Constructing an e-newsletter should not feel like a second job. You’ve currently obtained sufficient on your plate handling web content, clients, perhaps even a permanent job. I was reading one of my favored e-mail newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the e-mail and saw the beehiiv logo design for the first time. I clicked it and instantly began wrecking. Beehiiv AI Tool Report…
I wasn’t sure why I really felt so psychological.
Being a permanent designer is tough. I’m often obtaining pitched different tools and solutions that don’t seem to be worth my time.
I presume I was emotional because I spent the last 6 months checking out different email and e-newsletter systems to help build my e-newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some excellent choices for composing e-newsletters. However I couldn’t find one that made me offer a guaranteed “yes”.
The concern with numerous existing newsletter systems is that they don’t really feel creator-centered. I want a newsletter platform that lets me fully personalize my e-newsletter designs, makes it very easy to compose and send emails, and offers me tools that help me analyze metrics and obtain even more clients.
I think I have actually finally found the best tool.
But, I understand beehiiv might not be for everyone. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s really ideal for you.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A couple of months ago, I unintentionally came across beehiiv. The funny tale is that I’ve watched for a modern newsletter platform for quite time now. I have actually procrastinated hard when it concerned lastly launching my e-newsletter.
First, I attempted Mailchimp. After that, a couple of other indie platforms. Then, Substack. And finally, I ended up using beehiiv.
I make certain numerous e-newsletter makers respect prominent e-newsletters with millions of subscribers– I understand I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I looked up to a lot. They have wonderful material, lots of subscribers, and a smart referral program that allows them to get even much more clients.
So, I took place a hunt to figure out just how these huge newsletters set up their logistics. What platform do they utilize? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they get more subscribers? How do they produce an e-newsletter layout that remains on-brand?
When I discovered beehiiv for the very first time, it seemed to answer all of my concerns. I believed to myself, “damn the people that developed this device truly comprehend newsletter creation and development.” I examined who these creators of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were some of the very first marketing and development workers at Morning Brew– my brain exploded.
I knew this was going to be a various newsletter system. One that’s focused on designer development.
Due to the fact that, any type of developer knows, you need growth to be able to make a living off of an e-newsletter. And locating the right e-newsletter stack (that scales) typically indicates using multiple different devices to assist accomplish one goal– one system for your newsletter, one system to generate income from, and one platform to set up references. It can obtain pricey.
So when I learnt beehiiv did all of these things in one platform, and it was free to start making use of, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one system for newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter platform that makes it easy to design, compose, send out, promote, generate income from, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Developed by previous employees at the popular e-newsletter business Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to help makers launch and monetize their own e-newsletter– taking lots of development concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M subscribers.
In this post, I’m mosting likely to explain my individual experience with beehiiv, things I like (and hate) regarding it, all of it’s features, and why I determined to ultimately choose it as my newsletter platform of selection.
beehiiv vs Substack
You could be asking, “isn’t there already a platform for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, of course there is. Substack is a wonderful platform utilized by thousands of independent authors. With Substack you get your own site and use the platform as your all-in-one option for sending out e-mails (while producing an archive of previous issues).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s dedication to development. beehiiv allows you do to all things Substack can do, with the benefit of much better analytics, even more design flexibilty, and a referral program to encourage your existing customers to obtain words out.
beehiiv also provides you a web site similar to Substack. Yet, if you have your very own site currently, you can additionally make use of beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I utilize) to send your web site clients right to your beehiiv e-mail listing. On the very same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a tool like Revue to permit people to subscribe to your e-newsletter directly from Twitter.
This provides you the versatility to take advantage of various marketing networks to get your newsletter out right into the globe, making beehiiv a great Substack alternative.
Just how to start utilizing beehiiv email marketing software.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean web content developer that wants a system that enables them to send out personalized e-newsletters with or without needing to have a site.
The most successful newsletters have the right tools to develop and scale their newsletters. beehiiv focuses on offering you those devices.
If you’re an independent author, media firm, startup, or content maker, you should seriously thinking about checking out beehiiv. It’s entirely cost-free to get going and you only pay when you get to over 2,500 customers on your list.
If you in fact end up having to pay for beehiiv it’s most likely an excellent indication that people enjoy reading your things.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv supplies four different pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (complimentary) Launch plan provides you whatever you need to begin and grow your newsletter (as much as 2,500 clients).
The Scale plan ($ 34.40/month) provides you every little thing in the Launch plan with the enhancement the ad network, referral program, personalized domain name, surveys, and access to costs subscriptions. This is the plan I am on.
The Max plan ($ 76.80/month) gives you everything in the Grow plan with addition of top priority support and getting rid of the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are quite generous in my opinion.
For example, if you have 100,000 subscribers you will certainly pay around $329 per month. In contrast to some competitors, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would charge $679 per month for the very same amount– making beehiiv an excellent Kit alternative for lots of users.
I’m not sure how the unit economics work with this, but beehiiv is most definitely cheaper (currently) than what it can be.
Sign up for a free plan
The very first step is to register for a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Begin trial” switch on beehiiv’s site.
The free plan will certainly permit you to have up to 2,500 clients, offer you accessibility to site hosting, a newsletter CMS, breakthrough modification, analytics, outside embed types, and extra. It’s an extremely generous offering for those simply starting (or for those searching for a brand-new system to move to).
Onboarding
After creating an account, you’ll undergo an onboarding process that will ask points like, “is this your first newsletter?”, “what other platforms have you utilized?”, “do you have any paying clients?”, and much more.
You’ll then develop a name and link for your newsletter’s website. 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 could be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding process, you’ll likewise pick your brand name colors and design to make certain your newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your dashboard
As soon as you reach your primary dashboard, you’ll see every one of your analytics and settings.
You will have outlined information on how many sign-ups you’re getting and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see choices for “Start creating”, “Messages”, “Audience”, “Expand”, “Monetize”, “Design” and” Analyze”. And at the very lower you’ll see the settings choice.
Dashboard is your major control center (screenshot above), Start composing is where you produce and release newsletters, Blog posts is where you can see all of your previous newsletter versions, Target market is where you can see who your customers are (and break them down right into sections), Grow 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 ads, Design is where you design your newsletter landing page and article template, Assess is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can manage all of your admin things.
Writing your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it very easy to begin writing, with little to no rubbing. If you’re just beginning, and have an idea you wish to write about, I recommend just mosting likely to the “Compose” area in the navbar and clicking “Beginning writing”.
You can fine-tune your template and styling later on– focus on the material initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor supplies a clean and straightforward user interface for composing.
When you start composing, you can optimize headings, add links, and style your content just how you like.
beehiiv provides you tons of alternatives for different sorts of material like video clips, web links, photos, and more.
The team at beehiiv is additionally regularly launching product feature and updates so I’m sure there will be a whole lot more content features depending upon when you’re reading this.
Maximizing your setups and templates
When you have an e-newsletter that’s ready to send out, it’s time to create your e-mail template and change some setups.
Right here, you can update the name of your e-newsletter, give it a summary, add your logo design, switch on or off a welcome email to very first time clients, and extra.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your style.
You can edit background shades, borders, spacing, typefaces, image styles, and much more. I’m not going to experience ever single point you can enhance with your e-mail template due to the fact that it’s a great deal. Simply try the platform free of charge and see it for yourself!
Crucial beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of remarkable features that make it a fantastic publishing system for any kind of e-newsletter maker.
Here are some of the necessary features you can locate with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter posting system. It makes it super easy to create and send e-mails. I stated over a few of things you can do with your setups and e-mail layout 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 really modern and minimalistic feel. It’s definitely one of the far better email editors I have actually ever written in.
Internet site hosting
When you develop a beehiiv e-newsletter, every one of your e-newsletters (if you desire) reside on an internet site. Think about it as a site for your e-newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous problems of your newsletter, and a location where people can subscribe to your newsletter.
If you’re familiar with Substack, it’s practically similar to that.
All plans, including the free one, give you a site. Nevertheless, the free plan locations your internet site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you want to include a custom domain to get rid of all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining clients is important. Besides, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can sign up for your newsletter right from your beehiiv site or via embed kinds.
If you already have a web site, and desire individuals to subscribe to your e-newsletter from your existing site, you’ll need 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 column of this blog post if you scroll up).
With embed kinds, you have three different alternatives– a complete size, a repaired size, and a slim installed. I personally make use of the slim installed.
You can locate the code snippet for these embeds in the “Subscribe Types” tab in your setups.
There’s likewise a choice for attribution tracking if you intend to forward UTM parameters for tracking objectives– pretty neat.
Nonetheless, there are a couple of features I desire beehiiv had when it came to subscribe features. I make certain the group is dealing with updates for these, yet I pointed out a couple of worries I had in the benefits and drawbacks area below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things concerning beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter platform, is an option for developing a referral program.
You can encourage existing customers on your list to ahead your e-mails to pals and coworkers and if they get other people to register for your checklist, you can award them. These benefits can be in whatever type you want. I’ve appear several e-newsletter business give benefits in the form of merch and sticker labels.
This can seriously transform your clients into a word of mouth growth engine for your e-newsletter– providing you an additional avenue for expanding your email checklist.
Nonetheless, to obtain access to the referral program feature, you’ll need to upgrade to a more exceptional plan. I’ll go over all the plans later in this article.
Premium registrations
They say all you need to make a living online is 1,000 true fans. Subscription earnings is most definitely a monster of its very own. If you’re trying to find a system to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can produce “costs” issues of your e-newsletter that are just sent out to paying subscribers. This can be very lucrative depending upon what your e-newsletter has to use. For example, Trends.co is a prominent costs e-newsletter that generates millions in earnings a year just by having pay-only newsletter content.
Data analytics
Among the important things I like regarding beehiiv is how tidy and straightforward the analytics are. You obtain real-time day on just how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and client count.
You obtain accessibility to all the metrics you need to obtain a bird-eye view on how your newsletter is really doing. Logging right into your dashboard and seeing that client count go up is certainly a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pros and cons
Naturally, with every system, it has its benefits and drawbacks. Right here are a few of the benefits and drawbacks I’ve personally experienced while making use of beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Below are several of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter system of choice:
- Easy to set up and start sending out e-newsletters absolutely free
- Clean and contemporary client analytics
- Great deals of flexibility with email designs.
- Referral program feature
- Internet site hosting
- Create premium options to generate income from
- Surveys
To be honest, I have not seen an additional newsletter platform that has had the ability to package every one of these features together so well.
But naturally, I don’t want to be biased so I’m mosting likely to state some cons.
Cons of using beehiiv
Here are some of the disadvantages I have actually discovered while using beehiiv:.
- Limitations around integrating Webflow and Beehiiv AI Tool Report
- Limitations around adding customized fonts
I utilize Webflow as my site building system of choice (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a long period of time ago). I’m not mosting likely to go in too much detail why I love Webflow a lot but you can review my Webflow review if you ‘d like to discover more.
Today, there really is nothing else method I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow site other than utilizing an iframe embed. I personally don’t like utilizing iframe’s because they have a tendency to slow down my website a little bit. Every single time a page on my website (with a beehiiv installed) tons, the sign-up installed is the last point to fill on the web page. It’s really recognizable when you’re on a slow-moving net connection. Yet I can navigate that.
The major gripe I have is that I can’t utilize a routine Webflow type (which I love using). There are means around this by utilizing a device like Zapier however that would certainly just add extra prices that I don’t require. To be truthful, this is even more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv disadvantage but I thought I would certainly mention it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros much exceed the disadvantages below. I’m additionally hopeful that Webflow will at some point create a better way to integrate with beehiiv.
Conclusion: Beehiiv AI Tool Report
On the whole, beehiiv is a terrific service for anybody aiming to dive into the world of email marketing and newsletters.
The functionality of this e-newsletter system far exceeds numerous that are presently on the market. And with a charitable free plan, you actually have nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are likewise fairly affordable of what they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 customers on your checklist is unprecedented. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k subscribers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it can cost you well into the thousands monthly.
Anyways, I don’t write testimonial blog posts commonly. I only do when I actually make use of the tool myself and would certainly advise it to a buddy.
I wish you located some clarity on whether beehiiv is a good platform for you.