I have utilized a lot of different email list systems throughout the years. In the last number of years, I have actually been a huge proponent of digital sovereignty and having your very own system. Therefore (and the incredible features), I have been making use of Above The Hollow Beehiiv.
So, it is indeed a weird move for me to decide to utilize BeeHiiv. After all, it is a hosted application and I am paying monthly for it.
Why did I do this?
In this BeeHiiv review, I intend to look at why I made the switch to BeeHiiv for my e-newsletters. I want to address the problem of digital sovereignty while making use of the platform and I would certainly likewise such as to resolve why I chose to utilize it over Substack.
Allow’s dive in …
BeeHiiv: Developed For Newsletters
In Problem # 435 of my e-newsletter called My Hobby + A Big Shift In Approach, I spoke about just how and why I chose to transform my motor home blog site into mostly an e-newsletter. I made a decision that was business version I intended to seek keeping that building.
Yet, to intentionally pursue it as a newsletter, I desired a system that was purpose-built for that. I was making use of FluentCRM for the e-mail checklist for Happily RV, however FluentCRM is not a newsletter system. It is developed to be a CRM and marketing automation tool and, truthfully, utilizing it for e-newsletters is a little bit of a waste. More on that particular in a bit.
As I stated in that issue of the newsletter …
Simply put, BeeHiiv is a platform with devices built into it certain to my objective. Points such as:
- Capability to release (to the blog site) and send out the e-mail all at once without having it be two separate actions.
- Built in newsletter referral program. FluentCRM does not have that and I would have needed a third-party device like Sparkloop.
- Built-in capability to do cross-promotions with other newsletters on the BeeHiiv platform.
- ” Magic Hyperlinks”, which are basically one-click registration web links. Great for promo in various other e-newsletters. FluentCRM has Smart Links, though, so there are means to do that.
- Capability to do paid “boosts” on the BeeHiiv network to advertise your newsletter.
- Built-in ad network, if I pick to generate income from with ads in the newsletter. And I may.
- Built-in ability to run a paid newsletter upgrade and generally run a premium e-newsletter. And BeeHiiv doesn’t take a cut.
Primarily, BeeHiiv is purpose-built for e-newsletter publishers with features targeted at growth. The system was literally developed by the people that developed the innovation for Morning Mixture. They understand what they’re doing.
That is the point here. BeeHiiv is developed from scratch for the function of running an e-newsletter. FluentCRM has a different purpose.
And I ended off with this:.
I may indeed be relocating The Edge over to BeeHiiv too. A minimum of, I’m strongly considering it.
Well, I really did not consider it for long. As a matter of fact, I simply went all out. And in fact, The EDGE was re-branded over to The Morning WP, triggered as it’s very own building so that I can grow it more purposefully too.
The objective is that each newsletter has the capability to be branded as it’s very own media entity and expanded independently. Happily recreational vehicle was young, so easy to shift. Yet, The Morning WP (previously The Edge) was buried in a sea of things below 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 certainly always be very closely connected with the Blog Marketing Academy, but does not have to be a part of it.
I changed to BeeHiiv because it was constructed for this objective. FluentCRM was not.
E-newsletters Versus Just A Typical Email Checklist
There’s a distinction between an e-newsletter platform and just an e-mail checklist.
You can hold your e-mail listing anyplace you desire and there are a variety of them around, from Aweber, ActiveCampaign, Drip, ConvertKit … over to self-hosted choices like GroundHogg and FluentCRM.
What’s the difference?
The main difference is that, with a newsletter platform, the act of posting implies that it is mosting likely to your web site and to your email clients concurrently.
With both BeeHiiv and Substack, you have a web site. You are publishing to that website. However, you are likewise dispatching to all subscribers at the same time. The site and it’s clients are done in one. This makes administration of the system much easier.
With many email systems, any e-newsletter you established is done as an email campaign. It is developed entirely independently from your internet site. So, for instance, you might release a write-up to WordPress but after that you would need to independently develop and send out an e-mail to your list to send it to subscribers. These are after that two separate sets of archives and 2 separate actions because article and your e-mails are not naturally connected.
The closest thing that transforms WordPress into a real e-newsletter system is Newsletter Glue.
It is a fitting name because it pretty much “glues” your newsletter to your WordPress blog posts and enables them to be the same thing. Definitely, something like E-newsletter Glue would be a solid choice if I wanted to continue to self-host whatever. Nonetheless, you would certainly lose the growth devices that include a system like BeeHiiv.
Posting a newsletter inherently comes with a different set of needs than a normal e-mail list.
You do not normally need much marketing automation. You don’t generally require autoresponder series, occasion monitoring, and all the bells and whistles of a marketing automation platform.
What you DO demand, though, is one seamless posting experience and development tools to assist you build your client base that are specific to e-newsletters.
BeeHiiv vs Substack
When I announced to my subscribers that I was going to change 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 reality that I selected to opt for BeeHiiv, that doesn’t suggest I assume Substack sucks. As a matter of fact, because Substack has actually been about much longer, it is more mature and has even more features.
Although BeeHiiv is more youthful, there are a couple things that initially obtained my attention:.
- BeeHiiv is especially customized to e-newsletter publishers. Actually, it is literally constructed by the very same people who built the innovation behind Morning Mixture. On the other hand, SubStack targets writers. In the real world, doesn’t matter. Yet, the apparent positioning of BeeHiiv towards newsletter growth called me out over the even more common positioning of being a “designer”. Development is what I’m interested in here.
- That branding and differentiation additionally indicates that BeeHiiv has some relatively big brands and big magazines utilizing it. Whereas SubStack is aimed more at solo designers. Once more, it simply informs me the consumer avatar distinction between both companies.
Sending our my e-newsletter by means of FluentCRM didn’t exactly suck. The only reason I would contemplate shaking things up is if I assumed I could GROW the checklist quicker. And BeeHiiv talked exactly to that objective.
As a result of the targeting, I in fact don’t watch BeeHiiv and Substack as direct rivals. I believe BeeHiiv is targeting a various sort of customer. In fact, if anything, I see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being more direct competitors.
Yet, let’s dive deeper than simply the placing right here.
Points That Make BeeHiiv Better Than Substack
Overall, BeeHiiv feels like it was developed by people that understanding e-mail marketing. On the other hand, SubStack appears much more geared toward developers.
For example, BeeHiiv offers custom-made fields on subscribers. Currently, it isn’t as developed as something like FluentCRM. Yet, it has it. Substack doesn’t.
BeeHiiv uses Automations. Actually, it is a visual automation builder that functions a lot 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 e-mail. Nonetheless, improvements are coming. Soon enough, automations will certainly have new triggers along with brand-new activities, such as modifying custom fields, sending webhooks, and so on. I’ve currently seen enhancements to their automations just because I started utilizing the system. For instance:
- Capacity to activate automations based on which details embed form they came in on.
- Ability to immediately do re-engagement (and deal with individuals based on opens and non-opens).
- Capacity to do basic conditional reasoning branches.
Substack does not have automations like this. Likely, it never will. Substack just can’t do this since the target market of Substack simply would not think to approach this like an e-mail marketer.
When it comes to composing your e-newsletters, the composing user interface of BeeHiiv is simply a lot more tailored towards e-newsletters. In fact, it really has similarities to the WordPress block builder in just how it functions. I locate it to be much more instinctive, directly.
Substack’s writing user interface is nice and clean, however it would be a lot more comparable to the timeless editor for WordPress. Toolbar on top.
This difference is more than simply type. As an example, with BeeHiiv you can put a “Area” and after that placed anything you desire in it. Then, you can put Exposure alternatives on that particular section to reveal it just to paid clients, conceal it from email, conceal from clients, reveal only to clients, and so on. Substack uses absolutely nothing similar to this.
And when/if the moment comes that I start a premium membership design, BeeHiiv doesn’t take any type of income. As a matter of fact, you literally link 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 clients you obtain, that 10% can be quite a bit even more money than the regular monthly cost of BeeHiiv.
Lastly, BeeHiiv has an API. This might appear nerdy, but what it suggests is that there are integrations with BeeHiiv. You can actually make BeeHiiv deal with the outside making use of tools like Zapier or Make.com. This is HUGE. Substack essentially has … absolutely nothing. No integrations whatsoever.
On the whole, I just seemed like BeeHiiv was more developed towards real email marketing. It was constructed by people who “get it”. Even the opt-in types and the landing page makes appear better constructed for conversions. Growth is the name of the game with BeeHiiv.
Despite the fact that there are still features I wish to see BeeHiiv add, I like the instructions it is going greater than Substack.
Things That Make Substack Better Than BeeHiiv
As I have actually claimed, Substack placements itself towards “makers” more than email online marketers and e-newsletter owners. Therefore, you see some points tailored a lot more towards individuals who simply think in terms of web content creation.
For instance, Substack supports podcasts. BeeHiiv does not.
Also, while BeeHiiv does support several publications, they are treated fairly separately. Whereas Substack does have the capability to cross-post to multiple publications at the same time. This isn’t something I require, but … awesome for individuals who may need it.
Substack also has even more social functionality built-in. For example, it has a chat feature to host talks with clients. It also has a “Notes” feature which works sort of like a social networks newsfeed where you can share things from other “Stacks” you read. Fascinating. Generally, Substack is established to be a lot more like a social media network which sustains long-form web content.
In general, Substack is also extra … minimalist. You either take care of that or don’t. Directly, I do not. Nonetheless, if the goal is simpleness of interface and, honestly, features … Substack works pretty well.
However, I’ll be clear below …
When it concerns real marketing, I don’t assume there’s much doubt that BeeHiiv is much better fit. I searched for even more factors that make Substack much better than BeeHiiv, but frankly … I have a tough time locating them.
BeeHiiv Vs ConvertKit
While BeeHiiv and Substack are frequently through to be the closest rivals, I actually see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being the closer competitors. Both are going after the very same target market and have comparable abilities.
ConvertKit is likewise placed at designers (like Substack), but it is much more strongly satisfying people that do it for business. ConvertKit has wonderful aesthetic automation structure, it’s very own business platform, and much more. ConvertKit is a really good platform.
I’m not going to birthed you with a complete feature-by-feature break down below. ConvertKit is popular already. Yet, here’s just how I feel BeeHiiv and ConvertKit compare …
Points ConvertKit Is Much Better At …
As of now, ConvertKit has much more flexibility when it involves it’s automations. I will certainly additionally claim that I find ConvertKit’s automation builder to be a little bit more user-friendly than that of BeeHiiv.
ConvertKit supports tagging. This is just a standard function of e-mail checklists that allows division in an even more versatile method than BeeHiiv currently does. I anticipate BeeHiiv to sustain identifying at some point soon, honestly. It feels like an oversight that it is missing Above The Hollow Beehiiv.
ConvertKit does now supply the capacity to offer points using their very own system. BeeHiiv does not. If that is essential to you, it may be a big deal for you. For me, however, I would certainly constantly select an extra direct choice anyway. For me, I favor to utilize my very own system powered by WooCommerce.
ConvertKit has been around much longer and because of that has way much more integration alternatives. Lots of web-based devices and WordPress plugins incorporate with ConvertKit. ConvertKit even has their own WordPress plugin that is rather effective. As an example, their plugin now also sustains member-gated web content along with auto-embed of your newsletter archives right into your website. Basically, this more closely places ConvertKit into straight competitors by having you have the ability to release to your site and your email listing at the same time.
BeeHiiv is severely doing not have in these type of third-party integrations right now. It’ll get there. Yet, we’re not there yet with it.
ConvertKit is even active taking on the development devices of BeeHiiv. For example, BeeHiiv has the referral program and the Referral Engine where you can not only incentivize people to share your e-newsletter with rewards, but you can additionally pay per lead within the inner ad network of BeeHiiv to expand your listing. These are actually remarkable features of BeeHiiv. However …
Did you know ConvertKit got Sparkloop? Sparkloop is among one of the most popular viral promo platforms for e-newsletters … and ConvertKit bought it. You can see the creating on the wall surface of what this implies for the system moving forward.
Points BeeHiiv Is Much Better At … Above The Hollow Beehiiv
BeeHiiv is a lot previously in it’s product cycle than ConvertKit. Part of that suggests much less features and less integrations, which is natural for this phase of the cycle. Nevertheless, it additionally implies that they are rapidly establishing.
In the short time that I have actually been a customer of BeeHiiv, I have observed practically once a week launch of brand-new features right into the system. And these aren’t puny little features … however large features that are fairly vital. Their speed of growth at this point has actually gone over.
I additionally very much appreciate exactly how responsive they are. As a matter of fact, one of their product news regarding some layout enhancements to the website design features really consisted of a little issue with the web content size. I just responded to that e-mail to tell them. I rapidly obtained a reply directly from the CEO:.
That very same day, the problem was dealt with.
Few days later, I provided an additional suggestion …
Indeed, in a little bit over a week of that exchange, the capability to activate automations based on the embed form made use of was included in the system.
That sort of responsiveness and straight involvement of the team is something I truly value.
One more significant point of distinction here is the price. Both systems offer complimentary plans, however the BeeHiiv free plan supplies more capacity and more customers (2,500 vs 1,000) than ConvertKit.
When you most likely to paid plans, the pricing of BeeHiiv is likewise much more positive. ConvertKit seems cheaper at first glance since their pricing page reveals reduced numbers, nevertheless the subscriber limitations are FAR reduced and your rate quickly raises as your list expands.
With BeeHiiv, your very first degree paid plan starts at $42/mo (paid every year), nevertheless you can have up to 10,000 subscribers. That same size list is going to run you $100/month with ConvertKit.
If you upgrade to the “Scale” plan with BeeHiiv (their ideal plan and the one I personally use), you can expand your checklist as much as 100,000. A listing 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 each year, too. With BeeHiiv, you can obtain all that for simply $84/month if you pay each year.
BeeHiiv remains in an entirely different league when it comes to pricing (in a great way).
Will BeeHiiv ultimately enhance rates? They may as time takes place. However, I’m thinking people like myself that are currently in will be locked-in. We’ll see how points continue.
Things I Would Certainly Like BeeHiiv To Add
Among the things you definitely need to keep in mind is that BeeHiiv is relatively young. They do appear to progress rather rapidly and make new item statements somewhat usually, but there are some fundamental features I actually desire they had that I require to simply wait on.
One is that they need to have a setting on membership kinds where I might choose an automation to run right at the form level. That would certainly be AWESOME for so many factors. Currently, registration types look OK, but there’s really little settings for them to aid in segmentation.
It would be nice to have identifying at the client degree. This would certainly be effective.
I believe webhooks must be part of automations to make built-in automations much easier and reduce reliance on outdoors tools like Zapier.
There are additionally some minor administrative user interface modifications that would come in handy. For example:
- Capacity to bulk edit/remove subscribers.
- Capability to bulk edit blog posts (as an example, to tag a number of them at the same time).
- Having a couple of standard fields as common on customers (like the name).
- Some even more customization choices for the internet site (such as more flexible color options, heading control, and so on).
So, yeah … there are some shortcomings. Points I hope they finish with it in the future. BeeHiiv is pretty good, however it isn’t ideal and absolutely not virtually as established as something like FluentCRM or any other genuine CRM product.
It probably never will be, either. As I claimed, the function is different so it would not a lot a great deal of sense for BeeHiiv to end up being a complete marketing automation platform. I guess you never understand, however.
Final Thoughts On This BeeHiiv Testimonial
I like BeeHiiv quite a great deal. Sufficient where I made a decision to switch my very own newsletters over to the system regardless of my individual choice for digital sovereignty and possessing my own system.
Basically, for the e-newsletter posting design specifically, I saw adequate value in their platform to require the change.
Bear in mind, I do not utilize BeeHiiv as my special e-mail list. I make use of BeeHiiv wherefore it is efficient, but I deliberately have things set up to ensure that I also maintain my checklist “in residence” within FluentCRM.
If you use BeeHiiv, I recommend you do the same. It is simply a great insurance policy, for one. Yet, having a full-featured marketing automation system for your checklist will be of high usage (FluentCRM is a complete marketing automation platform and BeeHiiv is not and likely never ever will certainly be).
So, the concern is … should YOU utilize BeeHiiv?
In my opinion, if you are utilizing Substack now, I ‘d most definitely take into consideration switching to BeeHiiv. It will merely be a lot more business-friendly. It is targeting various capacities and various requirements. Plus, BeeHiiv even has import tools for Substack, so the switch should be rather uncomplicated.
If you get on ConvertKit now, I ‘d possibly sit tight unless you have a large email list and are as a result being wooled with their high monthly costs. You will certainly not (yet) have every feature of ConvertKit with BeeHiiv, yet they are repeating rapidly. There’s likewise a pretty good opportunity you’re not also using several of those fancier features of ConvertKit and you don’t also need them. For that reason, BeeHiiv might easily be a far better and much more cost effective fit.
Finally, if you plan to be extremely willful about expanding a newsletter, I assume BeeHiiv is THE system to think about 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 among the very best video games in the area now. This is the system to view.
BeeHiiv uses a 14-day trial on their paid plans. It is worth checking out on your own. And if you wind up not sticking to the paid plan, you’ll discover the cost-free account to be rather feature rich.