I have made use of a great deal of various e-mail list systems over the years. In the last couple of years, I have actually been a significant advocate of digital sovereignty and owning your very own platform. For that reason (and the incredible features), I have been making use of Beehiiv Gravity Forms.
So, it is without a doubt an unusual move for me to decide to utilize BeeHiiv. Nevertheless, it is a held application and I am paying monthly for it.
Why did I do this?
In this BeeHiiv review, I wish to go over why I made the button to BeeHiiv for my newsletters. I want to attend to the concern of digital sovereignty while using the system and I ‘d additionally like to deal with why I chose to utilize it over Substack.
Allow’s dive in …
BeeHiiv: Developed For Newsletters
In Problem # 435 of my newsletter called My Hobby + A Large Shift In Method, I talked about exactly how and why I determined to turn my recreational vehicle blog into mainly a newsletter. I made a decision that was the business design I intended to seek keeping that building.
However, to deliberately seek it as an e-newsletter, I desired a system that was purpose-built for that. I was making use of FluentCRM for the e-mail checklist for Happily recreational vehicle, yet FluentCRM is not a newsletter system. It is built to be a CRM and marketing automation device and, frankly, using it for e-newsletters is a little bit of a waste. Extra on that particular in a bit.
As I said in that concern of the e-newsletter …
Put simply, BeeHiiv is a platform with devices built into it certain to my function. Points such as:
- Capability to publish (to the blog) and send the e-mail concurrently without having it be 2 separate actions.
- Built in newsletter referral program. FluentCRM does not have that and I would require a third-party device like Sparkloop.
- Built-in capability to do cross-promotions with various other e-newsletters on the BeeHiiv platform.
- ” Magic Links”, which are generally one-click membership links. Great for promo in various other e-newsletters. FluentCRM has Smart Links, though, so there are methods to do that.
- Capability to do paid “boosts” on the BeeHiiv network to advertise your newsletter.
- Built-in ad network, if I select to monetize with ads in the e-newsletter. And I may.
- Built-in capacity to run a paid e-newsletter upgrade and essentially run a premium e-newsletter. And BeeHiiv does not take a cut.
Primarily, BeeHiiv is purpose-built for newsletter publishers with features aimed at development. The platform was literally developed by the individuals who accumulated the modern technology for Early morning Mixture. They recognize what they’re doing.
That is the point below. BeeHiiv is developed from the ground up for the function of running an e-newsletter. FluentCRM has a different objective.
And I finished off with this:.
I may without a doubt be moving The Side over to BeeHiiv as well. At least, I’m strongly considering it.
Well, I really did not consider it for long. In fact, I simply went all out. And actually, The side was re-branded over to The Morning WP, set off as it’s very own residential property to ensure that I can grow it much more purposefully too.
The goal is that each newsletter has the capability to be branded as it’s very own media entity and grown independently. Happily recreational vehicle was young, so easy to change. But, The Early morning WP (formerly The Side) was hidden in a sea of stuff below at the Blog Marketing Academy. By dividing it off, I can do what I can to grow it on it’s very own. It will clearly always be closely connected with the Blog site Marketing Academy, but doesn’t have to belong of it.
I switched over to BeeHiiv due to the fact that it was constructed for this function. FluentCRM was not.
E-newsletters Versus Just A Typical Email List
There’s a distinction between an e-newsletter system and simply an e-mail listing.
You can host your email checklist everywhere you desire and there are a variety of them around, from Aweber, ActiveCampaign, Drip, ConvertKit … over to self-hosted options like GroundHogg and FluentCRM.
What’s the difference?
The main difference is that, with an e-newsletter system, the act of posting means that it is going to your site and to your email subscribers all at once.
With both BeeHiiv and Substack, you have an internet site. You are releasing to that website. Yet, you are additionally sending to all customers at the same time. The website and it’s subscribers are all in one. This makes monitoring of the system much easier.
With many e-mail systems, any type of newsletter you set up is done as an email campaign. It is constructed completely individually from your internet site. So, for instance, you could publish a post to WordPress but after that you would require to individually construct and send an e-mail to your listing to send it to clients. These are after that 2 separate collections of archives and two separate activities because blog posts and your emails are not inherently linked.
The closest thing that turns WordPress into a real e-newsletter system is E-newsletter Glue.
It is a suitable name because it virtually “glues” your e-newsletter to your WordPress posts and allows them to be the exact same thing. Certainly, something like Newsletter Glue would certainly be a strong alternative if I wished to remain to self-host everything. Nevertheless, you would certainly lose the growth tools that come with a system like BeeHiiv.
Publishing an e-newsletter inherently features a different collection of requirements than a common e-mail list.
You do not normally need much marketing automation. You don’t generally require autoresponder sequences, occasion tracking, and all the bells and whistles of a marketing automation platform.
What you DO need, however, is one seamless posting experience and growth tools to assist you develop your customer base that are specific to e-newsletters.
BeeHiiv vs Substack
When I introduced to my clients that I was mosting likely to switch the e-newsletter over to BeeHiiv, I had many people ask me why I was selecting it over Substack.
To be clear, also besides the fact that I picked to choose BeeHiiv, that doesn’t imply I believe Substack sucks. In fact, because Substack has been about longer, it is more mature and has even more features.
Even though BeeHiiv is younger, there are a pair points that initially obtained my focus:.
- BeeHiiv is especially tailored to e-newsletter authors. As a matter of fact, it is actually developed by the exact same individuals who built the innovation behind Morning Brew. On the other hand, SubStack targets writers. In the real world, does not matter. Yet, the evident positioning of BeeHiiv toward newsletter development called me out over the more generic positioning of being a “designer”. Growth is what I want below.
- That branding and distinction also suggests that BeeHiiv has some rather big brands and huge magazines utilizing it. Whereas SubStack is intended more at solo designers. Once more, it just informs me the consumer avatar difference in between both business.
Sending our my newsletter via FluentCRM really did not exactly draw. The only factor I would certainly contemplate trembling things up is if I thought I could GROW the listing quicker. And BeeHiiv spoke exactly to that goal.
As a result of the targeting, I in fact do not check out BeeHiiv and Substack as direct rivals. I believe BeeHiiv is targeting a various type of customer. Actually, if anything, I see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being much more straight competitors.
But, let’s dive much deeper than just the placing here.
Points That Make BeeHiiv Better Than Substack
Generally, BeeHiiv feels like it was developed by individuals who comprehending email marketing. On the other hand, SubStack seems a lot more tailored toward designers.
For example, BeeHiiv offers custom areas on clients. Currently, it isn’t as established 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 functions a great deal like what we have inside of FluentCRM.
To be clear, the automation functionality is still early-phase. It is still fairly restricted in triggers and the only activity is the ability to send an e-mail. Nonetheless, improvements are coming. Soon sufficient, automations will certainly have new triggers as well as brand-new activities, such as customizing custom-made fields, sending webhooks, and so on. I have actually already seen improvements to their automations simply because I started utilizing the platform. For instance:
- Ability to cause automations based upon which particular embed type they came in on.
- Capability to immediately do re-engagement (and handle individuals based upon opens and non-opens).
- Capability to do fundamental conditional reasoning branches.
Substack does not have automations like this. Likely, it never ever will. Substack simply can not do this due to the fact that the target audience of Substack simply would not think to approach this like an email marketing professional.
When it concerns composing your newsletters, the composing interface of BeeHiiv is simply much more geared toward newsletters. Actually, it in fact has resemblances to the WordPress block builder in just how it works. I discover it to be more user-friendly, personally.
Substack’s creating user interface is nice and tidy, yet it would certainly be more comparable to the classic editor for WordPress. Toolbar at the top.
This difference is more than simply type. As an example, with BeeHiiv you can put a “Section” and then placed anything you desire in it. Then, you can put Exposure alternatives on that particular section to show it just to paid customers, conceal it from email, hide from subscribers, reveal only to clients, and so on. Substack provides absolutely nothing like this.
And when/if the time comes that I begin a costs subscription model, BeeHiiv doesn’t take any kind of earnings. As a matter of fact, you essentially connect up to your very own Stripe account and it charges directly to it. With Substack, they will certainly take 10% of your earnings. Relying on the number of subscribers you obtain, that 10% can be a fair bit more cash than the monthly cost of BeeHiiv.
Finally, BeeHiiv has an API. This may seem nerdy, however what it indicates is that there are integrations with BeeHiiv. You can in fact make BeeHiiv deal with the outdoors using devices like Zapier or Make.com. This is HUGE. Substack actually has … absolutely nothing. No integrations whatsoever.
In general, I simply felt like BeeHiiv was a lot more constructed toward genuine e-mail marketing. It was built by people that “get it”. Also the opt-in kinds and the landing page creates appear much better built for conversions. Growth is nitty-gritty with BeeHiiv.
Although there are still features I wish to see BeeHiiv add, I like the instructions it is going greater than Substack.
Points That Make Substack Better Than BeeHiiv
As I have said, Substack placements itself towards “developers” greater than email online marketers and newsletter owners. Therefore, you see some things tailored more toward people that simply assume in regards to web content creation.
As an example, Substack supports podcasts. BeeHiiv does not.
Also, while BeeHiiv does sustain multiple publications, they are treated quite separately. Whereas Substack does have the capacity to cross-post to numerous publications at the same time. This isn’t something I require, yet … cool for people that could need it.
Substack additionally has more social performance built-in. For instance, it has a conversation feature to host talks with clients. 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. Interesting. Overall, Substack is set up to be much more like a social network which supports long-form material.
On the whole, Substack is likewise more … minimalist. You either look after that or don’t. Directly, I don’t. However, if the objective is simpleness of user interface and, honestly, features … Substack works quite well.
Yet, I’ll be clear below …
When it concerns actual marketing, I do not believe there’s much doubt that BeeHiiv is much better suited. I tried to find more points that make Substack much better than BeeHiiv, but frankly … I have a hard time discovering them.
BeeHiiv Vs ConvertKit
While BeeHiiv and Substack are usually through to be the closest rivals, I in fact see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being the closer rivals. Both are going after the same target audience and have similar capacities.
ConvertKit is additionally positioned at makers (like Substack), yet it is a lot more strongly accommodating individuals who do it for organization. ConvertKit has great aesthetic automation building, it’s very own commerce system, and more. ConvertKit is an actually wonderful system.
I’m not going to birthed you with a complete feature-by-feature break down below. ConvertKit is popular currently. However, below’s how I feel BeeHiiv and ConvertKit contrast …
Things ConvertKit Is Much Better At …
As of now, ConvertKit has much more adaptability when it pertains to it’s automations. I will certainly also claim that I find ConvertKit’s automation builder to be a little bit much more user-friendly than that of BeeHiiv.
ConvertKit supports marking. This is just a standard feature of email checklists that makes it possible for division in an even more flexible way than BeeHiiv currently does. I expect BeeHiiv to support tagging at some point quickly, honestly. It seems like an oversight that it is missing Beehiiv Gravity Forms.
ConvertKit does currently supply the capacity to offer points using their own system. BeeHiiv does not. If that is essential to you, it may be a big deal for you. For me, nonetheless, I would always pick an extra direct choice anyway. For me, I prefer to utilize my own system powered by WooCommerce.
ConvertKit has been around a lot longer and because of that has way much more integration alternatives. Lots of online tools and WordPress plugins integrate with ConvertKit. ConvertKit even has their own WordPress plugin that is fairly powerful. For example, their plugin now also sustains member-gated material along with auto-embed of your newsletter archives right into your site. Fundamentally, this a lot more very closely places ConvertKit right into straight competitors by having you be able to publish to your website and your e-mail list at the same time.
BeeHiiv is drastically lacking in these kinds of third-party integrations right now. It’ll arrive. But, we’re not there yet with it.
ConvertKit is even busy taking on the growth devices of BeeHiiv. For instance, BeeHiiv has the referral program and the Referral Engine where you can not just incentivize individuals to share your newsletter with rewards, but you can likewise pay per lead within the inner advertisement network of BeeHiiv to grow your listing. These are really awesome features of BeeHiiv. However …
Did you recognize ConvertKit got Sparkloop? Sparkloop is among one of the most popular viral promo systems for newsletters … and ConvertKit bought it. You can see the creating on the wall surface wherefore this suggests for the platform going forward.
Points BeeHiiv Is Better At … Beehiiv Gravity Forms
BeeHiiv is much previously in it’s product cycle than ConvertKit. Part of that indicates much less features and much less integrations, which is all-natural for this stage of the cycle. Nevertheless, it also suggests that they are swiftly creating.
In the short time that I have been a customer of BeeHiiv, I have seen practically weekly release of new features into the platform. And these aren’t weak little features … but big features that are rather crucial. Their speed of development now has gone over.
I also very much appreciate how responsive they are. As a matter of fact, one of their item news about some style enhancements to the website design features in fact included a small trouble with the material size. I just replied to that e-mail to tell them. I swiftly obtained a reply straight from the CEO:.
That same day, the concern was repaired.
Couple of days later on, I provided an additional recommendation …
Certainly, in a little bit over a week of that exchange, the ability to trigger automations based upon the embed kind utilized was added to the system.
That type of responsiveness and direct involvement of the team is something I really value.
One more significant factor of distinction here is the rate. Both platforms provide free plans, however the BeeHiiv free plan uses much more capacity and more clients (2,500 vs 1,000) than ConvertKit.
As soon as you most likely to paid plans, the pricing of BeeHiiv is also FAR more desirable. ConvertKit appears more affordable initially look because their pricing page reveals lower numbers, however the client limits are much reduced and your cost promptly increases as your listing expands.
With BeeHiiv, your initial degree paid plan begins at $42/mo (paid every year), however you can have up to 10,000 customers. That very same size list is mosting likely to run you $100/month with ConvertKit.
If you upgrade to the “Scale” plan with BeeHiiv (their finest plan and the one I personally use), you can grow your listing as much as 100,000. A checklist of that dimension would run you $566/month with ConvertKit. If you desire their referral network, too, that places you at the $733/month plan. That’s if you pay each year, too. With BeeHiiv, you can obtain all that for just $84/month if you pay each year.
BeeHiiv is in a completely various organization when it comes to pricing (in a great way).
Will BeeHiiv ultimately boost rates? They might as time goes on. Yet, I’m guessing individuals like myself who are already in will be locked-in. We’ll see exactly how points continue.
Things I Would Certainly Like BeeHiiv To Include
One of the things you most definitely need to keep in mind is that BeeHiiv is reasonably young. They do seem to progress rather quickly and make new item news rather commonly, but there are some standard features I actually desire they had that I require to just await.
One is that they require to have a setup on registration forms where I might choose an automation to run right at the form degree. That would certainly be amazing for many reasons. Currently, registration forms look OK, however there’s extremely little setups for them to help in segmentation.
It would behave to have identifying at the client degree. This would certainly be powerful.
I assume webhooks should be part of automations to make integrated automations simpler and reduce dependence on outside devices like Zapier.
There are likewise some small management interface changes that would come in handy. As an example:
- Capability to mass edit/remove subscribers.
- Capacity to bulk edit posts (as an example, to identify a number of them at the same time).
- Having a couple of fundamental areas as standard on subscribers (like the name).
- Some even more personalization options for the site (such as more adaptable shade options, heading control, and so on).
So, yeah … there are some shortcomings. Things I wish they make with it in the future. BeeHiiv is pretty good, however it isn’t ideal and absolutely not almost as created as something like FluentCRM or any other genuine CRM product.
It possibly never ever will be, either. As I said, the objective is various so it would not a lot a great deal of sense for BeeHiiv to become a complete marketing automation platform. I presume you never recognize, though.
Last Thoughts On This BeeHiiv Testimonial
I like BeeHiiv rather a great deal. Enough where I chose to switch my own e-newsletters over to the platform regardless of my personal preference for digital sovereignty and having my own system.
Basically, for the newsletter posting design specifically, I saw sufficient value in their system to require the modification.
Keep in mind, I do not make use of BeeHiiv as my exclusive email listing. I utilize BeeHiiv of what it is proficient at, yet I purposefully have things establish to ensure that I additionally maintain my listing “in house” inside of FluentCRM.
If you use BeeHiiv, I recommend you do the very same. It is just an excellent insurance policy, for one. Yet, having a full-featured marketing automation platform for your checklist will certainly be of high use (FluentCRM is a full marketing automation system and BeeHiiv is not and likely never ever will certainly be).
So, the inquiry is … should YOU use BeeHiiv?
In my point of view, if you are utilizing Substack right now, I ‘d definitely think about switching over to BeeHiiv. It will simply be a lot more business-friendly. It is targeting different abilities and various requirements. And also, BeeHiiv even has import tools for Substack, so the button ought to be pretty uncomplicated.
If you get on ConvertKit now, I ‘d probably stay unless you have a huge email checklist and are therefore being fleeced with their high monthly bill. You will not (yet) have every feature of ConvertKit with BeeHiiv, but they are repeating promptly. There’s additionally a pretty good opportunity you’re not also utilizing a few of those fancier features of ConvertKit and you do not also require them. Therefore, BeeHiiv could conveniently be a far better and a lot more cost effective fit.
Finally, if you plan to be really intentional regarding expanding a newsletter, I think BeeHiiv is THE system to think about and keep and eye on for you.
If you make use of BeeHiiv with eyes wide open concerning what it is created to be, it is one of the most effective games in the area today. This is the system to view.
BeeHiiv provides 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 locate the free account to be fairly feature rich.