I read 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 first time. I clicked on it and instantly began destroying. Beehiiv Bad Astronomy…
Being a permanent developer is tough. I’m frequently obtaining pitched various devices and services that don’t seem to be worth my time.
I presume I was emotional due to the fact that I spent the last 6 months experimenting with various email and newsletter platforms to assist construct my newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some wonderful options for creating newsletters. However I could not find one that made me provide a guaranteed “yes”.
The concern with lots of existing e-newsletter systems is that they don’t feel creator-centered. I desire a newsletter system that lets me fully personalize my e-newsletter designs, makes it very very easy to create and send emails, and offers me devices that aid me assess metrics and get more subscribers.
I think I have actually finally discovered the ideal device.
However, I know beehiiv may not be for every person. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s actually appropriate for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one system for e-newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter platform that makes it simple to design, compose, send, advertise, monetize, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Produced by previous staff members at the famous e-newsletter business Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to assist designers launch and monetize their own newsletter– taking lots of development concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M customers.
In this post, I’m going to clarify my individual experience with beehiiv, the important things I like (and hate) regarding it, all of it’s features, and why I made a decision to ultimately choose it as my newsletter platform of selection.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A few months ago, I unintentionally stumbled across beehiiv. The funny tale is that I’ve watched for a modern-day e-newsletter platform for quite some time currently. I have actually hesitated hard when it concerned lastly launching my newsletter.
Initially, I tried Mailchimp. Then, a few various other indie platforms. Then, Substack. And lastly, I wound up using beehiiv.
I’m sure numerous e-newsletter creators appreciate popular e-newsletters with numerous customers– I recognize I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I respected a lot. They have great content, lots of clients, and a brilliant referral program that allows them to get back at more subscribers.
So, I took place a search to figure out how these big newsletters set up their logistics. What platform do they utilize? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they obtain even more subscribers? How do they produce an e-newsletter design that stays on-brand?
When I found beehiiv for the first time, it appeared to respond to all of my questions. I believed to myself, “damn the people that developed this tool actually understand newsletter production and growth.” I questioned who these makers of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were several of the initial marketing and development employees at Morning Brew– my mind blew up.
I recognized this was mosting likely to be a various e-newsletter platform. One that’s concentrated on designer growth.
Since, any maker knows, you require growth to be able to earn a living off of a newsletter. And finding the right e-newsletter pile (that ranges) often indicates utilizing numerous different devices to help achieve one goal– one platform for your newsletter, one platform to monetize, and one system to establish recommendations. It can obtain costly.
So when I found out beehiiv did all of these points in one platform, and it was totally free to begin utilizing, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
beehiiv vs Substack
You might be asking, “isn’t there already a system for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, yes there is. Substack is a wonderful system utilized by hundreds of independent authors. With Substack you obtain your very own internet site and make use of the system as your all-in-one solution for sending out emails (while creating an archive of previous issues).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s commitment to development. beehiiv permits you do to all things Substack can do, with the advantage of better analytics, even more style flexibilty, and a referral program to urge your existing clients to get words out.
beehiiv likewise offers you an internet site comparable to Substack. However, if you have your own web site currently, you can likewise utilize beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I use) to send your internet site subscribers right to your beehiiv email listing. On the same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a tool like Revue to enable people to subscribe to your newsletter straight from Twitter.
This offers you the versatility to utilize different marketing channels to obtain your newsletter out right into the globe, making beehiiv an excellent Substack choice.
How to begin using beehiiv email marketing software program.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean web content creator that wants a platform that allows them to send personalized e-newsletters with or without requiring to have a site.
The most effective e-newsletters have the right devices to build and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv aims at providing you those tools.
If you’re an independent author, media company, startup, or web content designer, you need to seriously considering experimenting with beehiiv. It’s totally complimentary to get started and you only pay when you get to over 2,500 customers on your list.
If you in fact wind up needing to spend for beehiiv it’s probably a good sign that individuals like reviewing your things.
Enroll in a free plan
The very first step is to register for a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Beginning trial” button on beehiiv’s internet site.
The free plan will certainly permit you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, offer you access to web site hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, breakthrough personalization, analytics, outside embed types, and much more. It’s an extremely generous offering for those just beginning (or for those seeking a brand-new platform to move to).
Onboarding
After producing an account, you’ll go through an onboarding process that will ask points like, “is this your initial newsletter?”, “what other systems have you used?”, “do you have any type of paying subscribers?”, and extra.
You’ll after that develop a name and link for your newsletter’s site. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will survive a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your website URL could be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding procedure, you’ll likewise select your brand design and colors to make certain your e-newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your dashboard
Once you reach your primary dashboard, you’ll see every one of your analytics and setups.
You will have detailed info on the number of sign-ups you’re obtaining and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see choices for “Begin composing”, “Posts”, “Audience”, “Expand”, “Monetize”, “Layout” and” Assess”. And at the very lower you’ll see the setups alternative.
Dashboard is your main nerve center (screenshot above), Begin composing is where you produce and publish e-newsletters, Messages is where you can see all of your previous newsletter editions, Target market is where you can watch who your subscribers are (and damage them down into segments), 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 advertisements, Style is where you design 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 newsletter
beehiiv makes it very easy to begin writing, with little to no rubbing. If you’re simply beginning, and have a concept you want to write about, I suggest just mosting likely to the “Create” area in the navbar and clicking on “Beginning creating”.
You can fine-tune your template and designing later– focus on the material first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor supplies a clean and straightforward interface for writing.
When you begin writing, you can optimize headings, include web links, and style your content just how you like.
beehiiv provides you tons of choices for various types of content like video clips, links, pictures, and a lot more.
The group at beehiiv is likewise continuously launching item feature and updates so I make certain there will certainly be a whole lot more material features relying on when you’re reading this.
Maximizing your setups and templates
As soon as you have a newsletter that prepares to send out, it’s time to create your email template and readjust some settings.
Here, you can update the name of your newsletter, provide it a description, include your logo design, switch on or off a welcome e-mail to first time clients, and more.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your style.
You can edit background colors, borders, spacing, fonts, picture styles, and extra. I’m not going to experience ever before solitary thing you can maximize with your email template because it’s a great deal. Just try the platform totally free and see it for yourself!
Necessary beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of amazing features that make it a wonderful posting system for any type of newsletter maker.
Below are a few of the crucial features you can discover with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder Beehiiv Bad Astronomy
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter publishing platform. It makes it very very easy to write and send out e-mails. I stated over several of the things you can do with your setups and email style so I’ll spare you some additional 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 certainly one of the far better email editors I have actually ever before written in.
Site hosting
When you develop a beehiiv newsletter, all of your e-newsletters (if you want) reside on a site. Think about it as a web site for your newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous concerns of your newsletter, and a location where people can register for your e-newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s virtually comparable to that.
All plans, including the complimentary one, offer you a site. However, the free plan locations your site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you wish to add a personalized domain name to get rid of all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting customers is important. Nevertheless, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can register for your newsletter directly from your beehiiv web site or via embed kinds.
If you already have a web site, and desire individuals to sign up for your e-newsletter from your existing site, you’ll have to use an embed kind. This is what I utilize on this web site (you can see the sign-up installed on the right hand column of this post if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have three different choices– a full size, a repaired width, and a slim installed. I personally make use of the slim installed.
You can discover the code snippet for these embeds in the “Subscribe Kinds” tab in your settings.
There’s also a choice for attribution monitoring if you wish to forward UTM specifications for tracking functions– rather cool.
However, there are a couple of features I wish beehiiv had when it pertained to subscribe features. I make certain the group is servicing updates for these, however I pointed out a few worries I had in the pros and cons section listed below.
Referral program
Among 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 encourage existing clients on your listing to forward your e-mails to friends and associates and if they obtain other individuals to register for your list, you can compensate them. These incentives can be in whatever form you desire. I have actually appear numerous e-newsletter business offer rewards in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously turn your subscribers right into a word of mouth growth engine for your newsletter– offering you an additional method for growing your email listing.
However, to obtain access to the referral program feature, you’ll need to upgrade to a much more exceptional plan. I’ll review all the plans later in this post.
Costs subscriptions
They claim all you need to make a living online is 1,000 true followers. Registration profits is absolutely a beast of its very own. If you’re seeking a system to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can create “costs” problems of your e-newsletter that are just sent out to paying subscribers. This can be very profitable relying on what your newsletter has to offer. For example, Trends.co is a prominent costs newsletter that creates millions in income a year simply by having pay-only newsletter content.
Information analytics
Among the things I enjoy regarding beehiiv is exactly how tidy and easy the analytics are. You get real-time date on how your newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and client count.
You obtain accessibility to all the metrics you require to obtain a bird-eye view on how your e-newsletter is really doing. Logging into your control panel and seeing that customer matter go up is absolutely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv provides four different pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (totally free) Launch plan gives you everything you require to get started and expand your e-newsletter (approximately 2,500 subscribers).
The Scale plan ($ 39/month) offers you everything in the Launch plan with the addition the advertisement network, referral program, custom domain, polls, and access to costs memberships. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 76/month) gives you every little thing in the Grow plan with enhancement of priority assistance and getting rid of the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are rather charitable in my point of view.
For instance, if you have 100,000 customers you will pay around $329 monthly. Instead of some competitors, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would charge $679 monthly for the exact same quantity– making beehiiv a fantastic Kit option for lots of users.
I’m uncertain how the device business economics service this, however beehiiv is certainly cheaper (presently) than what it can be.
beehiiv benefits and drawbacks
Naturally, with every platform, it has its pros and cons. Below are a few of the benefits and drawbacks I’ve personally experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Right here are several of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter platform of option:
- Easy to set up and start sending out e-newsletters completely free
- Tidy and contemporary subscriber analytics
- Lots of adaptability with email styles.
- Referral program feature Beehiiv Bad Astronomy
- Website hosting
- Develop premium options to monetize
- Surveys
To be sincere, I have not seen an additional newsletter system that has actually had the ability to package all of these features with each other so well.
However certainly, I do not intend to be prejudiced so I’m going to mention some cons.
Disadvantages 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-made font styles
I make use of Webflow as my site building platform of selection (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a long time ago). I’m not mosting likely to enter way too much information why I love Webflow a lot however you can read my Webflow evaluation if you would love to find out more.
Right now, there truly is no other method I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow website aside from utilizing an iframe embed. I directly do not such as making use of iframe’s because they often tend to decrease my internet site a little bit. Every time a page on my site (with a beehiiv embed) tons, the sign-up installed is the last point to load on the web page. It’s very obvious when you’re on a slow-moving internet connection. Yet I can navigate that.
The major complaint I have is that I can’t utilize a normal Webflow type (which I enjoy using). There are ways around this by using a tool like Zapier yet that would simply include added prices that I do not require. To be honest, this is even more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv con yet I assumed I would discuss it.
Besides that, I still think the pros far exceed the cons below. I’m also confident that Webflow will eventually create a far better method to integrate with beehiiv.
Final Thought
On the whole, beehiiv is a terrific option for anybody looking to dive into the world of e-mail marketing and e-newsletters.
The performance of this e-newsletter system far surpasses numerous that are currently on the market. And with a generous free plan, you really have absolutely nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are additionally fairly inexpensive wherefore they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 customers on your checklist is unprecedented. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k customers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it can cost you well into the thousands per month.
Anyways, I do not write evaluation messages typically. I just do when I in fact utilize the device myself and would certainly suggest it to a good friend.
I wish you located some clearness on whether or not beehiiv is a good platform for you.