I have actually used a lot of different e-mail list systems for many years. In the last number of years, I’ve been a significant advocate of digital sovereignty and having your own platform. Because of that (and the outstanding features), I have been making use of Beehiiv Phishing.
So, it is without a doubt a strange move for me to choose to use BeeHiiv. After all, it is a held application and I am paying monthly for it.
Why did I do this?
In this BeeHiiv review, I wish to review why I made the button to BeeHiiv for my newsletters. I wish to deal with the concern of digital sovereignty while using the system and I ‘d additionally like to attend to why I picked to utilize it over Substack.
Let’s dive in …
BeeHiiv: Constructed For E-newsletters
In Problem # 435 of my e-newsletter called My Leisure activity + A Big Shift In Strategy, I discussed just how and why I chose to turn my RV blog into mostly a newsletter. I determined that was the business model I intended to seek with that said residential property.
But, to purposefully pursue it as a newsletter, I wanted a system that was purpose-built for that. I was making use of FluentCRM for the e-mail checklist for Happily motor home, but FluentCRM is not an e-newsletter platform. It is built to be a CRM and marketing automation device and, honestly, utilizing it for e-newsletters is a little a waste. A lot more on that particular in a little bit.
As I claimed in that problem of the e-newsletter …
Basically, BeeHiiv is a system with tools developed right into it specific to my purpose. Points such as:
- Capability to publish (to the blog) and send the email all at once without having it be 2 different actions.
- Integrated in newsletter referral program. FluentCRM doesn’t have that and I would certainly have needed a third-party device like Sparkloop.
- Built-in capacity to do cross-promotions with various other e-newsletters on the BeeHiiv system.
- ” Magic Hyperlinks”, which are generally one-click membership links. Great for promo in other e-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.
- Built-in advertisement network, if I pick to generate income from with advertisements in the e-newsletter. And I may.
- Integrated ability to run a paid e-newsletter upgrade and primarily run a premium newsletter. And BeeHiiv does not take a cut.
Essentially, BeeHiiv is purpose-built for newsletter publishers with features targeted at growth. The system was essentially developed by the people who accumulated the innovation for Early morning Mixture. They understand what they’re doing.
That is the point here. BeeHiiv is built from the ground up for the purpose of running an e-newsletter. FluentCRM has a different purpose.
And I ended off with this:.
I may undoubtedly 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. As a matter of fact, I just went all out. And actually, The side was re-branded over to The Morning WP, set off as it’s own property to ensure that I can expand it a lot more deliberately also.
The objective is that each newsletter has the ability to be branded as it’s own media entity and expanded independently. Happily RV was young, so very easy to shift. But, The Morning WP (formerly The Side) was buried in a sea of stuff here at the Blog Marketing Academy. By separating it off, I can do what I can to expand it on it’s very own. It will clearly always be very closely tied with the Blog Marketing Academy, but does not have to be a part of it.
I changed to BeeHiiv since it was developed for this purpose. FluentCRM was not.
Newsletters Versus Just A Typical Email Checklist
There’s a distinction in between a newsletter system and just an email list.
You can organize your e-mail listing everywhere you desire 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 key distinction is that, with an e-newsletter system, the act of publishing suggests that it is mosting likely to your web site and to your e-mail clients simultaneously.
With both BeeHiiv and Substack, you have a site. You are publishing to that web site. However, you are likewise dispatching to all subscribers at the same time. The web site and it’s customers are all in one. This makes management of the system much simpler.
With the majority of email systems, any kind of newsletter you established is done as an e-mail campaign. It is built totally independently from your site. So, for example, you may release a short article to WordPress but after that you would certainly require to independently build and send out an email to your listing to send it to customers. These are then 2 separate sets of archives and 2 separate activities because post and your emails are not inherently linked.
The closest point that turns WordPress right into a real newsletter system is E-newsletter Glue.
It is a fitting name since it virtually “adhesives” your newsletter to your WordPress messages and enables them to be the same thing. Certainly, something like Newsletter Glue would certainly be a solid choice if I intended to continue to self-host every little thing. Nonetheless, you would certainly lose the development devices that feature a system like BeeHiiv.
Publishing a newsletter naturally comes with a different set of demands than a common email list.
You do not generally require much marketing automation. You don’t typically require autoresponder series, occasion monitoring, and all the bells and whistles of a marketing automation platform.
What you DO need, however, is one seamless posting experience and development tools to help you construct your subscriber base that are specific to e-newsletters.
BeeHiiv vs Substack
When I announced to my clients that I was going 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 picked to opt for BeeHiiv, that does not mean I assume Substack sucks. In fact, due to the fact that Substack has been about much longer, it is elder and has even more features.
Despite the fact that BeeHiiv is younger, there are a couple points that originally obtained my attention:.
- BeeHiiv is especially tailored to e-newsletter publishers. Actually, it is actually developed by the same people that constructed the innovation behind Morning Mixture. On the other hand, SubStack targets authors. In the real life, does not matter. However, the obvious positioning of BeeHiiv towards newsletter growth called me out over the more generic positioning of being a “developer”. Growth is what I have an interest in here.
- That branding and differentiation likewise indicates that BeeHiiv has some fairly huge brands and large magazines utilizing it. Whereas SubStack is intended more at solo developers. Once more, it simply tells me the client character distinction in between the two companies.
Sending our my newsletter using FluentCRM really did not exactly draw. The only reason I would certainly contemplate trembling things up is if I thought I might GROW the checklist faster. And BeeHiiv spoke exactly to that goal.
Because of the targeting, I really don’t view BeeHiiv and Substack as direct rivals. I think BeeHiiv is targeting a various kind of consumer. In fact, if anything, I see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being much more straight competitors.
But, allow’s dive much deeper than just the placing right here.
Points That Make BeeHiiv Better Than Substack
In general, BeeHiiv looks like it was developed by individuals that comprehending e-mail marketing. On the other hand, SubStack seems a lot more tailored towards makers.
For example, BeeHiiv uses customized fields on customers. Now, it isn’t as created as something like FluentCRM. However, it has it. Substack doesn’t.
BeeHiiv supplies Automations. Actually, it is a visual automation builder that functions a lot like what we have within FluentCRM.
To be clear, the automation capability is still early-phase. It is still fairly minimal in triggers and the only action is the capability to send an e-mail. Nonetheless, improvements are coming. Soon sufficient, automations will have brand-new triggers as well as brand-new activities, such as customizing customized fields, sending webhooks, etc. I’ve already seen enhancements to their automations simply given that I began utilizing the platform. As an example:
- Ability to set off automations based on which particular embed kind they came in on.
- Ability to instantly do re-engagement (and handle people based on opens up and non-opens).
- Capacity to do fundamental conditional logic branches.
Substack does not have automations similar to this. Likely, it never ever will. Substack just can’t do this because the target market of Substack simply wouldn’t believe to approach this like an e-mail online marketer.
When it involves writing your e-newsletters, the writing user interface of BeeHiiv is just a lot more tailored towards newsletters. In fact, it in fact has resemblances to the WordPress block builder in just how it works. I discover it to be extra intuitive, personally.
Substack’s creating user interface behaves and tidy, yet it would be much more equal to the timeless editor for WordPress. Toolbar at the top.
This difference is greater than simply type. As an example, with BeeHiiv you can insert a “Area” and then placed anything you want in it. Then, you can put Visibility alternatives on that area to reveal it just to paid clients, conceal it from email, conceal from customers, reveal just to clients, and so on. Substack uses absolutely nothing similar to this.
And when/if the time comes that I begin a costs membership design, BeeHiiv doesn’t take any revenue. As a matter of fact, you essentially connect approximately your own Stripe account and it bills straight to it. With Substack, they will certainly take 10% of your profits. Depending upon how many subscribers you obtain, that 10% can be a fair bit more cash than the regular monthly cost of BeeHiiv.
Lastly, BeeHiiv has an API. This could appear unpopular, but what it indicates is that there are integrations with BeeHiiv. You can in fact make BeeHiiv deal with the outdoors utilizing devices like Zapier or Make.com. This is HUGE. Substack literally has … absolutely nothing. No integrations in any way.
On the whole, I simply seemed like BeeHiiv was much more constructed toward genuine email marketing. It was constructed by individuals who “get it”. Even the opt-in types and the landing page creates seem better developed for conversions. Growth is the name of the game with BeeHiiv.
Although there are still features I want to see BeeHiiv include, I like the instructions it is going more than Substack.
Things That Make Substack Better Than BeeHiiv
As I have said, Substack placements itself toward “makers” greater than e-mail marketing professionals and e-newsletter proprietors. Because of that, you see some things geared more toward people that just think in regards to web content production.
As an example, Substack supports podcasts. BeeHiiv does not.
Likewise, while BeeHiiv does sustain multiple magazines, they are treated quite independently. Whereas Substack does have the capacity to cross-post to multiple magazines at the same time. This isn’t something I call for, yet … trendy for individuals that may need it.
Substack additionally has even more social capability built-in. For example, it has a conversation feature to host talks with clients. It additionally has a “Notes” feature which functions sort of like a social networks newsfeed where you can share points from various other “Stacks” you’re reading. Intriguing. On the whole, Substack is set up to be extra like a social media network which supports long-form material.
On the whole, Substack is likewise much more … minimalist. You either look after that or do not. Personally, I don’t. Nevertheless, if the objective is simpleness of user interface and, honestly, features … Substack works rather well.
However, I’ll be clear here …
When it concerns actual marketing, I do not believe there’s much uncertainty that BeeHiiv is better fit. I searched for more factors that make Substack far better than BeeHiiv, however frankly … I have a hard time finding them.
BeeHiiv Vs ConvertKit
While BeeHiiv and Substack are commonly through to be the closest rivals, I really see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being the closer opponents. Both are pursuing the exact same target market and have comparable capabilities.
ConvertKit is likewise placed at makers (like Substack), however it is much more highly dealing with people who do it for organization. ConvertKit has good aesthetic automation building, it’s own commerce platform, and much more. ConvertKit is a really wonderful system.
I’m not going to birthed you with a full feature-by-feature failure right here. ConvertKit is popular already. Yet, right here’s just how I really feel BeeHiiv and ConvertKit contrast …
Points ConvertKit Is Better At …
Already, ConvertKit has extra flexibility when it pertains to it’s automations. I will certainly additionally state that I discover ConvertKit’s automation builder to be a bit much more instinctive than that of BeeHiiv.
ConvertKit sustains labeling. This is simply a fundamental feature of email listings that makes it possible for segmentation in a much more versatile way than BeeHiiv presently does. I anticipate BeeHiiv to sustain identifying eventually soon, frankly. It seems like an oversight that it is missing out on Beehiiv Phishing.
ConvertKit does currently supply the capacity to sell points using 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 certainly constantly choose a more straight choice anyway. For me, I favor to use my own system powered by WooCommerce.
ConvertKit has actually been around a lot longer and because of that has way much more integration choices. Lots of online tools and WordPress plugins incorporate with ConvertKit. ConvertKit even has their own WordPress plugin that is quite powerful. For instance, their plugin currently even supports member-gated content along with auto-embed of your newsletter archives right into your website. In essence, this extra very closely puts ConvertKit into direct competitors by having you be able to publish to your website and your email list at the same time.
BeeHiiv is badly doing not have in these kinds of third-party integrations presently. It’ll get there. But, we’re not there yet with it.
ConvertKit is also hectic taking on the growth devices of BeeHiiv. For instance, BeeHiiv has the referral program and the Suggestion Engine where you can not only incentivize individuals to share your newsletter with rewards, however you can additionally pay per lead within the internal advertisement network of BeeHiiv to expand your listing. These are truly awesome features of BeeHiiv. But …
Did you know ConvertKit acquired Sparkloop? Sparkloop is among the most well known viral promo systems for e-newsletters … and ConvertKit bought it. You can see the writing on the wall of what this suggests for the system going forward.
Points BeeHiiv Is Better At … Beehiiv Phishing
BeeHiiv is much earlier in it’s product cycle than ConvertKit. Part of that implies less features and less integrations, which is natural for this stage of the cycle. Nevertheless, it additionally means that they are swiftly establishing.
In the short time that I have actually been a customer of BeeHiiv, I have observed nearly once a week launch of brand-new features right into the platform. And these aren’t puny little features … but huge features that are rather crucial. Their speed of development at this moment has been impressive.
I also very much appreciate how receptive they are. As a matter of fact, one of their item statements about some design enhancements to the website design features in fact contained a tiny issue with the content size. I just replied to that email 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 on, I provided another idea …
Indeed, in a little bit over a week of that exchange, the capability to cause automations based upon the embed form used was contributed to the system.
That kind of responsiveness and direct involvement of the group is something I truly value.
One more major point of differentiation right here is the rate. Both systems provide cost-free plans, however the BeeHiiv free plan supplies much more capability and even more customers (2,500 vs 1,000) than ConvertKit.
As soon as you go to paid plans, the pricing of BeeHiiv is also even more positive. ConvertKit seems more affordable at first glance due to the fact that their pricing web page shows reduced numbers, nonetheless the client restrictions are FAR lower and your cost swiftly increases as your checklist grows.
With BeeHiiv, your first level paid plan starts at $42/mo (paid annually), however you can have up to 10,000 subscribers. That very same dimension listing is going to run you $100/month with ConvertKit.
If you upgrade to the “Range” plan with BeeHiiv (their ideal plan and the one I personally utilize), you can expand your listing up to 100,000. A checklist of that dimension would 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 every year, also. With BeeHiiv, you can get all that for simply $84/month if you pay annually.
BeeHiiv remains in a completely various organization when it comes to pricing (in a great way).
Will BeeHiiv eventually increase prices? They might as time goes on. Yet, I’m guessing people like myself who are currently in will be locked-in. We’ll see just how things proceed.
Points I Would Like BeeHiiv To Add
One of the important things you most definitely need to remember is that BeeHiiv is fairly young. They do seem to evolve instead quickly and make new product statements somewhat commonly, but there are some fundamental features I actually desire they had that I need to just await.
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 incredible for many reasons. As of now, membership kinds look OK, however there’s very little settings for them to aid in division.
It would certainly behave to have labeling at the customer level. This would certainly be powerful.
I assume webhooks ought to be part of automations to make integrated automations less complicated and minimize reliance on outside tools like Zapier.
There are also some minor administrative interface changes that would be handy. As an example:
- Capability to bulk edit/remove customers.
- Capability to mass edit messages (for example, to tag a bunch of them at the same time).
- Having a few standard areas as standard on clients (like the name).
- Some more personalization alternatives for the web site (such as even more flexible color options, headline control, and so on).
So, yeah … there are some shortcomings. Points I hope they finish with it in the future. BeeHiiv is respectable, but it isn’t ideal and definitely not almost as developed as something like FluentCRM or any other genuine CRM product.
It probably never will be, either. As I claimed, the function is different so it wouldn’t much a lot of sense for BeeHiiv to become a complete marketing automation system. I presume you never recognize, however.
Final Ideas On This BeeHiiv Testimonial
I like BeeHiiv quite a lot. Sufficient where I chose to change my own newsletters over to the platform in spite of my individual preference for digital sovereignty and possessing my own system.
Put simply, for the e-newsletter posting model especially, I saw enough value in their platform to call for the modification.
Keep in mind, I do not use BeeHiiv as my exclusive email checklist. I make use of BeeHiiv of what it is proficient at, but I deliberately have things establish to ensure that I also maintain my listing “in home” inside of FluentCRM.
If you make use of BeeHiiv, I recommend you do the same. It is simply a great insurance coverage, for one. Yet, having a full-featured marketing automation system for your listing will certainly be of high usage (FluentCRM is a complete marketing automation system and BeeHiiv is not and likely never ever will be).
So, the question is … should YOU make use of BeeHiiv?
In my opinion, if you are using Substack right now, I ‘d most definitely take into consideration changing to BeeHiiv. It will just be much more business-friendly. It is targeting different abilities and different demands. Plus, BeeHiiv even has import devices for Substack, so the switch needs to be rather simple.
If you get on ConvertKit now, I ‘d most likely stay put unless you have a large email list and are as a result being wooled with their high month-to-month expense. You will not (yet) have every feature of ConvertKit with BeeHiiv, but they are repeating swiftly. There’s also a pretty good opportunity you’re not even utilizing a few of those fancier features of ConvertKit and you don’t also need them. Because of that, BeeHiiv can quickly be a much better and a lot more budget-friendly fit.
Last but not least, if you plan to be really willful concerning expanding an e-newsletter, I believe BeeHiiv is THE system to think about and keep and eye on for you.
If you use BeeHiiv with eyes wide open about what it is designed to be, it is just one of the very best video games around now. This is the system to watch.
BeeHiiv offers a 14-day trial on their paid plans. It deserves looking into on your own. And if you end up not sticking to the paid plan, you’ll locate the cost-free account to be rather feature rich.