I read one of my favorite e-mail newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the e-mail and saw the beehiiv logo for the first time. I clicked on it and quickly began tearing up. Beehiiv GPTEA…
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 invested the last six months experimenting with various e-mail and newsletter platforms to help develop my newsletter. And to be fair, there are some fantastic choices for creating newsletters. Yet I could not discover one that made me offer a certain “yes”.
The concern with several existing e-newsletter systems is that they don’t really feel creator-centered. I want a newsletter platform that lets me totally tailor my newsletter designs, makes it very simple to write and send emails, and gives me devices that assist me evaluate metrics and obtain even more subscribers.
I believe I have actually finally discovered the ideal tool.
However, I understand beehiiv may not be for everybody. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s in fact appropriate 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 very easy to layout, create, send, promote, monetize, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Developed by previous workers at the well-known e-newsletter company Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to aid creators launch and monetize their very own newsletter– taking lots of development principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M subscribers.
In this write-up, I’m going to clarify my personal experience with beehiiv, things I like (and hate) about it, all of it’s features, and why I chose to lastly select it as my e-newsletter system of option.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A couple of months earlier, I accidentally came across beehiiv. The amusing tale is that I’ve been on the lookout for a modern newsletter system for quite a long time now. I’ve procrastinated hard when it came to finally launching my newsletter.
First, I attempted Mailchimp. Then, a few other indie platforms. After that, Substack. And lastly, I wound up using beehiiv.
I make certain several newsletter designers look up to prominent e-newsletters with millions of customers– I recognize I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I respected a lot. They have fantastic content, tons of clients, and a creative referral program that enables them to get back at much more subscribers.
So, I took place a hunt to determine exactly how these large newsletters established their logistics. What platform do they use? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they get even more clients? How do they produce an e-newsletter layout that remains on-brand?
When I discovered beehiiv for the first time, it appeared to answer every one of my concerns. I believed to myself, “damn the people that constructed this device actually understand e-newsletter development and development.” I questioned who these creators of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were several of the very first marketing and growth staff members at Morning Brew– my brain blew up.
I understood this was going to be a various e-newsletter system. One that’s focused on developer development.
Due to the fact that, any maker understands, you need growth to be able to make a living off of a newsletter. And discovering the ideal newsletter pile (that scales) typically means making use of multiple various tools to aid attain one objective– one system for your e-newsletter, one platform to generate income from, and one platform to set up referrals. It can get pricey.
So when I found out beehiiv did all of these points in one platform, and it was totally free to begin using, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
beehiiv vs Substack
You may be asking, “isn’t there currently a platform for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, of course there is. Substack is a wonderful platform utilized by thousands of independent writers. With Substack you get your very own internet site and make use of the system as your all-in-one option for sending emails (while producing an archive of previous concerns).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s commitment to growth. beehiiv allows you do to all the things Substack can do, with the advantage of far better analytics, even more style flexibilty, and a referral program to encourage your existing subscribers to get words out.
beehiiv also gives you a site comparable to Substack. But, if you have your own website already, you can also utilize beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I make use of) to send your website subscribers directly to your beehiiv e-mail checklist. On the very same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a device like Revue to enable people to subscribe to your newsletter straight from Twitter.
This gives you the flexibility to take advantage of various marketing channels to obtain your e-newsletter out right into the world, making beehiiv a terrific Substack option.
Just how to start using beehiiv e-mail marketing software.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean web content designer that wants 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 tools to construct and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv aims at offering you those devices.
If you’re an independent writer, media company, startup, or content creator, you ought to seriously taking into consideration trying beehiiv. It’s completely complimentary to get started and you only pay when you get to over 2,500 subscribers on your listing.
If you really wind up having to spend for beehiiv it’s possibly a good indication that individuals like reading your stuff.
Sign up for a free plan
The initial step is to enroll in a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Start trial” button on beehiiv’s website.
The free plan will allow you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, give you accessibility to web site hosting, a newsletter CMS, advance customization, analytics, outside embed forms, and extra. It’s a very generous offering for those simply starting out (or for those seeking a new system to migrate to).
Onboarding
After producing an account, you’ll go through an onboarding procedure that will ask things like, “is this your very first e-newsletter?”, “what other systems have you utilized?”, “do you have any paying customers?”, and a lot more.
You’ll then create a name and URL for your newsletter’s website. On the free plan, your newsletter will reside on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your web site URL could be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding procedure, you’ll likewise select your brand name design and colors to make sure your newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your dashboard
As soon as you reach your main dashboard, you’ll see all 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 creating”, “Messages”, “Target market”, “Grow”, “Monetize”, “Design” and” Examine”. And at the extremely bottom you’ll see the settings alternative.
Control panel is your primary control center (screenshot over), Beginning composing is where you create and publish e-newsletters, Posts is where you can see all of your previous newsletter editions, Audience is where you can view who your subscribers are (and break them down right into segments), Expand is where you have accessibility to a referral program (and growth tutorials) and boosts to run ads, Monetize is where you can access the beehiiv ad network and monetize your newsletter with advertisements, Style is where you create your e-newsletter landing page and article template, Assess is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can take care of every one of your admin things.
Writing your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it simple to start composing, with little to no friction. If you’re just starting out, and have a concept you want to discuss, I advise simply mosting likely to the “Create” section in the navbar and clicking “Begin writing”.
You can tweak your template and styling later on– focus on the material initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor provides a clean and straightforward interface for creating.
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 choices for different sorts of content like videos, links, photos, and extra.
The team at beehiiv is additionally regularly releasing item feature and updates so I make sure there will be a whole lot extra material features depending on when you read this.
Enhancing 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 adjust some setups.
Right here, you can upgrade the name of your e-newsletter, give it a summary, add your logo design, turn on or off a welcome email to first time customers, and extra.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can edit history shades, boundaries, spacing, font styles, picture formats, and extra. I’m not going to undergo ever solitary thing you can maximize with your email template because it’s a great deal. Simply try the platform absolutely free and see it for yourself!
Necessary beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of incredible features that make it an excellent publishing platform for any e-newsletter creator.
Below are some of the important features you can discover with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder Beehiiv GPTEA
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter publishing system. It makes it super simple to create and send out e-mails. I mentioned over a few of the important things you can do with your settings and e-mail design so I’ll spare you some extra analysis.
The thing to keep in mind with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has an actually contemporary and minimalistic feel. It’s most definitely among the much better e-mail editors I’ve ever before written in.
Internet site hosting
When you produce a beehiiv e-newsletter, every one of your e-newsletters (if you desire) live on a web site. Think of it as a site for your newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous problems of your e-newsletter, and an area where individuals can register for your newsletter.
If you’re familiar with Substack, it’s virtually similar to that.
All plans, consisting of the free one, offer you a site. However, the free plan areas your web site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you wish to include a customized domain to remove all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting customers is important. Nevertheless, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can subscribe to your e-newsletter directly from your beehiiv site or via embed kinds.
If you currently have a site, and desire people to subscribe to your e-newsletter from your existing website, you’ll need to utilize an embed kind. This is what I make use of on this internet site (you can see the sign-up installed on the right-hand man column of this post if you scroll up).
With embed types, you have three various choices– a complete width, a dealt with size, and a slim embed. I directly utilize the slim embed.
You can find the code bit for these embeds in the “Subscribe Forms” tab in your setups.
There’s likewise an alternative for attribution monitoring if you want to ahead UTM specifications for tracking purposes– pretty neat.
Nonetheless, there are a couple of features I wish beehiiv had when it concerned subscribe features. I make certain the team is servicing updates for these, yet I discussed a couple of worries I had in the benefits and drawbacks section listed below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things regarding beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter system, is a solution for producing a referral program.
You can motivate existing clients on your checklist to onward your e-mails to friends and coworkers and if they obtain other individuals to subscribe to your list, you can compensate them. These benefits can be in whatever form you desire. I have actually appear several newsletter firms offer incentives in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously transform your subscribers into a word of mouth development engine for your e-newsletter– offering you one more method for expanding your email list.
Nonetheless, to get access to the referral program feature, you’ll need to upgrade to a more premium plan. I’ll look at all the plans later on in this article.
Costs subscriptions
They state all you need to earn a living online is 1,000 true fans. Membership revenue is certainly a monster of its very own. If you’re trying to find a platform to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can develop “costs” concerns of your newsletter that are only sent to paying customers. This can be really profitable relying on what your newsletter has to provide. For instance, Trends.co is a popular costs e-newsletter that produces millions in profits a year simply by having pay-only e-newsletter web content.
Data analytics
One of things I love regarding beehiiv is just how tidy and straightforward the analytics are. You get real-time day on exactly how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and client matter.
You obtain accessibility to all the metrics you need to get a bird-eye view on just how your newsletter is really doing. Logging right into your dashboard and seeing that subscriber matter increase is absolutely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv offers four various pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (cost-free) Launch plan offers you every little thing you require to start and expand your e-newsletter (approximately 2,500 customers).
The Scale plan ($ 39/month) gives you whatever in the Launch plan with the addition the ad network, referral program, personalized domain name, surveys, and accessibility to costs subscriptions. This is the plan I am on.
The Max plan ($ 76/month) offers you whatever in the Grow plan with addition of concern assistance and getting rid of 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 pay around $329 each month. In contrast to some rivals, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would charge $679 per month for the same amount– making beehiiv an excellent Kit option for numerous users.
I’m not exactly sure just how the unit economics deal with this, however beehiiv is absolutely cheaper (currently) than what it can be.
beehiiv benefits and drawbacks
Of course, with every system, it has its benefits and drawbacks. Right here are some of the benefits and drawbacks I have actually directly experienced while making use of beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Here are some of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter platform of option:
- Easy to set up and start sending e-newsletters totally free
- Tidy and contemporary customer analytics
- Great deals of adaptability with e-mail layouts.
- Referral program feature Beehiiv GPTEA
- Website hosting
- Develop premium alternatives to generate income from
- Polls
To be truthful, I have not seen an additional newsletter platform that has been able to package every one of these features together so well.
Yet naturally, I do not intend to be biased so I’m going to mention some disadvantages.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Right here are some of the cons I’ve found while using beehiiv:.
- Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv
- Limitations around including custom-made fonts
I use Webflow as my internet site building system of option (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a very long time ago). I’m not mosting likely to go in excessive detail why I enjoy Webflow a lot yet you can read my Webflow evaluation if you want to discover more.
Today, there actually is nothing else method I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow web site aside from using an iframe embed. I directly do not like using iframe’s since they have a tendency to decrease my site a little bit. Every time a web page on my site (with a beehiiv installed) loads, the sign-up embed is the last point to pack on the web page. It’s very recognizable when you get on a slow-moving net link. However I can get around that.
The main complaint I have is that I can’t use a routine Webflow type (which I love using). There are methods around this by utilizing a tool like Zapier but that would certainly just include added expenses that I do not require. To be sincere, this is more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv con however I believed I would certainly state it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros far outweigh the disadvantages below. I’m additionally enthusiastic that Webflow will eventually develop a far better method to integrate with beehiiv.
Verdict
Generally, beehiiv is a terrific service for any individual wanting to dive into the world of email marketing and e-newsletters.
The performance of this e-newsletter system far outweighs several that are presently on the marketplace. And with a generous free plan, you really have absolutely nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are also rather inexpensive for what they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 subscribers on your listing is unprecedented. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k customers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it can cost you well right into the thousands monthly.
Anyways, I don’t write evaluation blog posts frequently. I just do when I really utilize the device myself and would suggest it to a good friend.
I hope you located some quality on whether beehiiv is a great platform for you.