I have made use of a lot of various email list systems throughout the years. In the last number of years, I’ve been a huge advocate of digital sovereignty and possessing your very own system. Because of that (and the amazing features), I have actually been making use of Beehiiv For Fashion & Beauty.
So, it is undoubtedly a weird move for me to make a decision to use BeeHiiv. Besides, it is a held application and I am paying monthly for it.
Why did I do this?
In this BeeHiiv review, I intend to look at why I made the switch to BeeHiiv for my newsletters. I wish to address the issue of digital sovereignty while utilizing the system and I ‘d also like to resolve why I selected to use it over Substack.
Let’s dive in …
BeeHiiv: Developed For Newsletters
In Problem # 435 of my newsletter called My Pastime + A Huge Change In Approach, I talked about how and why I made a decision to transform my RV blog site into mainly a newsletter. I chose that was the business design I wished to go after keeping that home.
But, to intentionally pursue it as a newsletter, I wanted a system that was purpose-built for that. I was making use of FluentCRM for the email listing for Happily RV, however FluentCRM is not an e-newsletter platform. It is built to be a CRM and marketing automation tool and, honestly, utilizing it for newsletters is a little bit of a waste. More on that particular in a bit.
As I claimed in that concern of the newsletter …
Simply put, BeeHiiv is a platform with devices developed right into it details to my function. Points such as:
- Capacity to release (to the blog site) and send out the e-mail at the same time without having it be two separate activities.
- Integrated in newsletter referral program. FluentCRM doesn’t have that and I would certainly have needed a third-party device like Sparkloop.
- Built-in capability to do cross-promotions with various other newsletters on the BeeHiiv platform.
- ” Magic Links”, which are primarily one-click membership web links. Great for promotion in other e-newsletters. FluentCRM has Smart Links, though, so there are methods to do that.
- Ability to do paid “boosts” on the BeeHiiv network to advertise your e-newsletter.
- Built-in advertisement network, if I choose to monetize with ads in the e-newsletter. And I may.
- Integrated capacity to run a paid e-newsletter upgrade and essentially run a costs e-newsletter. And BeeHiiv doesn’t take a cut.
Generally, BeeHiiv is purpose-built for newsletter publishers with features aimed at growth. The system was actually built by the individuals that built up the technology for Morning Mixture. They recognize what they’re doing.
That is the factor below. BeeHiiv is developed from the ground up for the purpose of running an e-newsletter. FluentCRM has a various purpose.
And I ended off with this:.
I may indeed be moving The Edge over to BeeHiiv too. At least, I’m strongly considering it.
Well, I really did not consider it for long. As a matter of fact, I just went all out. And as a matter of fact, The EDGE was re-branded over to The Early morning WP, set off as it’s very own building to ensure that I can expand it a lot more purposefully too.
The goal is that each newsletter has the capacity to be branded as it’s very own media entity and expanded independently. Happily recreational vehicle was young, so very easy to change. However, The Early morning WP (previously The Side) was hidden in a sea of things below at the Blog Site Marketing Academy. By separating it off, I can do what I can to expand it on it’s very own. It will undoubtedly constantly be carefully connected with the Blog site Marketing Academy, but does not have to belong of it.
I switched to BeeHiiv since it was developed for this purpose. FluentCRM was not.
Newsletters Versus Simply A Regular Email Checklist
There’s a distinction between an e-newsletter system and simply an e-mail listing.
You can organize your email listing just about anywhere you desire and there are a variety of them available, from Aweber, ActiveCampaign, Drip, ConvertKit … over to self-hosted options like GroundHogg and FluentCRM.
What’s the difference?
The main distinction is that, with an e-newsletter system, the act of posting means that it is going to your internet site and to your email customers at the same time.
With both BeeHiiv and Substack, you have a site. You are releasing to that internet site. Yet, you are likewise sending to all subscribers at the same time. The web site and it’s clients are all in one. This makes monitoring of the system much simpler.
With many e-mail systems, any newsletter you established is done as an e-mail campaign. It is built entirely individually from your site. So, as an example, you may publish a short article to WordPress but after that you would require to independently build and send out an e-mail to your list to send it to subscribers. These are then two different sets of archives and 2 different actions because post and your e-mails are not naturally linked.
The closest thing that transforms WordPress into a true newsletter system is E-newsletter Glue.
It is a fitting name due to the fact that it practically “glues” your newsletter to your WordPress posts and enables them to be the very same point. Definitely, something like Newsletter Glue would certainly be a strong option if I wished to continue to self-host everything. However, you ‘d shed the growth devices that include a platform like BeeHiiv.
Posting a newsletter inherently comes with a different set of requirements than a common e-mail checklist.
You don’t usually need much marketing automation. You do not usually require autoresponder sequences, occasion tracking, and all the bells and whistles of a marketing automation platform.
What you DO need, though, is one seamless publishing experience and development tools to help you build your subscriber base that specify to e-newsletters.
BeeHiiv vs Substack
When I revealed to my clients that I was going to switch over the e-newsletter over to BeeHiiv, I had many individuals ask me why I was choosing it over Substack.
To be clear, also besides the fact that I chose to go with BeeHiiv, that does not mean I assume Substack sucks. Actually, because Substack has been around longer, it is more mature and has more features.
Although BeeHiiv is more youthful, there are a couple points that at first obtained my focus:.
- BeeHiiv is specifically tailored to newsletter publishers. Actually, it is actually developed by the exact same people that developed the technology behind Morning Mixture. On the other hand, SubStack targets authors. In the real life, does not matter. Yet, the evident positioning of BeeHiiv towards e-newsletter growth called me out over the more common positioning of being a “developer”. Development is what I have an interest in right here.
- That branding and distinction likewise means that BeeHiiv has some fairly large brands and big publications using it. Whereas SubStack is aimed more at solo designers. Once again, it just tells me the consumer avatar difference in between both firms.
Sending our my newsletter by means of FluentCRM really did not exactly suck. The only reason I would certainly ponder drinking points up is if I believed I could expand the listing faster. And BeeHiiv spoke exactly to that objective.
Due to the targeting, I in fact don’t watch BeeHiiv and Substack as straight competitors. I believe BeeHiiv is targeting a different type of consumer. Actually, if anything, I see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being more direct competitors.
But, allow’s dive much deeper than simply the placing here.
Things That Make BeeHiiv Better Than Substack
Generally, BeeHiiv appears like it was built by individuals who recognizing e-mail marketing. On the other hand, SubStack appears a lot more tailored toward designers.
For instance, BeeHiiv provides custom-made fields on clients. Currently, it isn’t as created as something like FluentCRM. But, it has it. Substack doesn’t.
BeeHiiv provides Automations. In fact, it is a visual automation builder that works a great deal like what we have inside of FluentCRM.
To be clear, the automation functionality is still early-phase. It is still quite minimal in triggers and the only activity is the capacity to send an e-mail. Nonetheless, enhancements are coming. Quickly enough, automations will have brand-new triggers in addition to brand-new activities, such as changing custom-made fields, sending webhooks, etc. I’ve already seen improvements to their automations simply given that I began making use of the system. As an example:
- Capability to set off automations based on which details embed form they came in on.
- Ability to immediately do re-engagement (and take care of people based on opens up and non-opens).
- Ability to do standard conditional reasoning branches.
Substack does not have automations like this. Likely, it never ever will. Substack simply can’t do this since the target market of Substack simply wouldn’t believe to approach this like an email online marketer.
When it comes to composing your e-newsletters, the composing user interface of BeeHiiv is just extra tailored toward newsletters. Actually, it actually has similarities to the WordPress block builder in exactly how it functions. I find it to be much more user-friendly, personally.
Substack’s composing interface behaves and clean, but it would be much more equivalent to the timeless editor for WordPress. Toolbar at the top.
This difference is greater than simply form. As an example, with BeeHiiv you can place a “Area” and then put anything you desire in it. After that, you can put Presence options on that particular section to show it just to paid subscribers, conceal it from e-mail, conceal from clients, show just to subscribers, and so on. Substack uses nothing like this.
And when/if the time comes that I start a premium membership design, BeeHiiv doesn’t take any type of earnings. As a matter of fact, you literally link approximately your own Stripe account and it bills straight to it. With Substack, they will take 10% of your income. Depending upon the number of subscribers you get, that 10% can be quite a bit more cash than the month-to-month expense of BeeHiiv.
Finally, BeeHiiv has an API. This may appear unpopular, but what it means is that there are integrations with BeeHiiv. You can actually make BeeHiiv work with the outside utilizing tools like Zapier or Make.com. This is HUGE. Substack literally has … nothing. No integrations in any way.
On the whole, I just seemed like BeeHiiv was a lot more developed towards genuine email marketing. It was constructed by people who “get it”. Also the opt-in types and the landing page creates appear much better constructed for conversions. Development is the name of the game with BeeHiiv.
Although there are still features I would love to see BeeHiiv add, I such as the instructions it is going more than Substack.
Things That Make Substack Better Than BeeHiiv
As I have claimed, Substack placements itself toward “creators” greater than e-mail marketing experts and e-newsletter proprietors. Because of that, you see some points tailored extra towards people that just think in regards to content creation.
For instance, Substack supports podcasts. BeeHiiv does not.
Likewise, while BeeHiiv does sustain multiple magazines, they are treated quite separately. Whereas Substack does have the ability to cross-post to numerous magazines at the same time. This isn’t something I call for, yet … great for people who might need it.
Substack likewise has even more social performance built-in. For instance, it has a chat feature to host talks with customers. It additionally has a “Notes” function which works kind of like a social media sites newsfeed where you can share things from other “Stacks” you read. Fascinating. On the whole, Substack is established to be much more like a social media which sustains long-form material.
Overall, Substack is likewise much more … minimal. You either care for that or do not. Directly, I don’t. Nonetheless, if the objective is simpleness of user interface and, frankly, features … Substack functions quite well.
But, I’ll be clear right here …
When it concerns actual marketing, I do not assume there’s much doubt that BeeHiiv is much better fit. I looked for more points that make Substack much better than BeeHiiv, but honestly … I have a hard time locating them.
BeeHiiv Vs ConvertKit
While BeeHiiv and Substack are usually via to be the closest rivals, I in fact see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being the closer competitors. Both are going after the very same target audience and have similar capacities.
ConvertKit is likewise placed at designers (like Substack), yet it is far more strongly satisfying individuals that do it for business. ConvertKit has good aesthetic automation structure, it’s very own commerce system, and extra. ConvertKit is a really wonderful platform.
I’m not mosting likely to birthed you with a complete feature-by-feature failure below. ConvertKit is well known already. Yet, below’s exactly how I really feel BeeHiiv and ConvertKit contrast …
Points ConvertKit Is Better At …
As of now, ConvertKit has much more adaptability when it comes to it’s automations. I will also state that I find ConvertKit’s automation builder to be a little bit much more instinctive than that of BeeHiiv.
ConvertKit sustains marking. This is just a basic function of email checklists that enables division in a much more adaptable method than BeeHiiv presently does. I anticipate BeeHiiv to sustain tagging at some point soon, truthfully. It feels like an oversight that it is missing out on Beehiiv For Fashion & Beauty.
ConvertKit does currently give the capacity to offer things via their own system. BeeHiiv does not. If that is essential to you, it may be a big deal for you. For me, nevertheless, I would certainly constantly select an extra straight alternative anyway. For me, I favor to utilize my own system powered by WooCommerce.
ConvertKit has been about a lot longer and therefore has way a lot more integration options. Lots of web-based devices and WordPress plugins incorporate with ConvertKit. ConvertKit also has their very own WordPress plugin that is quite effective. As an example, their plugin currently also supports member-gated material in addition to auto-embed of your e-newsletter archives right into your website. In essence, this a lot more very closely places ConvertKit into straight competitors by having you be able to release to your site and your e-mail list at the same time.
BeeHiiv is significantly lacking in these type of third-party integrations at the moment. It’ll get there. However, we’re not there yet with it.
ConvertKit is even hectic tackling the development tools of BeeHiiv. For instance, BeeHiiv has the referral program and the Recommendation Engine where you can not just incentivize individuals to share your e-newsletter with benefits, however you can additionally pay per lead within the inner advertisement network of BeeHiiv to grow your listing. These are really remarkable features of BeeHiiv. But …
Did you understand ConvertKit obtained Sparkloop? Sparkloop is just one of one of the most well known viral promo platforms for e-newsletters … and ConvertKit bought it. You can see the writing on the wall wherefore this implies for the platform moving forward.
Things BeeHiiv Is Much Better At … Beehiiv For Fashion & Beauty
BeeHiiv is much earlier in it’s item cycle than ConvertKit. Part of that suggests less features and less integrations, which is all-natural for this phase of the cycle. Nevertheless, it likewise means that they are quickly developing.
In the short time that I have actually been a customer of BeeHiiv, I have actually seen practically weekly release of brand-new features into the platform. And these aren’t puny little features … yet large features that are rather essential. Their speed of development now has gone over.
I also significantly appreciate exactly how responsive they are. As a matter of fact, one of their product statements regarding some style enhancements to the website design features really included a little trouble with the material size. I just replied to that email to tell them. I rapidly got a reply directly from the CEO:.
That exact same day, the problem was dealt with.
Few days later on, I gave them an additional idea …
Certainly, in a bit over a week of that exchange, the ability to trigger automations based upon the embed form made use of was contributed to the system.
That kind of responsiveness and direct participation of the team is something I actually appreciate.
Another significant factor of distinction here is the cost. Both systems provide totally free plans, nonetheless the BeeHiiv free plan provides extra capability and more clients (2,500 vs 1,000) than ConvertKit.
When you go to paid plans, the pricing of BeeHiiv is also even more beneficial. ConvertKit seems more affordable in the beginning look since their pricing page reveals lower numbers, nevertheless the client limitations are FAR lower and your cost rapidly raises as your list expands.
With BeeHiiv, your initial level paid plan begins at $42/mo (paid annually), nonetheless you can have up to 10,000 customers. That same size list is mosting likely to run you $100/month with ConvertKit.
If you upgrade to the “Range” plan with BeeHiiv (their ideal plan and the one I personally utilize), you can expand your list as much as 100,000. A checklist of that size would certainly run you $566/month with ConvertKit. If you want their referral network, too, that places you at the $733/month plan. That’s if you pay annually, also. With BeeHiiv, you can get all that for just $84/month if you pay annually.
BeeHiiv is in a totally different organization when it concerns pricing (in a good way).
Will BeeHiiv at some point boost prices? They could as time takes place. But, I’m presuming people like myself that are currently in will certainly be locked-in. We’ll see how things continue.
Points I Would Like BeeHiiv To Include
One of the important things you most definitely require to bear in mind is that BeeHiiv is fairly young. They do seem to progress instead quickly and make brand-new product announcements rather usually, but there are some standard features I actually wish they had that I need to simply wait on.
One is that they need to have a setup on membership kinds where I might select an automation to run right at the kind degree. That would be remarkable for many reasons. As of now, registration types look OK, but there’s extremely little settings for them to assist in division.
It would certainly behave to have marking at the client level. This would be effective.
I think webhooks ought to become part of automations to make built-in automations simpler and reduce dependence on outside devices like Zapier.
There are also some minor management interface changes that would be handy. As an example:
- Ability to mass edit/remove subscribers.
- Capacity to mass edit messages (for instance, to label a lot of them at the same time).
- Having a few standard areas as basic on clients (like the name).
- Some even more customization choices for the web site (such as more adaptable color choices, headline control, and so on).
So, yeah … there are some imperfections. Things I hope they perform with it in the near future. BeeHiiv is pretty good, but it isn’t ideal and absolutely not nearly as created as something like FluentCRM or any other genuine CRM item.
It most likely never will be, either. As I claimed, the function is various so it would not a lot a great deal of sense for BeeHiiv to become a complete marketing automation platform. I guess you never ever know, however.
Last Ideas On This BeeHiiv Testimonial
I such as BeeHiiv rather a lot. Enough where I decided to change my very own e-newsletters over to the platform regardless of my individual choice for digital sovereignty and possessing my very own platform.
Simply put, for the newsletter posting version especially, I saw enough value in their system to necessitate the modification.
Bear in mind, I do not utilize BeeHiiv as my exclusive e-mail list. I utilize BeeHiiv of what it is proficient at, however I intentionally have points establish so that I likewise keep my checklist “in home” inside of FluentCRM.
If you utilize BeeHiiv, I recommend you do the same. It is just an excellent insurance plan, for one. However, having a full-featured marketing automation system for your checklist will certainly be of high usage (FluentCRM is a full marketing automation system and BeeHiiv is not and likely never ever will certainly be).
So, the concern is … should YOU use BeeHiiv?
In my opinion, if you are using Substack today, I ‘d certainly think about changing to BeeHiiv. It will merely be much more business-friendly. It is targeting various capabilities and various demands. Plus, BeeHiiv even has import tools for Substack, so the button should be quite uncomplicated.
If you are on ConvertKit now, I ‘d possibly sit tight unless you have a huge email listing and are as a result being wooled with their high month-to-month costs. You will not (yet) have every feature of ConvertKit with BeeHiiv, but they are repeating rapidly. There’s additionally a pretty good possibility you’re not even utilizing some of those fancier functions of ConvertKit and you do not also require them. Therefore, BeeHiiv could conveniently be a better and a lot more cost effective fit.
Last but not least, if you plan to be extremely willful concerning growing a newsletter, I think BeeHiiv is THE system to consider and maintain and eye on for you.
If you utilize BeeHiiv with eyes wide open regarding what it is made to be, it is among the best games in the area today. This is the system to see.
BeeHiiv offers a 14-day trial on their paid plans. It is worth looking into for yourself. And if you wind up not sticking with the paid plan, you’ll locate the cost-free account to be fairly feature abundant.