I have used a great deal of various email list systems for many years. In the last number of years, I have actually been a significant advocate of digital sovereignty and possessing your own system. For that reason (and the remarkable features), I have actually been making use of Beehiiv Promotion.
So, it is without a doubt an odd move for me to make a decision to utilize BeeHiiv. Nevertheless, it is a held application and I am paying month-to-month 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 issue of digital sovereignty while making use of the platform and I would certainly additionally such as to resolve why I picked to use it over Substack.
Allow’s dive in …
BeeHiiv: Built For Newsletters
In Concern # 435 of my e-newsletter called My Leisure activity + A Huge Change In Strategy, I spoke about exactly how and why I decided to turn my RV blog right into primarily a newsletter. I decided that was business model I wished to pursue with that home.
However, to purposefully pursue it as a newsletter, I desired a system that was purpose-built for that. I was making use of FluentCRM for the e-mail listing for Happily RV, however FluentCRM is not a newsletter platform. It is constructed to be a CRM and marketing automation device and, frankly, using it for e-newsletters is a little bit of a waste. More on that particular in a bit.
As I stated because problem of the newsletter …
Put simply, BeeHiiv is a platform with devices constructed right into it details to my objective. Points such as:
- Ability to release (to the blog) and send out the e-mail simultaneously without having it be 2 separate activities.
- Constructed in e-newsletter referral program. FluentCRM doesn’t have that and I would have needed a third-party device like Sparkloop.
- Built-in capability to do cross-promotions with other newsletters on the BeeHiiv system.
- ” Magic Hyperlinks”, which are essentially one-click membership links. Great for promo in various other e-newsletters. FluentCRM has Smart Hyperlinks, however, so there are methods to do that.
- Capability to do paid “boosts” on the BeeHiiv network to promote your newsletter.
- Built-in ad network, if I choose to generate income from with advertisements in the newsletter. And I may.
- Built-in ability to run a paid e-newsletter upgrade and essentially run a premium newsletter. And BeeHiiv doesn’t take a cut.
Essentially, BeeHiiv is purpose-built for e-newsletter publishers with features targeted at growth. The platform was essentially built by the individuals who accumulated the innovation for Morning Mixture. They recognize what they’re doing.
That is the point here. BeeHiiv is developed from scratch for the function of running a newsletter. FluentCRM has a different objective.
And I finished off with this:.
I may undoubtedly be relocating The Side over to BeeHiiv too. At the very least, I’m strongly considering it.
Well, I didn’t 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, set off as it’s own home so that I can expand it much more purposefully as well.
The goal is that each newsletter has the capacity to be branded as it’s own media entity and grown independently. Gladly recreational vehicle was young, so easy to transition. However, The Early morning WP (previously The Side) was buried in a sea of stuff right here at the Blog Site Marketing Academy. By dividing it off, I can do what I can to expand it on it’s own. It will clearly always be very closely connected with the Blog Marketing Academy, however doesn’t have to be a part of it.
I switched over to BeeHiiv because it was constructed for this objective. FluentCRM was not.
E-newsletters Versus Simply A Normal Email List
There’s a distinction in between an e-newsletter platform and simply an email listing.
You can hold your e-mail listing anyplace you want and there are a variety of them around, from Aweber, ActiveCampaign, Drip, ConvertKit … over to self-hosted options like GroundHogg and FluentCRM.
What’s the distinction?
The primary difference is that, with a newsletter system, the act of posting suggests that it is mosting likely to your web site and to your email clients simultaneously.
With both BeeHiiv and Substack, you have an internet site. You are publishing to that website. But, you are likewise dispatching to all clients at the same time. The site and it’s customers are done in one. This makes monitoring of the platform much easier.
With many e-mail platforms, any type of e-newsletter you established is done as an e-mail campaign. It is built completely independently from your web site. So, for example, you could publish a write-up to WordPress yet after that you would certainly require to separately develop and send out an e-mail to your checklist to send it to clients. These are after that 2 different sets of archives and two separate actions due to the fact that blog posts and your emails are not inherently connected.
The closest thing that turns WordPress right into a real e-newsletter platform is Newsletter Glue.
It is a suitable name because it basically “adhesives” your e-newsletter to your WordPress articles and enables them to be the exact same point. Certainly, something like Newsletter Glue would certainly be a strong choice if I wished to remain to self-host everything. However, you ‘d lose the growth devices that feature a platform like BeeHiiv.
Posting an e-newsletter inherently includes a different collection of demands than a regular email checklist.
You don’t usually need much marketing automation. You don’t usually 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 build your customer base that are specific to e-newsletters.
BeeHiiv vs Substack
When I introduced to my customers 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, also besides the reality that I chose to select BeeHiiv, that doesn’t imply I think Substack draws. As a matter of fact, since Substack has actually been around much longer, it is more mature and has even more features.
Although BeeHiiv is younger, there are a pair points that at first obtained my interest:.
- BeeHiiv is particularly tailored to newsletter publishers. In fact, it is literally constructed by the same folks that constructed the modern technology behind Early morning Mixture. On the other hand, SubStack targets writers. In the real life, does not matter. However, the apparent positioning of BeeHiiv towards newsletter growth called me out over the even more common positioning of being a “creator”. Development is what I’m interested in below.
- That branding and distinction likewise indicates that BeeHiiv has some fairly large brands and big magazines utilizing it. Whereas SubStack is aimed even more at solo creators. Once more, it simply tells me the consumer avatar difference in between both companies.
Sending our my e-newsletter using FluentCRM really did not specifically draw. The only reason I would certainly consider shaking points up is if I thought I could GROW the listing faster. And BeeHiiv talked specifically to that goal.
Because of the targeting, I actually do not see BeeHiiv and Substack as direct competitors. I think BeeHiiv is targeting a various sort of consumer. Actually, if anything, I see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being a lot more straight rivals.
Yet, let’s dive deeper than just the placing below.
Points That Make BeeHiiv Better Than Substack
In general, BeeHiiv looks like it was constructed by people who recognizing email marketing. On the other hand, SubStack seems much more tailored towards developers.
For instance, BeeHiiv provides personalized areas on customers. Now, it isn’t as established as something like FluentCRM. However, it has it. Substack does not.
BeeHiiv provides Automations. In fact, it is a visual automation builder that functions a great deal like what we have inside of FluentCRM.
To be clear, the automation performance is still early-phase. It is still rather restricted in triggers and the only action is the ability to send an email. However, improvements are coming. Soon sufficient, automations will certainly have brand-new triggers as well as brand-new actions, such as changing personalized fields, sending webhooks, and so on. I have actually currently seen improvements to their automations simply because I began utilizing the platform. For example:
- Capacity to cause automations based upon which particular embed type they can be found in on.
- Capability to immediately do re-engagement (and manage individuals based on opens and non-opens).
- Capacity to do basic conditional reasoning branches.
Substack does not have automations like this. Likely, it never will. Substack just can not do this since the target audience of Substack just would not think to approach this like an e-mail online marketer.
When it comes to composing your newsletters, the creating user interface of BeeHiiv is just much more geared towards e-newsletters. As a matter of fact, it actually has resemblances to the WordPress block builder in how it functions. I find it to be extra instinctive, directly.
Substack’s composing interface is nice and clean, but it would certainly be a lot more equal to the traditional editor for WordPress. Toolbar on top.
This distinction is greater than simply kind. As an example, with BeeHiiv you can insert a “Area” and after that put anything you want in it. Then, you can place Exposure choices on that particular area to show it only to paid subscribers, conceal it from email, hide from subscribers, show only to clients, and so on. Substack provides nothing such as this.
And when/if the moment comes that I start a premium registration version, BeeHiiv doesn’t take any kind of income. Actually, you literally connect approximately your very own Stripe account and it bills straight to it. With Substack, they will certainly take 10% of your profits. Depending upon the number of subscribers you obtain, that 10% can be a fair bit more money than the monthly cost of BeeHiiv.
Lastly, BeeHiiv has an API. This might seem unpopular, however what it implies is that there are integrations with BeeHiiv. You can actually make BeeHiiv work with the outside using devices like Zapier or Make.com. This is HUGE. Substack literally has … nothing. No integrations in any way.
In general, I simply seemed like BeeHiiv was more constructed towards real e-mail marketing. It was built by individuals who “get it”. Even the opt-in types and the landing page makes seem better developed for conversions. Development is nitty-gritty with BeeHiiv.
Even though there are still features I want to see BeeHiiv add, I like the instructions it is going greater than Substack.
Points That Make Substack Better Than BeeHiiv
As I have actually said, Substack placements itself towards “developers” more than email marketing professionals and e-newsletter owners. For that reason, you see some things geared much more toward people who just think in terms of content production.
For instance, Substack sustains podcasts. BeeHiiv does not.
Likewise, while BeeHiiv does sustain several publications, they are dealt with rather individually. Whereas Substack does have the capability to cross-post to numerous magazines at the same time. This isn’t something I need, yet … amazing for people who may require it.
Substack additionally has even more social capability built-in. As an example, it has a conversation feature to host chats with clients. It additionally has a “Notes” function which works sort of like a social media newsfeed where you can share points from various other “Stacks” you read. Interesting. Generally, Substack is set up to be much more like a social network which sustains long-form web content.
Overall, Substack is likewise much more … minimal. You either care for that or don’t. Personally, I do not. However, if the goal is simplicity of interface and, truthfully, features … Substack works rather well.
But, I’ll be clear here …
When it comes to real marketing, I do not assume there’s much uncertainty that BeeHiiv is much better fit. I searched for more factors that make Substack far better than BeeHiiv, but truthfully … I have a difficult time locating them.
BeeHiiv Vs ConvertKit
While BeeHiiv and Substack are often with to be the closest competitors, I in fact see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being the closer competitors. Both are going after the exact same target market and have comparable capabilities.
ConvertKit is likewise positioned at developers (like Substack), yet it is far more highly accommodating individuals that do it for business. ConvertKit has wonderful aesthetic automation structure, it’s very own business system, and a lot more. ConvertKit is a really wonderful system.
I’m not going to bore you with a complete feature-by-feature break down below. ConvertKit is well known already. Yet, below’s how I feel BeeHiiv and ConvertKit contrast …
Points ConvertKit Is Much Better At …
Already, ConvertKit has much more versatility when it involves it’s automations. I will certainly likewise state that I discover ConvertKit’s automation builder to be a bit extra user-friendly than that of BeeHiiv.
ConvertKit supports identifying. This is simply a fundamental feature of email listings that allows division in a much more flexible method than BeeHiiv presently does. I expect BeeHiiv to support identifying at some time soon, frankly. It seems like an oversight that it is missing Beehiiv Promotion.
ConvertKit does currently provide the capacity to market points through their own system. BeeHiiv does not. If that’s important to you, it may be a big deal for you. For me, nevertheless, I would certainly constantly select a more straight alternative anyway. For me, I favor to utilize my own system powered by WooCommerce.
ConvertKit has actually been about much longer and because of that has way more integration options. Lots of online devices and WordPress plugins integrate with ConvertKit. ConvertKit even has their own WordPress plugin that is fairly powerful. For instance, their plugin currently even supports member-gated content along with auto-embed of your e-newsletter archives right into your website. Fundamentally, this extra very closely places ConvertKit into straight competition by having you have the ability to release to your website and your e-mail checklist at the same time.
BeeHiiv is severely lacking in these type of third-party integrations right now. It’ll arrive. Yet, we’re not there yet with it.
ConvertKit is even active tackling the development tools of BeeHiiv. For example, BeeHiiv has the referral program and the Referral Engine where you can not just incentivize individuals to share your e-newsletter with perks, but you can likewise pay per lead within the inner advertisement network of BeeHiiv to grow your list. These are actually incredible features of BeeHiiv. However …
Did you know ConvertKit got Sparkloop? Sparkloop is among the most well known viral promotion platforms for newsletters … and ConvertKit bought it. You can see the creating on the wall wherefore this implies for the system moving forward.
Things BeeHiiv Is Much Better At … Beehiiv Promotion
BeeHiiv is a lot previously in it’s item cycle than ConvertKit. Part of that suggests less features and less integrations, which is all-natural for this stage of the cycle. Nevertheless, it also means that they are swiftly developing.
In the short time that I have actually been a customer of BeeHiiv, I have actually observed virtually weekly launch of brand-new features into the system. And these aren’t weak little features … but big features that are quite crucial. Their rate of growth at this moment has been impressive.
I likewise very much appreciate how receptive they are. In fact, one of their item announcements concerning some layout enhancements to the web design features really included a small problem with the web content size. I simply replied to that email to tell them. I swiftly obtained a reply directly from the CEO:.
That exact same day, the problem was dealt with.
Couple of days later on, I gave them one more idea …
Certainly, in a bit over a week of that exchange, the capability to cause automations based upon the embed kind used was included in the system.
That kind of responsiveness and direct participation of the group is something I really appreciate.
One more significant point of distinction right here is the rate. Both systems provide totally free plans, however the BeeHiiv free plan offers much more capability and more customers (2,500 vs 1,000) than ConvertKit.
When you most likely to paid plans, the pricing of BeeHiiv is likewise FAR more beneficial. ConvertKit appears less expensive at first glimpse since their pricing web page shows reduced numbers, nonetheless the client limits are FAR lower and your price swiftly enhances as your listing expands.
With BeeHiiv, your very first level paid plan starts at $42/mo (paid yearly), however you can have up to 10,000 subscribers. That exact same dimension checklist is going to run you $100/month with ConvertKit.
If you upgrade to the “Range” plan with BeeHiiv (their finest plan and the one I personally make use of), you can expand your checklist approximately 100,000. A list of that dimension would run you $566/month with ConvertKit. If you desire their referral network, as well, that places 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 a completely different organization when it comes to pricing (in a good way).
Will BeeHiiv eventually increase prices? They could as time takes place. Yet, I’m guessing individuals like myself who are currently in will certainly be locked-in. We’ll see just how things continue.
Points I Would Certainly Like BeeHiiv To Add
One of things you certainly need to remember is that BeeHiiv is relatively young. They do appear to progress rather swiftly and make brand-new item news somewhat typically, however there are some standard features I truly want they had that I need to just wait on.
One is that they need to have a setting on subscription kinds where I can select an automation to run right at the kind degree. That would certainly be amazing for so many reasons. Currently, membership kinds look OK, yet there’s really little settings for them to assist in segmentation.
It would certainly behave to have identifying at the customer degree. This would be effective.
I think webhooks ought to be part of automations to make integrated automations simpler and reduce reliance on outdoors tools like Zapier.
There are also some small administrative user interface modifications that would come in handy. For instance:
- Capability to bulk edit/remove clients.
- Capacity to mass edit articles (as an example, to identify a lot of them at the same time).
- Having a few fundamental fields as basic on customers (like the name).
- Some more modification options for the web site (such as even more adaptable shade selections, heading control, etc).
So, yeah … there are some shortcomings. Points I hope they do with it in the future. BeeHiiv is respectable, but it isn’t ideal and absolutely not virtually as created as something like FluentCRM or any other real CRM product.
It possibly never will be, either. As I claimed, the objective is different so it wouldn’t much a lot of sense for BeeHiiv to become a full marketing automation system. I presume you never ever recognize, though.
Last Thoughts On This BeeHiiv Review
I like BeeHiiv fairly a great deal. Sufficient where I chose to change my very own e-newsletters over to the platform regardless of my personal preference for digital sovereignty and owning my own system.
Simply put, for the e-newsletter publishing model especially, I saw enough worth in their system to warrant the adjustment.
Keep in mind, I do not use BeeHiiv as my special email listing. I use BeeHiiv wherefore it is good at, but I purposefully have things set up to make sure that I additionally keep my checklist “in house” inside of FluentCRM.
If you use BeeHiiv, I suggest you do the same. It is just a good insurance coverage, for one. However, having a full-featured marketing automation system for your listing will certainly be of high usage (FluentCRM is a full marketing automation platform and BeeHiiv is not and likely never will be).
So, the question is … should YOU use BeeHiiv?
In my point of view, if you are utilizing Substack now, I ‘d most definitely consider switching over to BeeHiiv. It will simply be more business-friendly. It is targeting various capabilities and various demands. Plus, BeeHiiv even has import devices for Substack, so the button must be rather straightforward.
If you get on ConvertKit currently, I ‘d possibly stay put unless you have a huge email checklist and are therefore being fleeced with their high monthly costs. You will certainly not (yet) have every feature of ConvertKit with BeeHiiv, yet they are repeating swiftly. There’s likewise a respectable chance you’re not even utilizing some of those fancier functions of ConvertKit and you don’t even need them. Therefore, BeeHiiv might quickly be a far better and more affordable fit.
Finally, if you plan to be extremely intentional about growing a newsletter, I think BeeHiiv is THE platform to consider and maintain and eye on for you.
If you make use of BeeHiiv with eyes wide open concerning what it is made to be, it is one of the best video games in town today. This is the platform to see.
BeeHiiv offers a 14-day trial on their paid plans. It deserves looking into on your own. And if you wind up not sticking with the paid plan, you’ll discover the totally free account to be rather feature abundant.