I was reading one of my favored e-mail 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 promptly began tearing up. Beehiiv Subscriber Management…
Being a full time creator is difficult. I’m typically getting pitched various tools and solutions that don’t seem to be worth my time.
I presume I was emotional since I invested the last six months experimenting with various email and e-newsletter platforms to aid develop my newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some excellent choices for creating e-newsletters. But I could not locate one that made me provide a certain “yes”.
The issue with numerous existing newsletter platforms is that they do not really feel creator-centered. I want an e-newsletter platform that lets me completely tailor my e-newsletter styles, makes it extremely easy to write and send e-mails, and offers me tools that assist me evaluate metrics and get more subscribers.
I believe I have actually finally discovered the ideal device.
But, I recognize 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 platform for e-newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter system that makes it easy to layout, create, send out, promote, monetize, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Produced by former staff members at the renowned newsletter company Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to assist developers launch and monetize their own e-newsletter– taking lots of growth concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M subscribers.
In this post, 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 chose to finally go with it as my newsletter platform of option.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A couple of months earlier, I unintentionally came across beehiiv. The amusing tale is that I’ve watched for a contemporary e-newsletter system for fairly some time currently. I’ve procrastinated hard when it involved finally introducing my newsletter.
Initially, I tried Mailchimp. Then, a couple of other indie platforms. After that, Substack. And ultimately, I ended up using beehiiv.
I make certain several e-newsletter creators admire popular e-newsletters with millions of clients– I understand I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I looked up to a lot. They have wonderful material, lots of customers, and a clever referral program that permits them to get back at much more clients.
So, I went on a quest to identify just how these big e-newsletters set up their logistics. What platform do they use? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they obtain more clients? How do they create an e-newsletter design that remains on-brand?
When I uncovered beehiiv for the very first time, it appeared to respond to every one of my concerns. I believed to myself, “damn individuals that constructed this device actually recognize newsletter creation and growth.” I questioned who these designers of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were several of the very first marketing and growth employees at Morning Brew– my mind took off.
I understood this was mosting likely to be a different e-newsletter system. One that’s concentrated on maker growth.
Due to the fact that, any kind of developer recognizes, you need development to be able to earn a living off of a newsletter. And finding the best e-newsletter stack (that scales) usually implies utilizing numerous different devices to assist achieve one goal– one system for your e-newsletter, one system to monetize, and one platform to establish references. It can get expensive.
So when I found out beehiiv did all of these points in one platform, and it was totally free to start utilizing, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
beehiiv vs Substack
You may be asking, “isn’t there already a platform for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, yes there is. Substack is an excellent platform used by hundreds of independent authors. With Substack you get your very own site and make use of the system as your all-in-one remedy for sending emails (while creating an archive of previous issues).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s devotion to growth. beehiiv enables you do to all the important things Substack can do, with the advantage of much better analytics, even more style flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing customers to obtain words out.
beehiiv likewise offers you a site similar to Substack. Yet, if you have your very own web site already, you can also utilize beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I utilize) to send your website customers straight to your beehiiv email listing. On the exact same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a tool like Performance to permit individuals to sign up for your e-newsletter directly from Twitter.
This provides you the flexibility to leverage various marketing channels to get your newsletter out into the globe, making beehiiv a fantastic Substack option.
How to begin using beehiiv e-mail marketing software application.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean material maker that wants a system that permits them to send custom e-newsletters with or without requiring to have an internet site.
The most effective e-newsletters have the right tools to develop and scale their newsletters. beehiiv aims at offering you those devices.
If you’re an independent author, media firm, startup, or content maker, you must seriously taking into consideration checking out beehiiv. It’s entirely cost-free to get going and you only pay when you reach over 2,500 customers on your list.
If you really wind up having to pay for beehiiv it’s possibly an excellent indication that individuals like reviewing your stuff.
Register for a free plan
The initial step is to register for a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Start trial” switch on beehiiv’s internet site.
The free plan will allow you to have up to 2,500 customers, provide you access to site hosting, a newsletter CMS, advancement customization, analytics, external embed types, and extra. It’s a very generous offering for those simply beginning (or for those trying to find a new system to move to).
Onboarding
After developing an account, you’ll experience an onboarding process that will ask things like, “is this your first newsletter?”, “what other platforms have you used?”, “do you have any type of paying customers?”, and more.
You’ll after that develop a name and link for your e-newsletter’s website. On the free plan, your newsletter will live on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your web site link might be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding procedure, you’ll likewise pick your brand name colors and design to make sure your newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your control panel
When you reach your primary control panel, you’ll see every one of your analytics and setups.
You will certainly have described details on the amount of sign-ups you’re obtaining and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see choices for “Begin composing”, “Posts”, “Target market”, “Expand”, “Generate income from”, “Design” and” Examine”. And at the really bottom you’ll see the setups alternative.
Control panel is your major nerve center (screenshot over), Start writing is where you create and release e-newsletters, Blog posts is where you can see every one of your previous e-newsletter versions, Audience is where you can see who your clients are (and break them down right into sectors), Expand 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, Layout is where you create your e-newsletter landing page and post template, Assess is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can take care of all of your admin things.
Writing your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it very easy to start writing, with little to no friction. If you’re just starting, and have a concept you wish to write about, I recommend simply mosting likely to the “Write” section in the navbar and clicking “Beginning creating”.
You can fine-tune your template and designing later on– concentrate on the web content initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor uses a tidy and easy to use interface for composing.
Once you start writing, you can enhance headings, include links, and design your material exactly how you like.
beehiiv provides you tons of alternatives for different kinds of content like videos, links, photos, and more.
The team at beehiiv is also regularly launching product feature and updates so I make sure there will be a great deal extra material features depending on when you’re reading this.
Optimizing your setups and templates
When you have an e-newsletter that prepares to send out, it’s time to develop your email template and change some settings.
Below, you can update the name of your e-newsletter, provide it a description, include your logo, turn on or off a welcome e-mail to first time subscribers, and much more.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your style.
You can modify history colors, boundaries, spacing, fonts, photo formats, and extra. I’m not mosting likely to undergo ever before single point you can optimize with your email template since it’s a whole lot. Simply experiment with the system for free and see it for yourself!
Necessary beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of remarkable features that make it a fantastic publishing system for any kind of e-newsletter designer.
Here are several of the necessary features you can discover with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder Beehiiv Subscriber Management
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter publishing system. It makes it very simple to compose and send emails. I pointed out over some of the things you can do with your settings and e-mail design so I’ll spare you some additional reading.
Things to note with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has an actually modern and minimalistic feel. It’s absolutely among the much better email editors I have actually ever written in.
Internet site hosting
When you develop a beehiiv e-newsletter, every one of your e-newsletters (if you desire) live on a site. Think of it as an internet site for your newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous issues of your e-newsletter, and a location where individuals can sign up for your newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s basically similar to that.
All plans, including the cost-free one, offer you a site. Nevertheless, the free plan locations your internet site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you intend to include a customized domain name to eliminate all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting customers is important. After all, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can register for your newsletter right from your beehiiv internet site or through embed types.
If you currently have a web site, and want people to register for your e-newsletter from your existing website, you’ll need to use an embed type. This is what I utilize on this website (you can see the sign-up embed on the right-hand man column of this blog post if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have 3 various choices– a full width, a fixed size, and a slim installed. I directly utilize the slim embed.
You can discover the code snippet for these embeds in the “Subscribe Kinds” tab in your setups.
There’s likewise an alternative for attribution tracking if you want to ahead UTM criteria for tracking purposes– pretty cool.
Nonetheless, there are a couple of features I want beehiiv had when it pertained to subscribe features. I make certain the group is servicing updates for these, however I mentioned a couple of problems I had in the pros and cons area below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things regarding beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter platform, is a solution for developing a referral program.
You can motivate existing subscribers on your listing to onward your emails to friends and coworkers and if they get other individuals to subscribe to your listing, you can reward them. These rewards can be in whatever type you desire. I have actually seem many e-newsletter companies provide incentives in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously transform your clients into a word of mouth growth engine for your e-newsletter– giving you one more opportunity for expanding your email listing.
Nonetheless, to get access to the referral program feature, you’ll have to update to a much more exceptional plan. I’ll go over all the plans later on in this write-up.
Costs registrations
They claim all you need to make a living online is 1,000 real followers. Registration income is certainly a monster of its very own. If you’re seeking a platform to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can develop “premium” concerns of your e-newsletter that are only sent to paying clients. This can be extremely lucrative depending on what your e-newsletter needs to provide. For example, Trends.co is a preferred costs newsletter that produces millions in income a year simply by having pay-only e-newsletter content.
Data analytics
One of things I love about beehiiv is just how tidy and basic the analytics are. You obtain real-time date on just how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and subscriber matter.
You obtain accessibility to all the metrics you require to obtain a bird-eye view on just how your newsletter is really doing. Logging right into your dashboard and seeing that customer count increase is most definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv supplies 4 various pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (totally free) Launch plan offers you every little thing you need to begin 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, custom-made domain name, surveys, and access to costs subscriptions. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 76/month) offers you everything in the Grow plan with enhancement of priority support and getting rid of the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are rather generous in my point of view.
For example, if you have 100,000 subscribers you will certainly pay around $329 each month. Instead of some competitors, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would bill $679 monthly for the exact same amount– making beehiiv a great Kit alternative for numerous customers.
I’m uncertain just how the device business economics deal with this, yet beehiiv is certainly less costly (right now) than what it can be.
beehiiv advantages and disadvantages
Obviously, with every system, it has its benefits and drawbacks. Right here are several of the pros and cons I have actually directly experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Below are a few of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter platform of choice:
- Easy to set up and start sending out newsletters for free
- Tidy and modern-day subscriber analytics
- Lots of adaptability with e-mail layouts.
- Referral program feature Beehiiv Subscriber Management
- Web site hosting
- Develop costs options to monetize
- Surveys
To be honest, I have not seen another newsletter system that has had the ability to package all of these features with each other so well.
But obviously, I don’t intend to be biased so I’m mosting likely to point out some cons.
Cons of using beehiiv
Here are a few of the cons I’ve located while making use of beehiiv:.
- Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv
- Limitations around including personalized font styles
I utilize Webflow as my internet site structure platform of option (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a long period of time ago). I’m not going to go in way too much detail why I like Webflow so much yet you can review my Webflow evaluation if you want to discover more.
Now, there actually is no other way I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow site aside from using an iframe embed. I directly do not such as making use of iframe’s since they often tend to reduce my site a little bit. Every single time a page on my site (with a beehiiv embed) tons, the sign-up installed is the last thing to fill on the page. It’s extremely noticeable when you’re on a sluggish net connection. Yet I can get around that.
The major gripe I have is that I can not make use of a regular Webflow kind (which I love using). There are means around this by using a tool like Zapier however that would simply add extra expenses that I do not require. To be truthful, this is even more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv disadvantage however I thought I would certainly mention it.
Besides that, I still think the pros much exceed the cons below. I’m likewise enthusiastic that Webflow will ultimately produce a much better method to incorporate with beehiiv.
Final Thought
Overall, beehiiv is a terrific option for anybody aiming to study the globe of e-mail marketing and newsletters.
The capability of this e-newsletter system far exceeds lots of that are presently on the marketplace. And with a generous free plan, you actually have absolutely nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are additionally fairly economical for what they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 clients on your list is unheard of. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k clients, and all of these features beehiiv has, it could cost you well into the thousands monthly.
Anyways, I don’t write review messages often. I only do when I really use the tool myself and would recommend it to a pal.
I hope you found some clearness on whether beehiiv is a great platform for you.