I have actually used a lot of various email list systems for many years. In the last couple of years, I’ve been a big supporter of digital sovereignty and possessing your own platform. Therefore (and the outstanding features), I have been utilizing Beehiiv Ashley’s Inner Circle.
So, it is undoubtedly a weird move for me to make a decision to utilize BeeHiiv. After all, it is a held application and I am paying regular monthly for it.
Why did I do this?
In this BeeHiiv evaluation, I wish to review why I made the switch to BeeHiiv for my e-newsletters. I wish to attend to the problem of digital sovereignty while utilizing the system and I ‘d also such as to attend to why I picked to utilize it over Substack.
Let’s dive in …
BeeHiiv: Developed For E-newsletters
In Concern # 435 of my newsletter called My Leisure activity + A Huge Change In Technique, I discussed just how and why I determined to turn my recreational vehicle blog right into mainly an e-newsletter. I made a decision that was the business model I wanted to pursue with that residential property.
But, to deliberately pursue it as a newsletter, I desired a platform that was purpose-built for that. I was making use of FluentCRM for the e-mail list for Happily RV, but FluentCRM is not a newsletter system. It is built to be a CRM and marketing automation tool and, frankly, using it for newsletters is a little bit of a waste. A lot more on that particular in a bit.
As I said in that issue of the e-newsletter …
Simply put, BeeHiiv is a platform with devices built into it certain to my purpose. Points such as:
- Ability to release (to the blog site) and send out the e-mail all at once without having it be two different activities.
- Constructed in e-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 other e-newsletters on the BeeHiiv platform.
- ” Magic Hyperlinks”, which are generally one-click subscription links. Great for promotion 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 advertise your e-newsletter.
- Built-in advertisement network, if I choose 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 premium e-newsletter. And BeeHiiv doesn’t take a cut.
Generally, BeeHiiv is purpose-built for e-newsletter authors with features targeted at growth. The platform was actually developed by the people who built up the 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 a newsletter. FluentCRM has a various purpose.
And I finished off with this:.
I might without a doubt be relocating The Edge over to BeeHiiv also. 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 actually, The side was re-branded over to The Morning WP, set off as it’s very own building to make sure that I can expand it much more intentionally too.
The objective is that each e-newsletter has the capability to be branded as it’s very own media entity and expanded separately. Happily RV was young, so easy to shift. But, The Morning WP (formerly The Edge) was hidden in a sea of things below at the Blog Marketing Academy. By dividing it off, I can do what I can to grow it on it’s very own. It will undoubtedly always be very closely connected with the Blog site Marketing Academy, yet does not have to belong of it.
I switched to BeeHiiv because it was developed for this purpose. FluentCRM was not.
Newsletters Versus Just A Normal Email Checklist
There’s a difference between an e-newsletter system and simply an email checklist.
You can host your e-mail listing anyplace you desire and there are a variety of them around, from Aweber, ActiveCampaign, Drip, ConvertKit … over to self-hosted alternatives like GroundHogg and FluentCRM.
What’s the difference?
The main distinction is that, with a newsletter system, the act of posting implies that it is mosting likely to your internet site and to your email customers at the same time.
With both BeeHiiv and Substack, you have a website. You are publishing to that site. Yet, you are also dispatching to all clients at the same time. The site and it’s clients are done in one. This makes administration of the platform much less complex.
With a lot of email systems, any e-newsletter you set up is done as an e-mail campaign. It is built totally individually from your web site. So, for example, you may publish a short article to WordPress however then you would require to individually build and send an email to your listing to send it to customers. These are then two separate collections of archives and two different actions since post and your emails are not naturally connected.
The closest point that transforms WordPress right into a true e-newsletter platform is Newsletter Glue.
It is a fitting name due to the fact that it practically “glues” your newsletter to your WordPress articles and enables them to be the very same point. Definitely, something like Newsletter Glue would be a solid choice if I wished to continue to self-host every little thing. Nevertheless, you would certainly shed the development devices that feature a platform like BeeHiiv.
Posting an e-newsletter inherently features a various collection of requirements than a normal e-mail list.
You do not usually need much marketing automation. You do not normally need autoresponder sequences, event monitoring, and all the bells and whistles of a marketing automation system.
What you DO need, however, is one seamless posting experience and development devices to assist you construct your client base that specify to 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 individuals ask me why I was choosing it over Substack.
To be clear, also besides the fact that I selected to go with BeeHiiv, that doesn’t suggest I assume Substack draws. As a matter of fact, because Substack has actually been around longer, it is more mature and has more features.
Even though BeeHiiv is more youthful, there are a pair points that initially obtained my attention:.
- BeeHiiv is particularly customized to e-newsletter authors. In fact, it is literally constructed by the same folks that built the innovation behind Morning Brew. On the other hand, SubStack targets writers. In the real life, doesn’t matter. But, the evident positioning of BeeHiiv towards e-newsletter growth called me out over the more common positioning of being a “maker”. Growth is what I’m interested in here.
- That branding and differentiation likewise indicates that BeeHiiv has some rather huge brand names and big magazines utilizing it. Whereas SubStack is aimed even more at solo designers. Again, it just informs me the client avatar difference between the two firms.
Sending our my e-newsletter through FluentCRM really did not precisely suck. The only reason I would contemplate trembling things up is if I believed I could expand the checklist much faster. And BeeHiiv spoke specifically to that objective.
Due to the targeting, I in fact don’t see BeeHiiv and Substack as straight competitors. I think BeeHiiv is targeting a various kind of consumer. Actually, if anything, I see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being much more direct competitors.
However, allow’s dive deeper than just the placing below.
Points That Make BeeHiiv Better Than Substack
Generally, BeeHiiv seems like it was constructed by people who comprehending email marketing. On the other hand, SubStack appears more geared toward creators.
For example, BeeHiiv uses customized areas on customers. Now, it isn’t as developed as something like FluentCRM. However, it has it. Substack doesn’t.
BeeHiiv uses Automations. Actually, it is a visual automation builder that works a great deal like what we have within FluentCRM.
To be clear, the automation capability is still early-phase. It is still fairly restricted in triggers and the only activity is the ability to send an e-mail. Nevertheless, enhancements are coming. Soon enough, automations will have brand-new triggers in addition to new activities, such as customizing personalized fields, sending webhooks, etc. I have actually already seen enhancements to their automations simply given that I started utilizing the system. As an example:
- Capacity to trigger automations based on which specific embed form they can be found in on.
- Ability to automatically do re-engagement (and manage people based on opens up and non-opens).
- Ability to do basic conditional logic branches.
Substack does not have automations like this. Likely, it never will. Substack just can not do this because the target audience of Substack simply wouldn’t believe to approach this like an e-mail marketing expert.
When it pertains to composing your newsletters, the creating user interface of BeeHiiv is simply more geared towards newsletters. As a matter of fact, it actually has resemblances to the WordPress block builder in just how it works. I discover it to be a lot more instinctive, directly.
Substack’s creating user interface is nice and clean, but it would certainly be much more equivalent to the timeless editor for WordPress. Toolbar at the top.
This distinction is greater than simply form. As an example, with BeeHiiv you can place a “Area” and then placed anything you desire in it. After that, you can place Exposure alternatives on that particular section to show it just to paid customers, conceal it from email, conceal from customers, reveal only to subscribers, etc. Substack provides nothing like this.
And when/if the moment comes that I begin a premium membership design, BeeHiiv does not take any revenue. Actually, you actually connect approximately your own Stripe account and it bills directly to it. With Substack, they will take 10% of your profits. Depending upon the amount of subscribers you obtain, that 10% can be a fair bit more cash than the monthly price of BeeHiiv.
Finally, BeeHiiv has an API. This might seem unpopular, but what it implies is that there are integrations with BeeHiiv. You can really make BeeHiiv work with the outdoors using devices like Zapier or Make.com. This is HUGE. Substack literally has … absolutely nothing. No integrations in any way.
Generally, I simply seemed like BeeHiiv was much more built towards real email marketing. It was constructed by people that “get it”. Also the opt-in kinds and the landing page develops seem far better constructed for conversions. Development is the name of the game with BeeHiiv.
Even though there are still features I would love to see BeeHiiv add, I like the direction it is going greater than Substack.
Things That Make Substack Better Than BeeHiiv
As I have said, Substack placements itself toward “creators” greater than e-mail marketing professionals and e-newsletter proprietors. Therefore, you see some things tailored a lot more towards individuals that just assume in terms of material creation.
For instance, Substack supports podcasts. BeeHiiv does not.
Likewise, while BeeHiiv does sustain several publications, they are treated fairly individually. Whereas Substack does have the ability to cross-post to numerous magazines at the same time. This isn’t something I require, but … amazing for people that may require it.
Substack likewise has more social capability built-in. For example, it has a conversation feature to host talks with customers. It also has a “Notes” function which works type of like a social networks newsfeed where you can share points from other “Stacks” you read. Fascinating. In general, Substack is established to be extra like a social network which sustains long-form web content.
Generally, Substack is additionally much more … minimalist. You either look after that or don’t. Personally, I don’t. Nevertheless, if the goal is simpleness of user interface and, frankly, features … Substack functions quite well.
However, I’ll be clear right here …
When it involves actual marketing, I don’t think there’s much question that BeeHiiv is better suited. I tried to find even more points that make Substack better than BeeHiiv, however honestly … I have a difficult time discovering them.
BeeHiiv Vs ConvertKit
While BeeHiiv and Substack are usually with to be the closest competitors, I actually see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being the closer competitors. Both are pursuing the very same target audience and have similar abilities.
ConvertKit is also placed at designers (like Substack), however it is far more highly dealing with individuals that do it for business. ConvertKit has nice aesthetic automation structure, it’s own commerce system, and a lot more. ConvertKit is a truly nice system.
I’m not mosting likely to birthed you with a full feature-by-feature break down below. ConvertKit is popular already. But, here’s exactly how I feel BeeHiiv and ConvertKit contrast …
Things ConvertKit Is Better At …
As of now, ConvertKit has extra adaptability when it involves it’s automations. I will likewise claim that I discover ConvertKit’s automation builder to be a little bit more intuitive than that of BeeHiiv.
ConvertKit supports tagging. This is just a standard function of e-mail lists that allows division in an even more versatile way than BeeHiiv presently does. I expect BeeHiiv to sustain identifying at some time quickly, truthfully. It seems like an oversight that it is missing out on Beehiiv Ashley’s Inner Circle.
ConvertKit does now offer the ability to sell points via their own platform. BeeHiiv does not. If that is essential to you, it may be a big deal for you. For me, nevertheless, I would always pick an extra straight choice anyway. For me, I choose to utilize my own system powered by WooCommerce.
ConvertKit has actually been around much longer and because of that has way a lot more integration options. 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 currently also supports member-gated material along with auto-embed of your e-newsletter archives right into your website. Essentially, this extra carefully puts ConvertKit into direct competitors by having you have the ability to publish to your site and your e-mail checklist at the same time.
BeeHiiv is significantly doing not have in these sort of third-party integrations presently. It’ll arrive. However, we’re not there yet with it.
ConvertKit is even busy dealing with the development tools of BeeHiiv. For example, BeeHiiv has the referral program and the Recommendation Engine where you can not just incentivize people to share your e-newsletter with advantages, however you can additionally pay per lead within the inner advertisement network of BeeHiiv to grow your listing. These are truly remarkable features of BeeHiiv. But …
Did you understand ConvertKit obtained Sparkloop? Sparkloop is one of the most popular viral promo platforms for e-newsletters … and ConvertKit bought it. You can see the writing on the wall for what this suggests for the platform moving forward.
Points BeeHiiv Is Better At … Beehiiv Ashley’s Inner Circle
BeeHiiv is a lot previously in it’s product cycle than ConvertKit. Part of that indicates less features and much less integrations, which is natural for this stage of the cycle. Nonetheless, it likewise implies that they are swiftly developing.
In the short time that I have actually been a customer of BeeHiiv, I have actually witnessed virtually regular release of brand-new features into the platform. And these aren’t puny little features … however big features that are fairly important. Their rate of growth at this point has actually gone over.
I additionally very much appreciate exactly how responsive they are. In fact, among their product statements about some layout improvements to the website design features in fact included a little trouble with the content size. I merely replied to that email to tell them. I promptly got a reply directly from the CEO:.
That same day, the problem was dealt with.
Few days later, I gave them one more recommendation …
Certainly, in a little bit over a week of that exchange, the capability to trigger automations based on the embed form used was added to the system.
That type of responsiveness and straight involvement of the team is something I truly appreciate.
An additional significant factor of differentiation below is the rate. Both systems provide totally free plans, nevertheless the BeeHiiv free plan offers much more capacity and even more clients (2,500 vs 1,000) than ConvertKit.
When you most likely to paid plans, the pricing of BeeHiiv is likewise even more desirable. ConvertKit appears more affordable at first glance because their pricing page reveals lower numbers, however the subscriber restrictions are FAR reduced and your price quickly increases as your list grows.
With BeeHiiv, your first level paid plan starts at $42/mo (paid yearly), nevertheless you can have up to 10,000 customers. That exact same dimension list is going to run you $100/month with ConvertKit.
If you update to the “Scale” plan with BeeHiiv (their ideal plan and the one I directly make use of), you can expand your checklist up to 100,000. A checklist of that size would certainly run you $566/month with ConvertKit. If you want 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 get all that for just $84/month if you pay yearly.
BeeHiiv remains in an entirely various league when it involves pricing (in a good way).
Will BeeHiiv ultimately raise prices? They may as time takes place. But, I’m thinking people like myself who are currently in will be locked-in. We’ll see just how points proceed.
Things I Would Like BeeHiiv To Add
One of the important things you absolutely need to bear in mind is that BeeHiiv is fairly young. They do seem to develop rather swiftly and make brand-new product announcements somewhat often, however there are some basic features I actually desire they had that I require to simply wait for.
One is that they need to have a setting on membership kinds where I might choose an automation to run right at the kind level. That would be incredible for a lot of factors. As of now, subscription kinds look OK, however there’s very little settings for them to help in segmentation.
It would certainly be nice to have labeling at the client level. This would certainly be powerful.
I assume webhooks need to become part of automations to make integrated automations much easier and minimize dependence on outdoors tools like Zapier.
There are additionally some small management interface adjustments that would certainly come in handy. As an example:
- Capability to bulk edit/remove clients.
- Capacity to mass edit messages (as an example, to tag a bunch of them at the same time).
- Having a couple of standard fields as common on subscribers (like the name).
- Some even more modification options for the website (such as more versatile color options, headline control, and so on).
So, yeah … there are some imperfections. Things I wish they perform with it in the near future. BeeHiiv is respectable, yet it isn’t excellent and certainly not almost as created as something like FluentCRM or any other real CRM product.
It most likely never ever will certainly be, either. As I said, the function is various so it wouldn’t a lot a lot of feeling for BeeHiiv to end up being a full marketing automation system. I presume you never ever recognize, though.
Final Ideas On This BeeHiiv Evaluation
I such as BeeHiiv fairly a great deal. Enough where I made a decision to switch my own e-newsletters over to the platform regardless of my individual preference for digital sovereignty and having my own system.
Basically, for the e-newsletter publishing design particularly, I saw sufficient worth in their platform to call for the adjustment.
Keep in mind, I do not make use of BeeHiiv as my special e-mail listing. I utilize BeeHiiv wherefore it is proficient at, however I intentionally have points set up to make sure that I likewise keep my list “in residence” inside of FluentCRM.
If you utilize BeeHiiv, I suggest you do the very same. It is simply a good insurance policy, for one. However, having a full-featured marketing automation platform for your list will certainly 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 use BeeHiiv?
In my point of view, if you are utilizing Substack right now, I ‘d certainly consider changing to BeeHiiv. It will simply be extra business-friendly. It is targeting different abilities and different needs. Plus, BeeHiiv also has import devices for Substack, so the switch ought to be rather straightforward.
If you are on ConvertKit currently, I ‘d most likely sit tight unless you have a huge email listing and are for that reason being fleeced with their high month-to-month expense. You will certainly not (yet) have every feature of ConvertKit with BeeHiiv, but they are iterating promptly. There’s likewise a pretty good opportunity you’re not also using some of those fancier features of ConvertKit and you do not even require them. Therefore, BeeHiiv can conveniently be a far better and more cost effective fit.
Finally, if you plan to be extremely deliberate concerning growing an e-newsletter, I believe BeeHiiv is THE system to take into consideration and maintain and eye on for you.
If you utilize BeeHiiv with eyes wide open regarding what it is designed to be, it is one of the best games in town right now. This is the system to watch.
BeeHiiv offers a 14-day trial on their paid plans. It deserves looking into for yourself. And if you wind up not sticking to the paid plan, you’ll find the free account to be fairly feature rich.