I read among my preferred e-mail e-newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo for the very first time. I clicked it and instantly began destroying. The ’92 Beehiiv…
Being a permanent designer is tough. I’m usually getting pitched various tools and solutions that do not seem to be worth my time.
I presume I was psychological due to the fact that I invested the last six months checking out different e-mail and e-newsletter systems to help construct my newsletter. And to be fair, there are some wonderful options for creating newsletters. Yet I could not find one that made me offer a precise “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 totally customize my e-newsletter layouts, makes it super simple to write and send emails, and offers me devices that help me examine metrics and get more customers.
I believe I’ve finally located the right tool.
But, I know beehiiv may not be for every person. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s really best for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one platform for newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter platform that makes it simple to design, write, send out, promote, generate income from, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Created by previous employees at the well-known e-newsletter firm Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to help makers launch and monetize their very own e-newsletter– taking great deals of growth concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M clients.
In this article, I’m mosting likely to discuss my personal experience with beehiiv, the things I like (and hate) concerning it, all of it’s features, and why I decided to ultimately select it as my e-newsletter system of option.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A couple of months back, I accidentally stumbled across beehiiv. The amusing tale is that I’ve been on the lookout for a modern-day e-newsletter platform for quite some time currently. I have actually hesitated hard when it pertained to lastly launching my e-newsletter.
Initially, I attempted Mailchimp. Then, a few other indie systems. Then, Substack. And ultimately, I ended up using beehiiv.
I make certain many newsletter developers respect popular e-newsletters with millions of subscribers– I know I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I appreciated a lot. They have great material, lots of customers, and a creative referral program that allows them to get back at a lot more clients.
So, I took place a search to figure out just how these large 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 customers? How do they create a newsletter style that stays on-brand?
When I found beehiiv for the very first time, it appeared to address every one of my inquiries. I thought to myself, “damn the people that constructed this device really comprehend e-newsletter creation and development.” I examined who these creators of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were several of the very first marketing and growth staff members at Morning Brew– my brain blew up.
I understood this was mosting likely to be a different e-newsletter system. One that’s focused on designer growth.
Due to the fact that, any maker recognizes, you require growth to be able to make a living off of a newsletter. And finding the best newsletter pile (that scales) typically means making use of numerous various tools to assist achieve one objective– one system for your newsletter, one platform to generate income from, and one system to set up referrals. It can obtain pricey.
So when I found out beehiiv did all of these points in one system, and it was totally free to start using, it was a piece of cake to give it a try.
beehiiv vs Substack
You may be asking, “isn’t there already a platform for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, yes there is. Substack is a wonderful platform made use of by thousands of independent writers. With Substack you get your very own web site and make use of the platform as your all-in-one remedy for sending out emails (while developing an archive of previous problems).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s dedication to growth. beehiiv allows you do to all things Substack can do, with the benefit of much better analytics, more design flexibilty, and a referral program to urge your existing subscribers to get the word out.
beehiiv likewise provides you a website similar to Substack. However, if you have your very own internet site already, you can additionally make use of beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I make use of) to send your website customers straight to your beehiiv e-mail listing. On the exact same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a tool like Performance to enable individuals to sign up for your e-newsletter straight from Twitter.
This gives you the adaptability to take advantage of various marketing networks to obtain your newsletter out right into the globe, making beehiiv an excellent Substack option.
Just how to begin using beehiiv e-mail marketing software program.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean material creator that desires a platform that allows them to send out custom-made newsletters with or without needing to have a website.
The most effective newsletters have the right tools to build and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv aims at giving you those tools.
If you’re an independent author, media firm, startup, or web content maker, you should seriously considering trying out beehiiv. It’s entirely free to begin and you just pay when you get to over 2,500 clients on your list.
If you really end up having to pay for beehiiv it’s most likely a great indicator that individuals enjoy reviewing your things.
Register for a free plan
The very first step is to register for a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Beginning trial” button on beehiiv’s website.
The free plan will enable you to have up to 2,500 customers, provide you access to website hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, development customization, analytics, exterior embed types, and more. It’s a really generous offering for those simply beginning (or for those trying to find a new platform to migrate to).
Onboarding
After developing an account, you’ll undergo an onboarding procedure that will ask things like, “is this your initial newsletter?”, “what other systems have you made use of?”, “do you have any type of paying subscribers?”, and extra.
You’ll then develop a name and URL for your newsletter’s website. On the free plan, your newsletter will certainly survive on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your internet site link might be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding procedure, you’ll likewise pick your brand name design and colors to see to it your e-newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your control panel
Once you reach your main control panel, you’ll see every one of your analytics and setups.
You will certainly have outlined info on the amount of sign-ups you’re getting and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see alternatives for “Start creating”, “Messages”, “Audience”, “Expand”, “Monetize”, “Layout” and” Evaluate”. And at the very lower you’ll see the setups option.
Control panel is your main control center (screenshot above), Start creating is where you create and release newsletters, Posts is where you can see all of your previous newsletter editions, Target market is where you can see who your subscribers are (and break them down right into segments), Expand is where you have accessibility to a referral program (and development 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 develop your e-newsletter landing page and blog post template, Assess is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can manage every one of your admin stuff.
Creating your newsletter
beehiiv makes it very easy to begin creating, with little to no rubbing. If you’re simply beginning, and have an idea you want to cover, I recommend just mosting likely to the “Compose” section in the navbar and clicking “Beginning composing”.
You can fine-tune your template and designing later– concentrate on the web content first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor supplies a clean and easy to use interface for composing.
When you begin creating, you can enhance headings, add links, and design your content how you like.
beehiiv provides you tons of choices for different sorts of web content like video clips, links, photos, and much more.
The team at beehiiv is also frequently launching product feature and updates so I make certain there will be a great deal extra material features relying on when you’re reading this.
Enhancing your setups and templates
When you have an e-newsletter that prepares to send out, it’s time to develop your e-mail template and change some settings.
Here, you can update the name of your e-newsletter, give it a description, add your logo, switch on or off a welcome e-mail to first time clients, and more.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can modify history shades, 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 whole lot. Simply try the platform free of charge and see it for yourself!
Important beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of impressive features that make it a great publishing system for any kind of newsletter developer.
Here are some of the important features you can discover with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder The ’92 Beehiiv
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter posting platform. It makes it super very easy to create and send e-mails. I mentioned above some of the things you can do with your setups and e-mail design so I’ll save you some additional analysis.
The thing to keep in mind with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has a truly modern and minimalistic feeling. It’s absolutely one of the far better e-mail editors I’ve ever before written in.
Web site hosting
When you produce a beehiiv e-newsletter, every one of your newsletters (if you want) reside on a website. Consider it as a web site for your e-newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous concerns of your newsletter, and a place where individuals can sign up for your e-newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s practically comparable to that.
All plans, including the complimentary one, give you a web site. Nevertheless, the free plan locations your web site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you intend to add a customized domain name to remove all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining customers is important. After all, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can subscribe to your newsletter directly from your beehiiv web site or via embed forms.
If you currently have an internet site, and want people to sign up for your newsletter from your existing website, you’ll need to make use of an embed type. This is what I make use of on this site (you can see the sign-up installed on the right-hand man column of this blog post if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have 3 various choices– a full width, a taken care of width, and a slim embed. I directly utilize the slim embed.
You can locate the code fragment for these embeds in the “Subscribe Types” tab in your settings.
There’s likewise an alternative for acknowledgment monitoring if you intend to forward UTM specifications for tracking purposes– quite neat.
However, there are a few features I desire beehiiv had when it pertained to subscribe features. I make certain the group is working on updates for these, however I discussed a few concerns I had in the benefits and drawbacks section listed below.
Referral program
Among the amazing things concerning beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter platform, is an option for creating a referral program.
You can urge existing customers on your checklist to ahead your emails to close friends and associates and if they obtain other people to sign up for your checklist, you can reward them. These rewards can be in whatever kind you desire. I have actually seem many newsletter companies give incentives in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously transform your customers right into a word of mouth growth engine for your newsletter– offering you an additional avenue for growing your email listing.
Nonetheless, to get access to the referral program feature, you’ll need to upgrade to a much more exceptional plan. I’ll go over all the plans later in this article.
Costs subscriptions
They say all you need to make a living online is 1,000 true followers. Membership income is certainly a beast of its own. If you’re looking for a system to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can create “costs” problems of your newsletter that are just sent to paying subscribers. This can be extremely lucrative relying on what your e-newsletter needs to use. For example, Trends.co is a prominent premium newsletter that generates millions in earnings a year just by having pay-only newsletter web content.
Information analytics
Among the important things I like regarding beehiiv is just how clean and simple the analytics are. You get real-time date on how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and client matter.
You get access to all the metrics you need to obtain a bird-eye view on how your newsletter is really doing. Logging right into your control panel and seeing that subscriber count go up is absolutely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv provides 4 different pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (totally free) Launch plan provides you everything you need to begin and expand your newsletter (approximately 2,500 customers).
The Scale plan ($ 39/month) gives you everything in the Launch plan with the addition the ad network, referral program, custom domain, polls, and accessibility to costs memberships. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 76/month) provides you every little thing in the Grow plan with enhancement of concern support and getting rid of the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are rather charitable in my point of view.
For instance, if you have 100,000 subscribers you will certainly pay around $329 monthly. Instead of some rivals, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would charge $679 per month for the same amount– making beehiiv a great Kit alternative for several customers.
I’m not exactly sure how the system business economics deal with this, however beehiiv is most definitely more affordable (currently) than what it can be.
beehiiv pros and cons
Naturally, with every platform, it has its benefits and drawbacks. Here are some of the benefits and drawbacks I’ve personally experienced while utilizing beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Here are some of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter system of selection:
- Easy to set up and start sending out e-newsletters free of charge
- Tidy and modern-day customer analytics
- Lots of versatility with email styles.
- Referral program feature The ’92 Beehiiv
- Website hosting
- Develop premium choices to monetize
- Surveys
To be honest, I haven’t seen one more e-newsletter system that has actually had the ability to package every one of these features with each other so well.
Yet of course, I don’t wish to be prejudiced so I’m going to state some cons.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Here are some of the disadvantages I have actually found while making use of beehiiv:.
- Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv
- Limitations around including custom-made font styles
I utilize Webflow as my website structure system of choice (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a very long time ago). I’m not going to enter too much detail why I enjoy Webflow so much but you can review my Webflow testimonial if you ‘d like to learn more.
Today, there actually is no other method I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow website other than using an iframe embed. I personally don’t like utilizing iframe’s because they have a tendency to reduce my site a little bit. Whenever a web page on my website (with a beehiiv installed) loads, the sign-up embed is the last point to fill on the web page. It’s extremely visible when you’re on a sluggish internet connection. However I can navigate that.
The main gripe I have is that I can not use a normal Webflow type (which I like making use of). There are methods around this by utilizing a tool like Zapier but that would certainly just add added costs that I do not need. To be straightforward, this is more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv disadvantage yet I thought I would certainly discuss it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros far exceed the disadvantages below. I’m additionally hopeful that Webflow will at some point create a much better way to incorporate with beehiiv.
Conclusion
Generally, beehiiv is a terrific option for anyone seeking to study the world of e-mail marketing and newsletters.
The performance of this e-newsletter platform much surpasses numerous that are presently on the market. And with a generous free plan, you truly have nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are likewise rather cheap for what they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 customers on your checklist is unprecedented. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k clients, and all of these features beehiiv has, it could cost you well into the thousands per month.
Anyways, I do not write evaluation blog posts usually. I only do when I in fact use the device myself and would certainly recommend it to a good friend.
I hope you located some quality on whether or not beehiiv is a good platform for you.