I read among my favored email newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the e-mail and saw the beehiiv logo for the first time. I clicked it and quickly started tearing up. Beehiiv Growth…
Being a full-time designer is tough. I’m often obtaining pitched different devices and solutions that don’t appear to be worth my time.
I guess I was emotional due to the fact that I spent the last 6 months trying out various email and newsletter platforms to assist construct my newsletter. And to be fair, there are some terrific options for creating newsletters. Yet I couldn’t find one that made me give a precise “yes”.
The problem with numerous existing newsletter systems is that they don’t feel creator-centered. I desire an e-newsletter platform that lets me totally customize my e-newsletter styles, makes it super very easy to write and send emails, and offers me tools that assist me evaluate metrics and get more customers.
I assume I have actually lastly located the ideal tool.
However, I know beehiiv may not be for every person. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s actually appropriate for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one platform for e-newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly e-newsletter system that makes it simple to layout, create, send out, advertise, monetize, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Developed by previous staff members at the renowned e-newsletter firm Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to help creators launch and monetize their own newsletter– taking great deals of growth concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M clients.
In this post, I’m going to describe my individual experience with beehiiv, the important things I like (and hate) regarding it, all of it’s features, and why I chose to ultimately select it as my newsletter platform of option.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A couple of months ago, I mistakenly stumbled across beehiiv. The amusing tale is that I have actually been on the lookout for a modern e-newsletter system for rather time currently. I’ve hesitated hard when it involved ultimately releasing my newsletter.
First, I attempted Mailchimp. After that, a couple of other indie platforms. After that, Substack. And lastly, I ended up utilizing beehiiv.
I make sure lots of newsletter developers look up to popular newsletters with countless subscribers– I know I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I respected a whole lot. They have wonderful material, tons of customers, and a clever referral program that allows them to get even more clients.
So, I took place a quest to find out how these huge newsletters established their logistics. What system do they make use of? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they obtain more clients? How do they produce a newsletter style that remains on-brand?
When I found beehiiv for the very first time, it seemed to respond to all of my concerns. I believed to myself, “damn the people that built this tool truly recognize newsletter creation and growth.” I questioned who these developers of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were some of the initial marketing and growth workers at Morning Brew– my brain took off.
I recognized this was mosting likely to be a different e-newsletter system. One that’s concentrated on designer development.
Because, any maker knows, you need growth to be able to earn a living off of an e-newsletter. And finding the ideal e-newsletter stack (that scales) commonly indicates utilizing several various tools to aid attain one goal– one system for your newsletter, one platform to generate income from, and one system to establish referrals. It can obtain expensive.
So when I discovered beehiiv did all of these points in one platform, and it was free to begin using, it was a piece of cake to give it a try.
beehiiv vs Substack
You might be asking, “isn’t there already a platform for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, yes there is. Substack is a great platform made use of by hundreds of independent authors. With Substack you obtain your own internet site and utilize the platform as your all-in-one remedy for sending e-mails (while producing an archive of previous problems).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s dedication to development. beehiiv allows you do to all the important things Substack can do, with the advantage of far better analytics, more style flexibilty, and a referral program to encourage your existing subscribers to get words out.
beehiiv additionally offers you a site comparable to Substack. Yet, if you have your very own site currently, you can likewise utilize beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I utilize) to send your internet site subscribers right to your beehiiv e-mail listing. On the same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a device like Performance to permit individuals to subscribe to your e-newsletter straight from Twitter.
This offers you the adaptability to utilize various marketing networks to obtain your e-newsletter out into the world, making beehiiv a great Substack option.
How to begin utilizing beehiiv email marketing software.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean material developer that desires a system that permits them to send out custom-made newsletters with or without requiring to have a site.
One of the most effective e-newsletters have the right devices to construct and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv targets at offering you those tools.
If you’re an independent author, media firm, start-up, or content designer, you must seriously taking into consideration trying beehiiv. It’s entirely complimentary to start and you just pay when you reach over 2,500 subscribers on your listing.
If you really wind up having to pay for beehiiv it’s possibly a great sign that people like reviewing your stuff.
Register for a free plan
The very first step is to enroll in a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Beginning trial” button on beehiiv’s site.
The free plan will enable you to have up to 2,500 clients, give you access to internet site hosting, a newsletter CMS, development personalization, analytics, outside embed types, and extra. It’s a very generous offering for those just beginning (or for those seeking a new system to move to).
Onboarding
After producing an account, you’ll undergo an onboarding procedure that will ask points like, “is this your first e-newsletter?”, “what various other platforms have you made use of?”, “do you have any paying subscribers?”, and a lot more.
You’ll then 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 newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your web site link might be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding procedure, you’ll also choose your brand colors and design to ensure your newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your control panel
Once you reach your major control panel, you’ll see every one of your analytics and settings.
You will certainly have detailed details on the amount of sign-ups you’re getting and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see choices for “Beginning composing”, “Articles”, “Audience”, “Expand”, “Generate income from”, “Layout” and” Evaluate”. And at the extremely bottom you’ll see the settings choice.
Dashboard is your main control center (screenshot above), Begin writing is where you develop and publish newsletters, Blog posts is where you can see every one of your previous e-newsletter versions, Audience is where you can see who your customers are (and damage them down into sectors), Grow is where you have access to a referral program (and development tutorials) and boosts to run advertisements, Monetize is where you can access the beehiiv ad network and monetize your e-newsletter with advertisements, Design is where you create your newsletter landing page and article template, Assess is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can handle all of your admin stuff.
Composing your newsletter
beehiiv makes it simple to start creating, with little to no rubbing. If you’re simply starting out, and have a concept you wish to blog about, I recommend just going to the “Compose” section in the navbar and clicking “Start writing”.
You can tweak your template and styling later– concentrate on the web content initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor uses a clean and straightforward interface for composing.
Once you start writing, you can maximize headings, include web links, and style your web content exactly how you like.
beehiiv offers you tons of options for various sorts of web content like videos, web links, photos, and much more.
The group at beehiiv is also frequently launching product feature and updates so I’m sure there will be a great deal more content features depending on when you’re reading this.
Optimizing your setups and templates
Once you have an e-newsletter that prepares to send out, it’s time to make your email template and change some setups.
Below, you can upgrade the name of your newsletter, give it a description, include your logo design, turn on or off a welcome email to first time subscribers, and extra.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your style.
You can edit history colors, borders, spacing, fonts, photo layouts, and more. I’m not going to experience ever before solitary thing you can enhance with your e-mail template due to the fact that it’s a whole lot. Just try the system free of charge and see it on your own!
Vital beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of impressive features that make it a wonderful posting system for any kind of newsletter maker.
Here are several of the essential features you can find with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder Beehiiv Growth
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter publishing system. It makes it incredibly easy to compose and send out emails. I stated above a few of things you can do with your settings and email style so I’ll save you some added reading.
The thing to keep in mind with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has a really modern-day and minimalistic feeling. It’s definitely one of the far better email editors I have actually ever written in.
Website hosting
When you develop a beehiiv e-newsletter, all of your newsletters (if you desire) survive a website. Consider it as a web site for your newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous issues of your e-newsletter, and an area where individuals can register for your e-newsletter.
If you recognize with Substack, it’s practically comparable to that.
All plans, consisting of the cost-free one, give you a site. Nonetheless, the free plan places your website on a beehiiv subdomain so if you want to add a customized domain to remove all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting subscribers is essential. Besides, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can subscribe to your e-newsletter directly from your beehiiv web site or through embed types.
If you already have a website, and desire individuals to register for your e-newsletter from your existing site, you’ll need to use an embed form. This is what I utilize on this website (you can see the sign-up installed on the right-hand man column of this article if you scroll up).
With embed kinds, you have three different options– a complete width, a taken care of width, and a slim installed. I personally make use of the slim embed.
You can locate the code fragment for these embeds in the “Subscribe Types” tab in your settings.
There’s likewise a choice for acknowledgment monitoring if you wish to onward UTM parameters for tracking purposes– pretty cool.
Nonetheless, there are a few features I want beehiiv had when it involved subscribe features. I’m sure the team is dealing with updates for these, but I pointed out a couple of worries I had in the pros and cons area below.
Referral program
Among the amazing things about beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter system, is a remedy for creating a referral program.
You can encourage existing customers on your listing to onward your emails to friends and associates and if they get other individuals to sign up for your listing, you can reward them. These incentives can be in whatever kind you want. I have actually seem many newsletter business give benefits in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously transform your clients right into a word of mouth growth engine for your e-newsletter– providing you one more avenue for expanding your email listing.
However, to obtain access to the referral program feature, you’ll have to update to a much more superior plan. I’ll look at all the plans later in this post.
Costs registrations
They say all you require to earn a living online is 1,000 real followers. Membership revenue is most definitely a monster of its very own. If you’re searching for a platform to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can develop “costs” concerns of your e-newsletter that are just sent out to paying clients. This can be very profitable depending on what your e-newsletter needs to supply. As an example, Trends.co is a popular costs newsletter that generates millions in earnings a year just by having pay-only newsletter material.
Data analytics
Among the things I love regarding beehiiv is how tidy and straightforward the analytics are. You obtain real-time date on how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and client matter.
You get access to all the metrics you require to obtain a bird-eye sight on exactly how your newsletter is really doing. Logging right into your control panel and seeing that client count go up is certainly a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv uses four various pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (complimentary) Launch plan gives you whatever you need to start and expand your e-newsletter (approximately 2,500 customers).
The Scale plan ($ 39/month) provides you whatever in the Launch plan with the addition the advertisement network, referral program, custom-made domain name, polls, and accessibility to costs subscriptions. This is the plan I am on.
The Max plan ($ 76/month) provides you everything in the Grow plan with addition of priority assistance and getting rid of the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are quite generous in my opinion.
For instance, if you have 100,000 clients you will certainly pay around $329 per month. Instead of some competitors, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would certainly bill $679 per month for the same amount– making beehiiv a terrific Kit option for many individuals.
I’m not sure exactly how the unit economics deal with this, however beehiiv is certainly cheaper (presently) than what it can be.
beehiiv benefits and drawbacks
Naturally, with every system, it has its benefits and drawbacks. Here are a few of the benefits and drawbacks I’ve directly experienced while making use of beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Right here are some of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter system of selection:
- Easy to set up and begin sending out e-newsletters absolutely free
- Tidy and modern-day subscriber analytics
- Lots of adaptability with e-mail styles.
- Referral program feature Beehiiv Growth
- Website hosting
- Produce premium choices to generate income from
- Surveys
To be truthful, I have not seen an additional newsletter platform that has been able to package all of these features with each other so well.
But naturally, I do not wish to be prejudiced so I’m mosting likely to point out some disadvantages.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Right here are some of the cons I’ve found while utilizing beehiiv:.
- Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv
- Limitations around adding custom typefaces
I make use of Webflow as my web site structure system of selection (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a long period of time ago). I’m not mosting likely to enter way too much detail why I love Webflow so much but you can read my Webflow testimonial if you want to learn more.
Now, there truly is nothing else means I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow site other than using an iframe embed. I personally don’t like making use of iframe’s since they have a tendency to slow down my internet site a bit. Whenever a web page on my website (with a beehiiv embed) loads, the sign-up installed is the last point to pack on the web page. It’s extremely recognizable when you get on a sluggish net connection. Yet I can get around that.
The major gripe I have is that I can’t use a normal Webflow type (which I enjoy using). There are ways around this by using a tool like Zapier however that would certainly just include added costs that I don’t need. To be truthful, this is even more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv disadvantage yet I believed I would certainly state it.
Besides that, I still think the pros far exceed the disadvantages here. I’m also hopeful that Webflow will at some point create a much better means to incorporate with beehiiv.
Conclusion
Generally, beehiiv is a fantastic remedy for anybody seeking to study the world of email marketing and newsletters.
The capability of this newsletter system far exceeds lots of that are presently on the market. And with a charitable free plan, you truly have nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are likewise relatively low-cost of what they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 customers on your listing is unprecedented. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k subscribers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it could cost you well into the thousands per month.
Anyways, I do not write testimonial messages often. I just do when I in fact utilize the tool myself and would certainly advise it to a close friend.
I hope you located some quality on whether beehiiv is a good platform for you.