I have actually used a great deal of various email list systems over the years. In the last number of years, I’ve been a substantial advocate of digital sovereignty and owning your own platform. Because of that (and the outstanding features), I have been utilizing Beehiiv Expert Directory.
So, it is without a doubt an odd move for me to decide to use BeeHiiv. After all, it is a hosted application and I am paying month-to-month for it.
Why did I do this?
In this BeeHiiv review, I want to discuss why I made the button to BeeHiiv for my newsletters. I intend to resolve the issue of digital sovereignty while utilizing the system and I ‘d also like to resolve why I selected to utilize it over Substack.
Let’s dive in …
BeeHiiv: Constructed For E-newsletters
In Concern # 435 of my e-newsletter called My Hobby + A Large Shift In Technique, I spoke about just how and why I determined to transform my motor home blog into primarily an e-newsletter. I decided that was business version I wished to go after with that said property.
But, to deliberately pursue it as an e-newsletter, I wanted a system that was purpose-built for that. I was using FluentCRM for the email listing for Happily RV, but FluentCRM is not an e-newsletter system. It is built to be a CRM and marketing automation device and, frankly, utilizing it for newsletters is a little a waste. More on that particular in a bit.
As I claimed in that concern of the e-newsletter …
Put simply, BeeHiiv is a platform with devices developed into it certain to my objective. Points such as:
- Capability to publish (to the blog) and send the e-mail all at once without having it be two different actions.
- Integrated in newsletter referral program. FluentCRM doesn’t have that and I would require a third-party device like Sparkloop.
- Built-in capability to do cross-promotions with other e-newsletters on the BeeHiiv system.
- ” Magic Links”, which are generally one-click registration web links. Great for promo in other e-newsletters. FluentCRM has Smart Hyperlinks, however, so there are means to do that.
- Capacity 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.
- Integrated ability to run a paid newsletter upgrade and basically run a costs newsletter. And BeeHiiv doesn’t take a cut.
Basically, BeeHiiv is purpose-built for newsletter authors with features aimed at development. The platform was literally constructed by the individuals who developed the technology for Morning Mixture. They understand what they’re doing.
That is the point below. BeeHiiv is developed from scratch for the function of running an e-newsletter. FluentCRM has a various objective.
And I ended off with this:.
I may without a doubt be relocating The Edge over to BeeHiiv also. At least, I’m strongly considering it.
Well, I really did not consider it for long. In fact, I simply went for it. And actually, The EDGE was re-branded over to The Morning WP, set off as it’s very own residential or commercial property so that I can expand it a lot more purposefully also.
The goal is that each newsletter has the capacity to be branded as it’s very own media entity and expanded separately. Gladly RV was young, so very easy to change. But, The Early morning WP (formerly The Side) was hidden in a sea of stuff below at the Blog Marketing Academy. By separating it off, I can do what I can to expand it on it’s own. It will certainly always be carefully connected with the Blog Marketing Academy, but doesn’t have to belong of it.
I switched over to BeeHiiv since it was constructed for this function. FluentCRM was not.
Newsletters Versus Simply A Normal Email List
There’s a distinction in between a newsletter platform and simply an email listing.
You can organize your email listing anyplace you desire and there are a variety of them out there, from Aweber, ActiveCampaign, Drip, ConvertKit … over to self-hosted options like GroundHogg and FluentCRM.
What’s the difference?
The key difference is that, with a newsletter system, the act of posting suggests that it is going to your site and to your e-mail subscribers concurrently.
With both BeeHiiv and Substack, you have a site. You are publishing to that web site. Yet, you are likewise sending to all clients at the same time. The site and it’s customers are done in one. This makes administration of the platform much less complex.
With the majority of e-mail systems, any type of e-newsletter you established is done as an email campaign. It is constructed totally individually from your site. So, for instance, you might release a short article to WordPress yet after that you would certainly need to separately construct and send out an e-mail to your listing to send it to clients. These are then two different sets of archives and 2 different actions because blog posts and your e-mails are not inherently linked.
The closest thing that transforms WordPress right into a real e-newsletter platform is E-newsletter Glue.
It is a fitting name due to the fact that it pretty much “adhesives” your e-newsletter to your WordPress articles and enables them to be the same point. Certainly, something like Newsletter Glue would be a strong alternative if I wanted to remain to self-host everything. However, you ‘d lose the development tools that feature a platform like BeeHiiv.
Posting an e-newsletter naturally comes with a various collection of requirements than a typical e-mail list.
You do not usually need much marketing automation. You do not typically require autoresponder series, occasion monitoring, and all the bells and whistles of a marketing automation system.
What you DO need, though, is one seamless publishing experience and growth tools to help you construct your subscriber base that are specific to newsletters.
BeeHiiv vs Substack
When I revealed to my subscribers that I was going to switch over the newsletter over to BeeHiiv, I had lots of people ask me why I was choosing it over Substack.
To be clear, even besides the truth that I chose to select BeeHiiv, that does not mean I assume Substack draws. In fact, since Substack has actually been about much longer, it is elder and has more features.
Despite the fact that BeeHiiv is younger, there are a pair things that initially got my attention:.
- BeeHiiv is particularly customized to e-newsletter authors. In fact, it is essentially constructed by the very same folks who constructed the technology behind Morning Mixture. On the other hand, SubStack targets writers. In the real world, doesn’t matter. But, the apparent positioning of BeeHiiv toward e-newsletter growth called me out over the even more common positioning of being a “developer”. Development is what I want here.
- That branding and distinction additionally indicates that BeeHiiv has some rather huge brands and big publications using it. Whereas SubStack is intended even more at solo designers. Once more, it simply tells me the consumer character distinction in between the two firms.
Sending our my e-newsletter through FluentCRM really did not exactly suck. The only factor I would certainly consider drinking things up is if I believed I can expand the listing much faster. And BeeHiiv spoke exactly to that objective.
As a result of the targeting, I in fact do not watch BeeHiiv and Substack as direct competitors. I assume BeeHiiv is targeting a various type of customer. Actually, if anything, I see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being extra direct competitors.
Yet, allow’s dive much deeper than simply the placing here.
Points That Make BeeHiiv Better Than Substack
Overall, BeeHiiv feels like it was built by individuals that recognizing email marketing. On the other hand, SubStack seems a lot more geared towards makers.
As an example, BeeHiiv supplies custom areas on subscribers. Currently, it isn’t as developed as something like FluentCRM. But, it has it. Substack does not.
BeeHiiv supplies Automations. Actually, it is an aesthetic automation builder that functions a whole lot like what we have inside of FluentCRM.
To be clear, the automation functionality is still early-phase. It is still fairly restricted in triggers and the only activity is the ability to send an email. However, improvements are coming. Quickly sufficient, automations will have brand-new triggers as well as brand-new actions, such as modifying custom areas, sending webhooks, and so on. I’ve currently seen improvements to their automations just since I started making use of the system. As an example:
- Ability to set off automations based on which particular embed kind they was available in on.
- Capability to immediately do re-engagement (and handle people based on opens up and non-opens).
- Capacity to do standard conditional logic branches.
Substack does not have automations such as this. Likely, it never ever will. Substack just can’t do this due to the fact that the target market of Substack just wouldn’t believe to approach this like an email online marketer.
When it involves composing your newsletters, the writing user interface of BeeHiiv is simply more geared towards e-newsletters. As a matter of fact, it really has resemblances to the WordPress block builder in how it works. I locate it to be a lot more user-friendly, directly.
Substack’s composing interface behaves and tidy, yet it would certainly be extra equal to the timeless editor for WordPress. Toolbar on top.
This distinction is greater than simply kind. For instance, with BeeHiiv you can put a “Section” and after that placed anything you desire in it. Then, you can put Presence options on that particular area to reveal it only to paid subscribers, conceal it from email, conceal from customers, show just to clients, etc. Substack supplies nothing such as this.
And when/if the time comes that I start a premium registration version, BeeHiiv does not take any kind of income. Actually, you essentially link as much as your own Stripe account and it charges straight to it. With Substack, they will certainly take 10% of your profits. Depending on the amount of customers you obtain, that 10% can be a fair bit even more money than the regular monthly cost of BeeHiiv.
Last but not least, BeeHiiv has an API. This might seem unpopular, yet what it means is that there are integrations with BeeHiiv. You can really make BeeHiiv work with the outside utilizing tools like Zapier or Make.com. This is HUGE. Substack actually has … absolutely nothing. No integrations whatsoever.
On the whole, I just seemed like BeeHiiv was extra built towards genuine e-mail marketing. It was constructed by individuals who “get it”. Also the opt-in kinds and the landing page creates appear far better constructed for conversions. Development is the name of the game with BeeHiiv.
Despite the fact that there are still features I would love to see BeeHiiv add, I like the direction it is going more than Substack.
Points That Make Substack Better Than BeeHiiv
As I have actually said, Substack positions itself towards “creators” greater than email marketers and newsletter proprietors. Because of that, you see some things geared extra toward people that just believe in regards to content production.
For instance, Substack supports podcasts. BeeHiiv does not.
Likewise, while BeeHiiv does sustain several magazines, they are treated fairly individually. Whereas Substack does have the capability to cross-post to several magazines at the same time. This isn’t something I call for, yet … cool for people that could require it.
Substack also has more social functionality built-in. For example, it has a conversation feature to host chats with customers. It likewise has a “Notes” function which functions sort of like a social media newsfeed where you can share points from other “Stacks” you’re reading. Interesting. On the whole, Substack is established to be more like a social network which supports long-form content.
Generally, Substack is additionally more … minimalist. You either look after that or don’t. Directly, I do not. Nonetheless, if the objective is simplicity of interface and, frankly, features … Substack functions pretty well.
Yet, I’ll be clear right here …
When it involves real marketing, I do not think there’s much question that BeeHiiv is better suited. I looked for more points that make Substack much better than BeeHiiv, but honestly … I have a hard time locating them.
BeeHiiv Vs ConvertKit
While BeeHiiv and Substack are usually via to be the closest rivals, I really see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being the closer opponents. Both are going after the exact same target market and have similar abilities.
ConvertKit is also placed at designers (like Substack), but it is much more highly dealing with people that do it for organization. ConvertKit has nice visual automation building, it’s own business system, and much more. ConvertKit is a truly nice system.
I’m not mosting likely to bore you with a complete feature-by-feature failure here. ConvertKit is popular currently. But, here’s exactly how I feel BeeHiiv and ConvertKit contrast …
Things ConvertKit Is Better At …
Already, ConvertKit has more adaptability when it pertains to it’s automations. I will additionally say that I locate ConvertKit’s automation builder to be a little bit extra user-friendly than that of BeeHiiv.
ConvertKit sustains marking. This is just a basic function of e-mail lists that makes it possible for division in a much more adaptable method than BeeHiiv currently does. I anticipate BeeHiiv to sustain tagging at some time soon, honestly. It feels like an oversight that it is missing out on Beehiiv Expert Directory.
ConvertKit does now supply the capacity to market things via their own platform. BeeHiiv does not. If that is very important to you, it may be a big deal for you. For me, however, I would certainly constantly choose an extra direct option anyway. For me, I like to utilize my own system powered by WooCommerce.
ConvertKit has been about a lot longer and for that reason has way a lot more integration options. Lots of web-based tools and WordPress plugins incorporate with ConvertKit. ConvertKit even has their own WordPress plugin that is rather effective. For instance, their plugin now also supports member-gated material as well as auto-embed of your e-newsletter archives right into your site. Essentially, this extra closely places ConvertKit into straight competition by having you be able to publish to your website and your email list at the same time.
BeeHiiv is seriously lacking in these type of third-party integrations presently. It’ll arrive. However, we’re not there yet with it.
ConvertKit is also busy taking on the growth devices of BeeHiiv. For example, BeeHiiv has the referral program and the Recommendation Engine where you can not only incentivize individuals to share your newsletter with advantages, yet you can likewise pay per lead within the interior ad network of BeeHiiv to grow your list. These are truly awesome features of BeeHiiv. But …
Did you know ConvertKit got Sparkloop? Sparkloop is one of one of the most popular viral promo systems for e-newsletters … and ConvertKit bought it. You can see the creating on the wall for what this means for the platform going forward.
Points BeeHiiv Is Much Better At … Beehiiv Expert Directory
BeeHiiv is a lot previously in it’s product cycle than ConvertKit. Part of that means less features and less integrations, which is all-natural for this phase of the cycle. Nonetheless, it likewise indicates that they are quickly establishing.
In the short time that I have been a customer of BeeHiiv, I have actually witnessed almost once a week release of brand-new features right into the platform. And these aren’t undersized little features … but large features that are fairly vital. Their speed of development at this point has gone over.
I additionally very much appreciate just how responsive they are. As a matter of fact, among their product statements concerning some layout improvements to the website design features actually contained a small problem with the content size. I just responded to that email to tell them. I quickly obtained a reply straight from the chief executive officer:.
That very same day, the concern was fixed.
Couple of days later on, I gave them an additional idea …
Sure enough, in a little bit over a week of that exchange, the capability to trigger automations based on the embed form made use of was included in the system.
That kind of responsiveness and straight involvement of the team is something I really appreciate.
One more major factor of differentiation here is the price. Both platforms supply free plans, however the BeeHiiv free plan supplies extra capacity and even more customers (2,500 vs 1,000) than ConvertKit.
When you go to paid plans, the pricing of BeeHiiv is likewise FAR more beneficial. ConvertKit seems less costly at first glimpse due to the fact that their pricing page reveals lower numbers, however the subscriber limitations are much reduced and your cost swiftly enhances as your list grows.
With BeeHiiv, your very first level paid plan begins at $42/mo (paid every year), nevertheless you can have up to 10,000 clients. That exact same dimension checklist is going to run you $100/month with ConvertKit.
If you update to the “Scale” plan with BeeHiiv (their finest plan and the one I personally make use of), you can expand your listing approximately 100,000. A list of that dimension would certainly run you $566/month with ConvertKit. If you want their referral network, too, that places you at the $733/month plan. That’s if you pay each year, also. With BeeHiiv, you can get all that for simply $84/month if you pay annually.
BeeHiiv is in a totally various organization when it comes to pricing (in a great way).
Will BeeHiiv ultimately enhance prices? They could as time goes on. But, I’m presuming people like myself that are already in will certainly be locked-in. We’ll see how things continue.
Points I Would Certainly Like BeeHiiv To Include
One of the important things you certainly need to keep in mind is that BeeHiiv is reasonably young. They do seem to develop rather quickly and make new product statements somewhat commonly, but there are some basic features I really wish they had that I require to simply wait for.
One is that they require to have a setup on membership kinds where I might choose an automation to run right at the kind level. That would be AWESOME for a lot of reasons. As of now, subscription forms look OK, however there’s very little setups for them to help in segmentation.
It would behave to have marking at the client degree. This would be effective.
I assume webhooks should belong to automations to make integrated automations less complicated and decrease reliance on outside devices like Zapier.
There are additionally some small administrative user interface modifications that would certainly be handy. For instance:
- Ability to mass edit/remove clients.
- Capability to bulk edit messages (for example, to identify a lot of them at the same time).
- Having a few standard fields as basic on subscribers (like the name).
- Some more personalization options for the site (such as more flexible shade choices, heading control, and so on).
So, yeah … there are some drawbacks. Points I wish they perform with it in the future. BeeHiiv is respectable, however it isn’t best and certainly not almost as developed as something like FluentCRM or any other genuine CRM item.
It probably never ever will certainly be, either. As I claimed, the purpose is different so it wouldn’t much a great deal of feeling for BeeHiiv to end up being a complete marketing automation system. I think you never recognize, though.
Last Ideas On This BeeHiiv Testimonial
I such as BeeHiiv fairly a lot. Sufficient where I determined to change my own e-newsletters over to the platform despite my personal preference for digital sovereignty and having my very own platform.
Basically, for the e-newsletter posting design particularly, I saw sufficient worth in their system to warrant the change.
Keep in mind, I do not use BeeHiiv as my unique e-mail checklist. I make use of BeeHiiv of what it is proficient at, yet I intentionally have points set up to make sure that I likewise maintain my list “in house” within FluentCRM.
If you utilize BeeHiiv, I suggest you do the same. It is just an excellent insurance coverage, for one. However, having a full-featured marketing automation system for your list will certainly be of high usage (FluentCRM is a complete marketing automation platform and BeeHiiv is not and likely never will certainly be).
So, the question is … should YOU use BeeHiiv?
In my point of view, if you are using Substack now, I ‘d definitely consider switching to BeeHiiv. It will just be much more business-friendly. It is targeting various capacities and different demands. And also, BeeHiiv even has import devices for Substack, so the switch needs to be quite uncomplicated.
If you are on ConvertKit now, I ‘d most likely stay unless you have a big email list and are consequently being wooled with their high regular monthly bill. You will certainly not (yet) have every feature of ConvertKit with BeeHiiv, however they are iterating rapidly. There’s likewise a pretty good opportunity you’re not even using some of those fancier features of ConvertKit and you do not also require them. For that reason, BeeHiiv might conveniently be a far better and much more affordable fit.
Last but not least, if you plan to be really intentional regarding expanding an e-newsletter, I think 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 created to be, it is among the most effective video games around now. This is the platform to enjoy.
BeeHiiv offers a 14-day trial on their paid plans. It deserves checking out for yourself. And if you end up not sticking with the paid plan, you’ll locate the totally free account to be quite feature rich.