I read one of my favored email newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo design for the very first time. I clicked on it and instantly started tearing up. Beehiiv API Key…
Being a full-time developer is difficult. I’m frequently getting pitched various tools and solutions that do not appear to be worth my time.
I guess I was emotional due to the fact that I spent the last 6 months trying different email and newsletter platforms to help develop my newsletter. And to be fair, there are some wonderful alternatives for composing e-newsletters. But I couldn’t discover one that made me give a guaranteed “yes”.
The concern with many existing newsletter systems is that they do not really feel creator-centered. I desire an e-newsletter system that lets me fully customize my newsletter designs, makes it super simple to write and send emails, and offers me devices that help me analyze metrics and get even more customers.
I assume I’ve ultimately discovered the ideal device.
However, I understand beehiiv may not be for every person. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s really appropriate for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one platform for newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter platform that makes it easy to layout, write, send out, advertise, generate income from, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Developed by former workers at the popular e-newsletter company Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to help designers 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 explain my personal experience with beehiiv, the things I love (and hate) concerning it, all of it’s features, and why I determined to finally select it as my e-newsletter system of selection.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A couple of months ago, I accidentally stumbled across beehiiv. The amusing story is that I have actually been on the lookout for a modern newsletter platform for rather time currently. I have actually postponed hard when it pertained to finally launching my newsletter.
First, I attempted Mailchimp. Then, a couple of other indie systems. After that, Substack. And finally, I wound up making use of beehiiv.
I make certain several e-newsletter developers respect prominent newsletters with millions of customers– I recognize I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I respected a lot. They have wonderful content, tons of customers, and a smart referral program that allows them to get back at extra customers.
So, I went on a quest to figure out how these large newsletters set up 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 produce an e-newsletter design that remains on-brand?
When I discovered beehiiv for the first time, it seemed to address every one of my questions. I believed to myself, “damn the people that developed this device actually comprehend newsletter creation and growth.” I examined who these makers of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were a few of the very first marketing and growth workers at Morning Brew– my brain blew up.
I recognized this was mosting likely to be a different e-newsletter platform. One that’s focused on developer development.
Because, any designer knows, you need development to be able to make a living off of an e-newsletter. And locating the best newsletter stack (that scales) usually suggests utilizing numerous various devices to help accomplish one goal– one system for your newsletter, one platform to generate income from, and one platform to establish references. It can obtain expensive.
So when I figured out beehiiv did every one of these things in one system, and it was free to begin utilizing, 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, yes there is. Substack is a fantastic system utilized by thousands of independent authors. With Substack you obtain your own website and make use of the system as your all-in-one solution for sending out emails (while developing an archive of previous issues).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s dedication to growth. beehiiv enables you do to all the things Substack can do, with the benefit of better analytics, even more design flexibilty, and a referral program to urge your existing subscribers to obtain the word out.
beehiiv additionally offers you a web site similar to Substack. But, if you have your own internet site already, you can also make use of beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I utilize) to send your site clients straight to your beehiiv email checklist. On the same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a device like Revue to enable people to register for your newsletter directly from Twitter.
This provides you the flexibility to leverage different marketing networks to get your e-newsletter out right into the world, making beehiiv a terrific Substack alternative.
How to begin making use of beehiiv e-mail marketing software application.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean material maker that wants a system that allows them to send custom e-newsletters with or without needing to have a web site.
The most effective e-newsletters have the right devices to build and scale their newsletters. beehiiv aims at providing you those tools.
If you’re an independent author, media firm, startup, or material creator, you ought to seriously thinking about trying out beehiiv. It’s totally cost-free to begin and you only pay when you get to over 2,500 subscribers on your list.
If you in fact end up having to spend for beehiiv it’s most likely a great sign that people enjoy reading your things.
Enroll in a free plan
The very first 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 enable you to have up to 2,500 clients, give you accessibility to website hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, advancement modification, analytics, exterior embed kinds, and more. It’s a very charitable offering for those simply beginning (or for those looking for a brand-new platform to migrate to).
Onboarding
After producing an account, you’ll undergo an onboarding process that will ask things like, “is this your first e-newsletter?”, “what various other systems have you made use of?”, “do you have any paying customers?”, and more.
You’ll after that create a name and link for your e-newsletter’s web site. On the free plan, your newsletter will survive a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your web site URL may be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding procedure, you’ll additionally choose your brand colors and design to ensure your e-newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your dashboard
When you reach your major dashboard, you’ll see every one of your analytics and setups.
You will have described info on the amount of sign-ups you’re getting and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see alternatives for “Begin writing”, “Messages”, “Target market”, “Expand”, “Monetize”, “Design” and” Analyze”. And at the really lower you’ll see the settings option.
Control panel is your primary control center (screenshot above), Start composing is where you create and release newsletters, Posts is where you can see all of your previous newsletter editions, Audience is where you can watch who your subscribers are (and break them down right into sectors), Grow is where you have accessibility to a referral program (and development tutorials) and boosts to run ads, Monetize is where you can access the beehiiv ad network and monetize your e-newsletter with ads, Style is where you create your newsletter landing page and post template, Assess is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can take care of every one of your admin things.
Composing your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it simple to begin composing, with little to no friction. If you’re just starting, and have a concept you wish to cover, I advise simply mosting likely to the “Write” area in the navbar and clicking “Beginning writing”.
You can modify your template and designing later– focus on the content first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor uses a tidy and straightforward user interface for writing.
When you start writing, you can optimize headings, include web links, and style your web content just how you like.
beehiiv gives you tons of choices for various sorts of content like video clips, links, photos, and much more.
The group at beehiiv is likewise continuously releasing product feature and updates so I’m sure there will certainly be a whole lot more content features depending upon when you read this.
Enhancing your setups and templates
When you have a newsletter that prepares to send, it’s time to create your email template and adjust some settings.
Right here, you can upgrade the name of your newsletter, offer it a summary, include your logo design, switch on or off a welcome e-mail to very first time clients, and much more.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your style.
You can modify background shades, boundaries, spacing, typefaces, photo layouts, and more. I’m not mosting likely to go through ever before single point you can optimize with your e-mail template since it’s a lot. Simply try out the system for free and see it for yourself!
Crucial beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of fantastic features that make it an excellent posting platform for any type of newsletter developer.
Here are a few of the necessary features you can find with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder Beehiiv API Key
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter publishing system. It makes it extremely easy to create and send out emails. I discussed over a few of the important things you can do with your settings and e-mail layout so I’ll save you some added analysis.
The thing to keep in mind with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has an actually modern-day and minimalistic feeling. It’s definitely one of the much better e-mail editors I’ve ever written in.
Website hosting
When you create a beehiiv e-newsletter, every one of your e-newsletters (if you desire) survive on an internet site. Think of it as an internet site for your e-newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous issues of your newsletter, and a place where people can register for your e-newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s pretty much similar to that.
All plans, including the totally free one, offer you a website. However, the free plan areas your internet site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you wish to include a custom domain name to remove all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting clients is very important. After all, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can subscribe to your newsletter directly from your beehiiv internet site or with embed forms.
If you already have a web site, and desire people to subscribe to your newsletter from your existing site, you’ll have to utilize an embed form. 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 types, you have three different alternatives– a complete width, a dealt with width, and a slim embed. I personally make use of the slim embed.
You can find the code bit for these embeds in the “Subscribe Types” tab in your setups.
There’s additionally a choice for acknowledgment tracking if you want to onward UTM specifications for tracking purposes– pretty cool.
However, 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, but I pointed out a couple of concerns I had in the advantages and disadvantages section 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 producing a referral program.
You can encourage existing clients on your listing to onward your e-mails to friends and coworkers and if they obtain other people to sign up for your listing, you can compensate them. These incentives can be in whatever form you want. I have actually seem many newsletter business offer benefits in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously turn your subscribers right into a word of mouth growth engine for your newsletter– giving you an additional avenue for expanding your email checklist.
Nevertheless, to get access to the referral program feature, you’ll have to update to a much more superior plan. I’ll go over all the plans later in this short article.
Premium memberships
They say all you require to earn a living online is 1,000 true fans. Subscription earnings is definitely a monster of its very own. If you’re seeking a system to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can create “premium” concerns of your e-newsletter that are only sent to paying customers. This can be very financially rewarding relying on what your newsletter has to offer. For instance, Trends.co is a prominent costs newsletter that produces millions in profits a year simply by having pay-only e-newsletter web content.
Information analytics
Among the things I enjoy concerning beehiiv is just how tidy and basic the analytics are. You obtain real-time date on how your newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and subscriber matter.
You obtain access to all the metrics you require to get a bird-eye sight on how your newsletter is in fact doing. Logging right into your dashboard and seeing that subscriber count go up is definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv supplies 4 different pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (complimentary) Launch plan gives you whatever you need to begin and grow your newsletter (approximately 2,500 subscribers).
The Scale plan ($ 39/month) provides you every little thing in the Launch plan with the addition the ad network, referral program, personalized domain name, surveys, and access to premium subscriptions. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 76/month) provides you every little thing in the Grow plan with enhancement of concern support and getting rid of the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are rather generous in my viewpoint.
For example, if you have 100,000 customers you will pay around $329 per month. Rather than some rivals, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would certainly bill $679 each month for the exact same quantity– making beehiiv a great Kit alternative for numerous customers.
I’m uncertain just how the unit business economics deal with this, yet beehiiv is absolutely more affordable (presently) than what it can be.
beehiiv benefits and drawbacks
Certainly, with every platform, it has its pros and cons. Below are several of the pros and cons I’ve personally experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Below are several of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter platform of option:
- Easy to establish and start sending out newsletters free of charge
- Tidy and modern subscriber analytics
- Great deals of flexibility with email layouts.
- Referral program feature Beehiiv API Key
- Internet site hosting
- Create premium choices to monetize
- Surveys
To be sincere, I have not seen another newsletter platform that has been able to package every one of these features together so well.
Yet obviously, I do not intend to be biased so I’m mosting likely to mention some disadvantages.
Cons of using beehiiv
Here are several of the disadvantages I have actually discovered while making use of beehiiv:.
- Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv
- Limitations around adding personalized font styles
I use Webflow as my site building platform of choice (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 review my Webflow testimonial if you would love to find out more.
Right now, there truly is nothing else way I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow internet site apart from using an iframe embed. I personally don’t like utilizing iframe’s due to the fact that they tend to reduce my website a little bit. Whenever a web page on my site (with a beehiiv embed) lots, the sign-up embed is the last thing to pack on the page. It’s extremely recognizable when you’re on a slow net link. However I can navigate that.
The main complaint I have is that I can not use a routine Webflow form (which I love using). There are ways around this by utilizing a device like Zapier however that would certainly just add additional costs that I don’t need. To be straightforward, this is more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv disadvantage but I assumed I would state it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros much outweigh the disadvantages here. I’m also enthusiastic that Webflow will eventually produce a better way to incorporate with beehiiv.
Final Thought
On the whole, beehiiv is a fantastic option for any person seeking to study the globe of email marketing and e-newsletters.
The functionality of this newsletter platform far exceeds lots of that are currently on the marketplace. And with a generous free plan, you actually have nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are likewise rather inexpensive for what they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 clients on your listing is unheard of. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k clients, and all of these features beehiiv has, it might cost you well right into the thousands each month.
Anyways, I don’t create evaluation posts frequently. I only do when I actually utilize the device myself and would certainly recommend it to a close friend.
I wish you discovered some clarity on whether beehiiv is a good platform for you.