I was reading one of my preferred email newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the e-mail and saw the beehiiv logo design for the first time. I clicked it and immediately began tearing up. Beehiiv Audio Newsletter…
Being a full-time developer is tough. I’m usually obtaining pitched different tools and services that do not appear to be worth my time.
I think I was emotional since I spent the last 6 months experimenting with different e-mail and newsletter systems to help construct my e-newsletter. And to be fair, there are some wonderful options for creating e-newsletters. However I couldn’t locate one that made me provide a definite “yes”.
The concern with several existing e-newsletter systems is that they do not feel creator-centered. I want an e-newsletter system that lets me fully personalize my e-newsletter styles, makes it super very easy to create and send emails, and gives me tools that assist me evaluate metrics and get more customers.
I assume I have actually finally located the right device.
However, I know beehiiv might not be for everyone. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s actually right for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one platform for newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly e-newsletter platform that makes it easy to layout, write, send, promote, monetize, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Developed by previous staff members at the famous e-newsletter firm Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to aid makers launch and monetize their very own newsletter– taking lots of development principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M subscribers.
In this post, I’m going to discuss my personal experience with beehiiv, the things I enjoy (and hate) about it, all of it’s features, and why I determined to lastly opt for it as my newsletter system of choice.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A few months back, I unintentionally came across beehiiv. The amusing tale is that I’ve been on the lookout for a contemporary e-newsletter platform for rather a long time now. I’ve put things off hard when it involved lastly introducing my e-newsletter.
First, I tried Mailchimp. After that, a few various other indie systems. After that, Substack. And lastly, I ended up utilizing beehiiv.
I make sure several newsletter makers appreciate preferred e-newsletters with numerous subscribers– I understand I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I appreciated a whole lot. They have wonderful content, lots of customers, and a clever referral program that enables them to get even more subscribers.
So, I took place a hunt to figure out just how these huge e-newsletters set up their logistics. What system do they utilize? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they obtain even more subscribers? How do they produce a newsletter style that remains on-brand?
When I discovered beehiiv for the very first time, it seemed to address all of my concerns. I thought to myself, “damn individuals that constructed this device really recognize newsletter development and growth.” I questioned who these makers of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were several of the initial marketing and growth staff members at Morning Brew– my brain blew up.
I understood this was going to be a different newsletter system. One that’s concentrated on maker growth.
Because, any type of maker knows, you need growth to be able to make a living off of an e-newsletter. And locating the best e-newsletter stack (that scales) frequently indicates utilizing several different devices to assist achieve one objective– one platform for your e-newsletter, one platform to monetize, and one system to establish referrals. It can get costly.
So when I discovered beehiiv did all of these points in one system, and it was complimentary to begin making use of, it was a piece of cake to give it a try.
beehiiv vs Substack
You may be asking, “isn’t there already a platform for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, yes there is. Substack is a terrific system made use of by hundreds of independent authors. With Substack you get your very own internet site and use the platform as your all-in-one solution for sending out e-mails (while producing an archive of previous issues).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s commitment to growth. beehiiv allows you do to all things Substack can do, with the benefit of much better analytics, more design flexibilty, and a referral program to encourage your existing customers to get the word out.
beehiiv also gives you a site comparable to Substack. Yet, if you have your very own internet site currently, you can likewise utilize beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I make use of) to send your web site subscribers right to your beehiiv e-mail list. On the same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a tool like Performance to allow people to subscribe to your newsletter directly from Twitter.
This provides you the adaptability to utilize various marketing networks to obtain your newsletter out into the globe, making beehiiv a great Substack alternative.
How to begin using beehiiv email marketing software.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean material creator that wants a system that enables them to send customized e-newsletters with or without needing to have an internet site.
The most successful newsletters have the right tools to construct and scale their newsletters. beehiiv focuses on offering you those tools.
If you’re an independent author, media business, startup, or content designer, you should seriously taking into consideration trying beehiiv. It’s totally cost-free to begin and you just pay when you get to over 2,500 subscribers on your list.
If you in fact wind up having to pay for beehiiv it’s most likely an excellent indication that people enjoy reading your things.
Sign up for a free plan
The very first step is to sign up for a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Start trial” switch on beehiiv’s web site.
The free plan will certainly enable you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, provide you accessibility to internet site hosting, a newsletter CMS, breakthrough customization, analytics, external embed types, and more. It’s an extremely generous offering for those just starting (or for those looking for a brand-new system to move to).
Onboarding
After producing an account, you’ll experience an onboarding procedure that will ask points like, “is this your first newsletter?”, “what other platforms have you used?”, “do you have any type of paying subscribers?”, and more.
You’ll then develop a name and link for your e-newsletter’s website. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will certainly survive on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your internet site link could be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding process, you’ll also pick your brand design and colors to ensure your e-newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your control panel
As soon as you reach your major control panel, you’ll see every one of your analytics and setups.
You will have detailed details on how many sign-ups you’re obtaining and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see alternatives for “Begin creating”, “Messages”, “Target market”, “Grow”, “Generate income from”, “Design” and” Assess”. And at the extremely lower you’ll see the setups option.
Dashboard is your main control center (screenshot above), Beginning composing is where you produce and publish e-newsletters, Posts is where you can see all of your previous newsletter versions, Audience is where you can see who your customers are (and break them down right into sections), Expand is where you have access 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 newsletter with advertisements, Layout is where you create your newsletter landing page and article template, Assess is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can handle all of your admin stuff.
Writing your newsletter
beehiiv makes it simple to begin writing, with little to no rubbing. If you’re just starting, and have an idea you wish to discuss, I recommend just mosting likely to the “Write” area in the navbar and clicking “Start composing”.
You can fine-tune your template and styling later– focus on the material initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor provides a tidy and user-friendly user interface for creating.
When you begin writing, you can maximize headings, include links, and design your content exactly how you such as.
beehiiv offers you lots of choices for various sorts of content like video clips, web links, pictures, and extra.
The group at beehiiv is additionally constantly releasing product feature and updates so I make sure there will certainly be a great deal extra content features relying on when you’re reading this.
Optimizing your setups and templates
When you have an e-newsletter that’s ready to send out, it’s time to develop your email template and change some settings.
Here, you can update the name of your newsletter, provide it a summary, add your logo, switch on or off a welcome e-mail to first time subscribers, and more.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can edit background shades, boundaries, spacing, font styles, picture styles, and much more. I’m not going to undergo ever single thing you can maximize with your email template due to the fact that it’s a whole lot. Just try the platform free of charge and see it on your own!
Vital beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of impressive features that make it an excellent publishing system for any newsletter designer.
Right here are some of the crucial features you can discover with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder Beehiiv Audio Newsletter
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter posting platform. It makes it super very easy to write and send e-mails. I stated over some of the important things you can do with your settings and email design so I’ll save you some added analysis.
The thing to note with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has an actually contemporary and minimalistic feeling. It’s most definitely among the far better e-mail editors I’ve ever written in.
Internet site hosting
When you develop a beehiiv e-newsletter, all of your e-newsletters (if you want) live on a web 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 location where individuals can subscribe to your newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s practically comparable to that.
All plans, consisting of the complimentary one, provide you a website. However, the free plan places your website on a beehiiv subdomain so if you want to add a personalized domain name to remove all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining customers is important. Besides, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can register for your e-newsletter directly from your beehiiv website or with embed types.
If you already have an internet site, and desire people to register for your e-newsletter from your existing site, you’ll need to use an embed type. This is what I use on this website (you can see the sign-up installed on the right-hand man column of this post if you scroll up).
With embed kinds, you have three various options– a complete width, a fixed size, and a slim installed. I personally utilize the slim embed.
You can locate the code snippet for these embeds in the “Subscribe Types” tab in your setups.
There’s additionally an alternative for attribution monitoring if you intend to ahead UTM criteria for tracking objectives– rather cool.
However, there are a few features I wish beehiiv had when it involved subscribe features. I make sure the team is working on updates for these, yet I stated a few worries I had in the pros and cons section listed below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things regarding beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter platform, is a remedy for producing a referral program.
You can motivate existing customers on your checklist to forward your emails to pals and colleagues and if they obtain other individuals to register for your checklist, you can compensate them. These rewards can be in whatever type you want. I’ve appear numerous e-newsletter firms give rewards in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously transform your customers right into a word of mouth growth engine for your newsletter– offering you another method for expanding your e-mail listing.
Nevertheless, to obtain access to the referral program feature, you’ll have to upgrade to a more exceptional plan. I’ll review all the plans later on in this article.
Premium memberships
They say all you need to earn a living online is 1,000 real fans. Subscription income is certainly a beast of its own. If you’re trying to find a system to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can produce “premium” issues of your e-newsletter that are just sent to paying subscribers. This can be really profitable depending on what your e-newsletter needs to use. For example, Trends.co is a preferred premium newsletter that produces millions in profits a year just by having pay-only newsletter material.
Information analytics
One of things I like about beehiiv is just how tidy and straightforward the analytics are. You obtain real-time date on exactly how your newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and client count.
You get access to all the metrics you require to get a bird-eye sight on exactly how your newsletter is in fact doing. Logging right into your dashboard and seeing that subscriber matter rise is absolutely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv offers 4 various pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (complimentary) Launch plan offers you whatever you require to begin and grow your newsletter (up to 2,500 clients).
The Scale plan ($ 39/month) gives you everything in the Launch plan with the addition the ad network, referral program, custom-made domain, surveys, and accessibility to costs memberships. This is the plan I am 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 rather charitable in my point of view.
As an example, if you have 100,000 subscribers you will certainly pay around $329 monthly. As opposed to some rivals, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would charge $679 per month for the very same quantity– making beehiiv a fantastic Kit choice for several customers.
I’m uncertain just how the unit business economics work on this, yet beehiiv is definitely less costly (right now) than what it can be.
beehiiv benefits and drawbacks
Naturally, with every platform, it has its pros and cons. Below are several of the advantages and disadvantages I have actually directly experienced while making use of beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Below are a few of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter platform of selection:
- Easy to establish and start sending out e-newsletters completely free
- Clean and modern client analytics
- Great deals of flexibility with email designs.
- Referral program feature Beehiiv Audio Newsletter
- Website hosting
- Develop costs options to generate income from
- Surveys
To be honest, I have not seen an additional newsletter platform that has had the ability to package every one of these features together so well.
Yet obviously, I do not wish to be prejudiced so I’m mosting likely to discuss some disadvantages.
Cons of using beehiiv
Right here are a few of the cons I’ve discovered while utilizing beehiiv:.
- Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv
- Limitations around adding personalized font styles
I utilize Webflow as my site structure system of choice (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a very long time ago). I’m not mosting likely to enter way too much detail why I like Webflow so much but you can read my Webflow testimonial if you want to learn more.
Now, there really is nothing else way I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow web site besides utilizing an iframe embed. I personally do not such as making use of iframe’s due to the fact that they often tend to reduce my website a little bit. Whenever a page on my website (with a beehiiv embed) lots, the sign-up installed is the last thing to fill on the web page. It’s really recognizable when you’re on a sluggish net link. Yet I can navigate that.
The primary gripe I have is that I can’t utilize a regular Webflow form (which I enjoy utilizing). There are means around this by utilizing a tool like Zapier however that would certainly just add extra expenses that I don’t need. To be honest, this is even more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv con yet I thought I would certainly mention it.
Besides that, I still think the pros much exceed the cons here. I’m additionally confident that Webflow will at some point develop a much better means to integrate with beehiiv.
Conclusion
Generally, beehiiv is a wonderful remedy for anybody seeking to dive into the world of e-mail marketing and e-newsletters.
The functionality of this newsletter system much surpasses several that are currently on the marketplace. And with a generous free plan, you really have absolutely nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are also rather affordable wherefore they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 subscribers on your checklist is unusual. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k customers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it could cost you well into the thousands per month.
Anyways, I do not compose review posts often. I only do when I in fact make use of the device myself and would certainly suggest it to a friend.
I wish you discovered some quality on whether beehiiv is an excellent platform for you.