I read among my preferred e-mail newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the e-mail and saw the beehiiv logo for the first time. I clicked it and quickly began tearing up. Jacob Wolf Beehiiv…
Being a permanent designer is difficult. I’m typically getting pitched different devices and solutions that do not appear to be worth my time.
I think I was emotional because I invested the last six months trying out various e-mail and e-newsletter platforms to help construct my newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some excellent options for composing newsletters. But I couldn’t locate one that made me provide a certain “yes”.
The issue with numerous existing e-newsletter platforms is that they do not feel creator-centered. I want a newsletter platform that lets me completely tailor my newsletter designs, makes it incredibly very easy to create and send e-mails, and offers me tools that help me assess metrics and obtain more customers.
I assume I’ve finally located the appropriate tool.
However, I know beehiiv might not be for every person. 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 newsletter system that makes it very easy to style, compose, send, promote, generate income from, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Created by former staff members at the renowned newsletter firm Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to help developers launch and monetize their very own e-newsletter– taking great deals of growth concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M customers.
In this write-up, I’m going to discuss my personal experience with beehiiv, the important things I enjoy (and hate) regarding it, all of it’s features, and why I chose to lastly select it as my e-newsletter system of choice.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A couple of months back, I mistakenly came across beehiiv. The funny story is that I have actually been on the lookout for a modern-day e-newsletter platform for quite some time now. I’ve postponed hard when it involved finally releasing my newsletter.
First, I attempted Mailchimp. Then, a couple of various other indie systems. After that, Substack. And ultimately, I wound up using beehiiv.
I make certain lots of newsletter makers respect preferred e-newsletters with millions of subscribers– I know I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I looked up to a great deal. They have excellent content, tons of customers, and a creative referral program that permits them to get back at extra clients.
So, I took place a search to figure out just how these huge e-newsletters set up their logistics. What system do they make use of? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they obtain even more subscribers? How do they create an e-newsletter layout that stays on-brand?
When I discovered beehiiv for the first time, it seemed to address all of my questions. I believed to myself, “damn individuals that developed this tool actually comprehend newsletter production and growth.” I examined who these makers of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were a few of the first marketing and growth employees at Morning Brew– my brain blew up.
I recognized this was mosting likely to be a different e-newsletter system. One that’s concentrated on designer growth.
Since, any kind of developer recognizes, you require growth to be able to earn a living off of a newsletter. And finding the best newsletter pile (that scales) commonly means using multiple different tools to help achieve one objective– one system for your e-newsletter, one platform to generate income from, and one platform to establish referrals. It can obtain expensive.
So when I figured out beehiiv did all of these things in one system, and it was totally free to start making use of, 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, yes there is. Substack is a terrific system made use of by countless independent authors. With Substack you obtain your own web site and use the system as your all-in-one service for sending out e-mails (while producing an archive of previous issues).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s devotion to development. beehiiv enables you do to all the things Substack can do, with the benefit of far better analytics, more style flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing clients to get words out.
beehiiv also provides you a web site similar to Substack. But, if you have your very own site already, you can also use beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I make use of) to send your site subscribers right to your beehiiv email checklist. On the very same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a device like Performance to permit people to register for your newsletter directly from Twitter.
This provides you the versatility to take advantage of different marketing networks to get your e-newsletter out right into the world, making beehiiv a terrific Substack choice.
Just how to begin making use of beehiiv email marketing software program.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean material designer that desires a platform that enables them to send custom-made newsletters with or without needing to have a site.
The most effective e-newsletters have the right devices to construct and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv targets at offering you those devices.
If you’re an independent author, media business, startup, or web content maker, you ought to seriously taking into consideration trying out beehiiv. It’s absolutely cost-free to get going and you only pay when you reach over 2,500 customers on your list.
If you really wind up having to pay for beehiiv it’s most likely a good sign that individuals enjoy reviewing your stuff.
Register for a free plan
The very first step is to enroll in a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Start trial” switch on beehiiv’s internet site.
The free plan will certainly permit you to have up to 2,500 clients, provide you accessibility to web site hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, breakthrough personalization, analytics, exterior embed types, and a lot more. It’s a very generous offering for those simply starting (or for those searching for a new system to migrate to).
Onboarding
After creating an account, you’ll experience an onboarding procedure that will ask points like, “is this your very first e-newsletter?”, “what various other systems have you utilized?”, “do you have any kind of paying subscribers?”, and more.
You’ll then create a name and URL for your newsletter’s web site. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will reside on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your website URL may be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding process, you’ll likewise choose your brand name colors and design to ensure your e-newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your control panel
When you reach your main control panel, you’ll see all of your analytics and settings.
You will have described information on the number of sign-ups you’re getting and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see alternatives for “Begin writing”, “Posts”, “Audience”, “Expand”, “Generate income from”, “Design” and” Analyze”. And at the really lower you’ll see the settings choice.
Dashboard is your main nerve center (screenshot over), Begin creating is where you create and release e-newsletters, Blog posts is where you can see all of your previous newsletter editions, Target market is where you can view who your clients are (and damage them down into segments), Expand is where you have access to a referral program (and development tutorials) and boosts to run advertisements, Monetize is where you can access the beehiiv ad network and monetize your e-newsletter with advertisements, Design is where you develop your newsletter landing page and blog post template, Evaluate is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can handle all of your admin stuff.
Creating your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it very easy to start composing, with little to no friction. If you’re just starting out, and have a concept you wish to discuss, I advise just mosting likely to the “Compose” area in the navbar and clicking “Begin writing”.
You can tweak your template and styling later– focus on the content first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor offers a clean and user-friendly interface for creating.
When you begin composing, you can maximize headings, add web links, and style your web content exactly how you such as.
beehiiv gives you tons of choices for various sorts of material like video clips, links, images, and much more.
The team at beehiiv is also regularly releasing item feature and updates so I make sure there will certainly be a lot extra material features relying on when you read this.
Enhancing your settings and templates
When you have a newsletter that prepares to send out, it’s time to make your email template and change some setups.
Below, you can upgrade the name of your e-newsletter, provide it a summary, add your logo design, activate or off a welcome email to first time subscribers, and extra.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can edit background shades, borders, spacing, font styles, picture layouts, and extra. I’m not mosting likely to undergo ever single point you can enhance with your e-mail template due to the fact that it’s a whole lot. Simply experiment with the platform completely free and see it on your own!
Important beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of outstanding features that make it a great publishing system for any type of e-newsletter creator.
Here are a few of the crucial features you can discover with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder Jacob Wolf Beehiiv
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter posting platform. It makes it super easy to write and send emails. I pointed out over several of the important things you can do with your setups and e-mail design so I’ll save you some added reading.
The important things to keep in mind with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has a truly modern and minimalistic feel. It’s absolutely among the much better email editors I’ve ever before written in.
Web site hosting
When you develop a beehiiv newsletter, all of your newsletters (if you want) live on a site. Think about it as a website for your e-newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous issues of your newsletter, and a location where individuals can register for your newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s practically comparable to that.
All plans, consisting of the free one, give you a web site. Nonetheless, the free plan areas your site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you want to include a custom-made domain name to eliminate all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to upgrade 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 subscribe to your e-newsletter directly from your beehiiv web site or with embed types.
If you currently have a website, and desire individuals to subscribe to your newsletter from your existing site, you’ll need to make use of an embed form. This is what I make use of on this site (you can see the sign-up embed on the right-hand man column of this blog post if you scroll up).
With embed kinds, you have three different alternatives– a complete width, a repaired width, and a slim embed. I directly utilize the slim installed.
You can discover the code fragment for these embeds in the “Subscribe Types” tab in your settings.
There’s additionally an option for acknowledgment tracking if you wish to forward UTM parameters for tracking objectives– quite neat.
Nevertheless, there are a few features I wish beehiiv had when it pertained to subscribe features. I make sure the group is working on updates for these, however I discussed a couple of worries I had in the benefits and drawbacks area listed below.
Referral program
Among 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 urge existing subscribers on your listing to ahead your e-mails to buddies and coworkers and if they get other individuals to sign up for your checklist, you can award them. These benefits can be in whatever form you desire. I’ve seem many e-newsletter companies offer benefits in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously transform your clients right into a word of mouth development engine for your newsletter– providing you another avenue for growing your e-mail list.
However, to obtain accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll have to update to an extra superior plan. I’ll look at all the plans later in this post.
Premium memberships
They say all you need to make a living online is 1,000 true followers. Membership revenue is certainly a monster of its own. If you’re searching for a system to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can produce “premium” issues of your newsletter that are just sent to paying subscribers. This can be very lucrative depending upon what your e-newsletter needs to supply. As an example, Trends.co is a preferred costs newsletter that creates millions in earnings a year just by having pay-only newsletter web content.
Data analytics
One of things I enjoy regarding beehiiv is just how clean and basic the analytics are. You get real-time date on exactly how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and customer count.
You get accessibility to all the metrics you require to obtain a bird-eye view on how your e-newsletter is in fact doing. Logging into your control panel and seeing that subscriber matter rise is definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv provides 4 different pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (free) Launch plan provides you every little thing you need to get going and grow your e-newsletter (up to 2,500 customers).
The Scale plan ($ 39/month) offers you whatever in the Launch plan with the enhancement the advertisement network, referral program, customized domain name, polls, and access to premium registrations. This is the plan I am on.
The Max plan ($ 76/month) offers you every little thing in the Grow plan with addition of concern support and getting rid of the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are fairly generous in my opinion.
For example, if you have 100,000 customers you will certainly pay around $329 each month. Instead of some competitors, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would certainly bill $679 per month for the same quantity– making beehiiv an excellent Kit choice for lots of users.
I’m not exactly sure just how the unit business economics work with this, yet beehiiv is definitely less costly (presently) than what it can be.
beehiiv pros and cons
Of course, with every platform, it has its pros and cons. Below are several of the pros and cons I’ve directly experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Right here are some of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter platform of choice:
- Easy to establish and start sending newsletters completely free
- Clean and modern-day subscriber analytics
- Lots of adaptability with e-mail designs.
- Referral program feature Jacob Wolf Beehiiv
- Web site hosting
- Develop premium choices to generate income from
- Polls
To be honest, I have not seen one more newsletter platform that has had the ability to package all of these features with each other so well.
However certainly, I do not intend to be prejudiced so I’m mosting likely to mention some cons.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Below are some of the cons I have actually found while making use of beehiiv:.
- Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv
- Limitations around adding customized fonts
I make use of Webflow as my site building platform of option (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a long period of time ago). I’m not going to go in excessive detail why I like Webflow so much yet you can read my Webflow testimonial if you wish to discover more.
Today, there really is no other means I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow internet site besides using an iframe embed. I directly do not like using iframe’s due to the fact that they tend to reduce my site a little bit. Every single time a page on my website (with a beehiiv embed) loads, the sign-up installed is the last point to fill on the web page. It’s very visible when you get on a slow web connection. But I can navigate that.
The primary complaint I have is that I can not utilize a normal Webflow type (which I like utilizing). There are means around this by using a device like Zapier yet that would simply include extra prices that I do not require. To be sincere, this is even more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv con but I assumed I would certainly mention it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros far surpass the disadvantages right here. I’m also enthusiastic that Webflow will at some point create a better method to integrate with beehiiv.
Verdict
On the whole, beehiiv is a great solution for anybody wanting to dive into the globe of email marketing and e-newsletters.
The performance of this newsletter system far exceeds many that are presently on the marketplace. And with a generous free plan, you actually have absolutely nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are likewise rather inexpensive of what they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 clients on your list is unprecedented. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k clients, and all of these features beehiiv has, it could cost you well into the thousands monthly.
Anyways, I do not create testimonial messages commonly. I just do when I really make use of the tool myself and would certainly suggest it to a good friend.
I wish you discovered some clarity on whether beehiiv is a great system for you.