I have actually made use of a great deal of different e-mail list systems throughout the years. In the last couple of years, I have actually been a huge advocate of digital sovereignty and having your own system. For that reason (and the remarkable features), I have actually been making use of Beehiiv Newsletter Reddit.
So, it is undoubtedly an odd move for me to make a decision to use BeeHiiv. Besides, 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 look at why I made the button to BeeHiiv for my e-newsletters. I wish to attend to the problem of digital sovereignty while using the system and I would certainly additionally such as to attend to why I selected to utilize it over Substack.
Let’s dive in …
BeeHiiv: Built For Newsletters
In Concern # 435 of my newsletter called My Hobby + A Big Change In Method, I discussed exactly how and why I decided to transform my motor home blog right into mainly a newsletter. I determined that was the business design I wished to seek with that said property.
However, to purposefully seek it as an e-newsletter, I desired a platform that was purpose-built for that. I was making use of FluentCRM for the e-mail checklist for Happily recreational vehicle, yet FluentCRM is not a newsletter platform. It is developed to be a CRM and marketing automation device and, frankly, using it for e-newsletters is a bit of a waste. More on that in a bit.
As I stated in that concern of the e-newsletter …
Put simply, BeeHiiv is a platform with devices constructed into it specific to my purpose. Points such as:
- Ability to release (to the blog) and send out the e-mail concurrently without having it be two separate actions.
- Constructed in newsletter referral program. FluentCRM does not have that and I would certainly have needed a third-party tool like Sparkloop.
- Integrated ability to do cross-promotions with other newsletters on the BeeHiiv system.
- ” Magic Links”, which are basically one-click subscription links. Great for promo in various other newsletters. FluentCRM has Smart Hyperlinks, however, so there are methods to do that.
- Ability to do paid “boosts” on the BeeHiiv network to promote your newsletter.
- Built-in ad network, if I select to generate income from with advertisements in the newsletter. And I may.
- Built-in capability to run a paid newsletter upgrade and essentially run a costs e-newsletter. And BeeHiiv doesn’t take a cut.
Essentially, BeeHiiv is purpose-built for newsletter publishers with features targeted at growth. The system was essentially built by the individuals that built up the technology for Early morning Brew. They know what they’re doing.
That is the factor right here. BeeHiiv is built from scratch for the objective of running an e-newsletter. FluentCRM has a different objective.
And I finished off with this:.
I may indeed be relocating The Side over to BeeHiiv as well. At the very least, I’m highly considering it.
Well, I really did not consider it for long. Actually, I just went all out. And in fact, The EDGE was re-branded over to The Morning WP, triggered as it’s very own residential property to ensure that I can grow it extra purposefully as well.
The objective is that each e-newsletter has the capacity to be branded as it’s very own media entity and expanded separately. Gladly recreational vehicle was young, so very easy to shift. Yet, The Morning WP (formerly The Edge) was buried in a sea of things below at the Blog Marketing Academy. By separating it off, I can do what I can to grow it on it’s own. It will obviously constantly be very closely connected with the Blog Marketing Academy, however doesn’t need to be a part of it.
I switched to BeeHiiv since it was developed for this purpose. FluentCRM was not.
Newsletters Versus Simply A Regular Email Checklist
There’s a distinction in between an e-newsletter system and simply an e-mail checklist.
You can hold your e-mail checklist everywhere you want and there are a variety of them out there, from Aweber, ActiveCampaign, Drip, ConvertKit … over to self-hosted alternatives like GroundHogg and FluentCRM.
What’s the difference?
The primary difference is that, with a newsletter system, the act of posting means that it is going to your web site and to your e-mail subscribers at the same time.
With both BeeHiiv and Substack, you have a website. You are publishing to that web site. But, you are likewise sending off to all clients at the same time. The website and it’s clients are done in one. This makes monitoring of the platform much easier.
With most email platforms, any kind of newsletter you set up is done as an e-mail campaign. It is built totally individually from your internet site. So, for instance, you may release a write-up to WordPress however then you would need to separately construct and send an e-mail to your list to send it to subscribers. These are after that 2 separate sets of archives and two different activities because blog posts and your e-mails are not inherently connected.
The closest point that transforms WordPress right into a real e-newsletter system is Newsletter Glue.
It is a fitting name due to the fact that it pretty much “adhesives” your e-newsletter to your WordPress blog posts and enables them to be the very same point. Certainly, something like E-newsletter Glue would certainly be a solid choice if I wished to continue to self-host whatever. However, you ‘d shed the development tools that come with a system like BeeHiiv.
Posting a newsletter naturally comes with a various set of requirements than a typical e-mail checklist.
You do not typically need much marketing automation. You do not typically require autoresponder sequences, occasion tracking, and all the bells and whistles of a marketing automation system.
What you DO demand, though, is one smooth publishing experience and development tools to help you develop your customer base that are specific to newsletters.
BeeHiiv vs Substack
When I announced to my clients that I was mosting likely 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 truth that I chose to select BeeHiiv, that doesn’t imply I assume Substack draws. Actually, due to the fact that Substack has actually been around longer, it is elder and has more features.
Even though BeeHiiv is younger, there are a pair points that at first got my focus:.
- BeeHiiv is particularly customized to newsletter publishers. As a matter of fact, it is essentially developed by the same individuals that constructed the technology behind Morning Mixture. On the other hand, SubStack targets writers. In the real life, does not matter. Yet, the noticeable positioning of BeeHiiv toward newsletter growth called me out over the more common positioning of being a “developer”. Development is what I’m interested in here.
- That branding and distinction also indicates that BeeHiiv has some fairly huge brand names and large magazines utilizing it. Whereas SubStack is aimed more at solo designers. Again, it just tells me the client avatar distinction between the two firms.
Sending our my newsletter by means of FluentCRM didn’t specifically draw. The only factor I would consider trembling things up is if I believed I can GROW the list quicker. And BeeHiiv spoke precisely to that goal.
Due to the targeting, I in fact do not see BeeHiiv and Substack as straight rivals. I assume BeeHiiv is targeting a various kind of customer. As a matter of fact, if anything, I see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being extra direct rivals.
Yet, allow’s dive deeper than simply the positioning here.
Things That Make BeeHiiv Better Than Substack
On the whole, BeeHiiv appears like it was developed by individuals who understanding email marketing. On the other hand, SubStack seems a lot more tailored towards developers.
For instance, BeeHiiv provides custom fields on subscribers. Currently, it isn’t as developed as something like FluentCRM. Yet, it has it. Substack does not.
BeeHiiv uses Automations. Actually, it is an aesthetic automation builder that functions a whole lot like what we have within FluentCRM.
To be clear, the automation performance is still early-phase. It is still rather limited in triggers and the only action is the capacity to send an email. However, improvements are coming. Soon sufficient, automations will have new triggers along with brand-new actions, such as changing custom-made areas, sending out webhooks, etc. I’ve currently seen improvements to their automations simply since I started utilizing the platform. For instance:
- Capability to activate automations based upon which certain embed form they came in on.
- Capability to immediately do re-engagement (and handle individuals based upon opens up and non-opens).
- Capability to do basic conditional logic branches.
Substack does not have automations such as this. Likely, it never ever will. Substack simply can not do this because the target audience of Substack simply wouldn’t believe to approach this like an e-mail marketer.
When it involves composing your e-newsletters, the creating user interface of BeeHiiv is simply a lot more tailored towards newsletters. In fact, it actually has similarities to the WordPress block builder in just how it works. I locate it to be a lot more user-friendly, personally.
Substack’s writing user interface is nice and clean, yet it would be more comparable to the classic editor for WordPress. Toolbar at the top.
This difference is greater than simply kind. For instance, with BeeHiiv you can put a “Section” and afterwards placed anything you want in it. After that, you can place Exposure alternatives on that area to show it just to paid subscribers, hide it from email, hide from clients, show just to clients, etc. Substack provides absolutely nothing like this.
And when/if the moment comes that I begin a premium registration design, BeeHiiv doesn’t take any type of profits. As a matter of fact, you literally connect up to your own Stripe account and it charges directly to it. With Substack, they will certainly take 10% of your revenue. Depending on the amount of clients you get, that 10% can be a fair bit even more money than the monthly expense of BeeHiiv.
Lastly, BeeHiiv has an API. This could seem nerdy, however what it means is that there are integrations with BeeHiiv. You can really make BeeHiiv collaborate with the outdoors utilizing devices like Zapier or Make.com. This is HUGE. Substack literally has … absolutely nothing. No integrations in all.
Generally, I simply felt like BeeHiiv was more constructed toward actual email marketing. It was built by people who “get it”. Even the opt-in kinds 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 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 claimed, Substack positions itself toward “makers” more than email marketing professionals and newsletter owners. Because of that, you see some things geared more towards individuals that simply believe in terms of material development.
For instance, Substack sustains podcasts. BeeHiiv does not.
Additionally, while BeeHiiv does support multiple publications, they are treated rather separately. Whereas Substack does have the ability to cross-post to multiple publications at the same time. This isn’t something I call for, yet … cool for people that could need it.
Substack also has more social capability built-in. For example, it has a chat feature to host talks with customers. It additionally has a “Notes” feature which works kind of like a social media newsfeed where you can share things from various other “Stacks” you read. Fascinating. In general, Substack is established to be more like a social network which sustains long-form content.
In general, Substack is also a lot more … minimal. You either care for that or do not. Directly, I don’t. However, if the goal is simplicity of user interface and, frankly, features … Substack functions rather well.
But, I’ll be clear below …
When it concerns actual marketing, I don’t believe there’s much question that BeeHiiv is much better matched. I searched for more points that make Substack far better than BeeHiiv, but frankly … I have a hard time finding them.
BeeHiiv Vs ConvertKit
While BeeHiiv and Substack are often through to be the closest rivals, I really see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being the closer competitors. Both are pursuing the same target audience and have comparable abilities.
ConvertKit is likewise positioned at makers (like Substack), yet it is far more strongly dealing with individuals that do it for company. ConvertKit has good visual automation structure, it’s very own commerce system, and more. ConvertKit is a really nice platform.
I’m not going to birthed you with a complete feature-by-feature breakdown here. ConvertKit is well known already. However, below’s exactly how I really feel BeeHiiv and ConvertKit compare …
Points ConvertKit Is Better At …
Already, ConvertKit has a lot more flexibility when it involves it’s automations. I will also claim that I find ConvertKit’s automation builder to be a bit extra intuitive than that of BeeHiiv.
ConvertKit sustains marking. This is just a basic feature of email lists that allows segmentation in an even more flexible way than BeeHiiv presently does. I anticipate BeeHiiv to sustain tagging at some point soon, frankly. It seems like an oversight that it is missing out on Beehiiv Newsletter Reddit.
ConvertKit does currently give the capability to sell points through their very own platform. BeeHiiv does not. If that’s important to you, it might be a big deal for you. For me, nevertheless, I would always choose an extra direct option anyway. For me, I prefer to utilize my own system powered by WooCommerce.
ConvertKit has been around much longer and therefore has way extra integration alternatives. Tons of web-based tools and WordPress plugins incorporate with ConvertKit. ConvertKit also has their own WordPress plugin that is rather powerful. For example, their plugin now also sustains member-gated material in addition to auto-embed of your e-newsletter archives right into your site. Fundamentally, this much more closely puts ConvertKit into straight competition by having you have the ability to release to your website and your email listing at the same time.
BeeHiiv is severely lacking in these type of third-party integrations currently. It’ll get there. Yet, we’re not there yet with it.
ConvertKit is also busy dealing with the growth devices of BeeHiiv. For example, BeeHiiv has the referral program and the Suggestion Engine where you can not only incentivize people to share your newsletter with rewards, however you can likewise pay per lead within the interior ad network of BeeHiiv to grow your checklist. These are actually outstanding features of BeeHiiv. However …
Did you know ConvertKit acquired Sparkloop? Sparkloop is just one of the most well known viral promotion platforms for e-newsletters … and ConvertKit bought it. You can see the composing on the wall surface for what this indicates for the system going forward.
Points BeeHiiv Is Much Better At … Beehiiv Newsletter Reddit
BeeHiiv is a lot 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. Nonetheless, it also suggests that they are swiftly establishing.
In the short time that I have been a customer of BeeHiiv, I have experienced almost weekly release of new features right into the platform. And these aren’t puny little features … however huge features that are quite important. Their speed of advancement at this moment has actually gone over.
I likewise quite value how receptive they are. In fact, one of their product news regarding some design enhancements to the website design features really included a small issue with the content width. I just replied to that e-mail to tell them. I promptly got a reply directly from the CEO:.
That very same day, the problem was dealt with.
Few days later on, I provided an additional recommendation …
Sure enough, in a little bit over a week of that exchange, the ability to trigger automations based upon the embed form utilized was contributed to the system.
That type of responsiveness and straight participation of the team is something I actually appreciate.
An additional significant point of distinction right here is the price. Both platforms offer complimentary plans, nevertheless the BeeHiiv free plan offers more capacity and even more subscribers (2,500 vs 1,000) than ConvertKit.
As soon as you most likely to paid plans, the pricing of BeeHiiv is also much more beneficial. ConvertKit seems less expensive at first look because their pricing web page shows reduced numbers, however the subscriber limitations are FAR lower and your rate quickly raises as your listing grows.
With BeeHiiv, your very first degree paid plan starts at $42/mo (paid every year), nonetheless you can have up to 10,000 subscribers. That exact same dimension listing is going to run you $100/month with ConvertKit.
If you upgrade to the “Scale” plan with BeeHiiv (their finest plan and the one I directly make use of), you can grow your list approximately 100,000. A listing of that dimension 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 annually, as well. With BeeHiiv, you can get all that for simply $84/month if you pay annually.
BeeHiiv remains in a completely various organization when it involves pricing (in a great way).
Will BeeHiiv eventually raise costs? They may as time takes place. But, I’m presuming people like myself who are already in will certainly be locked-in. We’ll see just how points continue.
Points I Would Like BeeHiiv To Add
One of things you definitely need to keep in mind is that BeeHiiv is reasonably young. They do appear to develop rather quickly and make new product statements rather usually, but there are some standard features I truly want they had that I need to just wait on.
One is that they require to have a setup on membership kinds where I might select an automation to run right at the kind degree. That would be remarkable for so many reasons. Already, membership types look OK, but there’s extremely little settings for them to assist in division.
It would behave to have identifying at the customer degree. This would certainly be powerful.
I think webhooks should become part of automations to make built-in automations simpler and decrease reliance on outdoors devices like Zapier.
There are additionally some small management interface adjustments that would certainly be handy. For example:
- Capacity to mass edit/remove subscribers.
- Capability to bulk edit articles (for example, to tag a lot of them at the same time).
- Having a few basic fields as basic on customers (like the name).
- Some more customization options for the website (such as even more adaptable shade choices, headline control, and so on).
So, yeah … there are some imperfections. Things I hope they perform with it in the near future. BeeHiiv is respectable, yet it isn’t excellent and certainly not virtually as created as something like FluentCRM or any other genuine CRM product.
It most likely never will be, either. As I said, the function is various so it would not much a great deal of feeling for BeeHiiv to end up being a full marketing automation system. I think you never recognize, though.
Final Ideas On This BeeHiiv Review
I such as BeeHiiv rather a great deal. Enough where I made a decision to switch my very own e-newsletters over to the platform regardless of my individual choice for digital sovereignty and possessing my very own platform.
Basically, for the newsletter publishing model specifically, I saw sufficient value in their system to call for the adjustment.
Remember, I do not use BeeHiiv as my exclusive e-mail list. I use BeeHiiv of what it is good at, yet I intentionally have points set up so that I likewise keep my listing “in home” within FluentCRM.
If you make use of BeeHiiv, I suggest you do the exact same. It is just an excellent insurance policy, for one. But, having a full-featured marketing automation platform for your listing will be of high usage (FluentCRM is a full marketing automation system and BeeHiiv is not and likely never will be).
So, the concern is … should YOU use BeeHiiv?
In my viewpoint, if you are utilizing Substack now, I ‘d absolutely consider changing to BeeHiiv. It will simply be extra business-friendly. It is targeting different capacities and various requirements. And also, BeeHiiv also has import devices for Substack, so the button ought to be pretty uncomplicated.
If you are on ConvertKit now, I ‘d most likely stay unless you have a huge e-mail list and are as a result being fleeced with their high month-to-month costs. You will not (yet) have every feature of ConvertKit with BeeHiiv, yet they are iterating rapidly. There’s additionally a respectable chance you’re not also making use of a few of those fancier features of ConvertKit and you do not also need them. For that reason, BeeHiiv could conveniently be a much better and a lot more affordable fit.
Last but not least, if you plan to be extremely deliberate regarding expanding an e-newsletter, I believe BeeHiiv is THE platform to think about and keep and eye on for you.
If you utilize BeeHiiv with eyes wide open concerning what it is created to be, it is just one of the most effective games in town right now. This is the system to enjoy.
BeeHiiv provides a 14-day trial on their paid plans. It is worth checking out on your own. And if you end up not sticking with the paid plan, you’ll locate the cost-free account to be rather feature abundant.