I read among my favored 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 it and quickly started tearing up. Beehiiv Forms…
Being a full time maker is difficult. I’m often getting pitched various tools and services that do not appear to be worth my time.
I guess I was psychological because I spent the last 6 months trying various e-mail and e-newsletter systems to help construct my e-newsletter. And to be fair, there are some terrific alternatives for writing newsletters. Yet I couldn’t find one that made me give a certain “yes”.
The issue with lots of existing e-newsletter platforms is that they do not feel creator-centered. I desire a newsletter system that lets me totally tailor my newsletter layouts, makes it extremely very easy to write and send out emails, and gives me devices that help me examine metrics and obtain even more clients.
I think I’ve ultimately found the right tool.
However, I know beehiiv might 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 newsletter system that makes it easy to layout, compose, send out, promote, monetize, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Developed by previous staff members at the well-known e-newsletter firm Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to aid developers launch and monetize their own e-newsletter– taking great deals of growth principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M customers.
In this post, I’m going to explain my individual experience with beehiiv, the things I love (and hate) regarding it, all of it’s features, and why I chose to ultimately choose it as my e-newsletter system of option.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A couple of months ago, I inadvertently stumbled across beehiiv. The funny tale is that I’ve been on the lookout for a contemporary newsletter platform for quite time now. I have actually hesitated hard when it concerned lastly releasing my newsletter.
Initially, I tried Mailchimp. Then, a couple of other indie platforms. After that, Substack. And lastly, I ended up using beehiiv.
I make sure several e-newsletter developers appreciate popular e-newsletters with countless subscribers– I understand I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I admired a great deal. They have wonderful web content, tons of subscribers, and a smart referral program that allows them to get back at much more subscribers.
So, I took place a search to find out how these big e-newsletters established their logistics. What platform do they use? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they obtain more subscribers? How do they produce a newsletter layout that stays on-brand?
When I found beehiiv for the very first time, it seemed to answer every one of my inquiries. I thought to myself, “damn individuals that developed this tool truly comprehend newsletter creation and growth.” I questioned who these developers of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were a few of the very first marketing and growth employees at Morning Brew– my brain took off.
I understood this was mosting likely to be a different e-newsletter system. One that’s focused on maker growth.
Because, any designer knows, you require development to be able to make a living off of an e-newsletter. And finding the ideal newsletter stack (that scales) commonly implies making use of numerous various devices to assist achieve one goal– one platform for your e-newsletter, one system to generate income from, and one system to establish references. It can obtain costly.
So when I learnt beehiiv did every one of these points in one platform, and it was cost-free to start making use of, it was a piece of cake to give it a try.
beehiiv vs Substack
You might be asking, “isn’t there currently a platform for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, of course there is. Substack is a great system utilized by hundreds of independent authors. With Substack you obtain your very own web site and use the platform as your all-in-one solution for sending emails (while developing an archive of previous problems).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s commitment to development. beehiiv enables you do to all the important things Substack can do, with the advantage of far better analytics, even more style flexibilty, and a referral program to encourage your existing clients to obtain words out.
beehiiv likewise gives you a web site similar to Substack. But, if you have your own site already, you can likewise utilize beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I utilize) to send your internet site customers right to your beehiiv e-mail list. On the very same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a device like Performance to enable individuals to register for your e-newsletter directly from Twitter.
This gives you the versatility to utilize various marketing networks to obtain your newsletter out right into the world, making beehiiv a great Substack choice.
Exactly how to begin making use of beehiiv e-mail marketing software.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean web content designer that desires a platform that enables them to send out custom newsletters with or without needing to have an internet site.
One of the most successful e-newsletters have the right tools to build and scale their newsletters. beehiiv focuses on offering you those devices.
If you’re an independent writer, media business, start-up, or material creator, you need to seriously thinking about experimenting with beehiiv. It’s totally cost-free to get started and you just pay when you reach over 2,500 clients on your list.
If you actually end up having to pay for beehiiv it’s probably an excellent indication that people like reading your stuff.
Register for a free plan
The first step is to enroll in a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Begin trial” switch on beehiiv’s web site.
The free plan will certainly allow you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, offer you accessibility to website hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, development customization, analytics, external embed types, and much more. It’s a very generous offering for those just starting (or for those looking for a new platform to move to).
Onboarding
After creating an account, you’ll go through an onboarding process that will ask points like, “is this your initial e-newsletter?”, “what various other systems have you made use of?”, “do you have any kind of paying clients?”, and much 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 internet site link could be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding procedure, you’ll additionally pick your brand name colors and design to make sure your newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your dashboard
As soon as you reach your major dashboard, you’ll see all of your analytics and setups.
You will have outlined information on the number of sign-ups you’re getting and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see options for “Begin creating”, “Posts”, “Audience”, “Grow”, “Monetize”, “Layout” and” Assess”. And at the really bottom you’ll see the setups alternative.
Control panel is your major control center (screenshot over), Beginning creating is where you develop and publish newsletters, Articles is where you can see every one of your previous e-newsletter editions, Target market is where you can watch who your subscribers are (and break them down right into sections), 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 newsletter with ads, Design is where you make your newsletter landing page and blog post template, Evaluate is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can take care of every one of your admin things.
Creating your newsletter
beehiiv makes it easy to begin writing, with little to no friction. If you’re just starting out, and have an idea you intend to blog about, I advise just going to the “Compose” area in the navbar and clicking “Start writing”.
You can modify your template and styling later on– focus on the content first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor offers a tidy and user-friendly user interface for writing.
When you start composing, you can optimize headings, add links, and design your content exactly how you such as.
beehiiv gives you tons of choices for various kinds of material like videos, links, images, and more.
The group at beehiiv is likewise constantly launching item feature and updates so I make certain there will be a whole lot a lot more content features relying on when you read this.
Maximizing your settings and templates
When you have a newsletter that prepares to send, it’s time to design your e-mail template and adjust some settings.
Right here, you can update the name of your e-newsletter, give it a description, include your logo, activate or off a welcome email to first time customers, and much more.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your design.
You can edit background shades, boundaries, spacing, typefaces, image layouts, and extra. I’m not mosting likely to go through ever single point you can enhance with your e-mail template due to the fact that it’s a great deal. Just check out the platform absolutely free and see it on your own!
Crucial beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of remarkable features that make it a terrific posting system for any kind of newsletter developer.
Here are some of the vital features you can discover with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder Beehiiv Forms
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter publishing platform. It makes it incredibly very easy to write and send emails. I stated above some of the important things you can do with your setups and e-mail layout so I’ll spare you some added analysis.
Things to note with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has a really modern and minimalistic feel. It’s absolutely among the much better email editors I have actually ever written in.
Web site hosting
When you develop a beehiiv newsletter, all of your newsletters (if you desire) survive on a website. Consider it as a site for your newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous issues of your e-newsletter, and a location where individuals can subscribe to your newsletter.
If you’re familiar with Substack, it’s basically comparable to that.
All plans, including the free one, provide you a site. However, the free plan locations your web site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you want to add a customized domain name to get rid of all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting subscribers is necessary. Nevertheless, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can subscribe to your e-newsletter right from your beehiiv site or with embed types.
If you already have a web site, and want individuals to subscribe to your e-newsletter from your existing website, you’ll have to use an embed form. 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 post if you scroll up).
With embed types, you have three various choices– a complete size, a repaired width, and a slim embed. I directly make use of the slim embed.
You can discover the code snippet for these embeds in the “Subscribe Kinds” tab in your setups.
There’s likewise an alternative for attribution tracking if you wish to forward UTM parameters for tracking functions– rather neat.
However, there are a few features I desire beehiiv had when it concerned subscribe features. I make certain the group is working with updates for these, yet I mentioned a couple of problems I had in the benefits and drawbacks area listed below.
Referral program
Among the amazing things about beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter system, is a remedy for producing a referral program.
You can encourage existing clients on your list to forward your emails to pals and coworkers and if they obtain other people to sign up for your checklist, you can reward them. These rewards can be in whatever kind you want. I’ve appear lots of newsletter firms give benefits in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously turn your subscribers right into a word of mouth development engine for your newsletter– offering you one more opportunity for growing your e-mail list.
Nonetheless, to get accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll need to upgrade to a much more superior plan. I’ll go over all the plans later in this post.
Premium memberships
They state all you need to earn a living online is 1,000 true followers. Registration income is definitely a beast of its very own. If you’re seeking a system to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can create “costs” problems of your e-newsletter that are just sent out to paying customers. This can be extremely lucrative depending upon what your newsletter needs to use. For example, Trends.co is a preferred costs e-newsletter that creates millions in profits a year just by having pay-only e-newsletter material.
Data analytics
Among the important things I enjoy regarding beehiiv is how clean and straightforward the analytics are. You obtain real-time day on exactly how your newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and client count.
You obtain accessibility to all the metrics you need to get a bird-eye view on just how your newsletter is in fact doing. Logging right into your control panel and seeing that subscriber matter rise is certainly a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv provides four different pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (free) Launch plan provides you whatever you need to begin and grow your e-newsletter (as much as 2,500 clients).
The Scale plan ($ 39/month) offers you whatever in the Launch plan with the addition 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) provides you whatever in the Grow plan with enhancement of concern support and removing the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are quite charitable in my point of view.
For instance, if you have 100,000 customers you will certainly pay around $329 monthly. Instead of some rivals, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would charge $679 monthly for the exact same quantity– making beehiiv a terrific Kit alternative for lots of customers.
I’m unsure how the device economics work with this, yet beehiiv is definitely less expensive (right now) than what it can be.
beehiiv pros and cons
Of course, with every system, it has its benefits and drawbacks. Right here are several of the advantages and disadvantages I have actually directly experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Below are a few of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter platform of selection:
- Easy to establish and start sending out newsletters totally free
- Clean and modern-day subscriber analytics
- Lots of flexibility with e-mail styles.
- Referral program feature Beehiiv Forms
- Web site hosting
- Create premium choices to monetize
- Polls
To be honest, I haven’t seen another newsletter system that has actually been able to package every one of these features with each other so well.
Yet of course, I do not wish to be prejudiced so I’m going to state some disadvantages.
Cons of using beehiiv
Here are several of the cons I’ve located while utilizing beehiiv:.
- Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv
- Limitations around including personalized font styles
I use Webflow as my site building platform of selection (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a long time ago). I’m not mosting likely to go in too much information why I enjoy Webflow so much yet you can review my Webflow evaluation if you would love to learn more.
Now, there really is nothing else method I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow site other than using an iframe embed. I personally don’t such as making use of iframe’s because they tend to decrease my internet site a little bit. Every time a page on my site (with a beehiiv installed) tons, the sign-up embed is the last point to fill on the page. It’s really recognizable when you’re on a slow internet connection. However I can get around that.
The major complaint I have is that I can’t utilize a normal Webflow type (which I enjoy using). There are ways around this by using a device like Zapier yet that would certainly just add added prices that I don’t require. To be straightforward, this is more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv con however I thought I would mention it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros far exceed the cons below. I’m likewise confident that Webflow will ultimately produce a far better method to incorporate with beehiiv.
Verdict
Generally, beehiiv is an excellent option for anybody aiming to dive into the world of e-mail marketing and newsletters.
The functionality of this newsletter platform far surpasses numerous that are currently on the market. And with a charitable free plan, you really have nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are additionally rather cheap of what they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 clients on your listing is unheard of. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k customers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it can cost you well into the thousands per month.
Anyways, I don’t compose review blog posts often. I just do when I in fact utilize the tool myself and would certainly advise it to a pal.
I hope you discovered some clarity on whether beehiiv is an excellent system for you.