I read among my favorite email e-newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the e-mail and saw the beehiiv logo design for the very first time. I clicked on it and instantly began tearing up. Beehiiv Start Trial…
Being a permanent designer is difficult. I’m typically getting pitched different devices and solutions that do not seem to be worth my time.
I presume I was emotional because I spent the last six months experimenting with various email and newsletter platforms to aid build my e-newsletter. And to be fair, there are some wonderful options for writing e-newsletters. However I couldn’t discover one that made me give a guaranteed “yes”.
The concern with several existing e-newsletter platforms is that they don’t really feel creator-centered. I want a newsletter system that lets me fully personalize my newsletter styles, makes it extremely very easy to create and send out emails, and gives me devices that assist me evaluate metrics and get even more customers.
I assume I’ve lastly located the ideal tool.
But, I understand beehiiv might not be for every person. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s really best 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 simple to layout, write, send, promote, monetize, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Developed by former workers at the famous newsletter company Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to assist developers launch and monetize their own newsletter– taking great deals of development 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 enjoy (and hate) about it, all of it’s features, and why I decided to finally go with it as my e-newsletter platform of selection.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A few months ago, I mistakenly stumbled across beehiiv. The funny story is that I have actually been on the lookout for a modern e-newsletter platform for rather some time currently. I have actually procrastinated hard when it came to ultimately introducing my newsletter.
Initially, I attempted Mailchimp. Then, a few various other indie platforms. After that, Substack. And finally, I ended up using beehiiv.
I make certain numerous e-newsletter makers respect prominent newsletters with numerous customers– I understand I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I looked up to a whole lot. They have excellent content, tons of subscribers, and a brilliant referral program that allows them to get even much more clients.
So, I went on a hunt to figure out exactly how these huge newsletters set up their logistics. What system do they utilize? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they obtain more customers? How do they develop an e-newsletter layout that stays on-brand?
When I found beehiiv for the first time, it appeared to address all of my inquiries. I believed to myself, “damn the people that developed this tool really comprehend newsletter creation and growth.” I examined who these creators of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were some of the very first marketing and growth workers at Morning Brew– my mind took off.
I knew this was going to be a various e-newsletter platform. One that’s concentrated on maker development.
Because, any type of designer understands, you require development to be able to make a living off of an e-newsletter. And discovering the ideal e-newsletter stack (that ranges) usually suggests making use of several different tools to help achieve one goal– one platform for your e-newsletter, one platform to generate income from, and one platform to set up recommendations. It can get pricey.
So when I figured out beehiiv did all of these things in one platform, and it was totally free to start utilizing, 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 an excellent platform used by thousands of independent writers. With Substack you obtain your own web site and use the system as your all-in-one remedy for sending emails (while producing an archive of previous problems).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s devotion to growth. beehiiv enables you do to all the things Substack can do, with the benefit of better analytics, more layout flexibilty, and a referral program to urge your existing customers to get words out.
beehiiv additionally provides you a site similar to Substack. But, if you have your own web site currently, you can likewise utilize beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I utilize) to send your internet site customers right to your beehiiv email checklist. On the exact same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a device like Revue to permit people to subscribe to your e-newsletter straight from Twitter.
This offers you the versatility to leverage various marketing channels to obtain your newsletter out into the world, making beehiiv a terrific Substack option.
Exactly how to start using beehiiv e-mail marketing software.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean content creator that wants a platform that allows them to send custom-made 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 giving you those tools.
If you’re an independent writer, media company, start-up, or content developer, you need to seriously considering trying out beehiiv. It’s absolutely free to begin and you just pay when you reach over 2,500 clients on your listing.
If you actually end up needing to pay for beehiiv it’s possibly an excellent indicator that people love reviewing your stuff.
Sign up for 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 site.
The free plan will enable you to have up to 2,500 customers, offer you access to web site hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, advancement customization, analytics, external embed forms, and a lot more. It’s an extremely charitable offering for those just beginning (or for those seeking a brand-new system to move to).
Onboarding
After producing an account, you’ll undergo an onboarding process that will ask things like, “is this your initial e-newsletter?”, “what various other platforms have you used?”, “do you have any kind of paying customers?”, and extra.
You’ll after that create a name and link for your e-newsletter’s internet site. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will certainly live on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your web site URL might be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding process, you’ll likewise select your brand colors and design to see to it your newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your dashboard
Once you reach your major dashboard, you’ll see all of your analytics and settings.
You will certainly have outlined information on how many sign-ups you’re getting and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see choices for “Beginning writing”, “Articles”, “Audience”, “Expand”, “Monetize”, “Layout” and” Assess”. And at the really bottom you’ll see the setups alternative.
Control panel is your primary control center (screenshot over), Begin writing is where you produce and release e-newsletters, Messages is where you can see every one of your previous e-newsletter editions, Audience is where you can watch who your clients are (and break 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 design your e-newsletter landing page and blog post 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.
Creating your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it very easy to start writing, with little to no rubbing. If you’re simply beginning, and have a concept you intend to discuss, I recommend simply going to the “Create” section in the navbar and clicking “Beginning composing”.
You can modify your template and styling later on– focus on the web content initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor provides a clean and user-friendly user interface for composing.
As soon as you start creating, you can maximize headings, add links, and design your web content how you such as.
beehiiv gives you lots of alternatives for different types of web content like videos, links, photos, and much more.
The team at beehiiv is likewise frequently releasing item feature and updates so I make certain there will certainly be a lot a lot more content features depending upon when you read this.
Optimizing your settings and templates
Once you have a newsletter that’s ready to send out, it’s time to develop your email template and readjust some settings.
Here, you can update the name of your e-newsletter, offer it a description, include your logo, turn on or off a welcome email to very first time customers, and a lot more.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can modify background colors, boundaries, spacing, fonts, picture layouts, and more. I’m not going to go through ever before solitary thing you can optimize with your email template due to the fact that it’s a great deal. Simply experiment with the platform for free and see it on your own!
Necessary beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of fantastic features that make it a fantastic publishing system for any kind of e-newsletter developer.
Here are several of the vital features you can discover with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder Beehiiv Start Trial
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter publishing platform. It makes it extremely very easy to compose and send emails. I mentioned over some of things you can do with your setups and e-mail style so I’ll save you some extra analysis.
The important things to note with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has an actually modern and minimalistic feel. It’s absolutely one of the much better e-mail editors I have actually ever written in.
Internet site hosting
When you create a beehiiv e-newsletter, all of your newsletters (if you want) reside on a site. Think about it as an internet site for your e-newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous concerns of your e-newsletter, and an area where people can sign up for your newsletter.
If you recognize with Substack, it’s basically comparable to that.
All plans, consisting of the free one, provide you a site. Nonetheless, the free plan locations your website on a beehiiv subdomain so if you wish to include a custom-made domain to remove all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting customers is very important. Besides, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can register for your e-newsletter right from your beehiiv internet site or through embed types.
If you already have a web site, and desire people to subscribe to your e-newsletter from your existing site, you’ll have to make use of an embed type. This is what I use on this site (you can see the sign-up installed on the right-hand man column of this post if you scroll up).
With embed kinds, you have three various alternatives– a full size, a fixed size, and a slim embed. I personally use the slim embed.
You can find the code snippet for these embeds in the “Subscribe Types” tab in your settings.
There’s likewise an option for attribution tracking if you wish to forward UTM specifications for tracking functions– quite cool.
Nonetheless, there are a few features I wish beehiiv had when it concerned subscribe features. I’m sure the group is dealing with updates for these, but I pointed out a couple of problems I had in the advantages and disadvantages section listed below.
Referral program
Among the amazing things concerning beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter platform, is a service for developing a referral program.
You can urge existing customers on your checklist to onward your e-mails to friends and colleagues and if they get other individuals to subscribe to your listing, you can reward them. These benefits can be in whatever form you want. I’ve appear numerous newsletter business offer rewards in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously turn your subscribers right into a word of mouth growth engine for your e-newsletter– giving you an additional method for expanding your e-mail listing.
However, to get access to the referral program feature, you’ll need to update to a more superior plan. I’ll look at all the plans later on in this post.
Premium memberships
They claim all you need to earn a living online is 1,000 true fans. Subscription revenue is absolutely a monster of its own. If you’re seeking a system to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can develop “costs” issues of your e-newsletter that are just sent out to paying subscribers. This can be very lucrative depending on what your e-newsletter has to supply. For instance, Trends.co is a popular premium newsletter that generates millions in earnings a year merely by having pay-only e-newsletter web content.
Information analytics
One of things I like regarding beehiiv is just how clean and straightforward the analytics are. You get real-time day on exactly how your newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and client matter.
You obtain accessibility 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 subscriber matter go up is most definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv provides four different pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (cost-free) Launch plan offers you everything you need to begin and grow your newsletter (as much as 2,500 customers).
The Scale plan ($ 39/month) gives you everything in the Launch plan with the addition the advertisement network, referral program, custom-made domain, surveys, and access to premium registrations. This is the plan I am on.
The Max plan ($ 76/month) provides you every little thing in the Grow plan with enhancement of top priority support and getting rid of the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are fairly charitable in my viewpoint.
As an example, if you have 100,000 clients you will certainly pay around $329 per month. Rather than some rivals, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would certainly charge $679 each month for the very same amount– making beehiiv a fantastic Kit choice for lots of customers.
I’m uncertain just how the system business economics work with this, but beehiiv is most definitely more affordable (currently) than what it can be.
beehiiv benefits and drawbacks
Certainly, with every platform, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Below are several of the advantages and disadvantages I have actually personally experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Right here are some of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter system of selection:
- Easy to establish and begin sending out newsletters completely free
- Clean and modern subscriber analytics
- Great deals of flexibility with email layouts.
- Referral program feature Beehiiv Start Trial
- Site hosting
- Develop premium choices to monetize
- Polls
To be straightforward, I have not seen an additional newsletter platform that has been able to package every one of these features together so well.
Yet naturally, I do not wish to be prejudiced so I’m mosting likely to discuss some cons.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Below are some of the cons I have actually found while making use of beehiiv:.
- Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv
- Limitations around adding personalized typefaces
I use Webflow as my web site building platform of option (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a long period of time ago). I’m not going to go in excessive detail why I enjoy Webflow so much however you can review my Webflow evaluation if you ‘d like to learn more.
Today, there truly is nothing else way I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow website besides making use of an iframe embed. I directly do not such as using iframe’s since they tend to decrease my site a bit. Whenever a page on my site (with a beehiiv installed) tons, the sign-up installed is the last thing to fill on the page. It’s very recognizable when you’re on a slow net connection. However I can navigate that.
The major complaint I have is that I can’t make use of a regular Webflow kind (which I enjoy making use of). There are ways around this by using a tool like Zapier however that would certainly just add added prices that I don’t require. To be honest, this is even more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv con but I assumed I would certainly mention it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros much outweigh the disadvantages here. I’m additionally hopeful that Webflow will at some point create a much better way to incorporate with beehiiv.
Verdict
Generally, beehiiv is an excellent option for anybody looking to study the world of e-mail marketing and e-newsletters.
The functionality of this e-newsletter platform much outweighs numerous 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 also rather affordable wherefore they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 customers on your list is unprecedented. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k clients, and all of these features beehiiv has, it could cost you well right into the thousands each month.
Anyways, I do not create review blog posts typically. I just do when I really use the tool myself and would advise it to a pal.
I wish you found some clarity on whether beehiiv is an excellent platform for you.