I read among my favorite email newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the e-mail and saw the beehiiv logo for the very first time. I clicked on it and instantly started wrecking. Beehiiv Media Collective…
Being a full-time designer is difficult. I’m frequently obtaining pitched various devices and solutions that don’t seem to be worth my time.
I think I was emotional because I spent the last 6 months checking out various e-mail and e-newsletter systems to aid construct my newsletter. And to be fair, there are some fantastic options for writing e-newsletters. But I could not find one that made me provide a guaranteed “yes”.
The problem with numerous existing newsletter systems is that they do not really feel creator-centered. I want a newsletter platform that lets me totally tailor my newsletter designs, makes it incredibly very easy to create and send e-mails, and gives me devices that assist me examine metrics and get even more customers.
I think I have actually ultimately discovered the best tool.
Yet, I know beehiiv might not be for everybody. 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 e-newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter system that makes it very easy to design, compose, send, promote, monetize, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Produced by former employees at the popular newsletter business Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to help makers launch and monetize their very own newsletter– taking lots of growth concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M customers.
In this write-up, I’m mosting likely to describe my personal experience with beehiiv, the things I love (and hate) about it, all of it’s features, and why I chose to lastly select it as my newsletter platform of option.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A couple of months ago, I unintentionally came across beehiiv. The funny story is that I have actually been on the lookout for a modern newsletter platform for rather some time now. I’ve put things off hard when it came to ultimately introducing my e-newsletter.
Initially, I attempted Mailchimp. After that, a couple of various other indie platforms. Then, Substack. And lastly, I ended up using beehiiv.
I make sure numerous newsletter designers appreciate popular e-newsletters with millions of subscribers– I recognize I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I admired a whole lot. They have wonderful content, tons of subscribers, and a creative referral program that permits them to get back at much more subscribers.
So, I took place a hunt to determine how these large newsletters set up their logistics. What platform do they make use of? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they get more subscribers? How do they create an e-newsletter layout that remains on-brand?
When I discovered beehiiv for the first time, it appeared to respond to every one of my inquiries. I believed to myself, “damn the people that developed this device actually understand newsletter production and growth.” I questioned who these creators of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were some of the first marketing and growth workers at Morning Brew– my mind blew up.
I recognized this was going to be a various newsletter platform. One that’s concentrated on creator growth.
Because, any type of creator knows, you need development to be able to make a living off of a newsletter. And finding the right e-newsletter stack (that scales) often implies utilizing multiple various devices to aid accomplish one objective– one platform for your newsletter, one system to monetize, and one system to establish recommendations. It can obtain costly.
So when I found out beehiiv did every one of these points in one platform, and it was free to start making use of, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
beehiiv vs Substack
You might be asking, “isn’t there currently a platform for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, of course there is. Substack is a wonderful system used by countless independent authors. With Substack you get your very own web site and utilize the system as your all-in-one option for sending out emails (while creating an archive of previous concerns).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s devotion to growth. beehiiv allows you do to all the important things Substack can do, with the advantage of far better analytics, more layout flexibilty, and a referral program to urge your existing subscribers to obtain the word out.
beehiiv also gives you a website similar to Substack. However, if you have your own internet site currently, you can likewise make use of beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I make use of) to send your web site customers right to your beehiiv email checklist. On the exact same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a tool like Revue to permit individuals to sign up for your e-newsletter straight from Twitter.
This offers you the flexibility to take advantage of various marketing networks to obtain your newsletter out right into the world, making beehiiv an excellent Substack option.
Just how to begin making use of beehiiv e-mail marketing software.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean content maker that desires a platform that enables them to send custom e-newsletters with or without needing to have a site.
One of the most effective e-newsletters have the right devices to develop and scale their newsletters. beehiiv aims at offering you those tools.
If you’re an independent author, media business, startup, or content maker, you need to seriously thinking about experimenting with beehiiv. It’s totally free to start and you just pay when you reach over 2,500 subscribers on your checklist.
If you really wind up having to pay for beehiiv it’s possibly an excellent indicator that people enjoy reading your things.
Enroll in a free plan
The first step is to sign up for a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Begin trial” button on beehiiv’s website.
The free plan will allow you to have up to 2,500 customers, offer you accessibility to internet site hosting, a newsletter CMS, advance customization, analytics, outside embed kinds, and extra. It’s a very charitable offering for those just beginning (or for those looking for a new system to migrate to).
Onboarding
After developing an account, you’ll go through an onboarding process that will ask points like, “is this your very first e-newsletter?”, “what various other platforms have you made use of?”, “do you have any type of paying subscribers?”, and extra.
You’ll after that develop a name and link for your e-newsletter’s internet site. On the free plan, your newsletter will certainly reside on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your web site URL might be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding process, you’ll additionally pick your brand colors and design to make sure your e-newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your control panel
As soon as you reach your major control panel, you’ll see all of your analytics and setups.
You will have described information on the number of sign-ups you’re getting and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see choices for “Begin composing”, “Posts”, “Audience”, “Expand”, “Monetize”, “Style” and” Evaluate”. And at the extremely lower you’ll see the settings alternative.
Control panel is your major nerve center (screenshot above), Beginning composing is where you produce and publish newsletters, Messages is where you can see all of your previous newsletter editions, Audience is where you can see who your subscribers are (and damage them down right into sections), 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 e-newsletter with advertisements, Design is where you design your e-newsletter landing page and blog post template, Analyze is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can manage every one of your admin stuff.
Composing your newsletter
beehiiv makes it simple to begin creating, with little to no rubbing. If you’re simply starting out, and have a concept you intend to blog about, I advise just mosting likely to the “Create” area in the navbar and clicking on “Beginning creating”.
You can tweak your template and designing later– concentrate on the content initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor provides a tidy and straightforward user interface for creating.
Once you start writing, you can optimize headings, include links, and style your content exactly how you like.
beehiiv provides you lots of alternatives for different kinds of web content like videos, web links, images, and more.
The group at beehiiv is also frequently launching product feature and updates so I make certain there will be a lot extra material features relying on when you’re reading this.
Enhancing your settings and templates
When you have a newsletter that’s ready to send, it’s time to design your email template and adjust some setups.
Here, you can update the name of your e-newsletter, offer it a description, add your logo design, activate or off a welcome e-mail to very first time customers, and much more.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can edit background shades, boundaries, spacing, typefaces, picture layouts, and a lot more. I’m not going to undergo ever single thing you can optimize with your e-mail template because it’s a great deal. Just try out the platform free of charge and see it on your own!
Crucial beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of impressive features that make it a great publishing platform for any newsletter creator.
Below are some of the necessary features you can discover with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder Beehiiv Media Collective
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter posting system. It makes it super easy to write and send out emails. I pointed out above several of the things you can do with your setups and e-mail style so I’ll save you some added reading.
The important things to keep in mind with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has an actually modern and minimalistic feel. It’s definitely among the better email editors I’ve ever before written in.
Internet site hosting
When you create a beehiiv e-newsletter, all of your e-newsletters (if you want) survive on an internet site. Think about it as a website for your newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous problems of your e-newsletter, and a place where people can sign up for your newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s practically similar to that.
All plans, including the totally free one, give you an internet site. However, the free plan areas your web site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you wish to include a customized domain to eliminate all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting subscribers is very important. Nevertheless, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can sign up for your e-newsletter right from your beehiiv internet site or via embed types.
If you currently have a website, and desire individuals to sign up for your e-newsletter from your existing site, you’ll have to use an embed kind. This is what I make use of on this website (you can see the sign-up embed on the right-hand man column of this article if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have 3 various options– a complete size, a fixed width, and a slim installed. I personally make use of the slim embed.
You can discover the code fragment for these embeds in the “Subscribe Forms” tab in your settings.
There’s also an alternative for attribution monitoring if you want to onward UTM criteria for tracking objectives– rather neat.
Nevertheless, there are a few features I desire beehiiv had when it involved subscribe features. I’m sure the group is working on updates for these, but I discussed a few issues I had in the pros and cons area listed below.
Referral program
Among the amazing things regarding beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter system, is an option for creating a referral program.
You can motivate existing customers on your list to forward your e-mails to friends and coworkers and if they obtain other individuals to sign up for your checklist, you can award them. These rewards can be in whatever kind you want. I’ve seem numerous e-newsletter business offer benefits 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– offering you an additional method for expanding your e-mail checklist.
However, to get access to the referral program feature, you’ll have to upgrade to a more superior plan. I’ll review all the plans later in this write-up.
Costs memberships
They claim all you require to earn a living online is 1,000 true followers. Subscription profits is definitely a beast of its very own. If you’re looking for a platform to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can create “premium” issues of your newsletter that are only sent to paying clients. This can be really profitable depending on what your e-newsletter has to offer. As an example, Trends.co is a preferred costs e-newsletter that creates millions in profits a year simply by having pay-only e-newsletter web content.
Information analytics
One of things I enjoy regarding beehiiv is just how clean and easy the analytics are. You get real-time date on how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and client count.
You get accessibility to all the metrics you require to get a bird-eye sight on just how your e-newsletter is really doing. Logging into your dashboard and seeing that customer matter rise is certainly a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv provides 4 various pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (cost-free) Launch plan offers you whatever you need to get going and expand your e-newsletter (as much as 2,500 clients).
The Scale plan ($ 39/month) provides you everything in the Launch plan with the enhancement the ad network, referral program, custom-made domain, polls, and accessibility to costs subscriptions. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 76/month) gives you everything in the Grow plan with addition of concern support and getting rid of the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are quite charitable in my point of view.
For instance, if you have 100,000 clients you will certainly pay around $329 per month. In contrast to some rivals, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would certainly charge $679 each month for the very same amount– making beehiiv a fantastic Kit alternative for numerous customers.
I’m uncertain just how the system business economics work on this, however beehiiv is absolutely cheaper (right now) than what it can be.
beehiiv pros and cons
Obviously, with every platform, it has its benefits and drawbacks. Below are some of the pros and cons I’ve directly experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Right here are some of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter platform of choice:
- Easy to set up and start sending out newsletters absolutely free
- Clean and modern-day client analytics
- Lots of flexibility with e-mail layouts.
- Referral program feature Beehiiv Media Collective
- Internet site hosting
- Produce premium alternatives to generate income from
- Surveys
To be sincere, I have not seen another e-newsletter platform that has been able to package every one of these features with each other so well.
Yet naturally, I do not want to be prejudiced so I’m going to point out some disadvantages.
Cons of using beehiiv
Below are a few of the disadvantages I have actually found while making use of beehiiv:.
- Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv
- Limitations around including customized typefaces
I make use of Webflow as my web site structure system of choice (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a long period of time ago). I’m not mosting likely to enter way too much information why I enjoy Webflow so much yet you can read my Webflow testimonial if you wish to discover more.
Right now, there actually is nothing else method I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow web site apart from utilizing an iframe embed. I directly do not like using iframe’s due to the fact that they often tend to reduce my web site a bit. Whenever a page on my website (with a beehiiv installed) loads, the sign-up embed is the last point to load on the page. It’s very noticeable when you get on a sluggish net link. However I can navigate that.
The main complaint I have is that I can’t use a regular Webflow type (which I enjoy using). There are methods around this by using a device like Zapier however that would just include added costs that I don’t need. To be straightforward, this is more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv disadvantage but I believed I would mention it.
Besides that, I still think the pros far surpass the cons here. I’m likewise confident that Webflow will ultimately produce a better way to incorporate with beehiiv.
Verdict
In general, beehiiv is a terrific solution for anybody seeking to study the globe of email marketing and e-newsletters.
The performance of this e-newsletter system far outweighs lots of that are presently on the market. And with a charitable free plan, you really have absolutely nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are additionally fairly cheap of what they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 customers on your checklist is uncommon. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k clients, and all of these features beehiiv has, it can cost you well right into the thousands each month.
Anyways, I do not write review blog posts typically. I only do when I actually utilize the tool myself and would certainly suggest it to a friend.
I wish you discovered some clearness on whether beehiiv is an excellent system for you.