I read one of my preferred email newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo for the very first time. I clicked it and quickly started tearing up. Vegan Tech Nomad Beehiiv…
Being a permanent designer is difficult. I’m commonly obtaining pitched different devices and services that don’t seem to be worth my time.
I guess I was emotional due to the fact that I invested the last six months experimenting with various email and e-newsletter platforms to assist develop my newsletter. And to be fair, there are some excellent alternatives for creating newsletters. Yet I could not discover one that made me give a guaranteed “yes”.
The concern with numerous existing newsletter platforms is that they don’t really feel creator-centered. I desire a newsletter platform that lets me fully personalize my e-newsletter layouts, makes it incredibly simple to compose and send emails, and offers me devices that assist me examine metrics and get more subscribers.
I assume I have actually finally located the best device.
Yet, I recognize beehiiv may not be for everyone. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s in fact right 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 style, write, send, advertise, monetize, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Produced by former staff members at the well-known newsletter firm Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to aid designers launch and monetize their very own newsletter– taking great deals of growth principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M customers.
In this post, I’m mosting likely to clarify my individual experience with beehiiv, the important things I enjoy (and hate) concerning it, all of it’s features, and why I made a decision to ultimately select it as my e-newsletter system of choice.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A few months back, I mistakenly stumbled across beehiiv. The amusing story is that I’ve watched for a contemporary e-newsletter system for quite time currently. I’ve procrastinated hard when it pertained to lastly releasing my newsletter.
First, I tried Mailchimp. After that, a couple of various other indie platforms. After that, Substack. And ultimately, I wound up using beehiiv.
I make certain numerous newsletter developers admire prominent newsletters with countless subscribers– I know I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I admired a whole lot. They have fantastic web content, lots of customers, and a smart referral program that permits them to get even more customers.
So, I took place a search to figure out just how these large e-newsletters set up their logistics. What platform do they make use of? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they obtain more customers? How do they produce a newsletter design that stays on-brand?
When I uncovered beehiiv for the very first time, it appeared to respond to every one of my concerns. I thought to myself, “damn the people that developed this tool really comprehend e-newsletter production and growth.” I examined who these developers of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were several of the very first marketing and growth employees at Morning Brew– my brain took off.
I understood this was mosting likely to be a various e-newsletter platform. One that’s concentrated on developer growth.
Because, any type of creator recognizes, you require development to be able to make a living off of an e-newsletter. And discovering the best newsletter pile (that scales) often means utilizing numerous different tools to aid achieve one goal– one system for your newsletter, one system to monetize, and one system to establish referrals. It can get costly.
So when I found out beehiiv did all of these points in one system, and it was cost-free to start using, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
beehiiv vs Substack
You might be asking, “isn’t there currently a system for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, of course there is. Substack is a wonderful system used by countless independent writers. With Substack you obtain your own website and use the platform as your all-in-one option for sending out e-mails (while developing an archive of previous issues).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s commitment to growth. beehiiv enables you do to all the things Substack can do, with the advantage of far better analytics, even more layout flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing clients to obtain the word out.
beehiiv likewise provides you a site similar to Substack. But, if you have your own website already, you can also utilize beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I utilize) to send your website clients directly to your beehiiv email listing. On the same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a tool like Performance to enable individuals to subscribe to your newsletter straight from Twitter.
This provides you the adaptability to take advantage of various marketing channels to get your e-newsletter out right into the world, making beehiiv a great Substack option.
Just how to start making use of beehiiv email marketing software application.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean web content developer that desires a platform that enables them to send out custom newsletters with or without requiring to have an internet site.
One of the most successful newsletters have the right tools to develop and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv targets at providing you those tools.
If you’re an independent writer, media firm, startup, or material developer, you should seriously considering trying out beehiiv. It’s completely free to get started and you just pay when you get to over 2,500 subscribers on your list.
If you in fact end up needing to spend for beehiiv it’s most likely a good sign that individuals like reviewing your stuff.
Sign up for a free plan
The primary step is to register for a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Start trial” switch on beehiiv’s site.
The free plan will certainly permit you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, offer you accessibility to web site hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, breakthrough customization, analytics, outside embed forms, and extra. It’s an extremely generous offering for those simply starting (or for those searching for a brand-new platform to move to).
Onboarding
After developing an account, you’ll go through an onboarding process that will ask things like, “is this your initial newsletter?”, “what other platforms have you used?”, “do you have any kind of paying subscribers?”, and much more.
You’ll then develop a name and link for your e-newsletter’s site. On the free plan, your newsletter will reside on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your website 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.
Navigating your control panel
As soon as you reach your primary control panel, you’ll see every one of your analytics and settings.
You will certainly have described information on the number of sign-ups you’re obtaining and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see options for “Begin creating”, “Posts”, “Audience”, “Expand”, “Monetize”, “Design” and” Examine”. And at the extremely bottom you’ll see the setups choice.
Control panel is your main control center (screenshot above), Begin writing is where you develop and publish e-newsletters, Blog posts is where you can see every one of your previous e-newsletter editions, Audience is where you can view who your customers are (and damage them down into segments), Grow is where you have access 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 ads, Layout is where you create your newsletter landing page and article template, Assess is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can handle every one of your admin things.
Writing your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it simple to begin creating, with little to no rubbing. If you’re just starting out, and have an idea you intend to cover, I suggest just mosting likely to the “Write” section in the navbar and clicking on “Begin creating”.
You can modify your template and styling later on– concentrate on the web content first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor provides a clean and user-friendly user interface for composing.
Once you start composing, you can optimize headings, add links, and style your material exactly how you like.
beehiiv offers you tons of choices for various kinds of content like videos, links, images, and more.
The team at beehiiv is likewise regularly launching product feature and updates so I make sure there will be a great deal more material features depending on when you read this.
Optimizing your setups and templates
When you have a newsletter that’s ready to send, it’s time to design your email template and readjust some setups.
Here, you can upgrade the name of your newsletter, offer it a description, include your logo, turn on or off a welcome email to very first time customers, and more.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your style.
You can edit history shades, borders, spacing, font styles, image formats, and much more. I’m not going to experience ever single point you can maximize with your e-mail template because it’s a whole lot. Just try the platform absolutely free and see it on your own!
Crucial beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of outstanding features that make it a terrific publishing platform for any newsletter designer.
Right here are several of the necessary features you can discover with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder Vegan Tech Nomad Beehiiv
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter posting system. It makes it incredibly easy to compose and send emails. I stated over several of the important things you can do with your setups and email layout so I’ll spare you some additional analysis.
Things to keep in mind with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has an actually contemporary and minimalistic feel. It’s absolutely one of the better email editors I have actually ever written in.
Web site hosting
When you develop a beehiiv newsletter, every one of your newsletters (if you want) survive on an internet site. Consider it as a website for your e-newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous concerns of your e-newsletter, and a location where individuals can sign up for your e-newsletter.
If you recognize with Substack, it’s pretty much comparable to that.
All plans, including the free one, give you an internet site. However, the free plan areas your web site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you intend to include a customized domain name to remove all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining clients is essential. Nevertheless, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can register for your e-newsletter right from your beehiiv web site or with embed types.
If you already have a web site, and want individuals to subscribe to your newsletter from your existing site, you’ll have to utilize an embed kind. This is what I make use of on this internet site (you can see the sign-up installed on the right-hand man column of this article if you scroll up).
With embed types, you have three various alternatives– a full size, a taken care of size, 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 settings.
There’s additionally a choice for attribution monitoring if you intend to onward UTM specifications for tracking functions– pretty neat.
Nevertheless, there are a few features I desire beehiiv had when it involved subscribe features. I’m sure the team is working on updates for these, however I mentioned a few problems 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 platform, is a remedy for developing a referral program.
You can encourage existing customers on your list to onward your emails to good friends and coworkers and if they get other people to subscribe to your listing, you can reward them. These rewards can be in whatever type you want. I have actually seem numerous e-newsletter companies offer incentives in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously turn your customers right into a word of mouth growth engine for your e-newsletter– giving you one more opportunity for expanding your email list.
However, to obtain access to the referral program feature, you’ll need to upgrade to an extra exceptional plan. I’ll go over all the plans later on in this short article.
Costs memberships
They state all you require to make a living online is 1,000 real followers. Membership revenue is absolutely a beast of its very own. If you’re searching for a platform to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can develop “costs” concerns of your e-newsletter that are only sent out to paying customers. This can be very rewarding relying on what your e-newsletter needs to provide. As an example, Trends.co is a prominent premium newsletter that produces millions in revenue a year simply by having pay-only e-newsletter content.
Information analytics
Among the important things I enjoy about beehiiv is exactly how tidy and easy the analytics are. You get real-time day on exactly how your newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and subscriber matter.
You obtain accessibility to all the metrics you need to obtain a bird-eye view on just how your e-newsletter is actually doing. Logging into your dashboard and seeing that subscriber count increase is absolutely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv uses four different pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (cost-free) Launch plan provides you whatever you need to get going and grow your e-newsletter (approximately 2,500 subscribers).
The Scale plan ($ 39/month) offers you whatever in the Launch plan with the enhancement the advertisement network, referral program, custom-made domain name, surveys, and accessibility to premium memberships. This is the plan I am on.
The Max plan ($ 76/month) offers you every little thing in the Grow plan with addition of top priority assistance and removing the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are rather generous in my point of view.
For example, if you have 100,000 subscribers you will pay around $329 each month. In contrast to some rivals, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would bill $679 monthly for the exact same amount– making beehiiv a great Kit option for several individuals.
I’m unsure exactly how the unit economics work with this, but beehiiv is most definitely less costly (right now) than what it can be.
beehiiv pros and cons
Of course, with every system, it has its benefits and drawbacks. Below are some of the pros and cons I’ve personally experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Below are several of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter platform of selection:
- Easy to set up and begin sending newsletters totally free
- Tidy and modern-day client analytics
- Lots of flexibility with e-mail layouts.
- Referral program feature Vegan Tech Nomad Beehiiv
- Web site hosting
- Create premium choices to generate income from
- Polls
To be honest, I haven’t seen an additional newsletter system that has had the ability to package every one of these features together so well.
Yet of course, I do not wish to be biased so I’m mosting likely to mention some disadvantages.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Here are a few of the cons I have actually found while utilizing beehiiv:.
- Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv
- Limitations around adding custom-made font styles
I make use of Webflow as my website building system of selection (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a long time ago). I’m not mosting likely to enter excessive information why I like Webflow a lot but you can review my Webflow evaluation if you ‘d like to learn more.
Today, there really is nothing else way I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow website besides using an iframe embed. I personally do not like utilizing iframe’s because they have a tendency to slow down my website a little bit. Whenever a web page on my site (with a beehiiv embed) loads, the sign-up embed is the last point to pack on the page. It’s extremely noticeable when you get on a slow internet connection. However I can navigate that.
The major complaint I have is that I can’t make use of a normal Webflow type (which I enjoy making use of). There are ways around this by utilizing a tool like Zapier yet that would certainly simply add extra costs that I do not need. To be honest, this is more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv disadvantage but I assumed I would discuss it.
Besides that, I still think the pros much exceed the cons right here. I’m also enthusiastic that Webflow will ultimately develop a far better method to integrate with beehiiv.
Final Thought
On the whole, beehiiv is a terrific solution for anyone looking to dive into the globe of email marketing and newsletters.
The capability of this e-newsletter system much exceeds lots of that are presently on the market. And with a charitable free plan, you truly have absolutely nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are additionally rather affordable of what they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 subscribers on your listing is unusual. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k subscribers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it might cost you well right into the thousands per month.
Anyways, I do not create evaluation messages usually. I only do when I actually utilize the device myself and would certainly recommend it to a pal.
I hope you found some clarity on whether or not beehiiv is a good system for you.