribe Forms” tab in your setups.
There’s likewise an alternative for acknowledgment tracking if you intend to forward UTM specifications for tracking objectives– quite cool.
Nevertheless, there are a few features I want beehiiv had when it pertained to subscribe features. I make sure the group is working with updates for these, yet I pointed out a few worries I had in the benefits and drawbacks section listed below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things concerning beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter system, is a remedy for creating a referral program.
You can motivate existing subscribers on your listing to forward your emails to buddies and colleagues and if they get other individuals to sign up for your list, you can compensate them. These incentives can be in whatever kind you desire. I’ve appear several e-newsletter business offer benefits in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously transform your clients right into a word of mouth growth engine for your e-newsletter– offering you one more method for expanding your e-mail list.
Nevertheless, to obtain access to the referral program feature, you’ll need to upgrade to a much more premium plan. I’ll go over all the plans later in this article.
Premium subscriptions
They state all you need to earn a living online is 1,000 real followers. Subscription profits is absolutely a monster of its very own. If you’re seeking a platform to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can produce “costs” problems of your newsletter that are just sent out to paying subscribers. This can be very lucrative relying on what your newsletter needs to offer. For example, Trends.co is a popular premium e-newsletter that produces millions in profits a year merely by having pay-only newsletter content.
Data analytics
One of the important things I love concerning beehiiv is just how tidy and straightforward the analytics are. You get real-time date on exactly how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and subscriber count Substack or Beehiiv.
You get accessibility to all the metrics you need to obtain a bird-eye sight on exactly how your newsletter is actually doing. Logging into your dashboard and seeing that customer count increase is certainly a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv uses four various pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (free) Launch plan offers you everything you need to get going and expand your newsletter (up to 2,500 subscribers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) gives you whatever in the Launch plan with the enhancement the advertisement network, referral program, personalized domain name, polls, and access to costs subscriptions. This is the plan I am on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) provides you everything in the Grow plan with enhancement of concern assistance and getting rid of the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are fairly charitable in my viewpoint.
As an example, if you have 100,000 customers you will pay around $329 each month. Rather than some competitors, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would certainly charge $679 monthly for the very same quantity– making beehiiv a wonderful Kit option for many individuals.
I’m uncertain just how the system economics deal with this, but beehiiv is most definitely less costly (at the moment) than what it can be.
beehiiv advantages and disadvantages
Of course, with every system, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Below are some of the advantages and disadvantages I’ve directly experienced while utilizing beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Here are some of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter system of option:
Easy to set up and begin sending out newsletters totally free.
Clean and modern-day client analytics.
Great deals of flexibility with email designs.
Referral program feature.
Internet site hosting.
Produce premium alternatives to monetize.
Polls.
To be truthful, I haven’t seen one more e-newsletter system that has actually had the ability to package every one of these features with each other so well.
Yet obviously, I do not intend to be prejudiced so I’m mosting likely to state some cons.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Below are several of the disadvantages I’ve discovered while making use of beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around adding custom-made fonts.
I utilize Webflow as my web site building system of selection (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a long time ago). I’m not going to enter way too much information why I love Webflow so much yet you can read my Webflow testimonial if you would love to learn more.
Right now, there actually is nothing else way I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow site besides making use of an iframe embed. I directly don’t such as making use of iframe’s because they tend to slow down my site a little bit. Every time a page on my site (with a beehiiv embed) tons, the sign-up installed is the last point to load on the web page. It’s very noticeable when you’re on a slow-moving net link. Yet I can get around that.
The major gripe I have is that I can not utilize a normal Webflow type (which I like making use of). There are ways around this by using a device like Zapier yet that would certainly just include added costs that I do not need. To be straightforward, this is more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv disadvantage yet I assumed I would mention it.
Besides that, I still think the pros far outweigh the disadvantages right here. I’m also confident that Webflow will ultimately develop a far better way to incorporate with beehiiv.
Conclusion
On the whole, beehiiv is a terrific service for any person looking to dive into the globe of e-mail marketing and e-newsletters.
The performance of this e-newsletter system far exceeds lots of that are presently on the marketplace. And with a charitable free plan, you actually have absolutely nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are additionally fairly economical wherefore they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 clients on your listing is unprecedented. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k subscribers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it can cost you well into the thousands each month.
Anyways, I don’t write evaluation blog posts commonly. I just do when I really utilize the device myself and would certainly recommend it to a buddy.
I hope you located some quality on whether beehiiv is a good system for you.