I have made use of a lot of different email list systems for many years. In the last number of years, I have actually been a massive advocate of digital sovereignty and possessing your own platform. Therefore (and the amazing features), I have been using Beehiiv Pitch Deck.
So, it is undoubtedly a weird move for me to decide to utilize BeeHiiv. Nevertheless, it is an organized application and I am paying regular monthly for it.
Why did I do this?
In this BeeHiiv review, I want to go over why I made the switch to BeeHiiv for my e-newsletters. I intend to address the problem of digital sovereignty while using the platform and I would certainly likewise like to resolve why I picked to use it over Substack.
Let’s dive in …
BeeHiiv: Constructed For E-newsletters
In Problem # 435 of my e-newsletter called My Pastime + A Large Shift In Approach, I discussed exactly how and why I made a decision to transform my motor home blog into mainly an e-newsletter. I made a decision that was the business model I wanted to pursue with that residential property.
Yet, to purposefully seek it as a newsletter, I desired a system that was purpose-built for that. I was making use of FluentCRM for the email list for Happily RV, but FluentCRM is not an e-newsletter system. It is built to be a CRM and marketing automation tool and, frankly, using it for e-newsletters is a little a waste. More on that in a bit.
As I stated in that issue of the newsletter …
Simply put, BeeHiiv is a system with devices built right into it specific to my objective. Things such as:
- Capacity to publish (to the blog) and send the e-mail at the same time without having it be two separate actions.
- Built in newsletter referral program. FluentCRM doesn’t have that and I would require a third-party tool like Sparkloop.
- Integrated ability to do cross-promotions with various other newsletters on the BeeHiiv system.
- ” Magic Links”, which are basically one-click membership web links. Great for promo in various other e-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 e-newsletter.
- Integrated ad network, if I choose to monetize with ads in the e-newsletter. And I may.
- Built-in capacity to run a paid newsletter upgrade and generally run a premium e-newsletter. And BeeHiiv does not take a cut.
Primarily, BeeHiiv is purpose-built for newsletter authors with features focused on growth. The platform was actually constructed by the people that accumulated the modern technology for Morning Brew. They recognize what they’re doing.
That is the factor right here. BeeHiiv is developed from scratch for the objective of running a newsletter. FluentCRM has a various objective.
And I ended off with this:.
I may undoubtedly be relocating The Edge over to BeeHiiv as well. At the very 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 EDGE was re-branded over to The Morning WP, triggered as it’s own residential or commercial property to make sure that I can grow it a lot more deliberately also.
The goal is that each newsletter has the ability to be branded as it’s own media entity and grown independently. Happily recreational vehicle was young, so easy to change. However, The Morning WP (previously The Edge) was hidden in a sea of stuff here at the Blog Site Marketing Academy. By dividing it off, I can do what I can to expand it on it’s own. It will clearly constantly be very closely linked with the Blog Marketing Academy, but does not have to belong of it.
I changed to BeeHiiv due to the fact that it was built for this objective. FluentCRM was not.
Newsletters Versus Just A Normal Email Listing
There’s a difference between an e-newsletter system and just an email checklist.
You can hold your email list anywhere you desire and there are a number of them around, from Aweber, ActiveCampaign, Drip, ConvertKit … over to self-hosted options like GroundHogg and FluentCRM.
What’s the distinction?
The key distinction is that, with an e-newsletter system, the act of posting means that it is mosting likely to your web site and to your e-mail subscribers all at once.
With both BeeHiiv and Substack, you have a site. You are releasing to that internet site. However, you are likewise sending off to all subscribers at the same time. The web site and it’s subscribers are done in one. This makes administration of the platform much easier.
With many e-mail systems, any kind of e-newsletter you established is done as an e-mail campaign. It is constructed totally individually from your website. So, for example, you might release a short article to WordPress yet then you would certainly need to individually develop and send out an email to your list to send it to clients. These are after that 2 different collections of archives and two different actions since post and your e-mails are not inherently linked.
The closest thing that transforms WordPress right into a true e-newsletter system is Newsletter Glue.
It is a suitable name due to the fact that it virtually “adhesives” your e-newsletter to your WordPress messages and allows them to be the very same thing. Certainly, something like E-newsletter Glue would certainly be a strong choice if I intended to continue to self-host whatever. Nonetheless, you ‘d lose the development devices that come with a system like BeeHiiv.
Publishing a newsletter inherently comes with a different set of requirements than a common e-mail checklist.
You don’t usually require much marketing automation. You do not typically require autoresponder sequences, event monitoring, and all the bells and whistles of a marketing automation platform.
What you DO demand, however, is one smooth posting experience and growth tools to assist you build your subscriber base that specify to newsletters.
BeeHiiv vs Substack
When I revealed to my customers that I was going to change the e-newsletter over to BeeHiiv, I had lots of people ask me why I was picking it over Substack.
To be clear, even besides the fact that I selected to select BeeHiiv, that does not suggest I believe Substack draws. In fact, because Substack has been around longer, it is elder and has even more features.
Even though BeeHiiv is more youthful, there are a pair points that initially got my focus:.
- BeeHiiv is particularly tailored to e-newsletter publishers. In fact, it is essentially constructed by the exact same folks who constructed the modern technology behind Early morning Mixture. On the other hand, SubStack targets authors. In the real world, doesn’t matter. Yet, the evident positioning of BeeHiiv towards newsletter development called me out over the even more generic positioning of being a “creator”. Growth is what I’m interested in below.
- That branding and differentiation likewise means that BeeHiiv has some relatively big brands and big magazines utilizing it. Whereas SubStack is intended even more at solo creators. Again, it simply informs me the client avatar difference between both firms.
Sending our my newsletter using FluentCRM didn’t exactly suck. The only factor I would certainly ponder shaking things up is if I believed I can GROW the checklist much faster. And BeeHiiv spoke precisely to that objective.
Because of the targeting, I really do not see BeeHiiv and Substack as direct rivals. I assume BeeHiiv is targeting a various type of consumer. Actually, if anything, I see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being much more direct competitors.
However, allow’s dive much deeper than simply the positioning here.
Points That Make BeeHiiv Better Than Substack
In general, BeeHiiv seems like it was built by individuals who comprehending e-mail marketing. On the other hand, SubStack appears a lot more tailored toward designers.
For instance, BeeHiiv uses personalized fields on clients. Currently, it isn’t as created as something like FluentCRM. Yet, it has it. Substack doesn’t.
BeeHiiv provides Automations. As a matter of 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 fairly limited in triggers and the only action is the capability to send an e-mail. However, enhancements are coming. Quickly sufficient, automations will have brand-new triggers as well as new activities, such as changing custom fields, sending webhooks, etc. I have actually currently seen improvements to their automations just because I started utilizing the platform. For instance:
- Capacity to cause automations based on which details embed form they came in on.
- Capability to instantly do re-engagement (and handle individuals based on opens and non-opens).
- Capability to do basic conditional reasoning branches.
Substack does not have automations like this. Likely, it never will. Substack simply can not do this due to the fact that the target market of Substack just wouldn’t believe to approach this like an email marketing expert.
When it involves creating your e-newsletters, the creating interface of BeeHiiv is just much more tailored towards newsletters. In fact, it really has resemblances to the WordPress block builder in how it functions. I find it to be a lot more user-friendly, personally.
Substack’s writing user interface is nice and clean, but it would be more equivalent to the classic editor for WordPress. Toolbar on top.
This distinction is greater than simply form. For instance, with BeeHiiv you can put a “Area” and then put anything you desire in it. After that, you can place Presence alternatives on that particular section to reveal it only to paid customers, hide it from e-mail, conceal from customers, reveal only to customers, and so on. Substack uses nothing similar to this.
And when/if the time comes that I begin a costs registration design, BeeHiiv doesn’t take any earnings. As a matter of fact, you essentially attach as much as your own Stripe account and it charges straight to it. With Substack, they will take 10% of your profits. Depending on the amount of subscribers you obtain, that 10% can be quite a bit even more money than the month-to-month price of BeeHiiv.
Finally, BeeHiiv has an API. This could appear nerdy, however what it suggests is that there are integrations with BeeHiiv. You can actually make BeeHiiv collaborate with the outside making use of devices like Zapier or Make.com. This is HUGE. Substack literally has … absolutely nothing. No integrations at all.
Generally, I simply seemed like BeeHiiv was much more developed towards real e-mail marketing. It was developed by individuals who “get it”. Also the opt-in forms and the landing page creates appear much better developed for conversions. Development is nitty-gritty with BeeHiiv.
Although there are still features I would like to see BeeHiiv add, I like the instructions it is going more than Substack.
Things That Make Substack Better Than BeeHiiv
As I have actually stated, Substack settings itself towards “designers” greater than email marketers and e-newsletter proprietors. For that reason, you see some points tailored much more towards individuals who just assume in regards to content development.
As an example, Substack sustains podcasts. BeeHiiv does not.
Likewise, while BeeHiiv does sustain several publications, they are dealt with quite individually. Whereas Substack does have the ability to cross-post to multiple magazines at the same time. This isn’t something I need, but … awesome for individuals who may need it.
Substack also has even more social capability built-in. For instance, it has a conversation function to host chats with clients. It also has a “Notes” feature which functions sort of like a social networks newsfeed where you can share things from other “Stacks” you read. Fascinating. Overall, Substack is set up to be extra like a social media network which sustains long-form material.
Generally, Substack is additionally more … minimal. You either take care of that or don’t. Personally, I do not. However, if the objective is simplicity of interface and, truthfully, features … Substack functions pretty well.
However, I’ll be clear below …
When it comes to actual marketing, I do not assume there’s much uncertainty that BeeHiiv is much better fit. I tried to find even more factors that make Substack far better than BeeHiiv, but honestly … I have a difficult time finding them.
BeeHiiv Vs ConvertKit
While BeeHiiv and Substack are often via to be the closest rivals, I in fact see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being the closer opponents. Both are going after the exact same target market and have comparable capabilities.
ConvertKit is additionally positioned at creators (like Substack), yet it is much more strongly catering to individuals that do it for organization. ConvertKit has nice visual automation building, it’s own commerce platform, and more. ConvertKit is a really great system.
I’m not mosting likely to bore you with a complete feature-by-feature breakdown right here. ConvertKit is well known currently. Yet, right here’s just how I feel BeeHiiv and ConvertKit compare …
Things ConvertKit Is Much Better At …
Currently, ConvertKit has extra versatility when it pertains to it’s automations. I will certainly likewise say that I locate ConvertKit’s automation builder to be a little bit extra instinctive than that of BeeHiiv.
ConvertKit supports identifying. This is just a fundamental function of email listings that enables division in a far more versatile method than BeeHiiv presently does. I expect BeeHiiv to sustain tagging eventually quickly, frankly. It seems like an oversight that it is missing out on Beehiiv Pitch Deck.
ConvertKit does now supply the capacity to offer things through their very own platform. BeeHiiv does not. If that is essential to you, it may be a big deal for you. For me, however, I would certainly always select a more straight option anyway. For me, I prefer to use my own platform powered by WooCommerce.
ConvertKit has actually been about much longer and because of that has way extra integration alternatives. Lots of web-based devices and WordPress plugins integrate with ConvertKit. ConvertKit also has their own WordPress plugin that is fairly effective. For example, their plugin now even supports member-gated web content as well as auto-embed of your e-newsletter archives right into your website. Essentially, this much more very closely puts ConvertKit right into direct competitors by having you have the ability to publish to your site and your email listing at the same time.
BeeHiiv is significantly doing not have in these type of third-party integrations currently. It’ll arrive. However, we’re not there yet with it.
ConvertKit is even hectic tackling the growth devices of BeeHiiv. For example, BeeHiiv has the referral program and the Recommendation Engine where you can not only incentivize people to share your e-newsletter with benefits, yet you can likewise pay per lead within the interior ad network of BeeHiiv to expand your checklist. These are really outstanding features of BeeHiiv. Yet …
Did you know ConvertKit got Sparkloop? Sparkloop is just one of one of the most popular viral promo platforms for newsletters … and ConvertKit bought it. You can see the creating on the wall surface of what this indicates for the system going forward.
Things BeeHiiv Is Better At … Beehiiv Pitch Deck
BeeHiiv is much previously in it’s item cycle than ConvertKit. Part of that indicates less features and much less integrations, which is all-natural for this stage of the cycle. Nonetheless, it likewise implies that they are rapidly establishing.
In the short time that I have been a customer of BeeHiiv, I have observed practically once a week launch of new features into the system. And these aren’t puny little features … however large features that are quite important. Their speed of advancement at this point has actually gone over.
I additionally significantly value exactly how responsive they are. As a matter of fact, one of their product news regarding some design improvements to the web design features actually consisted of a tiny problem with the web content width. I just replied to that e-mail to tell them. I swiftly got a reply straight from the chief executive officer:.
That very same day, the concern was dealt with.
Couple of days later, I gave them one more suggestion …
Indeed, in a bit over a week of that exchange, the ability to set off automations based upon the embed kind made use of was included in the system.
That kind of responsiveness and straight involvement of the group is something I really value.
An additional major point of differentiation below is the rate. Both systems offer free plans, nevertheless the BeeHiiv free plan supplies more capability and more clients (2,500 vs 1,000) than ConvertKit.
When you most likely to paid plans, the pricing of BeeHiiv is also FAR more beneficial. ConvertKit seems less costly initially glance since their pricing web page reveals lower numbers, nonetheless the subscriber restrictions are FAR lower and your rate promptly increases as your list grows.
With BeeHiiv, your initial level paid plan starts at $42/mo (paid each year), nonetheless you can have up to 10,000 subscribers. That same dimension list is going to run you $100/month with ConvertKit.
If you update to the “Range” plan with BeeHiiv (their finest plan and the one I personally use), you can expand your list approximately 100,000. A checklist of that dimension would run you $566/month with ConvertKit. If you desire their referral network, as well, that puts 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 every year.
BeeHiiv remains in a totally various league when it involves pricing (in an excellent way).
Will BeeHiiv at some point raise rates? They may as time goes on. But, I’m presuming individuals like myself that are currently in will be locked-in. We’ll see just how points continue.
Things I Would Certainly Like BeeHiiv To Add
Among the things you most definitely need to bear in mind is that BeeHiiv is relatively young. They do appear to develop instead rapidly and make new product statements somewhat typically, yet there are some basic features I really wish they had that I require to simply wait on.
One is that they require to have a setup on membership types where I might choose an automation to run right at the type degree. That would certainly be outstanding for a lot of factors. As of now, registration kinds look OK, yet there’s extremely little setups for them to assist in segmentation.
It would behave to have tagging at the customer level. This would certainly be powerful.
I believe webhooks must belong to automations to make built-in automations much easier and reduce reliance on outdoors devices like Zapier.
There are additionally some minor management user interface adjustments that would certainly come in handy. For instance:
- Capacity to bulk edit/remove customers.
- Capacity to mass edit articles (as an example, to tag a number of them at the same time).
- Having a few standard fields as common on subscribers (like the name).
- Some more customization choices for the web site (such as even more flexible color selections, headline control, etc).
So, yeah … there are some drawbacks. Things I hope they perform with it in the near future. BeeHiiv is respectable, but it isn’t ideal and definitely not almost as created as something like FluentCRM or any other actual CRM product.
It probably never ever will certainly be, either. As I claimed, the function is different so it would not much a lot of sense for BeeHiiv to become a full marketing automation platform. I presume you never ever recognize, however.
Last Ideas On This BeeHiiv Testimonial
I like BeeHiiv rather a lot. Enough where I determined to change my own newsletters over to the system in spite of my individual preference for digital sovereignty and owning my very own system.
Put simply, for the e-newsletter posting design especially, I saw sufficient worth in their platform to necessitate the adjustment.
Bear in mind, I do not use BeeHiiv as my unique email checklist. I utilize BeeHiiv wherefore it is proficient at, however I purposefully have points establish so that I additionally maintain my checklist “in residence” inside of FluentCRM.
If you utilize BeeHiiv, I recommend you do the very same. It is just a great insurance plan, for one. Yet, having a full-featured marketing automation platform for your listing will certainly be of high usage (FluentCRM is a complete marketing automation system and BeeHiiv is not and likely never ever will be).
So, the question is … should YOU make use of BeeHiiv?
In my viewpoint, if you are using Substack now, I ‘d definitely think about switching over to BeeHiiv. It will simply be a lot more business-friendly. It is targeting different capacities and different demands. And also, BeeHiiv even has import tools for Substack, so the button needs to be rather uncomplicated.
If you get on ConvertKit currently, I ‘d possibly stay put unless you have a big e-mail listing and are for that reason being fleeced with their high monthly bill. You will certainly not (yet) have every feature of ConvertKit with BeeHiiv, yet they are iterating rapidly. There’s also a pretty good opportunity you’re not even making use of a few of those fancier features of ConvertKit and you don’t also require them. Because of that, BeeHiiv could quickly be a much better and much more economical fit.
Lastly, if you plan to be very willful regarding expanding an e-newsletter, I assume BeeHiiv is THE platform to think about and maintain and eye on for you.
If you use BeeHiiv with eyes wide open regarding what it is developed to be, it is just one of the most effective games in town now. This is the system to view.
BeeHiiv provides 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 find the complimentary account to be rather feature rich.