I was reading one of my preferred e-mail e-newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the e-mail and saw the beehiiv logo for the first time. I clicked it and immediately began tearing up. Beehiiv Help Center…
Being a permanent developer is difficult. I’m commonly getting pitched different tools and services that do not seem to be worth my time.
I presume I was psychological since I invested the last six months experimenting with various email and e-newsletter systems to assist build my e-newsletter. And to be fair, there are some excellent alternatives for creating e-newsletters. But I could not discover one that made me offer a definite “yes”.
The concern with lots of existing newsletter platforms is that they do not feel creator-centered. I want an e-newsletter system that lets me completely customize my e-newsletter designs, makes it very easy to create and send out e-mails, and provides me tools that assist me analyze metrics and obtain even more subscribers.
I think I have actually lastly located the best tool.
Yet, I know beehiiv might 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 e-newsletter system that makes it easy to style, compose, send out, promote, monetize, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Developed by previous staff members at the popular newsletter company Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to assist makers launch and monetize their very own newsletter– taking lots of growth concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M clients.
In this post, I’m going to clarify my personal experience with beehiiv, the things I enjoy (and hate) about it, all of it’s features, and why I chose to ultimately choose it as my newsletter system of selection.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A couple of months ago, I accidentally came across beehiiv. The funny tale is that I have actually been on the lookout for a modern newsletter platform for rather a long time now. I have actually hesitated hard when it came to ultimately introducing my e-newsletter.
First, I attempted Mailchimp. Then, a couple of other indie systems. Then, Substack. And ultimately, I wound up making use of beehiiv.
I make sure numerous e-newsletter makers look up to popular e-newsletters with countless customers– I know I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I appreciated a lot. They have great content, tons of clients, and a brilliant referral program that enables them to get back at extra subscribers.
So, I took place a quest to identify just how these large e-newsletters set up their logistics. What system do they utilize? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they obtain more clients? How do they create an e-newsletter style that stays on-brand?
When I found beehiiv for the very first time, it seemed to respond to all of my questions. I believed to myself, “damn the people that developed this tool really comprehend e-newsletter creation and development.” I examined who these designers of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were a few of the very first marketing and development workers at Morning Brew– my brain exploded.
I understood this was mosting likely to be a various newsletter platform. One that’s concentrated on developer development.
Since, any kind of developer knows, you need growth to be able to earn a living off of an e-newsletter. And finding the ideal newsletter stack (that ranges) commonly means utilizing multiple different devices to assist achieve one objective– one platform for your e-newsletter, one system to generate income from, and one system to set up referrals. It can get expensive.
So when I figured out beehiiv did every one of these points in one system, and it was cost-free to begin utilizing, it was a piece of cake to give it a try.
beehiiv vs Substack
You may be asking, “isn’t there currently a system for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, of course there is. Substack is a fantastic system made use of by countless independent authors. With Substack you obtain your very own site and utilize the system as your all-in-one service for sending e-mails (while creating an archive of previous problems).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s commitment to growth. beehiiv permits you do to all the things Substack can do, with the benefit of far better analytics, even more layout flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing subscribers to get the word out.
beehiiv likewise gives you an internet site similar to Substack. However, if you have your own web site currently, you can additionally make use of beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I make use of) to send your site customers right to your beehiiv email checklist. On the exact same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a tool like Performance to allow people to register for your e-newsletter straight from Twitter.
This provides you the flexibility to utilize different marketing networks to get your newsletter out into the globe, making beehiiv an excellent Substack choice.
Exactly how to begin utilizing beehiiv email marketing software.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean material developer that wants a platform that enables them to send personalized e-newsletters with or without needing to have a website.
The most successful newsletters have the right devices to develop and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv focuses on giving you those tools.
If you’re an independent writer, media firm, startup, or material maker, you must seriously considering trying out beehiiv. It’s absolutely free to get going and you only pay when you get to over 2,500 clients on your checklist.
If you actually end up needing to pay for beehiiv it’s most likely a good indicator that individuals enjoy reviewing your things.
Enroll in a free plan
The primary step is to sign up for a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Begin trial” switch on beehiiv’s internet site.
The free plan will allow you to have up to 2,500 customers, offer you accessibility to website hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, advance personalization, analytics, outside embed forms, and a lot more. It’s a really charitable offering for those simply beginning (or for those looking for a new platform to migrate to).
Onboarding
After creating an account, you’ll experience an onboarding process that will ask points like, “is this your initial newsletter?”, “what other systems have you used?”, “do you have any paying customers?”, and much more.
You’ll then produce a name and link for your newsletter’s website. On the free plan, your newsletter will certainly live on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your internet site link may be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding procedure, you’ll additionally pick your brand colors and design to ensure your e-newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your control panel
When you reach your main dashboard, you’ll see all of your analytics and settings.
You will have detailed information on how many sign-ups you’re obtaining and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see choices for “Begin writing”, “Messages”, “Audience”, “Grow”, “Monetize”, “Style” and” Evaluate”. And at the really lower you’ll see the setups option.
Control panel is your major control center (screenshot above), Start composing is where you create and publish e-newsletters, Articles is where you can see all of your previous e-newsletter editions, Audience is where you can watch who your subscribers 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 advertisements, Design is where you design your e-newsletter landing page and post template, Examine is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can manage all of your admin things.
Writing your newsletter
beehiiv makes it simple to begin composing, with little to no friction. If you’re just starting out, and have a concept you want to write about, I advise simply going to the “Create” area in the navbar and clicking “Start writing”.
You can modify your template and designing later– concentrate on the web content initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor supplies a tidy and easy to use interface for composing.
As soon as you start creating, you can maximize headings, add web links, and design your web content exactly how you such as.
beehiiv offers you tons of alternatives for different kinds of web content like videos, links, images, and a lot more.
The team at beehiiv is additionally constantly launching product feature and updates so I’m sure there will certainly be a whole lot much more content features depending on when you read this.
Maximizing your setups and templates
When you have a newsletter that’s ready to send out, it’s time to develop your e-mail template and readjust some setups.
Right here, you can upgrade the name of your e-newsletter, provide it a description, add your logo design, turn on or off a welcome e-mail to first time clients, and extra.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your design.
You can modify history shades, borders, spacing, typefaces, picture styles, and extra. I’m not mosting likely to experience ever before solitary point you can maximize with your e-mail template due to the fact that it’s a lot. Just try out the platform free of cost and see it for yourself!
Crucial beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of remarkable features that make it a fantastic publishing platform for any kind of e-newsletter creator.
Right here are several of the important features you can find with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder Beehiiv Help Center
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter posting system. It makes it very very easy to write and send emails. I pointed out over a few of things you can do with your settings and email layout so I’ll spare you some extra reading.
Things to note with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has an actually modern and minimalistic feeling. It’s definitely one of the much better e-mail editors I’ve ever written in.
Internet site hosting
When you develop a beehiiv newsletter, all of your newsletters (if you want) live on a website. Think of it as a web site for your e-newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous issues of your e-newsletter, and a place where people can sign up for your e-newsletter.
If you’re familiar with Substack, it’s virtually comparable to that.
All plans, including the complimentary one, provide you an internet site. However, the free plan areas your website on a beehiiv subdomain so if you wish to add a custom domain name to eliminate all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining customers is essential. Besides, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can subscribe to your e-newsletter directly from your beehiiv website or with embed forms.
If you currently have a site, and desire people to sign up for your newsletter from your existing site, you’ll need to use an embed type. This is what I utilize on this internet site (you can see the sign-up embed on the right hand column of this article if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have three different alternatives– a full size, a dealt with size, and a slim embed. I personally utilize the slim installed.
You can discover the code fragment for these embeds in the “Subscribe Forms” tab in your setups.
There’s also a choice for attribution tracking if you wish to ahead UTM parameters for tracking objectives– pretty neat.
However, there are a couple of features I desire beehiiv had when it involved subscribe features. I make certain the team is servicing updates for these, however I mentioned a few concerns I had in the pros and cons 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 producing a referral program.
You can urge existing subscribers on your listing to onward your emails to pals and associates and if they get other people to subscribe to your listing, you can compensate them. These benefits can be in whatever form you desire. I have actually seem several newsletter business offer incentives in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously transform your clients into a word of mouth growth engine for your e-newsletter– giving you an additional opportunity for expanding your e-mail checklist.
Nevertheless, to obtain access to the referral program feature, you’ll have to update to an extra superior plan. I’ll go over all the plans later on in this write-up.
Premium subscriptions
They claim all you require to earn a living online is 1,000 real followers. Subscription revenue is definitely a beast of its own. If you’re searching for a platform to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can develop “premium” problems of your e-newsletter that are only sent to paying clients. This can be really lucrative depending on what your newsletter needs to use. As an example, Trends.co is a popular premium newsletter that produces millions in income a year just by having pay-only e-newsletter content.
Information analytics
One of the important things I love about beehiiv is just how clean and simple the analytics are. You obtain real-time date on exactly how your 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 e-newsletter is actually doing. Logging into your dashboard and seeing that customer count rise is definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv supplies four different pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (totally free) Launch plan provides you whatever you need to get going and grow your newsletter (as much as 2,500 clients).
The Scale plan ($ 39/month) provides you everything in the Launch plan with the addition the ad network, referral program, custom domain name, surveys, and accessibility to premium registrations. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 76/month) provides you whatever in the Grow plan with addition of priority assistance and removing the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are rather charitable in my opinion.
As an example, if you have 100,000 clients you will certainly pay around $329 each month. Instead of some rivals, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would charge $679 each month for the very same quantity– making beehiiv an excellent Kit choice for lots of customers.
I’m uncertain just how the unit business economics deal with this, yet beehiiv is absolutely less expensive (at the moment) than what it can be.
beehiiv pros and cons
Certainly, with every system, it has its pros and cons. Here are a few of the advantages and disadvantages I have actually personally 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 option:
- Easy to establish and start sending e-newsletters completely free
- Clean and modern-day customer analytics
- Great deals of adaptability with email styles.
- Referral program feature Beehiiv Help Center
- Web site hosting
- Create premium alternatives to generate income from
- Surveys
To be sincere, I haven’t seen an additional e-newsletter platform that has been able to package all of these features together so well.
However of course, I do not intend to be prejudiced so I’m going to discuss some disadvantages.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Right here are a few of the disadvantages I have actually located while making use of beehiiv:.
- Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv
- Limitations around including custom-made font styles
I use Webflow as my internet site structure system of selection (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a long time ago). I’m not going to go in way too much information why I like Webflow so much but you can review my Webflow review if you would love to find out more.
Now, there actually is no other method I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow site besides utilizing an iframe embed. I personally don’t such as making use of iframe’s due to the fact that they tend to decrease my internet site a little bit. Whenever a web page on my site (with a beehiiv installed) loads, the sign-up embed is the last thing to pack on the web page. It’s extremely noticeable when you get on a slow-moving net connection. However I can navigate that.
The main complaint I have is that I can not use a regular Webflow type (which I like using). There are methods around this by utilizing a device like Zapier yet that would just include additional expenses that I do not need. To be truthful, this is more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv disadvantage yet I thought I would mention it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros far outweigh the disadvantages right here. I’m additionally confident that Webflow will ultimately create a much better way to integrate with beehiiv.
Verdict
In general, beehiiv is a terrific solution for anyone seeking to study the globe of email marketing and e-newsletters.
The functionality of this e-newsletter system far surpasses lots of that are currently on the marketplace. And with a charitable free plan, you really have nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are likewise fairly economical for what they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 clients on your checklist is uncommon. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k subscribers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it could cost you well right into the thousands monthly.
Anyways, I don’t write review messages usually. I only do when I actually use the tool myself and would certainly recommend it to a buddy.
I hope you discovered some quality on whether or not beehiiv is an excellent system for you.