I have actually made use of a lot of different e-mail list systems over the years. In the last couple of years, I’ve been a substantial proponent of digital sovereignty and having your very own platform. Because of that (and the incredible features), I have been making use of Beehiiv Home Page.
So, it is undoubtedly an unusual move for me to determine to use BeeHiiv. Nevertheless, it is a held application and I am paying regular monthly for it.
Why did I do this?
In this BeeHiiv testimonial, I intend to discuss why I made the button to BeeHiiv for my e-newsletters. I intend to attend to the problem of digital sovereignty while utilizing the system and I ‘d additionally such as to resolve why I selected to utilize it over Substack.
Let’s dive in …
BeeHiiv: Built For Newsletters
In Problem # 435 of my newsletter called My Hobby + A Huge Change In Technique, I spoke about how and why I determined to transform my RV blog site right into largely an e-newsletter. I chose that was business version I intended to pursue with that said building.
Yet, to purposefully seek it as an e-newsletter, I wanted a system that was purpose-built for that. I was making use of FluentCRM for the email list for Gladly recreational vehicle, yet FluentCRM is not an e-newsletter platform. It is constructed to be a CRM and marketing automation tool and, truthfully, utilizing it for e-newsletters is a bit of a waste. More on that particular in a bit.
As I stated because concern of the e-newsletter …
Simply put, BeeHiiv is a system with tools constructed into it particular to my purpose. Things such as:
- Ability to release (to the blog) and send the e-mail simultaneously without having it be 2 different activities.
- Constructed in e-newsletter referral program. FluentCRM does not have that and I would certainly have needed a third-party tool like Sparkloop.
- Built-in capability to do cross-promotions with other e-newsletters on the BeeHiiv system.
- ” Magic Hyperlinks”, which are basically one-click membership web links. Great for promotion in various other newsletters. FluentCRM has Smart Links, though, so there are methods to do that.
- Capacity to do paid “boosts” on the BeeHiiv network to promote your newsletter.
- Integrated advertisement network, if I pick to generate income from with ads in the e-newsletter. And I may.
- Integrated capability to run a paid newsletter upgrade and essentially run a costs e-newsletter. And BeeHiiv doesn’t take a cut.
Basically, BeeHiiv is purpose-built for newsletter publishers with features focused on growth. The system was literally constructed by the individuals who accumulated the innovation for Morning Mixture. They recognize what they’re doing.
That is the factor here. BeeHiiv is constructed from scratch for the purpose of running an e-newsletter. FluentCRM has a different objective.
And I ended off with this:.
I may without a doubt be moving The Edge over to BeeHiiv as well. A minimum of, I’m strongly considering it.
Well, I really did not consider it for long. In fact, I just went for it. And as a matter of fact, The EDGE was re-branded over to The Morning WP, set off as it’s own home to make sure that I can expand it much more deliberately too.
The goal is that each e-newsletter has the capability to be branded as it’s own media entity and grown individually. Happily motor home was young, so simple to change. However, The Early morning WP (previously The Side) was hidden in a sea of things right here at the Blog Marketing Academy. By dividing it off, I can do what I can to expand it on it’s own. It will certainly constantly be very closely connected with the Blog site Marketing Academy, however doesn’t have to be a part of it.
I changed to BeeHiiv since it was constructed for this function. FluentCRM was not.
E-newsletters Versus Just A Typical Email List
There’s a difference between an e-newsletter system and simply an e-mail checklist.
You can organize your email listing just about anywhere you want 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 distinction?
The primary distinction is that, with an e-newsletter platform, the act of publishing means that it is going to your web site and to your e-mail subscribers all at once.
With both BeeHiiv and Substack, you have a site. You are publishing to that site. However, you are likewise sending off to all clients at the same time. The web site and it’s clients are all in one. This makes management of the system much less complex.
With a lot of email platforms, any kind of newsletter you established is done as an e-mail campaign. It is developed completely individually from your web site. So, for example, you may release an article to WordPress yet after that you would require to separately develop and send out an email to your listing to send it to subscribers. These are after that two separate collections of archives and 2 separate actions since post and your e-mails are not inherently connected.
The closest point that turns WordPress right into a true e-newsletter platform is E-newsletter Glue.
It is a fitting name since it virtually “glues” your newsletter to your WordPress posts and allows them to be the exact same point. Absolutely, something like E-newsletter Glue would be a solid option if I wanted to continue to self-host every little thing. Nevertheless, you would certainly lose the growth devices that feature a system like BeeHiiv.
Posting an e-newsletter naturally includes a various collection of demands than a typical email list.
You do not generally require much marketing automation. You don’t typically require autoresponder sequences, occasion tracking, and all the bells and whistles of a marketing automation system.
What you DO need, however, is one seamless posting experience and growth devices to assist you construct your client base that specify to e-newsletters.
BeeHiiv vs Substack
When I revealed to my customers that I was mosting likely to switch over the newsletter over to BeeHiiv, I had many individuals ask me why I was choosing it over Substack.
To be clear, also besides the truth that I chose to choose BeeHiiv, that does not imply I assume Substack draws. Actually, due to the fact that Substack has actually been around much longer, it is more mature and has even more features.
Although BeeHiiv is more youthful, there are a pair things that at first obtained my focus:.
- BeeHiiv is especially customized to newsletter publishers. Actually, it is actually developed by the same folks who built the innovation behind Early morning Mixture. On the other hand, SubStack targets writers. In the real life, does not matter. But, the evident positioning of BeeHiiv towards newsletter development called me out over the more common positioning of being a “creator”. Development is what I want below.
- That branding and differentiation also means that BeeHiiv has some rather huge brands and huge magazines utilizing it. Whereas SubStack is intended even more at solo developers. Once again, it just informs me the client avatar distinction between both firms.
Sending our my newsletter through FluentCRM really did not specifically suck. The only factor I would contemplate shaking points up is if I assumed I can expand the checklist quicker. And BeeHiiv talked precisely to that goal.
Due to the targeting, I in fact do not check out BeeHiiv and Substack as direct competitors. I assume BeeHiiv is targeting a various kind of customer. As a matter of fact, if anything, I see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being extra straight rivals.
But, allow’s dive deeper than simply the positioning here.
Points That Make BeeHiiv Better Than Substack
On the whole, BeeHiiv looks like it was constructed by individuals who recognizing e-mail marketing. On the other hand, SubStack seems much more geared towards creators.
For example, BeeHiiv uses customized areas on clients. Currently, it isn’t as created as something like FluentCRM. However, it has it. Substack doesn’t.
BeeHiiv uses Automations. Actually, it is a visual automation builder that functions a great deal like what we have within FluentCRM.
To be clear, the automation performance is still early-phase. It is still fairly limited in triggers and the only activity is the capability to send out an e-mail. However, enhancements are coming. Quickly sufficient, automations will certainly have new triggers along with new activities, such as customizing customized areas, sending webhooks, and so on. I’ve already seen improvements to their automations just given that I started making use of the system. For example:
- Ability to set off automations based upon which particular embed type they came in on.
- Capacity to automatically do re-engagement (and handle people based on opens up and non-opens).
- Ability to do fundamental conditional reasoning branches.
Substack does not have automations similar to this. Likely, it never will. Substack simply can’t do this since the target market of Substack just wouldn’t believe to approach this like an email marketer.
When it concerns composing your newsletters, the writing user interface of BeeHiiv is just more geared towards e-newsletters. As a matter of fact, it in fact has similarities to the WordPress block builder in how it works. I locate it to be much more intuitive, personally.
Substack’s writing interface is nice and clean, however it would be extra equal to the timeless editor for WordPress. Toolbar on top.
This difference is greater than just type. As an example, with BeeHiiv you can place a “Area” and after that placed anything you want in it. Then, you can place Presence options on that particular area to show it only to paid subscribers, hide it from email, conceal from subscribers, reveal only to subscribers, etc. Substack offers absolutely nothing like this.
And when/if the moment comes that I begin a costs registration version, BeeHiiv does not take any kind of earnings. Actually, you essentially attach as much as your very own Stripe account and it charges directly to it. With Substack, they will take 10% of your income. Depending upon the amount of customers you get, that 10% can be quite a bit even more cash than the monthly cost of BeeHiiv.
Lastly, BeeHiiv has an API. This might seem unpopular, however what it means is that there are integrations with BeeHiiv. You can really make BeeHiiv deal with the outdoors using tools like Zapier or Make.com. This is HUGE. Substack actually has … nothing. No integrations in all.
In general, I simply felt like BeeHiiv was extra built towards actual e-mail marketing. It was built by people who “get it”. Even the opt-in types and the landing page develops seem far better constructed for conversions. Growth is the name of the game with BeeHiiv.
Even though there are still features I want to see BeeHiiv include, I like the direction it is going greater than Substack.
Things That Make Substack Better Than BeeHiiv
As I have claimed, Substack settings itself towards “creators” more than e-mail marketing professionals and newsletter proprietors. Therefore, you see some things tailored extra towards people that simply think in terms of material production.
For example, Substack supports podcasts. BeeHiiv does not.
Additionally, while BeeHiiv does support several magazines, they are dealt with fairly independently. Whereas Substack does have the capacity to cross-post to several publications at the same time. This isn’t something I require, but … cool for people that might require it.
Substack also has more social capability built-in. For instance, it has a chat feature to host talks with clients. It likewise has a “Notes” function which works sort of like a social networks newsfeed where you can share points from various other “Stacks” you read. Intriguing. Generally, Substack is established to be much more like a social network which sustains long-form web content.
Generally, Substack is also much more … minimal. You either take care of that or don’t. Directly, I do not. However, if the objective is simpleness of user interface and, frankly, features … Substack works quite well.
However, I’ll be clear here …
When it involves actual marketing, I do not believe there’s much doubt that BeeHiiv is much better fit. I looked for even more factors that make Substack much better than BeeHiiv, however frankly … I have a hard time finding them.
BeeHiiv Vs ConvertKit
While BeeHiiv and Substack are typically via to be the closest competitors, I in fact see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being the closer rivals. Both are going after the very same target audience and have similar capabilities.
ConvertKit is additionally positioned at creators (like Substack), yet it is far more strongly satisfying individuals who do it for organization. ConvertKit has nice aesthetic automation building, it’s very own commerce platform, and extra. ConvertKit is a really nice platform.
I’m not going to bore you with a full feature-by-feature break down here. ConvertKit is well known currently. But, right here’s exactly how I feel BeeHiiv and ConvertKit contrast …
Things ConvertKit Is Better At …
As of now, ConvertKit has a lot more flexibility when it involves it’s automations. I will additionally state that I locate ConvertKit’s automation builder to be a bit a lot more instinctive than that of BeeHiiv.
ConvertKit sustains marking. This is simply a fundamental feature of e-mail checklists that allows division in an even more versatile means than BeeHiiv presently does. I expect BeeHiiv to sustain labeling at some time soon, frankly. It seems like an oversight that it is missing out on Beehiiv Home Page.
ConvertKit does currently supply the capability to market points through their very own platform. BeeHiiv does not. If that’s important to you, it may be a big deal for you. For me, nonetheless, I would certainly constantly choose a much more direct choice anyhow. For me, I favor to use my very own system powered by WooCommerce.
ConvertKit has been about much longer and therefore has way a lot more integration alternatives. Tons of online devices and WordPress plugins integrate with ConvertKit. ConvertKit even has their very own WordPress plugin that is rather powerful. For example, their plugin currently even supports member-gated web content along with auto-embed of your newsletter archives right into your website. Fundamentally, this more very closely places ConvertKit into straight competitors by having you be able to release to your site and your e-mail listing at the same time.
BeeHiiv is badly lacking in these sort of third-party integrations at the moment. It’ll get there. However, we’re not there yet with it.
ConvertKit is also busy taking on the growth devices of BeeHiiv. As an example, BeeHiiv has the referral program and the Suggestion Engine where you can not just incentivize people to share your newsletter with benefits, yet you can likewise pay per lead within the internal advertisement network of BeeHiiv to expand your list. These are really outstanding features of BeeHiiv. Yet …
Did you know ConvertKit obtained Sparkloop? Sparkloop is just one of the most well known viral promo systems for e-newsletters … and ConvertKit bought it. You can see the writing on the wall wherefore this indicates for the system going forward.
Things BeeHiiv Is Better At … Beehiiv Home Page
BeeHiiv is a lot previously in it’s product cycle than ConvertKit. Part of that indicates much less features and less integrations, which is natural for this phase of the cycle. Nevertheless, it likewise suggests that they are quickly developing.
In the short time that I have actually been a customer of BeeHiiv, I have actually witnessed virtually regular launch of brand-new features into the system. And these aren’t puny little features … but huge features that are fairly vital. Their rate of development at this point has been impressive.
I likewise quite value just how responsive they are. Actually, among their item news regarding some layout improvements to the website design features actually included a little issue with the material size. I merely replied to that email to tell them. I swiftly got a reply straight from the CEO:.
That exact same day, the problem was taken care of.
Couple of days later, I gave them another tip …
Sure enough, in a bit over a week of that exchange, the capability to trigger automations based upon the embed form made use of was added to the system.
That type of responsiveness and straight involvement of the group is something I really value.
An additional major factor of differentiation right here is the cost. Both platforms offer totally free plans, nonetheless the BeeHiiv free plan uses much more capability and more subscribers (2,500 vs 1,000) than ConvertKit.
When you go to paid plans, the pricing of BeeHiiv is additionally much more positive. ConvertKit seems less costly in the beginning look due to the fact that their pricing web page shows lower numbers, nonetheless the customer restrictions are FAR lower and your rate rapidly increases as your checklist expands.
With BeeHiiv, your first level paid plan starts at $42/mo (paid every year), nonetheless you can have up to 10,000 subscribers. That same dimension checklist 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 directly use), you can expand your checklist up to 100,000. A listing of that size would certainly run you $566/month with ConvertKit. If you want their referral network, also, that places you at the $733/month plan. That’s if you pay each year, too. With BeeHiiv, you can get all that for simply $84/month if you pay yearly.
BeeHiiv is in a completely various organization when it concerns pricing (in a great way).
Will BeeHiiv at some point boost prices? They may as time takes place. But, I’m thinking individuals like myself that are currently in will certainly be locked-in. We’ll see how things continue.
Things I Would Certainly Like BeeHiiv To Add
Among things you certainly need to bear in mind is that BeeHiiv is fairly young. They do appear to progress instead swiftly and make new product news somewhat often, yet there are some basic features I truly desire they had that I need to simply wait on.
One is that they require to have a setup on subscription forms where I can select an automation to run right at the form level. That would be AWESOME for so many reasons. Currently, subscription kinds look OK, however there’s very little setups for them to aid in segmentation.
It would behave to have marking at the subscriber degree. This would be effective.
I think webhooks should become part of automations to make built-in automations less complicated and lower reliance on outdoors devices like Zapier.
There are also some small management interface modifications that would be handy. For instance:
- Ability to bulk edit/remove customers.
- Capability to mass edit messages (as an example, to tag a lot of them at the same time).
- Having a few standard fields as conventional on subscribers (like the name).
- Some even more personalization alternatives for the site (such as more flexible shade selections, heading control, and so on).
So, yeah … there are some shortcomings. Points I hope they finish with it in the near future. BeeHiiv is pretty good, but it isn’t excellent and definitely not virtually as created as something like FluentCRM or any other actual CRM item.
It possibly never ever will certainly be, either. As I stated, the objective is different so it would not much a great deal of sense for BeeHiiv to come to be a full marketing automation system. I guess you never recognize, though.
Last Thoughts On This BeeHiiv Evaluation
I like BeeHiiv quite a whole lot. Sufficient where I made a decision to change my own e-newsletters over to the system in spite of my personal preference for digital sovereignty and possessing my very own platform.
Basically, for the newsletter publishing version specifically, I saw sufficient value in their platform to require the modification.
Bear in mind, I do not utilize BeeHiiv as my unique email list. I utilize BeeHiiv wherefore it is good at, yet I purposefully have points set up so that I additionally maintain my listing “in home” inside of FluentCRM.
If you utilize BeeHiiv, I suggest you do the very same. It is just an excellent insurance policy, for one. However, having a full-featured marketing automation platform for your list will be of high use (FluentCRM is a full marketing automation system and BeeHiiv is not and likely never will certainly be).
So, the question is … should YOU utilize BeeHiiv?
In my point of view, if you are making use of Substack now, I ‘d absolutely consider switching over to BeeHiiv. It will simply be much more business-friendly. It is targeting different abilities and different requirements. And also, BeeHiiv also has import tools for Substack, so the button ought to be pretty simple.
If you are on ConvertKit now, I ‘d probably stay put unless you have a big e-mail checklist and are for that reason being fleeced with their high month-to-month costs. You will not (yet) have every feature of ConvertKit with BeeHiiv, but they are repeating rapidly. There’s also a pretty good possibility you’re not even making use of several of those fancier functions of ConvertKit and you do not also need them. Therefore, BeeHiiv could conveniently be a far better and extra economical fit.
Finally, if you plan to be very deliberate about expanding a newsletter, I assume BeeHiiv is THE platform to consider and maintain and eye on for you.
If you make use of BeeHiiv with eyes wide open regarding what it is developed to be, it is among the most effective video games in town today. This is the system to enjoy.
BeeHiiv uses a 14-day trial on their paid plans. It is worth looking into on your own. And if you end up not sticking to the paid plan, you’ll discover the cost-free account to be fairly feature rich.