I have actually made use of a great deal of various e-mail list systems over the years. In the last number of years, I’ve been a huge supporter of digital sovereignty and possessing your very own platform. For that reason (and the incredible features), I have actually been using Beehiiv Plan Tiers.
So, it is without a doubt an odd move for me to make a decision to utilize BeeHiiv. Besides, it is an organized application and I am paying regular monthly for it.
Why did I do this?
In this BeeHiiv review, I wish to look at why I made the switch to BeeHiiv for my e-newsletters. I want to attend to the problem of digital sovereignty while utilizing the system and I ‘d additionally like to attend to why I picked to use it over Substack.
Allow’s dive in …
BeeHiiv: Constructed For Newsletters
In Issue # 435 of my newsletter called My Hobby + A Huge Change In Strategy, I discussed exactly how and why I determined to turn my motor home blog into mainly a newsletter. I made a decision that was business version I wanted to pursue keeping that residential or commercial property.
However, to deliberately seek it as an e-newsletter, I desired a system that was purpose-built for that. I was using FluentCRM for the email listing for Gladly motor home, yet FluentCRM is not a newsletter system. It is constructed to be a CRM and marketing automation tool and, truthfully, using it for newsletters is a little bit of a waste. More on that particular in a little bit.
As I claimed because concern of the e-newsletter …
Simply put, BeeHiiv is a platform with tools built right into it details to my purpose. Things such as:
- Capacity to release (to the blog site) and send the email concurrently without having it be 2 different activities.
- Constructed in newsletter referral program. FluentCRM doesn’t have that and I would require a third-party device like Sparkloop.
- Integrated ability to do cross-promotions with other newsletters on the BeeHiiv system.
- ” Magic Links”, which are essentially one-click registration links. Great for promotion in other e-newsletters. FluentCRM has Smart Hyperlinks, however, so there are ways to do that.
- Capability to do paid “boosts” on the BeeHiiv network to promote your newsletter.
- Built-in advertisement network, if I pick to generate income from with advertisements in the e-newsletter. And I may.
- Integrated capacity to run a paid newsletter upgrade and basically run a premium e-newsletter. And BeeHiiv doesn’t take a cut.
Generally, BeeHiiv is purpose-built for e-newsletter authors with features aimed at growth. The system was literally built by the individuals that developed the modern technology for Early morning Brew. They understand what they’re doing.
That is the factor below. BeeHiiv is developed from scratch for the purpose of running an e-newsletter. FluentCRM has a various purpose.
And I finished off with this:.
I may undoubtedly be relocating The Edge over to BeeHiiv as well. A minimum of, I’m highly considering it.
Well, I didn’t consider it for long. As a matter of fact, I simply went for it. And as a matter of fact, The EDGE was re-branded over to The Morning WP, triggered as it’s very own home to ensure that I can grow it more intentionally too.
The objective is that each e-newsletter has the ability to be branded as it’s very own media entity and expanded separately. Gladly RV was young, so easy to change. But, The Morning WP (previously The Edge) was hidden in a sea of stuff right here 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 clearly constantly be closely linked with the Blog site Marketing Academy, however doesn’t need to be a part of it.
I switched to BeeHiiv because it was constructed for this function. FluentCRM was not.
Newsletters Versus Just A Regular Email Listing
There’s a difference between a newsletter system and just an e-mail checklist.
You can organize your email list everywhere you desire and there are a variety of them out there, from Aweber, ActiveCampaign, Drip, ConvertKit … over to self-hosted choices like GroundHogg and FluentCRM.
What’s the distinction?
The primary distinction is that, with a newsletter system, the act of posting suggests that it is going to your internet site and to your e-mail subscribers at the same time.
With both BeeHiiv and Substack, you have a web site. You are releasing to that website. However, you are also sending off to all subscribers at the same time. The website and it’s customers are all in one. This makes administration of the system much easier.
With a lot of e-mail systems, any e-newsletter you set up is done as an email campaign. It is constructed completely individually from your website. So, as an example, you might publish an article to WordPress but then you would require to separately construct and send an email to your list to send it to customers. These are then 2 different collections of archives and 2 separate activities due to the fact that article and your e-mails are not naturally connected.
The closest point that turns WordPress right into a real newsletter system is Newsletter Glue.
It is a fitting name because it pretty much “glues” your newsletter to your WordPress posts and enables them to be the same thing. Definitely, something like Newsletter Glue would certainly be a solid alternative if I wanted to remain to self-host whatever. Nonetheless, you ‘d shed the development tools that come with a platform like BeeHiiv.
Publishing an e-newsletter naturally features a different set of needs than a regular email list.
You do not usually require much marketing automation. You don’t generally need autoresponder series, event tracking, and all the bells and whistles of a marketing automation platform.
What you DO requirement, however, is one seamless publishing experience and growth tools to help you build your client base that are specific to e-newsletters.
BeeHiiv vs Substack
When I revealed to my clients that I was mosting likely to switch the e-newsletter over to BeeHiiv, I had many individuals ask me why I was picking it over Substack.
To be clear, even besides the reality that I selected to opt for BeeHiiv, that doesn’t indicate I believe Substack sucks. Actually, because Substack has been around much longer, it is more mature and has more features.
Even though BeeHiiv is younger, there are a couple points that originally got my attention:.
- BeeHiiv is particularly tailored to e-newsletter authors. Actually, it is actually developed by the exact same individuals who constructed the modern technology behind Morning Mixture. On the other hand, SubStack targets authors. In the real life, does not matter. But, the apparent positioning of BeeHiiv toward e-newsletter development called me out over the more generic positioning of being a “maker”. Growth is what I have an interest in below.
- That branding and differentiation likewise means that BeeHiiv has some fairly large brands and huge publications using it. Whereas SubStack is aimed even more at solo designers. Once again, it just informs me the consumer character difference between both business.
Sending our my e-newsletter through FluentCRM didn’t specifically suck. The only factor I would ponder trembling things up is if I believed I can GROW the checklist much faster. And BeeHiiv talked precisely to that goal.
As a result of the targeting, I really don’t check out BeeHiiv and Substack as direct competitors. I think BeeHiiv is targeting a various kind of consumer. As a matter of fact, if anything, I see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being much more direct competitors.
However, allow’s dive much deeper than simply the positioning below.
Points That Make BeeHiiv Better Than Substack
Generally, BeeHiiv looks like it was constructed by individuals who comprehending e-mail marketing. On the other hand, SubStack appears much more geared toward developers.
As an example, BeeHiiv uses personalized areas on customers. Now, it isn’t as created as something like FluentCRM. Yet, it has it. Substack doesn’t.
BeeHiiv provides Automations. Actually, it is an aesthetic automation builder that works a 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 action is the ability to send out an email. Nevertheless, enhancements are coming. Quickly enough, automations will certainly have brand-new triggers as well as brand-new activities, such as modifying custom fields, sending out webhooks, and so on. I have actually currently seen improvements to their automations just since I began utilizing the system. For example:
- Ability to set off automations based upon which particular embed type they was available in on.
- Capacity to immediately do re-engagement (and deal with people based upon opens up and non-opens).
- Capacity to do basic conditional logic branches.
Substack does not have automations similar to this. Likely, it never ever will. Substack just can not do this due to the fact that the target audience of Substack simply wouldn’t think to approach this like an email marketing expert.
When it comes to composing your e-newsletters, the composing user interface of BeeHiiv is simply much more tailored toward newsletters. In fact, it in fact has resemblances to the WordPress block builder in how it works. I locate it to be much more user-friendly, directly.
Substack’s creating user interface is nice and clean, but it would be a lot more comparable to the timeless editor for WordPress. Toolbar at the top.
This distinction is greater than just form. For instance, with BeeHiiv you can put a “Area” and then put anything you want in it. Then, you can place Visibility choices on that area to show it just to paid subscribers, conceal it from email, hide from clients, reveal just to customers, etc. Substack offers absolutely nothing like this.
And when/if the time comes that I start a costs registration model, BeeHiiv does not take any earnings. Actually, you essentially link approximately your very own Stripe account and it charges directly to it. With Substack, they will take 10% of your revenue. Depending upon the number of customers you obtain, that 10% can be quite a bit even more cash than the regular monthly price of BeeHiiv.
Finally, BeeHiiv has an API. This might appear unpopular, however what it means is that there are integrations with BeeHiiv. You can actually make BeeHiiv deal with the outdoors making use of devices like Zapier or Make.com. This is HUGE. Substack literally has … nothing. No integrations at all.
In general, I simply felt like BeeHiiv was more developed towards actual e-mail marketing. It was built by individuals who “get it”. Also the opt-in types and the landing page develops seem far better developed for conversions. Growth is the name of the game with BeeHiiv.
Even though there are still features I would love 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 toward “developers” more than email marketing professionals and e-newsletter proprietors. Because of that, you see some things geared more towards individuals who simply believe in terms of material production.
For example, Substack sustains podcasts. BeeHiiv does not.
Likewise, while BeeHiiv does sustain several magazines, they are treated rather individually. Whereas Substack does have the ability to cross-post to numerous publications at the same time. This isn’t something I require, however … awesome for people who may need it.
Substack also has even more social capability built-in. For example, it has a chat feature to host chats with customers. It likewise has a “Notes” feature which functions type of like a social networks newsfeed where you can share points from other “Stacks” you read. Intriguing. In general, Substack is set up to be more like a social media network which supports long-form material.
Overall, Substack is also extra … minimal. You either take care of that or don’t. Directly, I do not. However, if the objective is simpleness of user interface and, frankly, features … Substack functions rather well.
However, I’ll be clear here …
When it comes to real marketing, I don’t assume there’s much doubt that BeeHiiv is much better fit. I tried to find even more points that make Substack far better than BeeHiiv, yet frankly … I have a tough time locating them.
BeeHiiv Vs ConvertKit
While BeeHiiv and Substack are often through to be the closest rivals, I really see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being the closer opponents. Both are pursuing the very same target market and have similar abilities.
ConvertKit is likewise positioned at designers (like Substack), yet it is a lot more highly accommodating people who do it for organization. ConvertKit has wonderful visual automation structure, it’s own business system, and more. ConvertKit is a truly wonderful platform.
I’m not going to bore you with a full feature-by-feature break down right here. ConvertKit is well known already. Yet, below’s just how I really feel BeeHiiv and ConvertKit compare …
Things ConvertKit Is Much Better At …
Already, ConvertKit has extra versatility when it involves it’s automations. I will certainly additionally claim that I discover ConvertKit’s automation builder to be a bit extra intuitive than that of BeeHiiv.
ConvertKit sustains labeling. This is simply a basic function of e-mail lists that allows segmentation in an even more versatile method than BeeHiiv presently does. I anticipate BeeHiiv to sustain marking eventually quickly, frankly. It feels like an oversight that it is missing out on Beehiiv Plan Tiers.
ConvertKit does now supply the capacity to offer things by means of their own platform. BeeHiiv does not. If that is necessary to you, it might be a big deal for you. For me, however, I would certainly always choose a more straight option anyway. For me, I like to use my own platform powered by WooCommerce.
ConvertKit has been about a lot longer and because of that has way extra integration choices. Tons of web-based tools and WordPress plugins incorporate with ConvertKit. ConvertKit even has their own WordPress plugin that is fairly effective. As an example, their plugin currently even supports member-gated content as well as auto-embed of your e-newsletter archives right into your site. Essentially, this much more carefully puts ConvertKit right into direct competition by having you have the ability to publish to your site and your email listing at the same time.
BeeHiiv is badly lacking in these sort of third-party integrations currently. It’ll get there. But, we’re not there yet with it.
ConvertKit is even busy dealing with the development tools of BeeHiiv. As an example, BeeHiiv has the referral program and the Suggestion Engine where you can not only incentivize people to share your e-newsletter with advantages, yet you can also pay per lead within the internal ad network of BeeHiiv to grow your list. These are actually remarkable features of BeeHiiv. However …
Did you recognize ConvertKit acquired Sparkloop? Sparkloop is just one of one of the most popular viral promotion platforms for e-newsletters … and ConvertKit bought it. You can see the writing on the wall of what this implies for the platform moving forward.
Things BeeHiiv Is Much Better At … Beehiiv Plan Tiers
BeeHiiv is a lot previously in it’s item cycle than ConvertKit. Part of that implies less features and much less integrations, which is all-natural for this phase of the cycle. Nonetheless, it also means that they are quickly developing.
In the short time that I have been a customer of BeeHiiv, I have witnessed nearly weekly release of brand-new features right into the system. And these aren’t weak little features … yet big features that are rather crucial. Their speed of advancement at this moment has gone over.
I likewise very much appreciate how receptive they are. As a matter of fact, among their product announcements about some style improvements to the web design features in fact consisted of a small problem with the content width. I merely replied to that e-mail to tell them. I quickly obtained a reply directly from the CEO:.
That very same day, the concern was taken care of.
Couple of days later on, I gave them an additional idea …
Certainly, in a little bit over a week of that exchange, the ability to activate automations based on the embed kind utilized was contributed to the system.
That type of responsiveness and direct involvement of the group is something I really appreciate.
One more major factor of distinction below is the rate. Both systems offer free plans, however the BeeHiiv free plan offers a lot more capability and even more subscribers (2,500 vs 1,000) than ConvertKit.
As soon as you go to paid plans, the pricing of BeeHiiv is likewise much more favorable. ConvertKit appears less costly initially glance due to the fact that their pricing web page shows reduced numbers, however the client limitations are FAR lower and your price swiftly boosts as your list expands.
With BeeHiiv, your initial degree paid plan starts at $42/mo (paid each year), nonetheless you can have up to 10,000 customers. That exact same size 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 directly use), you can expand your checklist approximately 100,000. A checklist of that dimension would certainly run you $566/month with ConvertKit. If you want their referral network, also, 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 every year.
BeeHiiv is in a totally different league when it concerns pricing (in an excellent way).
Will BeeHiiv eventually increase prices? They could as time takes place. Yet, I’m presuming people like myself that are currently in will be locked-in. We’ll see just how points continue.
Points I Would Certainly Like BeeHiiv To Add
One of the things you most definitely require to remember is that BeeHiiv is fairly young. They do appear to progress instead rapidly and make new product statements rather frequently, however there are some fundamental features I actually desire they had that I require to simply await.
One is that they require to have a setting on registration forms where I can choose an automation to run right at the form degree. That would certainly be outstanding for so many reasons. As of now, membership kinds look OK, yet there’s really little settings for them to help in segmentation.
It would behave to have labeling at the customer degree. This would be powerful.
I believe webhooks need to become part of automations to make built-in automations easier and lower dependence on outdoors devices like Zapier.
There are likewise some small administrative interface changes that would be handy. As an example:
- Ability to bulk edit/remove subscribers.
- Capability to bulk edit posts (for example, to mark a lot of them at the same time).
- Having a couple of fundamental fields as conventional on customers (like the name).
- Some more personalization alternatives for the website (such as more versatile color selections, heading control, and so on).
So, yeah … there are some drawbacks. Things I hope they do with it in the future. BeeHiiv is respectable, but it isn’t perfect and certainly not almost as created as something like FluentCRM or any other real CRM item.
It probably never ever will certainly be, either. As I stated, the objective is different so it would not much a great deal of feeling for BeeHiiv to become a complete marketing automation system. I presume you never know, however.
Last Thoughts On This BeeHiiv Review
I like BeeHiiv rather a lot. Sufficient where I decided to switch my very own newsletters over to the platform in spite of my personal choice for digital sovereignty and having my own platform.
Simply put, for the newsletter publishing version particularly, I saw enough value in their system to necessitate the modification.
Keep in mind, I do not utilize BeeHiiv as my unique e-mail listing. I use BeeHiiv wherefore it is efficient, however I intentionally have points set up to make sure that I also keep my checklist “in home” inside of FluentCRM.
If you utilize BeeHiiv, I suggest you do the very same. It is just a good insurance plan, for one. Yet, having a full-featured marketing automation system for your list will be of high use (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 opinion, if you are utilizing Substack today, I ‘d most definitely take into consideration switching over to BeeHiiv. It will merely be a lot more business-friendly. It is targeting various capacities and various requirements. And also, BeeHiiv even has import devices for Substack, so the button ought to be pretty uncomplicated.
If you get on ConvertKit currently, I ‘d probably sit tight unless you have a huge email listing and are as a result being fleeced with their high monthly bill. You will not (yet) have every feature of ConvertKit with BeeHiiv, but they are iterating swiftly. There’s additionally a pretty good possibility you’re not also using some of those fancier functions of ConvertKit and you don’t also need them. Because of that, BeeHiiv can quickly be a much better and a lot more budget friendly fit.
Finally, if you plan to be very intentional regarding growing a newsletter, I think BeeHiiv is THE platform to take into consideration and maintain and eye on for you.
If you use BeeHiiv with eyes wide open regarding what it is developed to be, it is among the best games in the area right now. This is the platform to enjoy.
BeeHiiv supplies a 14-day trial on their paid plans. It is worth checking out for yourself. And if you wind up not sticking to the paid plan, you’ll discover the free account to be fairly feature abundant.