I read one of my favorite email newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo design for the first time. I clicked on it and quickly began destroying. Beehiiv Subscriber Tagging…
Being a full-time maker is tough. I’m frequently obtaining pitched different devices and services that do not seem to be worth my time.
I think I was psychological because I invested the last 6 months trying different e-mail and newsletter systems to help construct my e-newsletter. And to be fair, there are some great choices for composing newsletters. Yet I could not find one that made me provide a definite “yes”.
The concern with lots of existing e-newsletter systems is that they do not really feel creator-centered. I desire a newsletter system that lets me completely customize my newsletter styles, makes it extremely very easy to write and send out e-mails, and gives me tools that help me assess metrics and obtain more customers.
I assume I’ve ultimately discovered the best device.
However, I understand beehiiv may not be for everyone. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s actually best for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one system for e-newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly e-newsletter platform that makes it easy to design, create, send out, advertise, generate income from, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Developed by former staff members at the well-known newsletter business Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to assist designers launch and monetize their own newsletter– taking lots of growth concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M subscribers.
In this write-up, I’m mosting likely to clarify my personal experience with beehiiv, things I like (and hate) about it, all of it’s features, and why I decided to finally choose it as my newsletter system of option.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A couple of months back, I accidentally came across beehiiv. The funny tale is that I’ve watched for a modern newsletter platform for rather a long time currently. I’ve hesitated hard when it concerned lastly releasing my e-newsletter.
First, I attempted Mailchimp. After that, a couple of various other indie systems. After that, Substack. And finally, I wound up using beehiiv.
I make sure several e-newsletter makers look up to preferred e-newsletters with numerous subscribers– I understand I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I looked up to a lot. They have terrific content, tons of customers, and a creative referral program that allows them to get even more customers.
So, I took place a hunt to figure out how these huge 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 customers? How do they develop a newsletter style that remains on-brand?
When I found beehiiv for the very first time, it seemed to address every one of my concerns. I believed to myself, “damn individuals that developed this tool really understand e-newsletter creation and growth.” I questioned who these creators of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were some of the very first marketing and growth workers at Morning Brew– my brain exploded.
I knew this was going to be a different newsletter system. One that’s concentrated on designer development.
Because, any type of developer recognizes, you require growth to be able to earn a living off of an e-newsletter. And discovering the right newsletter pile (that ranges) often indicates utilizing numerous various tools to assist achieve one goal– one platform for your e-newsletter, one system to monetize, and one system to set up referrals. It can obtain pricey.
So when I discovered beehiiv did all of these things in one system, and it was complimentary to begin using, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
beehiiv vs Substack
You could be asking, “isn’t there already a platform for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, yes there is. Substack is an excellent system used by hundreds of independent authors. With Substack you obtain your own internet site and make use of the platform as your all-in-one solution for sending emails (while developing an archive of previous concerns).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s dedication to growth. beehiiv permits you do to all the things Substack can do, with the advantage of far better analytics, more design flexibilty, and a referral program to urge your existing clients to obtain the word out.
beehiiv additionally offers you a site similar to Substack. However, if you have your very own website currently, you can likewise use beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I make use of) to send your web site clients right to your beehiiv e-mail checklist. On the exact same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a tool like Performance to allow individuals to register for your newsletter straight from Twitter.
This provides you the adaptability to leverage various marketing networks to get your newsletter out into the world, making beehiiv a wonderful Substack option.
Just how to start making use of beehiiv email marketing software application.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean web content maker that wants a platform that allows them to send out personalized e-newsletters with or without requiring to have a website.
One of the most effective e-newsletters have the right devices to construct and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv targets at offering you those tools.
If you’re an independent writer, media firm, start-up, or content creator, you must seriously thinking about checking out beehiiv. It’s completely free to get started and you just pay when you reach over 2,500 clients on your listing.
If you really wind up having to pay for beehiiv it’s possibly an excellent indicator that people enjoy reviewing your stuff.
Sign up for a free plan
The very first step is to register for a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Beginning trial” button on beehiiv’s internet site.
The free plan will permit you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, provide you access to internet site hosting, a newsletter CMS, advance modification, analytics, external embed kinds, and extra. It’s a really generous offering for those just starting (or for those trying to find a new system to move to).
Onboarding
After producing an account, you’ll experience an onboarding process that will ask points like, “is this your first newsletter?”, “what various other systems have you used?”, “do you have any paying customers?”, and extra.
You’ll then create a name and link for your e-newsletter’s internet site. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will certainly survive on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your website URL may be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding process, you’ll likewise pick your brand name colors and design to see to it your newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your control panel
When you reach your main control panel, you’ll see all of your analytics and settings.
You will certainly have detailed info on the amount of sign-ups you’re obtaining and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see options for “Begin writing”, “Posts”, “Audience”, “Grow”, “Generate income from”, “Design” and” Evaluate”. And at the really bottom you’ll see the setups choice.
Control panel is your main control center (screenshot over), Start writing is where you create and release newsletters, Articles is where you can see every one of your previous newsletter versions, Target market is where you can see who your clients are (and damage them down into segments), 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 e-newsletter with advertisements, Layout is where you make your newsletter landing page and blog post template, Assess is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can manage every one of your admin things.
Writing your newsletter
beehiiv makes it simple to begin composing, with little to no friction. If you’re just starting, and have an idea you intend to cover, I suggest simply mosting likely to the “Create” section in the navbar and clicking “Beginning creating”.
You can tweak your template and designing later on– concentrate on the web content first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor uses a clean and user-friendly user interface for creating.
As soon as you begin writing, you can enhance headings, include web links, and design your web content how you such as.
beehiiv provides you lots of choices for various kinds of material like video clips, web links, pictures, and a lot more.
The team at beehiiv is likewise constantly launching product feature and updates so I make certain there will certainly be a great deal extra material features depending upon when you’re reading this.
Enhancing your setups and templates
When you have an e-newsletter that prepares to send out, it’s time to make your email template and change some setups.
Below, you can update the name of your e-newsletter, give it a summary, include your logo design, switch on or off a welcome e-mail to first time subscribers, and a lot more.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your style.
You can edit background shades, boundaries, spacing, font styles, photo styles, and a lot more. I’m not going to undergo ever before solitary point you can enhance with your email template since it’s a great deal. Simply experiment with the system completely free and see it for yourself!
Important beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of fantastic features that make it a great publishing platform for any type of e-newsletter developer.
Right here are a few of the vital features you can discover with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder Beehiiv Subscriber Tagging
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter posting platform. It makes it super simple to write and send e-mails. I discussed over some of things you can do with your settings and e-mail style so I’ll spare you some additional analysis.
Things to keep in mind with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has a really modern and minimalistic feeling. It’s absolutely among the much better email editors I’ve ever before written in.
Website hosting
When you create a beehiiv e-newsletter, all of your newsletters (if you desire) reside on a website. Think about it as a website for your newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous problems of your e-newsletter, and an area where people can subscribe to your e-newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s virtually similar to that.
All plans, consisting of the complimentary one, give you a website. However, the free plan places your internet site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you wish to add a custom-made domain name to remove all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting subscribers is very important. After all, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can register for your newsletter directly from your beehiiv site or via embed forms.
If you currently have a site, and want people to sign up for your e-newsletter from your existing site, you’ll need to utilize an embed form. This is what I make use of 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 forms, you have three different choices– a full width, a dealt with width, and a slim installed. I personally utilize the slim installed.
You can locate the code snippet for these embeds in the “Subscribe Forms” tab in your setups.
There’s additionally an alternative for attribution monitoring if you wish to ahead UTM criteria for tracking functions– rather cool.
Nonetheless, there are a couple of features I want beehiiv had when it came to subscribe features. I’m sure the group is dealing with updates for these, however I discussed a few concerns I had in the advantages and disadvantages area below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things regarding beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter platform, is a remedy for creating a referral program.
You can encourage existing subscribers on your list to onward your e-mails to friends and coworkers and if they get other individuals to sign up for your listing, you can award them. These incentives can be in whatever kind you want. I’ve seem lots of e-newsletter companies give rewards in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously turn your customers right into a word of mouth growth engine for your e-newsletter– giving you one more method for growing your e-mail listing.
Nonetheless, to obtain access to the referral program feature, you’ll need to upgrade to a more exceptional plan. I’ll look at all the plans later in this post.
Premium subscriptions
They claim all you need to earn a living online is 1,000 true fans. Subscription profits is most 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 subscribers. This can be really lucrative depending upon what your e-newsletter has to offer. For example, Trends.co is a prominent costs newsletter that creates millions in profits a year merely by having pay-only e-newsletter content.
Information analytics
One of the things I love about beehiiv is how clean and easy the analytics are. You obtain real-time date on just how your newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and client count.
You get accessibility to all the metrics you need to get a bird-eye view on just how your newsletter is really doing. Logging into your control panel and seeing that client count increase is most definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv offers four different pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (free) Launch plan provides you whatever you need to get going and grow your e-newsletter (approximately 2,500 subscribers).
The Scale plan ($ 39/month) provides you every little thing in the Launch plan with the enhancement the advertisement network, referral program, custom domain name, polls, and accessibility to costs registrations. This is the plan I am on.
The Max plan ($ 76/month) offers you everything in the Grow plan with enhancement of top priority support and getting rid of the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are fairly charitable in my opinion.
For example, if you have 100,000 customers you will certainly pay around $329 each month. Instead of some competitors, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would certainly charge $679 monthly for the same amount– making beehiiv a wonderful Kit option for lots of individuals.
I’m unsure exactly how the unit economics work on this, however beehiiv is certainly more affordable (presently) than what it can be.
beehiiv benefits and drawbacks
Certainly, with every platform, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Here are several of the benefits and drawbacks I’ve personally experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Here are some of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter platform of option:
- Easy to establish and begin sending out e-newsletters free of cost
- Tidy and modern-day customer analytics
- Lots of versatility with email styles.
- Referral program feature Beehiiv Subscriber Tagging
- Internet site hosting
- Develop premium alternatives to generate income from
- Surveys
To be honest, I haven’t seen one more newsletter platform that has had the ability to package every one of these features together so well.
But obviously, I do not intend to be prejudiced so I’m going to point out some cons.
Cons of using beehiiv
Below are a few of the disadvantages I’ve found while using beehiiv:.
- Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv
- Limitations around including customized font styles
I use Webflow as my website structure system of choice (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a very long time ago). I’m not going to go in too much detail why I like Webflow a lot yet you can read my Webflow review if you wish to discover more.
Right now, there actually is nothing else means I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow website apart from making use of an iframe embed. I personally don’t such as using iframe’s due to the fact that they tend to decrease my site a little bit. Each time a page on my website (with a beehiiv installed) tons, the sign-up embed is the last point to fill on the web page. It’s very noticeable when you get on a sluggish web connection. However I can get around that.
The main complaint I have is that I can’t make use of a routine 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 extra costs that I do not need. To be sincere, this is even more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv disadvantage but I believed I would state it.
Besides that, I still think the pros far exceed the disadvantages below. I’m also enthusiastic that Webflow will at some point produce a much better means to integrate with beehiiv.
Verdict
On the whole, beehiiv is a wonderful solution for anybody looking to dive into the world of e-mail marketing and newsletters.
The performance of this e-newsletter platform much outweighs lots of that are currently on the market. And with a generous free plan, you actually have nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are likewise fairly inexpensive wherefore they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 clients on your listing is unprecedented. 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 compose evaluation posts often. I only do when I actually make use of the device myself and would certainly suggest it to a close friend.
I wish you found some quality on whether or not beehiiv is an excellent platform for you.