I was reading among my favored 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 promptly started wrecking. Beehiiv Facebook Ads…
Being a full time maker is difficult. I’m typically getting pitched various devices and solutions that don’t seem to be worth my time.
I think I was psychological because I spent the last six months experimenting with different e-mail and e-newsletter systems to aid develop my newsletter. And to be fair, there are some great choices for composing e-newsletters. But I couldn’t locate one that made me give a certain “yes”.
The concern with lots of existing newsletter platforms is that they do not feel creator-centered. I want an e-newsletter system that lets me completely personalize my e-newsletter styles, makes it very easy to compose and send out e-mails, and provides me devices that help me assess metrics and get more clients.
I believe I’ve finally found the right tool.
However, I understand beehiiv might not be for everybody. 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 e-newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly e-newsletter platform that makes it very easy to design, create, send out, promote, monetize, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Created by former staff members at the well-known e-newsletter firm Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to assist makers launch and monetize their own newsletter– taking great deals of growth concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M customers.
In this write-up, I’m mosting likely to explain my personal experience with beehiiv, the things I like (and hate) concerning it, all of it’s features, and why I chose to finally select it as my e-newsletter system of choice.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A few months back, I unintentionally came across beehiiv. The amusing story is that I have actually been on the lookout for a modern-day e-newsletter system for rather time now. I’ve hesitated hard when it concerned finally releasing my newsletter.
First, I attempted Mailchimp. Then, a couple of other indie platforms. After that, Substack. And ultimately, I wound up making use of beehiiv.
I make certain many e-newsletter designers admire prominent newsletters with millions of clients– I know I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I appreciated a great deal. They have great material, tons of customers, and a brilliant referral program that allows them to get even a lot more customers.
So, I took place a search to find out how these huge newsletters established their logistics. What system do they utilize? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they obtain more customers? How do they produce an e-newsletter design that remains on-brand?
When I discovered beehiiv for the first time, it seemed to answer all of my questions. I thought to myself, “damn individuals that developed this device actually comprehend e-newsletter development and growth.” I examined who these creators of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were several of the initial marketing and growth workers at Morning Brew– my mind exploded.
I knew this was going to be a different newsletter platform. One that’s concentrated on creator growth.
Due to the fact that, any kind of designer knows, you require development to be able to make a living off of a newsletter. And discovering the appropriate e-newsletter stack (that scales) frequently means utilizing numerous different devices to aid attain one goal– one system for your e-newsletter, one platform to generate income from, and one system to set up references. It can get costly.
So when I found out beehiiv did every one of these things in one platform, and it was free to begin using, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
beehiiv vs Substack
You could be asking, “isn’t there already a system for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, indeed there is. Substack is a great system made use of by countless independent writers. With Substack you get your very own web site and utilize the platform as your all-in-one service for sending out e-mails (while developing an archive of previous issues).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s commitment to growth. beehiiv allows you do to all things Substack can do, with the benefit of better analytics, more style flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing clients to get words out.
beehiiv likewise offers you a website similar to Substack. But, if you have your very own website currently, you can also make use of beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I utilize) to send your site subscribers right to your beehiiv email checklist. On the same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a device like Revue to allow people to sign up for your e-newsletter directly from Twitter.
This offers you the adaptability to take advantage of various marketing channels to obtain your e-newsletter out into the world, making beehiiv a fantastic Substack choice.
Exactly how to start using beehiiv e-mail marketing software.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean web content developer that desires a system that enables them to send out customized newsletters with or without requiring to have a site.
One of the most successful e-newsletters have the right devices to develop and scale their newsletters. beehiiv aims at giving you those devices.
If you’re an independent writer, media company, start-up, or material maker, you must seriously considering checking out beehiiv. It’s completely cost-free to start and you just pay when you reach over 2,500 subscribers on your list.
If you really end up having to spend for beehiiv it’s most likely an excellent indicator that people enjoy reading your things.
Sign up for a free plan
The initial step is to register for a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Begin trial” switch on beehiiv’s web site.
The free plan will allow you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, give you access to site hosting, a newsletter CMS, advancement modification, analytics, outside embed types, and extra. It’s an extremely generous offering for those simply starting (or for those searching for a brand-new system to move to).
Onboarding
After creating an account, you’ll undergo an onboarding process that will ask points like, “is this your very first newsletter?”, “what other systems have you utilized?”, “do you have any kind of paying customers?”, and much more.
You’ll then create a name and link for your e-newsletter’s website. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will reside on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your internet site URL might be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding procedure, you’ll likewise choose your brand design and colors to ensure your newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your dashboard
Once you reach your main dashboard, you’ll see all of your analytics and setups.
You will have described information on the number of sign-ups you’re obtaining and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see choices for “Begin writing”, “Articles”, “Target market”, “Grow”, “Monetize”, “Style” and” Assess”. And at the really bottom you’ll see the setups option.
Control panel is your primary nerve center (screenshot above), Start writing is where you produce and publish e-newsletters, Posts is where you can see every one of your previous e-newsletter editions, Audience is where you can see who your clients are (and damage them down into sections), Grow is where you have access 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 newsletter with advertisements, Layout is where you develop your e-newsletter landing page and blog post template, Analyze is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can take care of all of your admin stuff.
Composing your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it simple to begin composing, with little to no rubbing. If you’re just starting out, and have an idea you wish to discuss, I suggest simply mosting likely to the “Write” area in the navbar and clicking on “Beginning composing”.
You can modify your template and designing later– concentrate on the web content initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor supplies a clean and easy to use interface for composing.
As soon as you start writing, you can optimize headings, include web links, and design your material just how you like.
beehiiv gives you lots of options for different types of material like videos, links, photos, and a lot more.
The team at beehiiv is additionally continuously releasing item feature and updates so I make sure there will certainly be a great deal much more material features relying on when you’re reading this.
Enhancing your setups and templates
Once you have an e-newsletter that’s ready to send out, it’s time to create your email template and adjust some setups.
Here, you can upgrade the name of your newsletter, give it a description, add your logo design, switch on or off a welcome e-mail to first time clients, and more.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can modify history shades, borders, spacing, typefaces, photo layouts, and more. I’m not going to go through ever single thing you can maximize with your email template since it’s a great deal. Just experiment with the platform absolutely free and see it on your own!
Necessary beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of remarkable features that make it a terrific posting system for any newsletter creator.
Here are some of the necessary features you can find with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder Beehiiv Facebook Ads
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter posting system. It makes it incredibly simple to write and send e-mails. I stated above some of the things you can do with your setups and e-mail style so I’ll spare you some extra analysis.
The thing to note with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has a really modern and minimalistic feel. It’s certainly one of the much better e-mail editors I have actually ever before written in.
Internet site hosting
When you develop a beehiiv newsletter, every one of your e-newsletters (if you want) survive on a web site. Consider it as a site for your newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous problems of your e-newsletter, and a place where people can register for your e-newsletter.
If you recognize with Substack, it’s basically similar to that.
All plans, including the totally free one, offer you a web site. Nonetheless, the free plan places your web site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you want to include a customized domain name to get rid of all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting customers is essential. After all, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can sign up for your newsletter directly from your beehiiv website or via embed kinds.
If you currently have an internet site, and want people to register for your e-newsletter from your existing website, you’ll need to make use of an embed type. This is what I make use of 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 kinds, you have three different alternatives– a full size, a fixed width, and a slim embed. I directly use the slim embed.
You can locate the code bit for these embeds in the “Subscribe Kinds” tab in your settings.
There’s likewise an alternative for acknowledgment monitoring if you want to forward UTM parameters for tracking objectives– rather cool.
However, there are a few features I desire beehiiv had when it came to subscribe features. I make sure the team is working on updates for these, but I discussed a few concerns I had in the pros and cons section below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things concerning beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter system, is an option for creating a referral program.
You can encourage existing customers on your listing to ahead your emails to friends and coworkers and if they obtain other people to sign up for your checklist, you can reward them. These rewards can be in whatever type you desire. I’ve seem many newsletter firms provide benefits in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously turn your clients into a word of mouth development engine for your e-newsletter– offering you an additional opportunity for expanding your email list.
However, to obtain accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll need to upgrade to an extra premium plan. I’ll look at all the plans later on in this short article.
Premium subscriptions
They claim all you require to earn a living online is 1,000 real fans. Subscription earnings is definitely a monster of its very own. If you’re looking for a platform to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can develop “premium” problems of your e-newsletter that are just sent out to paying customers. This can be extremely profitable relying on what your e-newsletter needs to use. For instance, Trends.co is a prominent premium newsletter that creates millions in earnings a year simply by having pay-only e-newsletter web content.
Data analytics
Among things I like concerning beehiiv is just how tidy and simple the analytics are. You get real-time day on how your newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and client count.
You obtain access to all the metrics you require to obtain a bird-eye view on how your newsletter is actually doing. Logging into your dashboard and seeing that customer matter rise is definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv provides 4 various pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (free) Launch plan provides you whatever you need to begin and expand your newsletter (up to 2,500 clients).
The Scale plan ($ 39/month) provides you whatever in the Launch plan with the enhancement the advertisement network, referral program, custom-made domain name, polls, and access to premium registrations. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 76/month) gives you everything in the Grow plan with enhancement of priority support and removing the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are rather generous in my viewpoint.
For instance, if you have 100,000 customers you will certainly pay around $329 each month. As opposed to some rivals, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would charge $679 each month for the same quantity– making beehiiv a terrific Kit alternative for lots of users.
I’m not exactly sure how the device economics work on this, however beehiiv is definitely less expensive (at the moment) than what it can be.
beehiiv advantages and disadvantages
Certainly, with every platform, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Below are a few of the benefits and drawbacks I have actually personally experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Right here are a few of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter platform of choice:
- Easy to establish and start sending newsletters free of charge
- Tidy and modern-day customer analytics
- Great deals of versatility with e-mail designs.
- Referral program feature Beehiiv Facebook Ads
- Web site hosting
- Create costs alternatives to monetize
- Surveys
To be straightforward, I have not seen an additional newsletter platform that has actually had the ability to package all of these features together so well.
But certainly, I do not intend to be biased so I’m going to mention some disadvantages.
Cons of using beehiiv
Below are a few of the cons I have actually located while using beehiiv:.
- Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv
- Limitations around including personalized typefaces
I utilize Webflow as my web site building system of selection (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a very long time ago). I’m not mosting likely to go in excessive detail why I like Webflow a lot yet you can read my Webflow testimonial if you would love to learn more.
Now, there truly is nothing else way I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow website apart from utilizing an iframe embed. I directly don’t like using iframe’s because they tend to slow down my website a bit. Every single time a page on my website (with a beehiiv installed) lots, the sign-up installed is the last point to fill on the web page. It’s really visible when you get on a sluggish net connection. But I can navigate that.
The major gripe I have is that I can not utilize a routine Webflow form (which I like utilizing). There are means around this by utilizing a tool like Zapier yet that would simply include extra costs that I don’t need. To be sincere, this is even more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv con but I assumed I would certainly discuss it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros far exceed the disadvantages right here. I’m also enthusiastic that Webflow will eventually create a much better means to incorporate with beehiiv.
Final Thought
Generally, beehiiv is a terrific option for any individual looking to dive into the globe of e-mail marketing and newsletters.
The performance of this newsletter system far exceeds several that are currently on the market. And with a charitable free plan, you really have absolutely nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are additionally relatively affordable of what they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 customers on your list 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 compose review posts commonly. I just do when I really make use of the tool myself and would suggest it to a pal.
I hope you found some clearness on whether beehiiv is an excellent system for you.