I was reading one of my favorite email e-newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo design for the first time. I clicked on it and promptly began tearing up. Beehiiv Launch Plan…
Being a full-time developer is difficult. I’m usually getting pitched different devices and services that don’t appear to be worth my time.
I presume I was emotional due to the fact that I invested the last six months trying out various e-mail and newsletter platforms to assist develop my newsletter. And to be fair, there are some excellent choices for composing e-newsletters. But I could not discover one that made me provide a guaranteed “yes”.
The concern with several existing newsletter systems is that they don’t feel creator-centered. I want an e-newsletter platform that lets me completely tailor my e-newsletter styles, makes it super easy to write and send emails, and gives me tools that aid me examine metrics and obtain more subscribers.
I think I’ve lastly located the best device.
However, I know beehiiv may not be for everyone. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s actually right 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 easy to style, compose, send out, promote, monetize, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Developed by former staff members at the well-known newsletter company Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to help designers launch and monetize their very own newsletter– taking lots of growth principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M clients.
In this article, I’m going to discuss my individual experience with beehiiv, the things I like (and hate) concerning it, all of it’s features, and why I decided to lastly choose it as my e-newsletter platform of option.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A couple of months ago, I inadvertently stumbled across beehiiv. The funny story is that I have actually watched for a contemporary newsletter platform for rather time currently. I’ve put things off hard when it came to lastly introducing my newsletter.
Initially, I attempted Mailchimp. After that, a few various other indie platforms. After that, Substack. And finally, I wound up utilizing beehiiv.
I’m sure several e-newsletter creators respect preferred e-newsletters with millions of subscribers– I recognize I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I looked up to a great deal. They have fantastic web content, tons of clients, and a brilliant referral program that allows them to get back at more clients.
So, I went on a quest to figure out just how these big e-newsletters set up their logistics. What platform do they use? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they obtain more clients? How do they produce a newsletter style that stays on-brand?
When I uncovered beehiiv for the very first time, it appeared to respond to every one of my questions. I thought to myself, “damn the people that developed this tool really understand e-newsletter creation and development.” I examined who these creators of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were several of the very first marketing and development workers at Morning Brew– my brain took off.
I knew this was mosting likely to be a different newsletter system. One that’s focused on developer growth.
Due to the fact that, any kind of maker knows, you need growth to be able to earn a living off of a newsletter. And locating the ideal e-newsletter pile (that ranges) often indicates utilizing multiple different tools to aid attain one objective– one system for your newsletter, one system to generate income from, and one platform to set up referrals. It can get costly.
So when I figured out beehiiv did every one 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 system for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, yes there is. Substack is a terrific system 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 option for sending emails (while creating an archive of previous problems).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s dedication to development. beehiiv permits you do to all the things Substack can do, with the benefit of much better analytics, more style flexibilty, and a referral program to urge your existing clients to obtain words out.
beehiiv additionally provides you an internet site comparable to Substack. However, if you have your own internet site currently, you can additionally utilize beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I make use of) to send your internet site customers directly to your beehiiv e-mail listing. On the very same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a tool like Performance to allow people to subscribe to your newsletter directly from Twitter.
This provides you the adaptability to leverage various marketing networks to obtain your e-newsletter out into the world, making beehiiv a fantastic Substack choice.
Exactly how to start making use of beehiiv e-mail marketing software.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean content creator that desires a platform that enables them to send custom-made 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 focuses on providing you those devices.
If you’re an independent writer, media business, startup, or material developer, you must seriously considering trying out beehiiv. It’s totally free to start and you just pay when you get to over 2,500 customers on your list.
If you in fact wind up having to spend for beehiiv it’s most likely an excellent sign that individuals love reviewing your things.
Enroll in a free plan
The initial 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 customers, give you accessibility to web site hosting, a newsletter CMS, development personalization, analytics, exterior embed kinds, and more. It’s a very charitable offering for those simply starting out (or for those looking for a new platform to move to).
Onboarding
After creating an account, you’ll go through an onboarding procedure that will ask points like, “is this your initial e-newsletter?”, “what various other platforms have you used?”, “do you have any kind of paying customers?”, and a lot more.
You’ll then create a name and link for your e-newsletter’s website. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will certainly reside on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your site URL could be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding process, you’ll additionally choose your brand colors and design to make certain your newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your control panel
Once you reach your primary control panel, you’ll see all of your analytics and setups.
You will have outlined information on how many sign-ups you’re getting and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see alternatives for “Begin composing”, “Posts”, “Target market”, “Grow”, “Generate income from”, “Style” and” Examine”. And at the really lower you’ll see the setups option.
Dashboard is your major control center (screenshot above), Start writing is where you produce and release newsletters, Posts is where you can see every one of your previous e-newsletter versions, Target market is where you can watch who your subscribers are (and break them down right into segments), Expand 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 newsletter with advertisements, Design is where you design your e-newsletter landing page and blog post template, Examine is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can manage every one of your admin things.
Composing your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it simple to start composing, with little to no rubbing. If you’re simply starting, and have a concept you intend to cover, I suggest simply going to the “Compose” section in the navbar and clicking on “Begin creating”.
You can tweak your template and styling later on– concentrate on the material first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor provides a tidy and user-friendly interface for creating.
Once you begin writing, you can maximize headings, add links, and design your material just how you like.
beehiiv gives you tons of options for various kinds of material like videos, web links, pictures, and a lot more.
The team at beehiiv is also constantly releasing item feature and updates so I make sure there will be a whole lot more content features relying on when you read this.
Maximizing your settings and templates
As soon as you have an e-newsletter that prepares to send out, it’s time to develop your email template and adjust some setups.
Here, you can update the name of your newsletter, give it a summary, include your logo design, turn on or off a welcome e-mail to first time clients, and much more.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can edit history shades, borders, spacing, typefaces, image layouts, and a lot more. I’m not mosting likely to undergo ever single point you can enhance with your email template because it’s a lot. Simply try out the system completely free and see it on your own!
Necessary beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of remarkable features that make it a great publishing system for any newsletter developer.
Right here are a few of the vital features you can find with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder Beehiiv Launch Plan
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter posting platform. It makes it super very easy to create and send out emails. I mentioned over some of the things you can do with your setups and email layout so I’ll save you some added reading.
Things to keep in mind with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has a truly modern-day and minimalistic feel. It’s definitely one of the far better email editors I have actually ever before written in.
Website hosting
When you develop a beehiiv e-newsletter, all of your e-newsletters (if you desire) live on a web site. Think about it as a website for your newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous issues of your e-newsletter, and an area where individuals can subscribe to your newsletter.
If you recognize with Substack, it’s practically comparable to that.
All plans, consisting of the free one, give you a web site. Nevertheless, the free plan locations your site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you want to add a customized domain name to get rid of all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting clients is very important. After all, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can sign up for your e-newsletter straight from your beehiiv site or via embed kinds.
If you currently have a web site, and want individuals to register for your newsletter from your existing website, you’ll have to use an embed form. This is what I make use of on this internet site (you can see the sign-up installed on the right hand column of this blog post if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have 3 various options– a complete width, a dealt with width, and a slim installed. I directly make use of the slim installed.
You can discover the code bit for these embeds in the “Subscribe Forms” tab in your settings.
There’s additionally an option for acknowledgment monitoring if you want to onward UTM parameters for tracking objectives– rather cool.
However, there are a couple of features I desire beehiiv had when it pertained to subscribe features. I make certain the team is dealing with updates for these, but I mentioned a couple of problems I had in the advantages and disadvantages area below.
Referral program
Among the amazing things concerning beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter system, is an option for developing a referral program.
You can encourage existing subscribers on your checklist to onward your emails to buddies and colleagues and if they obtain other people to register for your checklist, you can reward them. These rewards can be in whatever kind you desire. I have actually seem many newsletter companies give rewards in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously turn your subscribers right into a word of mouth development engine for your e-newsletter– providing you an additional opportunity for expanding your email checklist.
Nonetheless, to get access to the referral program feature, you’ll have to upgrade to an extra superior plan. I’ll go over all the plans later on in this article.
Costs subscriptions
They claim all you require to earn a living online is 1,000 true followers. Subscription profits is definitely a monster of its very own. If you’re looking for a platform to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can develop “premium” concerns of your e-newsletter that are just sent out to paying clients. This can be extremely rewarding relying on what your newsletter needs to use. For example, Trends.co is a preferred premium newsletter that produces millions in profits a year just by having pay-only newsletter material.
Information analytics
Among the things I enjoy concerning beehiiv is just how clean and basic the analytics are. You obtain real-time day on exactly how your newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and customer count.
You get accessibility to all the metrics you need to obtain a bird-eye view on how your e-newsletter is in fact doing. Logging right into your control panel and seeing that client matter increase is definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv uses 4 various pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (complimentary) Launch plan gives you every little thing you require to begin and grow your e-newsletter (approximately 2,500 subscribers).
The Scale plan ($ 39/month) provides you everything in the Launch plan with the addition the ad network, referral program, custom-made domain name, polls, and accessibility to costs subscriptions. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 76/month) provides you everything in the Grow plan with addition of priority assistance and eliminating the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are quite charitable in my opinion.
As an example, if you have 100,000 customers you will certainly pay around $329 per month. In contrast to some rivals, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would bill $679 each month for the exact same quantity– making beehiiv a wonderful Kit option for many individuals.
I’m not exactly sure how the unit economics work with this, yet beehiiv is most definitely cheaper (currently) than what it can be.
beehiiv pros and cons
Certainly, with every system, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Below are a few of the benefits and drawbacks I have actually personally experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Here are several of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter system of choice:
- Easy to establish and start sending out e-newsletters completely free
- Tidy and modern client analytics
- Great deals of adaptability with e-mail styles.
- Referral program feature Beehiiv Launch Plan
- Site hosting
- Produce premium alternatives to generate income from
- Surveys
To be sincere, I have not seen one more newsletter platform that has been able to package all of these features together so well.
Yet obviously, I do not want to be prejudiced so I’m going to discuss some cons.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Right here are several of the disadvantages I’ve found while using beehiiv:.
- Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv
- Limitations around including personalized typefaces
I utilize Webflow as my web site building system of choice (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a long period of time ago). I’m not going to go in way too much information why I enjoy Webflow a lot however you can read my Webflow review if you ‘d like to learn more.
Now, there actually is no other means I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow web site besides utilizing an iframe embed. I personally do not such as utilizing iframe’s since they have a tendency to reduce my web site a bit. Each time a page on my website (with a beehiiv embed) tons, the sign-up embed is the last thing to fill on the web page. It’s extremely obvious when you’re on a slow net connection. But I can get around that.
The major complaint I have is that I can’t make use of a routine Webflow type (which I enjoy utilizing). There are methods around this by utilizing a device like Zapier however that would simply add extra prices that I do not need. To be sincere, this is even more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv disadvantage yet I assumed I would mention it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros much surpass the cons here. I’m likewise enthusiastic that Webflow will ultimately create a far better way to incorporate with beehiiv.
Verdict
On the whole, beehiiv is an excellent remedy for any individual looking to dive into the globe of e-mail marketing and e-newsletters.
The performance of this newsletter system much outweighs many that are presently on the marketplace. And with a generous free plan, you truly have absolutely nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are additionally fairly inexpensive wherefore they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 customers on your list is unheard of. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k subscribers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it might cost you well right into the thousands monthly.
Anyways, I do not create evaluation messages commonly. I only do when I in fact use the tool myself and would certainly recommend it to a good friend.
I hope you located some clarity on whether or not beehiiv is a great system for you.