I have made use of a great deal of various e-mail list systems for many years. In the last couple of years, I’ve been a big advocate of digital sovereignty and possessing your very own platform. Therefore (and the amazing features), I have actually been making use of Is Beehiiv Better Than Substack.
So, it is indeed an unusual move for me to make a decision to use BeeHiiv. Nevertheless, it is a hosted application and I am paying month-to-month for it.
Why did I do this?
In this BeeHiiv review, I intend to go over why I made the switch to BeeHiiv for my e-newsletters. I wish to attend to the problem of digital sovereignty while making use of the system and I would certainly additionally like to address why I picked to use it over Substack.
Let’s dive in …
BeeHiiv: Constructed For E-newsletters
In Concern # 435 of my e-newsletter called My Hobby + A Huge Change In Method, I talked about just how and why I decided to transform my recreational vehicle blog right into primarily a newsletter. I determined that was business version I intended to seek with that property.
However, to deliberately pursue it as a newsletter, I desired a platform that was purpose-built for that. I was using FluentCRM for the email listing for Happily motor home, but FluentCRM is not a newsletter system. It is built to be a CRM and marketing automation device and, frankly, utilizing it for newsletters is a bit of a waste. More on that in a little bit.
As I said in that issue of the e-newsletter …
Simply put, BeeHiiv is a system with tools developed into it specific to my purpose. Points such as:
- Ability to publish (to the blog) and send the email simultaneously without having it be two separate activities.
- Built in e-newsletter referral program. FluentCRM does not have that and I would certainly require a third-party tool like Sparkloop.
- Integrated ability to do cross-promotions with other e-newsletters on the BeeHiiv system.
- ” Magic Links”, which are essentially one-click membership web links. Great for promotion in various other e-newsletters. FluentCRM has Smart Hyperlinks, however, so there are methods to do that.
- Capacity to do paid “boosts” on the BeeHiiv network to promote your e-newsletter.
- Integrated advertisement network, if I pick to monetize with advertisements in the newsletter. And I may.
- Integrated capability to run a paid newsletter upgrade and basically run a premium e-newsletter. And BeeHiiv does not take a cut.
Essentially, BeeHiiv is purpose-built for newsletter authors with features targeted at growth. The system was literally built by the individuals that developed the innovation for Morning Brew. They recognize what they’re doing.
That is the point right here. BeeHiiv is developed from scratch for the objective of running a newsletter. FluentCRM has a various objective.
And I finished off with this:.
I may without a doubt be relocating The Edge over to BeeHiiv also. At least, I’m highly considering it.
Well, I really did not consider it for long. Actually, I just went all out. And actually, The EDGE was re-branded over to The Morning WP, triggered as it’s very own property to make sure that I can expand it much more deliberately too.
The objective is that each e-newsletter has the capacity to be branded as it’s very own media entity and grown independently. Gladly RV was young, so simple to transition. However, The Morning WP (previously The Edge) was buried in a sea of stuff here at the Blog Marketing Academy. By dividing it off, I can do what I can to expand it on it’s own. It will obviously always be very closely tied with the Blog site Marketing Academy, however does not need to be a part of it.
I switched over to BeeHiiv since it was developed for this function. FluentCRM was not.
Newsletters Versus Just A Normal Email List
There’s a distinction in between an e-newsletter system and simply an email checklist.
You can organize your email listing just about anywhere you desire and there are a number of them around, from Aweber, ActiveCampaign, Drip, ConvertKit … over to self-hosted alternatives like GroundHogg and FluentCRM.
What’s the difference?
The main difference is that, with an e-newsletter system, the act of posting suggests that it is going to your website and to your e-mail customers all at once.
With both BeeHiiv and Substack, you have a website. You are publishing to that web site. Yet, you are also dispatching to all customers at the same time. The web site and it’s customers are done in one. This makes management of the system much less complex.
With many e-mail platforms, any type of e-newsletter you set up is done as an email campaign. It is built totally separately from your internet site. So, for instance, you may release a post to WordPress yet then you would certainly require to independently construct and send out an email to your list to send it to clients. These are then 2 separate collections of archives and two separate actions because post and your e-mails are not naturally connected.
The closest point that transforms WordPress into a true e-newsletter platform is Newsletter Glue.
It is a fitting name since it pretty much “adhesives” your newsletter to your WordPress blog posts and enables them to be the same thing. Definitely, something like E-newsletter Glue would certainly be a strong option if I intended to remain to self-host everything. Nonetheless, you ‘d lose the growth devices that feature a system like BeeHiiv.
Publishing a newsletter inherently comes with a various set of needs than a common e-mail listing.
You do not typically require much marketing automation. You do not typically require autoresponder series, event tracking, and all the bells and whistles of a marketing automation system.
What you DO requirement, though, is one seamless publishing experience and growth tools to help you construct your subscriber base that are specific to newsletters.
BeeHiiv vs Substack
When I revealed 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 choosing it over Substack.
To be clear, even besides the fact that I chose to opt for BeeHiiv, that doesn’t suggest I believe Substack draws. As a matter of fact, since Substack has actually been about much longer, it is elder and has more features.
Even though BeeHiiv is younger, there are a pair things that at first got my attention:.
- BeeHiiv is specifically customized to newsletter publishers. In fact, it is literally built by the very same people who built the modern technology behind Morning Brew. On the other hand, SubStack targets authors. In the real life, does not matter. Yet, the noticeable positioning of BeeHiiv towards e-newsletter growth called me out over the even more common positioning of being a “creator”. Growth is what I’m interested in here.
- That branding and differentiation likewise means that BeeHiiv has some rather big brand names and big publications utilizing it. Whereas SubStack is intended more at solo creators. Once more, it just informs me the client character distinction between the two business.
Sending our my newsletter through FluentCRM really did not exactly draw. The only reason I would contemplate trembling points up is if I assumed I could expand the list quicker. And BeeHiiv talked exactly to that goal.
Due to the targeting, I in fact don’t watch BeeHiiv and Substack as direct competitors. I think BeeHiiv is targeting a different sort of consumer. In fact, if anything, I see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being more straight competitors.
Yet, let’s dive much deeper than just the positioning here.
Things That Make BeeHiiv Better Than Substack
In general, BeeHiiv looks like it was built by individuals that comprehending email marketing. On the other hand, SubStack appears much more geared towards creators.
As an example, BeeHiiv uses customized areas on subscribers. Now, it isn’t as developed 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 functions a whole lot like what we have inside of FluentCRM.
To be clear, the automation functionality is still early-phase. It is still quite restricted in triggers and the only activity is the capability to send out an email. Nevertheless, enhancements are coming. Quickly sufficient, automations will certainly have brand-new triggers as well as new activities, such as customizing personalized areas, sending out webhooks, and so on. I’ve already seen improvements to their automations just considering that I started utilizing the platform. For instance:
- Ability to activate automations based on which details embed form they came in on.
- Ability to instantly do re-engagement (and manage people based upon opens up and non-opens).
- Ability to do fundamental conditional logic branches.
Substack does not have automations like this. Likely, it never will. Substack simply can not do this because the target audience of Substack simply wouldn’t believe to approach this like an e-mail marketing professional.
When it concerns writing your e-newsletters, the writing interface of BeeHiiv is just more geared towards newsletters. Actually, it really has similarities to the WordPress block builder in how it functions. I locate it to be a lot more instinctive, directly.
Substack’s creating user interface is nice and tidy, but it would certainly be extra comparable to the timeless editor for WordPress. Toolbar at the top.
This distinction is greater than simply kind. For example, with BeeHiiv you can insert a “Section” and after that placed anything you desire in it. After that, you can put Visibility choices on that particular area to show it only to paid subscribers, hide it from e-mail, conceal from customers, reveal just to customers, and so on. Substack supplies nothing such as this.
And when/if the moment comes that I start a premium subscription design, BeeHiiv does not take any kind of profits. In fact, you literally attach up to your very own Stripe account and it charges straight to it. With Substack, they will certainly take 10% of your income. Depending on the amount of customers you get, that 10% can be quite a bit more cash than the monthly price of BeeHiiv.
Last but not least, BeeHiiv has an API. This might seem nerdy, however what it means is that there are integrations with BeeHiiv. You can in fact make BeeHiiv work with the outside using tools like Zapier or Make.com. This is HUGE. Substack actually has … absolutely nothing. No integrations whatsoever.
Generally, I simply seemed like BeeHiiv was more developed towards real email marketing. It was built by people that “get it”. Also the opt-in types and the landing page develops seem better built for conversions. Development is the name of the game with BeeHiiv.
Despite the fact that there are still features I would like 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 actually claimed, Substack positions itself towards “designers” greater than email marketers and e-newsletter proprietors. Therefore, you see some things geared extra towards individuals who just think in regards to material creation.
For instance, Substack sustains podcasts. BeeHiiv does not.
Additionally, while BeeHiiv does support several publications, they are dealt with fairly individually. Whereas Substack does have the ability to cross-post to several magazines at the same time. This isn’t something I call for, however … trendy for people that may require it.
Substack additionally has more social capability built-in. For instance, it has a conversation feature to host talks with subscribers. It additionally has a “Notes” feature which works type of like a social media sites newsfeed where you can share points from various other “Stacks” you read. Intriguing. Overall, Substack is established to be extra like a social media which sustains long-form content.
Generally, Substack is also more … minimalist. You either care for that or don’t. Directly, I do not. Nonetheless, if the objective is simpleness of interface and, truthfully, features … Substack works rather well.
However, I’ll be clear right here …
When it comes to actual marketing, I don’t assume there’s much question that BeeHiiv is better suited. I tried to find more factors that make Substack much better than BeeHiiv, yet frankly … I have a difficult time locating them.
BeeHiiv Vs ConvertKit
While BeeHiiv and Substack are typically through to be the closest competitors, I in fact see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being the closer competitors. Both are going after the same target audience and have comparable abilities.
ConvertKit is also placed at designers (like Substack), but it is a lot more highly catering to people who do it for business. ConvertKit has wonderful aesthetic automation building, it’s own commerce platform, and more. ConvertKit is a truly good system.
I’m not going to bore you with a full feature-by-feature break down here. ConvertKit is well known already. But, right here’s exactly how I feel BeeHiiv and ConvertKit contrast …
Things ConvertKit Is Much Better At …
Already, ConvertKit has much more versatility when it comes to it’s automations. I will certainly additionally say that I discover ConvertKit’s automation builder to be a bit a lot more instinctive than that of BeeHiiv.
ConvertKit sustains tagging. This is just a fundamental feature of e-mail listings that allows division in a far more flexible means than BeeHiiv currently does. I expect BeeHiiv to support identifying eventually soon, truthfully. It seems like an oversight that it is missing out on Is Beehiiv Better Than Substack.
ConvertKit does currently give the capacity to sell points using their own platform. BeeHiiv does not. If that is very important to you, it might be a big deal for you. For me, nonetheless, I would always pick a much more straight alternative anyway. For me, I favor to utilize my very own system powered by WooCommerce.
ConvertKit has actually been about much longer and for that reason has way extra integration options. Tons of web-based tools and WordPress plugins integrate with ConvertKit. ConvertKit also has their very own WordPress plugin that is fairly powerful. For instance, their plugin currently also supports member-gated material in addition to auto-embed of your newsletter archives right into your site. Essentially, this a lot more very closely places ConvertKit into direct competitors by having you have the ability to publish to your site and your email list at the same time.
BeeHiiv is drastically doing not have in these sort of third-party integrations currently. It’ll arrive. But, we’re not there yet with it.
ConvertKit is also active taking on the growth tools of BeeHiiv. For instance, BeeHiiv has the referral program and the Referral Engine where you can not only incentivize people to share your e-newsletter with perks, but you can additionally pay per lead within the interior ad network of BeeHiiv to expand your listing. These are truly remarkable features of BeeHiiv. But …
Did you recognize ConvertKit acquired Sparkloop? Sparkloop is one of the most well known viral promo systems for e-newsletters … and ConvertKit bought it. You can see the creating on the wall for what this implies for the system going forward.
Points BeeHiiv Is Better At … Is Beehiiv Better Than Substack
BeeHiiv is much previously in it’s product cycle than ConvertKit. Part of that suggests much less features and much less integrations, which is natural for this stage of the cycle. Nonetheless, it also indicates that they are quickly developing.
In the short time that I have actually been a customer of BeeHiiv, I have actually observed almost weekly release of new features right into the platform. And these aren’t undersized little features … yet big features that are quite crucial. Their rate of growth at this moment has gone over.
I additionally very much value how responsive they are. Actually, among their item statements concerning some style improvements to the web design features really included a tiny issue with the content width. I merely responded to that e-mail to tell them. I quickly got a reply straight from the chief executive officer:.
That same day, the issue was dealt with.
Few days later, I provided another suggestion …
Sure enough, in a little bit over a week of that exchange, the capacity to cause automations based on the embed kind utilized was contributed to the system.
That type of responsiveness and direct participation of the team is something I truly value.
One more significant point of distinction here is the price. Both systems offer cost-free plans, nonetheless the BeeHiiv free plan supplies a lot more capacity and even more customers (2,500 vs 1,000) than ConvertKit.
As soon as you go to paid plans, the pricing of BeeHiiv is additionally much more positive. ConvertKit seems more affordable initially look since their pricing web page reveals reduced numbers, nonetheless the subscriber limits are much reduced and your price rapidly boosts as your list grows.
With BeeHiiv, your first degree paid plan begins at $42/mo (paid annually), nevertheless you can have up to 10,000 customers. That same dimension list is mosting likely to run you $100/month with ConvertKit.
If you update to the “Range” plan with BeeHiiv (their best plan and the one I personally use), you can expand your checklist approximately 100,000. A checklist 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 yearly, as well. With BeeHiiv, you can obtain all that for just $84/month if you pay yearly.
BeeHiiv is in a completely various league when it comes to pricing (in a great way).
Will BeeHiiv eventually raise rates? They might as time goes on. But, I’m thinking individuals like myself who are currently in will certainly be locked-in. We’ll see how points proceed.
Points I Would Like BeeHiiv To Add
Among the important things you certainly require to bear in mind is that BeeHiiv is fairly young. They do appear to evolve rather quickly and make brand-new product announcements somewhat frequently, however there are some standard features I truly desire they had that I require to just await.
One is that they need to have a setup on registration types where I could select an automation to run right at the type degree. That would be remarkable for so many factors. Currently, registration kinds look OK, yet there’s very little setups for them to assist in segmentation.
It would behave to have marking at the client degree. This would certainly be powerful.
I assume webhooks ought to belong to automations to make integrated automations much easier and minimize dependence on outside tools like Zapier.
There are likewise some small management interface adjustments that would come in handy. For example:
- Capability to bulk edit/remove subscribers.
- Capability to mass edit blog posts (for instance, to label a lot of them at the same time).
- Having a couple of fundamental fields as standard on customers (like the name).
- Some more customization alternatives for the website (such as more flexible color selections, heading control, and so on).
So, yeah … there are some shortcomings. Points I hope they perform with it in the near future. BeeHiiv is pretty good, but it isn’t excellent and absolutely not virtually as created as something like FluentCRM or any other genuine CRM item.
It possibly never will certainly be, either. As I stated, the purpose is different so it wouldn’t a lot a great deal of feeling for BeeHiiv to come to be a full marketing automation platform. I think you never ever recognize, however.
Final Ideas On This BeeHiiv Review
I such as BeeHiiv fairly a great deal. Sufficient where I chose to switch my own newsletters over to the platform regardless of my personal choice for digital sovereignty and owning my very own system.
Simply put, for the newsletter publishing version especially, I saw adequate value in their platform to require the change.
Bear in mind, I do not use BeeHiiv as my unique e-mail list. I utilize BeeHiiv wherefore it is good at, however I purposefully have points set up to ensure that I also keep my checklist “in home” inside of FluentCRM.
If you make use of BeeHiiv, I suggest you do the very same. It is just an excellent insurance policy, for one. However, having a full-featured marketing automation system for your list will certainly be of high use (FluentCRM is a complete marketing automation system and BeeHiiv is not and likely never will certainly be).
So, the concern is … should YOU utilize BeeHiiv?
In my point of view, if you are using Substack today, I ‘d certainly take into consideration switching to BeeHiiv. It will simply be extra business-friendly. It is targeting various capacities and different needs. Plus, BeeHiiv also has import tools for Substack, so the switch ought to be pretty simple.
If you are on ConvertKit now, I ‘d probably stay unless you have a huge email listing and are as a result being fleeced with their high monthly expense. You will not (yet) have every feature of ConvertKit with BeeHiiv, however they are repeating quickly. There’s also a respectable possibility you’re not also utilizing a few of those fancier features of ConvertKit and you do not even need them. For that reason, BeeHiiv can easily be a much better and extra cost effective fit.
Finally, if you plan to be extremely intentional about expanding a newsletter, I think BeeHiiv is THE system to think about and maintain and eye on for you.
If you use BeeHiiv with eyes wide open regarding what it is developed to be, it is just one of the most effective games in town right now. This is the system to see.
BeeHiiv uses a 14-day trial on their paid plans. It is worth looking into for yourself. And if you wind up not sticking to the paid plan, you’ll locate the totally free account to be quite feature abundant.