Over 2 years earlier, I was reading one of my preferred e-mail 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 started tearing up What Is The Difference Between Beehiiv and Medium.
I wasn’t certain why I really felt so emotional.
Being a full time maker is difficult. I’m usually getting pitched various tools and services that don’t appear to be worth my time.
I think I was emotional since I invested the last 6 months trying out different email and e-newsletter platforms to help construct my e-newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some fantastic choices for creating e-newsletters. Yet I could not find one that made me give a guaranteed “yes”.
The concern with several existing newsletter systems is that they don’t feel creator-centered. I desire an e-newsletter platform that lets me fully tailor my newsletter designs, makes it incredibly very easy to compose and send out e-mails, and offers me devices that aid me assess metrics and obtain more clients.
I think I’ve finally discovered the best tool.
However, I understand beehiiv may not be for every person. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s in fact right for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one platform for newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter platform that makes it very easy to layout, compose, send out, promote, monetize, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Produced by previous workers at the famous e-newsletter business Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to help creators launch and monetize their own e-newsletter– taking great deals of growth principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M clients.
In this write-up, I’m going to describe my personal experience with beehiiv, things I enjoy (and hate) regarding it, all of it’s features, and why I decided to ultimately select it as my newsletter platform of choice.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A few months earlier, I mistakenly stumbled across beehiiv. The funny tale is that I have actually been on the lookout for a modern-day newsletter platform for fairly a long time currently. I have actually procrastinated hard when it came to ultimately introducing my newsletter.
Initially, I tried Mailchimp. Then, a few various other indie systems. Then, Substack. And ultimately, I wound up using beehiiv.
I make sure lots of newsletter makers look up to preferred e-newsletters with millions of clients– I recognize I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I looked up to a lot. They have wonderful material, lots of subscribers, and a brilliant referral program that permits them to get even a lot more customers.
So, I went on a search to determine how these big newsletters set up their logistics. What system do they utilize? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they get more clients? How do they produce a newsletter style that stays on-brand?
When I discovered beehiiv for the very first time, it seemed to address every one of my questions. I thought to myself, “damn the people that built this device actually understand e-newsletter production and development.” I examined who these makers of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were a few of the initial marketing and development employees at Morning Brew– my brain took off.
I understood this was going to be a different newsletter system. One that’s focused on designer development.
Since, any maker recognizes, you require growth to be able to make a living off of a newsletter. And finding the best e-newsletter pile (that scales) often suggests utilizing numerous various devices to assist achieve one goal– one system for your newsletter, one system to monetize, and one system to set up recommendations. It can get pricey.
So when I found out beehiiv did every one of these points in one system, and it was free to begin utilizing, it was a piece of cake to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean material maker that wants a system that permits them to send customized e-newsletters with or without requiring to have an internet site.
The most effective newsletters have the right devices to build and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv aims at giving you those tools.
If you’re an independent author, media firm, start-up, or content developer, you ought to seriously thinking about trying out beehiiv. It’s absolutely cost-free to start and you just pay when you get to over 2,500 subscribers on your list.
If you really wind up needing to pay for beehiiv it’s possibly a great indicator that people like reading your stuff.
beehiiv vs Substack
You may be asking, “isn’t there currently a system for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, indeed there is. Substack is a terrific platform used by hundreds of independent writers. With Substack you get your own site and make use of the system as your all-in-one solution for sending emails (while producing an archive of previous concerns).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s devotion to growth. beehiiv enables you do to all the things Substack can do, with the advantage of much better analytics, even more design flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing subscribers to obtain words out.
beehiiv also provides you a site comparable to Substack. Yet, if you have your own web site already, you can also make use of beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I utilize) to send your site subscribers directly to your beehiiv email checklist. On the same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a tool like Revue to enable people to sign up for your e-newsletter straight from Twitter.
This gives you the flexibility to utilize various marketing channels to get your e-newsletter out into the world, making beehiiv a wonderful Substack alternative.
How to start using beehiiv email marketing software program.
Register for 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 web site.
The free plan will certainly allow you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, offer you access to website hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, advance customization, analytics, outside embed types, and much more. It’s an extremely generous offering for those just starting (or for those seeking a brand-new system to move to).
Onboarding What Is The Difference Between Beehiiv and Medium
After producing an account, you’ll experience an onboarding procedure that will ask points like, “is this your initial newsletter?”, “what other systems have you utilized?”, “do you have any type of paying subscribers?”, and extra.
You’ll after that develop a name and URL for your newsletter’s internet site. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will certainly live on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your website URL could be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding procedure, you’ll additionally choose your brand name colors and design to see to it your e-newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your control panel
Once you reach your major dashboard, you’ll see every one of your analytics and setups.
You will certainly have outlined info on how many sign-ups you’re obtaining and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see choices for “Begin writing,” “Articles,” “Audience,” “Expand,” “Generate income from,” “Design,” and” Analyze.” And at the really lower you’ll see the settings option.
Dashboard is your major nerve center (screenshot over), Begin writing is where you produce and release newsletters, Messages is where you can see all of your previous e-newsletter versions, Target market is where you can see who your clients are (and break them down into segments), Expand is where you have access to a referral program (and growth tutorials) and boosts to run ads, Monetize is where you can access the beehiiv ad network and monetize your e-newsletter with ads, Layout is where you make your e-newsletter landing page and blog post template, Examine is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can handle all of your admin things.
Writing your newsletter
beehiiv makes it easy to begin creating, with little to no rubbing. If you’re simply starting out, and have a concept you intend to discuss, I recommend just mosting likely to the “Create” area in the navbar and clicking on “Start composing”.
You can modify your template and styling later– focus on the web content initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor offers a tidy and straightforward user interface for composing.
As soon as you begin composing, you can enhance headings, add web links, and design your material exactly how you such as.
beehiiv offers you tons of options for different types of material like video clips, web links, photos, and a lot more.
The team at beehiiv is likewise continuously releasing item feature and updates so I make sure there will certainly be a whole lot extra material features relying on when you’re reading this.
Optimizing your setups and templates
Once you have a newsletter that’s ready to send, it’s time to make your e-mail template and change some settings.
Right here, you can upgrade the name of your newsletter, give it a description, add your logo, activate or off a welcome email to first time customers, and more.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can modify background colors, borders, spacing, font styles, picture layouts, and much more. I’m not going to go through ever before solitary thing you can maximize with your email template due to the fact that it’s a whole lot. Just experiment with the system totally free and see it on your own!
Important beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of remarkable features that make it an excellent publishing system for any e-newsletter creator.
Below are some of the vital features you can find with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter publishing system. It makes it incredibly easy to write and send out e-mails. I discussed over several of the things you can do with your setups and email style so I’ll spare you some added reading.
The important things to note with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has a truly modern-day and minimalistic feeling. It’s absolutely one of the far better e-mail editors I’ve ever written in.
Website hosting
When you develop a beehiiv newsletter, all of your e-newsletters (if you desire) survive a web site. Think of it as a site for your newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous issues of your e-newsletter, and a location where individuals can register for your e-newsletter.
If you’re familiar with Substack, it’s pretty much comparable to that.
All plans, consisting of the complimentary one, give you a website. Nevertheless, the free plan areas your internet site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you intend to add a personalized domain to eliminate all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining subscribers is important. Besides, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can subscribe to your newsletter right from your beehiiv web site or with embed kinds.
If you currently have a website, and desire individuals to register for your e-newsletter from your existing website, you’ll have to use an embed type. This is what I utilize on this site (you can see the sign-up installed on the right hand column of this blog post if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have 3 various alternatives– a full width, a dealt with size, and a slim installed. I directly make use of the slim embed.
You can locate the code fragment for these embeds in the “Subscribe Kinds” tab in your settings.
There’s also an option for acknowledgment monitoring if you wish to onward UTM parameters for tracking objectives– quite neat.
Nevertheless, there are a couple of features I wish beehiiv had when it concerned subscribe features. I’m sure the group is servicing updates for these, however I discussed a couple of 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 e-newsletter system, is a solution for developing a referral program.
You can motivate existing subscribers on your listing to onward your emails to close friends and associates and if they obtain other individuals to sign up for your list, you can reward them. These benefits can be in whatever type you desire. I have actually seem lots of newsletter companies provide rewards in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously turn your subscribers into a word of mouth growth engine for your newsletter– providing you another method for growing your e-mail listing.
Nevertheless, to get access to the referral program feature, you’ll have to update to an extra superior plan. I’ll look at all the plans later on in this article.
Costs subscriptions
They say all you require to earn a living online is 1,000 real fans. Subscription earnings is absolutely a monster of its very own. If you’re looking for a platform to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can produce “costs” concerns of your newsletter that are just sent to paying subscribers. This can be extremely rewarding depending on what your e-newsletter has to provide. As an example, Trends.co is a preferred costs newsletter that creates millions in revenue a year just by having pay-only newsletter content.
Data analytics
Among the things I love regarding beehiiv is how tidy and easy the analytics are. You obtain real-time date on how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and client matter What Is The Difference Between Beehiiv and Medium.
You get access to all the metrics you need to obtain a bird-eye sight on just how your newsletter is actually doing. Logging right into your dashboard and seeing that subscriber count increase is definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv offers four various pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (cost-free) Launch plan gives you whatever you require to start and grow your e-newsletter (up to 2,500 clients).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) provides you every little thing in the Launch plan with the addition the ad network, referral program, custom-made domain, polls, and accessibility to premium memberships. This is the plan I am on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) provides you everything in the Grow plan with addition of top priority support and getting rid of the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are fairly generous in my viewpoint.
As an example, if you have 100,000 clients you will pay around $329 each month. As opposed to some rivals, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would charge $679 monthly for the very same amount– making beehiiv a terrific Kit choice for lots of customers.
I’m not exactly sure just how the unit business economics work on this, yet beehiiv is certainly more affordable (right now) than what it can be.
beehiiv pros and cons
Of course, with every system, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Right here are several of the advantages and disadvantages I have actually directly experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Here are several of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter platform of selection:
Easy to establish and begin sending out e-newsletters totally free.
Tidy and modern client analytics.
Lots of versatility with email designs.
Referral program feature.
Internet site hosting.
Create costs choices to monetize.
Polls.
To be truthful, I have not seen another newsletter platform that has been able to package every one of these features together so well.
But obviously, I don’t intend to be biased so I’m mosting likely to point out some cons.
Cons of using beehiiv
Below are some of the disadvantages I have actually found while making use of beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around adding custom font styles.
I utilize Webflow as my internet site building platform of choice (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a very long time ago). I’m not mosting likely to go in excessive detail why I like Webflow so much but you can review my Webflow evaluation if you ‘d like to find out more.
Right now, there truly is nothing else method I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow internet site aside from utilizing an iframe embed. I personally do not like using iframe’s due to the fact that they have a tendency to decrease my website a bit. Whenever a web page on my site (with a beehiiv embed) tons, the sign-up embed is the last thing to pack on the page. It’s really obvious when you’re on a slow-moving net connection. Yet I can navigate that.
The main complaint I have is that I can’t utilize a normal Webflow type (which I enjoy making use of). There are means around this by utilizing a device like Zapier yet that would just include extra prices that I do not need. To be straightforward, this is more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv disadvantage yet I believed I would certainly state it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros much outweigh the cons right here. I’m additionally confident that Webflow will eventually produce a much better method to integrate with beehiiv.
Verdict
On the whole, beehiiv is a wonderful option for anyone seeking to dive into the globe of email marketing and newsletters.
The capability of this newsletter platform much exceeds lots of that are presently on the marketplace. And with a generous free plan, you truly have absolutely nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are likewise fairly economical for what they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 subscribers on your listing is uncommon. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k clients, and all of these features beehiiv has, it can cost you well into the thousands monthly.
Anyways, I don’t compose review blog posts frequently. I only do when I in fact use the tool myself and would recommend it to a good friend.
I wish you found some clarity on whether or not beehiiv is a good system for you.