I read among my favorite email 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. Culture Critic Beehiiv…
Being a full-time creator is difficult. I’m typically obtaining pitched various devices and solutions that do not seem to be worth my time.
I guess I was psychological since I spent the last 6 months experimenting with different email and e-newsletter systems to help develop my e-newsletter. And to be fair, there are some excellent choices for composing newsletters. Yet I couldn’t discover one that made me offer a guaranteed “yes”.
The issue with numerous existing newsletter systems is that they do not really feel creator-centered. I desire a newsletter system that lets me fully personalize my e-newsletter layouts, makes it super very easy to create and send out e-mails, and offers me tools that assist me examine metrics and get even more customers.
I think I’ve finally found the best tool.
Yet, I know beehiiv may not be for everybody. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s really 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 simple to design, compose, send out, advertise, generate income from, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Produced by former staff members at the famous newsletter business Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to assist designers launch and monetize their very own newsletter– taking lots of development principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M customers.
In this article, I’m mosting likely to clarify my individual experience with beehiiv, the important things I enjoy (and hate) regarding it, all of it’s features, and why I determined to lastly select it as my e-newsletter platform of choice.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A few months ago, I mistakenly came across beehiiv. The funny tale is that I’ve watched for a modern e-newsletter platform for quite time now. I have actually postponed hard when it involved finally introducing my e-newsletter.
First, I attempted Mailchimp. After that, a few various other indie platforms. Then, Substack. And lastly, I wound up utilizing beehiiv.
I’m sure numerous newsletter developers respect popular e-newsletters with numerous customers– I recognize I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I admired a lot. They have wonderful material, lots of subscribers, and a brilliant referral program that permits them to get back at a lot more subscribers.
So, I went on a search to figure out exactly how these huge newsletters established their logistics. What system do they make use of? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they obtain more subscribers? How do they produce a newsletter style that remains on-brand?
When I found beehiiv for the very first time, it appeared to address all of my questions. I thought to myself, “damn the people that constructed this device truly recognize newsletter creation and growth.” I examined who these creators of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were several of the initial marketing and development employees at Morning Brew– my brain exploded.
I recognized this was going to be a various newsletter system. One that’s focused on designer development.
Because, any type of maker knows, you require development to be able to earn a living off of a newsletter. And locating the right e-newsletter stack (that scales) commonly implies using numerous different tools to assist achieve one objective– one platform for your e-newsletter, one system to generate income from, and one platform to establish recommendations. It can obtain pricey.
So when I figured out beehiiv did every one of these things in one platform, and it was cost-free to start utilizing, it was a piece of cake to give it a try.
beehiiv vs Substack
You could be asking, “isn’t there currently a platform for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, of course there is. Substack is a wonderful system utilized by countless independent authors. With Substack you obtain your own website and make use of the platform as your all-in-one solution for sending out e-mails (while producing an archive of previous problems).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s devotion to growth. beehiiv enables you do to all things Substack can do, with the advantage of better analytics, even more layout flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing subscribers to get the word out.
beehiiv likewise provides you an internet site comparable to Substack. However, if you have your own web site currently, you can additionally utilize beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I use) to send your site clients straight to your beehiiv email listing. On the very same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a tool like Revue to allow individuals to sign up for your e-newsletter straight from Twitter.
This provides you the adaptability to utilize different marketing channels to get your e-newsletter out right into the globe, making beehiiv a terrific Substack choice.
How to begin using beehiiv email marketing software program.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean material creator that desires a system that allows them to send personalized newsletters with or without requiring to have a website.
One of the most effective newsletters have the right devices to develop and scale their newsletters. beehiiv aims at offering you those tools.
If you’re an independent author, media firm, startup, or web content creator, you need to seriously thinking about experimenting with beehiiv. It’s entirely complimentary to get going and you just pay when you get to over 2,500 clients on your listing.
If you actually end up having to pay for beehiiv it’s probably a good indication that people like reviewing your stuff.
Sign up for a free plan
The primary 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 certainly enable you to have up to 2,500 customers, provide you accessibility to web site hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, breakthrough personalization, analytics, external embed kinds, and a lot more. It’s an extremely charitable offering for those simply starting out (or for those trying to find a new platform to move to).
Onboarding
After producing an account, you’ll undergo an onboarding procedure that will ask points like, “is this your first newsletter?”, “what other systems have you utilized?”, “do you have any paying customers?”, and more.
You’ll then develop a name and link for your newsletter’s site. On the free plan, your newsletter will certainly survive a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your website URL may be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding process, you’ll also select your brand name design and colors to make sure your newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your dashboard
When you reach your major dashboard, you’ll see all of your analytics and setups.
You will certainly have detailed information on how many sign-ups you’re getting and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see alternatives for “Begin writing”, “Blog posts”, “Target market”, “Grow”, “Monetize”, “Style” and” Examine”. And at the extremely bottom you’ll see the setups choice.
Dashboard is your major nerve center (screenshot above), Beginning composing is where you produce and publish newsletters, Messages is where you can see all of your previous newsletter editions, Audience is where you can view who your subscribers are (and damage them down right into sections), Grow 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 ads, Layout is where you make your e-newsletter landing page and blog post template, Examine is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can manage every one of your admin stuff.
Writing your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it easy to begin composing, with little to no rubbing. If you’re just starting out, and have an idea you intend to blog about, I advise just mosting likely to the “Write” area in the navbar and clicking on “Begin creating”.
You can modify your template and styling later on– focus on the web content first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor provides a clean and straightforward user interface for composing.
When you begin composing, you can maximize headings, add links, and style your web content just how you like.
beehiiv gives you lots of options for various types of material like videos, links, images, and much more.
The team at beehiiv is also continuously launching item feature and updates so I make certain there will be a great deal a lot more material features relying on when you’re reading this.
Maximizing your setups and templates
As soon as you have a newsletter that prepares to send out, it’s time to create your email template and adjust some settings.
Below, you can upgrade the name of your e-newsletter, give it a summary, add your logo design, switch on or off a welcome email to first time subscribers, and more.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can modify background shades, borders, spacing, typefaces, image styles, and more. I’m not going to go through ever before solitary thing you can optimize with your e-mail template due to the fact that it’s a great deal. Simply check out the platform free of charge and see it for yourself!
Vital beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of remarkable features that make it an excellent posting system for any type of e-newsletter designer.
Here are some of the necessary features you can locate with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder Culture Critic Beehiiv
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter posting system. It makes it extremely simple to write and send e-mails. I stated over some of the things you can do with your settings and e-mail layout so I’ll spare you some added analysis.
The thing to keep in mind with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has an actually modern-day and minimalistic feeling. It’s definitely one of the much better e-mail editors I’ve ever written in.
Site hosting
When you develop a beehiiv e-newsletter, every one of your e-newsletters (if you want) survive a site. Think of it as an internet site for your e-newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous problems of your newsletter, and an area where individuals can register for your e-newsletter.
If you recognize with Substack, it’s basically comparable to that.
All plans, consisting of the cost-free one, provide you a website. Nonetheless, the free plan places your website on a beehiiv subdomain so if you intend to include a customized domain name to eliminate all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining subscribers is essential. Nevertheless, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can sign up for your e-newsletter right from your beehiiv web site or through embed kinds.
If you already have a site, and desire individuals to register for your newsletter from your existing site, you’ll need to utilize an embed kind. This is what I use on this internet site (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 different alternatives– a full width, a taken care of size, and a slim embed. I directly use the slim installed.
You can locate the code fragment for these embeds in the “Subscribe Forms” tab in your setups.
There’s also an option for attribution monitoring if you wish to forward UTM criteria for tracking objectives– rather cool.
However, there are a few features I want beehiiv had when it came to subscribe features. I make certain the group is working on updates for these, yet I mentioned a couple of concerns I had in the benefits and drawbacks section below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things regarding beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter system, is a solution for developing a referral program.
You can motivate existing subscribers on your checklist to ahead your emails to close friends and associates and if they obtain other individuals to subscribe to your list, you can compensate them. These rewards can be in whatever type you want. I’ve appear several newsletter companies give rewards in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously turn your customers into a word of mouth growth engine for your newsletter– offering you one more avenue for expanding your e-mail list.
Nevertheless, to obtain accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll have to update to an extra superior plan. I’ll go over all the plans later on in this short article.
Costs memberships
They say all you need to make a living online is 1,000 true fans. Membership profits is certainly a monster of its own. If you’re seeking a platform to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can create “costs” concerns of your newsletter that are only sent out to paying customers. This can be extremely rewarding relying on what your e-newsletter has to provide. As an example, Trends.co is a preferred premium newsletter that generates millions in profits a year just by having pay-only e-newsletter material.
Data analytics
One of the things I love about beehiiv is how tidy and straightforward the analytics are. You obtain real-time day on exactly how your newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and customer count.
You get access to all the metrics you need to get a bird-eye view on just how your newsletter is in fact doing. Logging right into your dashboard and seeing that client count increase is most definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv supplies 4 various pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (totally free) Launch plan gives you everything you need to get going and expand your newsletter (up to 2,500 subscribers).
The Scale plan ($ 39/month) gives you everything in the Launch plan with the enhancement the advertisement network, referral program, custom domain name, polls, and accessibility to premium registrations. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 76/month) provides you everything in the Grow plan with addition of top priority support and eliminating the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are fairly charitable in my viewpoint.
For instance, if you have 100,000 subscribers you will certainly pay around $329 monthly. Instead of some rivals, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would charge $679 per month for the very same amount– making beehiiv a great Kit alternative for many individuals.
I’m not sure how the unit business economics work on this, however beehiiv is absolutely less expensive (right now) than what it can be.
beehiiv benefits and drawbacks
Obviously, with every system, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Here are a few of the benefits and drawbacks I’ve personally experienced while making use of beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Here are several of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter system of option:
- Easy to establish and begin sending e-newsletters absolutely free
- Clean and modern client analytics
- Great deals of versatility with e-mail layouts.
- Referral program feature Culture Critic Beehiiv
- Site hosting
- Create premium alternatives to monetize
- Polls
To be honest, I have not seen one more newsletter system that has actually had the ability to package all of these features together so well.
But certainly, I do not want to be prejudiced so I’m mosting likely to discuss some cons.
Cons of using beehiiv
Here are some of the cons I’ve discovered while using beehiiv:.
- Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv
- Limitations around including custom font styles
I utilize Webflow as my site structure system of selection (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a very long time ago). I’m not going to go in excessive information why I love Webflow so much however you can review my Webflow review if you want to learn more.
Today, there really is no other means I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow web site besides utilizing an iframe embed. I directly don’t like utilizing iframe’s since they tend to slow down my site a little bit. Whenever a page on my site (with a beehiiv embed) lots, the sign-up embed is the last thing to fill on the page. It’s really visible when you get on a slow net link. But I can get around that.
The primary complaint I have is that I can’t make use of a normal Webflow kind (which I like utilizing). There are means around this by utilizing a device like Zapier however that would certainly just include additional expenses that I do not need. To be straightforward, this is even more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv con yet I assumed I would discuss it.
Besides that, I still think the pros far outweigh the cons below. I’m also confident that Webflow will eventually create a better way to integrate with beehiiv.
Final Thought
In general, beehiiv is an excellent remedy for anyone aiming to study the world of e-mail marketing and newsletters.
The functionality of this e-newsletter system far outweighs numerous that are currently on the market. And with a charitable free plan, you really have nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are also rather economical of what they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 customers 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 right into the thousands monthly.
Anyways, I don’t create testimonial messages often. I just do when I really use the device myself and would certainly suggest it to a good friend.
I hope you located some quality on whether or not beehiiv is a good platform for you.