I have made use of a great deal of different e-mail list systems for many years. In the last number of years, I have actually been a massive advocate of digital sovereignty and possessing your very own platform. For that reason (and the amazing features), I have been making use of Lucky Culture Beehiiv.
So, it is certainly an unusual move for me to determine to make use of BeeHiiv. Nevertheless, it is a held application and I am paying month-to-month for it.
Why did I do this?
In this BeeHiiv evaluation, I intend to review why I made the switch to BeeHiiv for my e-newsletters. I intend to address the issue of digital sovereignty while using the system and I would certainly additionally like to address why I chose to use it over Substack.
Let’s dive in …
BeeHiiv: Constructed For E-newsletters
In Issue # 435 of my e-newsletter called My Leisure activity + A Huge Shift In Technique, I spoke about how and why I chose to turn my motor home blog site into largely a newsletter. I determined that was business model I intended to pursue keeping that building.
But, to intentionally pursue it as an e-newsletter, I desired a system that was purpose-built for that. I was utilizing FluentCRM for the email checklist for Happily recreational vehicle, but FluentCRM is not a newsletter system. It is constructed to be a CRM and marketing automation tool and, honestly, using it for newsletters is a bit of a waste. More on that particular in a bit.
As I stated because concern of the newsletter …
Simply put, BeeHiiv is a system with devices constructed right into it certain to my purpose. Things such as:
- Capability to release (to the blog) and send the email all at once without having it be two different activities.
- Constructed in e-newsletter referral program. FluentCRM doesn’t have that and I would certainly have needed a third-party tool like Sparkloop.
- Integrated capacity to do cross-promotions with various other newsletters on the BeeHiiv platform.
- ” Magic Hyperlinks”, which are generally one-click subscription web links. Great for promotion in various other newsletters. FluentCRM has Smart Links, though, so there are ways to do that.
- Capability to do paid “boosts” on the BeeHiiv network to promote your e-newsletter.
- Integrated advertisement network, if I pick to generate income from with advertisements in the e-newsletter. And I may.
- Built-in capability to run a paid e-newsletter upgrade and generally run a costs e-newsletter. And BeeHiiv doesn’t take a cut.
Basically, BeeHiiv is purpose-built for newsletter publishers with features aimed at development. The platform was actually developed by the individuals who developed the technology for Early morning Mixture. They recognize what they’re doing.
That is the point right here. BeeHiiv is constructed from the ground up for the objective of running an e-newsletter. FluentCRM has a various objective.
And I finished off with this:.
I might certainly be moving The Side over to BeeHiiv too. At the very least, 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 as a matter of fact, The EDGE was re-branded over to The Early morning WP, triggered as it’s own building to make sure that I can grow it a lot more deliberately too.
The objective is that each e-newsletter has the capability to be branded as it’s own media entity and grown individually. Gladly motor home was young, so easy to change. Yet, The Morning WP (formerly The Edge) was hidden in a sea of stuff here at the Blog Marketing Academy. By separating it off, I can do what I can to expand it on it’s very own. It will clearly always be carefully connected with the Blog site Marketing Academy, but does not need to belong of it.
I changed to BeeHiiv because it was built for this function. FluentCRM was not.
Newsletters Versus Simply A Regular Email Checklist
There’s a distinction in between an e-newsletter platform and simply an email checklist.
You can host your email listing just about anywhere you want and there are a number of them around, from Aweber, ActiveCampaign, Drip, ConvertKit … over to self-hosted alternatives like GroundHogg and FluentCRM.
What’s the difference?
The main difference is that, with an e-newsletter system, the act of posting suggests that it is going to your internet site and to your e-mail customers at the same time.
With both BeeHiiv and Substack, you have a site. You are publishing to that internet site. Yet, you are also dispatching to all clients at the same time. The site and it’s customers are done in one. This makes management of the system much easier.
With most e-mail platforms, any type of newsletter you set up is done as an email campaign. It is built entirely independently from your site. So, as an example, you may publish a write-up to WordPress but then you would certainly need to independently build and send out an email to your list to send it to subscribers. These are after that 2 separate collections of archives and 2 different activities since blog posts and your emails are not naturally linked.
The closest point that turns WordPress right into a true e-newsletter platform is Newsletter Glue.
It is a fitting name due to the fact that it virtually “adhesives” your e-newsletter to your WordPress messages and permits them to be the very same point. Absolutely, something like E-newsletter Glue would be a solid option if I intended to remain to self-host everything. Nevertheless, you ‘d shed the development devices that feature a platform like BeeHiiv.
Publishing a newsletter naturally comes with a different collection of needs than a regular e-mail listing.
You don’t generally need much marketing automation. You do not generally require autoresponder series, event monitoring, and all the bells and whistles of a marketing automation system.
What you DO requirement, however, is one smooth posting experience and development devices to assist you build your client base that specify to newsletters.
BeeHiiv vs Substack
When I announced to my clients that I was going to switch over the e-newsletter over to BeeHiiv, I had many people ask me why I was picking it over Substack.
To be clear, also besides the truth that I selected to go with BeeHiiv, that does not imply I assume Substack sucks. As a matter of fact, since Substack has actually been around longer, it is more mature and has even more features.
Even though BeeHiiv is younger, there are a couple things that originally obtained my interest:.
- BeeHiiv is especially customized to e-newsletter publishers. In fact, it is essentially built by the exact same folks who developed the innovation behind Morning Mixture. On the other hand, SubStack targets authors. In the real world, does not matter. Yet, the apparent positioning of BeeHiiv towards newsletter development called me out over the even more generic positioning of being a “developer”. Growth is what I have an interest in below.
- That branding and differentiation likewise indicates that BeeHiiv has some relatively huge brand names and huge magazines utilizing it. Whereas SubStack is intended even more at solo designers. Again, it simply tells me the consumer character difference in between the two companies.
Sending our my e-newsletter via FluentCRM didn’t exactly suck. The only reason I would certainly contemplate drinking things up is if I thought I can GROW the listing faster. And BeeHiiv spoke precisely to that objective.
Due to the targeting, I in fact do not view BeeHiiv and Substack as direct competitors. I assume BeeHiiv is targeting a different kind of customer. As a matter of fact, if anything, I see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being a lot more direct rivals.
But, allow’s dive deeper than simply the positioning here.
Things That Make BeeHiiv Better Than Substack
Generally, BeeHiiv looks like it was constructed by people who recognizing email marketing. On the other hand, SubStack appears more tailored towards creators.
For instance, BeeHiiv uses personalized fields on clients. Now, it isn’t as developed as something like FluentCRM. However, it has it. Substack does not.
BeeHiiv offers Automations. Actually, it is an aesthetic automation builder that functions a great deal like what we have within FluentCRM.
To be clear, the automation functionality is still early-phase. It is still rather restricted in triggers and the only action is the capability to send an email. Nevertheless, enhancements are coming. Quickly enough, automations will have brand-new triggers along with new actions, such as customizing custom-made areas, sending out webhooks, and so on. I’ve currently seen enhancements to their automations simply since I started utilizing the platform. For example:
- Capacity to set off automations based on which details embed form they was available in on.
- Capability to immediately do re-engagement (and handle people based upon opens and non-opens).
- Capability to do basic conditional reasoning branches.
Substack does not have automations similar to this. Likely, it never will. Substack simply can not do this since the target market of Substack simply wouldn’t believe to approach this like an email marketing professional.
When it involves writing your e-newsletters, the writing user interface of BeeHiiv is just much more tailored toward e-newsletters. As a matter of fact, it really has similarities to the WordPress block builder in how it works. I locate it to be a lot more intuitive, personally.
Substack’s composing interface behaves and tidy, but it would be extra comparable to the classic editor for WordPress. Toolbar on top.
This distinction is greater than just form. For instance, with BeeHiiv you can insert a “Section” and then put anything you want in it. After that, you can put Presence options on that particular section to reveal it only to paid customers, hide it from email, conceal from clients, reveal just to subscribers, and so on. Substack provides absolutely nothing such as this.
And when/if the time comes that I start a costs registration version, BeeHiiv doesn’t take any type of revenue. Actually, you essentially connect approximately your own Stripe account and it bills directly to it. With Substack, they will certainly take 10% of your income. Depending upon the amount of subscribers you get, that 10% can be quite a bit more money than the monthly cost of BeeHiiv.
Lastly, BeeHiiv has an API. This might appear unpopular, yet what it implies is that there are integrations with BeeHiiv. You can in fact make BeeHiiv work with the outdoors making use of tools like Zapier or Make.com. This is HUGE. Substack actually has … nothing. No integrations at all.
Generally, I just seemed like BeeHiiv was a lot more built towards actual email marketing. It was constructed by people that “get it”. Even the opt-in forms and the landing page makes appear far better built for conversions. Development 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 claimed, Substack positions itself toward “creators” more than email marketing professionals and newsletter owners. Because of that, you see some things tailored a lot more towards people who simply assume in regards to content production.
For example, Substack supports podcasts. BeeHiiv does not.
Also, while BeeHiiv does support multiple publications, they are dealt with quite individually. Whereas Substack does have the capability to cross-post to numerous publications at the same time. This isn’t something I call for, but … cool for individuals that could require it.
Substack likewise has more social performance built-in. For instance, it has a conversation function to host chats with subscribers. It additionally has a “Notes” feature which works kind of like a social networks newsfeed where you can share points from other “Stacks” you’re reading. Intriguing. On the whole, Substack is established to be extra like a social network which supports long-form web content.
In general, Substack is likewise a lot more … minimalist. You either care for that or do not. Directly, I don’t. Nonetheless, if the goal is simplicity of interface and, honestly, features … Substack functions quite well.
Yet, I’ll be clear here …
When it pertains to real marketing, I do not assume there’s much uncertainty that BeeHiiv is better matched. I tried to find more points that make Substack much better than BeeHiiv, but honestly … I have a tough time finding them.
BeeHiiv Vs ConvertKit
While BeeHiiv and Substack are typically with to be the closest rivals, I in fact see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being the closer rivals. Both are pursuing the same target market and have comparable capacities.
ConvertKit is likewise positioned at designers (like Substack), however it is far more strongly catering to people that do it for service. ConvertKit has nice aesthetic automation building, it’s very own business platform, and a lot more. ConvertKit is an actually nice platform.
I’m not mosting likely to bore you with a full feature-by-feature malfunction here. ConvertKit is well known currently. Yet, below’s exactly how I feel BeeHiiv and ConvertKit compare …
Things ConvertKit Is Much Better At …
Already, ConvertKit has more flexibility when it involves it’s automations. I will likewise say that I find ConvertKit’s automation builder to be a little bit more instinctive than that of BeeHiiv.
ConvertKit supports tagging. This is simply a standard function of email listings that allows segmentation in a much more versatile way than BeeHiiv currently does. I expect BeeHiiv to support marking eventually soon, frankly. It seems like an oversight that it is missing out on Lucky Culture Beehiiv.
ConvertKit does now provide the capability to sell points through their own system. BeeHiiv does not. If that’s important to you, it might be a big deal for you. For me, however, I would always pick an extra straight alternative anyway. For me, I choose to use my own system powered by WooCommerce.
ConvertKit has actually been about much longer and therefore has way much more integration alternatives. Lots of online tools and WordPress plugins incorporate with ConvertKit. ConvertKit even has their own WordPress plugin that is quite effective. For instance, their plugin now even sustains member-gated content in addition to auto-embed of your e-newsletter archives right into your site. In essence, this extra carefully places ConvertKit into straight competition by having you be able to release to your site and your e-mail list at the same time.
BeeHiiv is severely lacking in these type of third-party integrations right now. It’ll get there. But, we’re not there yet with it.
ConvertKit is also busy taking on the development 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, however you can also pay per lead within the inner ad network of BeeHiiv to expand your checklist. These are truly outstanding features of BeeHiiv. However …
Did you recognize ConvertKit got Sparkloop? Sparkloop is one of one of the most popular viral promotion platforms for e-newsletters … and ConvertKit bought it. You can see the creating on the wall of what this implies for the system going forward.
Things BeeHiiv Is Much Better At … Lucky Culture Beehiiv
BeeHiiv is a lot previously in it’s item cycle than ConvertKit. Part of that means less features and less integrations, which is natural for this stage of the cycle. Nonetheless, it also suggests that they are rapidly creating.
In the short time that I have actually been a customer of BeeHiiv, I have observed practically once a week release of new features right into the platform. And these aren’t weak little features … but big features that are fairly essential. Their speed of growth now has been impressive.
I additionally significantly value how responsive they are. As a matter of fact, one of their product statements regarding some design enhancements to the web design features really included a little problem with the material width. I simply replied to that e-mail to tell them. I swiftly obtained a reply straight from the chief executive officer:.
That exact same day, the concern was dealt with.
Few days later, I provided another idea …
Indeed, in a bit over a week of that exchange, the capacity to activate automations based upon the embed form utilized was included in the system.
That kind of responsiveness and direct participation of the team is something I truly appreciate.
One more significant point of differentiation below is the rate. Both systems use cost-free plans, nonetheless the BeeHiiv free plan offers more ability and more customers (2,500 vs 1,000) than ConvertKit.
As soon as you most likely to paid plans, the pricing of BeeHiiv is also FAR more favorable. ConvertKit appears less costly in the beginning glimpse since their pricing web page reveals lower numbers, nonetheless the subscriber restrictions are much reduced and your rate quickly enhances as your list expands.
With BeeHiiv, your initial level paid plan begins at $42/mo (paid each year), nevertheless you can have up to 10,000 subscribers. That very same size listing is mosting likely to run you $100/month with ConvertKit.
If you upgrade to the “Range” plan with BeeHiiv (their finest plan and the one I personally make use of), you can expand your list as much as 100,000. A list of that size would run you $566/month with ConvertKit. If you want their referral network, too, that puts you at the $733/month plan. That’s if you pay every year, as well. With BeeHiiv, you can obtain all that for simply $84/month if you pay every year.
BeeHiiv is in a totally various league when it involves pricing (in a good way).
Will BeeHiiv at some point increase rates? They might as time takes place. But, I’m thinking people like myself who are currently in will be locked-in. We’ll see exactly how things continue.
Things I Would Certainly Like BeeHiiv To Include
One of things you definitely require to remember is that BeeHiiv is reasonably young. They do appear to progress instead swiftly and make brand-new product news rather commonly, yet there are some standard features I truly wish they had that I need to just wait for.
One is that they need to have a setting on subscription kinds where I could choose an automation to run right at the form level. That would be incredible for a lot of reasons. Already, membership kinds look OK, yet there’s very little settings for them to help in division.
It would certainly be nice to have marking at the subscriber degree. This would be powerful.
I believe webhooks must be part of automations to make integrated automations easier and decrease dependence on outside tools like Zapier.
There are also some small administrative user interface adjustments that would certainly be handy. For example:
- Ability to bulk edit/remove subscribers.
- Capability to bulk edit articles (for example, to identify a bunch of them at the same time).
- Having a couple of fundamental fields as typical on subscribers (like the name).
- Some even more modification choices for the site (such as even more adaptable color choices, heading control, and so on).
So, yeah … there are some drawbacks. Points I wish they do with it in the future. BeeHiiv is pretty good, however it isn’t excellent and certainly not nearly as established as something like FluentCRM or any other real CRM item.
It most likely never will certainly be, either. As I stated, the purpose is various so it wouldn’t much a great deal of sense for BeeHiiv to end up being a complete marketing automation system. I think you never ever recognize, though.
Final Thoughts On This BeeHiiv Evaluation
I such as BeeHiiv fairly a whole lot. Sufficient where I decided to switch my very own e-newsletters over to the system regardless of my personal choice for digital sovereignty and having my own platform.
Put simply, for the newsletter publishing version especially, I saw sufficient worth in their system to warrant the adjustment.
Bear in mind, I do not utilize BeeHiiv as my special e-mail listing. I use BeeHiiv of what it is good at, however I purposefully have things set up so that I additionally keep my list “in residence” inside of FluentCRM.
If you make use of BeeHiiv, I suggest you do the same. It is simply a good insurance coverage, 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 will certainly be).
So, the question is … should YOU utilize BeeHiiv?
In my opinion, if you are utilizing Substack right now, I ‘d absolutely think about switching over to BeeHiiv. It will simply be more business-friendly. It is targeting various capabilities and different needs. Plus, BeeHiiv also has import tools for Substack, so the button must be quite straightforward.
If you get on ConvertKit currently, I ‘d most likely stay unless you have a huge email list and are as a result being fleeced with their high regular monthly expense. You will certainly not (yet) have every feature of ConvertKit with BeeHiiv, but they are iterating promptly. There’s additionally a respectable chance you’re not also using several of those fancier functions of ConvertKit and you don’t also need them. For that reason, BeeHiiv could quickly be a much better and more affordable fit.
Lastly, if you plan to be very deliberate concerning growing a newsletter, I believe BeeHiiv is THE system to consider and maintain and eye on for you.
If you make use of BeeHiiv with eyes wide open regarding what it is made to be, it is one of the best games in the area today. This is the system to watch.
BeeHiiv provides a 14-day trial on their paid plans. It is worth checking out on your own. And if you wind up not sticking with the paid plan, you’ll find the cost-free account to be quite feature abundant.