I read among my favored email e-newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo for the first time. I clicked on it and instantaneously started tearing up. Beehiiv Gif…
Being a full time creator is tough. I’m frequently obtaining pitched various devices and solutions that do not appear to be worth my time.
I guess I was emotional since I spent the last six months checking out different email and e-newsletter platforms to assist build my newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some terrific options for composing e-newsletters. But I could not locate one that made me give a guaranteed “yes”.
The issue with several existing newsletter systems is that they do not really feel creator-centered. I want an e-newsletter platform that lets me completely customize my e-newsletter styles, makes it very easy to write and send emails, and offers me devices that aid me assess metrics and obtain even more customers.
I assume I’ve ultimately discovered the best tool.
But, I know beehiiv may not be for every person. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s in fact appropriate for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one platform for newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter system that makes it simple to style, write, send, advertise, monetize, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Developed by previous staff members at the renowned e-newsletter firm Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to aid designers launch and monetize their very own newsletter– taking great deals of growth concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M clients.
In this post, I’m going to discuss my individual experience with beehiiv, the important things I love (and hate) about it, all of it’s features, and why I chose to ultimately choose it as my newsletter system of option.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A couple of months ago, I accidentally came across beehiiv. The funny tale is that I have actually watched for a modern e-newsletter platform for fairly a long time currently. I’ve put things off hard when it came to ultimately launching my newsletter.
First, I attempted Mailchimp. After that, a couple of various other indie platforms. After that, Substack. And lastly, I ended up using beehiiv.
I make sure many newsletter makers appreciate prominent 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 customers, and a clever referral program that enables them to get back at a lot more subscribers.
So, I took place a search to find out exactly how these large e-newsletters established their logistics. What platform do they utilize? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they get more customers? How do they develop a newsletter style that stays on-brand?
When I found beehiiv for the very first time, it appeared to address every one of my questions. I thought to myself, “damn individuals that built this tool truly recognize e-newsletter development and growth.” I questioned who these developers of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were several of the first marketing and growth workers at Morning Brew– my mind blew up.
I knew this was going to be a various newsletter system. One that’s focused on designer growth.
Due to the fact that, any creator recognizes, you require growth to be able to earn a living off of a newsletter. And locating the appropriate e-newsletter pile (that scales) frequently implies utilizing several various devices to assist attain one goal– one system for your e-newsletter, one platform to generate income from, and one platform to establish recommendations. It can get pricey.
So when I found out beehiiv did all of these things in one platform, and it was complimentary 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 already a system for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, of course there is. Substack is a great system used by hundreds of independent authors. With Substack you get your own internet site and make use of the platform as your all-in-one solution for sending e-mails (while creating an archive of previous issues).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s devotion to development. beehiiv permits you do to all the important things Substack can do, with the advantage of much better analytics, even more style flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing clients to get the word out.
beehiiv likewise provides you an internet site similar to Substack. But, if you have your very own site currently, you can additionally make use of beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I make use of) to send your internet site clients straight to your beehiiv e-mail checklist. On the exact same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a device like Revue to permit people to subscribe to your e-newsletter directly from Twitter.
This provides you the adaptability to utilize various marketing networks to obtain your newsletter out into the world, making beehiiv an excellent Substack choice.
How to begin using beehiiv email marketing software application.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean material maker that wants a system that allows them to send out personalized newsletters with or without requiring to have a website.
One of the most effective newsletters have the right tools to build and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv aims at offering you those devices.
If you’re an independent author, media business, start-up, or content maker, you need to seriously thinking about trying out beehiiv. It’s entirely complimentary to get started and you just pay when you reach over 2,500 subscribers on your checklist.
If you actually wind up having to spend for beehiiv it’s probably an excellent indication that people enjoy reading your stuff.
Enroll in a free plan
The initial step is to enroll in a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Start trial” switch on beehiiv’s web site.
The free plan will certainly allow you to have up to 2,500 clients, give you access to site hosting, a newsletter CMS, breakthrough customization, analytics, exterior embed forms, and much more. It’s an extremely charitable offering for those simply beginning (or for those searching for a new system to migrate to).
Onboarding
After creating an account, you’ll go through an onboarding process that will ask points like, “is this your first newsletter?”, “what other systems have you used?”, “do you have any kind of paying subscribers?”, and extra.
You’ll after that create a name and URL for your newsletter’s web site. On the free plan, your newsletter will certainly survive on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your web site URL could 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.
Navigating your control panel
Once you reach your major dashboard, you’ll see all of your analytics and settings.
You will certainly have described information on how many sign-ups you’re obtaining and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see alternatives for “Beginning writing”, “Messages”, “Audience”, “Expand”, “Generate income from”, “Layout” and” Analyze”. And at the very bottom you’ll see the settings alternative.
Control panel is your main control center (screenshot above), Begin composing is where you develop and publish e-newsletters, Messages is where you can see all of your previous e-newsletter editions, Audience is where you can view who your clients are (and damage them down right into sectors), Expand 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 advertisements, Design is where you make your e-newsletter landing page and article template, Examine 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 beginning, and have an idea you want to cover, I advise simply going to the “Create” section in the navbar and clicking “Beginning composing”.
You can modify your template and styling later– concentrate on the web content initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor uses a tidy and user-friendly user interface for creating.
Once you start composing, you can enhance headings, include web links, and design your content how you like.
beehiiv gives you lots of alternatives for different kinds of content like video clips, links, images, and extra.
The team at beehiiv is additionally constantly releasing item feature and updates so I’m sure there will be a great deal more content features relying on when you read this.
Optimizing your settings and templates
As soon as you have an e-newsletter that’s ready to send out, it’s time to develop your e-mail template and change some setups.
Below, you can update the name of your newsletter, provide it a summary, add your logo, turn on or off a welcome e-mail to very first time customers, and extra.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your style.
You can edit history shades, borders, spacing, typefaces, photo styles, and a lot more. I’m not going to experience ever before single thing you can optimize with your email template due to the fact that it’s a whole lot. Just check out the platform free of cost and see it on your own!
Crucial beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of impressive features that make it an excellent posting system for any newsletter creator.
Here are several of the necessary features you can locate with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder Beehiiv Gif
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter publishing system. It makes it extremely easy to create and send out emails. I discussed above some of things you can do with your setups and e-mail design so I’ll save you some additional analysis.
The important things to keep in mind with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has an actually modern and minimalistic feeling. It’s most definitely one of the far better email editors I have actually ever written in.
Web site hosting
When you create a beehiiv e-newsletter, every one of your e-newsletters (if you desire) survive on a website. Think of it as a website for your newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous concerns of your newsletter, and an area where individuals can sign up for your e-newsletter.
If you recognize with Substack, it’s virtually comparable to that.
All plans, including the free one, offer you a website. Nonetheless, the free plan locations your internet site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you wish to add a customized domain name to eliminate all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting clients is necessary. Besides, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can register for your e-newsletter directly from your beehiiv site or through embed kinds.
If you already have an internet site, and want people to subscribe to your e-newsletter from your existing website, you’ll need to make use of an embed kind. This is what I utilize on this site (you can see the sign-up installed on the right hand column of this post if you scroll up).
With embed types, you have 3 different options– a full width, a repaired width, and a slim installed. I directly use the slim embed.
You can locate the code snippet for these embeds in the “Subscribe Kinds” tab in your settings.
There’s likewise an option for attribution tracking if you wish to ahead UTM criteria for tracking objectives– quite neat.
However, there are a couple of features I wish beehiiv had when it pertained to subscribe features. I make sure the team is working with updates for these, however I mentioned a few worries I had in the benefits and drawbacks area listed below.
Referral program
Among the amazing things concerning beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter system, is a remedy for developing a referral program.
You can urge existing subscribers on your list to ahead your e-mails to pals and coworkers and if they get other individuals to sign up for your checklist, you can reward them. These incentives can be in whatever form you want. I’ve seem many e-newsletter firms give rewards in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously turn your clients right into a word of mouth development engine for your e-newsletter– providing you an additional avenue for expanding your email list.
However, to get access to the referral program feature, you’ll need to update to a more superior plan. I’ll review all the plans later in this write-up.
Premium subscriptions
They state all you require to make a living online is 1,000 real fans. Registration income is definitely a beast of its very own. If you’re seeking a system to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can produce “premium” problems of your newsletter that are just sent to paying subscribers. This can be extremely rewarding depending on what your newsletter has to offer. As an example, Trends.co is a popular costs newsletter that generates millions in income a year simply by having pay-only newsletter material.
Data analytics
Among the things I like regarding beehiiv is exactly how clean and simple the analytics are. You get real-time day on exactly how your newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and subscriber count.
You obtain accessibility to all the metrics you require to obtain a bird-eye sight on how your e-newsletter is really doing. Logging into your control panel and seeing that subscriber matter increase is most definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv offers four various pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (totally free) Launch plan provides you everything you need to start and grow your newsletter (up to 2,500 subscribers).
The Scale plan ($ 39/month) offers you whatever in the Launch plan with the addition the ad network, referral program, personalized domain, surveys, and access to premium subscriptions. This is the plan I am on.
The Max plan ($ 76/month) provides you whatever in the Grow plan with enhancement of top priority support and eliminating the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are quite charitable in my point of view.
For instance, if you have 100,000 clients you will pay around $329 each month. In contrast to some competitors, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would certainly bill $679 per month for the very same quantity– making beehiiv a fantastic Kit option for several individuals.
I’m not exactly sure how the unit business economics service this, however beehiiv is most definitely more affordable (at the moment) than what it can be.
beehiiv advantages and disadvantages
Certainly, with every system, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Below are some of the advantages and disadvantages I have actually directly experienced while utilizing beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Here are a few of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter platform of choice:
- Easy to set up and start sending out e-newsletters absolutely free
- Clean and modern-day customer analytics
- Lots of versatility with e-mail styles.
- Referral program feature Beehiiv Gif
- Web site hosting
- Produce premium alternatives to monetize
- Polls
To be honest, I have not seen one more newsletter system that has had the ability to package all of these features with each other so well.
Yet naturally, I don’t intend to be prejudiced so I’m mosting likely to mention some cons.
Cons of using beehiiv
Right here are some of the cons I have actually located while making use of beehiiv:.
- Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv
- Limitations around adding custom-made fonts
I use Webflow as my site structure platform of option (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a very long time ago). I’m not mosting likely to go in too much detail why I enjoy Webflow a lot but you can review my Webflow review if you wish to find out more.
Right now, there really is no other way I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow web site apart from using an iframe embed. I personally don’t such as making use of iframe’s due to the fact that they tend to reduce my internet site a little bit. Each time a web page on my site (with a beehiiv installed) lots, the sign-up installed is the last thing to fill on the page. It’s extremely obvious when you’re on a sluggish internet connection. Yet I can navigate that.
The primary gripe I have is that I can not utilize a regular Webflow form (which I love making use of). There are means around this by utilizing a device like Zapier but that would certainly just include added costs that I don’t require. To be sincere, this is more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv disadvantage however I believed I would certainly state it.
Besides that, I still think the pros much outweigh the cons below. I’m additionally confident that Webflow will ultimately produce a better way to incorporate with beehiiv.
Conclusion
In general, beehiiv is a great service for any individual looking to study the globe of email marketing and e-newsletters.
The performance of this newsletter platform much surpasses 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 likewise relatively inexpensive for what they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 customers on your listing is unheard of. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k subscribers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it might cost you well into the thousands monthly.
Anyways, I don’t create review blog posts commonly. I only do when I in fact utilize the tool myself and would certainly suggest it to a friend.
I hope you found some quality on whether beehiiv is a great platform for you.