I read one of my favorite email newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo for the very first time. I clicked it and instantly started tearing up. Beehiiv Header Image…
Being a full-time developer is difficult. I’m commonly getting pitched different devices and services that do not seem to be worth my time.
I presume I was emotional because I spent the last six months trying out different email and e-newsletter platforms to help build my e-newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some wonderful choices for writing e-newsletters. Yet I could not discover one that made me give a precise “yes”.
The concern with many existing e-newsletter systems is that they do not feel creator-centered. I want an e-newsletter platform that lets me fully customize my newsletter designs, makes it extremely very easy to compose and send out e-mails, and provides me tools that assist me evaluate metrics and obtain more clients.
I think I have actually finally discovered the ideal tool.
However, I understand beehiiv may not be for everyone. 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 newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter system that makes it easy to design, create, send, promote, monetize, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Developed by former workers at the renowned e-newsletter business Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to aid designers launch and monetize their very own e-newsletter– taking great deals of development principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M clients.
In this short article, I’m going to describe my individual experience with beehiiv, the things I enjoy (and hate) concerning it, all of it’s features, and why I made a decision to finally choose it as my e-newsletter platform of choice.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A couple of months earlier, I inadvertently came across beehiiv. The funny tale is that I have actually been on the lookout for a contemporary newsletter system for quite time currently. I have actually postponed hard when it concerned ultimately releasing my newsletter.
First, I attempted Mailchimp. Then, a couple of various other indie systems. Then, Substack. And ultimately, I ended up utilizing beehiiv.
I’m sure numerous e-newsletter designers admire prominent e-newsletters with countless subscribers– I recognize I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I looked up to a whole lot. They have terrific content, tons of clients, and a creative referral program that allows them to get back at extra subscribers.
So, I took place a hunt to figure out just how these big newsletters set up their logistics. What platform do they use? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they get even more subscribers? How do they develop an e-newsletter design that remains on-brand?
When I discovered beehiiv for the very first time, it seemed to address every one of my inquiries. I thought to myself, “damn the people that developed this device actually recognize e-newsletter production and growth.” I questioned who these designers of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were some of the initial marketing and development workers at Morning Brew– my brain took off.
I knew this was going to be a various e-newsletter system. One that’s focused on designer growth.
Because, any type of developer recognizes, you require growth to be able to make a living off of a newsletter. And locating the best e-newsletter pile (that scales) often suggests utilizing several various devices to aid attain one goal– one system for your e-newsletter, one platform to generate income from, and one platform to set up recommendations. It can obtain expensive.
So when I figured out beehiiv did every one of these things in one platform, and it was totally free to begin making use of, it was a no-brainer 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 an excellent platform made use of by thousands of independent writers. With Substack you obtain your very own web site and utilize the platform as your all-in-one remedy for sending emails (while producing an archive of previous issues).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s dedication to growth. beehiiv allows you do to all the things Substack can do, with the advantage of far better analytics, more design flexibilty, and a referral program to urge your existing clients to obtain the word out.
beehiiv likewise provides you an internet site comparable to Substack. But, if you have your own site already, you can also use beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I use) to send your website customers directly to your beehiiv e-mail checklist. On the same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a device like Performance to allow people to subscribe to your e-newsletter directly from Twitter.
This gives you the flexibility to leverage various marketing channels to get your newsletter out into the globe, making beehiiv a wonderful Substack choice.
How to begin utilizing beehiiv email marketing software.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean content designer that wants a platform that permits them to send custom newsletters with or without needing to have a web site.
The most successful e-newsletters have the right devices to construct and scale their newsletters. beehiiv targets at giving you those devices.
If you’re an independent writer, media business, start-up, or web content developer, you must seriously taking into consideration checking out beehiiv. It’s completely cost-free to begin and you only pay when you reach over 2,500 subscribers on your listing.
If you really wind up having to pay for beehiiv it’s probably a great indication that individuals like reading your stuff.
Sign up for a free plan
The very first step is to register for a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Beginning trial” switch on beehiiv’s website.
The free plan will certainly allow you to have up to 2,500 customers, give you accessibility to website hosting, a newsletter CMS, advancement customization, analytics, external embed forms, and more. It’s a very charitable offering for those just starting out (or for those seeking a brand-new system to move to).
Onboarding
After developing an account, you’ll undergo an onboarding procedure that will ask things like, “is this your initial newsletter?”, “what other platforms have you used?”, “do you have any kind of paying subscribers?”, and much more.
You’ll after that create a name and link for your newsletter’s site. On the free plan, your newsletter will certainly reside on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your site link might be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding process, you’ll additionally choose your brand design and colors to ensure your newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your dashboard
As soon as you reach your main dashboard, you’ll see every one of your analytics and settings.
You will have outlined info on how many sign-ups you’re obtaining and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see alternatives for “Beginning creating”, “Blog posts”, “Audience”, “Grow”, “Monetize”, “Style” and” Analyze”. And at the very bottom you’ll see the settings alternative.
Dashboard is your major control center (screenshot over), Begin writing is where you create and publish e-newsletters, Posts is where you can see all of your previous newsletter editions, Target market is where you can watch who your clients are (and damage them down right into sections), 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, Layout is where you make your newsletter landing page and article template, Analyze is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can take care of all of your admin stuff.
Writing your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it very easy to begin composing, with little to no friction. If you’re simply starting, and have an idea you intend to blog about, I suggest simply mosting likely to the “Create” area in the navbar and clicking “Begin creating”.
You can modify your template and designing later on– focus on the content initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor provides a tidy and straightforward interface for creating.
When you start composing, you can maximize headings, add web links, and design your material exactly how you like.
beehiiv gives you tons of alternatives for different sorts of content like videos, links, photos, and more.
The team at beehiiv is additionally continuously releasing product feature and updates so I’m sure there will certainly be a whole lot more content features relying on when you read this.
Enhancing your settings and templates
When you have an e-newsletter that’s ready to send, it’s time to make your e-mail template and adjust some settings.
Here, you can update the name of your e-newsletter, provide it a description, add your logo, activate or off a welcome email to first time subscribers, and more.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your style.
You can edit background shades, borders, spacing, fonts, picture formats, and much more. I’m not mosting likely to experience ever before single thing you can optimize with your email template since it’s a great deal. Simply experiment with the system totally free and see it for yourself!
Essential beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of fantastic features that make it a great publishing platform for any type of e-newsletter developer.
Below are a few of the important features you can find with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder Beehiiv Header Image
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter publishing platform. It makes it super very easy to create and send e-mails. I stated over some of the important things you can do with your settings and email layout so I’ll save you some added reading.
The thing to keep in mind with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has a really modern and minimalistic feel. It’s certainly one of the much better email editors I’ve ever before written in.
Web site hosting
When you produce a beehiiv newsletter, every one of your newsletters (if you desire) survive on an internet site. Think about it as a web site for your newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous issues of your newsletter, and a place where people can sign up for your newsletter.
If you recognize with Substack, it’s virtually comparable to that.
All plans, including the complimentary one, give you a website. Nonetheless, the free plan areas your site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you intend to include a personalized domain name to eliminate all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting customers is very important. Besides, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can subscribe to your e-newsletter directly from your beehiiv web site or with embed forms.
If you currently have an internet site, and desire people to register for your e-newsletter from your existing site, you’ll need to utilize an embed type. This is what I utilize on this site (you can see the sign-up installed on the right-hand man column of this blog post if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have 3 various choices– a complete size, a repaired size, and a slim embed. I directly utilize the slim embed.
You can discover the code snippet for these embeds in the “Subscribe Types” tab in your setups.
There’s additionally an option for attribution tracking if you want to forward UTM parameters for tracking objectives– quite neat.
However, there are a couple of features I wish beehiiv had when it pertained to subscribe features. I’m sure the group is dealing with updates for these, yet I mentioned a few issues I had in the benefits and drawbacks area below.
Referral program
Among the amazing things regarding beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter system, is a solution for developing a referral program.
You can encourage existing subscribers on your listing to onward your e-mails to buddies and associates and if they get other individuals to sign up for your listing, you can compensate them. These incentives can be in whatever form you want. I have actually seem many e-newsletter companies provide rewards in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously transform your customers right into a word of mouth growth engine for your newsletter– providing you one more opportunity for growing your email list.
However, to get accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll have to update to a more superior plan. I’ll review all the plans later on in this post.
Costs subscriptions
They state all you need to make a living online is 1,000 real fans. Registration revenue is absolutely a monster of its own. If you’re looking for a system to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can produce “costs” issues of your e-newsletter that are only sent out to paying subscribers. This can be very rewarding depending on what your newsletter has to provide. For example, Trends.co is a prominent costs e-newsletter that creates millions in profits a year just by having pay-only e-newsletter content.
Information analytics
Among the things I love concerning beehiiv is exactly how clean and straightforward the analytics are. You get real-time date on just how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and customer count.
You obtain accessibility to all the metrics you require to get a bird-eye view on how your newsletter is really doing. Logging into your control panel and seeing that customer count rise is definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv provides 4 various pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (cost-free) Launch plan gives you every little thing you require to get started and grow 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, surveys, and accessibility to costs registrations. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 76/month) offers you everything in the Grow plan with addition of priority assistance and removing the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are quite generous in my viewpoint.
As an example, if you have 100,000 subscribers you will certainly pay around $329 monthly. As opposed to some competitors, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would charge $679 monthly for the exact same quantity– making beehiiv a fantastic Kit option for several individuals.
I’m not sure how the system business economics deal with this, but beehiiv is most definitely cheaper (presently) than what it can be.
beehiiv pros and cons
Certainly, with every platform, it has its benefits and drawbacks. Below are several of the benefits and drawbacks I have actually directly experienced while making use of beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Right here are several of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter platform of selection:
- Easy to establish and begin sending newsletters absolutely free
- Clean and contemporary subscriber analytics
- Lots of flexibility with email layouts.
- Referral program feature Beehiiv Header Image
- Web site hosting
- Produce premium options to generate income from
- Polls
To be straightforward, I have not seen an additional e-newsletter system that has actually had the ability to package every one of these features together so well.
But of course, I don’t intend to be biased so I’m going to state some cons.
Cons of using beehiiv
Right here are several of the cons I’ve discovered while using beehiiv:.
- Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv
- Limitations around adding custom font styles
I use Webflow as my website structure platform of choice (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a long period of time ago). I’m not going to enter too much detail why I like Webflow so much however you can review my Webflow review if you wish to discover more.
Today, there really is nothing else means I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow web site other than making use of an iframe embed. I personally don’t such as utilizing iframe’s due to the fact that they often tend to reduce my internet site a bit. Every time a web page on my website (with a beehiiv embed) lots, the sign-up embed is the last point to load on the page. It’s really visible when you get on a slow net connection. But I can get around that.
The major gripe I have is that I can not utilize a routine Webflow kind (which I enjoy making use of). There are means around this by using a tool like Zapier but that would simply add extra prices that I do not require. To be truthful, this is more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv con yet I believed I would certainly discuss it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros far surpass the cons right here. I’m likewise confident that Webflow will ultimately create a better means to incorporate with beehiiv.
Conclusion
On the whole, beehiiv is a great solution for anybody aiming to dive into the world of e-mail marketing and newsletters.
The performance of this newsletter platform much surpasses many that are currently on the market. And with a generous free plan, you truly have absolutely nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are also relatively affordable of what they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 clients on your list is unusual. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k clients, and all of these features beehiiv has, it could cost you well right into the thousands monthly.
Anyways, I do not write evaluation posts often. I just do when I actually utilize the device myself and would recommend it to a pal.
I wish you located some clarity on whether or not beehiiv is a great platform for you.