I read among my favorite email newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo design for the very first time. I clicked it and instantly started tearing up. Beehiiv Showcase…
Being a permanent creator is difficult. I’m frequently getting pitched various tools and solutions that don’t seem to be worth my time.
I think I was emotional due to the fact that I spent the last six months experimenting with various email and newsletter systems to assist build my e-newsletter. And to be fair, there are some terrific alternatives for writing e-newsletters. But I could not discover one that made me provide a certain “yes”.
The concern with lots of existing newsletter platforms is that they don’t really feel creator-centered. I want an e-newsletter platform that lets me fully customize my newsletter layouts, makes it super easy to compose and send e-mails, and provides me devices that assist me analyze metrics and get even more clients.
I assume I have actually lastly located the right device.
Yet, I understand beehiiv may not be for every person. 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 newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly e-newsletter platform that makes it very easy to style, compose, send out, promote, monetize, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Produced by previous staff members at the famous newsletter firm Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to aid makers launch and monetize their very own newsletter– taking lots of growth concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M subscribers.
In this short article, I’m mosting likely to discuss my individual experience with beehiiv, the things I enjoy (and hate) about it, all of it’s features, and why I determined to finally select it as my newsletter platform of selection.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A few months back, I accidentally stumbled across beehiiv. The funny story is that I’ve been on the lookout for a modern newsletter system for rather some time now. I’ve put things off hard when it came to lastly launching my newsletter.
First, I attempted Mailchimp. After that, a few various other indie systems. Then, Substack. And finally, I wound up utilizing beehiiv.
I make certain many newsletter developers admire preferred e-newsletters with numerous customers– I recognize I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I looked up to a whole lot. They have fantastic content, tons of subscribers, and a creative referral program that allows them to get even extra clients.
So, I took place a quest to identify how these large e-newsletters established their logistics. What platform do they use? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they obtain even more customers? How do they produce a newsletter layout that stays on-brand?
When I uncovered beehiiv for the first time, it seemed to respond to all of my questions. I thought to myself, “damn individuals that developed this device actually understand newsletter development 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 initial marketing and development workers at Morning Brew– my mind took off.
I knew this was mosting likely to be a different e-newsletter system. One that’s concentrated on creator growth.
Since, any type of creator understands, you require growth to be able to make a living off of a newsletter. And discovering the ideal newsletter pile (that ranges) commonly means utilizing multiple different devices to help attain one goal– one system for your e-newsletter, one platform to generate income from, and one platform to establish recommendations. It can get expensive.
So when I discovered beehiiv did every one of these points in one platform, and it was free to start utilizing, it was a piece of cake to give it a try.
beehiiv vs Substack
You may be asking, “isn’t there already a system for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, of course there is. Substack is an excellent platform made use of by hundreds of independent writers. With Substack you get your very own internet site and utilize the platform as your all-in-one solution for sending out e-mails (while developing an archive of previous problems).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s commitment to growth. 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 encourage your existing clients to get the word out.
beehiiv additionally gives you a site similar to Substack. However, if you have your very own site currently, you can additionally utilize beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I make use of) to send your website subscribers right to your beehiiv e-mail checklist. On the same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a device like Performance to permit people to subscribe to your e-newsletter directly from Twitter.
This provides you the adaptability to utilize various marketing channels to obtain your e-newsletter out right into the globe, making beehiiv a fantastic Substack option.
Exactly how to begin utilizing beehiiv e-mail marketing software application.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean content developer that desires a system that permits them to send out personalized newsletters with or without requiring to have a website.
The most successful e-newsletters have the right devices to develop and scale their newsletters. beehiiv targets at providing you those devices.
If you’re an independent writer, media business, start-up, or material maker, you must seriously considering trying out beehiiv. It’s absolutely complimentary to begin and you just pay when you reach over 2,500 clients on your listing.
If you really wind up having to spend for beehiiv it’s possibly an excellent 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 “Beginning trial” switch on beehiiv’s site.
The free plan will certainly permit you to have up to 2,500 clients, provide you accessibility to website hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, advance customization, analytics, exterior embed forms, and more. It’s a very charitable offering for those simply beginning (or for those seeking a brand-new platform to migrate to).
Onboarding
After producing an account, you’ll undergo an onboarding procedure that will ask things like, “is this your first e-newsletter?”, “what other platforms have you made use of?”, “do you have any kind of paying clients?”, and more.
You’ll after that produce a name and link for your e-newsletter’s web site. On the free plan, your newsletter will certainly reside on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your site link may be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding procedure, you’ll likewise select your brand name colors and design to make sure your e-newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your dashboard
Once you reach your primary control panel, you’ll see every one of your analytics and setups.
You will certainly have outlined details on the number of sign-ups you’re getting and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see alternatives for “Begin composing”, “Messages”, “Target market”, “Expand”, “Generate income from”, “Design” and” Evaluate”. And at the really lower you’ll see the setups choice.
Control panel is your major nerve center (screenshot over), Begin writing is where you produce and publish newsletters, Articles is where you can see every one of your previous e-newsletter editions, Audience is where you can watch who your customers are (and damage them down right into sectors), Grow is where you have access 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 develop your 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 start writing, with little to no friction. If you’re simply starting out, and have an idea you intend to cover, I suggest just going to the “Write” area in the navbar and clicking “Start writing”.
You can modify your template and styling later on– concentrate on the material initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor offers a tidy and straightforward interface for composing.
Once you start composing, you can optimize headings, include web links, and style your material exactly how you such as.
beehiiv provides you lots of options for different sorts of content like video clips, links, photos, and extra.
The group at beehiiv is also constantly launching item feature and updates so I make sure there will certainly be a great deal much more content features relying on when you’re reading this.
Enhancing your settings and templates
Once you have an e-newsletter that’s ready to send, it’s time to make your e-mail template and change some settings.
Here, you can upgrade the name of your e-newsletter, provide it a description, include your logo design, activate or off a welcome e-mail to first time subscribers, and a lot more.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your design.
You can edit history shades, borders, spacing, typefaces, picture layouts, and more. I’m not mosting likely to go through ever single thing you can maximize with your email template because it’s a lot. Just try the platform for free and see it for yourself!
Vital beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of remarkable features that make it a wonderful posting platform for any kind of newsletter creator.
Right here are a few of the crucial features you can find with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder Beehiiv Showcase
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter publishing platform. It makes it very very easy to compose and send e-mails. I stated above a few of the important things you can do with your setups and e-mail style so I’ll spare you some additional analysis.
The important things to keep in mind with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has a really modern-day and minimalistic feel. It’s definitely one of the much better email editors I’ve ever before written in.
Site hosting
When you develop a beehiiv newsletter, all of your newsletters (if you want) reside on an internet site. Consider it as a web site for your e-newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous issues of your newsletter, and a place where individuals can subscribe to your e-newsletter.
If you recognize with Substack, it’s basically similar to that.
All plans, including the totally free one, offer you a site. Nonetheless, the free plan places your website on a beehiiv subdomain so if you intend to include a personalized domain name to get rid of all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining clients is important. Nevertheless, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can sign up for your newsletter right from your beehiiv internet site or via embed kinds.
If you currently have a site, and want individuals to sign up for your newsletter from your existing website, you’ll have to use an embed kind. This is what I make use of on this web site (you can see the sign-up embed on the right hand column of this article if you scroll up).
With embed types, you have 3 different alternatives– a complete width, a fixed width, and a slim installed. I personally utilize the slim embed.
You can locate the code bit for these embeds in the “Subscribe Kinds” tab in your setups.
There’s additionally a choice for attribution tracking if you wish to onward UTM criteria for tracking functions– pretty neat.
Nonetheless, there are a couple of features I desire beehiiv had when it pertained to subscribe features. I make sure the team is working with updates for these, but I discussed a few problems I had in the advantages and disadvantages area listed below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things regarding beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter system, is an option for developing a referral program.
You can encourage existing customers on your checklist to ahead your emails to good friends and coworkers and if they get other individuals to subscribe to your checklist, you can compensate them. These benefits can be in whatever form you want. I have actually appear many newsletter business offer benefits in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously transform your clients right into a word of mouth development engine for your e-newsletter– giving you one more method for growing your email listing.
Nonetheless, to obtain accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll have to update to a more premium plan. I’ll review all the plans later on in this short article.
Premium subscriptions
They claim all you require to make a living online is 1,000 real fans. Membership income is most definitely a monster of its own. If you’re looking for a system to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can produce “premium” issues of your e-newsletter that are only sent out to paying subscribers. This can be very profitable depending upon what your e-newsletter has to offer. As an example, Trends.co is a prominent costs e-newsletter that creates millions in income a year just by having pay-only e-newsletter content.
Data analytics
One of the things I like regarding beehiiv is how tidy and basic the analytics are. You get real-time day on just how your newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and subscriber matter.
You obtain access to all the metrics you need to obtain a bird-eye view on how your newsletter is really doing. Logging into your control panel and seeing that customer count increase is certainly a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv supplies four various pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (complimentary) Launch plan provides you everything you need to begin and expand your newsletter (as much as 2,500 customers).
The Scale plan ($ 39/month) provides you everything in the Launch plan with the addition the advertisement network, referral program, personalized domain name, polls, and accessibility to costs subscriptions. This is the plan I am on.
The Max plan ($ 76/month) provides you every little thing in the Grow plan with enhancement of priority support and removing the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are rather generous in my opinion.
For example, if you have 100,000 subscribers you will certainly pay around $329 monthly. In contrast to some competitors, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would charge $679 per month for the very same amount– making beehiiv a fantastic Kit choice for lots of customers.
I’m uncertain just how the unit economics service this, yet beehiiv is most definitely less expensive (right now) than what it can be.
beehiiv pros and cons
Of course, with every system, it has its pros and cons. Here are a few of the pros and cons I have actually personally experienced while making use of beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Below are some of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter system of selection:
- Easy to establish and start sending newsletters totally free
- Clean and contemporary subscriber analytics
- Lots of adaptability with e-mail layouts.
- Referral program feature Beehiiv Showcase
- Website hosting
- Develop premium choices to generate income from
- Surveys
To be sincere, I haven’t seen an additional newsletter system that has had the ability to package all of these features with each other so well.
However of course, I do not intend to be prejudiced so I’m mosting likely to mention some disadvantages.
Cons of using beehiiv
Here are some of the cons I’ve located while using beehiiv:.
- Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv
- Limitations around including customized fonts
I utilize Webflow as my internet site building platform of choice (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a long time ago). I’m not going to go in excessive detail why I enjoy Webflow so much however you can review my Webflow review if you would love to find out more.
Right now, there actually is no other way I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow site besides utilizing an iframe embed. I directly don’t like making use of iframe’s since they have a tendency to reduce my website a bit. Every single time a web page on my site (with a beehiiv embed) tons, the sign-up embed is the last point to pack on the web page. It’s really obvious when you’re on a slow web connection. But I can navigate that.
The primary complaint I have is that I can not make use of a normal Webflow type (which I love making use of). There are means around this by utilizing a tool like Zapier however that would certainly just add additional costs that I do not need. To be truthful, this is even more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv con yet I believed I would certainly state it.
Besides that, I still think the pros far outweigh the cons here. I’m also confident that Webflow will at some point develop a better means to incorporate with beehiiv.
Verdict
On the whole, beehiiv is a wonderful solution for any person wanting to study the globe of e-mail marketing and newsletters.
The functionality of this newsletter platform far outweighs lots of that are presently on the marketplace. And with a generous free plan, you really have nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are likewise fairly economical of what they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 customers on your list is unheard of. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k customers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it might cost you well into the thousands per month.
Anyways, I do not write evaluation blog posts often. I just do when I really use the device myself and would certainly recommend it to a friend.
I hope you discovered some clarity on whether beehiiv is a good platform for you.