I have actually utilized a great deal of various email list systems over the years. In the last couple of years, I have actually been a massive supporter of digital sovereignty and owning your own platform. Therefore (and the awesome features), I have actually been utilizing Beehiiv Podcast.
So, it is without a doubt a weird move for me to choose to utilize BeeHiiv. Besides, it is an organized application and I am paying regular monthly for it.
Why did I do this?
In this BeeHiiv testimonial, I wish to discuss why I made the switch to BeeHiiv for my newsletters. I intend to address the problem of digital sovereignty while making use of the system and I ‘d additionally such as to address why I chose to use it over Substack.
Let’s dive in …
BeeHiiv: Developed For E-newsletters
In Issue # 435 of my newsletter called My Hobby + A Big Change In Technique, I spoke about exactly how and why I decided to turn my recreational vehicle blog site into primarily an e-newsletter. I made a decision that was business design I intended to seek with that building.
Yet, to deliberately seek it as an e-newsletter, I desired a platform that was purpose-built for that. I was making use of FluentCRM for the email checklist for Happily motor home, but FluentCRM is not a newsletter system. It is built to be a CRM and marketing automation device and, truthfully, using it for newsletters is a little bit of a waste. More on that in a bit.
As I said in that concern of the newsletter …
Put simply, BeeHiiv is a platform with tools constructed into it specific to my objective. Points such as:
- Capability to publish (to the blog) and send out the e-mail concurrently without having it be 2 separate actions.
- Integrated in e-newsletter referral program. FluentCRM doesn’t have that and I would require a third-party tool like Sparkloop.
- Integrated capacity to do cross-promotions with various other e-newsletters on the BeeHiiv platform.
- ” Magic Hyperlinks”, which are basically one-click subscription links. Great for promotion in other e-newsletters. FluentCRM has Smart Links, though, so there are methods to do that.
- Capability to do paid “boosts” on the BeeHiiv network to advertise your e-newsletter.
- Integrated advertisement network, if I select to monetize with advertisements in the newsletter. And I may.
- Integrated capacity to run a paid newsletter upgrade and primarily run a costs e-newsletter. And BeeHiiv doesn’t take a cut.
Primarily, BeeHiiv is purpose-built for e-newsletter publishers with features targeted at growth. The system was literally built by the individuals that built up the innovation for Morning Brew. They recognize what they’re doing.
That is the point right here. BeeHiiv is developed from the ground up for the purpose of running a newsletter. FluentCRM has a different function.
And I ended off with this:.
I may certainly be relocating The Edge over to BeeHiiv too. At least, I’m highly considering it.
Well, I really did not consider it for long. As a matter of fact, I just went all out. And as a matter of fact, The side was re-branded over to The Early morning WP, triggered as it’s own residential or commercial property so that I can grow it more deliberately also.
The goal is that each newsletter has the ability to be branded as it’s very own media entity and expanded separately. Happily RV was young, so very easy to change. Yet, The Morning WP (previously The Side) was hidden in a sea of stuff below at the Blog Marketing Academy. By dividing it off, I can do what I can to expand it on it’s very own. It will undoubtedly constantly be carefully connected with the Blog site Marketing Academy, but does not have to belong of it.
I changed to BeeHiiv because it was built for this purpose. FluentCRM was not.
E-newsletters Versus Simply A Typical Email List
There’s a distinction in between an e-newsletter platform and simply an email checklist.
You can organize your e-mail listing everywhere you desire and there are a number of them around, from Aweber, ActiveCampaign, Drip, ConvertKit … over to self-hosted options like GroundHogg and FluentCRM.
What’s the difference?
The main difference is that, with a newsletter platform, the act of publishing indicates that it is mosting likely to your site and to your e-mail customers simultaneously.
With both BeeHiiv and Substack, you have a site. You are releasing to that internet site. However, you are also sending to all subscribers at the same time. The website and it’s customers are done in one. This makes monitoring of the platform much less complex.
With the majority of email systems, any kind of newsletter you established is done as an email campaign. It is constructed entirely independently from your web site. So, as an example, you could release an article to WordPress however then you would need to independently build and send out an email to your list to send it to clients. These are then two different collections of archives and two different activities due to the fact that article and your e-mails are not inherently connected.
The closest thing that turns WordPress right into a true e-newsletter platform is E-newsletter Glue.
It is a fitting name since it basically “glues” your newsletter to your WordPress posts and permits them to be the exact same point. Definitely, something like E-newsletter Glue would be a strong choice if I wanted to continue to self-host every little thing. Nonetheless, you would certainly shed the growth devices that feature a platform like BeeHiiv.
Publishing an e-newsletter inherently features a various set of needs than a regular e-mail list.
You don’t normally require much marketing automation. You do not generally need autoresponder series, occasion tracking, and all the bells and whistles of a marketing automation system.
What you DO requirement, however, is one smooth publishing experience and development tools to aid you develop your client base that specify to e-newsletters.
BeeHiiv vs Substack
When I revealed to my subscribers that I was mosting likely to switch the e-newsletter over to BeeHiiv, I had many individuals ask me why I was selecting it over Substack.
To be clear, even besides the fact that I chose to opt for BeeHiiv, that doesn’t mean I think Substack draws. Actually, since Substack has been around much longer, it is elder and has more features.
Even though BeeHiiv is younger, there are a couple points that at first got my focus:.
- BeeHiiv is especially customized to newsletter publishers. Actually, it is actually developed by the same individuals that constructed the innovation behind Morning Mixture. On the other hand, SubStack targets authors. In the real life, does not matter. But, the evident positioning of BeeHiiv toward e-newsletter growth called me out over the even more generic positioning of being a “developer”. Development is what I want here.
- That branding and distinction also implies that BeeHiiv has some fairly big brand names and huge magazines utilizing it. Whereas SubStack is aimed more at solo creators. Once more, it simply tells me the client avatar distinction between the two firms.
Sending our my newsletter using FluentCRM didn’t specifically suck. The only factor I would ponder drinking points up is if I believed I can expand the listing faster. And BeeHiiv spoke exactly to that objective.
Due to the targeting, I actually do not check out BeeHiiv and Substack as straight competitors. I believe BeeHiiv is targeting a various sort of consumer. Actually, if anything, I see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being extra straight competitors.
However, allow’s dive much deeper than just the placing right here.
Things That Make BeeHiiv Better Than Substack
In general, BeeHiiv seems like it was constructed by individuals who recognizing email marketing. On the other hand, SubStack seems much more tailored towards designers.
For example, BeeHiiv supplies customized areas on clients. Now, it isn’t as established as something like FluentCRM. However, it has it. Substack doesn’t.
BeeHiiv offers Automations. As a matter of fact, it is a visual automation builder that works a whole lot like what we have inside of FluentCRM.
To be clear, the automation capability is still early-phase. It is still rather minimal in triggers and the only action is the ability to send an e-mail. However, enhancements are coming. Quickly sufficient, automations will certainly have brand-new triggers along with new actions, such as changing custom fields, sending webhooks, and so on. I’ve currently seen enhancements to their automations simply because I began using the system. For example:
- Capacity to activate automations based on which specific embed kind they was available in on.
- Capacity to automatically do re-engagement (and manage people based on opens and non-opens).
- Capacity to do basic conditional reasoning branches.
Substack does not have automations similar to this. Likely, it never will. Substack just can not do this since the target market of Substack just would not believe to approach this like an email marketer.
When it comes to creating your e-newsletters, the creating user interface of BeeHiiv is just more geared towards newsletters. As a matter of fact, it in fact has similarities to the WordPress block builder in exactly how it works. I find it to be much more user-friendly, personally.
Substack’s creating user interface is nice and tidy, but it would be extra equivalent to the traditional editor for WordPress. Toolbar on top.
This difference is greater than just kind. For instance, with BeeHiiv you can insert a “Section” and then placed anything you want in it. After that, you can put Visibility options on that area to show it just to paid subscribers, hide it from e-mail, hide from subscribers, show just to clients, and so on. Substack provides nothing similar to this.
And when/if the moment comes that I start a premium membership version, BeeHiiv doesn’t take any income. As a matter of fact, you literally connect as much as your own Stripe account and it charges straight to it. With Substack, they will certainly take 10% of your profits. Depending upon the amount of clients you obtain, that 10% can be a fair bit more cash than the regular monthly cost of BeeHiiv.
Finally, BeeHiiv has an API. This could seem unpopular, however what it suggests is that there are integrations with BeeHiiv. You can in fact make BeeHiiv collaborate with the outside utilizing devices like Zapier or Make.com. This is HUGE. Substack actually has … nothing. No integrations in all.
In general, I just felt like BeeHiiv was a lot more constructed toward real email marketing. It was constructed by people who “get it”. Even the opt-in kinds and the landing page makes seem better developed for conversions. Development is the name of the game with BeeHiiv.
Even though there are still features I wish to see BeeHiiv add, I such as the direction it is going greater than Substack.
Things That Make Substack Better Than BeeHiiv
As I have claimed, Substack placements itself toward “developers” more than e-mail marketing experts and newsletter proprietors. For that reason, you see some points geared more towards individuals who simply assume in terms of web content development.
For example, Substack supports podcasts. BeeHiiv does not.
Also, while BeeHiiv does support numerous publications, they are dealt with fairly individually. Whereas Substack does have the capacity to cross-post to numerous magazines at the same time. This isn’t something I call for, but … great for people that could require it.
Substack additionally has even more social functionality built-in. For instance, it has a conversation function to host chats with subscribers. It also has a “Notes” feature which works sort of like a social media newsfeed where you can share things from other “Stacks” you read. Interesting. On the whole, Substack is established to be much more like a social media network which sustains long-form content.
On the whole, Substack is also much more … minimalist. You either care for that or do not. Personally, I don’t. However, if the objective is simplicity of interface and, truthfully, features … Substack functions quite well.
Yet, I’ll be clear below …
When it comes to actual marketing, I don’t believe there’s much question that BeeHiiv is much better matched. I searched for even more points that make Substack better than BeeHiiv, yet frankly … I have a hard time finding them.
BeeHiiv Vs ConvertKit
While BeeHiiv and Substack are typically through to be the closest competitors, I actually see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being the closer rivals. Both are going after the same target market and have similar abilities.
ConvertKit is additionally positioned at designers (like Substack), but it is much more strongly accommodating individuals who do it for organization. ConvertKit has great aesthetic automation building, it’s own commerce platform, and more. ConvertKit is a really great system.
I’m not mosting likely to bore you with a full feature-by-feature breakdown right here. ConvertKit is well known already. But, here’s just how I really feel BeeHiiv and ConvertKit compare …
Points ConvertKit Is Much Better At …
As of now, ConvertKit has more versatility when it comes to it’s automations. I will certainly additionally claim that I discover ConvertKit’s automation builder to be a little bit extra intuitive than that of BeeHiiv.
ConvertKit sustains identifying. This is simply a fundamental function of email listings that makes it possible for segmentation in a much more versatile method than BeeHiiv currently does. I expect BeeHiiv to sustain marking at some point quickly, frankly. It seems like an oversight that it is missing out on Beehiiv Podcast.
ConvertKit does currently offer the capacity to offer points by means of their own platform. BeeHiiv does not. If that is very important to you, it might be a big deal for you. For me, nevertheless, I would constantly pick an extra straight alternative anyhow. For me, I choose to utilize my own platform powered by WooCommerce.
ConvertKit has been around a lot longer and because of that has way much more integration choices. Tons of online 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 in addition to auto-embed of your newsletter archives right into your website. Fundamentally, this a lot more closely puts ConvertKit right into straight competition by having you be able to release to your website and your e-mail list at the same time.
BeeHiiv is significantly doing not have in these type of third-party integrations at the moment. It’ll arrive. But, we’re not there yet with it.
ConvertKit is even busy taking on the development devices of BeeHiiv. For instance, BeeHiiv has the referral program and the Recommendation Engine where you can not just incentivize individuals to share your e-newsletter with benefits, however you can also pay per lead within the inner ad network of BeeHiiv to grow your listing. These are really amazing features of BeeHiiv. However …
Did you understand 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 surface wherefore this means for the platform going forward.
Points BeeHiiv Is Much Better At … Beehiiv Podcast
BeeHiiv is a lot earlier in it’s item cycle than ConvertKit. Part of that means less features and much less integrations, which is natural for this phase of the cycle. Nevertheless, it additionally indicates that they are quickly creating.
In the short time that I have actually been a customer of BeeHiiv, I have actually seen almost regular launch of brand-new features right into the platform. And these aren’t puny little features … yet big features that are fairly crucial. Their speed of advancement now has actually been impressive.
I likewise quite value how receptive they are. Actually, among their product announcements regarding some layout improvements to the web design features in fact contained a little problem with the material width. I just responded to that e-mail to tell them. I swiftly got a reply directly from the CEO:.
That very same day, the issue was dealt with.
Few days later on, I provided an additional suggestion …
Indeed, in a bit over a week of that exchange, the ability to activate automations based upon the embed type utilized was contributed to the system.
That sort of responsiveness and direct participation of the team is something I truly value.
An additional significant factor of distinction below is the rate. Both platforms provide totally free plans, nevertheless the BeeHiiv free plan uses more capacity and more customers (2,500 vs 1,000) than ConvertKit.
As soon as you most likely to paid plans, the pricing of BeeHiiv is also FAR more favorable. ConvertKit appears less costly in the beginning glance due to the fact that their pricing web page shows lower numbers, however the subscriber limitations are much reduced and your price promptly boosts as your listing expands.
With BeeHiiv, your initial level paid plan begins at $42/mo (paid every year), however you can have up to 10,000 clients. That exact same size listing is mosting likely to run you $100/month with ConvertKit.
If you upgrade to the “Range” plan with BeeHiiv (their best plan and the one I personally make use of), you can expand your list up to 100,000. A listing of that dimension would run you $566/month with ConvertKit. If you desire their referral network, too, that puts you at the $733/month plan. That’s if you pay yearly, also. With BeeHiiv, you can obtain all that for simply $84/month if you pay each year.
BeeHiiv is in an entirely different organization when it concerns pricing (in a good way).
Will BeeHiiv eventually enhance costs? They might as time goes on. Yet, I’m guessing people like myself that are currently in will be locked-in. We’ll see how points proceed.
Points I Would Certainly Like BeeHiiv To Include
One of things you most definitely need to bear in mind is that BeeHiiv is reasonably young. They do seem to advance rather rapidly and make new product news somewhat typically, but there are some basic features I truly wish they had that I require to just wait on.
One is that they need to have a setting on registration types where I could select an automation to run right at the kind degree. That would certainly be incredible for numerous factors. As of now, registration types look OK, but there’s very little setups for them to help in division.
It would be nice to have tagging at the subscriber degree. This would be powerful.
I think webhooks should become part of automations to make integrated automations easier and lower reliance on outside tools like Zapier.
There are likewise some small administrative user interface changes that would certainly be handy. As an example:
- Capacity to mass edit/remove subscribers.
- Capacity to bulk edit articles (for example, to label a number of them at the same time).
- Having a couple of basic areas as conventional on customers (like the name).
- Some even more modification options for the site (such as even more adaptable shade selections, headline control, and so on).
So, yeah … there are some shortcomings. Points I wish they make with it in the future. BeeHiiv is pretty good, however it isn’t ideal and absolutely not virtually as developed as something like FluentCRM or any other actual CRM item.
It probably never will be, either. As I stated, the objective is different so it wouldn’t much a lot of sense for BeeHiiv to come to be a complete marketing automation platform. I think you never understand, though.
Final Thoughts On This BeeHiiv Review
I like BeeHiiv rather a whole lot. Sufficient where I made a decision to switch my very own newsletters over to the system despite my personal preference for digital sovereignty and having my own system.
Simply put, for the newsletter publishing design especially, I saw adequate value in their system to require the adjustment.
Remember, I do not utilize BeeHiiv as my special e-mail checklist. I use BeeHiiv of what it is efficient, however I intentionally have points establish so that I additionally maintain my list “in house” within FluentCRM.
If you make use of BeeHiiv, I suggest you do the very same. It is simply a good insurance plan, for one. But, having a full-featured marketing automation platform for your list will certainly be of high use (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 utilizing Substack right now, I ‘d absolutely take into consideration switching over to BeeHiiv. It will just be extra business-friendly. It is targeting various capacities and different requirements. Plus, BeeHiiv even has import devices for Substack, so the button needs to be rather straightforward.
If you get on ConvertKit now, I ‘d possibly stay put unless you have a huge e-mail list and are consequently being fleeced with their high month-to-month costs. You will certainly not (yet) have every feature of ConvertKit with BeeHiiv, yet they are iterating swiftly. There’s likewise a respectable possibility you’re not also utilizing some of those fancier features of ConvertKit and you don’t even need them. Because of that, BeeHiiv can conveniently be a much better and a lot more budget friendly fit.
Last but not least, if you plan to be very willful regarding growing a newsletter, I think BeeHiiv is THE system to take into consideration and maintain and eye on for you.
If you utilize BeeHiiv with eyes wide open concerning what it is developed to be, it is just one of the best video games in town now. This is the system to enjoy.
BeeHiiv offers a 14-day trial on their paid plans. It is worth checking out for yourself. And if you end up not sticking with the paid plan, you’ll find the totally free account to be fairly feature abundant.