Beehiiv 14 Day Free Trial – A Full Breakdown!

I have actually utilized a lot of various e-mail list systems over the years. In the last couple of years, I have actually been a big proponent of digital sovereignty and possessing your very own platform. For that reason (and the outstanding features), I have actually been utilizing Beehiiv 14 Day Free Trial.

So, it is undoubtedly an odd move for me to choose to use BeeHiiv. Nevertheless, it is a held application and I am paying month-to-month for it.

Why did I do this?

In this BeeHiiv testimonial, I want to look at why I made the button to BeeHiiv for my newsletters. I wish to address the problem of digital sovereignty while making use of the platform and I ‘d likewise such as to resolve why I chose to use it over Substack.

Let’s dive in …

BeeHiiv: Developed For E-newsletters

In Problem # 435 of my newsletter called My Hobby + A Huge Change In Approach, I spoke about just how and why I made a decision to turn my RV blog site right into mostly a newsletter. I made a decision that was business design I wanted to go after with that property.

But, to intentionally seek it as a newsletter, I desired a platform that was purpose-built for that. I was utilizing FluentCRM for the email checklist for Happily RV, yet FluentCRM is not a newsletter platform. It is developed to be a CRM and marketing automation tool and, frankly, utilizing it for e-newsletters is a little a waste. A lot more on that in a bit.

As I said in that concern of the newsletter …

Put simply, BeeHiiv is a system with tools constructed right into it specific to my objective. Things such as:

  • Ability to publish (to the blog site) and send the email all at once without having it be two different actions.
  • Constructed in e-newsletter referral program. FluentCRM doesn’t have that and I would certainly require a third-party tool like Sparkloop.
  • Built-in ability to do cross-promotions with various other newsletters on the BeeHiiv platform.
  • ” Magic Hyperlinks”, which are primarily one-click registration web links. Great for promotion in various other e-newsletters. FluentCRM has Smart Hyperlinks, however, so there are methods to do that.
  • Ability to do paid “boosts” on the BeeHiiv network to advertise your newsletter.
  • Built-in ad network, if I pick to monetize with advertisements in the newsletter. And I may.
  • Built-in capacity to run a paid newsletter upgrade and basically run a costs e-newsletter. And BeeHiiv doesn’t take a cut.

Generally, BeeHiiv is purpose-built for newsletter authors with features aimed at development. The system was essentially built by the individuals who accumulated the innovation for Early morning Mixture. They understand what they’re doing.

That is the point here. BeeHiiv is built from scratch for the objective of running an e-newsletter. FluentCRM has a various objective.

And I finished off with this:.

I might undoubtedly be moving The Side over to BeeHiiv also. At least, I’m highly considering it.

Well, I really did not consider it for long. In fact, I just went for it. And actually, The EDGE was re-branded over to The Early morning WP, set off as it’s own residential or commercial property so that I can grow it a lot more intentionally also.

The objective is that each newsletter has the capability to be branded as it’s own media entity and expanded individually. Gladly RV was young, so simple to change. However, The Morning WP (previously The Edge) was hidden in a sea of stuff here at the Blog Marketing Academy. By dividing it off, I can do what I can to grow it on it’s own. It will obviously constantly be closely linked with the Blog site Marketing Academy, however doesn’t need to belong of it.

I switched over to BeeHiiv since it was developed for this objective. FluentCRM was not.

E-newsletters Versus Simply A Regular Email Listing

There’s a distinction between a newsletter system and just an e-mail listing.

You can hold your email checklist just about anywhere you want and there are a number of them available, from Aweber, ActiveCampaign, Drip, ConvertKit … over to self-hosted choices like GroundHogg and FluentCRM.

What’s the difference?

The key distinction is that, with a newsletter platform, the act of posting means that it is going to your site and to your email clients all at once.

With both BeeHiiv and Substack, you have an internet site. You are releasing to that internet site. However, you are additionally sending off to all customers at the same time. The web site and it’s clients are done in one. This makes administration of the system much simpler.

With many e-mail systems, any e-newsletter you established is done as an email campaign. It is developed totally separately from your site. So, for instance, you might release an article to WordPress but after that you would certainly need to separately construct and send out an email to your listing to send it to subscribers. These are after that two separate collections of archives and 2 different activities since post and your e-mails are not naturally linked.

The closest point that turns WordPress right into a real newsletter system is E-newsletter Glue.

It is a suitable name due to the fact that it pretty much “glues” your e-newsletter to your WordPress blog posts and enables them to be the very same thing. Certainly, something like E-newsletter Glue would be a strong option if I intended to continue to self-host whatever. However, you would certainly lose the development tools that include a platform like BeeHiiv.

Publishing a newsletter naturally includes a different collection of needs than a common e-mail listing.

You don’t normally require much marketing automation. You do not typically require autoresponder series, event monitoring, and all the bells and whistles of a marketing automation platform.

What you DO need, however, is one smooth posting experience and development tools to help you develop your customer base that are specific to e-newsletters.

BeeHiiv vs Substack

When I revealed to my subscribers that I was going to switch over the e-newsletter over to BeeHiiv, I had many individuals ask me why I was picking it over Substack.

To be clear, even besides the reality that I chose to go with BeeHiiv, that doesn’t suggest I assume Substack draws. In fact, because Substack has been about much longer, it is elder and has even more features.

Despite the fact that BeeHiiv is more youthful, there are a pair things that at first got my focus:.

  1. BeeHiiv is specifically customized to e-newsletter publishers. As a matter of fact, it is essentially built by the very same individuals that developed the modern technology behind Morning Brew. On the other hand, SubStack targets writers. In the real life, does not matter. However, the apparent positioning of BeeHiiv towards e-newsletter development called me out over the more common positioning of being a “designer”. Development is what I want here.
  2. That branding and distinction additionally means that BeeHiiv has some relatively large brands and large magazines utilizing it. Whereas SubStack is intended more at solo creators. Once again, it simply tells me the customer avatar difference in between the two business.

Sending our my newsletter through FluentCRM really did not exactly draw. The only reason I would consider trembling things up is if I believed I could expand the checklist quicker. And BeeHiiv talked precisely to that goal.

Due to the targeting, I in fact don’t view BeeHiiv and Substack as direct rivals. I think BeeHiiv is targeting a various type of consumer. As a matter of fact, if anything, I see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being extra straight competitors.

However, allow’s dive much deeper than just the positioning below.

Points That Make BeeHiiv Better Than Substack

On the whole, BeeHiiv appears like it was developed by people who recognizing email marketing. On the other hand, SubStack seems a lot more geared toward makers.

For example, BeeHiiv supplies custom-made areas on clients. Now, it isn’t as developed as something like FluentCRM. Yet, it has it. Substack doesn’t.

BeeHiiv provides Automations. As a matter of fact, it is an aesthetic automation builder that works a whole lot like what we have inside of FluentCRM.

To be clear, the automation capability is still early-phase. It is still rather minimal in triggers and the only activity is the ability to send out an email. However, enhancements are coming. Soon sufficient, automations will have new triggers along with brand-new actions, such as customizing customized areas, sending out webhooks, etc. I have actually currently seen enhancements to their automations simply considering that I began utilizing the platform. As an example:

  • Capacity to trigger automations based on which particular embed kind they came in on.
  • Ability to immediately do re-engagement (and take care of individuals based on opens up and non-opens).
  • Ability to do standard conditional reasoning branches.

Substack does not have automations such as this. Likely, it never ever will. Substack just can not do this since the target audience of Substack just would not think to approach this like an e-mail online marketer.

When it involves creating your e-newsletters, the composing interface of BeeHiiv is just more geared towards newsletters. In fact, it really has similarities to the WordPress block builder in exactly how it functions. I locate it to be much more instinctive, directly.

Substack’s creating user interface behaves and tidy, however it would certainly be more comparable to the timeless editor for WordPress. Toolbar on top.

This difference is more than simply kind. As an example, with BeeHiiv you can place a “Section” and afterwards placed anything you want in it. After that, you can put Exposure alternatives on that particular area to show it just to paid subscribers, conceal it from email, hide from clients, reveal just to customers, and so on. Substack provides absolutely nothing similar to this.

And when/if the time comes that I begin a costs subscription model, BeeHiiv doesn’t take any type of profits. Actually, you essentially connect as much as your very own Stripe account and it charges directly to it. With Substack, they will certainly take 10% of your earnings. Depending on the number of customers you get, that 10% can be a fair bit more cash than the regular monthly price of BeeHiiv.

Lastly, BeeHiiv has an API. This might appear nerdy, but what it means is that there are integrations with BeeHiiv. You can in fact make BeeHiiv work with the outdoors using tools like Zapier or Make.com. This is HUGE. Substack literally has … absolutely nothing. No integrations in all.

On the whole, I just felt like BeeHiiv was extra built towards actual e-mail marketing. It was developed by individuals that “get it”. Also the opt-in types and the landing page designs seem far better constructed for conversions. Growth is nitty-gritty with BeeHiiv.

Despite the fact that there are still features I would love to see BeeHiiv add, I such as the direction it is going greater than Substack.

Things That Make Substack Better Than BeeHiiv

As I have actually stated, Substack placements itself toward “creators” greater than email online marketers and newsletter owners. Because of that, you see some points geared much more towards individuals that just assume in terms of material production.

As an example, Substack supports podcasts. BeeHiiv does not.

Additionally, while BeeHiiv does support numerous magazines, they are treated fairly individually. Whereas Substack does have the capacity to cross-post to numerous magazines at the same time. This isn’t something I require, yet … trendy for people that might need it.

Substack likewise has even more social capability built-in. For example, it has a chat feature to host chats with customers. It also has a “Notes” function which functions sort of like a social media newsfeed where you can share things from other “Stacks” you’re reading. Fascinating. On the whole, Substack is set up to be extra like a social media network which sustains long-form web content.

Overall, Substack is also extra … minimal. You either look after that or don’t. Directly, I don’t. Nevertheless, if the goal is simpleness of interface and, honestly, features … Substack works quite well.

Yet, I’ll be clear right here …

When it concerns actual marketing, I do not assume there’s much uncertainty that BeeHiiv is much better suited. I looked for even more points that make Substack far better than BeeHiiv, but truthfully … I have a tough time locating them.

BeeHiiv Vs ConvertKit

While BeeHiiv and Substack are typically with to be the closest competitors, I actually see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being the closer competitors. Both are going after the very same target market and have comparable capabilities.

ConvertKit is additionally placed at designers (like Substack), yet it is a lot more strongly catering to individuals that do it for service. ConvertKit has great aesthetic automation structure, it’s very own commerce system, and a lot more. ConvertKit is a truly wonderful platform.

I’m not going to bore you with a complete feature-by-feature breakdown below. ConvertKit is popular already. Yet, here’s just how I really feel BeeHiiv and ConvertKit contrast …

Points ConvertKit Is Much Better At …

Already, ConvertKit has a lot more flexibility when it pertains to it’s automations. I will also state that I discover ConvertKit’s automation builder to be a bit more intuitive than that of BeeHiiv.

ConvertKit supports marking. This is simply a fundamental function of e-mail checklists that makes it possible for segmentation in a much more flexible way than BeeHiiv presently does. I anticipate BeeHiiv to sustain tagging at some time quickly, honestly. It seems like an oversight that it is missing Beehiiv 14 Day Free Trial.

ConvertKit does now provide the ability to offer points using their very own platform. BeeHiiv does not. If that is very important to you, it may be a big deal for you. For me, however, I would certainly constantly select a more direct alternative anyhow. For me, I favor to use my own platform powered by WooCommerce.

ConvertKit has been about much longer and because of that has way more integration options. Tons of web-based tools and WordPress plugins integrate with ConvertKit. ConvertKit even has their own WordPress plugin that is fairly effective. For instance, their plugin currently even sustains member-gated content as well as auto-embed of your newsletter archives right into your site. Essentially, this extra closely places ConvertKit into straight competitors by having you have the ability to publish to your website and your email checklist at the same time.

BeeHiiv is seriously doing not have in these sort of third-party integrations presently. It’ll arrive. Yet, we’re not there yet with it.

ConvertKit is even busy tackling the growth devices of BeeHiiv. For example, BeeHiiv has the referral program and the Referral Engine where you can not only incentivize individuals to share your newsletter with perks, yet you can also pay per lead within the internal advertisement network of BeeHiiv to expand your listing. These are truly incredible features of BeeHiiv. Yet …

Did you understand ConvertKit acquired Sparkloop? Sparkloop is one of the most popular viral promo platforms for newsletters … and ConvertKit bought it. You can see the writing on the wall wherefore this indicates for the platform going forward.

Points BeeHiiv Is Better At … Beehiiv 14 Day Free Trial

BeeHiiv is a lot earlier in it’s product cycle than ConvertKit. Part of that indicates much less features and less integrations, which is natural for this stage of the cycle. However, it likewise suggests that they are rapidly creating.

In the short time that I have been a customer of BeeHiiv, I have experienced nearly once a week release of brand-new features into the system. And these aren’t puny little features … yet big features that are rather important. Their rate of growth now has gone over.

I likewise very much appreciate just how receptive they are. In fact, among their product announcements regarding some design enhancements to the website design features really included a tiny problem with the web content width. I merely replied to that email to tell them. I quickly obtained a reply directly from the CEO:.

That exact same day, the problem was taken care of.

Few days later, I provided one more idea …

Indeed, in a bit over a week of that exchange, the ability to trigger automations based on the embed kind utilized was included in the system.

That sort of responsiveness and direct involvement of the team is something I truly appreciate.

One more significant point of differentiation below is the cost. Both systems provide complimentary plans, however the BeeHiiv free plan supplies a lot more ability and more clients (2,500 vs 1,000) than ConvertKit.

As soon as you most likely to paid plans, the pricing of BeeHiiv is additionally FAR more favorable. ConvertKit seems less costly initially glance since their pricing web page shows lower numbers, however the customer restrictions are much reduced and your cost promptly enhances as your list grows.

With BeeHiiv, your first degree paid plan begins at $42/mo (paid annually), nevertheless you can have up to 10,000 customers. That exact same dimension checklist is mosting likely to run you $100/month with ConvertKit.

If you update to the “Scale” plan with BeeHiiv (their ideal plan and the one I directly utilize), you can expand your listing up to 100,000. A list of that size would run you $566/month with ConvertKit. If you desire their referral network, as well, that puts you at the $733/month plan. That’s if you pay yearly, too. With BeeHiiv, you can get all that for just $84/month if you pay every year.

BeeHiiv remains in an entirely different organization when it concerns pricing (in a good way).

Will BeeHiiv at some point increase costs? They could as time goes on. Yet, I’m thinking people like myself who are currently in will be locked-in. We’ll see how things continue.

Points I Would Like BeeHiiv To Include

One of the things you definitely require to keep in mind is that BeeHiiv is relatively young. They do appear to evolve instead swiftly and make brand-new product announcements rather commonly, however there are some basic features I actually want they had that I require to just wait on.

One is that they require to have a setup on membership kinds where I can pick an automation to run right at the type degree. That would certainly be remarkable for a lot of reasons. Currently, subscription forms look OK, however there’s very little settings for them to help in segmentation.

It would certainly be nice to have tagging at the client degree. This would certainly be powerful.

I think webhooks should be part of automations to make built-in automations easier and lower dependence on outside devices like Zapier.

There are likewise some small management user interface changes that would be handy. For example:

  • Capability to bulk edit/remove customers.
  • Capacity to mass edit articles (as an example, to tag a number of them at the same time).
  • Having a couple of standard areas as typical on customers (like the name).
  • Some even more personalization alternatives for the site (such as more versatile color selections, heading control, etc).

So, yeah … there are some shortcomings. Things I wish they perform with it in the near future. BeeHiiv is respectable, but it isn’t ideal and certainly not nearly as created as something like FluentCRM or any other genuine CRM item.

It probably never will certainly be, either. As I stated, the purpose is different so it wouldn’t a lot a lot of feeling for BeeHiiv to come to be a complete marketing automation platform. I presume you never ever know, however.

Last Ideas On This BeeHiiv Evaluation

I such as BeeHiiv fairly a lot. Sufficient where I made a decision to change my very own e-newsletters over to the platform in spite of my individual choice for digital sovereignty and owning my very own platform.

Simply put, for the newsletter publishing version specifically, I saw adequate worth in their platform to require the adjustment.

Bear in mind, I do not make use of BeeHiiv as my exclusive e-mail list. I make use of BeeHiiv of what it is efficient, yet I purposefully have things set up to make sure that I also maintain my listing “in house” within FluentCRM.

If you make use of BeeHiiv, I suggest you do the same. It is simply a great insurance plan, for one. However, having a full-featured marketing automation platform for your list will certainly be of high use (FluentCRM is a full marketing automation system and BeeHiiv is not and likely never will certainly be).

So, the concern is … should YOU utilize BeeHiiv?

In my viewpoint, if you are utilizing Substack now, I ‘d certainly think about changing to BeeHiiv. It will just be a lot more business-friendly. It is targeting different abilities and different requirements. And also, BeeHiiv also has import tools for Substack, so the button must be rather straightforward.

If you get on ConvertKit now, I ‘d probably stay unless you have a large email list and are consequently being fleeced with their high month-to-month costs. You will certainly not (yet) have every feature of ConvertKit with BeeHiiv, but they are iterating rapidly. There’s additionally a pretty good chance you’re not even using a few of those fancier functions of ConvertKit and you don’t also need them. Therefore, BeeHiiv could quickly be a far better and extra affordable fit.

Finally, if you plan to be extremely willful concerning growing an e-newsletter, I think BeeHiiv is THE platform to think about and keep and eye on for you.

If you use BeeHiiv with eyes wide open about what it is created to be, it is one of the best games around right now. This is the system to view.

BeeHiiv supplies a 14-day trial on their paid plans. It deserves having a look at for yourself. And if you wind up not sticking to the paid plan, you’ll discover the complimentary account to be fairly feature abundant.

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