I read 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 wrecking. Beehiiv Lifetime Offer…
Being a permanent designer is tough. I’m often getting pitched various tools and solutions that do not appear to be worth my time.
I think I was psychological since I spent the last six months checking out various e-mail and newsletter platforms to assist build my newsletter. And to be fair, there are some excellent options for composing e-newsletters. However I couldn’t discover one that made me give a definite “yes”.
The issue with lots of existing newsletter systems is that they don’t really feel creator-centered. I want an e-newsletter platform that lets me totally personalize my e-newsletter designs, makes it extremely easy to create and send e-mails, and provides me devices that help me analyze metrics and get even more subscribers.
I think I’ve lastly discovered the best device.
But, I know beehiiv might not be for everyone. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s really right for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one system for e-newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter platform that makes it easy to layout, compose, send out, advertise, generate income from, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Created by former staff members at the famous newsletter business Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to help creators launch and monetize their very own newsletter– taking great deals of development principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M customers.
In this write-up, I’m going to clarify my individual experience with beehiiv, the things I love (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 selection.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A couple of months back, I mistakenly stumbled across beehiiv. The amusing story is that I have actually watched for a contemporary newsletter platform for fairly some time now. I’ve hesitated hard when it pertained to lastly releasing my e-newsletter.
Initially, I attempted Mailchimp. Then, a few various other indie platforms. Then, Substack. And finally, I wound up making use of beehiiv.
I’m sure lots of newsletter developers look up to popular newsletters with millions of customers– I know I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I looked up to a lot. They have terrific content, lots of customers, and a smart referral program that allows them to get even a lot more clients.
So, I went on a hunt to find out just how these big newsletters set up their logistics. What system do they make use of? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they obtain even more subscribers? How do they create a newsletter design that remains on-brand?
When I found beehiiv for the very first time, it seemed to answer every one of my inquiries. I believed to myself, “damn individuals that constructed this tool actually comprehend e-newsletter development and growth.” I questioned who these creators of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were several of the initial marketing and development workers at Morning Brew– my brain took off.
I recognized this was going to be a various newsletter platform. One that’s concentrated on maker development.
Due to the fact that, any creator recognizes, you require growth to be able to make a living off of a newsletter. And discovering the best newsletter stack (that ranges) usually indicates utilizing multiple various devices to help attain one goal– one system for your newsletter, one platform to monetize, and one system to establish referrals. It can get expensive.
So when I found out beehiiv did all of these points in one platform, and it was free to begin using, 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, indeed there is. Substack is an excellent platform used by thousands of independent authors. With Substack you get your own site and use the platform as your all-in-one service for sending out e-mails (while developing an archive of previous issues).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s commitment to development. beehiiv allows you do to all things Substack can do, with the advantage of far better analytics, more style flexibilty, and a referral program to urge your existing customers to obtain the word out.
beehiiv additionally offers you a website comparable to Substack. However, if you have your own web site currently, you can likewise make use of beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I utilize) to send your web site subscribers right to your beehiiv e-mail checklist. On the very same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a tool like Performance to permit people to register for your e-newsletter straight from Twitter.
This offers you the versatility to leverage different marketing networks to get your e-newsletter out into the world, making beehiiv a fantastic Substack alternative.
Just how to begin making use of beehiiv e-mail marketing software.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean material designer that desires a platform that enables them to send custom-made newsletters with or without requiring to have an internet site.
The most successful e-newsletters have the right tools to build and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv focuses on giving you those devices.
If you’re an independent author, media business, startup, or material creator, you should seriously taking into consideration experimenting with beehiiv. It’s absolutely complimentary to start and you only pay when you get to over 2,500 clients on your checklist.
If you actually wind up needing to spend for beehiiv it’s possibly a good indication that people like reviewing your stuff.
Sign up for a free plan
The primary step is to sign up for a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Start trial” button on beehiiv’s web site.
The free plan will certainly enable you to have up to 2,500 clients, provide you accessibility to internet site hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, advancement customization, analytics, outside embed kinds, and a lot more. It’s an extremely charitable offering for those simply starting (or for those seeking a brand-new system to migrate to).
Onboarding
After creating an account, you’ll experience an onboarding procedure that will ask points like, “is this your initial e-newsletter?”, “what various other platforms have you made use of?”, “do you have any kind of paying clients?”, and extra.
You’ll then develop a name and link for your e-newsletter’s site. On the free plan, your newsletter will certainly survive on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your website URL could be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding procedure, you’ll likewise pick your brand colors and design to see to it your newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your dashboard
As soon as you reach your major dashboard, you’ll see all of your analytics and setups.
You will certainly have outlined details on the number of sign-ups you’re getting and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see alternatives for “Start writing”, “Posts”, “Target market”, “Expand”, “Generate income from”, “Design” and” Examine”. And at the extremely lower you’ll see the setups choice.
Dashboard is your primary nerve center (screenshot over), Start writing is where you develop and release e-newsletters, Blog posts is where you can see all of your previous newsletter editions, Target market is where you can view who your clients are (and break them down right into sectors), Grow is where you have accessibility 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 newsletter with advertisements, Style is where you design your newsletter landing page and article template, Evaluate is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can manage all of your admin things.
Writing your newsletter
beehiiv makes it simple to start writing, with little to no rubbing. If you’re just beginning, and have a concept you want to write about, I suggest just going to the “Compose” section in the navbar and clicking on “Beginning creating”.
You can modify your template and styling later– focus on the material initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor offers a tidy and user-friendly interface for writing.
When you start creating, you can enhance headings, include web links, and style your content just how you such as.
beehiiv offers you tons of options for different types of material like videos, links, images, and extra.
The team at beehiiv is likewise regularly launching item feature and updates so I’m sure there will certainly be a lot extra content features depending upon when you read this.
Maximizing your setups and templates
Once you have an e-newsletter that’s ready to send out, it’s time to develop your e-mail template and change some settings.
Below, you can update the name of your newsletter, offer it a summary, add your logo design, switch on or off a welcome email to very first time customers, and much more.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your design.
You can modify history shades, boundaries, spacing, typefaces, image styles, and much more. I’m not going to undergo ever before solitary point you can maximize with your e-mail template since it’s a great deal. Just check out the platform free of charge and see it on your own!
Important beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of outstanding features that make it a fantastic posting system for any kind of e-newsletter designer.
Below are several of the crucial features you can locate with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder Beehiiv Lifetime Offer
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter posting system. It makes it very easy to write and send out emails. I pointed out over a few of the important things you can do with your setups and e-mail layout so I’ll spare you some added analysis.
The thing to note with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has a really modern and minimalistic feel. It’s most definitely one of the far better email editors I’ve ever written in.
Web site hosting
When you produce a beehiiv e-newsletter, all of your e-newsletters (if you desire) live on an internet site. Think about it as a web site for your newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous problems of your e-newsletter, and a place where individuals can subscribe to your newsletter.
If you recognize with Substack, it’s practically comparable to that.
All plans, including the free one, provide you a website. Nonetheless, the free plan areas your internet site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you intend to include a custom-made domain name to remove all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining subscribers is very important. After all, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can register for your e-newsletter directly from your beehiiv web site or through embed forms.
If you already have a site, and want individuals to sign up for your newsletter from your existing site, you’ll need to make use of an embed kind. This is what I use on this website (you can see the sign-up installed on the right hand column of this post if you scroll up).
With embed types, you have three different options– a complete size, a dealt with width, and a slim installed. I directly utilize the slim installed.
You can find the code fragment for these embeds in the “Subscribe Kinds” tab in your settings.
There’s also a choice for attribution tracking if you intend to ahead UTM parameters for tracking functions– quite 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, yet I stated a few issues 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 newsletter system, is a remedy for developing a referral program.
You can motivate existing clients on your list to ahead your e-mails to friends and coworkers and if they obtain other individuals to register for your list, you can reward them. These rewards can be in whatever form you desire. I have actually appear lots of newsletter companies offer benefits in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously turn your subscribers right into a word of mouth development engine for your newsletter– offering you an additional method for expanding your email checklist.
Nevertheless, to get accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll need to upgrade to a much more premium plan. I’ll go over all the plans later on in this post.
Costs subscriptions
They say all you need to make a living online is 1,000 real fans. Membership profits is most definitely a monster of its own. If you’re trying to find a system to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can create “premium” concerns of your newsletter that are just sent to paying subscribers. This can be really lucrative depending on what your e-newsletter needs to supply. As an example, Trends.co is a popular premium newsletter that generates millions in profits a year simply by having pay-only e-newsletter web content.
Data analytics
Among the things I enjoy about beehiiv is how tidy and simple 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 sight on exactly how your e-newsletter is actually doing. Logging into your dashboard and seeing that subscriber matter increase is absolutely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv provides four various pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (cost-free) Launch plan gives you everything you require to get started and grow your newsletter (approximately 2,500 clients).
The Scale plan ($ 39/month) provides you whatever in the Launch plan with the addition the ad network, referral program, personalized domain name, polls, and accessibility to premium subscriptions. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 76/month) gives you whatever in the Grow plan with addition of priority support and removing the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are quite generous in my point of view.
As an example, if you have 100,000 subscribers you will pay around $329 each month. As opposed to some competitors, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would certainly bill $679 each month for the same amount– making beehiiv a wonderful Kit option for several individuals.
I’m unsure how the device economics deal with this, yet beehiiv is certainly less costly (presently) than what it can be.
beehiiv pros and cons
Naturally, with every system, it has its pros and cons. Below are several of the advantages and disadvantages I have actually personally experienced while making use of beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Right here are a few of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter system of choice:
- Easy to establish and start sending newsletters completely free
- Tidy and modern subscriber analytics
- Lots of flexibility with e-mail styles.
- Referral program feature Beehiiv Lifetime Offer
- Internet site hosting
- Develop premium options to generate income from
- Surveys
To be straightforward, I haven’t seen one more e-newsletter system that has actually had the ability to package all of these features with each other so well.
However of course, I do not want to be prejudiced so I’m going to discuss some cons.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Here are some of the cons I have actually located while making use of beehiiv:.
- Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv
- Limitations around including customized fonts
I make use of Webflow as my website building system of option (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a very long time ago). I’m not mosting likely to go in way too much information why I enjoy Webflow so much but you can read my Webflow evaluation if you would love to discover more.
Now, there really is nothing else way I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow website apart from utilizing an iframe embed. I personally don’t such as utilizing iframe’s due to the fact that they often tend to slow down my website a bit. Every single time a page on my website (with a beehiiv embed) loads, the sign-up installed is the last thing to load on the page. It’s really obvious when you get on a slow-moving net link. Yet I can get around that.
The major complaint I have is that I can’t use a regular Webflow kind (which I love making use of). There are means around this by utilizing a device like Zapier however that would just add extra prices that I do not require. To be truthful, this is even more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv con yet I believed I would discuss it.
Besides that, I still think the pros far outweigh the disadvantages below. I’m also enthusiastic that Webflow will at some point create a much better method to incorporate with beehiiv.
Conclusion
In general, beehiiv is a fantastic solution for any individual seeking to dive into the world of e-mail marketing and e-newsletters.
The capability of this newsletter system much outweighs several that are currently on the market. And with a charitable free plan, you truly have nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are additionally fairly low-cost wherefore they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 clients on your checklist is uncommon. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k customers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it might cost you well right into the thousands monthly.
Anyways, I don’t compose testimonial messages usually. I just do when I actually use the device myself and would certainly suggest it to a friend.
I hope you discovered some quality on whether or not beehiiv is a great system for you.