I have actually used a lot of different email list systems for many years. In the last number of years, I have actually been a massive proponent of digital sovereignty and owning your own system. For that reason (and the remarkable features), I have actually been making use of Beehiiv Vs AWeber.
So, it is certainly an odd move for me to decide to use BeeHiiv. Nevertheless, it is a held application and I am paying regular monthly for it.
Why did I do this?
In this BeeHiiv review, I want to discuss why I made the button to BeeHiiv for my e-newsletters. I wish to resolve the problem of digital sovereignty while utilizing the system and I would certainly likewise like to address why I selected to utilize it over Substack.
Let’s dive in …
BeeHiiv: Built For Newsletters
In Issue # 435 of my newsletter called My Pastime + A Big Change In Technique, I discussed exactly how and why I determined to turn my RV blog site right into mainly a newsletter. I made a decision that was business version I wished to go after keeping that building.
Yet, to deliberately seek it as an e-newsletter, I desired a system that was purpose-built for that. I was making use of FluentCRM for the email checklist for Gladly RV, but FluentCRM is not a newsletter platform. It is constructed to be a CRM and marketing automation device and, truthfully, utilizing it for newsletters is a little a waste. Much more on that in a little bit.
As I said because problem of the e-newsletter …
Put simply, BeeHiiv is a platform with devices constructed right into it specific to my function. Things such as:
- Capability to release (to the blog site) and send out the email concurrently without having it be 2 different activities.
- Built in e-newsletter referral program. FluentCRM does not have that and I would certainly have needed a third-party tool like Sparkloop.
- Built-in ability to do cross-promotions with various other newsletters on the BeeHiiv platform.
- ” Magic Hyperlinks”, which are basically one-click registration links. Great for promotion in other e-newsletters. FluentCRM has Smart Hyperlinks, however, so there are ways to do that.
- Ability to do paid “boosts” on the BeeHiiv network to advertise your newsletter.
- Integrated ad network, if I choose to monetize with ads in the newsletter. And I may.
- Built-in ability to run a paid e-newsletter upgrade and essentially run a costs newsletter. And BeeHiiv doesn’t take a cut.
Basically, BeeHiiv is purpose-built for e-newsletter authors with features aimed at growth. The system was essentially built by the people that accumulated the innovation for Early morning Brew. They know what they’re doing.
That is the point below. BeeHiiv is developed from scratch for the function of running a newsletter. FluentCRM has a different function.
And I finished off with this:.
I might without a doubt be relocating The Edge over to BeeHiiv also. At the very least, I’m highly considering it.
Well, I didn’t consider it for long. Actually, I simply 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 much more intentionally also.
The objective is that each newsletter has the ability to be branded as it’s very own media entity and expanded separately. Happily motor home was young, so simple to shift. However, The Morning WP (previously The Side) was hidden in a sea of things below 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 undoubtedly always be very closely linked with the Blog Marketing Academy, however doesn’t need to be a part of it.
I switched over to BeeHiiv since it was constructed for this objective. FluentCRM was not.
Newsletters Versus Simply A Typical Email List
There’s a distinction between an e-newsletter system and simply an e-mail listing.
You can host your e-mail checklist anyplace you desire and there are a number of them around, from Aweber, ActiveCampaign, Drip, ConvertKit … over to self-hosted choices like GroundHogg and FluentCRM.
What’s the distinction?
The main difference is that, with an e-newsletter platform, the act of publishing indicates that it is mosting likely to your site and to your e-mail clients all at once.
With both BeeHiiv and Substack, you have a site. You are releasing to that website. However, you are additionally sending to all clients at the same time. The web site and it’s subscribers are done in one. This makes management of the system much easier.
With many email systems, any kind of e-newsletter you set up is done as an email campaign. It is developed completely separately from your web site. So, as an example, you could publish an article to WordPress but then you would require to individually develop and send an email to your listing to send it to subscribers. These are then two separate collections of archives and two separate activities since article and your emails are not inherently linked.
The closest point that turns WordPress right into a real e-newsletter platform is E-newsletter Glue.
It is a fitting name since it pretty much “adhesives” your e-newsletter to your WordPress articles and enables them to be the same point. Certainly, something like Newsletter Glue would be a strong alternative if I intended to remain to self-host every little thing. Nevertheless, you ‘d shed the growth tools that come with a platform like BeeHiiv.
Posting a newsletter naturally features a various set of needs than a typical e-mail listing.
You do not typically need much marketing automation. You do not normally need autoresponder sequences, event monitoring, and all the bells and whistles of a marketing automation platform.
What you DO demand, however, is one seamless publishing experience and growth tools to assist you construct your client base that specify to newsletters.
BeeHiiv vs Substack
When I announced to my customers that I was mosting likely to switch over 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 truth that I chose to opt for BeeHiiv, that does not mean I believe Substack sucks. Actually, since Substack has actually been about much longer, it is more mature and has more features.
Despite the fact that BeeHiiv is younger, there are a pair points that originally obtained my focus:.
- BeeHiiv is specifically tailored to newsletter publishers. In fact, it is actually developed by the very same individuals who constructed the technology behind Morning Brew. On the other hand, SubStack targets authors. In the real life, doesn’t matter. However, the noticeable positioning of BeeHiiv toward newsletter development called me out over the even more common positioning of being a “creator”. Growth is what I have an interest in below.
- That branding and differentiation additionally suggests that BeeHiiv has some fairly large brand names and large publications using it. Whereas SubStack is intended more at solo designers. Again, it just informs me the customer avatar distinction in between the two business.
Sending our my newsletter via FluentCRM really did not precisely draw. The only reason I would consider trembling things up is if I believed I can GROW the checklist much faster. And BeeHiiv spoke precisely to that goal.
Because of the targeting, I in fact do not view BeeHiiv and Substack as straight rivals. I believe BeeHiiv is targeting a various type of consumer. In fact, if anything, I see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being a lot more straight competitors.
But, allow’s dive deeper than just the positioning here.
Points That Make BeeHiiv Better Than Substack
On the whole, BeeHiiv feels like it was developed by individuals who recognizing email marketing. On the other hand, SubStack seems more geared toward designers.
For example, BeeHiiv supplies custom-made areas on customers. Currently, it isn’t as created as something like FluentCRM. But, it has it. Substack doesn’t.
BeeHiiv offers Automations. Actually, it is a visual automation builder that works a great deal like what we have inside of FluentCRM.
To be clear, the automation performance is still early-phase. It is still rather minimal in triggers and the only action is the capability to send out an e-mail. Nevertheless, enhancements are coming. Soon enough, automations will certainly have new triggers as well as brand-new actions, such as modifying custom-made areas, sending webhooks, etc. I have actually already seen enhancements to their automations just since I started utilizing the system. For instance:
- Capability to activate automations based upon which certain embed kind they can be found in on.
- Ability to immediately do re-engagement (and deal with people based on opens and non-opens).
- Capability to do standard 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 think to approach this like an email marketing expert.
When it pertains to creating your e-newsletters, the composing interface of BeeHiiv is just much more geared towards newsletters. In fact, it actually has resemblances to the WordPress block builder in exactly how it works. I discover it to be much more intuitive, directly.
Substack’s composing user interface is nice and clean, however it would be a lot more comparable to the classic editor for WordPress. Toolbar on top.
This distinction is more than just kind. For instance, with BeeHiiv you can insert a “Section” and then put anything you desire in it. After that, you can put Exposure alternatives on that particular section to show it only to paid subscribers, hide it from email, conceal from subscribers, reveal only to customers, and so on. Substack uses absolutely nothing such as this.
And when/if the moment comes that I start a costs subscription model, BeeHiiv doesn’t take any type of revenue. In fact, you actually attach up to your own Stripe account and it charges straight to it. With Substack, they will certainly take 10% of your earnings. Relying on the number of customers you obtain, that 10% can be a fair bit even more cash than the monthly expense of BeeHiiv.
Last but not least, BeeHiiv has an API. This could appear unpopular, however what it suggests is that there are integrations with BeeHiiv. You can really make BeeHiiv collaborate with the outdoors utilizing tools like Zapier or Make.com. This is HUGE. Substack essentially has … nothing. No integrations in any way.
Generally, I simply seemed like BeeHiiv was extra developed toward genuine e-mail marketing. It was developed by individuals who “get it”. Even the opt-in types and the landing page makes appear far better constructed for conversions. Growth is nitty-gritty with BeeHiiv.
Even though there are still features I would love to see BeeHiiv add, I such as the instructions it is going greater than Substack.
Things That Make Substack Better Than BeeHiiv
As I have said, Substack positions itself towards “makers” more than email marketing professionals and e-newsletter owners. For that reason, you see some points geared more towards people that simply believe in terms of web content development.
For instance, Substack supports podcasts. BeeHiiv does not.
Also, while BeeHiiv does sustain several publications, they are treated quite independently. Whereas Substack does have the ability to cross-post to numerous publications at the same time. This isn’t something I require, however … awesome for people that could require it.
Substack additionally has more social capability built-in. For instance, it has a conversation feature to host talks with customers. It additionally has a “Notes” function which functions kind of like a social media sites newsfeed where you can share points from various other “Stacks” you’re reading. Fascinating. Generally, Substack is set up to be much more like a social network which supports long-form material.
Generally, Substack is additionally much more … minimal. You either care for that or don’t. Personally, I do not. Nonetheless, if the goal is simplicity of user interface and, frankly, features … Substack works pretty well.
Yet, I’ll be clear here …
When it pertains to real marketing, I do not assume there’s much doubt that BeeHiiv is much better fit. I tried to find more factors that make Substack better than BeeHiiv, but frankly … I have a tough time finding them.
BeeHiiv Vs ConvertKit
While BeeHiiv and Substack are typically through to be the closest rivals, I actually see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being the closer opponents. Both are going after the very same target audience and have similar capacities.
ConvertKit is additionally placed at designers (like Substack), however it is far more strongly satisfying people that do it for organization. ConvertKit has good visual automation structure, it’s very own business system, and more. ConvertKit is an actually wonderful system.
I’m not going to birthed you with a complete feature-by-feature breakdown here. ConvertKit is well known currently. But, right here’s just how I feel BeeHiiv and ConvertKit contrast …
Points ConvertKit Is Better At …
Already, ConvertKit has much more adaptability when it involves it’s automations. I will certainly likewise say that I find ConvertKit’s automation builder to be a bit extra user-friendly than that of BeeHiiv.
ConvertKit supports tagging. This is simply a basic feature of email checklists that allows segmentation in a far more adaptable way than BeeHiiv currently does. I expect BeeHiiv to support tagging eventually soon, truthfully. It feels like an oversight that it is missing Beehiiv Vs AWeber.
ConvertKit does now supply the capability to market things via their very own platform. BeeHiiv does not. If that is essential to you, it might be a big deal for you. For me, nevertheless, I would certainly constantly select a much more direct alternative anyway. For me, I prefer to utilize my own system powered by WooCommerce.
ConvertKit has been about much longer and for that reason has way more integration alternatives. Lots of online tools and WordPress plugins incorporate with ConvertKit. ConvertKit also has their very own WordPress plugin that is rather effective. For instance, their plugin now also supports member-gated material in addition to auto-embed of your e-newsletter archives right into your site. Basically, this much more closely puts ConvertKit right into direct competitors by having you have the ability to publish to your site and your e-mail listing at the same time.
BeeHiiv is drastically doing not have in these sort of third-party integrations presently. It’ll arrive. But, we’re not there yet with it.
ConvertKit is also active taking on the growth devices of BeeHiiv. For example, BeeHiiv has the referral program and the Referral Engine where you can not only incentivize people to share your e-newsletter with advantages, however you can also pay per lead within the inner ad network of BeeHiiv to grow your listing. These are really remarkable features of BeeHiiv. But …
Did you know ConvertKit acquired Sparkloop? Sparkloop is 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 wherefore this indicates for the platform going forward.
Things BeeHiiv Is Better At … Beehiiv Vs AWeber
BeeHiiv is much previously in it’s product cycle than ConvertKit. Part of that suggests much less features and less integrations, which is natural for this phase of the cycle. However, it also means that they are swiftly creating.
In the short time that I have been a customer of BeeHiiv, I have seen almost once a week release of new features into the system. And these aren’t undersized little features … yet big features that are quite important. Their rate of advancement at this point has actually gone over.
I additionally significantly value just how responsive they are. In fact, among their item news regarding some design improvements to the website design features actually contained a tiny problem with the web content size. I simply replied to that email to tell them. I rapidly got a reply directly from the chief executive officer:.
That very same day, the issue was taken care of.
Few days later, I provided an additional pointer …
Sure enough, in a little bit over a week of that exchange, the ability to activate automations based on the embed type made use of was contributed to the system.
That kind of responsiveness and straight involvement of the team is something I really value.
Another major point of distinction below is the price. Both platforms offer free plans, nevertheless the BeeHiiv free plan supplies a lot more capability and even more subscribers (2,500 vs 1,000) than ConvertKit.
Once you most likely to paid plans, the pricing of BeeHiiv is likewise much more beneficial. ConvertKit seems cheaper at first glance since their pricing web page shows reduced numbers, nevertheless the customer limits are much reduced and your cost quickly boosts as your list expands.
With BeeHiiv, your initial level paid plan begins at $42/mo (paid every year), nonetheless 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 update to the “Scale” plan with BeeHiiv (their ideal plan and the one I directly use), you can expand your list approximately 100,000. A list of that size would certainly run you $566/month with ConvertKit. If you desire their referral network, as well, that puts you at the $733/month plan. That’s if you pay yearly, as well. With BeeHiiv, you can obtain all that for just $84/month if you pay each year.
BeeHiiv is in an entirely different organization when it pertains to pricing (in an excellent way).
Will BeeHiiv at some point boost prices? They might as time takes place. But, I’m presuming individuals like myself that are already in will be locked-in. We’ll see exactly how points proceed.
Things I Would Certainly Like BeeHiiv To Add
Among the things you most definitely require to bear in mind is that BeeHiiv is fairly young. They do seem to advance instead rapidly and make new product announcements rather typically, but there are some fundamental features I actually want they had that I require to simply wait for.
One is that they need to have a setting on membership types where I might select an automation to run right at the kind level. That would certainly be amazing for many reasons. Already, membership types look OK, but there’s very little settings for them to assist in segmentation.
It would certainly behave to have marking at the customer level. This would certainly be effective.
I think webhooks must be part of automations to make integrated automations much easier and minimize dependence on outdoors tools like Zapier.
There are likewise some small management user interface modifications that would be handy. For instance:
- Ability to bulk edit/remove clients.
- Ability to mass edit articles (for example, to mark a lot of them at the same time).
- Having a few basic areas as basic on customers (like the name).
- Some even more modification alternatives for the website (such as even more versatile color options, headline control, etc).
So, yeah … there are some shortcomings. Points I hope they do with it in the future. BeeHiiv is respectable, yet it isn’t ideal and absolutely not nearly as developed as something like FluentCRM or any other real CRM product.
It probably never will certainly be, either. As I claimed, the objective is different so it would not a lot a great deal of feeling for BeeHiiv to become a complete marketing automation platform. I presume you never ever recognize, though.
Last Thoughts On This BeeHiiv Testimonial
I like BeeHiiv rather a whole lot. Sufficient where I chose to switch my very own newsletters over to the platform regardless of my individual preference for digital sovereignty and having my own system.
Simply put, for the e-newsletter publishing version specifically, I saw adequate value in their platform to necessitate the adjustment.
Bear in mind, I do not utilize BeeHiiv as my special e-mail list. I use BeeHiiv of what it is efficient, yet I intentionally have things establish to ensure that I additionally maintain my listing “in home” within FluentCRM.
If you make use of BeeHiiv, I recommend you do the exact same. It is simply an excellent insurance coverage, for one. Yet, having a full-featured marketing automation system for your checklist will be of high use (FluentCRM is a complete marketing automation system and BeeHiiv is not and likely never will certainly be).
So, the question is … should YOU utilize BeeHiiv?
In my viewpoint, if you are using Substack now, I ‘d absolutely think about changing to BeeHiiv. It will merely be extra business-friendly. It is targeting various abilities and different requirements. And also, BeeHiiv even has import tools for Substack, so the switch ought to be rather uncomplicated.
If you are on ConvertKit currently, I ‘d possibly stay put unless you have a huge e-mail checklist and are for that reason being wooled with their high month-to-month expense. You will not (yet) have every feature of ConvertKit with BeeHiiv, yet they are repeating rapidly. There’s also a respectable possibility you’re not also making use of a few of those fancier functions of ConvertKit and you don’t also require them. Because of that, BeeHiiv might conveniently be a far better and a lot more inexpensive fit.
Finally, if you plan to be very deliberate concerning expanding a newsletter, I believe BeeHiiv is THE platform to take into consideration and keep and eye on for you.
If you utilize BeeHiiv with eyes wide open regarding what it is developed to be, it is just one of the best games in town today. This is the platform to see.
BeeHiiv provides a 14-day trial on their paid plans. It is worth taking a look at for yourself. And if you wind up not sticking with the paid plan, you’ll discover the cost-free account to be fairly feature rich.