Over 2 years back, I was reading one of my favored e-mail e-newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo for the very first time. I clicked it and immediately started tearing up What Companies Use Beehiiv.
I had not been sure why I really felt so psychological.
Being a full-time designer is tough. I’m often getting pitched different devices and services that do not appear to be worth my time.
I think I was emotional because I invested the last 6 months trying out different e-mail and newsletter systems to assist develop my newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some great alternatives for writing e-newsletters. Yet I could not discover one that made me provide a definite “yes”.
The concern with lots of existing e-newsletter platforms is that they do not feel creator-centered. I desire a newsletter system that lets me totally customize my e-newsletter designs, makes it incredibly easy to write and send out emails, and offers me tools that assist me evaluate metrics and obtain more customers.
I believe I have actually lastly discovered the right tool.
But, I understand beehiiv may not be for everybody. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s actually best for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one platform for newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly e-newsletter system that makes it very easy to layout, compose, send, advertise, generate income from, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Created by former workers at the famous e-newsletter business Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to help creators launch and monetize their own e-newsletter– taking great deals of growth principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M subscribers.
In this post, I’m mosting likely to clarify my personal experience with beehiiv, the things I enjoy (and hate) about it, all of it’s features, and why I made a decision to lastly choose it as my e-newsletter platform of selection.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A couple of months ago, I inadvertently came across beehiiv. The amusing tale is that I’ve been on the lookout for a modern newsletter system for quite some time now. I have actually hesitated hard when it concerned ultimately introducing my e-newsletter.
Initially, I tried Mailchimp. Then, a few various other indie platforms. After that, Substack. And ultimately, I ended up utilizing beehiiv.
I make sure many e-newsletter designers respect preferred e-newsletters with countless clients– I understand I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I admired a lot. They have fantastic material, lots of customers, and a clever referral program that enables them to get even a lot more subscribers.
So, I took place a search to determine how these big e-newsletters set up their logistics. What platform do they make use of? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they get more subscribers? How do they create an e-newsletter layout that stays on-brand?
When I uncovered beehiiv for the first time, it appeared to answer all of my questions. I believed to myself, “damn individuals that built this device actually comprehend newsletter development and development.” I examined who these makers of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were some of the very first marketing and development workers at Morning Brew– my mind blew up.
I understood this was mosting likely to be a different e-newsletter system. One that’s focused on developer development.
Because, any type of designer recognizes, you need growth to be able to earn a living off of an e-newsletter. And finding the appropriate newsletter pile (that ranges) commonly suggests making use of numerous various devices to aid achieve one goal– one system for your e-newsletter, one system to generate income from, and one platform to establish references. It can obtain pricey.
So when I discovered beehiiv did all of these points in one platform, 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 content creator that desires a platform that enables them to send out customized newsletters with or without requiring to have a web site.
One of the most successful e-newsletters have the right tools to build and scale their newsletters. beehiiv aims at providing you those devices.
If you’re an independent author, media company, start-up, or material developer, you need to seriously thinking about trying out beehiiv. It’s entirely free to start and you only pay when you reach over 2,500 customers on your listing.
If you really end up having to pay for beehiiv it’s probably an excellent indication that people love reading your things.
beehiiv vs Substack
You may be asking, “isn’t there currently a system for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, of course there is. Substack is a wonderful system used by hundreds of independent authors. With Substack you obtain your own site and make use of the system as your all-in-one option for sending out e-mails (while creating an archive of previous concerns).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s commitment to growth. beehiiv permits you do to all things Substack can do, with the benefit of much better analytics, even more design flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing customers to get words out.
beehiiv additionally gives you a web site comparable to Substack. But, if you have your very own internet site already, you can likewise use beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I use) to send your website customers straight to your beehiiv e-mail listing. On the very same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a tool like Performance to enable individuals to register for your e-newsletter straight from Twitter.
This gives you the flexibility to leverage different marketing networks to obtain your newsletter out into the world, making beehiiv a wonderful Substack alternative.
Exactly how to start using beehiiv email marketing software.
Register for a free plan
The first step is to enroll in a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Begin trial” switch on beehiiv’s web site.
The free plan will certainly enable you to have up to 2,500 customers, offer you accessibility to website hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, advancement modification, analytics, outside embed forms, and a lot more. It’s an extremely generous offering for those simply starting out (or for those trying to find a brand-new system to migrate to).
Onboarding What Companies Use Beehiiv
After creating an account, you’ll experience an onboarding procedure that will ask things like, “is this your very first e-newsletter?”, “what other platforms have you utilized?”, “do you have any type of paying subscribers?”, and much more.
You’ll then create a name and link for your newsletter’s web site. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will certainly reside on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your site link may be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding procedure, you’ll also pick your brand name colors and design to see to it your e-newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your control panel
When you reach your main control panel, you’ll see all of your analytics and setups.
You will have outlined information on how many sign-ups you’re getting and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see options for “Start composing,” “Blog posts,” “Audience,” “Expand,” “Generate income from,” “Design,” and” Analyze.” And at the very lower you’ll see the settings alternative.
Dashboard is your major control center (screenshot above), Begin writing is where you develop and release e-newsletters, Blog posts is where you can see all of your previous e-newsletter versions, Target market is where you can watch who your customers are (and damage them down right into sections), Grow 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 e-newsletter with advertisements, Design is where you design your newsletter landing page and message template, Examine is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can manage every one of your admin things.
Composing your newsletter
beehiiv makes it very easy to start creating, with little to no rubbing. If you’re just starting out, and have an idea you intend to write about, I advise just going to the “Create” section in the navbar and clicking “Begin creating”.
You can tweak your template and styling later– focus on the web content first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor uses a clean and easy to use user interface for writing.
Once you begin creating, you can maximize headings, add links, and design your content just how you such as.
beehiiv provides you tons of alternatives for different types of content like videos, web links, pictures, and a lot more.
The team at beehiiv is also regularly releasing product feature and updates so I make certain there will certainly be a whole lot more material features depending on when you read this.
Enhancing your setups and templates
When you have a newsletter that prepares to send, it’s time to make your e-mail template and change some settings.
Here, you can upgrade the name of your e-newsletter, offer it a summary, include your logo, switch on or off a welcome email to first time subscribers, and more.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your design.
You can modify history shades, boundaries, spacing, fonts, picture styles, and much more. I’m not going to experience ever single point you can maximize with your e-mail template since it’s a great deal. Just try out the system free of charge and see it for yourself!
Crucial beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of outstanding features that make it a great posting platform for any type of newsletter designer.
Here are some of the essential features you can find with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter posting platform. It makes it extremely easy to create and send emails. I pointed out over some of the things you can do with your setups and email design so I’ll spare you some extra reading.
The important things to keep in mind with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has an actually modern-day and minimalistic feel. It’s absolutely among the far better email editors I’ve ever before written in.
Web site hosting
When you produce a beehiiv e-newsletter, all of your newsletters (if you desire) live on a site. Consider it as a site for your newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous issues of your newsletter, and an area where people can subscribe to your e-newsletter.
If you’re familiar with Substack, it’s pretty much comparable to that.
All plans, including the free one, offer you a site. Nevertheless, the free plan areas your site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you intend to include a customized domain to get rid of all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting customers is important. Nevertheless, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can subscribe to your e-newsletter right from your beehiiv website or via embed kinds.
If you already have a site, and desire individuals to register for your e-newsletter from your existing website, you’ll need to use 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 blog post if you scroll up).
With embed kinds, you have 3 different choices– a full width, a dealt with size, and a slim embed. I directly use the slim embed.
You can find the code fragment for these embeds in the “Subscribe Kinds” tab in your setups.
There’s also an option for attribution tracking if you intend to ahead UTM specifications for tracking objectives– quite neat.
Nevertheless, there are a few features I desire beehiiv had when it came to subscribe features. I’m sure the team is dealing with updates for these, however I pointed out a couple of issues I had in the benefits and drawbacks section listed below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things about beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter platform, is a service for producing a referral program.
You can encourage existing clients on your list to ahead your e-mails to buddies and coworkers and if they obtain other individuals to sign up for your checklist, you can compensate them. These benefits can be in whatever type you want. I’ve seem many e-newsletter companies offer rewards in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously transform your customers into a word of mouth growth engine for your e-newsletter– offering you one more avenue for growing your email listing.
Nonetheless, 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 in this short article.
Premium registrations
They say all you require to make a living online is 1,000 true fans. Subscription revenue is absolutely a beast of its own. If you’re seeking a platform to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can produce “premium” problems of your newsletter that are only sent to paying subscribers. This can be very financially rewarding depending upon what your e-newsletter has to provide. For instance, Trends.co is a popular costs e-newsletter that produces millions in earnings a year just by having pay-only newsletter web content.
Data analytics
Among things I enjoy concerning beehiiv is exactly how tidy and straightforward the analytics are. You get real-time date on just how your newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and customer matter What Companies Use Beehiiv.
You get accessibility to all the metrics you need to get a bird-eye view on exactly how your e-newsletter is really doing. Logging right into your control panel and seeing that client matter go up is certainly a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv provides 4 different pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (free) Launch plan offers you every little thing you need to get started and grow your newsletter (as much as 2,500 subscribers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) provides you every little thing in the Launch plan with the addition the advertisement network, referral program, custom-made domain name, surveys, and accessibility to costs memberships. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) offers you everything in the Grow plan with addition of top priority support and eliminating the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are rather charitable in my opinion.
For instance, if you have 100,000 clients you will pay around $329 each month. As opposed to some competitors, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would certainly bill $679 each month for the exact same amount– making beehiiv a terrific Kit choice for lots of customers.
I’m uncertain just how the unit business economics work on this, yet beehiiv is most definitely less costly (right now) than what it can be.
beehiiv pros and cons
Obviously, with every system, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Here are several of the benefits and drawbacks I have actually directly experienced while utilizing beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Here are a few of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter platform of selection:
Easy to establish and start sending out e-newsletters for free.
Clean and modern-day customer analytics.
Lots of adaptability with e-mail layouts.
Referral program feature.
Web site hosting.
Create costs alternatives to monetize.
Surveys.
To be truthful, I have not seen one more newsletter system that has actually been able to package every one of these features with each other so well.
But certainly, I don’t want to be biased so I’m mosting likely to discuss some cons.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Right here are a few of the disadvantages I’ve located while using beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around including customized fonts.
I make use of Webflow as my website building platform of option (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a very long time ago). I’m not going to go in way too much information why I like Webflow a lot however you can read my Webflow review if you want to find out more.
Right now, there really is nothing else method I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow site other than utilizing an iframe embed. I directly don’t like using iframe’s due to the fact that they have a tendency to decrease my internet site a bit. Every time a web page on my website (with a beehiiv embed) tons, the sign-up embed is the last point to fill on the web page. It’s extremely visible when you’re on a sluggish internet link. Yet I can get around that.
The major gripe I have is that I can not make use of a normal Webflow form (which I love utilizing). There are means around this by using a tool like Zapier however that would simply add added costs that I don’t require. To be sincere, this is even more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv disadvantage however I believed I would discuss it.
Besides that, I still think the pros far exceed the cons right here. I’m additionally hopeful that Webflow will eventually create a much better means to integrate with beehiiv.
Verdict
On the whole, beehiiv is a terrific option for anyone wanting to dive into the globe of e-mail marketing and e-newsletters.
The functionality of this e-newsletter platform far surpasses lots of that are currently on the market. And with a generous free plan, you really have absolutely nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are additionally fairly low-cost of what they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 clients on your list is unprecedented. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k customers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it could cost you well right into the thousands each month.
Anyways, I do not write evaluation blog posts commonly. I just do when I actually make use of the device myself and would certainly recommend it to a friend.
I hope you discovered some clearness on whether beehiiv is a great system for you.