I read one of my preferred e-mail 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 it and immediately started tearing up. Boost Your Podcast with Beehiiv…
Being a permanent creator is tough. I’m frequently obtaining pitched different tools and solutions that don’t appear to be worth my time.
I think I was psychological because I spent the last six months trying various email and e-newsletter platforms to assist construct my e-newsletter. And to be fair, there are some wonderful options for composing e-newsletters. Yet I couldn’t discover one that made me provide a precise “yes”.
The problem with several existing newsletter platforms is that they don’t feel creator-centered. I desire an e-newsletter platform that lets me fully customize my e-newsletter designs, makes it super simple to compose and send emails, and provides me tools that aid me assess metrics and get more customers.
I believe I’ve finally found the ideal device.
However, I recognize beehiiv might not be for everyone. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s in fact ideal for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one platform for e-newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly e-newsletter platform that makes it easy to design, create, send out, promote, generate income from, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Produced by former staff members at the popular newsletter company Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to aid designers launch and monetize their very own newsletter– taking great deals of development concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M clients.
In this article, I’m mosting likely to describe my individual experience with beehiiv, the important things I like (and hate) concerning it, all of it’s features, and why I determined to ultimately choose it as my e-newsletter system of selection.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A couple of months earlier, I unintentionally stumbled across beehiiv. The amusing story is that I have actually watched for a modern-day e-newsletter platform for quite time now. I’ve postponed hard when it concerned lastly introducing my newsletter.
Initially, I attempted Mailchimp. Then, a few other indie systems. Then, Substack. And lastly, I wound up utilizing beehiiv.
I make sure lots of newsletter designers admire preferred e-newsletters with millions of clients– I know I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I admired a lot. They have great web content, tons of clients, and a brilliant referral program that permits them to get back at a lot more subscribers.
So, I took place a search to identify how these huge e-newsletters set up their logistics. What platform do they use? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they obtain more clients? How do they create an e-newsletter layout that remains on-brand?
When I found beehiiv for the very first time, it seemed to answer every one of my inquiries. I thought to myself, “damn individuals that developed this tool actually comprehend e-newsletter production and development.” I questioned who these designers of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were some of the first marketing and development staff members at Morning Brew– my mind exploded.
I recognized this was mosting likely to be a different e-newsletter platform. One that’s focused on designer growth.
Due to the fact that, any type of maker recognizes, you need growth to be able to make a living off of a newsletter. And finding the appropriate e-newsletter stack (that ranges) usually suggests using several various devices to assist achieve one goal– one system for your newsletter, one system to monetize, and one system to establish recommendations. It can get costly.
So when I discovered beehiiv did all of these points in one platform, and it was complimentary to start utilizing, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
beehiiv vs Substack
You may be asking, “isn’t there currently a platform for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, indeed there is. Substack is a fantastic system used by countless independent authors. With Substack you obtain your very own website and utilize the platform as your all-in-one solution for sending e-mails (while developing an archive of previous problems).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s devotion to development. beehiiv enables you do to all the important things Substack can do, with the benefit of much better analytics, more design flexibilty, and a referral program to encourage your existing subscribers to obtain the word out.
beehiiv likewise offers you an internet site comparable to Substack. However, if you have your very own site currently, you can additionally use beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I utilize) to send your website clients right to your beehiiv email list. On the very same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a device like Revue to allow individuals to register for your newsletter straight from Twitter.
This provides you the adaptability to utilize various marketing channels to get your e-newsletter out right into the world, making beehiiv a great Substack option.
How to start utilizing beehiiv e-mail marketing software program.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean content developer that desires a platform that enables them to send out personalized e-newsletters with or without requiring to have an internet site.
One of the most successful e-newsletters have the right tools to construct and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv aims at providing you those tools.
If you’re an independent author, media firm, startup, or content creator, you ought to seriously taking into consideration trying out beehiiv. It’s completely complimentary to start and you only pay when you get to over 2,500 customers on your list.
If you in fact end up having to spend for beehiiv it’s most likely an excellent indication that individuals like 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 “Start trial” switch on beehiiv’s web site.
The free plan will certainly permit you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, offer you accessibility to internet site hosting, a newsletter CMS, advance modification, analytics, external embed types, and more. It’s an extremely generous offering for those just starting out (or for those looking for a brand-new system to migrate to).
Onboarding
After developing an account, you’ll experience an onboarding process that will ask things like, “is this your very first e-newsletter?”, “what other systems have you utilized?”, “do you have any kind of paying customers?”, and much more.
You’ll then develop a name and URL for your newsletter’s site. On the free plan, your newsletter will certainly survive on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your website link may be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding procedure, you’ll also choose your brand colors and design to ensure your newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your dashboard
When you reach your major control panel, you’ll see all of your analytics and setups.
You will certainly have described information on the amount of sign-ups you’re obtaining and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see alternatives for “Beginning writing”, “Articles”, “Audience”, “Grow”, “Monetize”, “Design” and” Examine”. And at the really lower you’ll see the settings choice.
Dashboard is your primary control center (screenshot over), Beginning creating is where you create and publish newsletters, Posts is where you can see every one of your previous e-newsletter versions, Audience is where you can watch who your clients are (and break them down into sectors), Expand 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 e-newsletter with advertisements, Layout is where you design your e-newsletter landing page and message template, Evaluate is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can manage every one of your admin things.
Writing your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it easy to start creating, with little to no rubbing. If you’re simply beginning, and have a concept you wish to blog about, I recommend simply going to the “Create” area in the navbar and clicking on “Start creating”.
You can modify your template and designing later on– focus on the content first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor supplies a tidy and easy to use interface for composing.
When you start creating, you can enhance headings, add links, and style your material exactly how you such as.
beehiiv offers you tons of options for different sorts of content like videos, web links, images, and more.
The group at beehiiv is additionally continuously releasing item feature and updates so I make sure there will be a whole lot much more material features relying on when you read this.
Maximizing your settings and templates
When you have a newsletter that prepares to send, it’s time to make your e-mail template and readjust some settings.
Below, you can upgrade the name of your newsletter, offer it a summary, add your logo, activate or off a welcome e-mail to very first time clients, and more.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can edit history colors, borders, spacing, font styles, picture styles, and more. I’m not mosting likely to undergo ever solitary point you can optimize with your email template since it’s a whole lot. Simply experiment with the platform totally free and see it on your own!
Essential beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of impressive features that make it an excellent publishing platform for any type of newsletter creator.
Here are several of the vital features you can locate with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder Boost Your Podcast with Beehiiv
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter publishing system. It makes it very easy to create and send emails. I pointed out over a few of things you can do with your setups and e-mail design so I’ll save you some additional reading.
The important things to keep in mind with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has a really modern-day and minimalistic feeling. It’s absolutely one of the much better e-mail editors I have actually ever before written in.
Internet site hosting
When you develop a beehiiv e-newsletter, every one of your e-newsletters (if you want) survive an internet site. Think of it as a web site for your newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous concerns of your newsletter, and an area where individuals can register for your newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s basically comparable to that.
All plans, including the cost-free one, give you an internet site. However, the free plan locations your web site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you intend to include a custom domain to get rid of all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting clients is important. After all, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can register for your e-newsletter directly from your beehiiv web site or via embed types.
If you already have an internet site, and want individuals to subscribe to your e-newsletter from your existing site, you’ll need to make use of 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 types, you have 3 different options– a complete width, a repaired width, and a slim embed. I personally utilize the slim embed.
You can discover the code fragment for these embeds in the “Subscribe Types” tab in your settings.
There’s also a choice for acknowledgment monitoring if you intend to ahead UTM specifications for tracking purposes– pretty cool.
However, there are a few features I wish beehiiv had when it involved subscribe features. I make sure the team is dealing with updates for these, however I discussed a couple of issues I had in the pros and cons area listed below.
Referral program
Among the amazing things concerning beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter platform, is a remedy for creating a referral program.
You can motivate existing customers on your list to ahead your emails to friends and associates and if they get other individuals to register for your listing, you can reward them. These incentives can be in whatever form you want. I’ve seem several newsletter business 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 newsletter– offering you another method for expanding your email listing.
Nevertheless, to get accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll need to update to an extra exceptional plan. I’ll discuss all the plans later on in this short article.
Premium memberships
They say all you require to earn a living online is 1,000 real followers. Subscription profits is certainly a beast of its own. If you’re looking for a platform to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can produce “premium” issues of your e-newsletter that are only sent out to paying clients. This can be extremely financially rewarding depending upon what your newsletter has to offer. For instance, Trends.co is a prominent premium e-newsletter that generates millions in earnings a year just by having pay-only e-newsletter web content.
Data analytics
Among the things I enjoy about beehiiv is just how tidy and easy the analytics are. You obtain real-time day on exactly how your newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and client count.
You get accessibility to all the metrics you require to obtain a bird-eye view on just how your newsletter is actually doing. Logging into your dashboard and seeing that customer matter rise is definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv supplies four various pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (totally free) Launch plan gives you every little thing you need to get going and grow your newsletter (approximately 2,500 customers).
The Scale plan ($ 39/month) gives you everything in the Launch plan with the enhancement the advertisement network, referral program, custom domain, surveys, and accessibility to costs subscriptions. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 76/month) gives you whatever in the Grow plan with addition of priority support and eliminating the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are rather charitable in my point of view.
For instance, if you have 100,000 subscribers you will certainly pay around $329 per month. Rather than some competitors, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would certainly charge $679 monthly for the same amount– making beehiiv a fantastic Kit option for lots of customers.
I’m not exactly sure exactly how the system economics deal with this, but beehiiv is certainly more affordable (at the moment) than what it can be.
beehiiv benefits and drawbacks
Of course, with every platform, it has its benefits and drawbacks. Below are several of the benefits and drawbacks I have actually personally experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Here are several of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter system of option:
- Easy to set up and start sending e-newsletters for free
- Tidy and modern-day subscriber analytics
- Lots of versatility with e-mail layouts.
- Referral program feature Boost Your Podcast with Beehiiv
- Website hosting
- Develop premium alternatives to generate income from
- Polls
To be sincere, I have not seen one more e-newsletter platform that has had the ability to package every one of these features with each other so well.
Yet certainly, I don’t wish to be biased so I’m going to state some disadvantages.
Cons of using beehiiv
Here are a few of the cons I’ve found while utilizing beehiiv:.
- Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv
- Limitations around adding custom-made fonts
I utilize Webflow as my website structure system of option (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a long period of time ago). I’m not mosting likely to go in excessive information why I like Webflow a lot yet you can read my Webflow review if you ‘d like to find out more.
Now, there truly is nothing else method I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow web site apart from using an iframe embed. I directly do not like utilizing iframe’s because they often tend to slow down my site a little bit. Every single time a page on my website (with a beehiiv embed) lots, the sign-up installed is the last point to fill on the page. It’s extremely noticeable when you’re on a slow web connection. But I can navigate that.
The major complaint I have is that I can’t make use of a normal Webflow form (which I like utilizing). There are methods around this by utilizing a tool like Zapier yet that would certainly simply add added costs that I do not need. To be sincere, this is even more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv disadvantage yet I believed I would state it.
Besides that, I still think the pros much exceed the cons below. I’m additionally hopeful that Webflow will at some point produce a better means to integrate with beehiiv.
Verdict
Overall, beehiiv is a terrific solution for any person seeking to study the world of e-mail marketing and e-newsletters.
The performance of this e-newsletter system much exceeds many that are currently on the market. And with a generous free plan, you really have nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are also relatively low-cost for what they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 subscribers on your checklist is unheard of. 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 each month.
Anyways, I don’t create evaluation articles usually. I only do when I in fact make use of the device myself and would suggest it to a close friend.
I wish you discovered some clearness on whether or not beehiiv is a great platform for you.