I was reading among my favorite e-mail newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the e-mail and saw the beehiiv logo design for the first time. I clicked on it and instantly began tearing up. Beehiiv Table of Contents…
Being a full-time developer is tough. I’m commonly getting pitched various tools and solutions that do not seem to be worth my time.
I think I was emotional due to the fact that I spent the last six months trying out various e-mail and e-newsletter systems to aid build my e-newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some great options for writing e-newsletters. But I could not locate one that made me give a certain “yes”.
The problem with many existing newsletter systems is that they do not feel creator-centered. I desire a newsletter platform that lets me fully tailor my newsletter designs, makes it extremely easy to create and send out e-mails, and gives me devices that assist me assess metrics and get even more customers.
I assume I have actually finally located the best tool.
Yet, I understand beehiiv may not be for every person. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s actually appropriate for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one system for newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter platform that makes it very easy to design, compose, send, advertise, generate income from, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Created by previous workers at the famous e-newsletter company Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to help designers launch and monetize their very own newsletter– taking great deals of growth principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M customers.
In this post, I’m mosting likely to explain my personal experience with beehiiv, the important things I love (and hate) concerning it, all of it’s features, and why I chose to finally opt for it as my e-newsletter platform of selection.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A few months earlier, I inadvertently stumbled across beehiiv. The amusing tale is that I’ve been on the lookout for a contemporary newsletter system for quite some time now. I have actually procrastinated hard when it involved finally launching my newsletter.
First, I attempted Mailchimp. After that, a couple of various other indie systems. Then, Substack. And lastly, I wound up utilizing beehiiv.
I make sure several e-newsletter designers look up to preferred newsletters with millions of customers– I recognize I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I respected a whole lot. They have wonderful web content, lots of customers, and a smart referral program that enables them to get even more subscribers.
So, I went on a quest to find out exactly how these big newsletters set up their logistics. What platform do they make use of? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they obtain more customers? How do they develop an e-newsletter design that stays on-brand?
When I found beehiiv for the first time, it seemed to respond to every one of my questions. I thought to myself, “damn individuals that developed this tool actually recognize e-newsletter production and growth.” I questioned who these creators of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were several of the very first marketing and development workers at Morning Brew– my mind took off.
I understood this was mosting likely to be a different newsletter platform. One that’s concentrated on designer growth.
Because, any kind of designer understands, you need development to be able to earn a living off of a newsletter. And locating the ideal e-newsletter pile (that ranges) usually suggests making use of multiple various devices to help attain one objective– one platform for your e-newsletter, one system to generate income from, and one platform to establish referrals. It can obtain costly.
So when I figured out beehiiv did every one of these points in one platform, and it was cost-free to begin using, 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 a great platform utilized by countless independent authors. With Substack you obtain your own site and make use of the platform as your all-in-one remedy for sending out emails (while developing an archive of previous concerns).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s commitment to growth. beehiiv allows you do to all things Substack can do, with the benefit of far better analytics, even more design flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing subscribers to get the word out.
beehiiv likewise gives you a website similar to Substack. But, if you have your very own site already, you can additionally make use of beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I use) to send your site clients straight to your beehiiv e-mail list. On the very same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a device like Performance to enable people to sign up for your newsletter directly from Twitter.
This gives you the versatility to take advantage of various marketing channels to get your e-newsletter out right into the world, making beehiiv an excellent Substack option.
How to start using beehiiv e-mail marketing software application.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean content developer that wants a system that allows them to send out personalized e-newsletters with or without needing to have a website.
One of the most effective newsletters have the right tools to construct and scale their newsletters. beehiiv targets at offering you those tools.
If you’re an independent writer, media company, startup, or material designer, you need to seriously taking into consideration experimenting with beehiiv. It’s absolutely free to get going and you only pay when you reach over 2,500 customers on your checklist.
If you in fact end up needing to spend for beehiiv it’s most likely an excellent indication that individuals enjoy reviewing your stuff.
Sign up for a free plan
The very 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 access to web site hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, development modification, analytics, external embed kinds, and much more. It’s a very generous offering for those simply beginning (or for those trying to find a new platform to migrate to).
Onboarding
After producing an account, you’ll undergo an onboarding process that will ask things like, “is this your very first e-newsletter?”, “what other platforms have you used?”, “do you have any paying clients?”, and a lot more.
You’ll then produce a name and link for your newsletter’s internet site. On the free plan, your newsletter will certainly survive on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your site URL could be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding process, you’ll also pick your brand colors and design to see to it your e-newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your dashboard
When you reach your main control panel, you’ll see every one of your analytics and settings.
You will have described info on the amount of sign-ups you’re obtaining and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see options for “Begin writing”, “Blog posts”, “Target market”, “Expand”, “Generate income from”, “Layout” and” Evaluate”. And at the very lower you’ll see the setups choice.
Control panel is your main control center (screenshot over), Start writing is where you create and release e-newsletters, Posts is where you can see all of your previous newsletter editions, Audience is where you can view who your clients are (and break them down right into segments), 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 newsletter with advertisements, Style is where you develop your newsletter landing page and message template, Assess is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can take care of all of your admin stuff.
Composing your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it easy to begin creating, with little to no friction. If you’re just starting, and have an idea you want to discuss, I recommend just mosting likely to the “Create” area in the navbar and clicking “Start writing”.
You can modify your template and designing later on– concentrate on the content first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor supplies a clean and easy to use user interface for writing.
When you start composing, you can enhance headings, add links, and style your web content just how you such as.
beehiiv gives you tons of options for various types of material like video clips, web links, pictures, and much more.
The group at beehiiv is likewise frequently launching item feature and updates so I’m sure there will be a lot a lot more material features depending on when you read this.
Optimizing your setups and templates
When you have an e-newsletter that prepares to send, it’s time to make your e-mail template and change some setups.
Below, you can upgrade the name of your e-newsletter, give it a summary, add your logo design, activate or off a welcome email to first time customers, and extra.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can modify history colors, boundaries, spacing, font styles, image styles, and more. I’m not going to go through ever single thing you can maximize with your e-mail template because it’s a lot. Simply check out the platform free of charge and see it for yourself!
Essential beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of amazing features that make it a fantastic publishing platform for any type of newsletter developer.
Below are some of the necessary features you can locate with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder Beehiiv Table of Contents
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter publishing platform. It makes it incredibly simple to compose and send out e-mails. I discussed over a few of the things you can do with your settings and email layout so I’ll spare you some added reading.
The important things to keep in mind with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has a truly modern-day and minimalistic feel. It’s certainly one of the much better e-mail editors I have actually ever written in.
Website hosting
When you create a beehiiv newsletter, all of your e-newsletters (if you want) live on an internet site. Think about it as an internet site for your e-newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous issues of your newsletter, and an area where individuals can sign up for your newsletter.
If you’re familiar with Substack, it’s basically comparable to that.
All plans, consisting of the cost-free one, give you an internet site. Nevertheless, the free plan locations your site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you intend to add a customized domain to remove all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining customers is very 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 with embed forms.
If you already have a site, and desire people to subscribe to your e-newsletter from your existing site, you’ll have to make use of an embed form. This is what I make use of on this website (you can see the sign-up installed on the right hand column of this post if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have 3 different choices– a complete width, a taken care of width, and a slim embed. I directly use the slim embed.
You can find the code fragment for these embeds in the “Subscribe Kinds” tab in your setups.
There’s additionally an option for acknowledgment monitoring if you wish to forward UTM specifications for tracking purposes– quite cool.
Nevertheless, there are a few features I want beehiiv had when it concerned subscribe features. I make certain the team is servicing updates for these, yet I discussed a couple of 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 a remedy for producing a referral program.
You can motivate existing clients on your checklist to forward your e-mails to pals and coworkers and if they obtain other people to sign up for your listing, you can reward them. These benefits can be in whatever kind you want. I have actually appear several e-newsletter companies provide benefits in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously turn your clients right into a word of mouth growth engine for your e-newsletter– providing you another opportunity for expanding your e-mail listing.
However, to get access to the referral program feature, you’ll need to upgrade to a more superior plan. I’ll look at all the plans later on in this write-up.
Costs subscriptions
They claim all you require to earn a living online is 1,000 real fans. Subscription earnings is absolutely a beast of its very own. If you’re trying to find a platform to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can create “costs” problems of your e-newsletter that are only sent out to paying customers. This can be really lucrative depending on what your e-newsletter has to offer. As an example, Trends.co is a preferred premium newsletter that generates millions in revenue a year simply by having pay-only newsletter content.
Information analytics
One of the important things I love regarding beehiiv is exactly how clean and straightforward the analytics are. You get real-time day on exactly how your newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and subscriber count.
You obtain access to all the metrics you require to obtain a bird-eye sight on just how your newsletter is in fact doing. Logging right into your control panel and seeing that client matter rise is definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv provides 4 different pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (totally free) Launch plan offers you every little thing you need to start and grow your newsletter (up to 2,500 subscribers).
The Scale plan ($ 39/month) gives you everything in the Launch plan with the enhancement the ad network, referral program, customized domain name, surveys, 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 priority assistance and eliminating the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are rather charitable in my point of view.
For example, if you have 100,000 subscribers you will certainly pay around $329 each month. As opposed to some competitors, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would certainly charge $679 each month for the same amount– making beehiiv an excellent Kit option for many customers.
I’m uncertain just how the device business economics deal with this, yet beehiiv is absolutely more affordable (presently) than what it can be.
beehiiv pros and cons
Naturally, with every system, it has its benefits and drawbacks. Below are a few of the advantages and disadvantages I’ve directly experienced while utilizing beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Right here are some of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter system of choice:
- Easy to establish and start sending e-newsletters totally free
- Tidy and modern-day customer analytics
- Great deals of flexibility with e-mail designs.
- Referral program feature Beehiiv Table of Contents
- Website hosting
- Develop costs alternatives to monetize
- Surveys
To be straightforward, I haven’t seen one more newsletter system that has had the ability to package every one of these features with each other so well.
However obviously, I don’t want to be prejudiced so I’m mosting likely to point out some disadvantages.
Cons of using beehiiv
Right here are a few of the cons I have actually discovered while making use of beehiiv:.
- Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv
- Limitations around including custom font styles
I make use of Webflow as my website structure platform of choice (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a long period of time ago). I’m not going to go in too much detail why I like Webflow so much yet you can read my Webflow review if you wish to discover more.
Right now, there truly is no other means I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow internet site aside from making use of an iframe embed. I personally do not such as utilizing iframe’s because they have a tendency to slow down my website a little bit. Each time a web page on my website (with a beehiiv installed) loads, the sign-up installed is the last thing to pack on the page. It’s very recognizable when you’re on a slow-moving net link. But I can get around that.
The primary complaint I have is that I can’t use a regular Webflow form (which I like utilizing). There are ways around this by using a device like Zapier however that would just add extra prices that I don’t need. To be sincere, this is more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv disadvantage but I thought I would certainly discuss it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros far surpass the disadvantages below. I’m likewise hopeful that Webflow will ultimately develop a much better means to incorporate with beehiiv.
Conclusion
Generally, beehiiv is a terrific remedy for anyone looking to study the globe of e-mail marketing and e-newsletters.
The capability of this e-newsletter system much outweighs numerous that are currently on the marketplace. And with a generous free plan, you really have nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are additionally relatively inexpensive for what they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 clients on your listing is unusual. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k customers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it might cost you well right into the thousands monthly.
Anyways, I don’t compose testimonial posts frequently. I only do when I in fact utilize the tool myself and would certainly suggest it to a friend.
I hope you found some clarity on whether or not beehiiv is a good platform for you.