I read among my favored email e-newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo design for the first time. I clicked on it and immediately began tearing up. Beehiiv Features…
Being a full-time creator is tough. I’m often getting pitched various tools and solutions that don’t seem to be worth my time.
I guess I was emotional since I spent the last 6 months trying various e-mail and e-newsletter platforms to assist construct my e-newsletter. And to be fair, there are some terrific alternatives for composing newsletters. Yet I could not discover one that made me provide a certain “yes”.
The issue with numerous existing newsletter platforms is that they do not really feel creator-centered. I desire an e-newsletter platform that lets me fully personalize my newsletter layouts, makes it very easy to write and send e-mails, and gives me devices that help me examine metrics and get even more subscribers.
I assume I have actually lastly located the ideal tool.
But, I know beehiiv might not be for everyone. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s really best for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one platform for e-newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly e-newsletter platform that makes it easy to style, compose, send, advertise, generate income from, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Produced by former staff members at the well-known newsletter company Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to help developers launch and monetize their own e-newsletter– taking lots of growth principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M customers.
In this post, I’m mosting likely to discuss my personal experience with beehiiv, things I like (and hate) regarding it, all of it’s features, and why I determined to lastly choose it as my newsletter platform of choice.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A few months ago, I inadvertently stumbled across beehiiv. The funny tale is that I’ve watched for a modern newsletter platform for quite a long time now. I’ve put things off hard when it pertained to ultimately releasing my newsletter.
First, I attempted Mailchimp. Then, a few various other indie systems. After that, Substack. And ultimately, I wound up using beehiiv.
I’m sure numerous e-newsletter creators look up to prominent e-newsletters with millions of customers– I understand I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I looked up to a whole lot. They have great material, lots of clients, and a creative referral program that permits them to get even a lot more customers.
So, I went on a hunt to determine just how these large newsletters set up their logistics. What platform do they utilize? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they obtain even more subscribers? How do they develop an e-newsletter design that remains on-brand?
When I uncovered beehiiv for the very first time, it seemed to respond to all of my questions. I believed to myself, “damn individuals that constructed this device actually understand e-newsletter creation and development.” I questioned who these creators of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were a few of the initial marketing and development staff members at Morning Brew– my brain blew up.
I knew this was mosting likely to be a different newsletter platform. One that’s concentrated on developer development.
Due to the fact that, any kind of designer knows, you need development to be able to make a living off of a newsletter. And discovering the right e-newsletter pile (that scales) typically suggests utilizing multiple different tools to aid achieve one goal– one platform for your newsletter, one platform to monetize, and one platform to set up references. It can get costly.
So when I learnt beehiiv did every one of these things in one platform, and it was cost-free to begin utilizing, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
beehiiv vs Substack
You may be asking, “isn’t there currently a system for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, yes there is. Substack is a fantastic system utilized by countless independent writers. With Substack you get your very own site and make use of the platform as your all-in-one option for sending out e-mails (while producing an archive of previous concerns).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s devotion to development. 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 urge your existing customers to obtain the word out.
beehiiv additionally gives you a website similar to Substack. However, if you have your own web site currently, you can likewise make use of beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I make use of) to send your website customers right to your beehiiv e-mail checklist. On the exact same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a device like Performance to enable individuals to sign up for your newsletter straight from Twitter.
This provides you the adaptability to take advantage of various marketing networks to get your newsletter out right into the globe, making beehiiv a fantastic Substack option.
Exactly how to start using beehiiv email marketing software.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean content creator that desires a platform that allows them to send custom-made newsletters with or without needing to have a web site.
One of the most successful newsletters have the right devices to build and scale their newsletters. beehiiv targets at giving you those devices.
If you’re an independent writer, media company, start-up, or web content developer, you must seriously thinking about trying out beehiiv. It’s completely free to get going and you just pay when you get to over 2,500 clients on your listing.
If you actually end up needing to pay for beehiiv it’s possibly a good indicator that individuals enjoy reviewing your things.
Sign up for a free plan
The first step is to register for a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Start trial” switch on beehiiv’s internet site.
The free plan will enable you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, give you accessibility to internet site hosting, a newsletter CMS, development customization, analytics, exterior embed forms, and a lot more. It’s a very generous offering for those simply beginning (or for those seeking a brand-new system to move to).
Onboarding
After developing an account, you’ll experience an onboarding process that will ask points like, “is this your very first newsletter?”, “what various other platforms have you made use of?”, “do you have any type of paying customers?”, and a lot more.
You’ll then create a name and URL for your newsletter’s web site. On the free plan, your newsletter will live on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your web site link might be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding process, you’ll also choose your brand design and colors to make certain your newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your control panel
Once you reach your major dashboard, you’ll see every one of your analytics and setups.
You will certainly have described details on the amount of sign-ups you’re obtaining and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see options for “Begin composing”, “Messages”, “Target market”, “Grow”, “Monetize”, “Style” and” Examine”. And at the very lower you’ll see the settings alternative.
Control panel is your main control center (screenshot over), Begin creating is where you produce and publish e-newsletters, Articles is where you can see all of your previous e-newsletter versions, Audience is where you can see who your subscribers are (and damage them down into sectors), Grow is where you have accessibility 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 blog post template, Evaluate is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can manage every one of your admin stuff.
Writing your newsletter
beehiiv makes it simple to start creating, with little to no friction. If you’re just starting out, and have a concept you intend to cover, I recommend just going to the “Create” section in the navbar and clicking on “Begin composing”.
You can tweak your template and styling later on– concentrate on the content initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor provides a clean and user-friendly interface for writing.
Once you start creating, you can enhance headings, add web links, and style your material how you like.
beehiiv gives you tons of choices for different types of content like video clips, web links, pictures, and more.
The team at beehiiv is also continuously launching product feature and updates so I make sure there will be a lot more material features relying on when you’re reading this.
Maximizing your setups and templates
Once you have a newsletter that prepares to send out, it’s time to develop your e-mail template and readjust some settings.
Here, you can update the name of your e-newsletter, provide it a description, add your logo design, turn on or off a welcome email to very first time customers, and a lot more.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your design.
You can modify background shades, borders, spacing, typefaces, picture styles, and extra. I’m not going to go through ever solitary thing you can optimize with your e-mail template due to the fact that it’s a whole lot. Just try out the system for free and see it on your own!
Vital beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of impressive features that make it a great publishing system for any type of newsletter maker.
Right here are several of the necessary features you can find with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder Beehiiv Features
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter publishing platform. It makes it extremely simple to write and send out emails. I stated above some of the important things you can do with your setups and e-mail style so I’ll save you some additional reading.
The thing to note with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has a truly contemporary and minimalistic feeling. It’s definitely among the better email editors I’ve ever written in.
Internet site hosting
When you produce a beehiiv e-newsletter, every one of your e-newsletters (if you want) reside on a website. Think about it as a site for your newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous problems of your e-newsletter, and a location where people can sign up for your newsletter.
If you’re familiar with Substack, it’s virtually comparable to that.
All plans, including the cost-free one, provide you an internet site. Nevertheless, the free plan places your website on a beehiiv subdomain so if you want to add a custom-made domain to get rid of all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining clients is important. Besides, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can sign up for your e-newsletter straight from your beehiiv internet site or through embed kinds.
If you already have a website, and desire people to register for your e-newsletter from your existing site, you’ll need to utilize an embed type. This is what I make use of on this site (you can see the sign-up installed on the right hand column of this article if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have three various alternatives– a full width, a repaired size, and a slim embed. I personally utilize the slim installed.
You can find the code bit for these embeds in the “Subscribe Kinds” tab in your setups.
There’s also an option for acknowledgment monitoring if you want to ahead UTM criteria for tracking purposes– pretty neat.
However, there are a few features I desire beehiiv had when it involved subscribe features. I make certain the group is servicing updates for these, however I mentioned a few problems I had in the benefits and drawbacks area 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 customers on your checklist to forward your emails to close friends and colleagues and if they get other people to subscribe to your checklist, you can reward them. These rewards can be in whatever kind you want. I’ve seem lots of e-newsletter companies offer benefits in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously turn your customers right into a word of mouth development engine for your e-newsletter– providing you another avenue for growing your e-mail checklist.
Nevertheless, to get accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll have to upgrade to an extra exceptional plan. I’ll go over all the plans later on in this post.
Premium subscriptions
They claim all you require to make a living online is 1,000 real fans. Registration earnings is absolutely a monster of its own. If you’re seeking a platform to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can develop “premium” problems of your newsletter that are only sent to paying clients. This can be very financially rewarding depending upon what your newsletter needs to provide. As an example, Trends.co is a preferred costs newsletter that produces millions in income a year just by having pay-only e-newsletter material.
Data analytics
Among the important things I enjoy regarding beehiiv is how tidy and straightforward the analytics are. You obtain real-time day on exactly how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and subscriber matter.
You obtain accessibility to all the metrics you need to get a bird-eye view on exactly how your newsletter is in fact doing. Logging into your dashboard and seeing that client matter go up is most definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv provides four various pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (complimentary) Launch plan offers you everything you require to start and grow your e-newsletter (as much as 2,500 customers).
The Scale plan ($ 39/month) provides you everything in the Launch plan with the addition the ad network, referral program, custom-made domain, surveys, 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 concern support and getting rid of the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are quite charitable in my point of view.
For example, if you have 100,000 customers you will pay around $329 each month. In contrast to some rivals, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would certainly charge $679 per month for the very same quantity– making beehiiv a wonderful Kit choice for many users.
I’m unsure just how the device business economics work with this, however beehiiv is absolutely less costly (right now) than what it can be.
beehiiv benefits and drawbacks
Obviously, with every system, it has its pros and cons. Here are a few of the advantages and disadvantages I’ve directly experienced while making use of beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Below are several of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter platform of selection:
- Easy to establish and begin sending e-newsletters for free
- Clean and modern-day client analytics
- Great deals of adaptability with email layouts.
- Referral program feature Beehiiv Features
- Web site hosting
- Develop costs options to monetize
- Surveys
To be sincere, I haven’t seen another newsletter platform that has had the ability to package every one of these features with each other so well.
However certainly, I don’t wish to be biased so I’m mosting likely to point out some disadvantages.
Cons of using beehiiv
Below are several of the disadvantages I have actually located while using beehiiv:.
- Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv
- Limitations around including custom fonts
I use Webflow as my internet site building system of option (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a very long time ago). I’m not mosting likely to enter excessive detail why I enjoy Webflow a lot but you can read my Webflow evaluation if you would love to discover more.
Today, there truly is nothing else way I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow site besides making use of an iframe embed. I directly don’t such as making use of iframe’s due to the fact that they tend to slow down my web site a little bit. Each time a page on my website (with a beehiiv embed) lots, the sign-up installed is the last point to fill on the page. It’s very visible when you get on a sluggish web connection. But I can get around that.
The main complaint I have is that I can not use a normal Webflow kind (which I like making use of). There are means around this by utilizing a tool like Zapier but that would certainly just include additional expenses that I do not need. To be straightforward, this is even more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv disadvantage yet I assumed I would mention it.
Besides that, I still think the pros much surpass the disadvantages here. I’m additionally hopeful that Webflow will ultimately produce a far better way to integrate with beehiiv.
Verdict
Overall, beehiiv is a terrific option for any individual looking to dive into the globe of e-mail marketing and e-newsletters.
The performance of this e-newsletter system much outweighs many that are presently on the market. And with a charitable free plan, you actually have absolutely nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are likewise fairly low-cost wherefore they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 customers on your list is uncommon. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k customers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it could cost you well right into the thousands per month.
Anyways, I do not write testimonial posts typically. I only do when I really use the tool myself and would advise it to a good friend.
I wish you found some clearness on whether beehiiv is a great system for you.