I have actually used a lot of various e-mail list systems over the years. In the last number of years, I’ve been a massive proponent of digital sovereignty and possessing your own platform. Therefore (and the outstanding features), I have actually been using Beehiiv Swapstack.
So, it is indeed a weird move for me to choose to make use of BeeHiiv. After all, it is an organized application and I am paying month-to-month for it.
Why did I do this?
In this BeeHiiv evaluation, I intend to review why I made the button to BeeHiiv for my e-newsletters. I intend to deal with the issue of digital sovereignty while using the platform and I ‘d also like to address why I picked to use it over Substack.
Allow’s dive in …
BeeHiiv: Constructed For Newsletters
In Issue # 435 of my newsletter called My Pastime + A Large Change In Strategy, I discussed just how and why I chose to turn my motor home blog site into primarily a newsletter. I determined that was business version I wished to go after with that said residential property.
Yet, to deliberately pursue it as an e-newsletter, I wanted a system that was purpose-built for that. I was making use of FluentCRM for the e-mail checklist for Gladly motor home, yet FluentCRM is not a newsletter system. It is developed to be a CRM and marketing automation device and, truthfully, utilizing it for newsletters is a little bit of a waste. More on that in a little bit.
As I claimed in that issue of the e-newsletter …
Put simply, BeeHiiv is a platform with devices constructed into it certain to my objective. Points such as:
- Ability to release (to the blog) and send the email at the same time without having it be two different actions.
- Integrated in newsletter referral program. FluentCRM does not have that and I would certainly have needed a third-party device like Sparkloop.
- Integrated ability to do cross-promotions with other e-newsletters on the BeeHiiv system.
- ” Magic Hyperlinks”, which are essentially one-click subscription web links. Great for promotion in various other e-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 advertisement network, if I select to monetize with ads in the e-newsletter. And I may.
- Integrated capacity to run a paid e-newsletter upgrade and primarily run a premium e-newsletter. And BeeHiiv doesn’t take a cut.
Generally, BeeHiiv is purpose-built for e-newsletter publishers with features aimed at development. The platform was actually constructed by the people who built up the technology for Early morning Brew. They know what they’re doing.
That is the factor right here. BeeHiiv is built from the ground up for the function of running a newsletter. FluentCRM has a various purpose.
And I ended off with this:.
I might undoubtedly be moving The Edge over to BeeHiiv too. A minimum of, I’m highly considering it.
Well, I didn’t consider it for long. As a matter of fact, I just went for it. And in fact, The side was re-branded over to The Morning WP, set off as it’s very own residential or commercial property so that I can expand it a lot more purposefully too.
The goal is that each e-newsletter has the capability to be branded as it’s very own media entity and expanded independently. Happily recreational vehicle was young, so very easy to shift. But, The Early morning WP (formerly The Edge) was hidden in a sea of stuff right here at the Blog Marketing Academy. By dividing it off, I can do what I can to grow it on it’s very own. It will obviously constantly be carefully linked with the Blog site Marketing Academy, but doesn’t need to belong of it.
I changed to BeeHiiv because it was developed for this purpose. FluentCRM was not.
E-newsletters Versus Just A Typical Email List
There’s a distinction in between an e-newsletter platform and simply an e-mail listing.
You can organize your e-mail listing anyplace you want and there are a number of them out there, from Aweber, ActiveCampaign, Drip, ConvertKit … over to self-hosted choices like GroundHogg and FluentCRM.
What’s the distinction?
The main difference is that, with a newsletter system, the act of posting indicates that it is mosting likely to your web site and to your e-mail customers all at once.
With both BeeHiiv and Substack, you have a website. You are releasing to that website. But, you are also dispatching to all clients at the same time. The web site and it’s subscribers are done in one. This makes administration of the system much less complex.
With the majority of e-mail platforms, any type of e-newsletter you set up is done as an e-mail campaign. It is constructed totally separately from your web site. So, as an example, you might publish a write-up to WordPress yet after that you would certainly require to separately develop and send out an email to your listing to send it to customers. These are then 2 different collections of archives and 2 separate activities since article and your e-mails are not naturally linked.
The closest thing that transforms WordPress right into a true newsletter system is Newsletter Glue.
It is a suitable name because it basically “adhesives” your newsletter to your WordPress articles and allows them to be the very same point. Certainly, something like Newsletter Glue would be a strong choice if I wished to remain to self-host every little thing. However, you ‘d lose the development devices that feature a platform like BeeHiiv.
Publishing an e-newsletter naturally includes a different collection of requirements than a typical e-mail list.
You don’t usually need much marketing automation. You do not usually need autoresponder series, occasion monitoring, and all the bells and whistles of a marketing automation platform.
What you DO requirement, however, is one seamless posting experience and development tools to aid you develop 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 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 select BeeHiiv, that doesn’t suggest I think Substack draws. As a matter of fact, due to the fact that Substack has been about much longer, it is more mature and has even more features.
Despite the fact that BeeHiiv is more youthful, there are a pair things that originally got my interest:.
- BeeHiiv is particularly tailored to newsletter authors. In fact, it is essentially built by the same people who built the technology behind Morning Brew. On the other hand, SubStack targets authors. In the real life, does not matter. However, the noticeable positioning of BeeHiiv toward e-newsletter development called me out over the even more generic positioning of being a “designer”. Development is what I want here.
- That branding and differentiation likewise suggests that BeeHiiv has some relatively large brand names and huge magazines using it. Whereas SubStack is aimed more at solo developers. Once again, it just informs me the consumer character distinction between both firms.
Sending our my e-newsletter via FluentCRM didn’t specifically draw. The only factor I would ponder trembling points up is if I assumed I could expand the listing much faster. And BeeHiiv talked specifically to that goal.
As a result of the targeting, I really don’t check out BeeHiiv and Substack as straight competitors. I assume BeeHiiv is targeting a different sort of customer. Actually, if anything, I see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being a lot more straight rivals.
Yet, let’s dive deeper than simply the positioning below.
Points That Make BeeHiiv Better Than Substack
On the whole, BeeHiiv seems like it was developed by individuals who recognizing e-mail marketing. On the other hand, SubStack appears a lot more geared towards developers.
As an example, BeeHiiv provides custom-made areas on customers. Currently, it isn’t as established as something like FluentCRM. But, it has it. Substack doesn’t.
BeeHiiv offers Automations. As a matter of 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 activity is the capability to send an email. Nevertheless, enhancements are coming. Quickly sufficient, automations will certainly have brand-new triggers as well as new actions, such as customizing custom fields, sending out webhooks, and so on. I’ve currently seen improvements to their automations just because I began using the platform. As an example:
- Capacity to trigger automations based upon which particular embed kind they can be found in on.
- Capability to automatically do re-engagement (and deal with people based on 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’t do this since the target market of Substack just would not believe to approach this like an email online marketer.
When it involves creating your e-newsletters, the creating user interface of BeeHiiv is just much more geared towards newsletters. Actually, it actually has resemblances to the WordPress block builder in exactly how it works. I locate it to be much more intuitive, personally.
Substack’s writing interface behaves and clean, however it would certainly be extra equivalent to the traditional editor for WordPress. Toolbar at the top.
This difference is more than just form. For instance, with BeeHiiv you can place a “Area” and then placed anything you desire in it. Then, you can put Presence alternatives on that particular area to show it just to paid subscribers, hide it from email, hide from subscribers, show only to clients, and so on. Substack supplies nothing like this.
And when/if the time comes that I start a costs subscription design, BeeHiiv doesn’t take any profits. As a matter of fact, you actually connect as much as your very own Stripe account and it charges directly to it. With Substack, they will take 10% of your income. Depending upon the number of customers you get, that 10% can be a fair bit even more money than the regular monthly cost of BeeHiiv.
Lastly, BeeHiiv has an API. This may seem nerdy, however what it indicates is that there are integrations with BeeHiiv. You can in fact make BeeHiiv collaborate with the outside making use of 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 more built toward genuine e-mail marketing. It was built by individuals who “get it”. Even the opt-in forms and the landing page makes seem better developed for conversions. Development is nitty-gritty with BeeHiiv.
Although there are still features I want to see BeeHiiv add, I like the instructions it is going more than Substack.
Points That Make Substack Better Than BeeHiiv
As I have stated, Substack positions itself toward “designers” greater than e-mail marketers and newsletter proprietors. Because of that, you see some points geared a lot more toward people that just believe in terms of material production.
As an example, Substack supports podcasts. BeeHiiv does not.
Also, while BeeHiiv does sustain several publications, they are treated quite separately. Whereas Substack does have the capacity to cross-post to several magazines at the same time. This isn’t something I call for, but … awesome for people that might require it.
Substack also has even more social functionality built-in. As an example, it has a chat feature to host talks with subscribers. It likewise has a “Notes” function which works type of like a social media sites newsfeed where you can share things from other “Stacks” you read. Intriguing. In general, Substack is set up to be a lot more like a social network which supports long-form material.
On the whole, Substack is also much more … minimalist. You either care for that or don’t. Personally, I don’t. Nevertheless, if the objective is simplicity of user interface and, truthfully, features … Substack functions pretty well.
But, I’ll be clear here …
When it pertains to actual marketing, I do not think there’s much uncertainty that BeeHiiv is better matched. I looked for more factors that make Substack much better than BeeHiiv, but truthfully … I have a tough time locating them.
BeeHiiv Vs ConvertKit
While BeeHiiv and Substack are typically with to be the closest competitors, I actually see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being the closer opponents. Both are going after the exact same target audience and have comparable capabilities.
ConvertKit is additionally positioned at creators (like Substack), however it is much more highly dealing with people who do it for service. ConvertKit has nice aesthetic automation structure, it’s very own commerce platform, and more. ConvertKit is an actually nice system.
I’m not going to bore you with a complete feature-by-feature malfunction right here. ConvertKit is popular currently. But, here’s just how I really feel BeeHiiv and ConvertKit contrast …
Things ConvertKit Is Better At …
Already, ConvertKit has more versatility when it comes to it’s automations. I will additionally state that I find ConvertKit’s automation builder to be a little bit a lot more user-friendly than that of BeeHiiv.
ConvertKit sustains tagging. This is simply a standard function of email lists that makes it possible for division in an even more versatile means than BeeHiiv currently does. I anticipate BeeHiiv to support tagging at some time soon, honestly. It seems like an oversight that it is missing Beehiiv Swapstack.
ConvertKit does currently offer the capacity to sell points using their very own system. BeeHiiv does not. If that is very important to you, it might be a big deal for you. For me, nevertheless, I would certainly constantly select a more direct alternative anyhow. For me, I choose to utilize my very own platform powered by WooCommerce.
ConvertKit has actually been around much longer and therefore has way much more integration choices. Tons of online tools and WordPress plugins incorporate with ConvertKit. ConvertKit even has their own WordPress plugin that is fairly powerful. For instance, their plugin now also supports member-gated content along with auto-embed of your e-newsletter archives right into your website. Essentially, this more very closely places ConvertKit right into straight competition by having you be able to release to your website and your email listing at the same time.
BeeHiiv is significantly lacking in these type of third-party integrations currently. It’ll arrive. But, we’re not there yet with it.
ConvertKit is also busy tackling the growth devices of BeeHiiv. For example, BeeHiiv has the referral program and the Referral Engine where you can not only incentivize individuals to share your newsletter with rewards, yet you can additionally pay per lead within the internal advertisement network of BeeHiiv to expand your checklist. These are truly awesome features of BeeHiiv. But …
Did you recognize ConvertKit acquired Sparkloop? Sparkloop is one of one of the most popular viral promotion platforms for e-newsletters … and ConvertKit bought it. You can see the creating on the wall wherefore this indicates for the platform going forward.
Points BeeHiiv Is Better At … Beehiiv Swapstack
BeeHiiv is a lot earlier in it’s item cycle than ConvertKit. Part of that indicates less features and much less integrations, which is natural for this phase of the cycle. However, it additionally indicates that they are quickly creating.
In the short time that I have been a customer of BeeHiiv, I have actually seen almost weekly launch of brand-new features right into the platform. And these aren’t puny little features … however large features that are quite crucial. Their rate of growth at this moment has actually gone over.
I likewise significantly value exactly how receptive they are. In fact, among their item announcements concerning some design improvements to the website design features really had a small issue with the material width. I merely responded to that e-mail to tell them. I quickly got a reply directly from the CEO:.
That very same day, the issue was fixed.
Couple of days later, I gave them another suggestion …
Sure enough, in a bit over a week of that exchange, the ability to trigger automations based on the embed type made use of was included in the system.
That sort of responsiveness and straight involvement of the team is something I truly appreciate.
Another major factor of differentiation below is the cost. Both platforms provide complimentary plans, nonetheless the BeeHiiv free plan supplies extra capability 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 likewise much more beneficial. ConvertKit appears cheaper in the beginning glance since their pricing web page reveals lower numbers, nevertheless the customer limitations are much reduced and your price rapidly enhances as your checklist grows.
With BeeHiiv, your very first level paid plan begins at $42/mo (paid annually), nevertheless you can have up to 10,000 clients. That same size listing 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 grow your list as much as 100,000. A listing of that size would run you $566/month with ConvertKit. If you want their referral network, too, that places you at the $733/month plan. That’s if you pay every year, too. With BeeHiiv, you can get all that for just $84/month if you pay annually.
BeeHiiv remains in a completely different league when it pertains to pricing (in an excellent way).
Will BeeHiiv eventually enhance costs? They might as time goes on. But, I’m presuming people like myself who are currently in will certainly be locked-in. We’ll see just how points proceed.
Points I Would Certainly Like BeeHiiv To Include
Among the things you certainly require to keep in mind is that BeeHiiv is relatively young. They do seem to evolve rather quickly and make new product news rather often, but there are some fundamental features I truly want they had that I require to simply wait for.
One is that they require to have a setup on registration types where I can choose an automation to run right at the type degree. That would be amazing for a lot of factors. As of now, registration forms look OK, however there’s very little setups for them to assist in segmentation.
It would certainly be nice to have marking at the customer level. This would certainly be effective.
I think webhooks should belong to automations to make integrated automations less complicated and decrease dependence on outdoors devices like Zapier.
There are additionally some small administrative interface adjustments that would certainly come in handy. For instance:
- Ability to bulk edit/remove subscribers.
- Capacity to bulk edit posts (as an example, to mark a lot of them at the same time).
- Having a couple of standard areas as standard on clients (like the name).
- Some more customization options for the website (such as more adaptable color selections, headline control, etc).
So, yeah … there are some imperfections. Points I hope they do with it in the near future. BeeHiiv is respectable, yet it isn’t excellent and absolutely not almost as created as something like FluentCRM or any other real CRM product.
It probably never ever will certainly be, either. As I said, the objective is various so it would not a lot a lot of sense for BeeHiiv to become a complete marketing automation platform. I guess you never know, however.
Last Ideas On This BeeHiiv Review
I like BeeHiiv fairly a whole lot. Sufficient where I made a decision to switch my very own e-newsletters over to the platform in spite of my individual choice for digital sovereignty and owning my own system.
Basically, for the e-newsletter publishing design particularly, I saw enough value in their system to require the modification.
Keep in mind, I do not utilize BeeHiiv as my unique e-mail checklist. I make use of BeeHiiv wherefore it is proficient at, however I deliberately have things establish so that I likewise maintain my list “in home” inside of FluentCRM.
If you utilize BeeHiiv, I recommend you do the same. It is just a great insurance policy, for one. Yet, 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 certainly be).
So, the concern is … should YOU use BeeHiiv?
In my point of view, if you are utilizing Substack right now, I ‘d most definitely take into consideration changing to BeeHiiv. It will just be a lot more business-friendly. It is targeting different capabilities and different needs. Plus, BeeHiiv also has import devices for Substack, so the switch must be quite simple.
If you get on ConvertKit currently, I ‘d probably sit tight unless you have a big e-mail list and are for that reason being wooled with their high regular monthly costs. You will not (yet) have every feature of ConvertKit with BeeHiiv, yet they are iterating swiftly. There’s additionally a pretty good possibility you’re not even using some of those fancier functions of ConvertKit and you don’t even require them. Therefore, BeeHiiv could easily be a better and much more affordable fit.
Last but not least, if you plan to be really intentional about expanding an e-newsletter, I think BeeHiiv is THE platform to take into consideration and maintain and eye on for you.
If you use BeeHiiv with eyes wide open regarding what it is created to be, it is just one of the most effective games in the area right now. This is the platform to enjoy.
BeeHiiv supplies a 14-day trial on their paid plans. It is worth having a look at for yourself. And if you wind up not sticking with the paid plan, you’ll discover the free account to be fairly feature rich.