I have utilized a lot of various e-mail list systems for many years. In the last number of years, I’ve been a massive supporter of digital sovereignty and owning your own platform. Because of that (and the awesome features), I have been using Popular Beehiiv Newsletters.
So, it is undoubtedly an odd move for me to determine to make use of BeeHiiv. Nevertheless, it is a hosted application and I am paying regular monthly for it.
Why did I do this?
In this BeeHiiv evaluation, I want to discuss why I made the switch to BeeHiiv for my newsletters. I wish to attend to the concern of digital sovereignty while utilizing the system and I would certainly likewise like to resolve why I selected to use it over Substack.
Allow’s dive in …
BeeHiiv: Constructed For E-newsletters
In Problem # 435 of my newsletter called My Pastime + A Large Shift In Method, I discussed exactly how and why I made a decision to transform my recreational vehicle blog site right into mostly a newsletter. I chose that was the business design I intended to seek with that residential property.
However, 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 email listing for Gladly recreational vehicle, but FluentCRM is not a newsletter system. It is developed to be a CRM and marketing automation tool and, frankly, utilizing it for newsletters is a little bit of a waste. Much more on that in a little bit.
As I stated because concern of the newsletter …
Put simply, BeeHiiv is a system with tools constructed into it certain to my purpose. Points such as:
- Ability to publish (to the blog) and send the email all at once without having it be 2 different activities.
- Constructed in e-newsletter referral program. FluentCRM does not have that and I would certainly require a third-party tool like Sparkloop.
- Built-in capability to do cross-promotions with various other newsletters on the BeeHiiv platform.
- ” Magic Links”, which are generally one-click membership links. Great for promotion in various other e-newsletters. FluentCRM has Smart Hyperlinks, though, so there are ways to do that.
- Capacity to do paid “boosts” on the BeeHiiv network to promote your newsletter.
- Built-in ad network, if I select to monetize with ads in the e-newsletter. And I may.
- Built-in capability to run a paid e-newsletter upgrade and basically run a premium newsletter. And BeeHiiv does not take a cut.
Essentially, BeeHiiv is purpose-built for e-newsletter authors with features aimed at growth. The system was literally developed by the people that built up the innovation for Morning Brew. They understand what they’re doing.
That is the point right here. BeeHiiv is built from the ground up for the function of running an e-newsletter. FluentCRM has a various purpose.
And I finished off with this:.
I may without a doubt be relocating The Edge over to BeeHiiv also. 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 actually, The side was re-branded over to The Morning WP, triggered as it’s very own home to make sure that I can grow it more deliberately as well.
The objective is that each newsletter has the capability to be branded as it’s own media entity and expanded individually. Happily recreational vehicle was young, so simple to shift. However, The Early morning WP (formerly The Edge) 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 constantly be carefully linked with the Blog Marketing Academy, yet doesn’t need to belong of it.
I switched to BeeHiiv because it was constructed for this purpose. FluentCRM was not.
E-newsletters Versus Simply A Normal Email Listing
There’s a distinction in between an e-newsletter platform and just an email listing.
You can hold your e-mail list 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 difference?
The main distinction is that, with an e-newsletter platform, the act of posting implies that it is going to your website and to your email customers all at once.
With both BeeHiiv and Substack, you have a web site. You are publishing to that website. Yet, you are additionally sending off to all subscribers at the same time. The website and it’s subscribers are done in one. This makes administration of the system much easier.
With the majority of email systems, any e-newsletter you established is done as an e-mail campaign. It is built totally individually from your website. So, as an example, you could release a post to WordPress but then you would certainly need to individually build and send an e-mail to your listing to send it to customers. These are then 2 separate collections of archives and 2 different activities due to the fact that blog posts and your e-mails are not inherently connected.
The closest thing that transforms WordPress right into a true newsletter platform is Newsletter Glue.
It is a fitting name because it virtually “adhesives” your e-newsletter to your WordPress blog posts and allows them to be the exact same thing. Definitely, something like E-newsletter Glue would certainly be a strong alternative if I wished to continue to self-host everything. However, you ‘d lose the development devices that feature a system like BeeHiiv.
Posting an e-newsletter inherently comes with a various collection of requirements than a normal email list.
You don’t typically need much marketing automation. You don’t generally require autoresponder series, occasion tracking, and all the bells and whistles of a marketing automation platform.
What you DO demand, however, is one seamless posting experience and development tools to aid you construct your client base that are specific to e-newsletters.
BeeHiiv vs Substack
When I announced to my subscribers that I was going to change the newsletter over to BeeHiiv, I had lots of people ask me why I was picking it over Substack.
To be clear, even besides the truth that I picked to go with BeeHiiv, that does not suggest I believe Substack draws. In fact, because Substack has been around much longer, it is more mature and has even more features.
Even though BeeHiiv is younger, there are a pair things that at first obtained my focus:.
- BeeHiiv is especially customized to newsletter publishers. Actually, it is essentially built by the exact same individuals who developed the innovation behind Early morning Mixture. On the other hand, SubStack targets writers. In the real life, does not matter. Yet, the obvious positioning of BeeHiiv toward e-newsletter growth called me out over the more common positioning of being a “creator”. Growth is what I have an interest in right here.
- That branding and differentiation additionally implies that BeeHiiv has some rather big brands and big publications using it. Whereas SubStack is aimed even more at solo developers. Once more, it just tells me the customer avatar distinction in between both companies.
Sending our my newsletter through FluentCRM didn’t precisely suck. The only factor I would certainly consider trembling points up is if I assumed I could expand the listing faster. And BeeHiiv spoke precisely to that goal.
Due to the targeting, I in fact don’t view BeeHiiv and Substack as direct competitors. I assume BeeHiiv is targeting a different sort of customer. In fact, if anything, I see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being a lot more direct rivals.
Yet, let’s dive deeper than simply the placing below.
Things That Make BeeHiiv Better Than Substack
On the whole, BeeHiiv looks like it was constructed by people that comprehending email marketing. On the other hand, SubStack seems extra geared toward designers.
As an example, BeeHiiv provides custom areas on clients. Now, it isn’t as established as something like FluentCRM. However, it has it. Substack does not.
BeeHiiv uses Automations. As a matter of fact, it is an aesthetic 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 fairly limited in triggers and the only action is the capability to send an e-mail. Nonetheless, improvements are coming. Quickly sufficient, automations will certainly have brand-new triggers along with brand-new activities, such as changing personalized fields, sending webhooks, etc. I’ve already seen enhancements to their automations just considering that I started utilizing the system. For example:
- Capability to set off automations based upon which certain embed form they can be found in on.
- Capacity to automatically do re-engagement (and deal with individuals based on opens up and non-opens).
- Capability to do standard conditional logic branches.
Substack does not have automations such as this. Likely, it never will. Substack just can not do this since the target market of Substack simply would not think to approach this like an email marketing professional.
When it concerns composing your e-newsletters, the writing user interface of BeeHiiv is simply more tailored toward newsletters. Actually, it actually has resemblances to the WordPress block builder in just how it works. I discover it to be a lot more intuitive, personally.
Substack’s creating interface is nice and tidy, yet it would certainly be more equivalent to the timeless editor for WordPress. Toolbar at the top.
This difference is greater than simply form. For instance, with BeeHiiv you can put a “Area” and after that placed anything you want in it. After that, you can place Presence choices on that particular section to show it just to paid clients, hide it from email, conceal from subscribers, reveal only to subscribers, etc. Substack supplies absolutely nothing similar to this.
And when/if the moment comes that I start a costs membership model, BeeHiiv doesn’t take any type of earnings. Actually, you essentially connect approximately your very own Stripe account and it charges directly to it. With Substack, they will take 10% of your profits. Depending on the number of clients you get, that 10% can be a fair bit even more cash than the regular monthly expense of BeeHiiv.
Finally, BeeHiiv has an API. This might appear unpopular, yet what it means is that there are integrations with BeeHiiv. You can really make BeeHiiv collaborate with the outside using tools like Zapier or Make.com. This is HUGE. Substack actually has … absolutely nothing. No integrations whatsoever.
Generally, I just seemed like BeeHiiv was more constructed towards actual email marketing. It was built by individuals who “get it”. Even the opt-in kinds and the landing page designs seem better constructed 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 include, I like the instructions it is going greater than Substack.
Points That Make Substack Better Than BeeHiiv
As I have claimed, Substack settings itself toward “makers” more than e-mail marketers and newsletter owners. For that reason, you see some things geared more toward individuals who just think in regards to material creation.
For example, Substack supports podcasts. BeeHiiv does not.
Also, while BeeHiiv does support several publications, they are treated rather separately. Whereas Substack does have the capability to cross-post to numerous magazines at the same time. This isn’t something I need, however … cool for people that might require it.
Substack likewise has more social performance built-in. For instance, it has a conversation feature to host chats with clients. It likewise has a “Notes” feature which functions sort of like a social media newsfeed where you can share things from other “Stacks” you read. Interesting. On the whole, Substack is established to be a lot more like a social media network which supports long-form material.
Overall, Substack is also more … minimalist. You either care for that or don’t. Personally, I do not. However, if the goal is simplicity of interface and, honestly, features … Substack functions pretty well.
Yet, I’ll be clear below …
When it pertains to real marketing, I don’t think there’s much uncertainty that BeeHiiv is much better suited. I tried to find more points that make Substack far better than BeeHiiv, but honestly … I have a difficult time discovering them.
BeeHiiv Vs ConvertKit
While BeeHiiv and Substack are usually via to be the closest competitors, I actually see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being the closer competitors. Both are going after the very same target audience and have similar abilities.
ConvertKit is also placed at developers (like Substack), yet it is much more strongly satisfying people that do it for company. ConvertKit has nice aesthetic automation building, it’s very own business platform, and extra. ConvertKit is a truly good platform.
I’m not mosting likely to birthed you with a full feature-by-feature failure here. ConvertKit is well known currently. But, below’s exactly how I really feel BeeHiiv and ConvertKit compare …
Things ConvertKit Is Much Better At …
As of now, ConvertKit has extra adaptability when it involves it’s automations. I will certainly additionally claim that I find ConvertKit’s automation builder to be a bit much more instinctive than that of BeeHiiv.
ConvertKit sustains identifying. This is simply a fundamental function of email listings that allows division in a far more flexible way than BeeHiiv presently does. I anticipate BeeHiiv to support identifying eventually soon, truthfully. It feels like an oversight that it is missing out on Popular Beehiiv Newsletters.
ConvertKit does currently provide the capacity to sell things through their own platform. BeeHiiv does not. If that is necessary to you, it may be a big deal for you. For me, however, I would constantly choose a more direct option anyway. For me, I prefer to use my own system powered by WooCommerce.
ConvertKit has been around much longer and because of that has way more integration options. Tons of web-based devices and WordPress plugins incorporate with ConvertKit. ConvertKit also has their own WordPress plugin that is quite powerful. For instance, their plugin currently also supports member-gated content along with auto-embed of your newsletter archives right into your site. Fundamentally, this much more closely puts ConvertKit into straight competition by having you have the ability to release to your site and your email list at the same time.
BeeHiiv is drastically lacking in these type of third-party integrations at the moment. It’ll arrive. Yet, we’re not there yet with it.
ConvertKit is even active dealing with the growth tools of BeeHiiv. For instance, BeeHiiv has the referral program and the Referral Engine where you can not just incentivize individuals to share your e-newsletter with rewards, yet you can also pay per lead within the internal advertisement network of BeeHiiv to expand your checklist. These are actually remarkable features of BeeHiiv. Yet …
Did you understand ConvertKit got Sparkloop? Sparkloop is among one of the most popular viral promo systems for newsletters … and ConvertKit bought it. You can see the composing on the wall wherefore this implies for the system going forward.
Points BeeHiiv Is Better At … Popular Beehiiv Newsletters
BeeHiiv is a lot previously in it’s product cycle than ConvertKit. Part of that implies much less features and less integrations, which is all-natural for this stage of the cycle. However, it also implies that they are rapidly establishing.
In the short time that I have actually been a customer of BeeHiiv, I have seen practically regular release of new features into the system. And these aren’t puny little features … yet huge features that are rather vital. Their rate of growth at this point has actually gone over.
I additionally significantly appreciate how receptive they are. As a matter of fact, among their item statements regarding some design enhancements to the web design features really had a small problem with the web content size. I just responded to that e-mail to tell them. I swiftly obtained a reply directly from the chief executive officer:.
That same day, the concern was repaired.
Couple of days later on, I provided an additional tip …
Indeed, in a bit over a week of that exchange, the capacity to set off automations based upon the embed kind used was included in the system.
That sort of responsiveness and straight involvement of the team is something I actually value.
Another significant factor of distinction right here is the rate. Both platforms provide cost-free plans, nonetheless the BeeHiiv free plan uses much more capacity and even more clients (2,500 vs 1,000) than ConvertKit.
When you most likely to paid plans, the pricing of BeeHiiv is also much more beneficial. ConvertKit seems less expensive initially look due to the fact that their pricing page reveals reduced numbers, nonetheless the client limits are much lower and your cost swiftly increases as your checklist grows.
With BeeHiiv, your initial degree paid plan begins at $42/mo (paid yearly), however you can have up to 10,000 subscribers. That very same size checklist is going to run you $100/month with ConvertKit.
If you upgrade to the “Scale” plan with BeeHiiv (their ideal plan and the one I personally utilize), you can grow your listing as much as 100,000. A listing of that size would run you $566/month with ConvertKit. If you want their referral network, also, that places you at the $733/month plan. That’s if you pay annually, too. With BeeHiiv, you can obtain all that for just $84/month if you pay annually.
BeeHiiv remains in a completely various organization when it concerns pricing (in an excellent way).
Will BeeHiiv at some point increase prices? They might as time goes on. But, I’m presuming individuals like myself who are currently in will be locked-in. We’ll see exactly how things proceed.
Things I Would Certainly Like BeeHiiv To Add
Among the important things you certainly require to remember is that BeeHiiv is reasonably young. They do seem to advance rather quickly and make new item announcements rather frequently, but there are some standard features I really desire they had that I need to simply await.
One is that they require to have a setting on subscription forms where I can choose an automation to run right at the type degree. That would certainly be outstanding for a lot of factors. Already, registration kinds look OK, yet there’s very little setups for them to aid in division.
It would be nice to have marking at the subscriber degree. This would certainly be effective.
I believe webhooks must belong to automations to make built-in automations much easier and minimize reliance on outdoors tools like Zapier.
There are additionally some minor administrative user interface changes that would be handy. As an example:
- Capacity to bulk edit/remove clients.
- Capability to bulk edit blog posts (for example, to tag a bunch of them at the same time).
- Having a couple of fundamental fields as typical on clients (like the name).
- Some even more customization options for the internet site (such as even more flexible color choices, headline control, etc).
So, yeah … there are some imperfections. Things I wish they make with it in the future. BeeHiiv is pretty good, yet it isn’t ideal and absolutely not virtually as developed as something like FluentCRM or any other actual CRM product.
It possibly never ever will certainly be, either. As I claimed, the objective is various so it would not much a lot of sense for BeeHiiv to become a full marketing automation system. I guess you never understand, though.
Last Ideas On This BeeHiiv Testimonial
I like BeeHiiv quite a whole lot. Sufficient where I determined to change my very own newsletters over to the platform despite my personal choice for digital sovereignty and owning my very own platform.
Basically, for the e-newsletter posting model especially, I saw sufficient value in their system to warrant the modification.
Bear in mind, I do not utilize BeeHiiv as my exclusive email checklist. I utilize BeeHiiv for what it is good at, yet I intentionally have points set up to make sure that I likewise keep my listing “in residence” within FluentCRM.
If you use BeeHiiv, I suggest you do the very same. It is just an excellent insurance coverage, for one. Yet, having a full-featured marketing automation system for your list will be of high use (FluentCRM is a complete marketing automation system and BeeHiiv is not and likely never ever will be).
So, the inquiry is … should YOU use BeeHiiv?
In my opinion, if you are utilizing Substack right now, I ‘d definitely take into consideration switching over to BeeHiiv. It will merely be extra business-friendly. It is targeting different capabilities and various demands. Plus, BeeHiiv even has import devices for Substack, so the button must be pretty uncomplicated.
If you get on ConvertKit now, I ‘d possibly sit tight unless you have a huge email list and are consequently being wooled with their high month-to-month costs. You will not (yet) have every feature of ConvertKit with BeeHiiv, however they are iterating swiftly. There’s additionally a pretty good chance you’re not even using several of those fancier functions of ConvertKit and you do not even need them. Because of that, BeeHiiv can quickly be a much better and a lot more inexpensive fit.
Lastly, if you plan to be extremely willful regarding growing an e-newsletter, I believe BeeHiiv is THE system to think about and maintain and eye on for you.
If you utilize BeeHiiv with eyes wide open regarding what it is created to be, it is one of the very best games in town today. This is the platform to view.
BeeHiiv offers 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 cost-free account to be quite feature rich.