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 very first time. I clicked on it and immediately began destroying. Beehiiv Documentation…
Being a full-time maker is tough. I’m usually getting pitched different devices and solutions that don’t appear to be worth my time.
I think I was emotional since I invested the last six months trying various email and newsletter systems to assist construct my newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some terrific choices for composing e-newsletters. However I couldn’t find one that made me give a certain “yes”.
The issue with lots of existing e-newsletter platforms is that they don’t feel creator-centered. I desire a newsletter platform that lets me fully personalize my newsletter layouts, makes it incredibly very easy to write and send emails, and provides me tools that assist me assess metrics and obtain even more customers.
I think I’ve ultimately located the ideal tool.
Yet, I know beehiiv may not be for every person. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s really best for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one system for e-newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly e-newsletter platform that makes it easy to layout, write, send out, advertise, generate income from, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Created by previous employees at the popular e-newsletter business Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to assist creators launch and monetize their own e-newsletter– taking great deals of growth concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M clients.
In this short article, I’m going to discuss my personal experience with beehiiv, the things I like (and hate) regarding it, all of it’s features, and why I decided to lastly choose it as my e-newsletter platform of choice.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A few months earlier, I inadvertently stumbled across beehiiv. The funny story is that I have actually watched for a modern e-newsletter system for fairly a long time now. I have actually hesitated hard when it pertained to finally introducing my newsletter.
Initially, I tried Mailchimp. After that, a couple of various other indie systems. After that, Substack. And ultimately, I wound up making use of beehiiv.
I’m sure lots of e-newsletter makers look up to popular e-newsletters with millions of customers– I understand I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I appreciated a great deal. They have excellent content, tons of clients, and a clever referral program that permits them to get back at more clients.
So, I took place a search to find out how these huge e-newsletters set up their logistics. What platform do they make use of? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they get even more subscribers? How do they create an e-newsletter design that stays on-brand?
When I discovered beehiiv for the very first time, it seemed to respond to every one of my concerns. I believed to myself, “damn individuals that constructed this device actually comprehend newsletter creation and growth.” I questioned who these makers of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were some of the first marketing and development employees at Morning Brew– my brain took off.
I knew this was going to be a various e-newsletter platform. One that’s concentrated on creator growth.
Since, any type of creator understands, you require development to be able to earn a living off of a newsletter. And finding the best newsletter stack (that ranges) usually indicates utilizing several various tools to help accomplish one goal– one system for your e-newsletter, one system to generate income from, and one system to establish recommendations. It can get expensive.
So when I discovered beehiiv did all of these points in one platform, and it was totally free to begin making use of, it was a piece of cake to give it a try.
beehiiv vs Substack
You might be asking, “isn’t there already a platform for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, of course there is. Substack is an excellent 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 remedy for sending emails (while developing an archive of previous problems).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s devotion to growth. beehiiv allows you do to all the things Substack can do, with the advantage of far better analytics, even more layout flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing customers to get the word out.
beehiiv additionally provides you a site similar to Substack. Yet, if you have your own web site already, you can additionally use beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I make use of) to send your internet site subscribers right to your beehiiv email listing. On the very same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a tool like Performance to allow people to register for your newsletter straight from Twitter.
This offers you the versatility to leverage different marketing networks to obtain your e-newsletter out into the globe, making beehiiv an excellent Substack alternative.
Exactly how to start making use of beehiiv email marketing software.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean web content maker that desires a platform that allows them to send out custom e-newsletters with or without requiring to have a site.
The most effective newsletters have the right devices to develop and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv targets at giving you those devices.
If you’re an independent author, media company, startup, or material maker, you need to seriously considering trying beehiiv. It’s completely cost-free to start and you just pay when you get to over 2,500 customers on your list.
If you in fact end up needing to pay for beehiiv it’s possibly an excellent indicator that people enjoy reviewing your stuff.
Register for a free plan
The initial step is to enroll in a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Beginning trial” button on beehiiv’s website.
The free plan will certainly permit you to have up to 2,500 clients, provide you access to web site hosting, a newsletter CMS, breakthrough modification, analytics, external embed forms, and much more. It’s a very charitable offering for those just beginning (or for those searching for a brand-new system to migrate to).
Onboarding
After developing an account, you’ll experience an onboarding procedure that will ask points like, “is this your initial newsletter?”, “what various other systems have you made use of?”, “do you have any type of paying subscribers?”, and much more.
You’ll then produce a name and link for your newsletter’s site. On the free plan, your newsletter will certainly survive a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your web site URL might be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding procedure, you’ll also select your brand name design and colors to make sure your e-newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your dashboard
As soon as you reach your main control panel, you’ll see every one of your analytics and settings.
You will certainly have described info on the amount of sign-ups you’re getting and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see options for “Begin writing”, “Posts”, “Audience”, “Grow”, “Monetize”, “Design” and” Examine”. And at the very lower you’ll see the settings alternative.
Control panel is your major nerve center (screenshot over), Start writing is where you produce and release newsletters, Posts is where you can see every one of your previous e-newsletter editions, Audience is where you can watch who your subscribers are (and damage them down right into sectors), 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 e-newsletter with ads, Layout is where you create your newsletter landing page and post template, Assess is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can manage all of your admin things.
Creating your newsletter
beehiiv makes it easy to begin creating, with little to no rubbing. If you’re simply beginning, and have an idea you wish to write about, I suggest just going to the “Write” section in the navbar and clicking “Beginning writing”.
You can modify your template and designing later on– focus on the web content initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor offers a tidy and easy to use user interface for writing.
As soon as you start writing, you can optimize headings, add links, and design your web content how you like.
beehiiv offers you lots of alternatives for various kinds of material like video clips, web links, photos, and much more.
The team at beehiiv is likewise continuously releasing item feature and updates so I make certain there will certainly be a lot a lot more material features depending upon when you’re reading this.
Enhancing your settings and templates
When you have an e-newsletter that’s ready to send out, it’s time to design your e-mail template and adjust some settings.
Below, you can upgrade the name of your newsletter, provide it a summary, include your logo design, turn on or off a welcome email to very first time customers, and extra.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can edit history colors, borders, spacing, typefaces, photo layouts, and extra. I’m not going to go through ever before solitary thing you can optimize with your e-mail template due to the fact that it’s a lot. Simply check out the system totally free and see it on your own!
Necessary beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of fantastic features that make it a fantastic posting system for any e-newsletter designer.
Here are a few of the essential features you can locate with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder Beehiiv Documentation
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter publishing platform. It makes it very very easy to compose and send e-mails. I pointed out over several of the things you can do with your settings and email layout so I’ll spare you some added reading.
Things to note with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has a really contemporary and minimalistic feel. It’s definitely among the better e-mail editors I have actually ever before written in.
Web site hosting
When you create a beehiiv e-newsletter, every one of your newsletters (if you want) reside on a website. Consider it as a site for your e-newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous problems of your e-newsletter, and a place where people can sign up for your e-newsletter.
If you’re familiar with Substack, it’s pretty much comparable to that.
All plans, consisting of the complimentary one, provide you a website. Nonetheless, the free plan places your internet site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you wish to include a custom-made domain name to remove all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining subscribers is important. After all, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can sign up for your e-newsletter right from your beehiiv site or with embed kinds.
If you already have a site, and desire individuals to subscribe to your newsletter from your existing site, you’ll have to use an embed kind. This is what I utilize on this site (you can see the sign-up embed on the right hand column of this blog post if you scroll up).
With embed types, you have 3 different choices– a full width, a dealt with size, and a slim embed. I personally make use of the slim embed.
You can find the code bit for these embeds in the “Subscribe Kinds” tab in your setups.
There’s additionally an option for attribution tracking if you intend to onward UTM criteria for tracking purposes– pretty neat.
However, there are a couple of features I wish beehiiv had when it pertained to subscribe features. I make sure the team is servicing updates for these, yet I mentioned a couple of problems I had in the pros and cons area listed below.
Referral program
Among the amazing things regarding beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter platform, is a service for producing a referral program.
You can motivate existing subscribers on your list to onward your emails to close friends and associates and if they obtain other individuals to register for your list, you can compensate them. These benefits can be in whatever kind you desire. I’ve seem numerous e-newsletter firms give benefits 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 an additional method for growing your e-mail list.
However, to obtain access to the referral program feature, you’ll have to update to a more exceptional plan. I’ll review all the plans later in this post.
Premium subscriptions
They claim all you require to earn a living online is 1,000 real fans. Subscription income is absolutely a beast of its very own. If you’re looking for a system to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can produce “premium” concerns of your newsletter that are just sent to paying subscribers. This can be extremely financially rewarding relying on what your e-newsletter needs to supply. For example, Trends.co is a preferred premium newsletter that produces millions in profits a year simply by having pay-only newsletter content.
Data analytics
Among the things I enjoy regarding beehiiv is just how clean and straightforward the analytics are. You get real-time day on how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and customer count.
You get accessibility to all the metrics you need to get a bird-eye view on exactly how your e-newsletter is actually doing. Logging right into your control panel and seeing that customer matter increase is most definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv offers four different pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (free) Launch plan provides you everything you require to get started and grow your e-newsletter (as much as 2,500 customers).
The Scale plan ($ 39/month) provides you every little thing in the Launch plan with the enhancement the advertisement network, referral program, customized domain name, surveys, and accessibility to premium registrations. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 76/month) offers you everything in the Grow plan with enhancement of concern assistance and eliminating the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are quite generous in my point of view.
As an example, if you have 100,000 subscribers you will pay around $329 each month. Instead of some rivals, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would charge $679 monthly for the same quantity– making beehiiv an excellent Kit choice for numerous users.
I’m unsure how the system economics work on this, yet beehiiv is most definitely cheaper (right now) than what it can be.
beehiiv pros and cons
Of course, with every platform, it has its pros and cons. Below are several of the advantages and disadvantages I have actually directly experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Right here are some of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter platform of option:
- Easy to establish and begin sending out newsletters free of charge
- Clean and modern-day subscriber analytics
- Great deals of adaptability with email layouts.
- Referral program feature Beehiiv Documentation
- Website hosting
- Create premium options to generate income from
- Surveys
To be sincere, I have not seen another e-newsletter platform that has been able to package every one of these features with each other so well.
But obviously, I don’t want to be prejudiced so I’m mosting likely to state some cons.
Cons of using beehiiv
Here are some of the disadvantages I have actually discovered while utilizing beehiiv:.
- Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv
- Limitations around adding personalized font styles
I use Webflow as my web site building platform of selection (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a long time ago). I’m not mosting likely to go in too much information why I like Webflow so much but you can review my Webflow evaluation if you would love to learn more.
Today, there actually is nothing else way I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow website apart from making use of an iframe embed. I directly don’t like making use of iframe’s because they tend to slow down my website a little bit. Every single time a page on my website (with a beehiiv installed) loads, the sign-up embed is the last point to load on the web page. It’s really recognizable when you get on a slow-moving internet link. However I can get around that.
The major complaint I have is that I can not use a normal Webflow type (which I like utilizing). There are methods around this by using a tool like Zapier but that would certainly simply add extra prices that I do not require. To be truthful, this is more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv disadvantage but I thought I would mention it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros far outweigh the cons here. I’m also hopeful that Webflow will eventually create a much better method to integrate with beehiiv.
Verdict
Overall, beehiiv is a wonderful remedy for any individual seeking to dive into the globe of email marketing and newsletters.
The performance of this e-newsletter platform far outweighs several that are presently on the marketplace. And with a generous free plan, you truly have absolutely nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are additionally rather affordable wherefore they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 customers on your list is unprecedented. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k subscribers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it could cost you well into the thousands monthly.
Anyways, I don’t create review posts frequently. I just do when I actually make use of the device myself and would recommend it to a pal.
I wish you located some clearness on whether or not beehiiv is a great system for you.