I was reading one of my favorite email newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo for the first time. I clicked on it and instantaneously started tearing up. Advertise on Beehiiv…
Being a full-time developer is difficult. I’m frequently getting pitched different tools and services that do not seem to be worth my time.
I think I was emotional due to the fact that I invested the last 6 months checking out various e-mail and e-newsletter platforms to help develop my e-newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some excellent alternatives for writing newsletters. But I couldn’t discover one that made me provide a guaranteed “yes”.
The issue with lots of existing newsletter systems is that they don’t feel creator-centered. I want a newsletter platform that lets me totally customize my newsletter designs, makes it very very easy to create and send out emails, and offers me tools that help me examine metrics and obtain more customers.
I think I’ve finally discovered the best tool.
However, I know beehiiv might not be for everybody. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s actually ideal for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one system for newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly e-newsletter system that makes it very easy to layout, create, send, advertise, generate income from, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Developed by former staff members at the popular e-newsletter business Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to aid creators launch and monetize their own e-newsletter– taking lots of development principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M clients.
In this article, I’m mosting likely to describe my personal experience with beehiiv, the things I like (and hate) regarding it, all of it’s features, and why I decided to finally go with it as my newsletter system of choice.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A few months earlier, I accidentally stumbled across beehiiv. The funny tale is that I’ve been on the lookout for a modern e-newsletter platform for quite time now. I’ve procrastinated hard when it came to lastly releasing my e-newsletter.
Initially, I attempted Mailchimp. After that, a couple of other indie platforms. Then, Substack. And finally, I wound up utilizing beehiiv.
I make sure numerous newsletter creators look up to preferred newsletters with countless clients– I know I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I looked up to a lot. They have excellent material, lots of clients, and a brilliant referral program that enables them to get even much more subscribers.
So, I went on a quest to determine just how these large e-newsletters established their logistics. What system do they make use of? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they obtain even more clients? How do they produce a newsletter layout that remains on-brand?
When I uncovered beehiiv for the very first time, it seemed to answer every one of my questions. I believed to myself, “damn individuals that built this device really understand e-newsletter development and growth.” I questioned who these makers of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were a few of the very first marketing and development staff members at Morning Brew– my mind exploded.
I recognized this was mosting likely to be a various e-newsletter platform. One that’s concentrated on creator development.
Because, any type of maker recognizes, you require growth to be able to earn a living off of a newsletter. And discovering the appropriate e-newsletter pile (that scales) usually suggests making use of numerous different tools to assist attain one goal– one system for your e-newsletter, one platform to monetize, and one platform to establish references. It can get expensive.
So when I learnt beehiiv did all of these points in one platform, and it was cost-free to start utilizing, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
beehiiv vs Substack
You may be asking, “isn’t there currently a system for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, indeed there is. Substack is a fantastic system used by thousands of independent writers. With Substack you get your very own internet site and use the system as your all-in-one solution for sending e-mails (while creating an archive of previous issues).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s dedication to development. beehiiv permits you do to all the things Substack can do, with the benefit of much better analytics, more layout flexibilty, and a referral program to urge your existing clients to get words out.
beehiiv also offers you a website comparable to Substack. However, if you have your very own web site currently, you can additionally make use of beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I utilize) to send your site clients directly to your beehiiv e-mail listing. On the exact same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a device like Revue to enable individuals to sign up for your newsletter straight from Twitter.
This gives you the adaptability to leverage various marketing channels to get your e-newsletter out into the world, making beehiiv a terrific Substack choice.
Just how to begin making use of beehiiv e-mail marketing software.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean web content creator that desires a platform that enables them to send customized e-newsletters with or without requiring to have a web site.
One of the most effective newsletters have the right devices to develop and scale their newsletters. beehiiv focuses on giving you those devices.
If you’re an independent writer, media business, start-up, or material developer, you must seriously taking into consideration checking out beehiiv. It’s entirely complimentary to get going and you only pay when you get to over 2,500 customers on your listing.
If you in fact wind up having to pay for beehiiv it’s possibly a great sign that individuals like reading your things.
Sign up for a free plan
The initial step is to register for a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Begin trial” switch on beehiiv’s web site.
The free plan will enable you to have up to 2,500 clients, give you access to site hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, advancement customization, analytics, outside embed forms, and extra. It’s an extremely charitable offering for those just beginning (or for those searching for a brand-new platform to migrate to).
Onboarding
After developing an account, you’ll experience an onboarding procedure that will ask things like, “is this your first newsletter?”, “what various other systems have you used?”, “do you have any kind of paying subscribers?”, and more.
You’ll then produce a name and URL for your newsletter’s website. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will certainly survive a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your website link could be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding procedure, you’ll likewise pick your brand name colors and design to ensure your e-newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your control panel
As soon as you reach your major dashboard, you’ll see all of your analytics and settings.
You will certainly have outlined information on how many sign-ups you’re obtaining and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see alternatives for “Begin composing”, “Blog posts”, “Audience”, “Expand”, “Monetize”, “Layout” and” Examine”. And at the really bottom you’ll see the setups option.
Dashboard is your primary control center (screenshot over), Begin creating is where you produce and release e-newsletters, Messages is where you can see every one of your previous newsletter versions, Target market is where you can see who your subscribers are (and damage them down into sectors), 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 newsletter with ads, Style is where you develop your newsletter landing page and article template, Analyze is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can handle all of your admin stuff.
Composing your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it simple to start writing, with little to no rubbing. If you’re simply starting, and have a concept you intend to blog about, I recommend simply mosting likely to the “Compose” section in the navbar and clicking “Beginning creating”.
You can fine-tune your template and designing later– focus on the material initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor provides a tidy and easy to use user interface for creating.
Once you begin composing, you can maximize headings, include web links, and style your material exactly how you like.
beehiiv gives you tons of alternatives for different kinds of web content like videos, links, images, and much more.
The team at beehiiv is likewise regularly launching item feature and updates so I’m sure there will be a great deal a lot more material features relying on when you read this.
Enhancing your setups and templates
When you have an e-newsletter that prepares to send, it’s time to develop your email template and readjust some settings.
Right here, you can upgrade the name of your e-newsletter, provide it a summary, include your logo, turn on or off a welcome email to very first time customers, and extra.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your design.
You can modify background colors, borders, spacing, typefaces, image formats, and more. I’m not mosting likely to go through ever single thing you can maximize with your email template due to the fact that it’s a whole lot. Simply experiment with the system completely free and see it for yourself!
Essential beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of fantastic features that make it a terrific posting platform for any type of e-newsletter designer.
Right here are some of the crucial features you can discover with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder Advertise on Beehiiv
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter publishing system. It makes it super easy to create and send emails. I stated over some of things you can do with your setups and email layout so I’ll save you some extra analysis.
The important things to note with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has a really modern and minimalistic feel. It’s definitely among the much better e-mail editors I have actually ever before written in.
Web site hosting
When you create a beehiiv newsletter, all of your e-newsletters (if you want) survive on an internet site. Think of it as a site for your newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous problems of your e-newsletter, and an area where people can register for your e-newsletter.
If you’re familiar with Substack, it’s basically similar to that.
All plans, including the free one, offer you a web site. However, the free plan locations your site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you want to add a custom domain to get rid of all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining clients is necessary. Nevertheless, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can subscribe to your newsletter straight from your beehiiv web site or with embed forms.
If you already have a website, and desire individuals to register for your e-newsletter from your existing website, you’ll need to use an embed form. This is what I make use of on this web site (you can see the sign-up embed on the right hand column of this blog post if you scroll up).
With embed kinds, you have 3 different alternatives– a complete size, a repaired width, and a slim embed. I personally use the slim embed.
You can discover the code snippet for these embeds in the “Subscribe Kinds” tab in your setups.
There’s likewise an alternative for acknowledgment monitoring if you want to forward UTM parameters for tracking functions– quite 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, yet I pointed out a few 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 system, is a service for creating a referral program.
You can urge existing clients on your listing to forward your emails to friends and coworkers and if they get other people to register for your checklist, you can reward them. These benefits can be in whatever kind you want. I have actually seem numerous newsletter firms offer rewards in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously transform your subscribers into a word of mouth development engine for your e-newsletter– giving you another opportunity for growing your e-mail checklist.
Nonetheless, to obtain accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll need to upgrade to a much more superior plan. I’ll look at all the plans later in this article.
Costs registrations
They claim all you require to earn a living online is 1,000 true fans. Subscription earnings is most definitely a monster of its own. If you’re seeking a system to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can develop “costs” concerns of your newsletter that are just sent out to paying customers. This can be very financially rewarding depending on what your newsletter needs to offer. As an example, Trends.co is a prominent costs newsletter that produces millions in income a year simply by having pay-only newsletter web content.
Data analytics
One of the things I love concerning beehiiv is how clean and basic the analytics are. You obtain real-time date on just how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and subscriber matter.
You obtain access to all the metrics you need to get a bird-eye view on how your e-newsletter is really doing. Logging into your control panel and seeing that client matter rise is most definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv offers four various pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (complimentary) Launch plan offers you whatever you require to get started and grow your e-newsletter (as much as 2,500 clients).
The Scale plan ($ 39/month) offers you whatever in the Launch plan with the addition the ad network, referral program, customized domain, polls, and access to premium subscriptions. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 76/month) provides you everything in the Grow plan with addition of priority support and removing the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are rather charitable in my viewpoint.
As an example, if you have 100,000 clients you will pay around $329 monthly. Instead of some rivals, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would bill $679 per month for the very same quantity– making beehiiv an excellent Kit choice for many individuals.
I’m not sure how the device economics deal with this, but beehiiv is most definitely less expensive (currently) than what it can be.
beehiiv advantages and disadvantages
Of course, with every platform, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Here are some of the advantages and disadvantages I have actually directly experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Here are a few of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter system of choice:
- Easy to set up and begin sending e-newsletters absolutely free
- Clean and modern client analytics
- Great deals of versatility with email designs.
- Referral program feature Advertise on Beehiiv
- Site hosting
- Develop premium alternatives to monetize
- Polls
To be straightforward, I have not seen another newsletter system that has actually had the ability to package all of these features together so well.
Yet obviously, I don’t intend to be prejudiced so I’m going to mention some disadvantages.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Below are some of the cons I’ve located while using beehiiv:.
- Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv
- Limitations around adding custom-made font styles
I make use of Webflow as my web site structure system of option (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a long time ago). I’m not mosting likely to go in too much information why I like Webflow so much yet you can read my Webflow testimonial if you would love to learn more.
Right now, there truly is nothing else method I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow internet site other than making use of an iframe embed. I personally do not like utilizing iframe’s because they often tend to slow down my internet site a little bit. Whenever a page on my site (with a beehiiv installed) loads, the sign-up embed is the last thing to fill on the web page. It’s very obvious when you get on a sluggish web link. However I can get around that.
The main complaint I have is that I can not make use of a routine Webflow kind (which I enjoy making use of). There are means around this by using a tool like Zapier however that would simply include extra costs that I do not need. To be honest, this is even more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv con however I assumed I would certainly discuss it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros much surpass the disadvantages here. I’m also confident that Webflow will eventually create a much better method to integrate with beehiiv.
Conclusion
Generally, beehiiv is a wonderful remedy for anybody seeking to dive into the globe of e-mail marketing and e-newsletters.
The functionality of this newsletter system far outweighs lots of that are presently on the market. And with a charitable free plan, you really have nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are additionally fairly economical of what they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 customers on your checklist is unheard of. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k clients, and all of these features beehiiv has, it could cost you well into the thousands monthly.
Anyways, I don’t write review messages often. I only do when I really make use of the device myself and would certainly recommend it to a good friend.
I hope you found some clarity on whether or not beehiiv is a good system for you.