I was reading one of my preferred 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 it and instantly began destroying. Flight Beehiiv…
Being a full-time developer is difficult. I’m typically getting pitched different tools and solutions that don’t appear to be worth my time.
I guess I was emotional because I spent the last 6 months trying different email and newsletter platforms to assist construct my e-newsletter. And to be fair, there are some great alternatives for creating newsletters. Yet I could not locate one that made me provide a definite “yes”.
The issue with numerous existing newsletter platforms is that they don’t feel creator-centered. I desire a newsletter system that lets me totally tailor my e-newsletter styles, makes it super simple to write and send out emails, and gives me devices that help me evaluate metrics and obtain even more customers.
I believe I have actually lastly discovered the right device.
Yet, I know beehiiv might not be for every person. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s actually ideal for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one platform for e-newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter system that makes it simple to design, write, send out, advertise, monetize, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Created by previous staff members at the well-known newsletter business Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to help developers launch and monetize their own newsletter– taking great deals of growth principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M clients.
In this write-up, I’m going to describe my personal experience with beehiiv, the important things I like (and hate) about it, all of it’s features, and why I determined to lastly choose it as my e-newsletter platform of selection.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A few months earlier, I unintentionally stumbled across beehiiv. The amusing tale is that I have actually been on the lookout for a modern-day newsletter platform for fairly some time now. I’ve hesitated hard when it involved finally launching my newsletter.
Initially, I attempted Mailchimp. Then, a few various other indie systems. Then, Substack. And ultimately, I ended up utilizing beehiiv.
I make certain lots of e-newsletter makers respect popular newsletters with numerous subscribers– I know I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I admired a whole lot. They have terrific material, tons of clients, and a brilliant referral program that permits them to get even a lot more customers.
So, I went on a hunt to find out how these large 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 a newsletter layout that remains on-brand?
When I discovered beehiiv for the very first time, it appeared to respond to all of my inquiries. I believed to myself, “damn the people that developed this tool actually comprehend newsletter development and development.” I questioned who these developers of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were a few of the very first marketing and growth workers at Morning Brew– my brain took off.
I knew this was mosting likely to be a various e-newsletter system. One that’s focused on designer development.
Due to the fact that, any kind of creator knows, you need development to be able to make a living off of an e-newsletter. And finding the ideal e-newsletter stack (that scales) often implies utilizing several different devices to aid accomplish one objective– one system for your newsletter, one system to generate income from, and one platform to establish referrals. It can get pricey.
So when I figured out beehiiv did all of these points in one system, and it was complimentary to start using, 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, indeed there is. Substack is an excellent system used by thousands of independent writers. With Substack you obtain your own site and use the system as your all-in-one remedy for sending out e-mails (while developing an archive of previous problems).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s dedication to growth. beehiiv enables you do to all the important things Substack can do, with the advantage of far better analytics, more style flexibilty, and a referral program to urge your existing customers to get the word out.
beehiiv also gives you a web site similar to Substack. Yet, if you have your very own website currently, you can additionally make use of beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I utilize) to send your site clients right to your beehiiv email checklist. On the exact same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a device like Revue to enable individuals to register for your e-newsletter directly from Twitter.
This provides you the adaptability to leverage different marketing networks to get your newsletter out right into the world, making beehiiv a great Substack choice.
Just how to start using beehiiv e-mail marketing software.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean material creator that wants a platform that enables them to send custom-made newsletters with or without requiring to have a web site.
One of the most successful e-newsletters have the right devices to construct and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv focuses on offering you those devices.
If you’re an independent writer, media business, start-up, or web content creator, you must seriously taking into consideration experimenting with beehiiv. It’s totally complimentary to get going and you just pay when you reach over 2,500 customers on your listing.
If you really wind up having to spend for beehiiv it’s most likely a good indication that people enjoy reading your things.
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 “Begin trial” switch on beehiiv’s web site.
The free plan will permit you to have up to 2,500 customers, give you accessibility to website hosting, a newsletter CMS, advance customization, analytics, outside embed kinds, and more. It’s a very charitable offering for those just beginning (or for those looking for a new platform to move to).
Onboarding
After developing an account, you’ll experience an onboarding process that will ask points like, “is this your very first newsletter?”, “what various other platforms have you utilized?”, “do you have any type of paying clients?”, and more.
You’ll then produce a name and URL for your newsletter’s internet site. On the free plan, your newsletter will certainly survive a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your website link could be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding process, you’ll also pick your brand colors and design to make sure your newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your dashboard
As soon as you reach your main control panel, you’ll see all of your analytics and settings.
You will certainly have detailed information on how many sign-ups you’re obtaining and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see alternatives for “Begin creating”, “Messages”, “Audience”, “Grow”, “Generate income from”, “Style” and” Examine”. And at the very bottom you’ll see the setups choice.
Dashboard is your major nerve center (screenshot above), Beginning creating is where you develop and release e-newsletters, Blog posts is where you can see every one of your previous newsletter editions, Audience is where you can see who your customers are (and break them down right into sectors), Grow is where you have accessibility to a referral program (and growth tutorials) and boosts to run advertisements, Monetize is where you can access the beehiiv ad network and monetize your e-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 manage all of your admin things.
Creating your newsletter
beehiiv makes it easy to begin writing, with little to no friction. If you’re simply beginning, and have a concept you wish to cover, I recommend simply mosting likely to the “Write” area in the navbar and clicking “Start composing”.
You can modify your template and designing later– concentrate on the material first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor uses a clean and user-friendly user interface for creating.
Once you begin creating, you can enhance headings, add links, and design your web content how you like.
beehiiv provides you tons of choices for different sorts of web content like videos, links, photos, and extra.
The team at beehiiv is additionally constantly releasing item feature and updates so I make sure there will be a great deal a lot more material features depending upon when you read this.
Enhancing your settings and templates
As soon as you have an e-newsletter that’s ready to send, it’s time to make your e-mail template and readjust some settings.
Here, you can upgrade the name of your newsletter, provide it a description, include your logo, turn on or off a welcome e-mail to very first time clients, and a lot more.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can edit background colors, borders, spacing, typefaces, photo styles, and extra. I’m not going to experience ever before solitary thing you can maximize with your e-mail template since it’s a great deal. Just try out the system free of charge and see it for yourself!
Necessary beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of amazing features that make it an excellent posting platform for any newsletter developer.
Right here are some of the vital features you can discover with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder Flight Beehiiv
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter publishing platform. It makes it incredibly simple to write and send out e-mails. I discussed above some of the things you can do with your settings and email style so I’ll save you some extra reading.
The thing to keep in mind with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has a truly contemporary and minimalistic feeling. It’s certainly among the much better email editors I have actually ever written in.
Site hosting
When you create a beehiiv newsletter, every one of your newsletters (if you desire) survive on a site. Consider it as a web site for your newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous problems of your newsletter, and an area where individuals can sign up for your newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s basically similar to that.
All plans, consisting of the cost-free one, provide you a site. However, the free plan places your website on a beehiiv subdomain so if you want to include a custom-made domain to get rid of all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining customers is very important. After all, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can subscribe to your newsletter right from your beehiiv site or through embed forms.
If you already have a web site, and want people to register for your e-newsletter from your existing website, you’ll need to utilize an embed kind. This is what I make use of on this internet 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 options– a full width, a dealt with width, and a slim embed. I directly make use of the slim installed.
You can locate the code fragment for these embeds in the “Subscribe Types” tab in your settings.
There’s additionally an option for acknowledgment tracking if you intend to ahead UTM specifications for tracking purposes– pretty cool.
However, there are a few features I want beehiiv had when it came to subscribe features. I’m sure the team is working with updates for these, but I mentioned a few worries I had in the pros and cons area listed below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things concerning beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter system, is an option for producing a referral program.
You can encourage existing clients on your checklist to forward your e-mails to buddies and coworkers and if they get other people to subscribe to your listing, you can reward them. These benefits can be in whatever kind you desire. I have actually seem numerous e-newsletter companies offer incentives in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously turn your subscribers right into a word of mouth growth engine for your e-newsletter– giving you one more avenue for expanding your e-mail list.
However, to get access to the referral program feature, you’ll need to update to a more exceptional plan. I’ll look at all the plans later in this article.
Premium registrations
They state all you require to make a living online is 1,000 true followers. Subscription earnings is most definitely a monster of its own. If you’re looking for a system to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can create “premium” issues of your e-newsletter that are only sent out to paying subscribers. This can be extremely lucrative depending upon what your newsletter needs to offer. For instance, Trends.co is a prominent costs e-newsletter that creates millions in revenue a year simply by having pay-only e-newsletter content.
Data analytics
One of the things I like about beehiiv is just how clean and straightforward the analytics are. You obtain real-time day on how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and subscriber matter.
You get accessibility to all the metrics you require to get a bird-eye sight on exactly how your e-newsletter is really doing. Logging right into your control panel and seeing that client count go up is most definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv supplies 4 different pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (cost-free) Launch plan gives you everything you require to begin and grow your newsletter (as much as 2,500 clients).
The Scale plan ($ 39/month) gives you whatever in the Launch plan with the addition the ad network, referral program, custom-made domain, polls, and accessibility to premium registrations. This is the plan I am on.
The Max plan ($ 76/month) provides you every little thing in the Grow plan with addition of priority assistance and getting rid of the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are fairly charitable in my opinion.
For instance, if you have 100,000 clients you will certainly pay around $329 per month. As opposed to some competitors, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would charge $679 each month for the exact same amount– making beehiiv a terrific Kit choice for many individuals.
I’m not exactly sure exactly how the unit economics work with this, yet beehiiv is absolutely less costly (at the moment) than what it can be.
beehiiv benefits and drawbacks
Obviously, with every system, it has its pros and cons. Here are a few of the advantages and disadvantages I’ve directly experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Below are several of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter system of choice:
- Easy to establish and begin sending e-newsletters totally free
- Tidy and contemporary client analytics
- Great deals of adaptability with e-mail designs.
- Referral program feature Flight Beehiiv
- Internet site hosting
- Develop costs choices to generate income from
- Polls
To be sincere, I have not seen another newsletter platform that has been able to package every one of these features together so well.
But of course, I do not want to be prejudiced so I’m mosting likely to discuss some cons.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Here are several of the disadvantages I have actually found while making use of beehiiv:.
- Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv
- Limitations around adding customized fonts
I utilize Webflow as my website building system of choice (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a long period of time ago). I’m not mosting likely to go in excessive detail why I enjoy Webflow a lot however you can review my Webflow testimonial if you would love to find out more.
Today, there actually is no other method I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow internet site apart from using an iframe embed. I directly don’t like making use of iframe’s because they have a tendency to reduce my site a little bit. Every time a page on my site (with a beehiiv embed) loads, the sign-up embed is the last point to pack on the web page. It’s extremely noticeable when you get on a sluggish web connection. However I can navigate that.
The main gripe I have is that I can not utilize a normal Webflow form (which I enjoy utilizing). There are ways around this by using a device like Zapier however that would simply add added costs that I don’t require. To be straightforward, this is even more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv disadvantage yet I assumed I would state it.
Besides that, I still think the pros much surpass the disadvantages right here. I’m additionally confident that Webflow will eventually create a much better method to incorporate with beehiiv.
Conclusion
On the whole, beehiiv is a great service for anyone seeking to dive into the world of e-mail marketing and e-newsletters.
The performance of this e-newsletter platform much exceeds many that are presently on the market. And with a charitable free plan, you truly have nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are additionally relatively low-cost for what they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 customers on your checklist is uncommon. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k customers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it can cost you well right into the thousands each month.
Anyways, I don’t write evaluation posts typically. I just do when I actually utilize the device myself and would recommend it to a pal.
I hope you located some quality on whether beehiiv is a great platform for you.