I was reading one of my favored 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 instantly began destroying. Beehiiv CEO…
Being a full-time maker is difficult. I’m usually getting pitched various tools and solutions that do not appear to be worth my time.
I think I was emotional due to the fact that I spent the last six months trying various e-mail and newsletter systems to assist develop my newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some wonderful alternatives for composing newsletters. Yet I couldn’t find one that made me offer a guaranteed “yes”.
The problem with several existing newsletter platforms is that they don’t really feel creator-centered. I desire an e-newsletter system that lets me fully personalize my e-newsletter styles, makes it very easy to create and send e-mails, and offers me tools that assist me assess metrics and obtain more subscribers.
I assume I have actually ultimately discovered the appropriate tool.
However, I understand beehiiv might not be for everyone. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s really appropriate for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one system for newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter system that makes it simple to design, compose, send, advertise, monetize, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Produced by former workers at the well-known e-newsletter firm Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to assist developers launch and monetize their very own newsletter– taking great deals of growth concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M subscribers.
In this write-up, I’m mosting likely to explain my personal experience with beehiiv, the important things I enjoy (and hate) concerning it, all of it’s features, and why I chose to ultimately opt for it as my newsletter platform of option.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A few months earlier, I inadvertently stumbled across beehiiv. The amusing story is that I have actually watched for a modern-day newsletter platform for quite time currently. I’ve hesitated hard when it involved finally launching my e-newsletter.
Initially, I tried Mailchimp. Then, a few other indie systems. Then, Substack. And ultimately, I ended up making use of beehiiv.
I’m sure many newsletter makers admire preferred newsletters with countless subscribers– I know I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I looked up to a whole lot. They have wonderful web content, lots of clients, and a smart referral program that enables them to get back at more subscribers.
So, I went on a search to find out how these big newsletters established their logistics. What system do they utilize? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they obtain more customers? How do they develop an e-newsletter design that stays on-brand?
When I found beehiiv for the first time, it seemed to address all of my concerns. I believed to myself, “damn the people that developed this device truly understand newsletter production and growth.” 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 growth employees at Morning Brew– my brain blew up.
I knew this was mosting likely to be a various newsletter system. One that’s focused on designer growth.
Since, any creator knows, you need growth to be able to make a living off of an e-newsletter. And discovering the right e-newsletter stack (that scales) often means utilizing numerous various devices to assist attain one objective– one system for your newsletter, one platform to monetize, and one system to set up referrals. It can obtain expensive.
So when I figured out beehiiv did every one of these things in one system, and it was cost-free to begin using, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
beehiiv vs Substack
You may be asking, “isn’t there already a system for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, indeed there is. Substack is a wonderful platform utilized by hundreds of independent authors. With Substack you obtain your own internet site and use the system as your all-in-one option for sending out emails (while developing an archive of previous problems).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s dedication to development. beehiiv allows you do to all the things Substack can do, with the benefit of much better analytics, more design flexibilty, and a referral program to urge your existing subscribers to obtain words out.
beehiiv additionally gives you a site comparable to Substack. Yet, if you have your own web site already, you can additionally use beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I make use of) to send your web site customers right to your beehiiv email list. On the very same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a device like Performance to allow people to register for your newsletter directly from Twitter.
This gives you the versatility to take advantage of different marketing networks to obtain your e-newsletter out right into the world, making beehiiv an excellent Substack alternative.
Just how to begin making use of beehiiv e-mail marketing software program.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean content developer that desires a system that permits them to send personalized e-newsletters with or without needing to have a website.
One of the most effective newsletters have the right devices to develop and scale their newsletters. beehiiv aims at giving you those devices.
If you’re an independent author, media business, startup, or material developer, you should seriously taking into consideration trying out beehiiv. It’s completely free to start and you just pay when you get to over 2,500 customers on your checklist.
If you really wind up having to spend for beehiiv it’s most likely a great indication that individuals love reviewing your things.
Sign up for a free plan
The very first 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 permit you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, offer you accessibility to website hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, advance customization, analytics, outside embed kinds, and more. It’s an extremely generous offering for those just starting out (or for those looking for a new system to migrate to).
Onboarding
After creating an account, you’ll go through an onboarding procedure that will ask things like, “is this your first e-newsletter?”, “what 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 newsletter’s internet site. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will certainly survive on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your internet site link might be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding procedure, you’ll also choose your brand colors and design to see to it your newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your dashboard
As soon as you reach your main dashboard, you’ll see every one of your analytics and settings.
You will have described info on how many sign-ups you’re getting and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see choices for “Start writing”, “Blog posts”, “Audience”, “Expand”, “Generate income from”, “Layout” and” Evaluate”. And at the very lower you’ll see the setups option.
Dashboard is your main nerve center (screenshot over), Start creating is where you create and publish e-newsletters, Messages is where you can see all of your previous newsletter editions, Audience is where you can view who your clients are (and break them down into sectors), 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 newsletter with ads, Layout is where you create your e-newsletter landing page and blog post template, Analyze is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can handle every one of your admin things.
Composing your newsletter
beehiiv makes it simple to start writing, with little to no rubbing. If you’re simply starting out, and have a concept you wish to discuss, I advise just mosting likely to the “Write” area in the navbar and clicking “Beginning composing”.
You can tweak your template and styling later on– concentrate on the material initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor offers a clean and easy to use interface for composing.
Once you begin composing, you can enhance headings, add links, and style your material just how you such as.
beehiiv provides you tons of options for different kinds of material like video clips, links, images, and a lot more.
The team at beehiiv is also continuously launching product feature and updates so I make sure there will be a great deal a lot more content features relying on when you read this.
Maximizing your setups and templates
When you have an e-newsletter that prepares to send, it’s time to design your email template and change some setups.
Below, you can upgrade the name of your newsletter, offer it a summary, add your logo, turn on or off a welcome email to very first time clients, and much more.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your design.
You can modify history shades, borders, spacing, font styles, picture formats, and a lot more. I’m not mosting likely to undergo ever solitary point you can maximize with your email template due to the fact that it’s a lot. Just try out the platform totally free and see it for yourself!
Vital beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of impressive features that make it a terrific publishing system for any type of newsletter designer.
Below are some of the necessary features you can discover with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder Beehiiv CEO
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter publishing system. It makes it extremely simple to compose and send out e-mails. I discussed above several of the things you can do with your settings and e-mail design so I’ll save you some extra reading.
The thing to note with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has an actually modern-day and minimalistic feel. It’s absolutely one of the much better e-mail editors I’ve ever written in.
Website hosting
When you create a beehiiv newsletter, every one of your e-newsletters (if you desire) live on a website. Consider it as an internet site for your e-newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous issues 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, consisting of the totally free one, offer you a website. However, the free plan locations your website on a beehiiv subdomain so if you intend to include a custom-made domain name to get rid of all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting customers is very important. After all, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can subscribe to your e-newsletter right from your beehiiv web site or through embed forms.
If you currently have a website, and want people to subscribe to your newsletter from your existing website, you’ll have to utilize an embed form. This is what I use on this web site (you can see the sign-up embed on the right-hand man column of this blog post if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have 3 different options– a complete size, a taken care of size, and a slim embed. I directly use the slim embed.
You can locate the code fragment for these embeds in the “Subscribe Kinds” tab in your settings.
There’s also an alternative for attribution tracking if you want to onward UTM parameters for tracking objectives– quite cool.
Nevertheless, there are a few features I desire beehiiv had when it involved subscribe features. I’m sure the team is working with updates for these, yet I pointed out a couple of concerns I had in the pros and cons area listed below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things regarding beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter system, is a remedy for developing a referral program.
You can urge existing clients on your checklist to forward your emails to friends and coworkers and if they obtain other people to subscribe to your listing, you can award them. These benefits can be in whatever kind you want. I’ve seem many e-newsletter business offer incentives in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously transform your subscribers into a word of mouth growth engine for your newsletter– providing you one more method for expanding your email list.
However, to get accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll need to update to a much more superior plan. I’ll review all the plans later in this post.
Premium memberships
They claim all you require to earn a living online is 1,000 true fans. Membership revenue is absolutely a beast of its very own. If you’re looking for a system to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can create “premium” problems of your e-newsletter that are only sent to paying clients. This can be extremely financially rewarding relying on what your e-newsletter needs to provide. For instance, Trends.co is a popular premium newsletter that creates millions in profits a year merely by having pay-only e-newsletter material.
Data analytics
Among the important things I enjoy regarding beehiiv is just how clean and simple the analytics are. You obtain real-time day on how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and subscriber matter.
You get access to all the metrics you require to get a bird-eye view on just how your newsletter is in fact doing. Logging right into your control panel and seeing that subscriber count rise is most definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv provides four various pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (complimentary) Launch plan offers you every little thing you need to get started and grow your newsletter (as much as 2,500 customers).
The Scale plan ($ 39/month) gives you everything in the Launch plan with the addition the advertisement network, referral program, customized domain name, surveys, and access to premium subscriptions. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 76/month) gives you whatever in the Grow plan with addition of concern assistance and eliminating the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are quite generous in my opinion.
For example, if you have 100,000 customers you will pay around $329 per month. Rather than some competitors, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would certainly bill $679 monthly for the exact same quantity– making beehiiv an excellent Kit option for several customers.
I’m not sure how the device business economics work with this, however beehiiv is certainly less costly (presently) than what it can be.
beehiiv advantages and disadvantages
Naturally, with every platform, it has its pros and cons. Right here are some of the benefits and drawbacks 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 selection:
- Easy to set up and start sending out newsletters totally free
- Clean and modern-day customer analytics
- Lots of flexibility with e-mail layouts.
- Referral program feature Beehiiv CEO
- Web site hosting
- Create premium alternatives to monetize
- Surveys
To be straightforward, I have not seen another newsletter system that has actually been able to package every one of these features together so well.
But obviously, I do not intend to be prejudiced so I’m mosting likely to state some cons.
Cons of using beehiiv
Below are several of the cons I have actually located while utilizing beehiiv:.
- Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv
- Limitations around including custom font styles
I use Webflow as my internet site building platform of choice (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a long period of time ago). I’m not mosting likely to go in excessive information why I enjoy Webflow a lot but you can read my Webflow testimonial if you want to learn more.
Right now, there truly is no other means I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow site besides making use of an iframe embed. I directly do not like utilizing iframe’s since they tend to reduce my web site a bit. Whenever a web page on my website (with a beehiiv embed) tons, the sign-up installed is the last point to pack on the page. It’s really obvious when you’re on a slow-moving web connection. Yet I can get around that.
The primary gripe I have is that I can’t use a routine Webflow form (which I like using). There are methods around this by utilizing a device like Zapier however that would certainly simply add additional costs that I do not require. To be sincere, this is even more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv disadvantage yet I thought I would certainly state it.
Besides that, I still think the pros much outweigh the cons right here. I’m additionally confident that Webflow will at some point produce a better means to integrate with beehiiv.
Verdict
Generally, beehiiv is a terrific solution for anyone wanting to study the globe of email marketing and newsletters.
The performance of this newsletter platform much outweighs lots of that are currently on the market. And with a generous free plan, you really have nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are also rather inexpensive of what they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 subscribers on your checklist is unusual. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k subscribers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it can cost you well right into the thousands per month.
Anyways, I do not compose testimonial messages typically. I only do when I in fact utilize the tool myself and would certainly recommend it to a pal.
I hope you found some quality on whether beehiiv is a good platform for you.