I have actually made use of a lot of various e-mail list systems throughout the years. In the last couple of years, I have actually been a huge proponent of digital sovereignty and having your own platform. Therefore (and the outstanding features), I have been using Beehiiv OpenSea.
So, it is without a doubt an unusual move for me to make a decision to utilize BeeHiiv. Besides, it is a hosted application and I am paying monthly for it.
Why did I do this?
In this BeeHiiv evaluation, I wish to discuss why I made the button to BeeHiiv for my e-newsletters. I want to deal with the problem of digital sovereignty while making use of the system and I would certainly additionally like to attend to why I selected to utilize it over Substack.
Let’s dive in …
BeeHiiv: Developed For Newsletters
In Issue # 435 of my e-newsletter called My Hobby + A Large Change In Method, I talked about how and why I determined to turn my recreational vehicle blog site right into mainly a newsletter. I chose that was business model I wanted to seek keeping that home.
Yet, to purposefully pursue it as an e-newsletter, I wanted a platform that was purpose-built for that. I was making use of FluentCRM for the e-mail checklist for Gladly motor home, yet FluentCRM is not an e-newsletter platform. It is built to be a CRM and marketing automation tool and, honestly, utilizing it for e-newsletters is a little bit of a waste. Much more on that in a little bit.
As I said in that problem of the e-newsletter …
Put simply, BeeHiiv is a platform with tools developed right into it certain to my objective. Things such as:
- Capacity to release (to the blog) and send out the email all at once without having it be two separate actions.
- Built in e-newsletter referral program. FluentCRM does not have that and I would require a third-party tool like Sparkloop.
- Integrated ability to do cross-promotions with various other e-newsletters on the BeeHiiv system.
- ” Magic Links”, which are primarily one-click membership links. Great for promotion in various other newsletters. FluentCRM has Smart Hyperlinks, however, so there are ways to do that.
- Capacity to do paid “boosts” on the BeeHiiv network to promote your newsletter.
- Integrated advertisement network, if I select to monetize with ads in the e-newsletter. And I may.
- Built-in ability to run a paid e-newsletter upgrade and essentially run a costs e-newsletter. And BeeHiiv does not take a cut.
Generally, BeeHiiv is purpose-built for e-newsletter authors with features targeted at growth. The platform was literally built by the people that developed the technology for Morning Mixture. They recognize what they’re doing.
That is the point right here. BeeHiiv is constructed from the ground up for the purpose of running an e-newsletter. FluentCRM has a different objective.
And I ended off with this:.
I might undoubtedly be moving The Edge over to BeeHiiv also. A minimum of, 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 actually, The EDGE was re-branded over to The Morning WP, triggered as it’s very own residential property to ensure that I can grow it a lot more purposefully too.
The objective is that each e-newsletter has the capability to be branded as it’s own media entity and expanded independently. Gladly motor home was young, so easy to transition. Yet, The Morning WP (formerly The Side) was hidden in a sea of stuff right here at the Blog Marketing Academy. By dividing it off, I can do what I can to expand it on it’s own. It will obviously constantly be carefully linked with the Blog site Marketing Academy, but doesn’t need to belong of it.
I switched to BeeHiiv because it was developed for this purpose. FluentCRM was not.
E-newsletters Versus Simply A Typical Email List
There’s a difference between an e-newsletter platform and simply an email list.
You can host your e-mail checklist anywhere 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 main difference is that, with an e-newsletter platform, the act of publishing suggests that it is going to your website and to your email subscribers concurrently.
With both BeeHiiv and Substack, you have a website. You are publishing to that web site. But, you are likewise sending to all subscribers at the same time. The website and it’s clients are all in one. This makes monitoring of the platform much less complex.
With a lot of email platforms, any e-newsletter you set up is done as an e-mail campaign. It is constructed completely independently from your site. So, as an example, you could publish an article to WordPress but then you would certainly need to separately build and send out an e-mail to your list to send it to subscribers. These are after that two separate sets of archives and two different actions because blog posts and your emails are not inherently linked.
The closest point that transforms WordPress into a real newsletter platform is E-newsletter Glue.
It is a suitable name because it practically “glues” your newsletter to your WordPress messages and permits them to be the very same point. Certainly, something like E-newsletter Glue would certainly be a strong option if I wanted to continue to self-host every little thing. Nonetheless, you ‘d lose the development tools that include a platform like BeeHiiv.
Publishing a newsletter inherently features a different set of demands than a normal e-mail listing.
You don’t normally need much marketing automation. You do not usually need autoresponder series, event monitoring, and all the bells and whistles of a marketing automation platform.
What you DO requirement, though, is one smooth posting experience and development tools to assist you construct your client base that specify to e-newsletters.
BeeHiiv vs Substack
When I announced to my subscribers that I was mosting likely to switch the e-newsletter over to BeeHiiv, I had many individuals ask me why I was selecting it over Substack.
To be clear, even besides the reality that I selected to go with BeeHiiv, that does not imply I think Substack sucks. Actually, since Substack has been around longer, it is more mature and has more features.
Even though BeeHiiv is younger, there are a pair points that originally obtained my focus:.
- BeeHiiv is specifically customized to e-newsletter authors. Actually, it is actually developed by the very same individuals who built the innovation behind Morning Mixture. On the other hand, SubStack targets writers. In the real life, does not matter. Yet, the evident positioning of BeeHiiv towards e-newsletter growth called me out over the even more generic positioning of being a “developer”. Development is what I have an interest in right here.
- That branding and distinction likewise suggests that BeeHiiv has some fairly huge brands and large magazines using it. Whereas SubStack is intended more at solo makers. Once again, it simply informs me the client avatar distinction between the two firms.
Sending our my e-newsletter using FluentCRM really did not exactly draw. The only factor I would contemplate shaking points up is if I believed I could expand the list much faster. And BeeHiiv spoke precisely to that goal.
As a result of the targeting, I actually don’t see BeeHiiv and Substack as straight rivals. I believe BeeHiiv is targeting a various type of consumer. In fact, if anything, I see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being a lot more straight rivals.
However, allow’s dive much deeper than simply the placing right here.
Things That Make BeeHiiv Better Than Substack
On the whole, BeeHiiv feels like it was constructed by individuals that recognizing email marketing. On the other hand, SubStack seems much more geared toward creators.
For instance, BeeHiiv supplies custom fields on clients. Currently, it isn’t as developed as something like FluentCRM. However, it has it. Substack doesn’t.
BeeHiiv offers Automations. Actually, it is an aesthetic automation builder that works a whole lot like what we have inside of FluentCRM.
To be clear, the automation performance is still early-phase. It is still rather restricted in triggers and the only activity is the capability to send out an email. Nevertheless, improvements are coming. Soon sufficient, automations will certainly have brand-new triggers along with new actions, such as changing custom-made fields, sending webhooks, etc. I’ve currently seen improvements to their automations simply since I began utilizing the platform. For instance:
- Ability to set off automations based on which certain embed type they came in on.
- Capability to immediately do re-engagement (and deal with people based upon opens and non-opens).
- Ability to do fundamental conditional logic branches.
Substack does not have automations such as this. Likely, it never ever will. Substack just can not do this due to the fact that the target market of Substack simply wouldn’t believe to approach this like an e-mail marketer.
When it concerns writing your newsletters, the creating user interface of BeeHiiv is simply a lot more tailored towards newsletters. As a matter of fact, it in fact has resemblances to the WordPress block builder in exactly how it functions. I discover it to be a lot more user-friendly, directly.
Substack’s writing user interface behaves and tidy, but it would be extra equal to the traditional editor for WordPress. Toolbar on top.
This distinction is greater than simply form. As an example, with BeeHiiv you can put a “Area” and afterwards put anything you want in it. Then, you can place Presence choices on that particular section to reveal it just to paid clients, conceal it from e-mail, conceal from subscribers, show only to clients, and so on. Substack uses absolutely nothing such as this.
And when/if the time comes that I begin a premium subscription model, BeeHiiv does not take any kind of income. In fact, you essentially attach as much as your very own Stripe account and it bills straight to it. With Substack, they will take 10% of your earnings. Depending on how many customers you get, that 10% can be quite a bit more cash than the monthly expense of BeeHiiv.
Finally, BeeHiiv has an API. This may seem nerdy, yet what it indicates is that there are integrations with BeeHiiv. You can really make BeeHiiv work with the outdoors utilizing tools like Zapier or Make.com. This is HUGE. Substack essentially has … absolutely nothing. No integrations in all.
In general, I simply felt like BeeHiiv was a lot more built toward genuine email marketing. It was developed by people who “get it”. Also the opt-in kinds and the landing page designs appear much better built for conversions. Growth is nitty-gritty with BeeHiiv.
Despite the fact that there are still features I would like to see BeeHiiv add, I such as the direction it is going greater than Substack.
Points That Make Substack Better Than BeeHiiv
As I have actually said, Substack positions itself towards “designers” more than email marketing professionals and newsletter proprietors. For that reason, you see some points geared more towards individuals who just assume in regards to content development.
For instance, Substack sustains podcasts. BeeHiiv does not.
Also, while BeeHiiv does sustain multiple magazines, they are treated quite independently. Whereas Substack does have the capability to cross-post to numerous magazines at the same time. This isn’t something I need, yet … cool for individuals who might require it.
Substack likewise has even more social functionality built-in. As an example, it has a conversation function to host talks with customers. It additionally 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. Overall, Substack is established to be much more like a social network which supports long-form web content.
Generally, Substack is also much more … minimal. You either care for that or don’t. Directly, I don’t. However, if the goal is simplicity of interface and, truthfully, features … Substack functions pretty well.
But, I’ll be clear right here …
When it comes to real marketing, I don’t think there’s much question that BeeHiiv is better fit. I looked for more points that make Substack much better than BeeHiiv, but frankly … I have a tough time locating them.
BeeHiiv Vs ConvertKit
While BeeHiiv and Substack are often via 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 similar capacities.
ConvertKit is additionally positioned at makers (like Substack), yet it is a lot more highly dealing with individuals who do it for company. ConvertKit has good aesthetic automation building, it’s very own commerce platform, and more. ConvertKit is a really wonderful platform.
I’m not mosting likely to bore you with a full feature-by-feature break down below. ConvertKit is well known already. But, below’s how I feel BeeHiiv and ConvertKit compare …
Things ConvertKit Is Better At …
Already, ConvertKit has extra versatility when it involves it’s automations. I will additionally state that I locate ConvertKit’s automation builder to be a little bit more instinctive than that of BeeHiiv.
ConvertKit sustains tagging. This is just a basic function of e-mail checklists that makes it possible for segmentation in a far more versatile means than BeeHiiv presently does. I anticipate BeeHiiv to sustain identifying at some point quickly, honestly. It feels like an oversight that it is missing out on Beehiiv OpenSea.
ConvertKit does currently give the capacity to sell points through their very own platform. BeeHiiv does not. If that is necessary to you, it may be a big deal for you. For me, nevertheless, I would always choose an extra straight choice anyhow. For me, I prefer to use my very own system powered by WooCommerce.
ConvertKit has been about a lot longer and because of that has way extra integration alternatives. Tons of online devices and WordPress plugins integrate with ConvertKit. ConvertKit also has their very own WordPress plugin that is rather powerful. For example, their plugin now even sustains member-gated web content in addition to auto-embed of your newsletter archives right into your website. In essence, this a lot more carefully puts ConvertKit right into direct competitors by having you be able to release to your site and your email listing at the same time.
BeeHiiv is significantly doing not have in these type of third-party integrations right now. It’ll arrive. However, we’re not there yet with it.
ConvertKit is also active tackling the growth devices of BeeHiiv. For instance, BeeHiiv has the referral program and the Recommendation Engine where you can not only incentivize individuals to share your newsletter with perks, but you can additionally pay per lead within the interior advertisement network of BeeHiiv to expand your listing. These are actually outstanding features of BeeHiiv. Yet …
Did you understand ConvertKit acquired Sparkloop? Sparkloop is one of one of the most well known viral promo systems for e-newsletters … and ConvertKit bought it. You can see the writing on the wall surface for what this implies for the platform going forward.
Points BeeHiiv Is Much Better At … Beehiiv OpenSea
BeeHiiv is a lot earlier in it’s product cycle than ConvertKit. Part of that indicates less features and less integrations, which is natural for this phase of the cycle. However, it likewise implies that they are rapidly developing.
In the short time that I have been a customer of BeeHiiv, I have actually seen nearly weekly release of new features right into the platform. And these aren’t puny little features … but huge features that are fairly important. Their rate of growth at this moment has actually gone over.
I likewise very much value how receptive they are. Actually, one of their product announcements regarding some style enhancements to the web design features really included a small trouble with the web content width. I just replied to that email to tell them. I rapidly got a reply directly from the chief executive officer:.
That very same day, the concern was fixed.
Couple of days later, I gave them one more pointer …
Sure enough, in a little bit over a week of that exchange, the capacity to activate automations based upon the embed type utilized was added to the system.
That sort of responsiveness and straight participation of the team is something I truly value.
One more significant point of differentiation below is the rate. Both systems supply complimentary plans, nonetheless the BeeHiiv free plan uses more capacity and even more clients (2,500 vs 1,000) than ConvertKit.
Once you go to paid plans, the pricing of BeeHiiv is also FAR more favorable. ConvertKit seems less costly at first glance because their pricing page reveals reduced numbers, nonetheless the subscriber limitations are much reduced and your price swiftly boosts as your list grows.
With BeeHiiv, your first degree paid plan begins at $42/mo (paid each year), nevertheless you can have up to 10,000 customers. That same dimension list is going to run you $100/month with ConvertKit.
If you upgrade to the “Scale” plan with BeeHiiv (their best plan and the one I directly use), you can grow your listing as much as 100,000. A listing of that dimension would run you $566/month with ConvertKit. If you desire their referral network, as well, that places you at the $733/month plan. That’s if you pay each year, too. With BeeHiiv, you can obtain all that for simply $84/month if you pay annually.
BeeHiiv is in a totally different organization when it involves pricing (in a great way).
Will BeeHiiv eventually raise costs? They might as time takes place. But, I’m presuming individuals like myself who are already in will be locked-in. We’ll see exactly how points proceed.
Points I Would 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 advance instead swiftly and make brand-new item announcements rather often, however there are some standard features I truly wish they had that I require to simply wait for.
One is that they require to have a setting on registration types where I can pick an automation to run right at the type level. That would be remarkable for so many factors. Already, subscription kinds look OK, but there’s extremely little setups for them to help in segmentation.
It would behave to have identifying at the customer level. This would certainly be effective.
I believe webhooks ought to become part of automations to make built-in automations much easier and minimize reliance on outdoors tools like Zapier.
There are also some minor administrative interface modifications that would certainly come in handy. For example:
- Capability to bulk edit/remove customers.
- Capability to bulk edit posts (as an example, to label a number of them at the same time).
- Having a couple of standard areas as common on clients (like the name).
- Some more modification choices for the web site (such as more adaptable shade choices, headline control, etc).
So, yeah … there are some shortcomings. Points I hope they perform with it in the future. BeeHiiv is respectable, however it isn’t perfect and certainly not almost as established as something like FluentCRM or any other actual CRM item.
It most likely never ever will be, either. As I said, the objective is different so it wouldn’t a lot a great deal of sense for BeeHiiv to come to be a full marketing automation platform. I guess you never recognize, however.
Last Thoughts On This BeeHiiv Evaluation
I such as BeeHiiv fairly a whole lot. Sufficient where I decided to change my very own newsletters over to the platform despite my individual preference for digital sovereignty and having my very own system.
Put simply, for the newsletter publishing design particularly, I saw adequate worth in their system to warrant the change.
Bear in mind, I do not utilize BeeHiiv as my special e-mail list. I make use of BeeHiiv for what it is proficient at, however I intentionally have points set up so that I likewise keep my checklist “in home” within FluentCRM.
If you make use of BeeHiiv, I recommend you do the exact same. It is simply a good insurance coverage, for one. Yet, having a full-featured marketing automation platform for your listing will certainly be of high use (FluentCRM is a complete marketing automation system and BeeHiiv is not and likely never ever will certainly be).
So, the inquiry is … should YOU make use of BeeHiiv?
In my point of view, if you are making use of Substack right now, I ‘d absolutely think about changing to BeeHiiv. It will merely be a lot more business-friendly. It is targeting different capabilities and various needs. And also, BeeHiiv even has import devices for Substack, so the switch should be quite uncomplicated.
If you get on ConvertKit currently, I ‘d possibly sit tight unless you have a huge e-mail checklist and are consequently being wooled with their high regular monthly expense. You will not (yet) have every feature of ConvertKit with BeeHiiv, however they are iterating quickly. There’s additionally a respectable possibility you’re not also utilizing a few of those fancier features of ConvertKit and you don’t also need them. For that reason, BeeHiiv could conveniently be a better and a lot more budget friendly fit.
Lastly, if you plan to be extremely intentional about expanding an e-newsletter, I assume BeeHiiv is THE platform to take into consideration and keep and eye on for you.
If you make use of BeeHiiv with eyes wide open concerning what it is developed to be, it is just one of the very best video games in town right now. This is the system to enjoy.
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 discover the totally free account to be quite feature abundant.