Developing an e-newsletter shouldn’t seem like a second job. You’ve already got enough on your plate juggling content, clients, perhaps even a full-time job. I read among my preferred 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 promptly began tearing up. Beehiiv Next.js…
I had not been sure why I felt so emotional.
Being a full-time designer is tough. I’m frequently getting pitched various tools and solutions that don’t seem to be worth my time.
I think I was emotional because I invested the last six months trying different email and newsletter platforms to help construct my e-newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some great alternatives for creating newsletters. Yet I couldn’t locate one that made me provide a guaranteed “yes”.
The concern with many existing newsletter platforms is that they don’t really feel creator-centered. I want a newsletter system that lets me totally tailor my e-newsletter layouts, makes it super very easy to write and send out e-mails, and gives me devices that assist me assess metrics and obtain even more subscribers.
I believe I have actually ultimately found the best device.
But, I understand beehiiv might not be for everybody. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s actually right for you.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A few months ago, I mistakenly stumbled across beehiiv. The funny story is that I have actually watched for a modern-day e-newsletter platform for rather a long time now. I’ve postponed hard when it came to finally releasing my newsletter.
Initially, I tried Mailchimp. Then, a few various other indie platforms. After that, Substack. And lastly, I wound up utilizing beehiiv.
I make certain several newsletter designers look up to popular newsletters with countless clients– I understand I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I admired a lot. They have great material, tons of clients, and a smart referral program that allows them to get back at more customers.
So, I took place a quest to find out exactly how these huge e-newsletters established their logistics. What platform do they utilize? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they obtain more subscribers? How do they develop an e-newsletter style that stays on-brand?
When I uncovered beehiiv for the first time, it appeared to address every one of my questions. I believed to myself, “damn the people that constructed this device really comprehend e-newsletter development and growth.” I questioned who these developers of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were some of the first marketing and growth staff members at Morning Brew– my mind took off.
I recognized this was mosting likely to be a various newsletter platform. One that’s focused on designer growth.
Due to the fact that, any creator recognizes, you require growth to be able to make a living off of a newsletter. And locating the best newsletter pile (that scales) frequently implies making use of several various tools to help accomplish one objective– one system for your e-newsletter, one platform to generate income from, and one platform to set up recommendations. It can get expensive.
So when I found out beehiiv did every one of these points in one platform, and it was totally free to begin using, it was a piece of cake to give it a try.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one platform for newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly e-newsletter system that makes it very easy to style, write, send out, promote, monetize, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Created by previous employees at the renowned e-newsletter firm Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to assist designers launch and monetize their very own e-newsletter– taking great deals of growth concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M subscribers.
In this write-up, I’m going to discuss my individual experience with beehiiv, things I like (and hate) concerning it, all of it’s features, and why I chose to ultimately select it as my e-newsletter platform of choice.
beehiiv vs Substack
You could be asking, “isn’t there currently a system for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, of course there is. Substack is a fantastic system made use of by thousands of independent authors. With Substack you get your very own website and utilize the platform as your all-in-one remedy for sending e-mails (while developing an archive of previous issues).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s commitment to growth. beehiiv enables you do to all the important things Substack can do, with the advantage of far better analytics, more layout flexibilty, and a referral program to urge your existing subscribers to obtain the word out.
beehiiv additionally offers you an internet site similar to Substack. But, if you have your own site currently, you can additionally utilize beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I use) to send your site subscribers directly to your beehiiv e-mail listing. On the same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a device like Revue to enable individuals to register for your e-newsletter straight from Twitter.
This gives you the versatility to utilize various marketing networks to get your e-newsletter out into the world, making beehiiv a terrific Substack option.
Exactly how to begin utilizing beehiiv email marketing software.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean web content developer that wants a platform that permits them to send customized e-newsletters with or without needing to have a website.
One of the most effective e-newsletters have the right tools to develop and scale their newsletters. beehiiv focuses on offering you those tools.
If you’re an independent author, media firm, startup, or content maker, you ought to seriously taking into consideration trying out beehiiv. It’s absolutely free to begin and you only pay when you reach over 2,500 clients on your list.
If you actually wind up having to pay for beehiiv it’s possibly a good indicator that individuals love reviewing your stuff.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv provides four various pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (free) Launch plan gives you every little thing you need to start and grow your newsletter (up to 2,500 subscribers).
The Scale plan ($ 34.40/month) gives you whatever in the Launch plan with the addition the ad network, referral program, customized domain name, polls, and access to costs memberships. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 76.80/month) offers you whatever in the Grow plan with enhancement of concern assistance and getting rid of the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are quite charitable in my point of view.
As an example, if you have 100,000 customers you will certainly pay around $329 monthly. As opposed to some competitors, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would bill $679 monthly for the very same amount– making beehiiv a terrific Kit choice for numerous users.
I’m unsure just how the unit economics service this, however beehiiv is certainly cheaper (at the moment) than what it can be.
Sign up for a free plan
The very first step is to sign up for a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Begin trial” button on beehiiv’s internet site.
The free plan will certainly permit you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, offer you accessibility to site hosting, a newsletter CMS, advance personalization, analytics, exterior embed kinds, and a lot more. It’s a very charitable offering for those just starting out (or for those looking for a brand-new platform to migrate to).
Onboarding
After developing an account, you’ll go through an onboarding procedure that will ask points like, “is this your initial e-newsletter?”, “what other systems have you made use of?”, “do you have any type of paying clients?”, and a lot more.
You’ll then create a name and URL for your newsletter’s site. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will live on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your internet site link may be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding procedure, you’ll also select your brand name design and colors to make sure your newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your control panel
As soon as you reach your primary dashboard, you’ll see every one of your analytics and settings.
You will certainly have detailed info on the number of sign-ups you’re getting and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see alternatives for “Beginning creating”, “Messages”, “Audience”, “Expand”, “Generate income from”, “Layout” and” Analyze”. And at the very bottom you’ll see the settings alternative.
Dashboard is your primary control center (screenshot above), Start writing is where you produce and publish e-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 damage them down right into sections), 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 newsletter with advertisements, Layout is where you make your newsletter landing page and article template, Evaluate is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can handle every one of your admin things.
Writing your newsletter
beehiiv makes it easy to start writing, with little to no friction. If you’re simply starting out, and have an idea you want to blog about, I advise just going to the “Write” section in the navbar and clicking on “Begin composing”.
You can fine-tune your template and styling later– focus on the material first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor provides a clean and straightforward user interface for composing.
When you start writing, you can optimize headings, add web links, and design your content just how you such as.
beehiiv offers you lots of alternatives for various types of material like video clips, web links, pictures, and a lot more.
The group at beehiiv is likewise regularly releasing product feature and updates so I’m sure there will certainly be a lot extra content features relying on when you’re reading this.
Enhancing your settings and templates
Once you have an e-newsletter that prepares to send, it’s time to create your e-mail template and change some settings.
Right here, you can upgrade the name of your e-newsletter, provide it a description, include your logo, switch on or off a welcome e-mail to first time customers, and much more.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your design.
You can edit background colors, borders, spacing, fonts, photo formats, and much more. I’m not mosting likely to go through ever solitary thing you can enhance with your email template because it’s a whole lot. Simply experiment with the platform absolutely free and see it for yourself!
Essential beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of remarkable features that make it a terrific posting platform for any newsletter developer.
Here are several of the vital features you can discover with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter posting platform. It makes it incredibly very easy to write and send out e-mails. I pointed out over some of the important things you can do with your setups and email layout so I’ll save you some additional analysis.
The important things to keep in mind with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has an actually modern-day and minimalistic feel. It’s definitely one of the far better email editors I have actually ever written in.
Website hosting
When you develop a beehiiv newsletter, every one of your newsletters (if you want) reside on a web site. Think of it as an internet site for your newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous issues of your e-newsletter, and a place where individuals can subscribe to your newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s basically similar to that.
All plans, including the totally free one, offer you a web site. Nevertheless, the free plan locations your web site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you want to include a custom-made domain name to get rid of all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining subscribers is very 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 through embed kinds.
If you already have a website, and desire individuals to sign up for your e-newsletter from your existing site, you’ll need to make use of an embed form. This is what I use on this internet site (you can see the sign-up embed on the right-hand man column of this article if you scroll up).
With embed kinds, you have 3 various choices– a full size, a dealt with size, and a slim embed. I personally make use of the slim embed.
You can locate the code bit for these embeds in the “Subscribe Kinds” tab in your settings.
There’s additionally a choice for acknowledgment tracking if you want to forward UTM criteria for tracking objectives– pretty cool.
However, there are a few features I want beehiiv had when it concerned subscribe features. I make certain the group is dealing with updates for these, but I pointed out a couple of issues I had in the advantages and disadvantages area below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things regarding beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter platform, is a solution for developing a referral program.
You can encourage existing clients on your checklist to ahead your emails to buddies and associates and if they obtain other people to sign up for your listing, you can reward them. These benefits can be in whatever kind you want. I have actually appear many e-newsletter companies provide benefits in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously turn your subscribers right into a word of mouth growth engine for your e-newsletter– offering you one more avenue for growing your email list.
Nevertheless, to get accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll need to upgrade to an extra premium plan. I’ll look at all the plans later on in this article.
Premium registrations
They state all you require to make a living online is 1,000 true followers. Registration revenue is most definitely a beast of its own. If you’re searching for a platform to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can develop “premium” concerns of your newsletter that are just sent to paying customers. This can be really rewarding relying on what your newsletter needs to use. For example, Trends.co is a prominent costs newsletter that creates millions in profits a year merely by having pay-only e-newsletter web content.
Data analytics
Among the important things I enjoy concerning beehiiv is just how tidy and straightforward the analytics are. You get real-time day on just how your e-newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and subscriber count.
You get accessibility to all the metrics you need to get a bird-eye view on just how your newsletter is in fact doing. Logging right into your control panel and seeing that subscriber matter increase is certainly a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pros and cons
Obviously, with every system, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Below are several of the advantages and disadvantages I have actually directly experienced while utilizing beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Here are several of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter platform of option:
- Easy to set up and start sending out e-newsletters totally free
- Clean and modern-day subscriber analytics
- Lots of flexibility with e-mail designs.
- Referral program feature
- Site hosting
- Develop costs options to generate income from
- Surveys
To be sincere, I haven’t seen an additional e-newsletter system that has had the ability to package all of these features together so well.
Yet of course, I do not want to be biased so I’m going to point out some disadvantages.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Right here are a few of the disadvantages I have actually located while making use of beehiiv:.
- Limitations around incorporating Webflow and Beehiiv Next.js
- Limitations around including personalized typefaces
I make use of Webflow as my web site building platform of choice (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 read my Webflow review if you ‘d like to find out more.
Today, there actually is no other method I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow internet site apart from making use of an iframe embed. I directly don’t such as using iframe’s because they often tend to decrease my site a bit. Every time a web page on my website (with a beehiiv embed) tons, the sign-up embed is the last thing to pack on the page. It’s really noticeable when you’re on a slow-moving web connection. But I can navigate that.
The major gripe I have is that I can not utilize a regular Webflow form (which I like utilizing). There are ways around this by utilizing a tool like Zapier yet that would certainly just include added prices that I don’t need. To be straightforward, this is even more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv disadvantage however I thought I would certainly mention it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros much exceed the cons below. I’m likewise hopeful that Webflow will at some point produce a far better method to integrate with beehiiv.
Verdict: Beehiiv Next.js
Overall, beehiiv is a wonderful option for anyone looking to study the world of email marketing and newsletters.
The capability of this e-newsletter platform much exceeds several that are currently on the marketplace. And with a charitable free plan, you truly have absolutely 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 listing is unheard of. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k customers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it might cost you well into the thousands monthly.
Anyways, I do not create review messages usually. I only do when I really use the tool myself and would certainly suggest it to a close friend.
I hope you found some clearness on whether or not beehiiv is a great system for you.