I have used a great deal of different email list systems over the years. In the last couple of years, I’ve been a big proponent of digital sovereignty and possessing your very own platform. Therefore (and the remarkable features), I have been making use of Beehiiv Mission.
So, it is certainly an odd move for me to determine to utilize BeeHiiv. Besides, it is a hosted application and I am paying monthly for it.
Why did I do this?
In this BeeHiiv review, I intend to review why I made the button to BeeHiiv for my newsletters. I want to deal with the issue of digital sovereignty while making use of the system and I ‘d likewise like to deal with why I chose to use it over Substack.
Let’s dive in …
BeeHiiv: Developed For Newsletters
In Concern # 435 of my newsletter called My Leisure activity + A Huge Change In Approach, I spoke about just how and why I made a decision to transform my motor home blog right into primarily a newsletter. I decided that was the business model I wanted to pursue keeping that residential property.
But, to purposefully pursue it as an e-newsletter, I desired a system that was purpose-built for that. I was using FluentCRM for the e-mail listing for Happily motor home, however FluentCRM is not an e-newsletter system. It is constructed to be a CRM and marketing automation tool and, frankly, using it for e-newsletters is a little a waste. Extra on that particular in a little bit.
As I said because concern of the newsletter …
Simply put, BeeHiiv is a system with devices built right into it details to my function. Things such as:
- Capability to publish (to the blog site) and send the email simultaneously without having it be two separate activities.
- Integrated in newsletter referral program. FluentCRM does not have that and I would require a third-party tool like Sparkloop.
- Integrated capability to do cross-promotions with various other e-newsletters on the BeeHiiv platform.
- ” Magic Hyperlinks”, which are generally one-click subscription links. Great for promotion in 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 e-newsletter.
- Built-in advertisement network, if I choose to monetize with advertisements in the e-newsletter. And I may.
- Integrated capacity to run a paid e-newsletter upgrade and basically run a premium newsletter. And BeeHiiv doesn’t take a cut.
Primarily, BeeHiiv is purpose-built for e-newsletter publishers with features aimed at growth. The platform was literally developed by the people who developed the innovation for Morning Brew. They know what they’re doing.
That is the point right here. BeeHiiv is constructed from the ground up for the function of running a newsletter. FluentCRM has a various purpose.
And I ended off with this:.
I may without a doubt be relocating The Edge over to BeeHiiv as well. At least, I’m highly considering it.
Well, I really did not consider it for long. As a matter of fact, I just went all out. And actually, The EDGE was re-branded over to The Early morning WP, triggered as it’s own residential or commercial property to make sure that I can grow it extra purposefully as well.
The goal is that each newsletter has the capability to be branded as it’s very own media entity and grown individually. Gladly recreational vehicle was young, so simple to change. Yet, The Early morning WP (previously The Side) was buried in a sea of things here at the Blog Marketing Academy. By separating it off, I can do what I can to grow it on it’s very own. It will clearly always be carefully linked with the Blog Marketing Academy, however doesn’t have to be a part of it.
I switched to BeeHiiv because it was developed for this objective. FluentCRM was not.
Newsletters Versus Simply A Normal Email List
There’s a difference between a newsletter platform and just an email list.
You can hold your email listing anyplace you desire 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 primary distinction is that, with a newsletter system, the act of posting implies that it is going to your internet site and to your email customers at the same time.
With both BeeHiiv and Substack, you have an internet site. You are releasing to that website. Yet, 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 monitoring of the platform much easier.
With a lot of email systems, any newsletter you set up is done as an e-mail campaign. It is developed totally separately from your internet site. So, for example, you may publish a short article to WordPress but after that you would certainly need to independently develop and send out an e-mail to your checklist to send it to subscribers. These are then two separate sets of archives and 2 different actions due to the fact that post and your e-mails are not naturally connected.
The closest thing that turns WordPress right into a real e-newsletter system is E-newsletter Glue.
It is a suitable name since it pretty much “adhesives” your e-newsletter to your WordPress articles and permits them to be the same point. Absolutely, something like Newsletter Glue would certainly be a solid alternative if I wished to remain to self-host whatever. However, you ‘d shed the development tools that feature a platform like BeeHiiv.
Posting a newsletter naturally includes a different set of requirements than a typical email listing.
You do not usually need much marketing automation. You do not typically require autoresponder sequences, occasion tracking, and all the bells and whistles of a marketing automation platform.
What you DO demand, though, is one seamless publishing experience and growth devices to assist you develop your customer base that are specific to e-newsletters.
BeeHiiv vs Substack
When I announced to my subscribers that I was going to switch over 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 reality that I picked to select BeeHiiv, that does not suggest I assume Substack sucks. In fact, because Substack has been around much longer, it is more mature and has more features.
Despite the fact that BeeHiiv is younger, there are a pair things that at first got my attention:.
- BeeHiiv is particularly customized to newsletter authors. Actually, it is essentially built by the same folks who built the technology behind Early morning Mixture. On the other hand, SubStack targets authors. In the real life, does not matter. However, the noticeable positioning of BeeHiiv toward e-newsletter growth called me out over the more common positioning of being a “developer”. Growth is what I’m interested in here.
- That branding and distinction additionally indicates that BeeHiiv has some relatively huge brand names and large publications using it. Whereas SubStack is intended even more at solo creators. Once again, it just tells me the customer avatar distinction between the two business.
Sending our my newsletter through FluentCRM didn’t specifically draw. The only factor I would certainly contemplate shaking things up is if I thought I can GROW the listing much faster. And BeeHiiv talked specifically to that goal.
As a result of the targeting, I actually don’t watch BeeHiiv and Substack as direct competitors. I assume BeeHiiv is targeting a different type of customer. In fact, if anything, I see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being more straight rivals.
However, let’s dive much deeper than just the positioning here.
Things That Make BeeHiiv Better Than Substack
Generally, BeeHiiv seems like it was constructed by people that recognizing email marketing. On the other hand, SubStack appears a lot more tailored towards designers.
For instance, BeeHiiv supplies customized areas on subscribers. Currently, it isn’t as created as something like FluentCRM. However, it has it. Substack doesn’t.
BeeHiiv provides Automations. Actually, it is a visual automation builder that works a great deal like what we have inside of FluentCRM.
To be clear, the automation performance is still early-phase. It is still quite restricted in triggers and the only action is the capability to send out an email. However, enhancements are coming. Quickly enough, automations will certainly have new triggers as well as brand-new activities, such as changing personalized fields, sending webhooks, etc. I’ve currently seen improvements to their automations simply because I started utilizing the platform. As an example:
- Ability to activate automations based upon which particular embed form they came in on.
- Capability to immediately do re-engagement (and deal with people based on opens up and non-opens).
- Capability to do standard conditional logic branches.
Substack does not have automations similar to this. Likely, it never ever will. Substack just can’t do this since the target market of Substack simply would not believe to approach this like an email marketing expert.
When it pertains to composing your e-newsletters, the writing interface of BeeHiiv is just much more geared towards e-newsletters. In fact, it really has similarities to the WordPress block builder in exactly how it works. I discover it to be a lot more instinctive, directly.
Substack’s creating user interface behaves and clean, however it would be a lot more comparable to the timeless editor for WordPress. Toolbar at the top.
This difference is more than just type. As an example, with BeeHiiv you can put a “Area” and afterwards put anything you desire in it. Then, you can place Exposure options on that particular section to reveal it only to paid subscribers, hide it from email, hide from subscribers, reveal only to customers, etc. Substack uses nothing like this.
And when/if the moment comes that I begin a costs membership model, BeeHiiv does not take any earnings. In fact, you essentially connect approximately your very own Stripe account and it bills straight to it. With Substack, they will certainly take 10% of your profits. Relying on the amount of customers you obtain, that 10% can be a fair bit even more money than the monthly price of BeeHiiv.
Last but not least, BeeHiiv has an API. This could seem nerdy, yet what it means is that there are integrations with BeeHiiv. You can actually make BeeHiiv deal with the outdoors utilizing tools like Zapier or Make.com. This is HUGE. Substack actually has … absolutely nothing. No integrations in all.
Overall, I simply seemed like BeeHiiv was a lot more developed towards genuine e-mail marketing. It was developed by people who “get it”. Even the opt-in types and the landing page develops appear much better developed 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 direction it is going more than Substack.
Things That Make Substack Better Than BeeHiiv
As I have stated, Substack placements itself towards “developers” greater than e-mail marketers and newsletter proprietors. Therefore, you see some things geared much more towards individuals that simply believe in regards to content creation.
For instance, Substack sustains podcasts. BeeHiiv does not.
Also, while BeeHiiv does sustain multiple publications, they are treated rather independently. Whereas Substack does have the capacity to cross-post to multiple magazines at the same time. This isn’t something I call for, however … awesome for individuals who may require it.
Substack likewise has even more social performance built-in. As an example, it has a chat feature to host talks with clients. It additionally has a “Notes” feature which functions kind of like a social networks newsfeed where you can share points from various other “Stacks” you’re reading. Intriguing. Overall, Substack is set up to be more like a social media which sustains long-form content.
On the whole, Substack is also much more … minimalist. You either take care of that or don’t. Directly, I don’t. Nonetheless, if the goal is simplicity of interface and, truthfully, features … Substack functions quite well.
Yet, I’ll be clear below …
When it pertains to real marketing, I do not assume there’s much doubt that BeeHiiv is better suited. I searched for even more factors that make Substack better than BeeHiiv, but truthfully … I have a difficult time discovering them.
BeeHiiv Vs ConvertKit
While BeeHiiv and Substack are frequently through to be the closest competitors, I really see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being the closer rivals. Both are going after the same target market and have comparable capacities.
ConvertKit is also positioned at creators (like Substack), however it is far more strongly catering to individuals who do it for organization. ConvertKit has nice visual automation structure, it’s own business platform, and much more. ConvertKit is a really good platform.
I’m not mosting likely to bore you with a complete feature-by-feature break down below. ConvertKit is well known currently. But, here’s just how I really feel BeeHiiv and ConvertKit contrast …
Things ConvertKit Is Much Better At …
Currently, ConvertKit has a lot more adaptability when it comes to it’s automations. I will likewise state that I find ConvertKit’s automation builder to be a bit extra user-friendly than that of BeeHiiv.
ConvertKit supports tagging. This is simply a fundamental feature of email lists that makes it possible for division in a much more adaptable way than BeeHiiv presently does. I expect BeeHiiv to support tagging at some point soon, truthfully. It feels like an oversight that it is missing out on Beehiiv Mission.
ConvertKit does currently supply the ability to market points through their very own system. BeeHiiv does not. If that is necessary to you, it might be a big deal for you. For me, nonetheless, I would certainly always pick a much more straight alternative anyhow. For me, I like to utilize my very own platform powered by WooCommerce.
ConvertKit has been around much longer and for that reason has way more integration choices. Tons of online tools and WordPress plugins integrate with ConvertKit. ConvertKit also has their own WordPress plugin that is rather effective. As an example, their plugin now also sustains member-gated content in addition to auto-embed of your newsletter archives right into your site. Basically, this more closely places ConvertKit into direct competitors by having you be able to release to your site and your email checklist at the same time.
BeeHiiv is significantly doing not have in these kinds of third-party integrations presently. It’ll arrive. But, we’re not there yet with it.
ConvertKit is even active taking on the growth tools of BeeHiiv. As an example, BeeHiiv has the referral program and the Recommendation Engine where you can not just incentivize individuals to share your newsletter with benefits, however you can also pay per lead within the internal advertisement network of BeeHiiv to expand your checklist. These are really amazing features of BeeHiiv. However …
Did you understand ConvertKit got Sparkloop? Sparkloop is just one of the most popular viral promotion platforms for e-newsletters … and ConvertKit bought it. You can see the creating on the wall surface wherefore this means for the platform going forward.
Things BeeHiiv Is Better At … Beehiiv Mission
BeeHiiv is much previously in it’s item cycle than ConvertKit. Part of that implies much less features and less integrations, which is all-natural for this stage of the cycle. However, it also suggests that they are rapidly creating.
In the short time that I have been a customer of BeeHiiv, I have actually observed virtually once a week release of brand-new features right into the system. And these aren’t weak little features … but huge features that are quite vital. Their speed of development now has actually been impressive.
I also very much value exactly how receptive they are. As a matter of fact, among their item news regarding some design enhancements to the web design features in fact consisted of a tiny issue with the material size. I just responded to that e-mail to tell them. I rapidly obtained a reply directly from the CEO:.
That exact same day, the problem was dealt with.
Couple of days later on, I gave them one more pointer …
Certainly, in a little bit over a week of that exchange, the capability to set off automations based on the embed type utilized was included in the system.
That kind of responsiveness and direct involvement of the group is something I actually appreciate.
An additional significant point of distinction right here is the rate. Both platforms use free plans, nevertheless the BeeHiiv free plan uses extra capability and even more customers (2,500 vs 1,000) than ConvertKit.
Once you most likely to paid plans, the pricing of BeeHiiv is likewise much more favorable. ConvertKit seems less costly initially look since their pricing page reveals lower numbers, however the customer limits are FAR reduced and your rate promptly boosts as your listing expands.
With BeeHiiv, your very first degree paid plan starts at $42/mo (paid each year), nevertheless 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 “Scale” plan with BeeHiiv (their finest plan and the one I personally make use of), you can expand your checklist as much as 100,000. A checklist of that size would certainly run you $566/month with ConvertKit. If you desire their referral network, also, that places you at the $733/month plan. That’s if you pay annually, as well. With BeeHiiv, you can get all that for just $84/month if you pay annually.
BeeHiiv is in a completely different league when it comes to pricing (in an excellent way).
Will BeeHiiv ultimately enhance costs? They may as time takes place. Yet, I’m thinking people like myself who are currently in will be locked-in. We’ll see how points proceed.
Points I Would Like BeeHiiv To Add
One of things you most definitely require to remember is that BeeHiiv is reasonably young. They do seem to evolve instead promptly and make brand-new product announcements somewhat often, however there are some standard features I really want they had that I require to just wait on.
One is that they require to have a setting on registration forms where I might select an automation to run right at the form degree. That would certainly be incredible for a lot of reasons. Currently, membership types look OK, however there’s really little setups for them to assist in division.
It would certainly be nice to have identifying at the customer level. This would certainly be powerful.
I believe webhooks ought to be part of automations to make built-in automations easier and decrease dependence on outside devices like Zapier.
There are additionally some small management user interface modifications that would certainly be handy. For instance:
- Capability to bulk edit/remove customers.
- Ability to mass edit posts (as an example, to identify a number of them at the same time).
- Having a few fundamental areas as common on customers (like the name).
- Some even more modification options for the web site (such as even more versatile shade options, headline control, etc).
So, yeah … there are some drawbacks. Points I hope they do with it in the near future. BeeHiiv is pretty good, however it isn’t perfect and definitely not almost as developed as something like FluentCRM or any other genuine CRM item.
It most likely never ever will be, either. As I stated, the purpose is various so it would not a lot a lot of sense for BeeHiiv to come to be a complete marketing automation platform. I think you never recognize, however.
Last Thoughts On This BeeHiiv Testimonial
I like BeeHiiv fairly a lot. Enough where I decided to switch my very own newsletters over to the platform despite my individual preference for digital sovereignty and owning my own platform.
Put simply, for the e-newsletter posting version especially, I saw sufficient worth in their system to call for the change.
Remember, I do not use BeeHiiv as my special e-mail list. I make use of BeeHiiv of what it is efficient, but I intentionally have points set up to make sure that I also maintain my checklist “in house” inside of FluentCRM.
If you use BeeHiiv, I suggest you do the exact same. It is just an excellent insurance coverage, for one. Yet, having a full-featured marketing automation system for your checklist will be of high usage (FluentCRM is a complete marketing automation system and BeeHiiv is not and likely never will be).
So, the question is … should YOU use BeeHiiv?
In my opinion, if you are utilizing Substack right now, I ‘d most definitely consider switching to BeeHiiv. It will simply be a lot more business-friendly. It is targeting various abilities and various requirements. And also, BeeHiiv even has import tools for Substack, so the switch should be quite simple.
If you are on ConvertKit now, I ‘d most likely stay put unless you have a big e-mail listing and are for that reason being wooled with their high regular monthly bill. You will certainly not (yet) have every feature of ConvertKit with BeeHiiv, yet they are iterating rapidly. There’s additionally a pretty good opportunity you’re not also utilizing several of those fancier functions of ConvertKit and you don’t even need them. Therefore, BeeHiiv can easily be a better and more inexpensive fit.
Finally, if you plan to be extremely intentional about growing an e-newsletter, I think BeeHiiv is THE platform to consider and keep and eye on for you.
If you utilize BeeHiiv with eyes wide open regarding what it is made to be, it is one of the best video games in the area now. This is the platform to watch.
BeeHiiv uses a 14-day trial on their paid plans. It is worth checking out for yourself. And if you end up not sticking with the paid plan, you’ll find the complimentary account to be rather feature abundant.