I read one of my preferred e-mail e-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 instantaneously started destroying. Beehiiv Creator Accelerator…
Being a full-time maker is difficult. I’m frequently getting pitched different tools and services that do not seem to be worth my time.
I presume I was psychological due to the fact that I invested the last six months experimenting with various email and newsletter systems to assist construct my newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some terrific alternatives for writing e-newsletters. Yet I couldn’t locate one that made me provide a guaranteed “yes”.
The issue with numerous existing e-newsletter platforms is that they don’t feel creator-centered. I desire an e-newsletter system that lets me totally customize my e-newsletter styles, makes it extremely simple to write and send out emails, and gives me devices that aid me examine metrics and obtain even more subscribers.
I believe I have actually ultimately found the ideal tool.
But, I recognize beehiiv might not be for every person. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s in fact ideal for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one system for newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly e-newsletter platform that makes it easy to style, create, send out, promote, generate income from, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Created by former workers at the popular newsletter firm Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to help makers launch and monetize their very own newsletter– taking great deals of development principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M customers.
In this short article, I’m going to describe my personal experience with beehiiv, the things I enjoy (and hate) regarding it, all of it’s features, and why I determined to lastly choose it as my newsletter platform of option.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A few months ago, I unintentionally stumbled across beehiiv. The amusing story is that I’ve watched for a modern newsletter system for rather some time currently. I have actually procrastinated hard when it involved finally introducing my e-newsletter.
Initially, I attempted Mailchimp. Then, a few other indie platforms. After that, Substack. And ultimately, I wound up utilizing beehiiv.
I make sure several newsletter makers appreciate preferred e-newsletters with numerous customers– I know I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I respected a whole lot. They have great web content, lots of clients, and a creative referral program that permits them to get even much more subscribers.
So, I took place a hunt to find out just how these big e-newsletters established their logistics. What platform do they utilize? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they get even more subscribers? How do they produce an e-newsletter style that remains on-brand?
When I found beehiiv for the first time, it seemed to respond to all of my concerns. I thought to myself, “damn individuals that constructed this tool actually recognize e-newsletter production and growth.” I examined who these makers of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were a few of the initial marketing and development staff members at Morning Brew– my mind took off.
I understood this was mosting likely to be a various newsletter platform. One that’s concentrated on creator growth.
Because, any type of creator recognizes, you need development to be able to earn a living off of a newsletter. And discovering the ideal newsletter stack (that ranges) usually implies utilizing numerous various devices to aid achieve one objective– one platform for your newsletter, one system to generate income from, and one system to establish referrals. It can get costly.
So when I figured out beehiiv did every one of these things in one platform, and it was cost-free to begin using, 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, indeed there is. Substack is an excellent system utilized by thousands of independent writers. With Substack you get your very own site and make use of the platform as your all-in-one solution for sending out emails (while producing an archive of previous issues).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s dedication to growth. beehiiv enables you do to all things Substack can do, with the advantage of better analytics, even more style flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing customers to obtain words out.
beehiiv additionally provides you an internet site comparable to Substack. But, if you have your own site currently, you can likewise utilize beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I utilize) to send your website subscribers straight to your beehiiv e-mail listing. On the very same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a device like Revue to permit people to register for your e-newsletter straight from Twitter.
This gives you the flexibility to utilize various marketing channels to get your newsletter out into the world, making beehiiv a fantastic Substack option.
Just how to start making use of beehiiv email marketing software program.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean web content maker that desires a system that allows them to send out custom-made e-newsletters with or without requiring to have a website.
One of the most effective e-newsletters have the right devices to develop and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv aims at giving you those devices.
If you’re an independent author, media company, start-up, or content creator, you should seriously thinking about experimenting with beehiiv. It’s totally complimentary to get going and you only pay when you get to over 2,500 customers on your listing.
If you actually wind up needing to pay for beehiiv it’s possibly a good indicator that people like reviewing your things.
Register for a free plan
The primary step is to sign up for a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Beginning trial” button on beehiiv’s website.
The free plan will certainly permit you to have up to 2,500 customers, offer you accessibility to website hosting, a newsletter CMS, advancement modification, analytics, external embed forms, and extra. It’s a very generous offering for those just starting (or for those trying to find a brand-new system to move to).
Onboarding
After developing an account, you’ll undergo an onboarding procedure that will ask things like, “is this your initial newsletter?”, “what various other platforms have you utilized?”, “do you have any type of paying customers?”, and extra.
You’ll then create a name and link for your newsletter’s website. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will survive on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your internet site link might be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding procedure, you’ll also choose your brand colors and design to see to it your newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your dashboard
When you reach your primary dashboard, you’ll see every one of your analytics and settings.
You will have detailed info on the number of sign-ups you’re obtaining and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see choices for “Start writing”, “Articles”, “Audience”, “Expand”, “Monetize”, “Style” and” Evaluate”. And at the very lower you’ll see the settings option.
Control panel is your primary nerve center (screenshot above), Start writing is where you create and publish newsletters, Messages is where you can see all of your previous newsletter versions, Audience is where you can see who your customers are (and damage them down right into segments), 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 make your e-newsletter landing page and article template, Evaluate is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can manage every one of your admin things.
Composing your newsletter
beehiiv makes it easy to start writing, with little to no friction. If you’re simply starting, and have an idea you want to blog about, I recommend just going to the “Create” area in the navbar and clicking on “Beginning writing”.
You can tweak your template and designing later on– concentrate on the web content initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor offers a tidy and straightforward interface for creating.
When you begin writing, you can optimize headings, include web links, and design your web content how you like.
beehiiv provides you tons of choices for various types of content like videos, links, images, and much more.
The team at beehiiv is also constantly launching product feature and updates so I make sure there will be a great deal much more material features depending on when you read this.
Enhancing your setups and templates
When you have a newsletter that prepares to send out, it’s time to create your e-mail template and change some settings.
Below, you can upgrade the name of your newsletter, offer it a description, add your logo design, activate or off a welcome email to very first time subscribers, and more.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can modify background colors, boundaries, spacing, fonts, photo layouts, and much more. I’m not going to undergo ever before single thing you can maximize with your email template because it’s a lot. Simply try the platform for free and see it for yourself!
Necessary beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of impressive features that make it a terrific posting platform for any kind of e-newsletter creator.
Right here are some of the essential features you can locate with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder Beehiiv Creator Accelerator
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter posting platform. It makes it super simple to create and send out e-mails. I discussed above several of things you can do with your setups and e-mail style so I’ll spare you some extra analysis.
The important things to note with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has an actually contemporary and minimalistic feel. It’s certainly one of the better email editors I have actually ever written in.
Site hosting
When you create a beehiiv newsletter, all of your e-newsletters (if you desire) survive a web site. Consider it as a site for your e-newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous problems of your e-newsletter, and a location where individuals can subscribe to your newsletter.
If you’re familiar with Substack, it’s practically similar to that.
All plans, including the totally free one, offer you an internet site. However, the free plan places your site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you want to add a personalized domain to eliminate all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining subscribers is important. After all, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can register for your e-newsletter directly from your beehiiv website or via embed forms.
If you already have an internet site, and desire people to sign up for your e-newsletter from your existing website, you’ll need to make use of an embed kind. This is what I make use of on this website (you can see the sign-up installed on the right hand column of this article if you scroll up).
With embed kinds, you have 3 various options– a full width, a fixed width, and a slim installed. I directly use the slim installed.
You can locate the code snippet for these embeds in the “Subscribe Kinds” tab in your setups.
There’s additionally an option for attribution monitoring if you want to forward UTM specifications for tracking functions– quite neat.
Nonetheless, there are a couple of features I want beehiiv had when it concerned subscribe features. I’m sure the team is dealing with updates for these, however I stated a few worries I had in the benefits and drawbacks section listed below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things regarding beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter system, is an option for producing a referral program.
You can urge existing subscribers on your checklist to ahead your emails to good friends and coworkers and if they obtain other individuals to subscribe to your checklist, you can reward them. These rewards can be in whatever form you want. I’ve seem many e-newsletter business give incentives in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously turn your customers into a word of mouth development engine for your newsletter– giving you an additional opportunity for expanding your e-mail checklist.
However, to get accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll have to upgrade to a more premium plan. I’ll look at all the plans later on in this post.
Premium registrations
They claim all you require to make a living online is 1,000 true fans. Subscription profits is most definitely a beast of its own. If you’re seeking a system to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can develop “premium” problems of your newsletter that are just sent to paying customers. This can be extremely lucrative depending on what your newsletter has to supply. As an example, Trends.co is a preferred costs e-newsletter that generates millions in income a year simply by having pay-only newsletter web content.
Data analytics
One of the things I enjoy regarding beehiiv is how clean and straightforward the analytics are. You get real-time date on just how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and subscriber count.
You obtain access to all the metrics you need to obtain a bird-eye sight on just how your e-newsletter is really doing. Logging into your control panel and seeing that customer count go up is most definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv supplies four different pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (complimentary) Launch plan gives you everything you require to get going and grow your newsletter (as much as 2,500 clients).
The Scale plan ($ 39/month) provides you whatever in the Launch plan with the addition the ad network, referral program, personalized domain name, surveys, and access to costs subscriptions. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 76/month) provides you whatever in the Grow plan with enhancement of priority assistance and eliminating the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are quite charitable in my viewpoint.
For example, if you have 100,000 customers you will certainly pay around $329 each month. Rather than some rivals, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would certainly bill $679 monthly for the same quantity– making beehiiv a wonderful Kit choice for many customers.
I’m uncertain how the unit economics deal with this, but beehiiv is absolutely more affordable (presently) than what it can be.
beehiiv pros and cons
Naturally, with every system, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Below are some of the pros and cons I’ve directly experienced while making use of beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Right here are a few of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter platform of option:
- Easy to set up and begin sending out newsletters free of charge
- Clean and contemporary client analytics
- Lots of versatility with e-mail layouts.
- Referral program feature Beehiiv Creator Accelerator
- Website hosting
- Create premium options to generate income from
- Surveys
To be sincere, I have not seen one more e-newsletter system that has had the ability to package all of these features together so well.
Yet naturally, I do not intend to be prejudiced so I’m going to mention some cons.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Here are a few of the cons I have actually located while making use of beehiiv:.
- Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv
- Limitations around including personalized fonts
I utilize Webflow as my web site building platform of selection (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a long period of time ago). I’m not mosting likely to enter way too much information why I enjoy Webflow so much but you can read my Webflow review if you ‘d like to learn more.
Right now, there actually is nothing else method I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow internet site besides using an iframe embed. I personally do not such as making use of iframe’s since they have a tendency to slow down my web site a little bit. Every time a page on my website (with a beehiiv installed) tons, the sign-up installed is the last thing to load on the page. It’s really noticeable when you’re on a slow-moving net link. But I can navigate that.
The primary gripe I have is that I can not make use of a regular Webflow form (which I enjoy making use of). There are means around this by utilizing a tool like Zapier however that would just add additional prices that I don’t need. To be honest, this is more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv con yet I believed I would certainly discuss it.
Besides that, I still think the pros much outweigh the cons here. I’m also hopeful that Webflow will at some point produce a far better method to integrate with beehiiv.
Verdict
Generally, beehiiv is a fantastic option for anybody aiming to study the globe of email marketing and newsletters.
The capability of this e-newsletter platform much exceeds several that are presently on the market. And with a charitable free plan, you actually have absolutely nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are likewise relatively cheap for what they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 subscribers on your checklist is unheard of. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k clients, and all of these features beehiiv has, it could cost you well right into the thousands each month.
Anyways, I do not create testimonial blog posts typically. I only do when I in fact make use of the device myself and would advise it to a buddy.
I wish you discovered some clearness on whether beehiiv is a great platform for you.