Over 2 years back, I read one of my favorite email e-newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo design for the first time. I clicked it and quickly began wrecking Tinker Solution Beehiiv.
I wasn’t certain why I felt so psychological.
Being a full-time developer is tough. I’m typically getting pitched various tools and services that don’t appear to be worth my time.
I think I was psychological since I invested the last 6 months checking out various e-mail and e-newsletter platforms to assist develop my e-newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some great alternatives for creating newsletters. Yet I couldn’t locate one that made me provide a certain “yes”.
The concern with numerous existing e-newsletter systems is that they do not really feel creator-centered. I want a newsletter system that lets me totally personalize my e-newsletter styles, makes it very simple to write and send out e-mails, and provides me devices that aid me examine metrics and get even more subscribers.
I assume I’ve ultimately discovered the appropriate device.
However, I know beehiiv may not be for everybody. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s actually appropriate for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one platform for newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter system that makes it simple to style, write, send, advertise, monetize, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Created by previous employees at the popular newsletter business Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to aid developers launch and monetize their very own e-newsletter– taking great deals of growth principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M customers.
In this post, I’m mosting likely to discuss my individual experience with beehiiv, things I enjoy (and hate) regarding it, all of it’s features, and why I decided to ultimately opt for it as my e-newsletter system of choice.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A couple of months ago, I inadvertently came across beehiiv. The amusing story is that I’ve watched for a modern e-newsletter system for quite a long time currently. I’ve postponed hard when it concerned finally launching my e-newsletter.
First, I attempted Mailchimp. After that, a few various other indie platforms. After that, Substack. And lastly, I wound up making use of beehiiv.
I’m sure several newsletter developers look up to prominent newsletters with numerous clients– I recognize I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I appreciated a great deal. They have wonderful material, lots of subscribers, and a brilliant referral program that permits them to get back at more customers.
So, I took place a hunt to determine how these huge e-newsletters set up their logistics. What system do they utilize? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they get more customers? How do they create an e-newsletter layout that remains on-brand?
When I uncovered beehiiv for the very first time, it appeared to address every one of my inquiries. I thought to myself, “damn individuals that constructed this device truly understand e-newsletter production and growth.” I questioned who these designers of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were several of the very first marketing and growth employees at Morning Brew– my mind blew up.
I knew this was mosting likely to be a different newsletter system. One that’s focused on creator growth.
Since, any designer understands, you need growth to be able to make a living off of a newsletter. And discovering the best e-newsletter pile (that scales) often means utilizing multiple different tools to assist attain one goal– one platform for your newsletter, one system to monetize, and one platform to set up references. It can get pricey.
So when I discovered beehiiv did all of these points in one platform, and it was 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 creator that desires a system that enables them to send out customized e-newsletters with or without needing to have a website.
The most successful newsletters have the right tools to develop and scale their newsletters. beehiiv targets at offering you those tools.
If you’re an independent author, media company, start-up, or material designer, you need to seriously taking into consideration experimenting with beehiiv. It’s completely cost-free to start and you just pay when you get to over 2,500 customers on your list.
If you actually end up having to spend for beehiiv it’s most likely a good sign that individuals like reviewing your things.
beehiiv vs Substack
You could be asking, “isn’t there currently a platform for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, indeed there is. Substack is a great system made use of by hundreds of independent authors. With Substack you get your own site and utilize the platform as your all-in-one option for sending emails (while developing an archive of previous issues).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s devotion to growth. beehiiv allows you do to all the important things Substack can do, with the benefit of much better analytics, more style flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing clients to get words out.
beehiiv likewise offers you an internet site comparable to Substack. Yet, if you have your very own web site already, you can also utilize beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I utilize) to send your site subscribers right to your beehiiv email listing. On the same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a tool like Revue to permit individuals to sign up for your e-newsletter straight from Twitter.
This gives you the flexibility to utilize different marketing channels to obtain your e-newsletter out right into the globe, making beehiiv a great Substack option.
Exactly how to begin making use of beehiiv email marketing software.
Enroll in 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 web site.
The free plan will certainly enable you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, provide you accessibility to internet site hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, development personalization, analytics, external embed kinds, and a lot more. It’s an extremely charitable offering for those just beginning (or for those seeking a new platform to migrate to).
Onboarding Tinker Solution Beehiiv
After producing an account, you’ll go through an onboarding procedure that will ask things like, “is this your initial e-newsletter?”, “what various other systems have you utilized?”, “do you have any type of paying customers?”, and extra.
You’ll after that develop a name and link for your newsletter’s internet site. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will survive a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your site link might be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding process, you’ll also pick your brand colors and design to make sure your newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your dashboard
Once you reach your major dashboard, you’ll see every one of your analytics and settings.
You will have detailed information on how many sign-ups you’re obtaining and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see options for “Begin writing,” “Articles,” “Target market,” “Grow,” “Generate income from,” “Style,” and” Evaluate.” And at the very lower you’ll see the setups option.
Dashboard is your major nerve center (screenshot above), Start writing is where you create and publish e-newsletters, Posts is where you can see every one of your previous e-newsletter versions, Audience is where you can see who your customers are (and break them down right into segments), 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 e-newsletter with advertisements, Design is where you design your newsletter landing page and article template, Evaluate is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can manage every one of your admin stuff.
Composing your newsletter
beehiiv makes it very easy to start composing, with little to no rubbing. If you’re just starting out, and have a concept you intend to cover, I recommend just mosting likely to the “Write” section in the navbar and clicking on “Beginning writing”.
You can tweak your template and designing later on– focus on the material initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor offers a tidy and user-friendly user interface for creating.
Once you begin composing, you can optimize headings, include links, and style your content exactly how you like.
beehiiv offers you tons of choices for various types of material like videos, links, photos, and more.
The team at beehiiv is also constantly launching item feature and updates so I make certain there will be a lot much more content features depending on when you read this.
Maximizing your settings and templates
As soon as you have an e-newsletter that prepares to send, it’s time to make your e-mail template and adjust some settings.
Here, you can upgrade the name of your newsletter, give it a summary, add your logo, activate or off a welcome email to very first time subscribers, and more.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your design.
You can modify background shades, borders, spacing, font styles, photo layouts, and much more. I’m not going to go through ever single thing you can maximize with your email template since it’s a great deal. Just check out the system completely free and see it on your own!
Essential beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of amazing features that make it an excellent publishing system for any type of e-newsletter creator.
Right here are a few of the vital features you can locate with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter publishing platform. It makes it super very easy to write and send emails. I discussed above a few of things you can do with your settings and e-mail design so I’ll spare you some extra analysis.
The important things to note with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has a really modern-day and minimalistic feeling. It’s most definitely among the much better e-mail editors I have actually ever before written in.
Website hosting
When you create a beehiiv newsletter, all of your newsletters (if you desire) survive on a website. Think about it as a site for your newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous concerns of your e-newsletter, and a location where people can sign up for your e-newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s basically comparable to that.
All plans, including the complimentary one, give you a site. However, the free plan places your web site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you want to include a customized domain name to get rid of all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting clients is very important. Nevertheless, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can register for your newsletter directly from your beehiiv site or through embed forms.
If you currently have a web site, and want individuals to sign up for your newsletter from your existing website, you’ll need to make use of an embed kind. This is what I use on this site (you can see the sign-up installed on the right-hand man column of this post if you scroll up).
With embed kinds, you have three various options– a full width, a repaired size, and a slim installed. I personally make use of the slim embed.
You can discover the code bit for these embeds in the “Subscribe Forms” tab in your setups.
There’s additionally an option for attribution tracking if you wish to forward UTM criteria for tracking purposes– rather neat.
Nevertheless, there are a few features I desire beehiiv had when it pertained to subscribe features. I make sure the team is working on updates for these, but I pointed out a couple of issues I had in the benefits and drawbacks section listed below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things regarding beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter platform, is a remedy for developing a referral program.
You can urge existing clients on your listing to ahead your e-mails to buddies and coworkers and if they obtain other people to sign up for your checklist, you can award them. These incentives can be in whatever kind you desire. I have actually seem lots of newsletter firms provide rewards in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously transform your customers right into a word of mouth growth engine for your e-newsletter– offering you one more method for expanding your e-mail checklist.
However, to get accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll have to upgrade to a much more premium plan. I’ll go over all the plans later on in this article.
Costs subscriptions
They say all you require to make a living online is 1,000 true followers. Subscription income is most definitely a beast of its very own. If you’re looking for a system to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can develop “costs” concerns of your e-newsletter that are only sent out to paying customers. This can be really financially rewarding depending upon what your newsletter has to use. For example, Trends.co is a prominent costs e-newsletter that produces millions in earnings a year simply by having pay-only e-newsletter content.
Data analytics
Among the important things I like regarding beehiiv is how tidy and basic the analytics are. You obtain real-time date on exactly how your newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and client count Tinker Solution Beehiiv.
You get accessibility to all the metrics you need to obtain a bird-eye view on just how your e-newsletter is in fact doing. Logging into your dashboard and seeing that customer matter go up is most definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv provides 4 various pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (complimentary) Launch plan provides you every little thing you require to get started and expand your e-newsletter (up to 2,500 subscribers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) provides you whatever in the Launch plan with the addition the advertisement network, referral program, customized domain name, polls, and accessibility to premium subscriptions. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) gives you whatever 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 point of view.
For example, if you have 100,000 customers you will pay around $329 monthly. As opposed to some rivals, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would bill $679 each month for the very same amount– making beehiiv a great Kit option for many individuals.
I’m uncertain just how the system business economics service this, however beehiiv is definitely more affordable (right now) than what it can be.
beehiiv advantages and disadvantages
Obviously, with every system, it has its pros and cons. Here are several of the advantages and disadvantages I’ve personally experienced while making use of beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Here are some of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter platform of choice:
Easy to set up and begin sending out newsletters completely free.
Clean and modern client analytics.
Great deals of versatility with e-mail layouts.
Referral program feature.
Web site hosting.
Produce costs choices to monetize.
Polls.
To be honest, I have not seen an additional newsletter system that has been able to package all of these features together so well.
But certainly, I do not wish to be prejudiced so I’m going to point out some cons.
Cons of using beehiiv
Right here are some of the disadvantages I’ve found while using beehiiv:.
Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around including custom fonts.
I utilize Webflow as my site building platform of selection (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a long time ago). I’m not mosting likely to go in excessive detail why I enjoy Webflow a lot however you can read my Webflow evaluation if you wish to find out more.
Today, there really is nothing else means I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow website aside from utilizing an iframe embed. I directly don’t such as utilizing iframe’s because they have a tendency to decrease my website a bit. Each time a page on my site (with a beehiiv installed) lots, the sign-up embed is the last point to load on the page. It’s very recognizable when you get on a slow-moving net link. However I can navigate that.
The major complaint I have is that I can not utilize a routine Webflow type (which I like making use of). There are methods around this by utilizing a device like Zapier however that would just include additional costs that I do not need. To be straightforward, this is even more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv con however I assumed I would state it.
Besides that, I still think the pros much outweigh the cons below. I’m also enthusiastic that Webflow will at some point create a far better method to incorporate with beehiiv.
Verdict
Generally, beehiiv is a wonderful option for anybody looking to study the world of email marketing and newsletters.
The functionality of this newsletter platform far exceeds several that are currently on the marketplace. And with a generous free plan, you actually 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 unusual. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k clients, and all of these features beehiiv has, it might cost you well into the thousands each month.
Anyways, I don’t write testimonial articles frequently. I just do when I actually utilize the device myself and would advise it to a buddy.
I hope you found some quality on whether beehiiv is an excellent system for you.