I have used a lot of different e-mail list systems over the years. In the last couple of years, I have actually been a significant proponent of digital sovereignty and having your own system. Therefore (and the remarkable features), I have been using Jack Raines Beehiiv.
So, it is indeed a weird move for me to decide to utilize BeeHiiv. After all, it is an organized application and I am paying regular monthly for it.
Why did I do this?
In this BeeHiiv review, I intend to go over why I made the button to BeeHiiv for my newsletters. I want to resolve the problem of digital sovereignty while using the system and I would certainly likewise such as to resolve why I selected to use it over Substack.
Let’s dive in …
BeeHiiv: Built For Newsletters
In Concern # 435 of my newsletter called My Leisure activity + A Large Change In Strategy, I discussed just how and why I chose to transform my RV blog into primarily a newsletter. I decided that was business model I wished to go after with that home.
But, to purposefully seek it as an e-newsletter, I wanted a platform that was purpose-built for that. I was using FluentCRM for the e-mail checklist for Happily recreational vehicle, yet FluentCRM is not a newsletter system. It is constructed to be a CRM and marketing automation device and, honestly, using it for newsletters is a bit of a waste. Much more on that in a little bit.
As I stated in that concern of the e-newsletter …
Put simply, BeeHiiv is a platform with devices built into it certain to my objective. Things such as:
- Ability to publish (to the blog) and send the email all at once without having it be 2 separate actions.
- Built in e-newsletter referral program. FluentCRM doesn’t have that and I would certainly require a third-party tool like Sparkloop.
- Integrated capability to do cross-promotions with other newsletters on the BeeHiiv platform.
- ” Magic Hyperlinks”, which are generally one-click registration links. Great for promotion in various other e-newsletters. FluentCRM has Smart Hyperlinks, though, so there are means to do that.
- Ability to do paid “boosts” on the BeeHiiv network to advertise your e-newsletter.
- Integrated advertisement network, if I pick to generate income from with advertisements in the newsletter. And I may.
- Integrated capacity to run a paid newsletter upgrade and generally run a premium newsletter. And BeeHiiv does not take a cut.
Basically, BeeHiiv is purpose-built for newsletter publishers with features focused on development. The platform was actually built by the people that developed the modern technology for Morning Brew. They understand what they’re doing.
That is the factor here. BeeHiiv is developed from scratch for the objective of running a newsletter. FluentCRM has a various purpose.
And I finished off with this:.
I might without a doubt be moving The Edge over to BeeHiiv also. At the very least, I’m strongly considering it.
Well, I really did not consider it for long. In fact, I just went all out. And in fact, The side was re-branded over to The Early morning WP, set off as it’s very own property to ensure that I can expand it a lot more deliberately as well.
The goal is that each newsletter has the capacity to be branded as it’s very own media entity and grown separately. Gladly RV was young, so easy to transition. Yet, The Morning WP (formerly The Side) was hidden in a sea of stuff below 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 obviously always be very closely linked with the Blog site Marketing Academy, but does not have to belong of it.
I changed to BeeHiiv since it was constructed for this purpose. FluentCRM was not.
Newsletters Versus Simply A Normal Email Listing
There’s a distinction between a newsletter platform and just an email list.
You can hold your email checklist anywhere you want and there are a number of them available, from Aweber, ActiveCampaign, Drip, ConvertKit … over to self-hosted alternatives like GroundHogg and FluentCRM.
What’s the distinction?
The primary distinction is that, with a newsletter system, the act of posting implies that it is going to your internet site and to your e-mail customers at the same time.
With both BeeHiiv and Substack, you have a web site. You are releasing to that web site. But, you are likewise sending to all subscribers at the same time. The website and it’s clients are all in one. This makes management of the platform much simpler.
With most e-mail systems, any e-newsletter you set up is done as an e-mail campaign. It is developed totally individually from your site. So, for instance, you could publish a short article to WordPress however then you would certainly need to independently develop and send an email to your list to send it to customers. These are after that two different sets of archives and 2 separate activities since blog posts and your e-mails are not naturally connected.
The closest thing that transforms WordPress into a real newsletter system is E-newsletter Glue.
It is a fitting name due to the fact that it practically “glues” your newsletter to your WordPress messages and allows them to be the exact same point. Certainly, something like Newsletter Glue would be a strong alternative if I wanted to remain to self-host whatever. However, you would certainly lose the growth devices that come with a platform like BeeHiiv.
Publishing a newsletter naturally comes with a various set of requirements than a typical email checklist.
You do not generally need much marketing automation. You do not generally require autoresponder series, event monitoring, and all the bells and whistles of a marketing automation system.
What you DO need, however, is one smooth publishing experience and growth tools to assist you build your subscriber base that are specific to newsletters.
BeeHiiv vs Substack
When I introduced to my clients that I was mosting likely to switch over the newsletter over to BeeHiiv, I had many individuals ask me why I was selecting it over Substack.
To be clear, even besides the reality that I picked to choose BeeHiiv, that does not indicate I think Substack draws. In fact, due to the fact that Substack has actually been around much longer, it is elder and has more features.
Even though BeeHiiv is younger, there are a couple things that at first obtained my interest:.
- BeeHiiv is particularly customized to newsletter authors. In fact, it is essentially built by the same individuals who built the modern technology behind Morning Mixture. On the other hand, SubStack targets authors. In the real life, does not matter. However, the evident positioning of BeeHiiv toward e-newsletter growth called me out over the more generic positioning of being a “creator”. Development is what I want right here.
- That branding and distinction additionally means that BeeHiiv has some relatively large brands and big publications utilizing it. Whereas SubStack is intended even more at solo designers. Once again, it just informs me the consumer character distinction between both business.
Sending our my newsletter by means of FluentCRM really did not specifically draw. The only reason I would consider shaking things up is if I believed I could GROW the checklist much faster. And BeeHiiv talked exactly to that goal.
Because of the targeting, I in fact don’t view BeeHiiv and Substack as direct rivals. I think BeeHiiv is targeting a different type of consumer. As a matter of fact, if anything, I see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being a lot more straight rivals.
But, let’s dive much deeper than just the placing below.
Things That Make BeeHiiv Better Than Substack
Generally, BeeHiiv looks like it was developed by individuals who comprehending email marketing. On the other hand, SubStack appears much more geared towards designers.
For example, BeeHiiv offers personalized fields on clients. Now, it isn’t as established as something like FluentCRM. However, it has it. Substack does not.
BeeHiiv uses Automations. Actually, it is a visual automation builder that works a whole lot like what we have within FluentCRM.
To be clear, the automation performance is still early-phase. It is still fairly limited in triggers and the only activity is the capacity to send out an email. Nevertheless, improvements are coming. Quickly enough, automations will certainly have new triggers as well as new actions, such as changing custom fields, sending out webhooks, and so on. I’ve currently seen improvements to their automations just since I started utilizing the system. For instance:
- Capability to set off automations based on which particular embed form they came in on.
- Ability to instantly do re-engagement (and handle people based upon opens up and non-opens).
- Capacity to do fundamental conditional reasoning branches.
Substack does not have automations similar to 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 e-mail online marketer.
When it concerns creating your e-newsletters, the composing interface of BeeHiiv is just extra tailored toward e-newsletters. In fact, it actually has resemblances to the WordPress block builder in exactly how it works. I locate it to be a lot more intuitive, directly.
Substack’s composing interface behaves and tidy, yet it would be extra equal to the classic editor for WordPress. Toolbar at the top.
This difference is more than just kind. As an example, with BeeHiiv you can place a “Section” and after that placed anything you want in it. Then, you can put Visibility options on that area to reveal it just to paid customers, hide it from e-mail, hide from subscribers, reveal just to customers, etc. Substack supplies absolutely nothing like this.
And when/if the time comes that I begin a costs subscription model, BeeHiiv doesn’t take any kind of income. As a matter of fact, you essentially connect up to your own Stripe account and it bills straight to it. With Substack, they will take 10% of your revenue. Relying on how many clients you obtain, that 10% can be a fair bit more money than the monthly price of BeeHiiv.
Last but not least, BeeHiiv has an API. This might seem nerdy, however what it suggests is that there are integrations with BeeHiiv. You can actually make BeeHiiv collaborate with the outside making use of devices like Zapier or Make.com. This is HUGE. Substack literally has … nothing. No integrations in all.
Overall, I just felt like BeeHiiv was more developed towards real e-mail marketing. It was built by people who “get it”. Even the opt-in types and the landing page develops seem far better built for conversions. Development is nitty-gritty with BeeHiiv.
Although there are still features I want to see BeeHiiv include, I like the instructions it is going greater than Substack.
Points That Make Substack Better Than BeeHiiv
As I have actually said, Substack positions itself towards “creators” more than email marketing professionals and e-newsletter owners. Therefore, you see some things tailored much more toward people who just think in regards to web content development.
For example, Substack sustains podcasts. BeeHiiv does not.
Additionally, while BeeHiiv does sustain several magazines, they are dealt with quite independently. Whereas Substack does have the capacity to cross-post to multiple magazines at the same time. This isn’t something I need, but … trendy for individuals that could require it.
Substack likewise has more social performance built-in. For example, it has a chat feature to host chats with subscribers. It also has a “Notes” feature which works type of like a social media sites newsfeed where you can share points from other “Stacks” you read. Fascinating. Generally, Substack is established to be much more like a social media which sustains long-form content.
In general, Substack is likewise more … minimalist. You either care for that or do not. Directly, I do not. Nevertheless, if the goal is simplicity of user interface and, honestly, features … Substack works rather well.
But, I’ll be clear right here …
When it concerns real marketing, I don’t assume there’s much uncertainty that BeeHiiv is much better suited. I looked for more factors that make Substack better than BeeHiiv, but honestly … I have a hard time finding them.
BeeHiiv Vs ConvertKit
While BeeHiiv and Substack are frequently via to be the closest competitors, I actually see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being the closer competitors. Both are pursuing the same target audience and have similar abilities.
ConvertKit is additionally positioned at developers (like Substack), but it is a lot more strongly catering to individuals that do it for service. ConvertKit has wonderful visual automation building, it’s very own business system, and more. ConvertKit is a truly wonderful system.
I’m not going to bore you with a complete feature-by-feature break down right here. ConvertKit is popular already. However, right here’s how I feel BeeHiiv and ConvertKit contrast …
Points ConvertKit Is Better At …
Already, ConvertKit has a lot more adaptability when it comes to it’s automations. I will certainly additionally state that I discover ConvertKit’s automation builder to be a bit more intuitive than that of BeeHiiv.
ConvertKit supports identifying. This is simply a standard feature of email listings that allows segmentation in a much more adaptable method than BeeHiiv currently does. I expect BeeHiiv to sustain identifying eventually soon, honestly. It seems like an oversight that it is missing out on Jack Raines Beehiiv.
ConvertKit does now give the ability to offer things using their own platform. BeeHiiv does not. If that is necessary to you, it might be a big deal for you. For me, however, I would constantly choose a much more direct choice anyhow. For me, I like to utilize my own platform powered by WooCommerce.
ConvertKit has been about a lot longer and for that reason has way more integration alternatives. Lots of online tools and WordPress plugins integrate with ConvertKit. ConvertKit even has their own WordPress plugin that is quite powerful. For instance, their plugin currently also supports member-gated material along with auto-embed of your e-newsletter archives right into your website. Fundamentally, this much more closely places ConvertKit into straight competitors 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 kinds of third-party integrations currently. It’ll get there. But, we’re not there yet with it.
ConvertKit is also hectic dealing with the growth devices of BeeHiiv. For instance, BeeHiiv has the referral program and the Suggestion Engine where you can not only incentivize individuals to share your newsletter with rewards, but you can additionally pay per lead within the internal advertisement network of BeeHiiv to expand your list. These are truly awesome features of BeeHiiv. However …
Did you recognize ConvertKit acquired Sparkloop? Sparkloop is just one of one of the most well known viral promo platforms for newsletters … and ConvertKit bought it. You can see the writing on the wall wherefore this suggests for the platform moving forward.
Points BeeHiiv Is Better At … Jack Raines Beehiiv
BeeHiiv is a lot earlier in it’s item cycle than ConvertKit. Part of that suggests much less features and less integrations, which is natural for this stage of the cycle. Nevertheless, it likewise implies that they are swiftly creating.
In the short time that I have actually been a customer of BeeHiiv, I have seen virtually regular launch of brand-new features into the platform. And these aren’t undersized little features … yet big features that are rather important. Their rate of development at this moment has been impressive.
I also very much value how responsive they are. Actually, among their product news regarding some style improvements to the website design features in fact consisted of a little trouble with the content width. I just responded to that e-mail to tell them. I swiftly obtained a reply directly from the CEO:.
That same day, the problem was fixed.
Few days later, I gave them another pointer …
Sure enough, in a bit over a week of that exchange, the ability to trigger automations based on the embed form used was included in the system.
That type of responsiveness and straight involvement of the group is something I truly value.
An additional significant factor of differentiation right here is the price. Both systems use free plans, nonetheless the BeeHiiv free plan supplies much more capability and even more customers (2,500 vs 1,000) than ConvertKit.
Once you most likely to paid plans, the pricing of BeeHiiv is likewise much more favorable. ConvertKit appears less costly at first look due to the fact that their pricing page shows lower numbers, however the subscriber limitations are FAR lower and your cost quickly raises as your checklist expands.
With BeeHiiv, your first level paid plan starts at $42/mo (paid annually), nevertheless you can have up to 10,000 customers. That very same size checklist is going to run you $100/month with ConvertKit.
If you upgrade to the “Scale” plan with BeeHiiv (their best plan and the one I personally utilize), you can grow your checklist as much as 100,000. A listing of that dimension would certainly 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 every year, too. With BeeHiiv, you can get all that for simply $84/month if you pay annually.
BeeHiiv is in an entirely various organization when it concerns pricing (in a good way).
Will BeeHiiv at some point increase rates? They may as time goes on. Yet, I’m guessing people like myself who are currently in will certainly be locked-in. We’ll see exactly how things continue.
Points I Would Like BeeHiiv To Include
One of things you most definitely require to remember is that BeeHiiv is fairly young. They do seem to progress rather promptly and make brand-new item statements rather commonly, however there are some basic features I really wish they had that I need to simply await.
One is that they need to have a setup on registration types where I could pick an automation to run right at the type degree. That would be incredible for a lot of reasons. As of now, registration types look OK, but there’s really little settings for them to help in division.
It would certainly behave to have labeling at the client level. This would be powerful.
I assume webhooks should belong to automations to make integrated automations less complicated and lower reliance on outside devices like Zapier.
There are also some minor administrative interface changes that would certainly be handy. For instance:
- Capacity to mass edit/remove customers.
- Capability to bulk edit messages (as an example, to tag a number of them at the same time).
- Having a few basic fields as standard on subscribers (like the name).
- Some even more customization options for the website (such as even more versatile shade options, headline control, and so on).
So, yeah … there are some drawbacks. Points I hope they make with it in the future. BeeHiiv is respectable, yet it isn’t ideal and certainly not nearly as established as something like FluentCRM or any other actual CRM product.
It most likely never will be, either. As I claimed, the function is different so it wouldn’t much a lot of sense for BeeHiiv to become a complete marketing automation system. I guess you never recognize, though.
Final Thoughts On This BeeHiiv Testimonial
I such as BeeHiiv quite a whole lot. Sufficient where I made a decision to change my very own newsletters over to the platform regardless of my personal choice for digital sovereignty and possessing my very own platform.
Basically, for the e-newsletter publishing design specifically, I saw sufficient value in their system to warrant the adjustment.
Keep in mind, I do not utilize BeeHiiv as my unique email checklist. I make use of BeeHiiv wherefore it is efficient, yet I intentionally have things set up to ensure that I additionally maintain my listing “in home” within FluentCRM.
If you utilize BeeHiiv, I suggest you do the exact same. It is simply an excellent insurance policy, for one. Yet, having a full-featured marketing automation platform for your checklist will be of high usage (FluentCRM is a full marketing automation system and BeeHiiv is not and likely never ever will certainly be).
So, the question is … should YOU make use of BeeHiiv?
In my viewpoint, if you are using Substack now, I ‘d absolutely consider switching over to BeeHiiv. It will just be extra business-friendly. It is targeting different abilities and different needs. Plus, BeeHiiv even has import tools for Substack, so the switch should be quite simple.
If you are on ConvertKit now, I ‘d possibly stay unless you have a big email checklist and are for that reason being fleeced with their high regular monthly expense. You will not (yet) have every feature of ConvertKit with BeeHiiv, yet they are iterating rapidly. There’s likewise a respectable possibility you’re not also utilizing several of those fancier functions of ConvertKit and you do not also require them. For that reason, BeeHiiv can conveniently be a much better and more economical fit.
Finally, if you plan to be really deliberate concerning growing a newsletter, I think BeeHiiv is THE platform to consider and maintain and eye on for you.
If you utilize BeeHiiv with eyes wide open concerning what it is developed to be, it is among the very best games in the area now. This is the system to watch.
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 discover the cost-free account to be fairly feature abundant.