I read among my favorite e-mail e-newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the e-mail and saw the beehiiv logo for the first time. I clicked it and quickly began tearing up. Beehiiv Zero To One…
Being a full-time creator is difficult. I’m typically getting pitched different tools and solutions that do not seem to be worth my time.
I think I was emotional because I invested the last 6 months trying out different e-mail and newsletter systems to assist develop my newsletter. And to be fair, there are some terrific alternatives for writing newsletters. But I couldn’t discover one that made me offer a certain “yes”.
The issue with lots of existing e-newsletter platforms is that they do not feel creator-centered. I want a newsletter platform that lets me totally tailor my newsletter styles, makes it incredibly easy to write and send e-mails, and provides me devices that aid me evaluate metrics and get even more customers.
I believe I’ve ultimately discovered the right device.
However, I understand beehiiv may not be for every person. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s really 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 easy to style, compose, send out, advertise, generate income from, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Produced by previous employees at the popular e-newsletter business Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to aid creators launch and monetize their own newsletter– taking lots of development principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M subscribers.
In this article, I’m going to clarify my personal experience with beehiiv, the things I like (and hate) concerning it, all of it’s features, and why I decided to finally go with it as my e-newsletter platform of option.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A few months back, I unintentionally came across beehiiv. The funny story is that I have actually been on the lookout for a modern e-newsletter system for rather some time currently. I have actually procrastinated hard when it came to finally launching my e-newsletter.
Initially, I attempted Mailchimp. Then, a couple of other indie platforms. Then, Substack. And ultimately, I wound up making use of beehiiv.
I’m sure many newsletter designers appreciate preferred e-newsletters with millions of clients– I understand I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I admired a whole lot. They have great content, tons of subscribers, and a creative referral program that enables them to get back at more clients.
So, I took place a search to identify how these large newsletters established their logistics. What platform do they utilize? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they obtain even more clients? How do they produce a newsletter style that remains on-brand?
When I found beehiiv for the very first time, it seemed to respond to every one of my inquiries. I believed to myself, “damn the people that built this tool truly understand newsletter development and development.” 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 took off.
I recognized this was mosting likely to be a various newsletter system. One that’s concentrated on maker growth.
Due to the fact that, any type of creator knows, you need development to be able to make a living off of a newsletter. And finding the appropriate newsletter stack (that scales) typically implies making use of numerous different devices to assist attain one objective– one platform for your e-newsletter, one system to monetize, and one system to establish references. It can obtain costly.
So when I discovered beehiiv did every one of these points in one platform, and it was totally free to begin making use of, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
beehiiv vs Substack
You might be asking, “isn’t there already a platform for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, yes there is. Substack is a wonderful system made use of by thousands of independent writers. With Substack you obtain your very own website and make use of the system as your all-in-one option for sending out e-mails (while creating an archive of previous problems).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s dedication to growth. beehiiv enables you do to all things Substack can do, with the benefit of better analytics, even more layout flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing subscribers to obtain the word out.
beehiiv additionally gives you an internet site similar to Substack. However, if you have your own internet site already, you can likewise use beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I utilize) to send your site subscribers right to your beehiiv e-mail listing. On the same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a device like Performance to enable individuals to register for your newsletter directly from Twitter.
This gives you the adaptability to take advantage of various marketing channels to obtain your newsletter out into the world, making beehiiv a fantastic Substack alternative.
How to start making use of beehiiv e-mail marketing software.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean web content developer that desires a system that permits them to send customized e-newsletters with or without needing to have a web site.
One of the most effective e-newsletters have the right devices to build and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv targets at giving you those tools.
If you’re an independent writer, media company, start-up, or material developer, you must seriously considering trying out beehiiv. It’s entirely cost-free to begin and you only pay when you get to over 2,500 subscribers on your list.
If you really wind up needing to spend for beehiiv it’s most likely a great indicator that people love reviewing your things.
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 web site.
The free plan will certainly permit you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, give you access to web site hosting, a newsletter CMS, advancement modification, analytics, outside embed kinds, and more. It’s a really charitable offering for those just beginning (or for those trying to find a brand-new system to move to).
Onboarding
After creating an account, you’ll go through an onboarding process that will ask things like, “is this your very first e-newsletter?”, “what other platforms have you made use of?”, “do you have any paying subscribers?”, and a lot more.
You’ll after that create a name and link for your e-newsletter’s site. On the free plan, your newsletter will certainly live on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your web site URL may be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding process, you’ll likewise choose your brand name design and colors to make sure your e-newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your dashboard
When you reach your primary dashboard, you’ll see all of your analytics and settings.
You will certainly have detailed details on the amount of sign-ups you’re obtaining and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see alternatives for “Beginning composing”, “Articles”, “Target market”, “Expand”, “Monetize”, “Design” and” Examine”. And at the extremely bottom you’ll see the setups option.
Dashboard is your primary nerve center (screenshot above), Begin writing is where you develop and publish 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 damage them down right into sectors), Expand is where you have access 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 ads, Design is where you develop your e-newsletter landing page and message template, Assess is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can take care of all of your admin things.
Writing your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it very easy to begin creating, with little to no friction. If you’re just starting out, and have a concept you want to discuss, I recommend simply mosting likely to the “Create” section in the navbar and clicking on “Beginning writing”.
You can fine-tune your template and styling later– concentrate on the material initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor provides a clean and easy to use user interface for writing.
Once you begin writing, you can enhance headings, include web links, and style your content just how you like.
beehiiv offers you lots of options for different kinds of content like videos, web links, images, and extra.
The group at beehiiv is likewise constantly releasing item feature and updates so I make certain there will certainly be a great deal a lot more material features depending upon when you read this.
Enhancing your setups and templates
Once you have an e-newsletter that’s ready to send, it’s time to develop your e-mail template and adjust some settings.
Below, you can update the name of your newsletter, offer it a summary, include your logo design, activate or off a welcome e-mail 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 edit background shades, borders, spacing, fonts, photo formats, and more. I’m not mosting likely to undergo ever before single thing you can enhance with your e-mail template because it’s a lot. Just try the platform free of cost and see it for yourself!
Vital beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of fantastic features that make it a fantastic posting platform for any kind of e-newsletter creator.
Right here are a few of the vital features you can find with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder Beehiiv Zero To One
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter posting platform. It makes it very simple to write and send emails. I stated above some of things you can do with your settings and email style so I’ll spare you some added analysis.
The thing to note with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has a truly contemporary and minimalistic feel. It’s absolutely among the far better email editors I have actually ever before written in.
Internet site hosting
When you develop a beehiiv newsletter, all of your newsletters (if you want) survive on a website. Consider it as a site for your e-newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous concerns of your newsletter, and a location where people can register for your newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s pretty much comparable to that.
All plans, consisting of the totally free one, give you a web site. Nevertheless, the free plan locations your website on a beehiiv subdomain so if you wish to include a custom domain name to remove all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting customers is essential. After all, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can subscribe to your e-newsletter right from your beehiiv website or through embed types.
If you already have a website, and want individuals to subscribe to your newsletter from your existing site, you’ll have 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 column of this post if you scroll up).
With embed kinds, you have three different alternatives– a complete width, a repaired width, and a slim embed. I personally use the slim embed.
You can find the code fragment for these embeds in the “Subscribe Forms” tab in your setups.
There’s also an option for acknowledgment monitoring if you want to forward UTM specifications for tracking objectives– rather cool.
Nonetheless, there are a couple of features I wish beehiiv had when it involved subscribe features. I make sure the group is servicing updates for these, but I pointed out a couple of worries I had in the pros and cons section below.
Referral program
Among the amazing things regarding beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter platform, is an option for developing a referral program.
You can motivate existing customers on your checklist to forward your emails to pals and coworkers and if they obtain other people to subscribe to your list, you can reward them. These benefits can be in whatever type you want. I have actually appear several e-newsletter companies provide rewards in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously turn your clients right into a word of mouth growth engine for your e-newsletter– offering you an additional opportunity for growing your e-mail list.
Nonetheless, to get accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll need to update to a more exceptional plan. I’ll review all the plans later in this short article.
Costs subscriptions
They claim all you require to earn a living online is 1,000 true followers. Membership revenue is certainly a beast of its very own. If you’re searching for a system to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can create “premium” issues of your e-newsletter that are just sent out to paying subscribers. This can be extremely lucrative relying on what your e-newsletter has to supply. As an example, Trends.co is a preferred costs e-newsletter that creates millions in profits a year just by having pay-only newsletter material.
Data analytics
Among things I enjoy concerning beehiiv is exactly how tidy and basic the analytics are. You get real-time day on just how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and customer matter.
You get accessibility to all the metrics you need to obtain a bird-eye sight on how your newsletter is really doing. Logging into your dashboard and seeing that customer count increase is definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv supplies four various pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (cost-free) Launch plan gives you everything you need to get going and expand your newsletter (up to 2,500 customers).
The Scale plan ($ 39/month) provides you everything in the Launch plan with the enhancement the ad network, referral program, customized domain name, surveys, and accessibility to premium registrations. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 76/month) offers you whatever in the Grow plan with enhancement of priority support and removing the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are fairly charitable in my point of view.
For instance, if you have 100,000 subscribers you will pay around $329 per month. In contrast to some competitors, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would certainly bill $679 monthly for the same quantity– making beehiiv a great Kit option for lots of customers.
I’m not exactly sure exactly how the system business economics work with this, however beehiiv is definitely cheaper (currently) than what it can be.
beehiiv benefits and drawbacks
Of course, with every platform, it has its pros and cons. Below are several of the benefits and drawbacks I’ve directly experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Here are a few of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter platform of choice:
- Easy to establish and begin sending out newsletters absolutely free
- Clean and modern-day customer analytics
- Great deals of adaptability with email designs.
- Referral program feature Beehiiv Zero To One
- Site hosting
- Create premium alternatives to monetize
- Surveys
To be honest, I haven’t seen an additional e-newsletter platform that has had the ability to package all of these features with each other so well.
But naturally, I do not wish to be prejudiced so I’m going to state some cons.
Cons of using beehiiv
Here are several of the disadvantages I have actually discovered while utilizing beehiiv:.
- Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv
- Limitations around including custom-made font styles
I make use of Webflow as my website 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 enjoy Webflow a lot yet you can read my Webflow testimonial if you would love to discover more.
Today, there really is nothing else method I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow site besides utilizing an iframe embed. I directly don’t like using iframe’s because they tend to slow down my website a little bit. Whenever a page on my site (with a beehiiv embed) tons, the sign-up embed is the last thing to pack on the web page. It’s very obvious when you get on a sluggish net connection. However I can navigate that.
The major complaint I have is that I can’t use a routine Webflow type (which I love making use of). There are methods around this by utilizing a device like Zapier but that would simply include added costs that I don’t need. To be straightforward, this is even more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv con however I believed I would discuss it.
Besides that, I still think the pros far surpass the disadvantages here. I’m additionally confident that Webflow will eventually develop a far better way to integrate with beehiiv.
Final Thought
On the whole, beehiiv is a fantastic option for any individual aiming to dive into the world of e-mail marketing and newsletters.
The performance of this e-newsletter system far surpasses many that are presently on the marketplace. And with a generous free plan, you truly have nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are likewise fairly inexpensive for what they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 clients on your list is uncommon. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k subscribers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it might cost you well into the thousands per month.
Anyways, I do not create evaluation articles often. I only do when I actually make use of the device myself and would certainly advise it to a close friend.
I wish you found some clearness on whether or not beehiiv is a good platform for you.