I was reading one of my favored e-mail e-newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo design for the first time. I clicked it and immediately began tearing up. Beehiiv Blog Examples…
Being a full-time developer is difficult. I’m frequently obtaining pitched different devices and solutions that do not seem to be worth my time.
I guess I was psychological because I spent the last 6 months trying various e-mail and newsletter platforms to assist construct my newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some wonderful choices for creating e-newsletters. However I could not discover one that made me offer a guaranteed “yes”.
The issue with several existing newsletter systems is that they don’t feel creator-centered. I want an e-newsletter system that lets me fully tailor my e-newsletter designs, makes it very easy to create and send emails, and offers me devices that aid me assess metrics and get even more subscribers.
I believe I have actually lastly located the right tool.
However, I recognize beehiiv may not be for everybody. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s actually best for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one system for e-newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly e-newsletter system that makes it very easy to layout, create, send out, promote, generate income from, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Developed by previous workers at the renowned e-newsletter business Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to assist developers launch and monetize their very own newsletter– taking lots of growth principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M clients.
In this post, I’m mosting likely to describe my individual experience with beehiiv, the important things I like (and hate) regarding it, all of it’s features, and why I decided to ultimately opt for it as my e-newsletter platform of choice.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A couple of months ago, I inadvertently came across beehiiv. The funny tale is that I have actually been on the lookout for a contemporary newsletter system for fairly some time now. I have actually hesitated hard when it came to lastly launching my newsletter.
Initially, I tried Mailchimp. Then, a couple of various other indie platforms. Then, Substack. And ultimately, I ended up using beehiiv.
I make sure many newsletter creators appreciate preferred e-newsletters with numerous subscribers– I know I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I admired a great deal. They have excellent material, lots of subscribers, and a clever referral program that enables them to get back at a lot more clients.
So, I went on a quest to figure out exactly how these huge e-newsletters set up their logistics. What platform do they use? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they obtain more subscribers? How do they develop an e-newsletter layout that stays on-brand?
When I discovered beehiiv for the very first time, it appeared to answer every one of my inquiries. I believed to myself, “damn the people that constructed this tool actually comprehend e-newsletter creation and growth.” I questioned who these designers of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were several of the initial marketing and growth staff members at Morning Brew– my brain took off.
I recognized this was mosting likely to be a different newsletter system. One that’s focused on creator development.
Because, any type of creator understands, you need growth to be able to make a living off of an e-newsletter. And locating the appropriate e-newsletter stack (that scales) often suggests using several different devices to help accomplish one goal– one system for your e-newsletter, one platform to monetize, and one system to set up referrals. It can obtain expensive.
So when I learnt beehiiv did every one of these points in one platform, and it was free to begin utilizing, it was a piece of cake to give it a try.
beehiiv vs Substack
You could be asking, “isn’t there already a platform for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, indeed there is. Substack is an excellent system used by countless independent authors. With Substack you get your own web site and use the system as your all-in-one remedy for sending out e-mails (while creating an archive of previous concerns).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s commitment to development. beehiiv allows you do to all things Substack can do, with the advantage of far better analytics, more style flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing subscribers to obtain words out.
beehiiv likewise offers you a website similar to Substack. Yet, if you have your own site currently, you can additionally make use of beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I utilize) to send your website subscribers directly to your beehiiv e-mail checklist. On the same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a device like Performance to allow people to sign up for your newsletter straight from Twitter.
This offers you the adaptability to leverage various marketing networks to obtain your newsletter out right into the world, making beehiiv a great Substack option.
Just how to begin utilizing beehiiv e-mail marketing software application.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean web content creator that desires a platform that allows them to send out personalized e-newsletters with or without requiring to have a site.
One of the most successful newsletters have the right devices to construct and scale their newsletters. beehiiv focuses on offering you those devices.
If you’re an independent writer, media firm, start-up, or material creator, you ought to seriously thinking about trying out beehiiv. It’s absolutely cost-free to begin and you just pay when you reach over 2,500 subscribers on your list.
If you actually wind up having to spend for beehiiv it’s probably an excellent sign that people enjoy reviewing your stuff.
Register for a free plan
The very first step is to enroll in a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Beginning trial” switch on beehiiv’s site.
The free plan will certainly enable you to have up to 2,500 customers, provide you accessibility to internet site hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, advancement modification, analytics, outside embed forms, and more. It’s a very generous offering for those just beginning (or for those seeking a new platform to migrate to).
Onboarding
After developing an account, you’ll go through an onboarding procedure that will ask things like, “is this your first newsletter?”, “what various other systems have you made use of?”, “do you have any paying customers?”, and much more.
You’ll then develop a name and link for your e-newsletter’s internet site. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will live on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your site link could be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding process, you’ll also pick your brand colors and design to make certain your e-newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your dashboard
Once you reach your primary dashboard, you’ll see every one of your analytics and settings.
You will certainly have detailed information on the amount of sign-ups you’re obtaining and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see options for “Start creating”, “Messages”, “Target market”, “Grow”, “Monetize”, “Layout” and” Analyze”. And at the extremely bottom you’ll see the settings option.
Dashboard is your major nerve center (screenshot above), Start writing is where you produce and release e-newsletters, Messages is where you can see all of your previous newsletter editions, Target market is where you can see who your subscribers are (and damage them down into sections), 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 e-newsletter with ads, Layout is where you create your e-newsletter landing page and post template, Examine is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can manage every one of your admin things.
Composing your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it very easy to begin creating, with little to no friction. If you’re just starting, and have an idea you want to cover, I suggest simply going to the “Write” area in the navbar and clicking “Start writing”.
You can fine-tune your template and styling later– concentrate on the material initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor supplies a clean and easy to use user interface for composing.
Once you start composing, you can optimize headings, include web links, and design your content exactly how you like.
beehiiv offers you tons of alternatives for various types of content like video clips, links, pictures, and extra.
The group at beehiiv is likewise frequently releasing product feature and updates so I’m sure there will be a whole lot extra content features depending upon when you’re reading this.
Enhancing your setups and templates
When you have an e-newsletter that prepares to send out, it’s time to develop your email template and readjust some settings.
Below, you can update the name of your newsletter, provide it a summary, include your logo design, turn on or off a welcome email to very first time subscribers, and a lot more.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can edit background shades, boundaries, spacing, typefaces, image formats, and a lot more. I’m not going to go through ever before single point you can enhance with your e-mail template due to the fact that it’s a lot. Just try out the system for free and see it on your own!
Crucial beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of outstanding features that make it a fantastic publishing platform for any e-newsletter creator.
Here are some of the essential features you can find with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder Beehiiv Blog Examples
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter publishing platform. It makes it incredibly very easy to create and send emails. I mentioned above a few of things you can do with your setups and email layout so I’ll spare you some additional reading.
The important things to note with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has an actually modern-day and minimalistic feel. It’s absolutely among the far better e-mail editors I’ve ever before written in.
Website hosting
When you develop a beehiiv newsletter, every one of your newsletters (if you desire) survive on a site. Think about it as a site for your newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous problems of your e-newsletter, and a location where people can register for your newsletter.
If you’re familiar with Substack, it’s pretty much comparable to that.
All plans, including the cost-free one, give you a site. However, the free plan areas your site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you want to add a personalized domain to eliminate all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining customers is very important. Besides, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can sign up for your newsletter right from your beehiiv site or via 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 type. This is what I use on this web site (you can see the sign-up embed on the right hand column of this article if you scroll up).
With embed types, you have three different options– a complete width, a dealt with size, and a slim embed. I personally use the slim installed.
You can locate the code snippet for these embeds in the “Subscribe Forms” tab in your settings.
There’s additionally a choice for acknowledgment tracking if you wish to ahead UTM specifications for tracking objectives– pretty neat.
However, there are a few features I wish beehiiv had when it came to subscribe features. I make sure the group is working on updates for these, however I mentioned a couple of concerns I had in the advantages and disadvantages section below.
Referral program
Among the amazing things regarding beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter system, is an option for developing a referral program.
You can motivate existing clients on your list to onward your e-mails to close friends and colleagues and if they get other people to sign up for your list, you can compensate them. These incentives can be in whatever kind you want. I’ve appear numerous newsletter companies provide benefits in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously turn your clients into a word of mouth development engine for your newsletter– providing you one more avenue for growing your email list.
However, to obtain accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll need to upgrade to a more superior plan. I’ll look at all the plans later in this article.
Costs registrations
They claim all you need to earn a living online is 1,000 true followers. Registration earnings is certainly a beast of its very own. If you’re trying to find a system to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can develop “costs” problems of your newsletter that are just sent out to paying customers. This can be really profitable depending on what your newsletter needs to supply. As an example, Trends.co is a preferred costs newsletter that creates millions in income a year simply by having pay-only newsletter material.
Information analytics
One of the things I enjoy about beehiiv is how tidy and simple the analytics are. You get real-time day on just how your newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and subscriber count.
You get access to all the metrics you require to obtain a bird-eye sight on exactly how your e-newsletter is actually doing. Logging right into your control panel and seeing that subscriber matter increase is most definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv offers four different pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (cost-free) Launch plan offers you whatever you require to get started and expand your newsletter (approximately 2,500 customers).
The Scale plan ($ 39/month) offers you everything in the Launch plan with the addition the ad network, referral program, customized domain name, polls, and accessibility to premium registrations. This is the plan I am on.
The Max plan ($ 76/month) provides you everything in the Grow plan with enhancement of priority assistance and eliminating the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are rather charitable in my point of view.
As an example, if you have 100,000 subscribers you will pay around $329 monthly. Instead of some rivals, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would charge $679 each month for the same amount– making beehiiv a fantastic Kit alternative for lots of customers.
I’m unsure exactly how the system business economics service this, however beehiiv is definitely less costly (presently) than what it can be.
beehiiv advantages and disadvantages
Obviously, with every platform, it has its pros and cons. Here are a few of the pros and cons I’ve directly experienced while utilizing beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Right here are several of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter system of choice:
- Easy to set up and start sending out newsletters for free
- Clean and modern subscriber analytics
- Great deals of flexibility with email layouts.
- Referral program feature Beehiiv Blog Examples
- Site hosting
- Produce premium options to generate income from
- Surveys
To be sincere, I have not seen one more newsletter platform that has actually been able to package every one of these features together so well.
However obviously, I do not want to be prejudiced so I’m mosting likely to state some cons.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Right here are a few of the cons I’ve located while making use of beehiiv:.
- Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv
- Limitations around adding customized fonts
I make use of Webflow as my website structure system of choice (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a long time ago). I’m not mosting likely to enter too much detail why I enjoy Webflow a lot but you can read my Webflow evaluation if you wish to discover more.
Right now, there truly is nothing else method I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow website apart from making use of an iframe embed. I directly do not like making use of iframe’s due to the fact that they have a tendency to reduce my site a bit. Whenever a web page on my website (with a beehiiv embed) tons, the sign-up installed is the last point to fill on the web page. It’s really obvious when you get on a slow internet link. However I can get around that.
The main complaint I have is that I can’t utilize a normal Webflow kind (which I like using). There are means around this by utilizing a device like Zapier but that would simply add extra expenses that I don’t require. To be truthful, this is even more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv disadvantage yet I believed I would mention it.
Besides that, I still think the pros far exceed the disadvantages below. I’m also confident that Webflow will at some point create a better means to incorporate with beehiiv.
Verdict
On the whole, beehiiv is a wonderful service for any individual aiming to study the globe of e-mail marketing and newsletters.
The performance of this e-newsletter system much outweighs several that are currently on the marketplace. And with a generous free plan, you truly have nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are likewise relatively inexpensive wherefore they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 customers on your listing is unusual. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k customers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it might cost you well right into the thousands each month.
Anyways, I don’t write review blog posts frequently. I just do when I really use the device myself and would certainly advise it to a pal.
I wish you found some clarity on whether or not beehiiv is a good system for you.