I was reading one of my favored email e-newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo design for the very first time. I clicked on it and immediately began wrecking. Is Beehiiv Good…
Being a permanent creator is tough. I’m often obtaining pitched different tools and services that do not appear to be worth my time.
I think I was emotional since I invested the last six months trying out various email and e-newsletter systems to help construct my e-newsletter. And to be fair, there are some great choices for writing newsletters. But I could not locate one that made me offer a definite “yes”.
The concern with numerous existing e-newsletter systems is that they do not feel creator-centered. I desire an e-newsletter system that lets me completely tailor my e-newsletter designs, makes it super easy to compose and send e-mails, and provides me tools that help me evaluate metrics and obtain more customers.
I assume I have actually ultimately located the appropriate tool.
Yet, I understand beehiiv may not be for every person. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s in fact appropriate for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one platform for e-newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly e-newsletter system that makes it simple to style, write, send out, promote, generate income from, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Produced by former employees at the well-known newsletter firm Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to aid developers launch and monetize their own e-newsletter– taking lots of growth principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M subscribers.
In this write-up, I’m going to discuss my individual experience with beehiiv, the things I enjoy (and hate) regarding it, all of it’s features, and why I chose to finally go with it as my e-newsletter platform of option.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A few months earlier, I accidentally came across beehiiv. The amusing story is that I have actually been on the lookout for a modern e-newsletter platform for rather some time currently. I’ve put things off hard when it came to ultimately releasing my e-newsletter.
Initially, I attempted Mailchimp. Then, a couple of various other indie systems. After that, Substack. And finally, I wound up using beehiiv.
I make certain numerous e-newsletter designers look up to prominent e-newsletters with countless customers– I understand I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I looked up to a great deal. They have wonderful material, tons of customers, and a brilliant referral program that permits them to get back at much more clients.
So, I went on a search to identify how these huge e-newsletters set up their logistics. What system do they use? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they get more clients? How do they develop a newsletter style that stays on-brand?
When I uncovered beehiiv for the very first time, it seemed to respond to all of my concerns. I believed to myself, “damn individuals that constructed this tool really understand e-newsletter production and development.” I examined who these developers of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were a few of the initial marketing and development staff members at Morning Brew– my mind blew up.
I recognized this was mosting likely to be a various e-newsletter system. One that’s concentrated on creator development.
Because, any kind of creator understands, you need growth to be able to earn a living off of a newsletter. And finding the appropriate e-newsletter pile (that scales) usually suggests utilizing multiple different tools to assist achieve one goal– one system for your newsletter, one platform to generate income from, and one system to set up recommendations. It can get pricey.
So when I discovered beehiiv did every one of these points in one system, and it was cost-free to begin utilizing, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
beehiiv vs Substack
You might be asking, “isn’t there already a system for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, of course there is. Substack is a great platform utilized by countless independent writers. With Substack you obtain your own web site and utilize the system as your all-in-one remedy for sending out e-mails (while developing an archive of previous issues).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s devotion to growth. beehiiv enables you do to all the things Substack can do, with the advantage of much better analytics, even more style flexibilty, and a referral program to encourage your existing customers to obtain the word out.
beehiiv likewise gives you an internet site comparable to Substack. However, if you have your own site already, you can also use beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I utilize) to send your site customers right to your beehiiv e-mail checklist. On the same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a device like Revue to permit people to subscribe to your e-newsletter straight from Twitter.
This gives you the flexibility to utilize different marketing networks to get your e-newsletter out into the world, making beehiiv an excellent Substack alternative.
Just how to begin making use of beehiiv e-mail marketing software.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean material maker that wants a system that permits them to send personalized newsletters with or without requiring to have a site.
The most effective e-newsletters have the right tools to construct and scale their newsletters. beehiiv targets at providing you those tools.
If you’re an independent author, media firm, start-up, or material developer, you ought to seriously taking into consideration trying out beehiiv. It’s entirely cost-free to get going and you just pay when you reach over 2,500 customers on your listing.
If you actually wind up having to pay for beehiiv it’s probably an excellent indicator that individuals enjoy reading your stuff.
Register for a free plan
The first step is to register for a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Start trial” button on beehiiv’s site.
The free plan will certainly enable you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, offer you access to website hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, advance modification, analytics, external embed types, and more. It’s an extremely charitable offering for those simply starting (or for those looking for a new system to move to).
Onboarding
After producing an account, you’ll experience an onboarding procedure that will ask points like, “is this your initial e-newsletter?”, “what other systems have you utilized?”, “do you have any paying clients?”, and much more.
You’ll then create a name and link for your e-newsletter’s web site. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will live on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your site URL might be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding process, you’ll additionally select your brand design and colors to make sure your newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your control panel
Once you reach your primary control panel, you’ll see all of your analytics and setups.
You will certainly have described info on the number of sign-ups you’re obtaining and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see choices for “Begin creating”, “Blog posts”, “Target market”, “Expand”, “Monetize”, “Style” and” Evaluate”. And at the really lower you’ll see the setups alternative.
Control panel is your main nerve center (screenshot above), Beginning creating is where you develop and publish newsletters, Blog posts is where you can see every one of your previous newsletter editions, Target market is where you can see who your subscribers are (and damage them down right into segments), Grow is where you have accessibility to a referral program (and growth tutorials) and boosts to run ads, Monetize is where you can access the beehiiv ad network and monetize your newsletter with advertisements, Style is where you design your newsletter landing page and post template, Evaluate is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can handle every one of your admin things.
Writing your newsletter
beehiiv makes it very easy to start creating, with little to no rubbing. If you’re just beginning, and have an idea you wish to write about, I advise just mosting likely to the “Compose” area in the navbar and clicking on “Start composing”.
You can tweak your template and styling later on– focus on the material initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor offers a tidy and user-friendly interface for composing.
Once you begin writing, you can optimize headings, include web links, and design your material how you such as.
beehiiv gives you lots of alternatives for different types of web content like videos, links, pictures, and extra.
The group at beehiiv is likewise frequently launching product feature and updates so I make certain there will be a great deal extra content features depending upon when you’re reading this.
Optimizing your setups and templates
As soon as you have an e-newsletter that prepares to send out, it’s time to make your email template and change some settings.
Right here, you can update the name of your newsletter, offer it a description, add your logo, turn on or off a welcome e-mail to very first time customers, and much more.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your design.
You can modify background shades, boundaries, spacing, typefaces, photo styles, and more. I’m not going to go through ever single point you can optimize with your email template due to the fact that it’s a great deal. Just experiment with the platform free of charge and see it for yourself!
Vital beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of amazing features that make it an excellent publishing system for any kind of e-newsletter creator.
Right here are some of the crucial features you can discover with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder Is Beehiiv Good
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter publishing system. It makes it extremely easy to write and send out emails. I mentioned above several of the things you can do with your settings and e-mail layout so I’ll spare you some extra reading.
Things to note with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has a really modern-day and minimalistic feel. It’s certainly one of the better e-mail editors I’ve ever written in.
Web site hosting
When you create a beehiiv e-newsletter, all of your e-newsletters (if you want) reside on a site. Think about it as a website for your newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous problems of your newsletter, and a location where individuals can subscribe to your newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s practically similar to that.
All plans, including the complimentary one, offer you a site. Nonetheless, the free plan places your website on a beehiiv subdomain so if you want to add a custom domain to eliminate all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting subscribers is essential. After all, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can sign up for your e-newsletter directly from your beehiiv web site or through embed types.
If you currently have a site, and want people to register for your newsletter from your existing website, you’ll need to make use of an embed form. This is what I use on this site (you can see the sign-up embed on the right hand column of this blog post if you scroll up).
With embed kinds, you have 3 various choices– a complete size, a dealt with size, and a slim embed. I directly utilize the slim embed.
You can find the code fragment for these embeds in the “Subscribe Types” tab in your setups.
There’s also an alternative for acknowledgment tracking if you intend to forward UTM parameters for tracking objectives– quite neat.
Nevertheless, there are a couple of features I wish beehiiv had when it pertained to subscribe features. I make certain the team is servicing updates for these, but I stated a couple of issues I had in the advantages and disadvantages area listed below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things concerning beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter system, is a service for developing a referral program.
You can urge existing subscribers on your checklist to forward your e-mails to good friends and coworkers and if they get other individuals to sign up for your checklist, you can compensate them. These benefits can be in whatever form you want. I have actually seem many newsletter firms provide benefits in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously turn your customers right into a word of mouth development engine for your newsletter– offering you another opportunity for growing your email list.
Nevertheless, to obtain accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll have to update to an extra exceptional plan. I’ll discuss all the plans later on in this write-up.
Costs subscriptions
They claim all you require to earn a living online is 1,000 true followers. Subscription revenue is most definitely a beast of its own. If you’re looking for a platform to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can develop “costs” problems of your e-newsletter that are just sent out to paying subscribers. This can be extremely rewarding relying on what your newsletter needs to offer. For example, Trends.co is a preferred costs e-newsletter that produces millions in income a year simply by having pay-only newsletter web content.
Data analytics
One of the important things I like about beehiiv is exactly how tidy and easy the analytics are. You obtain real-time day on just how your newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and customer matter.
You get access to all the metrics you require to obtain a bird-eye view on exactly how your newsletter is in fact doing. Logging into your dashboard and seeing that client count go up is definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv offers 4 different pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (cost-free) Launch plan provides you every little thing you need to begin and expand your newsletter (approximately 2,500 subscribers).
The Scale plan ($ 39/month) offers you whatever in the Launch plan with the addition the advertisement network, referral program, customized domain, surveys, and access to costs memberships. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 76/month) gives you everything in the Grow plan with enhancement of top priority support and eliminating the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are rather charitable in my point of view.
For example, if you have 100,000 clients you will certainly pay around $329 each month. As opposed to some competitors, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would charge $679 each month for the same quantity– making beehiiv an excellent Kit choice for lots of users.
I’m unsure how the system business economics service this, but beehiiv is certainly less expensive (presently) than what it can be.
beehiiv advantages and disadvantages
Certainly, with every system, it has its benefits and drawbacks. Here are several of the advantages and disadvantages I’ve directly experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Here are several of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter system of option:
- Easy to set up and start sending out e-newsletters for free
- Clean and modern-day subscriber analytics
- Great deals of adaptability with email designs.
- Referral program feature Is Beehiiv Good
- Internet site hosting
- Create premium choices to generate income from
- Polls
To be truthful, I have not seen an additional newsletter platform that has actually had the ability to package all of these features together so well.
However certainly, I do not want to be biased so I’m mosting likely to state some disadvantages.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Here are a few of the disadvantages I have actually found while utilizing beehiiv:.
- Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv
- Limitations around adding custom-made fonts
I use Webflow as my website structure system of option (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a very long time ago). I’m not going to enter way too much information why I enjoy Webflow so much yet you can read my Webflow testimonial if you wish to find out more.
Now, there actually is no other means I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow internet site apart from using an iframe embed. I personally do not such as making use of iframe’s because they tend to reduce my website a little bit. Each time a page on my site (with a beehiiv embed) tons, the sign-up installed is the last point to pack on the web page. It’s really visible when you get on a slow-moving net link. Yet I can get around that.
The primary complaint I have is that I can’t make use of a normal Webflow kind (which I love utilizing). There are means around this by using a tool like Zapier yet that would certainly just include added prices that I do not require. To be honest, this is even more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv con but I thought I would state it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros far outweigh the cons right here. I’m likewise hopeful that Webflow will eventually develop a better means to integrate with beehiiv.
Verdict
Overall, beehiiv is a fantastic option for any individual looking to study the world of e-mail marketing and newsletters.
The performance of this e-newsletter system far exceeds many that are currently on the marketplace. And with a charitable free plan, you truly have nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are also fairly inexpensive wherefore they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 subscribers on your checklist is uncommon. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k customers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it can cost you well into the thousands per month.
Anyways, I don’t create testimonial blog posts frequently. I just do when I actually use the tool myself and would advise it to a friend.
I wish you discovered some clearness on whether or not beehiiv is a good system for you.