I have made use of a great deal of various e-mail list systems for many years. In the last number of years, I’ve been a substantial supporter of digital sovereignty and owning your own system. Because of that (and the outstanding features), I have actually been utilizing Beehiiv For Food Writers.
So, it is undoubtedly a strange move for me to determine to utilize BeeHiiv. Besides, it is a hosted application and I am paying regular monthly for it.
Why did I do this?
In this BeeHiiv testimonial, I want to go over why I made the button to BeeHiiv for my e-newsletters. I wish to deal with the concern of digital sovereignty while making use of the platform and I would certainly also like to address why I picked to utilize it over Substack.
Allow’s dive in …
BeeHiiv: Built For Newsletters
In Problem # 435 of my newsletter called My Leisure activity + A Large Change In Technique, I talked about exactly how and why I determined to transform my recreational vehicle blog site into primarily a newsletter. I made a decision that was business model I intended to seek with that said residential or commercial property.
Yet, to intentionally seek it as an e-newsletter, I desired a system that was purpose-built for that. I was using FluentCRM for the e-mail checklist for Happily recreational vehicle, but FluentCRM is not an e-newsletter system. It is constructed to be a CRM and marketing automation device and, frankly, using it for e-newsletters is a little a waste. Much more on that in a bit.
As I stated because issue of the e-newsletter …
Basically, BeeHiiv is a system with devices developed right into it specific to my purpose. Points such as:
- Capability to publish (to the blog) and send out the email at the same time without having it be two separate actions.
- Built in e-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 e-newsletters on the BeeHiiv platform.
- ” Magic Links”, which are primarily one-click registration web links. Great for promotion in various other e-newsletters. FluentCRM has Smart Links, however, so there are methods to do that.
- Capacity to do paid “boosts” on the BeeHiiv network to advertise your e-newsletter.
- Built-in ad network, if I pick to generate income from with ads in the e-newsletter. And I may.
- Built-in ability to run a paid e-newsletter upgrade and essentially run a premium e-newsletter. And BeeHiiv does not take a cut.
Primarily, BeeHiiv is purpose-built for e-newsletter publishers with features targeted at development. The platform was essentially built by the people who developed the innovation for Early morning Mixture. They recognize what they’re doing.
That is the factor here. BeeHiiv is developed from the ground up for the function of running a newsletter. FluentCRM has a different purpose.
And I ended off with this:.
I might undoubtedly be moving The Edge over to BeeHiiv as well. A minimum of, I’m strongly considering it.
Well, I didn’t consider it for long. In fact, I simply went for it. And as a matter of fact, The side was re-branded over to The Early morning WP, triggered as it’s own residential property so that I can expand it much more purposefully as well.
The goal is that each e-newsletter has the capacity to be branded as it’s own media entity and expanded separately. Happily recreational vehicle was young, so simple to change. Yet, The Early morning WP (formerly The Edge) was buried in a sea of stuff right here at the Blog Site Marketing Academy. By dividing it off, I can do what I can to grow it on it’s very own. It will obviously constantly be closely linked with the Blog site Marketing Academy, however does not have to be a part of it.
I changed to BeeHiiv since it was constructed for this objective. FluentCRM was not.
Newsletters Versus Simply A Normal Email Listing
There’s a difference in between a newsletter platform and just an e-mail list.
You can organize your email checklist anywhere 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 distinction?
The key difference is that, with an e-newsletter platform, the act of publishing indicates that it is going to your web site and to your e-mail clients all at once.
With both BeeHiiv and Substack, you have a website. You are publishing to that site. But, you are likewise sending off to all subscribers at the same time. The website and it’s subscribers are all in one. This makes monitoring of the system much easier.
With a lot of e-mail systems, any kind of newsletter you set up is done as an e-mail campaign. It is developed completely individually from your website. So, for example, you could release a write-up to WordPress but after that you would need to separately construct and send out an e-mail to your listing to send it to customers. These are after that two different sets of archives and 2 separate activities because post and your e-mails are not naturally connected.
The closest point that transforms WordPress right into a true e-newsletter system is Newsletter Glue.
It is a fitting name due to the fact that it basically “adhesives” your e-newsletter to your WordPress messages and permits them to be the exact same point. Absolutely, something like E-newsletter Glue would be a solid choice if I intended to continue to self-host everything. Nonetheless, you would certainly lose the growth devices that feature a system like BeeHiiv.
Publishing an e-newsletter naturally includes a different set of demands than a normal email checklist.
You don’t typically need much marketing automation. You do not generally need autoresponder series, occasion tracking, and all the bells and whistles of a marketing automation platform.
What you DO demand, however, is one seamless posting experience and growth tools to help you build your customer base that are specific to e-newsletters.
BeeHiiv vs Substack
When I introduced to my subscribers that I was mosting likely to change the newsletter over to BeeHiiv, I had lots of people ask me why I was picking it over Substack.
To be clear, also besides the reality that I chose to go with BeeHiiv, that does not indicate I assume Substack sucks. Actually, due to the fact that Substack has actually been around much longer, it is elder and has more features.
Even though BeeHiiv is younger, there are a couple things that initially got my attention:.
- BeeHiiv is specifically customized to e-newsletter publishers. In fact, it is actually developed by the very same people that constructed the technology behind Early morning Brew. On the other hand, SubStack targets authors. In the real world, doesn’t matter. However, the evident positioning of BeeHiiv toward newsletter growth called me out over the even more generic positioning of being a “designer”. Development is what I have an interest in here.
- That branding and differentiation also indicates that BeeHiiv has some rather big brand names and huge publications using it. Whereas SubStack is aimed more at solo developers. Again, it simply informs me the client character difference between the two companies.
Sending our my newsletter using FluentCRM didn’t exactly suck. The only reason I would certainly contemplate shaking points up is if I assumed I can GROW the listing faster. And BeeHiiv spoke precisely to that goal.
As a result of the targeting, I really do not watch BeeHiiv and Substack as straight rivals. I believe BeeHiiv is targeting a various type of consumer. As a matter of fact, if anything, I see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being extra straight competitors.
Yet, let’s dive deeper than simply the positioning below.
Things That Make BeeHiiv Better Than Substack
In general, BeeHiiv feels like it was developed by individuals that recognizing email marketing. On the other hand, SubStack appears more tailored toward designers.
For example, BeeHiiv provides custom areas on subscribers. Currently, it isn’t as established as something like FluentCRM. Yet, it has it. Substack does not.
BeeHiiv uses Automations. As a matter of fact, 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 rather minimal in triggers and the only activity is the capacity to send out an e-mail. Nevertheless, enhancements are coming. Quickly enough, automations will certainly have new triggers along with brand-new actions, such as customizing personalized areas, sending webhooks, etc. I’ve already seen enhancements to their automations simply since I started using the system. For instance:
- Ability to cause automations based upon which particular embed form they can be found in on.
- Capacity to automatically do re-engagement (and take care of people based upon opens up and non-opens).
- Capacity to do basic conditional reasoning branches.
Substack does not have automations such as this. Likely, it never ever will. Substack just can’t do this since the target market of Substack just wouldn’t think to approach this like an email online marketer.
When it comes to creating your e-newsletters, the creating interface of BeeHiiv is simply more tailored towards newsletters. Actually, it really has resemblances to the WordPress block builder in how it works. I locate it to be extra user-friendly, directly.
Substack’s writing user interface behaves and clean, but it would certainly be extra comparable to the traditional editor for WordPress. Toolbar on top.
This difference is more than simply kind. For instance, with BeeHiiv you can place a “Area” and then put anything you desire in it. After that, you can place Visibility choices on that particular section to reveal it just to paid clients, hide it from email, hide from subscribers, show just to customers, etc. Substack uses nothing similar to this.
And when/if the time comes that I start a costs subscription version, BeeHiiv doesn’t take any kind of earnings. As a matter of fact, you essentially connect as much as your very own Stripe account and it bills straight to it. With Substack, they will take 10% of your income. Depending on how many customers you get, that 10% can be a fair bit more money than the monthly expense of BeeHiiv.
Finally, BeeHiiv has an API. This could appear unpopular, however what it suggests is that there are integrations with BeeHiiv. You can in fact make BeeHiiv collaborate with the outside utilizing tools like Zapier or Make.com. This is HUGE. Substack essentially has … nothing. No integrations in any way.
On the whole, I simply felt like BeeHiiv was more built toward genuine e-mail marketing. It was developed by individuals who “get it”. Also the opt-in forms and the landing page develops appear much 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 include, I such as the direction it is going greater than Substack.
Things That Make Substack Better Than BeeHiiv
As I have stated, Substack settings itself towards “creators” more than e-mail marketers and newsletter proprietors. For that reason, you see some things geared a lot more toward people who just assume in regards to material development.
For example, Substack sustains podcasts. BeeHiiv does not.
Also, while BeeHiiv does support several magazines, they are dealt with quite separately. Whereas Substack does have the capacity to cross-post to numerous publications at the same time. This isn’t something I call for, but … great for individuals who may need it.
Substack also has even more social capability built-in. For example, it has a conversation feature to host talks with subscribers. It also has a “Notes” function which functions sort of like a social media sites newsfeed where you can share things from various other “Stacks” you’re reading. Fascinating. In general, Substack is set up to be extra like a social media network which sustains long-form material.
On the whole, Substack is additionally extra … minimalist. You either take care of that or do not. Directly, I don’t. However, if the goal is simpleness of user interface and, frankly, features … Substack functions pretty well.
But, I’ll be clear right here …
When it concerns real marketing, I don’t believe there’s much question that BeeHiiv is better fit. I tried to find even more points that make Substack far better than BeeHiiv, yet honestly … I have a hard time discovering them.
BeeHiiv Vs ConvertKit
While BeeHiiv and Substack are commonly via to be the closest rivals, I in fact see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being the closer competitors. Both are going after the exact same target audience and have similar abilities.
ConvertKit is additionally placed at developers (like Substack), yet it is much more highly satisfying people who do it for company. ConvertKit has good visual automation structure, it’s own commerce system, and a lot more. ConvertKit is an actually wonderful platform.
I’m not going to birthed you with a full feature-by-feature breakdown below. ConvertKit is well known already. However, below’s just how I really feel BeeHiiv and ConvertKit contrast …
Things ConvertKit Is Better At …
As of now, ConvertKit has much more versatility when it comes to it’s automations. I will also claim that I discover ConvertKit’s automation builder to be a little bit extra user-friendly than that of BeeHiiv.
ConvertKit supports identifying. This is simply a standard feature of e-mail listings that enables segmentation in a far more versatile method than BeeHiiv currently does. I expect BeeHiiv to sustain labeling eventually quickly, honestly. It seems like an oversight that it is missing out on Beehiiv For Food Writers.
ConvertKit does now supply the capability to market points using their own platform. BeeHiiv does not. If that’s important to you, it might be a big deal for you. For me, nevertheless, I would certainly constantly select a more direct option anyhow. For me, I choose to utilize my very own platform powered by WooCommerce.
ConvertKit has actually been around much longer and therefore has way much more integration options. Lots of online devices and WordPress plugins integrate with ConvertKit. ConvertKit also has their own WordPress plugin that is rather powerful. As an example, their plugin currently also supports member-gated web content in addition to auto-embed of your e-newsletter archives right into your site. In essence, this a lot more closely places ConvertKit right into straight competition by having you be able to publish to your site and your email checklist at the same time.
BeeHiiv is seriously lacking in these kinds of third-party integrations at the moment. It’ll get there. Yet, we’re not there yet with it.
ConvertKit is even hectic dealing with the development tools of BeeHiiv. For instance, BeeHiiv has the referral program and the Referral Engine where you can not just incentivize people to share your e-newsletter with rewards, yet you can likewise pay per lead within the inner ad network of BeeHiiv to expand your listing. These are actually awesome features of BeeHiiv. Yet …
Did you know ConvertKit acquired Sparkloop? Sparkloop is among one of the most well known viral promotion systems for newsletters … and ConvertKit bought it. You can see the creating on the wall of what this suggests for the platform moving forward.
Points BeeHiiv Is Much Better At … Beehiiv For Food Writers
BeeHiiv is much earlier in it’s product cycle than ConvertKit. Part of that means much less features and much less integrations, which is natural for this phase of the cycle. Nevertheless, it additionally means that they are swiftly creating.
In the short time that I have been a customer of BeeHiiv, I have actually witnessed almost weekly release of new features right into the platform. And these aren’t puny little features … yet huge features that are quite essential. Their speed of advancement now has been impressive.
I also significantly value just how responsive they are. As a matter of fact, among their product news regarding some style improvements to the web design features really consisted of a little problem with the material size. I simply replied to that e-mail to tell them. I promptly got a reply straight from the chief executive officer:.
That very same day, the issue was taken care of.
Couple of days later, I provided an additional suggestion …
Certainly, in a little bit over a week of that exchange, the ability to set off automations based upon the embed kind utilized was included in the system.
That type of responsiveness and direct participation of the team is something I actually appreciate.
Another significant factor of distinction right here is the rate. Both platforms offer free plans, however the BeeHiiv free plan offers extra capability and even more subscribers (2,500 vs 1,000) than ConvertKit.
When you go to paid plans, the pricing of BeeHiiv is likewise much more favorable. ConvertKit seems less costly at first glimpse because their pricing page reveals reduced numbers, nevertheless the subscriber limits are FAR lower and your rate rapidly raises as your listing grows.
With BeeHiiv, your very first degree paid plan starts at $42/mo (paid every year), however you can have up to 10,000 subscribers. That exact same size list is going 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 checklist up to 100,000. A listing of that dimension would run you $566/month with ConvertKit. If you desire their referral network, as well, that puts you at the $733/month plan. That’s if you pay annually, as well. With BeeHiiv, you can get all that for simply $84/month if you pay yearly.
BeeHiiv remains in a completely different organization when it pertains to pricing (in a good way).
Will BeeHiiv eventually increase costs? They could as time goes on. However, I’m thinking people like myself who are currently in will certainly be locked-in. We’ll see just how points continue.
Points I Would Like BeeHiiv To Include
One of the things you most definitely need to keep in mind is that BeeHiiv is relatively young. They do appear to advance instead swiftly and make new item news rather commonly, but there are some fundamental features I actually want they had that I require to simply await.
One is that they require to have a setup on subscription types where I might pick an automation to run right at the form level. That would be outstanding for a lot of reasons. Already, registration types look OK, yet there’s very little settings for them to assist in division.
It would behave to have identifying at the customer level. This would certainly be effective.
I believe webhooks ought to be part of automations to make integrated automations easier and decrease reliance on outside devices like Zapier.
There are likewise some minor management interface adjustments that would certainly be handy. As an example:
- Ability to bulk edit/remove customers.
- Capability to mass edit articles (for example, to tag a bunch of them at the same time).
- Having a couple of fundamental areas as typical on subscribers (like the name).
- Some even more customization options for the web site (such as more adaptable shade options, headline control, and so on).
So, yeah … there are some drawbacks. Points I wish they finish with it in the near future. BeeHiiv is respectable, yet it isn’t excellent and absolutely not nearly as established as something like FluentCRM or any other real CRM item.
It possibly never ever will certainly be, either. As I stated, the purpose is different so it wouldn’t a lot a great deal of feeling for BeeHiiv to become a full marketing automation platform. I guess you never ever understand, however.
Final Thoughts On This BeeHiiv Evaluation
I like BeeHiiv quite a lot. Enough where I chose to change my own newsletters over to the system despite my individual choice for digital sovereignty and owning my very own platform.
Put simply, for the newsletter publishing version especially, I saw enough worth in their platform to warrant the modification.
Bear in mind, I do not use BeeHiiv as my exclusive email checklist. I make use of BeeHiiv for what it is good at, however I deliberately have things establish so that I also maintain my listing “in residence” inside of FluentCRM.
If you make use of BeeHiiv, I suggest you do the very same. It is just an excellent insurance coverage, for one. Yet, having a full-featured marketing automation system for your listing will certainly be of high usage (FluentCRM is a full marketing automation platform and BeeHiiv is not and likely never will be).
So, the concern is … should YOU use BeeHiiv?
In my opinion, if you are using Substack today, I ‘d absolutely take into consideration changing to BeeHiiv. It will merely be extra business-friendly. It is targeting different capabilities and different needs. Plus, BeeHiiv even has import devices for Substack, so the switch must be rather uncomplicated.
If you get on ConvertKit currently, I ‘d probably stay unless you have a huge email list and are therefore being fleeced with their high monthly costs. You will certainly not (yet) have every feature of ConvertKit with BeeHiiv, yet they are iterating swiftly. There’s also a respectable chance you’re not even using a few of those fancier features of ConvertKit and you do not also need them. For that reason, BeeHiiv could quickly be a much better and a lot more budget-friendly fit.
Finally, if you plan to be very willful regarding expanding a newsletter, I think BeeHiiv is THE system to consider and maintain and eye on for you.
If you use BeeHiiv with eyes wide open concerning what it is developed to be, it is just one of the most effective games in town today. This is the system to enjoy.
BeeHiiv provides a 14-day trial on their paid plans. It is worth having a look at for yourself. And if you end up not sticking to the paid plan, you’ll discover the free account to be fairly feature rich.