I have utilized a great deal of various e-mail list systems over the years. In the last couple of years, I have actually been a significant advocate of digital sovereignty and having your very own system. For that reason (and the amazing features), I have been making use of Jacob Wolf Beehiiv.
So, it is certainly a strange move for me to choose to utilize 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 intend to go over why I made the button to BeeHiiv for my e-newsletters. I wish to address the problem of digital sovereignty while utilizing the platform and I ‘d additionally such as to deal with why I picked to use it over Substack.
Let’s dive in …
BeeHiiv: Built For E-newsletters
In Issue # 435 of my e-newsletter called My Leisure activity + A Big Shift In Technique, I discussed just how and why I made a decision to turn my motor home blog site into largely an e-newsletter. I made a decision that was business version I intended to seek with that said home.
But, to deliberately seek it as an e-newsletter, I wanted a platform that was purpose-built for that. I was making use of FluentCRM for the e-mail listing for Gladly recreational vehicle, yet FluentCRM is not a newsletter system. It is developed to be a CRM and marketing automation device and, truthfully, using it for newsletters is a bit of a waste. Extra on that in a little bit.
As I said because problem of the e-newsletter …
Put simply, BeeHiiv is a platform with tools constructed into it certain to my objective. Points such as:
- Capacity to publish (to the blog site) and send the email concurrently without having it be two different activities.
- Constructed in e-newsletter referral program. FluentCRM does not have that and I would certainly have needed a third-party tool like Sparkloop.
- Integrated capability to do cross-promotions with other newsletters on the BeeHiiv system.
- ” Magic Hyperlinks”, which are essentially one-click membership links. Great for promotion in various other e-newsletters. FluentCRM has Smart Links, though, so there are ways to do that.
- Capability to do paid “boosts” on the BeeHiiv network to promote your e-newsletter.
- Built-in advertisement network, if I choose to monetize with advertisements in the e-newsletter. And I may.
- Built-in ability to run a paid newsletter upgrade and generally run a costs newsletter. And BeeHiiv doesn’t take a cut.
Generally, BeeHiiv is purpose-built for e-newsletter authors with features aimed at development. The platform was literally built by the individuals that accumulated the innovation for Morning Mixture. They understand what they’re doing.
That is the point here. BeeHiiv is built from scratch for the function of running a newsletter. FluentCRM has a various purpose.
And I ended off with this:.
I might certainly be moving The Side over to BeeHiiv also. At least, I’m highly considering it.
Well, I didn’t consider it for long. Actually, I simply went all out. And as a matter of fact, The EDGE was re-branded over to The Morning WP, triggered as it’s own residential property to make sure that I can expand it a lot more intentionally too.
The objective is that each e-newsletter has the ability to be branded as it’s own media entity and expanded individually. Gladly motor home was young, so simple to shift. Yet, The Early morning WP (formerly The Edge) was buried in a sea of things below at the Blog Site Marketing Academy. By dividing it off, I can do what I can to grow it on it’s own. It will clearly always be very closely tied with the Blog Marketing Academy, but does not have to be a part of it.
I switched to BeeHiiv because it was built for this purpose. FluentCRM was not.
E-newsletters Versus Just A Regular Email Listing
There’s a distinction between an e-newsletter platform and just an email list.
You can hold your e-mail list just about anywhere you desire 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 distinction is that, with a newsletter platform, the act of publishing implies that it is going to your web site and to your email clients all at once.
With both BeeHiiv and Substack, you have a website. You are releasing to that web site. But, you are also sending off to all subscribers at the same time. The web site and it’s customers are done in one. This makes monitoring of the system much less complex.
With many e-mail systems, any e-newsletter you set up is done as an email campaign. It is constructed entirely independently from your internet site. So, for example, you may publish a post to WordPress yet then you would certainly require to individually construct and send out an email to your checklist to send it to subscribers. These are then two separate collections of archives and 2 separate activities since post and your emails are not naturally linked.
The closest point that turns WordPress into a real newsletter platform is Newsletter Glue.
It is a suitable name because it practically “adhesives” your newsletter to your WordPress articles and permits them to be the same thing. Absolutely, something like Newsletter Glue would be a solid alternative if I intended to continue to self-host whatever. However, you would certainly lose the growth devices that come with a platform like BeeHiiv.
Posting an e-newsletter inherently comes with a various set of requirements than a typical email list.
You do not generally need much marketing automation. You do not generally require autoresponder sequences, event tracking, and all the bells and whistles of a marketing automation platform.
What you DO need, though, is one seamless posting experience and growth tools to assist you develop your customer base that specify to newsletters.
BeeHiiv vs Substack
When I revealed to my customers that I was going to switch over the e-newsletter over to BeeHiiv, I had lots of people ask me why I was selecting it over Substack.
To be clear, even besides the fact that I chose to choose BeeHiiv, that doesn’t suggest I believe Substack draws. In fact, due to the fact that Substack has actually been around much longer, it is elder and has more features.
Despite the fact that BeeHiiv is more youthful, there are a couple points that initially obtained my interest:.
- BeeHiiv is specifically customized to newsletter publishers. Actually, it is literally constructed by the exact same individuals who constructed the modern technology behind Morning Mixture. On the other hand, SubStack targets writers. In the real world, does not matter. However, the obvious positioning of BeeHiiv towards newsletter growth called me out over the even more generic positioning of being a “developer”. Growth is what I want right here.
- That branding and distinction likewise indicates that BeeHiiv has some fairly big brand names and big magazines using it. Whereas SubStack is intended even more at solo creators. Once again, it simply tells me the consumer character difference between the two business.
Sending our my newsletter using FluentCRM didn’t exactly suck. The only reason I would contemplate trembling things up is if I believed I can GROW the list faster. And BeeHiiv talked exactly to that goal.
Due to the targeting, I actually don’t view BeeHiiv and Substack as straight competitors. I think BeeHiiv is targeting a various kind of customer. In fact, if anything, I see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being a lot more straight rivals.
Yet, allow’s dive much deeper than just the placing here.
Things That Make BeeHiiv Better Than Substack
On the whole, BeeHiiv looks like it was constructed by people that comprehending e-mail marketing. On the other hand, SubStack seems a lot more geared towards designers.
As an example, BeeHiiv supplies customized fields on clients. Currently, it isn’t as created as something like FluentCRM. Yet, it has it. Substack doesn’t.
BeeHiiv supplies Automations. As a matter of fact, it is a visual automation builder that works a great deal like what we have within FluentCRM.
To be clear, the automation capability is still early-phase. It is still quite restricted in triggers and the only activity is the capacity to send an email. Nevertheless, enhancements are coming. Quickly enough, automations will certainly have new triggers in addition to brand-new activities, such as changing custom-made fields, sending out webhooks, and so on. I’ve currently seen enhancements to their automations simply because I started making use of the system. For instance:
- Capacity to activate automations based on which specific embed kind they came in on.
- Capacity to immediately do re-engagement (and take care of people based upon opens and non-opens).
- Capacity to do basic conditional reasoning branches.
Substack does not have automations similar to this. Likely, it never ever will. Substack just can’t do this because the target audience of Substack simply wouldn’t think to approach this like an email marketing expert.
When it pertains to composing your e-newsletters, the creating interface of BeeHiiv is just a lot more geared toward newsletters. In fact, it really has resemblances to the WordPress block builder in how it works. I locate it to be a lot more intuitive, personally.
Substack’s creating user interface behaves and tidy, yet it would be much more comparable to the classic editor for WordPress. Toolbar on top.
This distinction is greater than simply kind. For example, with BeeHiiv you can put a “Section” and then placed anything you want in it. Then, you can put Visibility choices on that area to reveal it just to paid customers, hide it from email, hide from customers, reveal only to subscribers, etc. Substack uses nothing similar to this.
And when/if the moment comes that I start a costs registration version, BeeHiiv doesn’t take any kind of revenue. As a matter of fact, you actually link approximately your own Stripe account and it bills straight to it. With Substack, they will certainly take 10% of your earnings. Depending upon the number of subscribers you obtain, that 10% can be quite a bit even more money than the regular monthly expense of BeeHiiv.
Lastly, BeeHiiv has an API. This may appear nerdy, but what it means is that there are integrations with BeeHiiv. You can really make BeeHiiv work with the outside utilizing tools like Zapier or Make.com. This is HUGE. Substack literally has … nothing. No integrations at all.
On the whole, I just felt like BeeHiiv was extra built towards actual e-mail marketing. It was developed by people who “get it”. Also the opt-in types and the landing page creates appear far better constructed for conversions. Development is nitty-gritty with BeeHiiv.
Despite the fact that there are still features I would like to see BeeHiiv include, I such as the instructions it is going more than Substack.
Things That Make Substack Better Than BeeHiiv
As I have actually claimed, Substack settings itself towards “designers” greater than e-mail marketing professionals and newsletter owners. Therefore, you see some things tailored much more toward individuals who simply believe in terms of material development.
For example, Substack sustains podcasts. BeeHiiv does not.
Also, while BeeHiiv does support numerous publications, they are dealt with quite individually. Whereas Substack does have the ability to cross-post to multiple magazines at the same time. This isn’t something I call for, but … cool for individuals who could need it.
Substack also has more social functionality built-in. As an example, it has a chat function to host chats with clients. It likewise has a “Notes” feature which functions kind of like a social media newsfeed where you can share things from various other “Stacks” you read. Intriguing. Overall, Substack is set up to be a lot more like a social network which sustains long-form web content.
On the whole, Substack is additionally a lot more … minimalist. You either care for that or do not. Personally, I don’t. However, if the objective is simplicity of interface and, honestly, features … Substack works quite well.
However, I’ll be clear below …
When it comes to actual marketing, I do not believe there’s much question that BeeHiiv is much better fit. I searched for more points that make Substack much better than BeeHiiv, however honestly … I have a hard time finding them.
BeeHiiv Vs ConvertKit
While BeeHiiv and Substack are usually via to be the closest rivals, I really see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being the closer competitors. Both are going after the very same target audience and have comparable capacities.
ConvertKit is likewise positioned at developers (like Substack), yet it is far more highly accommodating people who do it for business. ConvertKit has nice visual automation building, it’s very own business platform, and extra. ConvertKit is a truly wonderful platform.
I’m not going to birthed you with a complete feature-by-feature break down below. ConvertKit is well known already. But, below’s just how I feel BeeHiiv and ConvertKit contrast …
Points ConvertKit Is Much Better At …
Already, ConvertKit has a lot more adaptability when it pertains to it’s automations. I will certainly also state that I locate ConvertKit’s automation builder to be a little bit extra instinctive than that of BeeHiiv.
ConvertKit sustains marking. This is simply a fundamental function of email listings that enables division in a much more flexible method than BeeHiiv presently does. I anticipate BeeHiiv to sustain labeling eventually soon, truthfully. It feels like an oversight that it is missing Jacob Wolf Beehiiv.
ConvertKit does now give the capacity to market points via their very own system. BeeHiiv does not. If that’s important to you, it may be a big deal for you. For me, nonetheless, I would constantly pick an extra straight alternative anyhow. For me, I prefer to utilize my very own platform powered by WooCommerce.
ConvertKit has been about much longer and for that reason has way a lot more integration options. Lots of online tools and WordPress plugins integrate with ConvertKit. ConvertKit also has their very own WordPress plugin that is rather powerful. As an example, their plugin now also sustains member-gated web content as well as auto-embed of your newsletter archives right into your website. Essentially, this more very closely puts ConvertKit right into straight competition by having you have the ability to publish to your site and your email list at the same time.
BeeHiiv is seriously doing not have in these kinds of third-party integrations presently. It’ll arrive. Yet, we’re not there yet with it.
ConvertKit is even busy tackling the development tools of BeeHiiv. As an example, BeeHiiv has the referral program and the Referral Engine where you can not only incentivize individuals to share your newsletter with advantages, but you can also pay per lead within the interior ad network of BeeHiiv to grow your checklist. These are actually amazing features of BeeHiiv. However …
Did you recognize ConvertKit got Sparkloop? Sparkloop is just one of one of the most well known viral promo platforms for e-newsletters … and ConvertKit bought it. You can see the writing on the wall surface wherefore this indicates for the platform moving forward.
Things BeeHiiv Is Much Better At … Jacob Wolf Beehiiv
BeeHiiv is much earlier in it’s product cycle than ConvertKit. Part of that indicates much less features and much less integrations, which is natural for this stage of the cycle. Nonetheless, it likewise suggests that they are rapidly creating.
In the short time that I have actually been a customer of BeeHiiv, I have witnessed practically once a week launch of brand-new features into the platform. And these aren’t puny little features … however large features that are fairly crucial. Their speed of growth at this moment has actually been impressive.
I additionally very much appreciate just how receptive they are. As a matter of fact, among their product announcements regarding some layout improvements to the website design features in fact had a tiny issue with the material width. I simply responded to that e-mail to tell them. I rapidly obtained a reply straight from the chief executive officer:.
That same day, the problem was repaired.
Few days later, I provided an additional suggestion …
Certainly, in a little bit over a week of that exchange, the capability to set off automations based on the embed type used was added to the system.
That type of responsiveness and straight involvement of the team is something I actually value.
Another significant point of differentiation right here is the price. Both systems offer cost-free plans, nonetheless the BeeHiiv free plan uses extra ability and more subscribers (2,500 vs 1,000) than ConvertKit.
As soon as you go to paid plans, the pricing of BeeHiiv is also much more desirable. ConvertKit seems more affordable initially look due to the fact that their pricing web page reveals lower numbers, nonetheless the client limits are much lower and your price promptly increases as your list expands.
With BeeHiiv, your first level paid plan begins at $42/mo (paid every year), nevertheless you can have up to 10,000 subscribers. That exact same size checklist is going to run you $100/month with ConvertKit.
If you update to the “Scale” plan with BeeHiiv (their best plan and the one I personally utilize), you can grow your checklist approximately 100,000. A checklist of that dimension would run you $566/month with ConvertKit. If you desire their referral network, too, that puts you at the $733/month plan. That’s if you pay yearly, also. With BeeHiiv, you can get all that for simply $84/month if you pay yearly.
BeeHiiv remains in a totally various league when it comes to pricing (in an excellent way).
Will BeeHiiv eventually enhance rates? They may as time goes on. But, I’m presuming people like myself that are currently in will certainly be locked-in. We’ll see how points proceed.
Things I Would Like BeeHiiv To Add
One of the important things you most definitely require to bear in mind is that BeeHiiv is fairly young. They do appear to evolve rather rapidly and make brand-new item statements rather usually, yet there are some fundamental features I really desire they had that I need to simply wait for.
One is that they need to have a setup on subscription forms where I might choose an automation to run right at the type degree. That would be AWESOME for so many reasons. Already, subscription types look OK, however there’s extremely little settings for them to assist in segmentation.
It would be nice to have marking at the customer level. This would be effective.
I believe webhooks should belong to automations to make built-in automations easier and lower dependence on outside devices like Zapier.
There are also some minor management interface modifications that would certainly be handy. For example:
- Capability to bulk edit/remove customers.
- Ability to mass edit articles (as an example, to identify a lot of them at the same time).
- Having a couple of basic fields as standard on customers (like the name).
- Some more modification alternatives for the site (such as even more adaptable color choices, heading control, and so on).
So, yeah … there are some imperfections. Points I wish they make with it in the future. BeeHiiv is pretty good, yet it isn’t best and definitely not virtually as established as something like FluentCRM or any other genuine CRM product.
It possibly never ever will certainly be, either. As I stated, the purpose is various so it wouldn’t a lot a great deal of feeling for BeeHiiv to become a full marketing automation system. I guess you never ever know, though.
Last Thoughts On This BeeHiiv Review
I like BeeHiiv quite a lot. Sufficient where I determined to change my very own newsletters over to the platform regardless of my individual choice for digital sovereignty and possessing my own system.
Put simply, for the newsletter publishing model especially, I saw sufficient worth in their system to warrant the modification.
Keep in mind, I do not use BeeHiiv as my exclusive email listing. I utilize BeeHiiv for what it is efficient, however I intentionally have things establish to ensure that I also keep my list “in residence” within FluentCRM.
If you make use of BeeHiiv, I recommend you do the very same. It is simply an excellent insurance plan, for one. However, having a full-featured marketing automation platform for your list will be of high use (FluentCRM is a complete marketing automation platform and BeeHiiv is not and likely never ever will be).
So, the question is … should YOU make use of BeeHiiv?
In my point of view, if you are making use of Substack today, I ‘d certainly consider switching to BeeHiiv. It will just be more business-friendly. It is targeting different capabilities and different demands. Plus, BeeHiiv even has import tools for Substack, so the switch should be pretty uncomplicated.
If you get on ConvertKit currently, I ‘d probably stay unless you have a big email checklist and are as a result being wooled with their high month-to-month expense. You will certainly not (yet) have every feature of ConvertKit with BeeHiiv, however they are repeating promptly. There’s additionally a pretty good opportunity you’re not even utilizing several of those fancier functions of ConvertKit and you don’t also require them. Because of that, BeeHiiv can conveniently be a better and more budget friendly fit.
Last but not least, if you plan to be really willful concerning expanding a newsletter, I think BeeHiiv is THE platform to think about and keep and eye on for you.
If you make use of BeeHiiv with eyes wide open regarding what it is made to be, it is just one of the most effective games in the area today. This is the system to watch.
BeeHiiv offers a 14-day trial on their paid plans. It is worth taking a look at on your own. And if you end up not sticking with the paid plan, you’ll locate the cost-free account to be fairly feature abundant.