I was reading among my preferred email 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 began destroying. Is Beehiiv Free…
Being a full time designer is tough. I’m commonly getting pitched various tools and services that don’t seem to be worth my time.
I presume I was psychological since I invested the last six months checking out various email and e-newsletter platforms to assist build my newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some excellent choices for creating e-newsletters. Yet I couldn’t locate one that made me offer a certain “yes”.
The problem with numerous existing e-newsletter platforms is that they do not really feel creator-centered. I want a newsletter system that lets me completely tailor my e-newsletter layouts, makes it super easy to write and send emails, and provides me devices that help me assess metrics and get more customers.
I believe I have actually finally found the best device.
Yet, I recognize beehiiv may not be for everybody. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s in fact right for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one platform for newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter system that makes it easy to layout, create, send, advertise, monetize, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Developed by former employees at the famous e-newsletter firm Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to aid creators launch and monetize their own e-newsletter– taking lots of development concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M clients.
In this post, I’m mosting likely to explain my individual experience with beehiiv, the things I like (and hate) concerning it, all of it’s features, and why I made a decision to ultimately choose it as my e-newsletter system of selection.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A few months ago, I accidentally stumbled across beehiiv. The funny tale is that I’ve watched for a modern newsletter platform for fairly a long time now. I’ve procrastinated hard when it involved lastly introducing my e-newsletter.
Initially, I tried Mailchimp. After that, a couple of other indie systems. Then, Substack. And finally, I ended up using beehiiv.
I’m sure several newsletter makers respect popular newsletters with countless customers– I understand I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I looked up to a great deal. They have great content, tons of subscribers, and a smart referral program that permits them to get even a lot more subscribers.
So, I went on a hunt to figure out exactly how these big e-newsletters set up their logistics. What system do they use? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they obtain even more clients? How do they develop an e-newsletter layout that remains on-brand?
When I uncovered beehiiv for the very first time, it seemed to address every one of my questions. I thought to myself, “damn the people that developed this tool truly understand newsletter production and growth.” 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 growth employees at Morning Brew– my mind took off.
I recognized this was mosting likely to be a different e-newsletter platform. One that’s focused on designer development.
Since, any type of developer knows, you require growth to be able to make a living off of an e-newsletter. And finding the right newsletter pile (that scales) commonly means making use of multiple different devices to help accomplish one goal– one platform for your newsletter, one platform to monetize, and one system to set up recommendations. It can obtain costly.
So when I figured out beehiiv did all of these things in one system, and it was cost-free to begin using, it was a piece of cake to give it a try.
beehiiv vs Substack
You might be asking, “isn’t there currently a platform for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, indeed there is. Substack is a wonderful platform used by thousands of independent authors. With Substack you get your own web site and use the platform as your all-in-one solution for sending emails (while producing an archive of previous concerns).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s dedication to growth. beehiiv enables you do to all things Substack can do, with the advantage of far better analytics, even more design flexibilty, and a referral program to urge your existing clients to get the word out.
beehiiv additionally offers you a web site comparable to Substack. However, if you have your own web site already, you can also utilize beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I make use of) to send your website subscribers directly to your beehiiv email list. On the same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a device like Revue to permit individuals to subscribe to your newsletter directly from Twitter.
This offers you the adaptability to take advantage of various marketing channels to get your newsletter out right into the world, making beehiiv a fantastic Substack alternative.
Exactly how to begin using beehiiv email marketing software program.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean web content developer that wants a system that permits them to send customized newsletters with or without requiring to have a web site.
One of the most effective newsletters have the right devices to develop and scale their newsletters. beehiiv focuses on giving you those devices.
If you’re an independent writer, media company, startup, or material creator, you should seriously taking into consideration trying out beehiiv. It’s absolutely free to get going and you only pay when you get to over 2,500 customers on your listing.
If you actually end up having to spend for beehiiv it’s possibly a great sign that people enjoy reviewing your stuff.
Register for a free plan
The initial step is to register for a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Begin trial” button on beehiiv’s site.
The free plan will permit you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, give you accessibility to site hosting, a newsletter CMS, breakthrough customization, analytics, exterior embed forms, and a lot more. It’s a very generous offering for those just starting (or for those looking for a brand-new platform to migrate to).
Onboarding
After developing an account, you’ll undergo an onboarding process that will ask points like, “is this your first newsletter?”, “what other systems have you utilized?”, “do you have any type of paying subscribers?”, and extra.
You’ll after that create a name and link for your e-newsletter’s website. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will certainly survive a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your web site link might be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding procedure, you’ll additionally choose your brand name colors and design to see to it your e-newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your dashboard
When you reach your major dashboard, you’ll see every one of your analytics and settings.
You will have detailed info on how many sign-ups you’re obtaining and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see alternatives for “Start composing”, “Articles”, “Audience”, “Expand”, “Generate income from”, “Style” and” Examine”. And at the really bottom you’ll see the setups option.
Dashboard is your major control center (screenshot over), Begin composing is where you produce and release e-newsletters, Blog posts is where you can see all of your previous e-newsletter versions, Target market is where you can watch who your clients are (and break them down into sectors), Grow is where you have access 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 ads, Layout is where you develop your newsletter landing page and message template, Assess is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can take care of every one of your admin things.
Creating your newsletter
beehiiv makes it simple to begin creating, with little to no friction. If you’re just starting, and have an idea you intend to write about, I suggest simply mosting likely to the “Compose” area in the navbar and clicking on “Beginning composing”.
You can modify your template and designing later– focus on the web content initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor supplies a tidy and straightforward user interface for creating.
Once you start writing, you can enhance headings, add web links, and design your content just how you such as.
beehiiv gives you lots of choices for different kinds of web content like video clips, web links, photos, and extra.
The group at beehiiv is additionally constantly releasing item feature and updates so I’m sure there will certainly be a lot a lot more material features depending on when you read this.
Maximizing your setups and templates
When you have an e-newsletter that’s ready to send out, it’s time to design your e-mail template and change some setups.
Right here, you can update the name of your e-newsletter, give it a summary, include your logo, activate or off a welcome email to very first time subscribers, and much more.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your design.
You can edit background shades, boundaries, spacing, typefaces, image layouts, and extra. I’m not mosting likely to go through ever before single thing you can optimize with your e-mail template because it’s a great deal. Just check out the system completely free and see it on your own!
Essential beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of fantastic features that make it a wonderful posting platform for any newsletter creator.
Here are several of the necessary features you can locate with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder Is Beehiiv Free
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter posting system. It makes it extremely simple to write and send e-mails. I discussed above a few of things you can do with your setups and e-mail style so I’ll save you some added reading.
The thing to note with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has an actually modern and minimalistic feel. It’s absolutely among the much better e-mail editors I’ve ever before written in.
Web site hosting
When you develop a beehiiv e-newsletter, all of your e-newsletters (if you desire) live on a website. Think about it as a web site for your e-newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous problems of your e-newsletter, and a place where people can register for your newsletter.
If you recognize with Substack, it’s practically comparable to that.
All plans, consisting of the cost-free one, give you a site. Nonetheless, the free plan places your internet site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you wish to add a customized domain name to remove all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining clients is important. Nevertheless, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can subscribe to your newsletter straight from your beehiiv site or through embed kinds.
If you currently have a site, and want people to sign up for your e-newsletter from your existing website, you’ll have to utilize an embed type. 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 types, you have three different alternatives– a complete size, a dealt with width, and a slim installed. I directly use the slim embed.
You can locate the code snippet for these embeds in the “Subscribe Types” tab in your setups.
There’s also an alternative for attribution tracking if you intend to onward UTM criteria for tracking objectives– pretty cool.
Nevertheless, there are a few features I wish beehiiv had when it involved subscribe features. I make sure the group is working with updates for these, but I discussed a couple of concerns I had in the pros and cons section listed below.
Referral program
Among the amazing things concerning beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter platform, is a service for producing a referral program.
You can urge existing subscribers on your list to ahead your e-mails to good friends and colleagues and if they obtain other individuals to register for your listing, you can reward them. These incentives can be in whatever type you want. I’ve seem several newsletter firms offer benefits in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously turn your customers right into a word of mouth growth engine for your newsletter– providing you one more method for growing your email listing.
Nevertheless, to obtain accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll need to upgrade to an extra exceptional plan. I’ll go over all the plans later on in this write-up.
Costs registrations
They claim all you need to make a living online is 1,000 real followers. Subscription revenue is most definitely a monster of its own. If you’re looking for a system to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can produce “costs” problems of your e-newsletter that are just sent out to paying customers. This can be extremely rewarding depending upon what your e-newsletter needs to provide. For instance, Trends.co is a popular costs e-newsletter that produces millions in profits a year simply by having pay-only newsletter content.
Information analytics
One of the things I enjoy about beehiiv is just how clean and basic the analytics are. You get real-time day on how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and subscriber count.
You get access to all the metrics you require to obtain a bird-eye view on exactly how your e-newsletter is really doing. Logging into your dashboard and seeing that subscriber count increase is certainly a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv uses four different pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (cost-free) Launch plan gives you whatever you require to get started and grow your e-newsletter (approximately 2,500 customers).
The Scale plan ($ 39/month) offers you whatever in the Launch plan with the addition the ad network, referral program, personalized domain name, surveys, and accessibility to premium memberships. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 76/month) provides you whatever in the Grow plan with addition of top priority support and getting rid of the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are rather generous in my opinion.
As an example, if you have 100,000 customers you will pay around $329 monthly. In contrast to some rivals, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would charge $679 per month for the exact same amount– making beehiiv a terrific Kit alternative for numerous individuals.
I’m not sure how the unit economics deal with this, but beehiiv is absolutely less costly (at the moment) than what it can be.
beehiiv advantages and disadvantages
Obviously, with every system, it has its pros and cons. Right here are a few of the benefits and drawbacks I have actually personally experienced while utilizing beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Here are some of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter platform of option:
- Easy to establish and begin sending out newsletters completely free
- Clean and modern customer analytics
- Lots of flexibility with e-mail designs.
- Referral program feature Is Beehiiv Free
- Internet site hosting
- Create premium alternatives to monetize
- Polls
To be honest, I haven’t seen another e-newsletter platform that has been able to package all of these features together so well.
But obviously, I do not wish to be biased so I’m going to discuss some disadvantages.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Right here are a few of the disadvantages I have actually found while using beehiiv:.
- Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv
- Limitations around including custom font styles
I utilize Webflow as my internet site structure platform of option (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a very long time ago). I’m not mosting likely to go in way too much information why I love Webflow so much but you can review my Webflow testimonial if you would love to find out more.
Today, there truly is no other way I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow internet site besides making use of an iframe embed. I directly don’t such as utilizing iframe’s due to the fact that they have a tendency to reduce my web site a bit. Each time a web 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 really recognizable when you get on a sluggish net link. Yet I can navigate that.
The major complaint I have is that I can’t use a normal Webflow type (which I enjoy utilizing). There are ways around this by utilizing a tool like Zapier yet that would just add added costs that I do not require. To be straightforward, this is even more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv con but I believed I would certainly state it.
Besides that, I still think the pros far surpass the disadvantages below. I’m also confident that Webflow will at some point create a much better way to integrate with beehiiv.
Conclusion
In general, beehiiv is a fantastic option for anyone wanting to study the globe of e-mail marketing and newsletters.
The functionality of this e-newsletter system far surpasses several that are currently on the marketplace. And with a generous free plan, you really have absolutely nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are additionally relatively cheap of what they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 customers on your list 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 monthly.
Anyways, I do not create evaluation posts frequently. I just do when I really make use of the tool myself and would certainly advise it to a close friend.
I wish you located some quality on whether or not beehiiv is a good platform for you.