I read one of my favored email newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the e-mail and saw the beehiiv logo design for the first time. I clicked on it and instantly began wrecking. Powered By Beehiiv…
Being a full-time creator is difficult. I’m often getting pitched various tools and services that don’t appear to be worth my time.
I presume I was psychological since I spent the last six months trying out various email and newsletter systems to aid construct my e-newsletter. And to be fair, there are some excellent choices for creating newsletters. But I couldn’t discover one that made me give a certain “yes”.
The issue with many existing e-newsletter platforms is that they do not feel creator-centered. I want a newsletter system that lets me totally tailor my e-newsletter styles, makes it super very easy to write and send emails, and gives me devices that assist me assess metrics and obtain more clients.
I assume I’ve lastly discovered the best tool.
Yet, I recognize beehiiv may not be for every person. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s really ideal for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one system for newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter system that makes it easy to style, write, send, advertise, monetize, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Created by former employees at the famous e-newsletter business Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to assist creators launch and monetize their very own e-newsletter– taking great deals of growth principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M clients.
In this post, I’m mosting likely to describe my personal experience with beehiiv, things I like (and hate) concerning it, all of it’s features, and why I decided to finally go with it as my e-newsletter system of choice.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A few months earlier, I accidentally came across beehiiv. The funny story is that I have actually watched for a modern e-newsletter system for fairly a long time now. I’ve put things off hard when it came to ultimately releasing my e-newsletter.
First, I attempted Mailchimp. After that, a couple of various other indie platforms. After that, Substack. And lastly, I ended up using beehiiv.
I make certain many newsletter makers admire preferred newsletters with countless subscribers– I know I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I looked up to a whole lot. They have excellent web content, lots of clients, and a smart referral program that enables them to get back at more customers.
So, I took place a search to identify exactly how these big e-newsletters set up their logistics. What platform do they use? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they get more clients? How do they create a newsletter style that remains on-brand?
When I discovered beehiiv for the first time, it appeared to answer every one of my questions. I believed to myself, “damn individuals that developed this device really comprehend newsletter production and development.” I examined who these makers of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were several of the very first marketing and development staff members at Morning Brew– my mind took off.
I knew this was mosting likely to be a various newsletter platform. One that’s concentrated on developer growth.
Since, any type of developer recognizes, you need growth to be able to earn a living off of an e-newsletter. And locating the ideal e-newsletter pile (that scales) usually means utilizing multiple different devices to aid attain one objective– one platform for your e-newsletter, one platform to monetize, and one platform to set up recommendations. It can get costly.
So when I found out beehiiv did every one of these points in one system, and it was complimentary to begin making use of, it was a piece of cake to give it a try.
beehiiv vs Substack
You might be asking, “isn’t there already a system for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, yes there is. Substack is a wonderful platform utilized by countless independent writers. With Substack you get your very own internet site and use the platform as your all-in-one solution for sending out e-mails (while developing an archive of previous problems).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s devotion to growth. beehiiv allows you do to all the important things Substack can do, with the advantage of far better analytics, even more design flexibilty, and a referral program to encourage your existing subscribers to get words out.
beehiiv likewise offers you an internet site similar to Substack. But, if you have your own site already, you can also utilize beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I make use of) to send your internet site subscribers right to your beehiiv email checklist. On the same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a tool like Revue to permit individuals to subscribe to your e-newsletter straight from Twitter.
This gives you the flexibility to take advantage of various marketing networks to get your newsletter out right into the world, making beehiiv a wonderful Substack alternative.
Just how to start using beehiiv e-mail marketing software program.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean web content designer that wants a platform that enables them to send out custom-made e-newsletters with or without needing to have a website.
One of the most successful newsletters have the right devices to construct and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv aims at offering you those tools.
If you’re an independent author, media firm, start-up, or material creator, you ought to seriously taking into consideration checking out beehiiv. It’s totally complimentary to get started and you only pay when you get to over 2,500 subscribers on your checklist.
If you really end up needing to pay for beehiiv it’s most likely an excellent sign that people enjoy reviewing your stuff.
Register for a free plan
The first 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 clients, offer you access to internet site hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, breakthrough modification, analytics, exterior embed kinds, and much more. It’s an extremely charitable offering for those simply beginning (or for those seeking a brand-new platform to migrate to).
Onboarding
After developing an account, you’ll go through an onboarding process that will ask points like, “is this your first e-newsletter?”, “what various other platforms have you made use of?”, “do you have any paying clients?”, and extra.
You’ll then produce a name and URL for your newsletter’s internet site. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will certainly survive on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your internet site link could be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding procedure, you’ll also pick your brand colors and design to see to it your newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your dashboard
As soon as you reach your major control panel, you’ll see all of your analytics and settings.
You will certainly have described info on how many sign-ups you’re getting and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see choices for “Begin composing”, “Messages”, “Target market”, “Expand”, “Monetize”, “Design” and” Analyze”. And at the very bottom you’ll see the settings choice.
Control panel is your main nerve center (screenshot over), Beginning creating is where you create and publish newsletters, Articles is where you can see every one of your previous newsletter versions, Audience is where you can watch who your clients are (and break them down into sectors), Expand 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 newsletter with ads, Style is where you create your e-newsletter landing page and blog post template, Assess is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can handle all of your admin stuff.
Creating your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it very easy to begin composing, with little to no rubbing. If you’re simply starting, and have a concept you intend to write about, I advise simply going to the “Create” area in the navbar and clicking on “Beginning creating”.
You can fine-tune your template and styling later on– focus on the material first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor uses a tidy and easy to use user interface for writing.
Once you begin creating, you can maximize headings, add links, and design your material exactly how you like.
beehiiv offers you lots of choices for various sorts of web content like videos, web links, photos, and extra.
The group at beehiiv is likewise continuously releasing product feature and updates so I’m sure there will be a whole lot a lot more material features depending on when you’re reading this.
Maximizing your setups and templates
As soon as you have an e-newsletter that’s ready to send, it’s time to design your e-mail template and change some settings.
Here, you can update the name of your e-newsletter, offer it a description, include your logo design, activate or off a welcome email to first time subscribers, and a lot more.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can edit history shades, boundaries, spacing, typefaces, image layouts, and a lot more. I’m not mosting likely to experience ever before single point you can optimize with your email template because it’s a whole lot. Just try out the platform for free and see it on your own!
Important beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of incredible features that make it a terrific posting system for any kind of newsletter developer.
Right here are several of the important features you can locate with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder Powered By Beehiiv
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter publishing platform. It makes it super simple to create and send e-mails. I stated over some of the important things you can do with your settings and email style so I’ll spare you some additional reading.
The thing to note with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has a truly modern-day and minimalistic feel. It’s absolutely among the far better email editors I have actually ever before written in.
Web site hosting
When you produce a beehiiv e-newsletter, every one of your newsletters (if you desire) survive a website. Consider it as a web site for your newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous issues of your newsletter, and a location where people can sign up for your newsletter.
If you’re familiar with Substack, it’s basically similar to that.
All plans, consisting of the totally free one, provide you a web site. Nonetheless, the free plan places your website on a beehiiv subdomain so if you wish to include a customized domain to eliminate all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting clients is very important. Besides, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can register for your newsletter directly from your beehiiv internet site or through embed types.
If you currently have a site, and desire individuals to subscribe to your newsletter from your existing site, you’ll have to use an embed form. This is what I utilize on this 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 various alternatives– a full width, a fixed width, and a slim embed. I personally make use of the slim embed.
You can locate the code fragment for these embeds in the “Subscribe Forms” tab in your setups.
There’s also an alternative for attribution monitoring if you intend to ahead UTM criteria for tracking purposes– quite neat.
However, there are a few features I want beehiiv had when it concerned subscribe features. I make sure the team is working with updates for these, however I mentioned a couple of problems I had in the pros and cons area listed below.
Referral program
Among the amazing things concerning beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter platform, is an option for creating a referral program.
You can encourage existing customers on your checklist to forward your emails to close friends and colleagues and if they obtain other people to register for your listing, you can reward them. These incentives can be in whatever kind you want. I’ve seem numerous newsletter companies provide benefits in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously transform your subscribers right into a word of mouth growth engine for your newsletter– offering you another method for expanding your email checklist.
Nevertheless, to get access to the referral program feature, you’ll need to upgrade to a more premium plan. I’ll review all the plans later on in this write-up.
Premium subscriptions
They say all you require to make a living online is 1,000 true followers. Subscription earnings is most definitely a monster of its very own. If you’re seeking a system to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can develop “premium” issues of your e-newsletter that are just sent to paying subscribers. This can be extremely rewarding depending on what your e-newsletter has to use. For example, Trends.co is a preferred costs newsletter that generates millions in income a year simply by having pay-only e-newsletter web content.
Data analytics
Among the important things I enjoy regarding beehiiv is exactly how clean 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 obtain accessibility to all the metrics you require to obtain a bird-eye view on just how your e-newsletter is in fact doing. Logging into your dashboard and seeing that subscriber count go up is definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv offers 4 various pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (cost-free) Launch plan gives you every little thing you require to get started and expand your newsletter (as much as 2,500 subscribers).
The Scale plan ($ 39/month) provides you every little thing in the Launch plan with the addition the advertisement network, referral program, personalized domain, polls, and access to premium memberships. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 76/month) gives you whatever in the Grow plan with enhancement of top priority support and getting rid of the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are fairly charitable in my viewpoint.
As an example, if you have 100,000 subscribers you will pay around $329 per month. Instead of some rivals, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would certainly charge $679 per month for the same amount– making beehiiv an excellent Kit choice for many users.
I’m not sure exactly how the unit economics service this, however beehiiv is most definitely more affordable (right now) than what it can be.
beehiiv pros and cons
Obviously, with every system, it has its benefits and drawbacks. Below are some of the advantages and disadvantages I’ve directly experienced while utilizing beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Right here are some of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter system of choice:
- Easy to establish and start sending out newsletters absolutely free
- Tidy and modern client analytics
- Lots of flexibility with email layouts.
- Referral program feature Powered By Beehiiv
- Website hosting
- Produce premium options to monetize
- Surveys
To be sincere, I have not seen an additional newsletter system that has had the ability to package every one of these features with each other so well.
However certainly, I don’t wish to be biased so I’m mosting likely to discuss some cons.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Right here are a few of the disadvantages I have actually located while making use of beehiiv:.
- Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv
- Limitations around adding custom-made fonts
I use Webflow as my site building system of selection (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a very long time ago). I’m not going to go in too much detail why I love Webflow a lot yet you can review my Webflow evaluation if you wish to learn more.
Now, there truly is no other method I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow internet site besides making use of an iframe embed. I personally do not such as utilizing iframe’s since they tend to decrease my site a bit. Each time a web page on my site (with a beehiiv embed) lots, the sign-up embed is the last thing to fill on the web page. It’s really visible when you get on a slow web connection. Yet I can get around that.
The main complaint I have is that I can’t utilize a routine Webflow type (which I love making use of). There are ways around this by using a device like Zapier yet that would certainly just add extra expenses that I don’t need. To be truthful, this is more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv disadvantage yet I believed I would certainly state it.
Besides that, I still think the pros much surpass the disadvantages below. I’m likewise confident that Webflow will eventually create a much better way to integrate with beehiiv.
Conclusion
Generally, beehiiv is a fantastic remedy for anybody looking to dive into the globe of e-mail marketing and newsletters.
The capability of this newsletter system much exceeds many that are presently on the marketplace. And with a generous free plan, you actually have nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are additionally relatively cheap for what they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 subscribers on your checklist is unprecedented. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k subscribers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it might cost you well right into the thousands each month.
Anyways, I do not compose evaluation blog posts commonly. I only do when I in fact use the device myself and would certainly recommend it to a close friend.
I hope you discovered some clarity on whether or not beehiiv is a good system for you.