I read one of my favorite e-mail e-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 began wrecking. Beehiiv Careers…
Being a full-time designer is tough. I’m typically obtaining pitched different tools and solutions that don’t appear to be worth my time.
I guess I was emotional because I spent the last six months experimenting with different email and newsletter platforms to assist construct my e-newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some terrific choices for writing e-newsletters. Yet I couldn’t find one that made me give a definite “yes”.
The issue with many existing newsletter systems is that they don’t feel creator-centered. I want an e-newsletter platform that lets me totally tailor my e-newsletter layouts, makes it super easy to create and send emails, and provides me tools that assist me assess metrics and obtain more customers.
I believe I’ve lastly found the best device.
But, I recognize beehiiv might not be for every person. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s actually right for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one system for e-newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter system that makes it very easy to design, write, send out, promote, generate income from, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Created by former employees at the famous e-newsletter company Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to aid creators launch and monetize their own newsletter– taking lots of growth principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M subscribers.
In this article, I’m going to discuss my individual experience with beehiiv, things I like (and hate) about it, all of it’s features, and why I chose to lastly select it as my newsletter system of selection.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A few months earlier, I unintentionally stumbled across beehiiv. The funny tale is that I have actually been on the lookout for a modern newsletter platform for rather a long time currently. I have actually postponed hard when it involved lastly launching my newsletter.
First, I attempted Mailchimp. Then, a few various other indie systems. Then, Substack. And lastly, I ended up using beehiiv.
I’m sure lots of e-newsletter makers look up to popular e-newsletters with millions of clients– I know I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I looked up to a whole lot. They have fantastic content, tons of subscribers, and a clever referral program that allows them to get back at a lot more customers.
So, I took place a hunt to determine how these big e-newsletters set up their logistics. What platform do they utilize? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they obtain more subscribers? How do they develop an e-newsletter style that remains on-brand?
When I discovered beehiiv for the very first time, it appeared to respond to all of my questions. I thought to myself, “damn individuals that built this tool actually recognize newsletter development and growth.” I questioned 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 employees at Morning Brew– my mind took off.
I knew this was mosting likely to be a different newsletter platform. One that’s concentrated on maker growth.
Due to the fact that, any developer understands, you need development to be able to earn a living off of a newsletter. And locating the ideal newsletter pile (that scales) frequently implies using several different tools to help achieve one goal– one system for your e-newsletter, one platform to monetize, 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 start making use of, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
beehiiv vs Substack
You may be asking, “isn’t there already a platform for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, of course there is. Substack is an excellent platform utilized by thousands of independent writers. With Substack you obtain your own website and use the system as your all-in-one solution for sending out emails (while developing an archive of previous concerns).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s dedication to growth. beehiiv allows you do to all things Substack can do, with the benefit of much better analytics, more style flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing customers to get words out.
beehiiv additionally offers you a web site similar to Substack. Yet, if you have your very own website already, you can additionally utilize beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I use) to send your web site customers straight to your beehiiv e-mail checklist. On the exact same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a tool like Performance to allow individuals to sign up for your newsletter straight from Twitter.
This offers you the adaptability to utilize various marketing channels to obtain your e-newsletter out right into the globe, making beehiiv a fantastic Substack alternative.
Just how to start using beehiiv email marketing software application.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean material maker that desires a platform that enables them to send out custom-made e-newsletters with or without requiring to have a web site.
The most successful newsletters have the right tools to build and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv focuses on giving you those tools.
If you’re an independent author, media company, start-up, or web content creator, you should seriously considering checking out beehiiv. It’s completely complimentary to begin and you just pay when you reach over 2,500 clients on your checklist.
If you actually end up needing to pay for beehiiv it’s possibly an excellent indicator that individuals love reading your stuff.
Enroll in a free plan
The first step is to enroll in a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Beginning trial” switch on beehiiv’s web site.
The free plan will certainly enable you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, give you accessibility to internet site hosting, a newsletter CMS, development personalization, analytics, outside embed kinds, and extra. It’s a really generous offering for those just starting out (or for those searching for a brand-new platform to migrate to).
Onboarding
After creating an account, you’ll experience an onboarding process that will ask points like, “is this your first newsletter?”, “what various other platforms have you utilized?”, “do you have any kind of paying subscribers?”, and a lot more.
You’ll after that create a name and URL for your newsletter’s site. On the free plan, your newsletter will reside on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your web site link could be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding process, you’ll additionally pick your brand design and colors to see to it your e-newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your dashboard
Once you reach your main dashboard, you’ll see all of your analytics and settings.
You will have detailed details on the amount of sign-ups you’re getting and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see choices for “Begin creating”, “Posts”, “Audience”, “Grow”, “Generate income from”, “Design” and” Examine”. And at the really lower you’ll see the settings choice.
Control panel is your major nerve center (screenshot above), Beginning creating is where you create and publish e-newsletters, Messages is where you can see every one of your previous e-newsletter editions, Audience is where you can watch who your clients are (and damage them down into sections), Expand is where you have access to a referral program (and growth tutorials) and boosts to run advertisements, Monetize is where you can access the beehiiv ad network and monetize your newsletter with ads, Design is where you make your newsletter landing page and blog post template, Examine is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can manage all of your admin things.
Composing your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it easy to begin composing, with little to no rubbing. If you’re simply starting, and have an idea you intend to write about, I suggest simply going to the “Create” section in the navbar and clicking on “Beginning writing”.
You can modify your template and styling later on– concentrate on the material initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor uses a clean and straightforward interface for creating.
Once you begin composing, you can maximize headings, add web links, and design your web content just how you like.
beehiiv gives you lots of alternatives for various kinds of web content like video clips, web links, photos, and extra.
The team at beehiiv is additionally continuously launching item feature and updates so I make sure there will certainly be a lot more content features depending on when you’re reading this.
Optimizing your setups and templates
As soon as you have a newsletter that prepares to send, it’s time to design your e-mail template and adjust some setups.
Below, you can upgrade the name of your e-newsletter, provide it a summary, include your logo, switch on or off a welcome email to first time customers, and extra.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your style.
You can edit history shades, borders, spacing, fonts, photo styles, and much more. I’m not mosting likely to experience ever single point you can enhance with your e-mail template because it’s a lot. Simply try the platform completely free and see it on your own!
Crucial beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of incredible features that make it an excellent posting system for any type of newsletter designer.
Below are some of the necessary features you can locate with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder Beehiiv Careers
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter publishing platform. It makes it super very easy to compose and send emails. I discussed above several of things you can do with your settings and e-mail design so I’ll save you some extra reading.
The important things to note with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has a really contemporary and minimalistic feel. It’s certainly one of the much better email editors I’ve ever before written in.
Web site hosting
When you produce a beehiiv newsletter, every one of your newsletters (if you want) live on an internet site. Consider it as an internet site for your newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous issues of your e-newsletter, and a place where individuals can sign up for your e-newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s practically comparable to that.
All plans, consisting of the free one, provide you a site. Nonetheless, the free plan areas your internet site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you wish to add a customized domain name to eliminate all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining customers is important. Nevertheless, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can subscribe to your e-newsletter directly from your beehiiv website or through embed types.
If you currently have a site, and desire individuals to subscribe to your e-newsletter from your existing site, you’ll have to utilize an embed kind. This is what I make use of on this website (you can see the sign-up embed on the right-hand man column of this post if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have 3 various choices– a full width, a taken care of width, and a slim embed. I directly make use of the slim embed.
You can find the code snippet for these embeds in the “Subscribe Forms” tab in your settings.
There’s likewise an option for attribution monitoring if you wish to forward UTM parameters for tracking purposes– quite neat.
Nevertheless, there are a few features I wish beehiiv had when it pertained to subscribe features. I make certain the team is working on updates for these, however I mentioned a few problems I had in the pros and cons area listed below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things regarding beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter platform, is an option for developing a referral program.
You can encourage existing clients on your listing to onward your emails to pals and associates and if they get other people to register for your checklist, you can compensate them. These incentives can be in whatever type you want. I’ve appear several e-newsletter companies provide benefits in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously transform your customers right into a word of mouth development engine for your newsletter– giving you an additional avenue for growing your email listing.
Nonetheless, to obtain accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll have to upgrade to a more premium plan. I’ll review all the plans later in this post.
Costs memberships
They say all you require to earn a living online is 1,000 true followers. Subscription revenue is absolutely a beast of its own. If you’re seeking a platform to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can develop “premium” issues of your newsletter that are only sent out to paying customers. This can be very rewarding depending upon what your newsletter has to use. As an example, Trends.co is a popular premium newsletter that generates millions in earnings a year merely by having pay-only newsletter material.
Data analytics
One of things I like about beehiiv is how tidy and basic the analytics are. You obtain real-time day on just how your newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and subscriber count.
You get accessibility to all the metrics you need to get a bird-eye sight on exactly how your newsletter is in fact doing. Logging into your control panel and seeing that subscriber count rise is certainly a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv offers four various pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (cost-free) Launch plan gives you everything you require to start and expand your newsletter (as much as 2,500 subscribers).
The Scale plan ($ 39/month) gives you everything in the Launch plan with the addition the advertisement network, referral program, customized domain name, polls, and accessibility to premium subscriptions. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 76/month) offers you whatever in the Grow plan with addition of top priority assistance and removing the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are rather charitable in my opinion.
For instance, if you have 100,000 subscribers you will certainly pay around $329 per month. Instead of some competitors, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would certainly bill $679 per month for the same quantity– making beehiiv a great Kit option for numerous users.
I’m uncertain exactly how the unit economics work on this, yet beehiiv is definitely less costly (currently) than what it can be.
beehiiv advantages and disadvantages
Certainly, with every system, it has its benefits and drawbacks. Right here are several of the pros and cons I’ve personally experienced while utilizing beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Right here are some of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter system of option:
- Easy to set up and begin sending e-newsletters absolutely free
- Clean and contemporary customer analytics
- Great deals of versatility with email designs.
- Referral program feature Beehiiv Careers
- Web site hosting
- Create premium alternatives to monetize
- Surveys
To be honest, I haven’t seen one more e-newsletter platform that has had the ability to package all of these features together so well.
But naturally, I don’t intend to be biased so I’m mosting likely to state some disadvantages.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Here are some of the cons I have actually discovered while making use of beehiiv:.
- Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv
- Limitations around including custom-made typefaces
I use Webflow as my site structure platform of selection (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a long time ago). I’m not mosting likely to enter way too much detail why I love Webflow a lot but you can read my Webflow review if you ‘d like to discover more.
Now, there really is nothing else method I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow internet site apart from making use of an iframe embed. I personally don’t like utilizing iframe’s since they tend to slow down my website a bit. Every time a web page on my website (with a beehiiv embed) tons, the sign-up installed is the last thing to fill on the web page. It’s really recognizable when you get on a slow-moving internet link. But I can navigate that.
The main complaint I have is that I can not utilize a normal Webflow type (which I love using). There are methods around this by using a device like Zapier yet that would just add added expenses that I don’t need. To be sincere, this is more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv disadvantage yet I thought I would certainly mention it.
Besides that, I still think the pros far surpass the cons here. I’m additionally enthusiastic that Webflow will at some point develop a better method to incorporate with beehiiv.
Verdict
Overall, beehiiv is a fantastic option for any person looking to dive into the globe of email marketing and e-newsletters.
The capability of this newsletter platform far outweighs lots of that are presently on the market. And with a charitable free plan, you truly have nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are likewise rather cheap for what they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 subscribers on your list is unprecedented. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k subscribers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it can cost you well into the thousands per month.
Anyways, I do not write evaluation articles often. I just do when I in fact make use of the device myself and would advise it to a pal.
I hope you discovered some clarity on whether beehiiv is a great system for you.