I have utilized a great deal of different e-mail list systems for many years. In the last number of years, I have actually been a huge proponent of digital sovereignty and having your very own system. For that reason (and the incredible features), I have been making use of Beehiiv For Email Marketing.
So, it is certainly a weird move for me to make a decision to utilize BeeHiiv. After all, it is a hosted application and I am paying monthly for it.
Why did I do this?
In this BeeHiiv review, I wish to review why I made the button to BeeHiiv for my newsletters. I wish to deal with the issue of digital sovereignty while making use of the platform and I ‘d also such as to address why I selected to use it over Substack.
Let’s dive in …
BeeHiiv: Constructed For E-newsletters
In Problem # 435 of my newsletter called My Hobby + A Large Change In Approach, I spoke about just how and why I made a decision to transform my motor home blog into primarily an e-newsletter. I chose that was business version I intended to seek with that home.
Yet, to purposefully seek it as an e-newsletter, I wanted a platform that was purpose-built for that. I was using FluentCRM for the e-mail listing for Gladly motor home, however FluentCRM is not an e-newsletter platform. It is developed to be a CRM and marketing automation tool and, frankly, using it for newsletters is a little bit of a waste. More on that in a bit.
As I said in that issue of the e-newsletter …
Put simply, BeeHiiv is a system with devices constructed into it certain to my purpose. Things such as:
- Capacity to publish (to the blog) and send out the email concurrently without having it be 2 separate actions.
- Constructed in newsletter referral program. FluentCRM does not have that and I would certainly require a third-party device like Sparkloop.
- Integrated capacity to do cross-promotions with various other newsletters on the BeeHiiv system.
- ” Magic Links”, which are generally one-click membership links. Great for promotion in other e-newsletters. FluentCRM has Smart Hyperlinks, however, so there are means to do that.
- Capability to do paid “boosts” on the BeeHiiv network to advertise your newsletter.
- Integrated advertisement network, if I select to monetize with advertisements in the newsletter. And I may.
- Built-in capability to run a paid e-newsletter upgrade and basically run a premium newsletter. And BeeHiiv does not take a cut.
Generally, BeeHiiv is purpose-built for newsletter publishers with features aimed at growth. The platform was essentially built by the people that accumulated the modern technology for Early morning Brew. They recognize what they’re doing.
That is the factor below. BeeHiiv is developed from the ground up for the function of running a newsletter. FluentCRM has a various purpose.
And I finished off with this:.
I might indeed be moving The Edge over to BeeHiiv as well. At least, I’m strongly considering it.
Well, I didn’t consider it for long. Actually, I simply went for it. And as a matter of fact, The EDGE was re-branded over to The Morning WP, triggered as it’s own property to make sure that I can grow it more intentionally too.
The goal is that each e-newsletter has the capacity to be branded as it’s very own media entity and expanded independently. Gladly motor home was young, so simple to shift. But, The Early morning WP (previously The Side) was hidden in a sea of things below at the Blog Site Marketing Academy. By dividing it off, I can do what I can to grow it on it’s own. It will certainly constantly be closely linked with the Blog Marketing Academy, yet doesn’t need to belong of it.
I switched to BeeHiiv since it was built for this function. FluentCRM was not.
E-newsletters Versus Simply A Normal Email List
There’s a difference between an e-newsletter platform and just an email checklist.
You can organize your email list anyplace you want and there are a number of them out there, from Aweber, ActiveCampaign, Drip, ConvertKit … over to self-hosted alternatives like GroundHogg and FluentCRM.
What’s the distinction?
The key distinction is that, with an e-newsletter platform, the act of publishing implies that it is going to your web site and to your e-mail clients concurrently.
With both BeeHiiv and Substack, you have a web site. You are publishing to that internet site. Yet, you are additionally sending off to all clients at the same time. The website and it’s clients are all in one. This makes administration of the system much less complex.
With a lot of email systems, any e-newsletter you set up is done as an e-mail campaign. It is constructed totally independently from your site. So, as an example, you could publish an article to WordPress however after that you would certainly need to separately build and send out an e-mail to your checklist to send it to subscribers. These are after that 2 separate collections of archives and 2 separate actions because post and your e-mails are not inherently linked.
The closest thing that transforms WordPress right into a true e-newsletter platform is E-newsletter Glue.
It is a fitting name since it virtually “glues” your newsletter to your WordPress posts and enables them to be the same point. Definitely, something like Newsletter Glue would certainly be a strong alternative if I wanted to remain to self-host every little thing. Nonetheless, you ‘d lose the development tools that include a system like BeeHiiv.
Publishing an e-newsletter inherently includes a various set of needs than a regular email checklist.
You do not generally require much marketing automation. You do not typically need autoresponder series, occasion tracking, and all the bells and whistles of a marketing automation platform.
What you DO need, though, is one smooth publishing experience and development tools to help you build your client base that are specific to e-newsletters.
BeeHiiv vs Substack
When I announced to my customers that I was mosting likely to switch the e-newsletter over to BeeHiiv, I had lots of people ask me why I was selecting it over Substack.
To be clear, also besides the fact that I picked to go with BeeHiiv, that does not mean I assume Substack sucks. In fact, because Substack has actually been about much longer, it is elder and has even more features.
Despite the fact that BeeHiiv is younger, there are a pair points that at first obtained my attention:.
- BeeHiiv is specifically tailored to e-newsletter publishers. As a matter of fact, it is literally constructed by the very same people that constructed the modern technology behind Early morning Mixture. On the other hand, SubStack targets writers. In the real life, does not matter. But, the apparent positioning of BeeHiiv towards e-newsletter growth called me out over the even more generic positioning of being a “designer”. Development is what I have an interest in right here.
- That branding and differentiation also indicates that BeeHiiv has some rather huge brands and huge magazines using it. Whereas SubStack is intended more at solo developers. Once more, it simply informs me the client avatar difference in between the two companies.
Sending our my e-newsletter through FluentCRM didn’t precisely suck. The only reason I would certainly consider trembling points up is if I assumed I can expand the listing quicker. And BeeHiiv talked specifically to that objective.
Because of the targeting, I really don’t view BeeHiiv and Substack as straight competitors. I assume BeeHiiv is targeting a different sort of consumer. In fact, if anything, I see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being extra direct rivals.
But, let’s dive much deeper than just the positioning right here.
Points That Make BeeHiiv Better Than Substack
Overall, BeeHiiv seems like it was built by individuals who recognizing e-mail marketing. On the other hand, SubStack seems much more geared toward designers.
As an example, BeeHiiv supplies customized areas on customers. Now, it isn’t as developed as something like FluentCRM. Yet, it has it. Substack doesn’t.
BeeHiiv uses 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 quite limited in triggers and the only action is the capacity to send out an e-mail. However, enhancements are coming. Quickly sufficient, automations will have brand-new triggers as well as brand-new activities, such as modifying custom-made areas, sending out webhooks, and so on. I have actually currently seen enhancements to their automations just because I started utilizing the platform. As an example:
- Ability to set off automations based upon which particular embed form they can be found in on.
- Ability to immediately do re-engagement (and deal with individuals based upon opens and non-opens).
- Capacity to do fundamental conditional logic branches.
Substack does not have automations similar to this. Likely, it never ever will. Substack simply can’t do this due to the fact that the target audience of Substack simply would not think to approach this like an e-mail online marketer.
When it concerns composing your e-newsletters, the composing user interface of BeeHiiv is simply a lot more tailored towards newsletters. Actually, it in fact has resemblances to the WordPress block builder in how it works. I discover it to be more intuitive, personally.
Substack’s composing interface behaves and clean, however it would certainly be a lot more comparable to the traditional editor for WordPress. Toolbar at the top.
This difference is greater than just type. For example, with BeeHiiv you can put a “Area” and afterwards put anything you want in it. Then, you can place Visibility choices on that area to show it just to paid clients, hide it from e-mail, conceal from clients, reveal only to customers, etc. Substack uses nothing such as this.
And when/if the moment comes that I start a costs membership model, BeeHiiv doesn’t take any profits. In fact, you literally link as much as your very own Stripe account and it charges straight to it. With Substack, they will certainly take 10% of your revenue. Depending upon the number of customers you obtain, that 10% can be quite a bit more money than the regular monthly expense of BeeHiiv.
Lastly, BeeHiiv has an API. This might seem unpopular, yet what it means is that there are integrations with BeeHiiv. You can actually make BeeHiiv collaborate with the outside using tools like Zapier or Make.com. This is HUGE. Substack actually has … absolutely nothing. No integrations at all.
In general, I just felt like BeeHiiv was a lot more developed toward actual email marketing. It was developed by individuals who “get it”. Even the opt-in forms and the landing page makes appear far better constructed for conversions. Growth is the name of the game with BeeHiiv.
Although there are still features I wish to see BeeHiiv include, I such as the instructions it is going greater than Substack.
Things That Make Substack Better Than BeeHiiv
As I have actually stated, Substack positions itself towards “creators” more than email marketers and e-newsletter proprietors. Because of that, you see some things geared a lot more towards individuals who just believe in terms of web content production.
For instance, Substack supports podcasts. BeeHiiv does not.
Likewise, while BeeHiiv does sustain numerous magazines, they are treated rather separately. Whereas Substack does have the ability to cross-post to multiple magazines at the same time. This isn’t something I require, however … great for people that may need it.
Substack also has more social functionality built-in. For instance, it has a conversation function to host chats with clients. It likewise has a “Notes” feature which works kind of like a social media sites newsfeed where you can share points from other “Stacks” you read. Fascinating. Generally, Substack is established to be more like a social media network which sustains long-form web content.
Overall, Substack is also more … minimal. You either take care of that or don’t. Directly, I do not. Nonetheless, if the goal is simpleness of interface and, frankly, features … Substack works quite well.
However, I’ll be clear here …
When it concerns real marketing, I don’t believe there’s much uncertainty that BeeHiiv is better matched. I searched for more factors that make Substack better than BeeHiiv, however truthfully … I have a hard time discovering them.
BeeHiiv Vs ConvertKit
While BeeHiiv and Substack are frequently via to be the closest competitors, I in fact see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being the closer opponents. Both are going after the very same target market and have comparable capabilities.
ConvertKit is additionally placed at developers (like Substack), however it is a lot more highly accommodating individuals who do it for service. ConvertKit has good aesthetic automation building, it’s very own commerce platform, and a lot more. ConvertKit is a really good system.
I’m not mosting likely to bore you with a complete feature-by-feature failure here. ConvertKit is well known already. Yet, right here’s exactly how I really feel BeeHiiv and ConvertKit compare …
Points ConvertKit Is Much Better At …
Currently, ConvertKit has much more flexibility when it concerns it’s automations. I will certainly additionally say that I discover ConvertKit’s automation builder to be a little bit extra instinctive than that of BeeHiiv.
ConvertKit sustains identifying. This is simply a fundamental feature of e-mail lists that makes it possible for segmentation in a much more adaptable way than BeeHiiv currently does. I anticipate BeeHiiv to support marking at some point soon, honestly. It seems like an oversight that it is missing Beehiiv For Email Marketing.
ConvertKit does currently offer the capability to market points through their very own system. BeeHiiv does not. If that is very important to you, it may be a big deal for you. For me, nevertheless, I would constantly pick an extra straight choice anyway. For me, I choose to use my own platform powered by WooCommerce.
ConvertKit has been about much longer and therefore has way a lot more integration choices. Lots of online tools and WordPress plugins integrate with ConvertKit. ConvertKit also has their own WordPress plugin that is rather powerful. As an example, their plugin now also sustains member-gated content as well as auto-embed of your e-newsletter archives right into your website. In essence, this more closely places ConvertKit into direct competitors by having you be able to publish to your site and your e-mail checklist at the same time.
BeeHiiv is seriously doing not have in these sort of third-party integrations right now. It’ll get there. Yet, we’re not there yet with it.
ConvertKit is also hectic dealing with the development tools of BeeHiiv. As an example, BeeHiiv has the referral program and the Suggestion Engine where you can not just incentivize individuals to share your newsletter with perks, yet you can also pay per lead within the inner advertisement network of BeeHiiv to grow your list. These are truly remarkable features of BeeHiiv. But …
Did you know ConvertKit got Sparkloop? Sparkloop is just one of one of the most popular viral promo platforms for e-newsletters … and ConvertKit bought it. You can see the creating on the wall wherefore this indicates for the platform moving forward.
Things BeeHiiv Is Better At … Beehiiv For Email Marketing
BeeHiiv is a lot earlier in it’s item cycle than ConvertKit. Part of that means less features and less integrations, which is all-natural for this stage of the cycle. However, it additionally implies that they are quickly creating.
In the short time that I have been a customer of BeeHiiv, I have witnessed nearly regular launch of new features right into the platform. And these aren’t puny little features … but huge features that are fairly crucial. Their speed of advancement now has gone over.
I additionally quite value how receptive they are. Actually, one of their item announcements regarding some design enhancements to the website design features actually had a little issue with the web content size. I merely responded to that e-mail to tell them. I quickly got a reply directly from the chief executive officer:.
That very same day, the issue was taken care of.
Couple of days later on, I gave them an additional idea …
Sure enough, in a little bit over a week of that exchange, the capacity to cause automations based on the embed form made use of was contributed to the system.
That sort of responsiveness and straight involvement of the group is something I really appreciate.
Another major point of distinction here is the rate. Both systems supply free plans, nevertheless the BeeHiiv free plan offers more capacity and more customers (2,500 vs 1,000) than ConvertKit.
As soon as you most likely to paid plans, the pricing of BeeHiiv is likewise FAR more desirable. ConvertKit seems less costly at first look because their pricing page reveals reduced numbers, nonetheless the client limits are much reduced and your price swiftly raises as your listing expands.
With BeeHiiv, your initial degree paid plan begins at $42/mo (paid annually), however you can have up to 10,000 customers. That very same dimension listing is going to run you $100/month with ConvertKit.
If you update to the “Scale” plan with BeeHiiv (their finest plan and the one I personally use), you can expand your checklist as much as 100,000. A listing of that size would certainly run you $566/month with ConvertKit. If you want their referral network, as well, that places you at the $733/month plan. That’s if you pay annually, too. With BeeHiiv, you can get all that for just $84/month if you pay each year.
BeeHiiv remains in a completely different league when it concerns pricing (in a great way).
Will BeeHiiv at some point increase prices? They might as time takes place. Yet, I’m guessing individuals like myself that are already in will certainly be locked-in. We’ll see exactly how points continue.
Things I Would Certainly Like BeeHiiv To Add
One of the things you most definitely require to keep in mind is that BeeHiiv is fairly young. They do appear to develop instead promptly and make brand-new product statements somewhat frequently, yet there are some standard features I actually wish they had that I need to just wait on.
One is that they require to have a setting on registration kinds where I might choose an automation to run right at the form degree. That would certainly be incredible for a lot of factors. Already, registration forms look OK, but there’s very little settings for them to help in division.
It would behave to have labeling at the client level. This would be powerful.
I think webhooks need to be part of automations to make built-in automations simpler and minimize dependence on outside devices like Zapier.
There are likewise some small administrative interface adjustments that would come in handy. As an example:
- Ability to mass edit/remove subscribers.
- Ability to bulk edit posts (for example, to identify a number of them at the same time).
- Having a few standard fields as typical on clients (like the name).
- Some more personalization alternatives for the website (such as more flexible shade options, headline control, and so on).
So, yeah … there are some drawbacks. Points I hope they do with it in the future. BeeHiiv is respectable, however it isn’t excellent and definitely not virtually as created as something like FluentCRM or any other actual CRM product.
It probably never ever will be, either. As I said, the purpose is various so it would not much a great deal of feeling for BeeHiiv to come to be a full marketing automation platform. I guess you never ever know, however.
Last Ideas On This BeeHiiv Review
I like BeeHiiv rather a great deal. Enough where I decided to change my own newsletters over to the platform in spite of my personal choice for digital sovereignty and having my very own platform.
Simply put, for the e-newsletter posting design especially, I saw enough value in their system to necessitate the change.
Remember, I do not use BeeHiiv as my unique e-mail list. I use BeeHiiv for what it is efficient, but I intentionally have points establish to ensure that I additionally keep my checklist “in house” inside of FluentCRM.
If you use BeeHiiv, I suggest you do the exact same. It is just a great insurance plan, for one. Yet, having a full-featured marketing automation system for your checklist will be of high usage (FluentCRM is a complete marketing automation platform and BeeHiiv is not and likely never will certainly be).
So, the concern is … should YOU make use of BeeHiiv?
In my opinion, if you are using Substack today, I ‘d definitely take into consideration changing to BeeHiiv. It will merely be a lot more business-friendly. It is targeting different capacities and different requirements. Plus, BeeHiiv even has import devices for Substack, so the switch must be pretty uncomplicated.
If you are on ConvertKit currently, I ‘d possibly stay unless you have a big e-mail list and are consequently being fleeced with their high regular monthly expense. You will not (yet) have every feature of ConvertKit with BeeHiiv, yet they are repeating swiftly. There’s likewise a pretty good chance you’re not even making use of some of those fancier features of ConvertKit and you don’t also require them. For that reason, BeeHiiv might conveniently be a better and extra budget-friendly fit.
Lastly, if you plan to be really intentional about growing an e-newsletter, I think BeeHiiv is THE platform to take into consideration and maintain and eye on for you.
If you utilize BeeHiiv with eyes wide open concerning what it is made to be, it is one of the very best video games in town right now. This is the platform to see.
BeeHiiv supplies a 14-day trial on their paid plans. It is worth looking into on your own. And if you wind up not sticking to the paid plan, you’ll find the complimentary account to be fairly feature abundant.