I was reading among my favored e-mail newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo for the first time. I clicked it and immediately started destroying. Popehat Beehiiv…
Being a full-time developer is difficult. I’m typically getting pitched different tools and services that do not appear to be worth my time.
I presume I was emotional due to the fact that I invested the last 6 months checking out various e-mail and e-newsletter platforms to help build my newsletter. And to be fair, there are some excellent choices for writing newsletters. But I could not discover one that made me provide a guaranteed “yes”.
The problem with several existing e-newsletter systems is that they do not really feel creator-centered. I desire an e-newsletter system that lets me totally customize my newsletter layouts, makes it extremely very easy to write and send out emails, and gives me tools that assist me assess metrics and obtain even more clients.
I believe I’ve finally found the ideal device.
However, I know beehiiv may not be for everybody. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s really ideal for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one platform for newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly e-newsletter platform that makes it very easy to layout, compose, send, advertise, generate income from, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Created by previous staff members at the famous e-newsletter business Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to assist designers launch and monetize their very own e-newsletter– taking great deals of growth principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M subscribers.
In this article, I’m mosting likely to explain my personal experience with beehiiv, the things I love (and hate) concerning it, all of it’s features, and why I made a decision to finally select it as my newsletter system of option.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A couple of months ago, I inadvertently came across beehiiv. The funny tale is that I’ve been on the lookout for a contemporary newsletter platform for fairly time currently. I’ve postponed hard when it concerned finally releasing my e-newsletter.
Initially, I attempted Mailchimp. Then, a few various other indie platforms. After that, Substack. And finally, I wound up making use of beehiiv.
I make sure numerous e-newsletter designers look up to popular e-newsletters with numerous clients– I know I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I admired a lot. They have fantastic content, tons of subscribers, and a smart referral program that enables them to get back at extra clients.
So, I took place a quest to determine exactly how these big newsletters established their logistics. What platform do they utilize? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they get even more clients? How do they produce an e-newsletter layout that stays on-brand?
When I uncovered beehiiv for the very first time, it appeared to respond to every one of my questions. I believed to myself, “damn individuals that developed this device truly comprehend newsletter creation and growth.” I examined who these developers of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were some of the initial marketing and growth staff members at Morning Brew– my brain exploded.
I understood this was going to be a various e-newsletter platform. One that’s focused on maker growth.
Due to the fact that, any type of developer understands, you need development to be able to make a living off of an e-newsletter. And discovering the right e-newsletter pile (that ranges) usually means using numerous different tools to help attain one objective– one system for your newsletter, one platform to generate income from, and one platform to set up recommendations. It can obtain pricey.
So when I discovered beehiiv did all of these things in one platform, and it was cost-free to begin using, it was a piece of cake to give it a try.
beehiiv vs Substack
You may be asking, “isn’t there currently a platform for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, of course there is. Substack is a terrific platform made use of by thousands of independent authors. With Substack you get your very own site and make use of the platform as your all-in-one solution for sending e-mails (while producing an archive of previous concerns).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s commitment 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 encourage your existing clients to get the word out.
beehiiv also gives you an internet site similar to Substack. But, if you have your very own web site currently, you can likewise utilize beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I make use of) to send your web site clients right to your beehiiv e-mail checklist. On the same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a device like Revue to permit people to register for your newsletter straight from Twitter.
This provides you the adaptability to leverage various marketing channels to get your newsletter out into the world, making beehiiv a fantastic Substack choice.
Just how to start using beehiiv e-mail marketing software program.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean content designer that wants a system that permits them to send customized newsletters with or without needing to have a website.
The most successful e-newsletters have the right devices to build and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv targets at offering you those devices.
If you’re an independent writer, media business, start-up, or web content maker, you should seriously considering trying beehiiv. It’s completely free to get started and you only pay when you get to over 2,500 subscribers on your list.
If you in fact wind up having to pay for beehiiv it’s most likely a good sign that people like reviewing your things.
Register for a free plan
The very first step is to sign up for a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Start trial” switch on beehiiv’s website.
The free plan will certainly permit you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, offer you access to internet site hosting, a newsletter CMS, advance personalization, analytics, outside embed types, and much more. It’s a very generous offering for those simply beginning (or for those trying to find a brand-new system to migrate to).
Onboarding
After creating an account, you’ll experience an onboarding procedure that will ask things like, “is this your first e-newsletter?”, “what other systems have you made use of?”, “do you have any kind of paying subscribers?”, and more.
You’ll after that create a name and link for your newsletter’s 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 may be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding procedure, you’ll additionally pick your brand name design and colors to make sure your newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your dashboard
When you reach your main control panel, you’ll see all of your analytics and setups.
You will certainly have described details on the number of sign-ups you’re getting and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see choices for “Beginning composing”, “Messages”, “Target market”, “Expand”, “Monetize”, “Design” and” Examine”. And at the very lower you’ll see the settings option.
Dashboard is your primary nerve center (screenshot over), Begin writing is where you produce and release newsletters, Articles is where you can see all of your previous newsletter versions, Target market is where you can view who your customers are (and damage them down into sectors), Expand 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 advertisements, Style is where you make your e-newsletter landing page and message template, Assess is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can take care of every one of your admin stuff.
Creating your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it easy to begin creating, with little to no friction. If you’re simply starting out, and have a concept you want to discuss, I advise simply mosting likely to the “Compose” section in the navbar and clicking “Beginning composing”.
You can tweak your template and styling later on– focus on the web content first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor uses a tidy and straightforward interface for writing.
As soon as you begin composing, you can optimize headings, add web links, and design your material just how you such as.
beehiiv gives you lots of options for different sorts of web content like video clips, web links, photos, and much more.
The team at beehiiv is additionally continuously launching product feature and updates so I’m sure there will be a great deal a lot more material features relying on when you’re reading this.
Optimizing your setups and templates
Once you have a newsletter that prepares to send, it’s time to make your email template and adjust some settings.
Right here, you can upgrade the name of your newsletter, give it a summary, include your logo, switch 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 layout.
You can modify history colors, borders, spacing, fonts, image formats, and more. I’m not going to experience ever before solitary thing you can optimize with your e-mail template because it’s a lot. Just check out the system free of charge and see it for yourself!
Vital beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of incredible features that make it a fantastic publishing platform for any kind of newsletter creator.
Below are a few of the important features you can locate with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder Popehat Beehiiv
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter posting system. It makes it super simple to compose and send out e-mails. I pointed out above some of the important things you can do with your setups and e-mail design so I’ll save you some extra reading.
The thing to note with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has a truly contemporary and minimalistic feeling. It’s definitely among the much better e-mail editors I’ve ever written in.
Web site hosting
When you develop a beehiiv e-newsletter, every one of your e-newsletters (if you want) live on an internet site. Think about it as a site for your e-newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous concerns of your newsletter, and a place where individuals can subscribe to your newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s practically comparable to that.
All plans, consisting of the free one, give you a website. However, the free plan areas your internet site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you intend to add a customized domain to remove all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining customers is important. Nevertheless, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can subscribe to your newsletter straight from your beehiiv site or with embed kinds.
If you already have a site, and want individuals to sign up for your newsletter from your existing site, you’ll need to make use of an embed type. This is what I make use of on this web site (you can see the sign-up embed on the right hand column of this article if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have three different options– a full size, a fixed width, and a slim embed. I personally make use of the slim installed.
You can discover the code fragment for these embeds in the “Subscribe Kinds” tab in your setups.
There’s also an alternative for acknowledgment tracking if you intend to ahead UTM criteria for tracking purposes– rather neat.
Nevertheless, there are a couple of features I desire beehiiv had when it involved subscribe features. I make certain the group is working with updates for these, yet I pointed out a few worries I had in the pros and cons section below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things concerning beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter platform, is a remedy for developing a referral program.
You can motivate existing subscribers on your list to onward your e-mails to friends and coworkers and if they obtain other people to sign up for your checklist, you can award them. These benefits can be in whatever form you desire. I’ve appear numerous e-newsletter firms provide incentives in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously turn your customers into a word of mouth growth engine for your newsletter– providing you another opportunity for growing your email checklist.
Nevertheless, to get access 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 write-up.
Premium registrations
They state all you require to make a living online is 1,000 true fans. Subscription earnings is certainly a monster of its own. If you’re trying to find a system to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can create “costs” concerns of your e-newsletter that are only sent out to paying subscribers. This can be very rewarding relying on what your newsletter has to provide. For instance, Trends.co is a preferred premium newsletter that produces millions in revenue a year merely by having pay-only newsletter content.
Data analytics
One of things I enjoy about beehiiv is exactly how tidy and basic the analytics are. You get real-time day on how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and client matter.
You get accessibility to all the metrics you require to get a bird-eye view on exactly how your newsletter is actually doing. Logging into your dashboard and seeing that subscriber count increase is absolutely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv offers 4 various pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (free) Launch plan gives you every little thing you need to begin and expand your newsletter (as much as 2,500 clients).
The Scale plan ($ 39/month) provides you every little thing in the Launch plan with the addition the ad network, referral program, personalized domain, surveys, and accessibility to premium memberships. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 76/month) gives you everything in the Grow plan with addition of concern assistance and getting rid of the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are quite charitable in my viewpoint.
As an example, if you have 100,000 subscribers you will certainly pay around $329 monthly. In contrast to some competitors, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would certainly bill $679 per month for the same quantity– making beehiiv a fantastic Kit choice for many individuals.
I’m uncertain just how the system economics service this, yet beehiiv is most definitely more affordable (currently) than what it can be.
beehiiv pros and cons
Certainly, with every system, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Right here are a few of the benefits and drawbacks I have actually personally experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Here are several of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter platform of option:
- Easy to set up and start sending e-newsletters completely free
- Clean and contemporary customer analytics
- Great deals of adaptability with email styles.
- Referral program feature Popehat Beehiiv
- Website hosting
- Create costs options to generate income from
- Surveys
To be straightforward, I haven’t seen an additional e-newsletter system that has actually been able to package every one of these features together so well.
Yet obviously, I don’t want to be biased so I’m mosting likely to discuss some disadvantages.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Here are a few of the cons I have actually found while making use of beehiiv:.
- Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv
- Limitations around including personalized typefaces
I use Webflow as my web site building system of option (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a long time ago). I’m not mosting likely to enter way too much information why I enjoy Webflow so much however you can read my Webflow evaluation if you wish to discover more.
Today, there truly is no other way I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow internet site other than using an iframe embed. I personally don’t like utilizing iframe’s due to the fact that they often tend to decrease my website a little bit. Each time a web page on my website (with a beehiiv installed) tons, the sign-up installed is the last point to pack on the web page. It’s really noticeable when you’re on a slow-moving net connection. However I can get around that.
The main complaint I have is that I can not use a normal Webflow type (which I love using). There are ways around this by using a tool like Zapier however that would certainly simply include additional expenses that I do not require. To be truthful, this is even more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv disadvantage however I assumed I would certainly mention it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros much outweigh the cons here. I’m additionally enthusiastic that Webflow will eventually produce a much better method to incorporate with beehiiv.
Final Thought
In general, beehiiv is a terrific remedy for anyone aiming to study the world of e-mail marketing and newsletters.
The capability of this newsletter platform far surpasses numerous that are currently on the marketplace. And with a charitable free plan, you actually have nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are likewise relatively low-cost of what they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 subscribers on your listing is unheard of. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k clients, and all of these features beehiiv has, it could cost you well right into the thousands monthly.
Anyways, I don’t write evaluation articles often. I just do when I in fact utilize the device myself and would advise it to a buddy.
I hope you found some clarity on whether beehiiv is a good platform for you.