I read one of my favored e-mail newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo design for the first time. I clicked it and immediately began wrecking. Beehiiv Markdown…
Being a permanent creator is tough. I’m frequently getting pitched various tools and solutions that don’t seem to be worth my time.
I presume I was psychological since I spent the last 6 months trying various email and e-newsletter platforms to aid build my newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some terrific options for composing e-newsletters. However I couldn’t locate one that made me offer a definite “yes”.
The problem with lots of existing newsletter platforms is that they do not really feel creator-centered. I desire a newsletter system that lets me completely personalize my e-newsletter designs, makes it incredibly easy to create and send out emails, and gives me tools that aid me assess metrics and get even more subscribers.
I believe I’ve finally found the ideal device.
Yet, I know beehiiv may not be for everyone. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s really ideal for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one platform for newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly e-newsletter platform that makes it simple to layout, write, send out, advertise, generate income from, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Produced by previous employees at the famous e-newsletter business Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to aid creators launch and monetize their own newsletter– taking lots of growth principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M clients.
In this post, I’m mosting likely to discuss my personal experience with beehiiv, things I like (and hate) about it, all of it’s features, and why I determined to ultimately select it as my newsletter system of selection.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A couple of months earlier, I accidentally stumbled across beehiiv. The funny story is that I have actually been on the lookout for a contemporary newsletter system for quite time currently. I have actually procrastinated hard when it pertained to finally launching my e-newsletter.
Initially, I attempted Mailchimp. Then, a couple of various other indie platforms. Then, Substack. And lastly, I wound up using beehiiv.
I make certain numerous newsletter makers admire preferred newsletters with millions of subscribers– I understand I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I respected a lot. They have excellent web content, tons of clients, and a creative referral program that permits them to get back at extra clients.
So, I took place a quest to figure out exactly how these large newsletters established their logistics. What platform do they make use of? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they get more customers? How do they develop an e-newsletter layout that stays on-brand?
When I found beehiiv for the very first time, it appeared to answer every one of my questions. I thought to myself, “damn individuals that built this device actually recognize newsletter production and development.” I questioned who these creators of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were several of the very first marketing and development staff members at Morning Brew– my brain took off.
I recognized this was mosting likely to be a different e-newsletter system. One that’s focused on developer development.
Due to the fact that, any kind of maker knows, you require growth to be able to make a living off of an e-newsletter. And finding the right e-newsletter stack (that scales) commonly indicates utilizing several various devices to help achieve 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 discovered beehiiv did all of these things in one system, and it was totally 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 platform for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, yes there is. Substack is a wonderful system used by countless independent authors. With Substack you get your own web site and use the system as your all-in-one solution for sending emails (while creating an archive of previous concerns).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s dedication to development. beehiiv enables you do to all the things Substack can do, with the benefit of much better analytics, more design flexibilty, and a referral program to urge your existing customers to get words out.
beehiiv additionally offers you a website similar to Substack. Yet, if you have your own web site currently, you can likewise use beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I make use of) to send your web site clients straight to your beehiiv email list. On the same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a tool like Revue to enable people to subscribe to your newsletter directly from Twitter.
This provides you the adaptability to utilize different marketing channels to obtain your newsletter out into the globe, making beehiiv a fantastic Substack option.
Just how to begin using beehiiv e-mail marketing software.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean web content creator that wants a system that permits them to send personalized newsletters with or without requiring to have an internet site.
One of the most effective newsletters have the right devices to build and scale their newsletters. beehiiv targets at providing you those devices.
If you’re an independent writer, media business, start-up, or web content maker, you ought to seriously taking into consideration trying out beehiiv. It’s totally cost-free to get going and you just pay when you get to over 2,500 clients on your listing.
If you actually wind up having to pay for beehiiv it’s probably a good indication that individuals like reading your stuff.
Sign up for a free plan
The primary step is to register for a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Start trial” button on beehiiv’s website.
The free plan will certainly allow you to have up to 2,500 clients, offer you access to web site hosting, a newsletter CMS, advancement modification, analytics, outside embed types, and much more. It’s a really charitable offering for those simply starting (or for those looking for a new platform to move to).
Onboarding
After creating an account, you’ll undergo an onboarding procedure that will ask points like, “is this your initial e-newsletter?”, “what other platforms have you used?”, “do you have any type of paying subscribers?”, and much more.
You’ll after that produce a name and link for your newsletter’s website. On the free plan, your newsletter will certainly reside on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your internet site link could be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding procedure, you’ll also choose your brand design and colors to make sure your e-newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your control panel
Once you reach your major dashboard, you’ll see all of your analytics and setups.
You will have outlined details on the amount of sign-ups you’re getting and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see choices for “Begin creating”, “Messages”, “Audience”, “Grow”, “Generate income from”, “Design” and” Analyze”. And at the really lower you’ll see the settings choice.
Dashboard is your primary control center (screenshot above), Beginning composing is where you create and release e-newsletters, Messages is where you can see all of your previous newsletter editions, Audience is where you can watch who your clients are (and damage 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 ads, Design is where you create your newsletter landing page and article template, Evaluate is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can take care of every one of your admin things.
Composing your newsletter
beehiiv makes it very easy to begin writing, with little to no rubbing. If you’re just beginning, and have a concept you wish to write about, I suggest simply going to the “Compose” area in the navbar and clicking “Beginning composing”.
You can tweak your template and styling later– focus on the material first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor provides a clean and user-friendly user interface for writing.
As soon as you start writing, you can enhance headings, add web links, and style your content just how you such as.
beehiiv provides you tons of choices for various kinds of content like video clips, links, photos, and a lot more.
The group at beehiiv is also frequently releasing product feature and updates so I make sure there will certainly be a lot a lot more material features depending on when you read this.
Optimizing your setups and templates
When you have a newsletter that’s ready to send out, it’s time to make your e-mail template and change some setups.
Below, you can update the name of your e-newsletter, give it a summary, add your logo design, turn on or off a welcome email to first time subscribers, and a lot more.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your design.
You can modify history colors, borders, spacing, font styles, image styles, and much more. I’m not going to go through ever before single thing you can enhance with your email template due to the fact that it’s a great deal. Just try out the platform absolutely free and see it on your own!
Crucial beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of remarkable features that make it a fantastic publishing system for any kind of newsletter designer.
Right here are some of the crucial features you can discover with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder Beehiiv Markdown
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter publishing system. It makes it incredibly simple to compose and send e-mails. I stated over a few of things you can do with your setups and e-mail design so I’ll spare you some additional analysis.
Things to keep in mind with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has a truly contemporary and minimalistic feel. It’s most definitely among the much better e-mail editors I’ve ever before written in.
Web site hosting
When you produce a beehiiv e-newsletter, every one of your e-newsletters (if you want) reside on an internet site. Think of it as a web site for your newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous problems of your e-newsletter, and a location where people can subscribe to your newsletter.
If you’re familiar with Substack, it’s virtually similar to that.
All plans, consisting of the free one, offer you a web site. Nonetheless, the free plan locations your site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you wish to include a custom-made domain to get rid of all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining clients is essential. Besides, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can sign up for your e-newsletter straight from your beehiiv site or with embed types.
If you already have an internet site, and want individuals to subscribe to your e-newsletter from your existing website, you’ll have to make use of an embed kind. This is what I make use of on this web site (you can see the sign-up installed on the right hand column of this article if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have three different choices– a full width, a repaired width, and a slim installed. I directly make use of the slim installed.
You can locate the code fragment for these embeds in the “Subscribe Kinds” tab in your setups.
There’s additionally an alternative for acknowledgment tracking if you intend to forward UTM parameters for tracking purposes– quite neat.
Nevertheless, there are a few features I wish beehiiv had when it concerned subscribe features. I make sure the team is dealing with updates for these, however I pointed out a few issues I had in the advantages and disadvantages section listed below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things about beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter platform, is an option for creating a referral program.
You can encourage existing subscribers on your listing to ahead your e-mails to close friends and coworkers and if they obtain other people to sign up for your list, you can compensate them. These incentives can be in whatever type you want. I’ve seem lots of newsletter companies offer incentives in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously turn your subscribers into a word of mouth growth engine for your e-newsletter– providing you an additional opportunity for growing your e-mail listing.
Nevertheless, to get accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll need to update to a much more superior plan. I’ll look at all the plans later on in this article.
Costs subscriptions
They state all you require to earn a living online is 1,000 real fans. Registration income is certainly a monster of its own. If you’re seeking a platform to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can create “premium” problems of your e-newsletter that are only sent to paying clients. This can be really profitable depending upon what your newsletter needs to provide. For example, Trends.co is a prominent premium e-newsletter that produces millions in income a year simply by having pay-only e-newsletter content.
Data analytics
Among things I enjoy concerning beehiiv is exactly how clean and easy the analytics are. You obtain real-time day on how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and customer matter.
You get access to all the metrics you need to get a bird-eye view on exactly how your e-newsletter is really doing. Logging into your dashboard and seeing that client matter go up is most definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv offers 4 different pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (cost-free) Launch plan provides you everything you need to get going and expand your newsletter (as much as 2,500 customers).
The Scale plan ($ 39/month) gives you everything in the Launch plan with the addition the ad network, referral program, personalized domain, polls, and accessibility to costs memberships. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 76/month) provides you everything in the Grow plan with addition of priority support and getting rid of the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are fairly generous in my viewpoint.
For instance, if you have 100,000 clients you will pay around $329 per month. Rather than some competitors, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would charge $679 each month for the very same amount– making beehiiv a fantastic Kit alternative for several users.
I’m uncertain exactly how the system business economics service this, however beehiiv is absolutely cheaper (at the moment) than what it can be.
beehiiv advantages and disadvantages
Certainly, with every platform, it has its pros and cons. Right here are a few of the benefits and drawbacks I have actually directly experienced while utilizing beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Below are several of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter platform of selection:
- Easy to establish and start sending e-newsletters free of charge
- Clean and contemporary customer analytics
- Lots of flexibility with e-mail layouts.
- Referral program feature Beehiiv Markdown
- Internet site hosting
- Create premium options to generate income from
- Surveys
To be straightforward, I have not seen an additional e-newsletter system that has been able to package all of these features together so well.
However naturally, I don’t wish to be biased so I’m mosting likely to discuss some disadvantages.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Below are a few of the disadvantages I have actually located while using beehiiv:.
- Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv
- Limitations around adding custom-made font styles
I make use of Webflow as my website building platform of selection (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a long period of time ago). I’m not mosting likely to go in way too much information why I love Webflow a lot however you can read my Webflow testimonial if you would love to discover more.
Now, there actually is no other way I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow website aside from making use of an iframe embed. I personally don’t such as using iframe’s since they have a tendency to slow down my website a bit. Every time a page on my site (with a beehiiv installed) tons, the sign-up installed is the last point to load on the web page. It’s really visible when you’re on a slow internet connection. But I can navigate that.
The major complaint I have is that I can not make use of a normal Webflow kind (which I like utilizing). There are ways around this by utilizing a device like Zapier however that would certainly simply add extra prices that I do not require. To be honest, this is more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv disadvantage yet I believed I would certainly discuss it.
Besides that, I still think the pros far surpass the cons right here. I’m likewise confident that Webflow will at some point develop a much better way to integrate with beehiiv.
Final Thought
On the whole, beehiiv is a wonderful solution for any person looking to dive into the globe of email marketing and newsletters.
The functionality of this e-newsletter system much 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 additionally fairly affordable for what they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 subscribers on your checklist is unheard of. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k customers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it can cost you well right into the thousands per month.
Anyways, I don’t compose evaluation blog posts frequently. I only do when I really make use of the tool myself and would advise it to a pal.
I hope you discovered some quality on whether beehiiv is a good platform for you.