I was reading one of my preferred email newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo design for the first time. I clicked it and quickly started destroying. Beehiiv Gravity Forms…
Being a full time developer is difficult. I’m often getting pitched various tools and solutions that don’t appear to be worth my time.
I presume I was psychological due to the fact that I spent the last six months experimenting with different email and e-newsletter systems to aid build my e-newsletter. And to be fair, there are some wonderful alternatives for writing newsletters. But I could not discover one that made me give a guaranteed “yes”.
The issue with many existing newsletter systems is that they do not feel creator-centered. I desire an e-newsletter platform that lets me completely personalize my e-newsletter layouts, makes it very easy to write and send emails, and gives me devices that aid me examine metrics and get even more customers.
I assume I’ve lastly located the appropriate device.
However, I recognize beehiiv may not be for everyone. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s in fact ideal 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 very easy to style, create, send out, advertise, monetize, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Developed by former workers at the famous newsletter firm Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to help creators launch and monetize their very own e-newsletter– taking great deals of growth principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M customers.
In this article, I’m mosting likely to describe my individual experience with beehiiv, the important things I love (and hate) about it, all of it’s features, and why I chose to lastly select it as my e-newsletter platform of selection.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A few months earlier, I accidentally came across beehiiv. The funny tale is that I have actually been on the lookout for a contemporary newsletter system for rather a long time currently. I’ve put things off hard when it came to lastly introducing my e-newsletter.
Initially, I attempted Mailchimp. After that, a few other indie systems. After that, Substack. And finally, I ended up using beehiiv.
I make certain many e-newsletter makers admire prominent newsletters with numerous subscribers– I recognize I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I admired a lot. They have great material, tons of subscribers, and a brilliant referral program that permits them to get even a lot more customers.
So, I took place a search to find out exactly how these large newsletters set up their logistics. What system do they utilize? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they obtain even more subscribers? How do they develop a newsletter layout that stays on-brand?
When I discovered beehiiv for the very first time, it seemed to respond to all of my inquiries. I thought to myself, “damn the people that built this device actually recognize e-newsletter development and growth.” I questioned who these developers of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were several of the very first marketing and development employees at Morning Brew– my mind exploded.
I recognized this was going to be a different e-newsletter platform. One that’s focused on developer development.
Because, any kind of designer knows, you need development to be able to make a living off of a newsletter. And finding the right newsletter stack (that scales) usually implies using multiple various devices to aid accomplish one objective– one system for your e-newsletter, one system to monetize, and one platform to set up recommendations. It can get pricey.
So when I discovered beehiiv did all of these points in one platform, and it was free to start making use of, it was a piece of cake to give it a try.
beehiiv vs Substack
You may be asking, “isn’t there currently a platform for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, of course there is. Substack is a wonderful platform made use of 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 solution for sending emails (while developing an archive of previous issues).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s devotion to growth. beehiiv enables you do to all the important things Substack can do, with the benefit of better analytics, more style flexibilty, and a referral program to encourage your existing clients to get words out.
beehiiv also offers you a site comparable to Substack. But, if you have your very own website currently, you can additionally utilize beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I utilize) to send your web site subscribers directly to your beehiiv email listing. On the very same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a device like Performance to enable individuals to subscribe to your newsletter straight from Twitter.
This offers you the versatility to leverage different marketing channels to get your newsletter out right into the globe, making beehiiv a terrific Substack alternative.
How to begin making use of beehiiv e-mail marketing software.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean content designer that wants a platform that enables them to send out customized e-newsletters with or without needing to have an internet site.
One of the most successful newsletters have the right tools to build and scale their newsletters. beehiiv aims at giving you those tools.
If you’re an independent author, media company, startup, or content developer, you need to seriously taking into consideration experimenting with beehiiv. It’s completely complimentary to start and you just pay when you reach over 2,500 customers on your checklist.
If you in fact end up having to pay for beehiiv it’s possibly a great indicator that people like reading your things.
Sign up for a free plan
The very first step is to sign up for a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Start trial” switch on beehiiv’s web site.
The free plan will allow you to have up to 2,500 clients, provide you access to web site hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, advance personalization, analytics, outside embed kinds, and more. It’s a really generous offering for those simply beginning (or for those searching for a brand-new system to migrate to).
Onboarding
After producing an account, you’ll undergo an onboarding process that will ask things like, “is this your first newsletter?”, “what various other platforms have you utilized?”, “do you have any paying subscribers?”, and more.
You’ll then create a name and link for your e-newsletter’s website. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will survive a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your internet site URL could be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding procedure, you’ll likewise select your brand name colors and design to see to it your e-newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your dashboard
Once you reach your major control panel, you’ll see every one of your analytics and settings.
You will certainly have outlined details on the number of sign-ups you’re getting and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see options for “Start writing”, “Posts”, “Target market”, “Expand”, “Monetize”, “Style” and” Examine”. And at the really lower you’ll see the settings alternative.
Control panel is your primary control center (screenshot above), Start writing is where you develop and release newsletters, Articles is where you can see all of your previous e-newsletter editions, Audience is where you can watch who your customers are (and damage them down right into segments), Grow 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 ads, Design is where you make your newsletter landing page and post template, Examine is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can manage all of your admin stuff.
Creating your newsletter
beehiiv makes it easy to begin creating, with little to no rubbing. If you’re just starting out, and have an idea you intend to discuss, I recommend simply mosting likely to the “Compose” area in the navbar and clicking on “Beginning writing”.
You can fine-tune your template and styling later– focus on the content first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor supplies a clean and straightforward user interface for writing.
Once you start writing, you can maximize headings, add links, and design your web content just how you like.
beehiiv offers you lots of options for different kinds of material like video clips, links, photos, and more.
The group at beehiiv is likewise continuously releasing product feature and updates so I’m sure there will be a lot much more content 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 make your e-mail template and readjust some settings.
Here, you can update the name of your e-newsletter, give it a description, add your logo, activate or off a welcome email to very first time customers, and more.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your design.
You can edit background shades, boundaries, spacing, fonts, picture layouts, and extra. I’m not mosting likely to undergo ever before single thing you can optimize with your email template because it’s a great deal. Simply check out the platform absolutely free and see it for yourself!
Important beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of amazing features that make it a fantastic publishing platform for any kind of newsletter developer.
Right here are a few of the crucial features you can locate with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder Beehiiv Gravity Forms
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter publishing system. It makes it super simple to compose and send e-mails. I discussed above a few of the important things you can do with your settings and e-mail design so I’ll save you some additional reading.
Things to note with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has a really modern-day and minimalistic feel. It’s absolutely among the much better e-mail editors I’ve ever written in.
Site hosting
When you create a beehiiv e-newsletter, every one of your e-newsletters (if you desire) live on an internet site. Think about it as an internet site for your newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous concerns of your newsletter, and a location where individuals can sign up for your newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s virtually comparable to that.
All plans, including the cost-free one, give you a site. However, the free plan locations your site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you wish to add a custom domain name to remove all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining customers is very important. Besides, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can subscribe to your newsletter right from your beehiiv internet site or with embed types.
If you currently have a web site, and desire individuals to sign up for your newsletter from your existing site, you’ll have to use an embed type. This is what I utilize on this web 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 various options– a complete size, a dealt with width, and a slim installed. I directly utilize the slim embed.
You can locate the code fragment for these embeds in the “Subscribe Types” tab in your setups.
There’s additionally an alternative for attribution monitoring if you wish to ahead UTM specifications for tracking objectives– pretty cool.
Nevertheless, there are a couple of features I desire beehiiv had when it concerned subscribe features. I make certain the team is working on updates for these, but I pointed out a couple of worries I had in the advantages and disadvantages section listed below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things regarding beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter system, is an option for producing a referral program.
You can motivate existing customers on your listing to onward your emails to buddies and colleagues and if they get other individuals to subscribe to your listing, you can reward them. These rewards can be in whatever type you want. I have actually seem many newsletter firms give rewards in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously turn your subscribers into a word of mouth development engine for your e-newsletter– giving you an additional method for expanding your e-mail list.
However, to obtain access to the referral program feature, you’ll need to update to a more exceptional plan. I’ll review all the plans later in this short article.
Costs memberships
They claim all you need to earn a living online is 1,000 true fans. Subscription revenue is definitely a monster of its very own. If you’re trying to find a platform to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can produce “premium” problems of your e-newsletter that are only sent out to paying clients. This can be really financially rewarding depending upon what your newsletter has to provide. For example, Trends.co is a prominent premium newsletter that creates millions in profits a year just by having pay-only newsletter web content.
Data analytics
One of the important things I like concerning beehiiv is how tidy and easy the analytics are. You obtain real-time date on just how your newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and subscriber count.
You obtain accessibility to all the metrics you need to obtain a bird-eye sight on just how your e-newsletter is really doing. Logging into your control panel and seeing that subscriber matter go up is absolutely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv uses 4 various pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (cost-free) Launch plan provides you every little thing you need to begin and expand your e-newsletter (up to 2,500 clients).
The Scale plan ($ 39/month) offers you every little thing in the Launch plan with the enhancement the ad network, referral program, custom-made domain, surveys, and accessibility to costs registrations. This is the plan I am on.
The Max plan ($ 76/month) offers you everything in the Grow plan with enhancement of priority assistance and getting rid of the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are fairly generous in my opinion.
As an example, if you have 100,000 customers you will pay around $329 per month. Instead of some rivals, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would certainly bill $679 per month for the very same quantity– making beehiiv a wonderful Kit choice for lots of customers.
I’m uncertain how the system business economics deal with this, yet beehiiv is certainly less costly (right now) than what it can be.
beehiiv benefits and drawbacks
Obviously, with every platform, it has its pros and cons. Right here are a few of the advantages and disadvantages I’ve directly experienced while utilizing beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Right here are a few of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter system of selection:
- Easy to set up and start sending out newsletters totally free
- Tidy and modern client analytics
- Lots of flexibility with email styles.
- Referral program feature Beehiiv Gravity Forms
- Site hosting
- Develop costs options to generate income from
- Polls
To be straightforward, I haven’t seen one more newsletter platform that has had the ability to package all of these features with each other so well.
Yet of course, I do not intend to be prejudiced so I’m mosting likely to discuss some cons.
Cons of using beehiiv
Here are several of the cons I have actually found while utilizing beehiiv:.
- Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv
- Limitations around including customized fonts
I use Webflow as my site building system of choice (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a long period of time ago). I’m not going to enter excessive detail why I love Webflow so much however you can review my Webflow evaluation if you would love to learn more.
Now, there really is no other means I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow website aside from utilizing an iframe embed. I personally don’t like making use of iframe’s due to the fact that they often tend to decrease my website a bit. Every time a page on my site (with a beehiiv installed) loads, the sign-up embed is the last thing to pack on the page. It’s very obvious when you’re on a sluggish net connection. But I can get around that.
The primary gripe I have is that I can not use a routine Webflow kind (which I love utilizing). There are ways around this by utilizing a tool like Zapier yet that would certainly just include additional expenses that I do not require. To be honest, this is more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv con yet I assumed I would mention it.
Besides that, I still think the pros much surpass the disadvantages here. I’m likewise confident that Webflow will at some point produce a much better way to integrate with beehiiv.
Conclusion
In general, beehiiv is a great option for any person looking to study the globe of e-mail marketing and e-newsletters.
The performance of this e-newsletter system far exceeds several that are presently on the marketplace. And with a charitable free plan, you really have absolutely nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are also fairly affordable wherefore they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 subscribers on your checklist is unprecedented. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k clients, and all of these features beehiiv has, it can cost you well right into the thousands per month.
Anyways, I don’t create review posts often. I just do when I in fact make use of the device myself and would certainly recommend it to a buddy.
I hope you located some quality on whether or not beehiiv is an excellent system for you.