I have actually utilized a great deal of different email list systems throughout the years. In the last couple of years, I have actually been a significant advocate of digital sovereignty and owning your own platform. For that reason (and the amazing features), I have actually been making use of Beehiiv Jesse Pujji.
So, it is certainly an odd move for me to decide to make use of BeeHiiv. Nevertheless, it is a held application and I am paying monthly for it.
Why did I do this?
In this BeeHiiv review, I wish to discuss why I made the button to BeeHiiv for my e-newsletters. I wish to attend to the concern of digital sovereignty while using the system and I would certainly likewise like to deal with why I chose to utilize it over Substack.
Let’s dive in …
BeeHiiv: Constructed For Newsletters
In Concern # 435 of my e-newsletter called My Pastime + A Huge Change In Method, I talked about exactly how and why I determined to turn my RV blog into primarily a newsletter. I made a decision that was business version I wanted to pursue with that said building.
However, to purposefully pursue it as an e-newsletter, I desired a system that was purpose-built for that. I was utilizing FluentCRM for the email listing for Happily motor home, however FluentCRM is not an e-newsletter system. It is constructed to be a CRM and marketing automation device and, frankly, utilizing it for newsletters is a little bit of a waste. A lot more on that particular in a little bit.
As I said because issue of the newsletter …
Put simply, BeeHiiv is a platform with devices built right into it certain to my objective. Things such as:
- Capacity to release (to the blog site) and send the email at the same time without having it be two different actions.
- Integrated in e-newsletter referral program. FluentCRM does not have that and I would require a third-party device like Sparkloop.
- Integrated capacity to do cross-promotions with other newsletters on the BeeHiiv platform.
- ” Magic Links”, which are essentially one-click registration web links. Great for promotion in various other newsletters. FluentCRM has Smart Links, however, so there are means to do that.
- Capability to do paid “boosts” on the BeeHiiv network to promote your newsletter.
- Integrated ad network, if I choose to monetize with ads in the e-newsletter. And I may.
- Built-in ability to run a paid e-newsletter upgrade and essentially run a costs newsletter. And BeeHiiv doesn’t take a cut.
Essentially, BeeHiiv is purpose-built for newsletter authors with features targeted at growth. The system was literally built by the individuals who built up the technology for Morning Brew. They understand what they’re doing.
That is the point here. BeeHiiv is built from scratch for the purpose of running an e-newsletter. FluentCRM has a different purpose.
And I ended off with this:.
I might certainly be relocating The Edge over to BeeHiiv too. At the very least, I’m strongly considering it.
Well, I didn’t consider it for long. Actually, I simply went all out. And actually, The EDGE was re-branded over to The Early morning WP, triggered as it’s very own residential property to make sure that I can grow it more deliberately as well.
The goal is that each e-newsletter has the ability to be branded as it’s own media entity and grown independently. Happily RV was young, so easy to shift. Yet, The Morning WP (formerly The Edge) was buried in a sea of stuff here at the Blog Site Marketing Academy. By dividing it off, I can do what I can to expand it on it’s very own. It will undoubtedly always be closely linked with the Blog site Marketing Academy, but doesn’t have to belong of it.
I changed to BeeHiiv due to the fact that it was constructed for this purpose. FluentCRM was not.
Newsletters Versus Simply A Typical Email List
There’s a difference between an e-newsletter platform and just an email list.
You can hold your e-mail list anyplace you desire and there are a number of them available, from Aweber, ActiveCampaign, Drip, ConvertKit … over to self-hosted choices like GroundHogg and FluentCRM.
What’s the distinction?
The key difference is that, with an e-newsletter system, the act of publishing implies that it is going to your site and to your email customers concurrently.
With both BeeHiiv and Substack, you have a site. You are publishing to that site. However, you are likewise dispatching to all subscribers at the same time. The site and it’s subscribers are done in one. This makes administration of the platform much easier.
With many email systems, any kind of newsletter you established is done as an e-mail campaign. It is developed completely individually from your web site. So, as an example, you may publish a write-up to WordPress however after that you would certainly need to individually develop and send out an e-mail to your listing to send it to subscribers. These are after that two separate sets of archives and 2 separate actions due to the fact that blog posts and your e-mails are not inherently connected.
The closest thing that transforms WordPress right into a real newsletter system is E-newsletter Glue.
It is a fitting name due to the fact that it virtually “adhesives” your newsletter to your WordPress messages and permits them to be the exact same point. Certainly, something like Newsletter Glue would be a solid option if I wished to remain to self-host every little thing. Nonetheless, you ‘d lose the development devices that include a system like BeeHiiv.
Publishing a newsletter inherently features a different set of needs than a common e-mail checklist.
You don’t usually require 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, however, is one seamless posting experience and growth tools to aid you build your subscriber base that specify to e-newsletters.
BeeHiiv vs Substack
When I announced to my customers that I was mosting likely to switch the e-newsletter over to BeeHiiv, I had many people ask me why I was selecting it over Substack.
To be clear, also besides the fact that I picked to select BeeHiiv, that does not suggest I think Substack draws. Actually, since Substack has been around longer, it is elder and has more features.
Even though BeeHiiv is more youthful, there are a couple points that at first obtained my interest:.
- BeeHiiv is specifically customized to e-newsletter publishers. Actually, it is essentially developed by the very same folks that constructed the technology behind Early morning Brew. On the other hand, SubStack targets writers. In the real world, does not matter. But, the evident positioning of BeeHiiv toward newsletter growth called me out over the even more generic positioning of being a “designer”. Growth is what I want below.
- That branding and distinction also means that BeeHiiv has some relatively big brands and large magazines using it. Whereas SubStack is aimed even more at solo designers. Again, it just informs me the consumer avatar distinction between the two business.
Sending our my newsletter via FluentCRM didn’t exactly draw. The only reason I would certainly ponder shaking points up is if I believed I can expand the listing quicker. And BeeHiiv spoke precisely to that objective.
Due to the targeting, I in fact don’t watch BeeHiiv and Substack as direct rivals. I believe BeeHiiv is targeting a different kind of consumer. As a matter of fact, if anything, I see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being extra straight competitors.
Yet, let’s dive much deeper than simply the positioning here.
Things That Make BeeHiiv Better Than Substack
In general, BeeHiiv looks like it was constructed by individuals who comprehending email marketing. On the other hand, SubStack seems much more tailored toward makers.
For example, BeeHiiv offers custom areas on clients. Currently, it isn’t as created as something like FluentCRM. However, it has it. Substack does not.
BeeHiiv offers Automations. In fact, it is a visual automation builder that works a great deal like what we have inside of FluentCRM.
To be clear, the automation performance is still early-phase. It is still quite limited in triggers and the only activity is the capacity to send an email. However, improvements are coming. Quickly enough, automations will certainly have new triggers in addition to brand-new actions, such as changing custom fields, sending out webhooks, and so on. I’ve already seen improvements to their automations simply because I began using the system. For example:
- Capability to activate automations based upon which certain embed form they came in on.
- Capability to immediately do re-engagement (and take care of individuals based upon opens and non-opens).
- Ability to do basic conditional logic branches.
Substack does not have automations such as this. Likely, it never will. Substack simply can’t do this due to the fact that the target market of Substack simply wouldn’t think to approach this like an e-mail marketing expert.
When it concerns composing your newsletters, the composing user interface of BeeHiiv is simply more tailored toward e-newsletters. Actually, it really has similarities to the WordPress block builder in exactly how it functions. I discover it to be more intuitive, directly.
Substack’s writing interface is nice and clean, however it would be much more equal to the traditional editor for WordPress. Toolbar at the top.
This difference is greater than simply form. For example, with BeeHiiv you can insert a “Section” and then placed anything you want in it. After that, you can put Visibility choices on that particular section to show it only to paid subscribers, hide it from email, hide from customers, show just to customers, and so on. Substack provides absolutely nothing similar to this.
And when/if the moment comes that I begin a premium membership version, BeeHiiv does not take any type of profits. As a matter of fact, you essentially connect as much as your own Stripe account and it bills directly to it. With Substack, they will certainly take 10% of your revenue. Depending on the number of customers you obtain, that 10% can be quite a bit even more cash than the monthly expense of BeeHiiv.
Last but not least, BeeHiiv has an API. This could seem nerdy, however what it indicates is that there are integrations with BeeHiiv. You can in fact make BeeHiiv work with the outside making use of devices like Zapier or Make.com. This is HUGE. Substack essentially has … absolutely nothing. No integrations at all.
Generally, I just felt like BeeHiiv was extra built toward real email marketing. It was constructed by individuals that “get it”. Also the opt-in types and the landing page makes seem much better developed for conversions. Growth is nitty-gritty with BeeHiiv.
Although there are still features I would like 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 actually said, Substack settings itself toward “makers” greater than e-mail marketers and e-newsletter owners. Therefore, you see some things geared a lot more towards people who just assume in terms of web content creation.
For instance, Substack supports podcasts. BeeHiiv does not.
Additionally, while BeeHiiv does sustain several publications, they are treated quite independently. Whereas Substack does have the capacity to cross-post to multiple publications at the same time. This isn’t something I need, however … trendy for people that could require it.
Substack likewise has more social capability built-in. For example, it has a chat function to host talks with subscribers. It additionally has a “Notes” function which functions kind of like a social media newsfeed where you can share things from other “Stacks” you read. Fascinating. In general, Substack is established to be a lot more like a social media which supports long-form web content.
Generally, Substack is also a lot more … minimal. You either look after that or don’t. Personally, I don’t. Nevertheless, if the objective is simplicity of interface and, truthfully, features … Substack functions quite well.
Yet, I’ll be clear here …
When it pertains to real marketing, I do not think there’s much question that BeeHiiv is much better fit. I tried to find even more factors that make Substack much better than BeeHiiv, however honestly … I have a hard time locating them.
BeeHiiv Vs ConvertKit
While BeeHiiv and Substack are frequently via to be the closest competitors, I really see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being the closer opponents. Both are pursuing the exact same target market and have similar capacities.
ConvertKit is additionally positioned at developers (like Substack), yet it is much more highly catering to people who do it for business. ConvertKit has nice aesthetic automation building, it’s very own business platform, and more. ConvertKit is a really wonderful system.
I’m not mosting likely to bore you with a full feature-by-feature breakdown below. ConvertKit is popular currently. However, below’s exactly how I really feel BeeHiiv and ConvertKit compare …
Things ConvertKit Is Much Better At …
Currently, ConvertKit has a lot more versatility when it concerns it’s automations. I will certainly additionally claim that I locate ConvertKit’s automation builder to be a little bit more instinctive than that of BeeHiiv.
ConvertKit supports identifying. This is simply a standard function of email checklists that makes it possible for division in a much more adaptable way than BeeHiiv presently does. I anticipate BeeHiiv to support marking eventually quickly, frankly. It seems like an oversight that it is missing out on Beehiiv Jesse Pujji.
ConvertKit does now give the ability to offer things through their own system. BeeHiiv does not. If that is necessary to you, it might be a big deal for you. For me, nevertheless, I would always choose a much more direct choice anyhow. For me, I like to utilize my own system powered by WooCommerce.
ConvertKit has been about much longer and for that reason has way a lot more integration options. Tons of web-based tools and WordPress plugins incorporate with ConvertKit. ConvertKit also has their very own WordPress plugin that is rather powerful. For instance, their plugin currently also supports member-gated content as well as auto-embed of your e-newsletter archives right into your website. Fundamentally, this a lot more closely places ConvertKit into straight competition by having you have the ability to publish to your site and your email listing at the same time.
BeeHiiv is drastically lacking in these sort of third-party integrations at the moment. It’ll arrive. However, we’re not there yet with it.
ConvertKit is also busy tackling the growth tools of BeeHiiv. For instance, BeeHiiv has the referral program and the Suggestion Engine where you can not just incentivize individuals to share your newsletter with rewards, however you can additionally pay per lead within the inner advertisement network of BeeHiiv to grow your checklist. These are really awesome features of BeeHiiv. Yet …
Did you recognize ConvertKit acquired Sparkloop? Sparkloop is one of one of the most well known viral promotion systems for e-newsletters … and ConvertKit bought it. You can see the creating on the wall of what this indicates for the system moving forward.
Points BeeHiiv Is Much Better At … Beehiiv Jesse Pujji
BeeHiiv is a lot earlier in it’s product cycle than ConvertKit. Part of that suggests less features and less integrations, which is all-natural for this stage of the cycle. Nevertheless, it additionally suggests that they are rapidly establishing.
In the short time that I have actually been a customer of BeeHiiv, I have experienced nearly regular launch of new features right into the system. And these aren’t undersized little features … but large features that are fairly essential. Their speed of development at this moment has gone over.
I likewise quite appreciate just how responsive they are. In fact, one of their product news concerning some design improvements to the website design features really had a tiny problem with the material width. I just replied to that e-mail to tell them. I quickly got a reply directly from the chief executive officer:.
That very same day, the problem was repaired.
Couple of days later, I provided one more tip …
Sure enough, in a bit over a week of that exchange, the capability to activate automations based on the embed kind used was included in the system.
That kind of responsiveness and direct participation of the group is something I truly value.
Another major factor of differentiation right here is the rate. Both platforms offer cost-free plans, nevertheless the BeeHiiv free plan uses more ability and more subscribers (2,500 vs 1,000) than ConvertKit.
When you go to paid plans, the pricing of BeeHiiv is also FAR more desirable. ConvertKit seems cheaper at first glimpse due to the fact that their pricing web page reveals reduced numbers, nonetheless the client restrictions are FAR reduced and your cost quickly enhances as your checklist grows.
With BeeHiiv, your initial degree paid plan begins at $42/mo (paid each year), nevertheless you can have up to 10,000 subscribers. That very same dimension list is mosting likely 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 listing approximately 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 yearly, too. With BeeHiiv, you can get all that for just $84/month if you pay yearly.
BeeHiiv is in an entirely various organization when it pertains to pricing (in a great way).
Will BeeHiiv eventually enhance costs? They might as time goes on. However, I’m guessing people like myself who are already in will be locked-in. We’ll see exactly how points proceed.
Points I Would Certainly Like BeeHiiv To Add
Among the important things you absolutely need to bear in mind is that BeeHiiv is reasonably young. They do seem to evolve rather rapidly and make brand-new item news rather usually, but there are some standard features I actually wish they had that I need to simply wait on.
One is that they need to have a setup on registration kinds where I might pick an automation to run right at the form level. That would be remarkable for many reasons. As of now, membership forms look OK, yet there’s very little setups for them to aid in segmentation.
It would be nice to have marking at the customer level. This would be effective.
I assume webhooks should belong to automations to make built-in automations easier and decrease dependence on outdoors devices like Zapier.
There are likewise some minor management user interface modifications that would come in handy. For example:
- Ability to mass edit/remove subscribers.
- Ability to mass edit messages (as an example, to identify a number of them at the same time).
- Having a few fundamental fields as standard on clients (like the name).
- Some more modification alternatives for the website (such as even more adaptable color options, headline control, and so on).
So, yeah … there are some imperfections. Things I wish they do with it in the near future. BeeHiiv is respectable, but it isn’t ideal and definitely not almost as established as something like FluentCRM or any other genuine CRM product.
It possibly never will certainly be, either. As I said, the objective is various so it would not much a great deal of sense for BeeHiiv to end up being a full marketing automation system. I guess you never ever recognize, though.
Last Thoughts On This BeeHiiv Review
I like BeeHiiv rather a whole lot. Sufficient where I determined to switch my own e-newsletters over to the system in spite of my personal choice for digital sovereignty and possessing my very own system.
Basically, for the e-newsletter publishing design especially, I saw sufficient worth in their platform to necessitate the adjustment.
Remember, I do not utilize BeeHiiv as my exclusive email listing. I utilize BeeHiiv of what it is proficient at, yet I intentionally have things establish to ensure that I additionally maintain my list “in house” within FluentCRM.
If you use BeeHiiv, I recommend you do the same. It is just a great insurance plan, for one. Yet, having a full-featured marketing automation system for your checklist will be of high usage (FluentCRM is a full marketing automation system and BeeHiiv is not and likely never will be).
So, the question is … should YOU make use of BeeHiiv?
In my point of view, if you are utilizing Substack today, I ‘d absolutely take into consideration switching over to BeeHiiv. It will just be more business-friendly. It is targeting different capacities and different demands. And also, BeeHiiv also has import devices for Substack, so the switch needs to be quite uncomplicated.
If you are on ConvertKit currently, I ‘d most likely stay unless you have a big email list and are for that reason being wooled with their high monthly costs. You will certainly not (yet) have every feature of ConvertKit with BeeHiiv, however they are repeating quickly. There’s also a respectable possibility you’re not also using several of those fancier functions of ConvertKit and you do not also need them. Therefore, BeeHiiv might easily be a far better and more budget friendly fit.
Last but not least, if you plan to be very deliberate about expanding a newsletter, I think BeeHiiv is THE system to consider and keep and eye on for you.
If you make use of BeeHiiv with eyes wide open concerning what it is made to be, it is among the very best games in town right now. This is the system to see.
BeeHiiv uses a 14-day trial on their paid plans. It deserves having a look at for yourself. And if you wind up not sticking with the paid plan, you’ll discover the cost-free account to be rather feature rich.