I have made use of a great deal of different e-mail list systems throughout the years. In the last couple of years, I’ve been a big advocate of digital sovereignty and possessing your own platform. For that reason (and the amazing features), I have actually been utilizing Tailwind CSS Beehiiv.
So, it is without a doubt an odd move for me to choose to make use of BeeHiiv. After all, it is a hosted application and I am paying month-to-month for it.
Why did I do this?
In this BeeHiiv evaluation, I want to look at why I made the button to BeeHiiv for my newsletters. I want to address the issue of digital sovereignty while making use of the platform and I ‘d likewise such as to address why I selected to use it over Substack.
Allow’s dive in …
BeeHiiv: Developed For Newsletters
In Issue # 435 of my newsletter called My Hobby + A Huge Change In Approach, I talked about just how and why I chose to turn my recreational vehicle blog site right into largely a newsletter. I decided that was business model I wanted to go after with that residential or commercial property.
However, to intentionally pursue it as an e-newsletter, I desired a platform that was purpose-built for that. I was using FluentCRM for the email list for Gladly motor home, but FluentCRM is not a newsletter platform. It is developed to be a CRM and marketing automation device and, truthfully, using it for newsletters is a little bit of a waste. More on that particular in a little bit.
As I stated because problem of the newsletter …
Put simply, BeeHiiv is a system with tools developed into it certain to my purpose. Things such as:
- Ability to publish (to the blog site) and send the email simultaneously without having it be 2 separate activities.
- Constructed in newsletter referral program. FluentCRM doesn’t have that and I would require a third-party device like Sparkloop.
- Integrated capability to do cross-promotions with various other newsletters on the BeeHiiv system.
- ” Magic Links”, which are essentially one-click registration links. Great for promotion in various other e-newsletters. FluentCRM has Smart Links, however, so there are methods to do that.
- Ability to do paid “boosts” on the BeeHiiv network to advertise your 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 essentially run a premium e-newsletter. And BeeHiiv does not take a cut.
Basically, BeeHiiv is purpose-built for newsletter publishers with features targeted at growth. The system was actually built by the people who developed the technology for Morning Mixture. They understand what they’re doing.
That is the factor here. BeeHiiv is developed from the ground up for the purpose of running a newsletter. FluentCRM has a various purpose.
And I ended off with this:.
I might indeed be relocating The Edge over to BeeHiiv as well. A minimum of, I’m highly considering it.
Well, I really did not consider it for long. As a matter of fact, I just went for it. And as a matter of fact, The EDGE was re-branded over to The Morning WP, triggered as it’s own residential property to ensure that I can grow it more deliberately also.
The objective is that each e-newsletter has the ability to be branded as it’s own media entity and grown individually. Happily motor home was young, so very easy to change. But, The Early morning WP (previously The Side) was buried in a sea of stuff here at the Blog Marketing Academy. By separating it off, I can do what I can to expand it on it’s very own. It will certainly always be carefully connected with the Blog Marketing Academy, but doesn’t have to belong 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 difference in between a newsletter platform and simply an e-mail checklist.
You can organize your email checklist anywhere you desire and there are a variety of them around, from Aweber, ActiveCampaign, Drip, ConvertKit … over to self-hosted alternatives like GroundHogg and FluentCRM.
What’s the difference?
The key difference is that, with an e-newsletter system, the act of publishing suggests that it is mosting likely to your website and to your email customers all at once.
With both BeeHiiv and Substack, you have a site. You are releasing to that website. Yet, you are likewise sending off to all subscribers at the same time. The site and it’s subscribers are done in one. This makes monitoring of the platform much simpler.
With a lot of email platforms, any kind of newsletter you established is done as an email campaign. It is built completely individually from your internet site. So, for example, you might release a short article to WordPress however then you would certainly require to independently develop and send out an email to your checklist to send it to subscribers. These are then 2 separate sets of archives and two different activities due to the fact that blog posts and your e-mails are not inherently linked.
The closest point that transforms WordPress into a true e-newsletter platform is E-newsletter Glue.
It is a fitting name because it pretty much “adhesives” your newsletter to your WordPress articles and allows them to be the exact same thing. Certainly, something like Newsletter Glue would be a strong choice if I intended to continue to self-host every little thing. Nevertheless, you ‘d lose the development devices that come with a system like BeeHiiv.
Posting a newsletter naturally includes a various set of needs than a typical e-mail list.
You do not typically need much marketing automation. You don’t normally need autoresponder series, event monitoring, and all the bells and whistles of a marketing automation system.
What you DO need, though, is one smooth publishing experience and growth tools to assist you build your subscriber base that specify to e-newsletters.
BeeHiiv vs Substack
When I introduced to my subscribers that I was going to switch the e-newsletter over to BeeHiiv, I had many people ask me why I was selecting it over Substack.
To be clear, also besides the truth that I picked to choose BeeHiiv, that doesn’t suggest I think Substack sucks. In fact, due to the fact that Substack has been about longer, it is more mature and has even more features.
Although BeeHiiv is younger, there are a pair points that originally got my interest:.
- BeeHiiv is particularly customized to e-newsletter authors. In fact, it is essentially built by the same folks that developed the technology behind Morning Mixture. On the other hand, SubStack targets authors. In the real life, doesn’t matter. However, the obvious positioning of BeeHiiv toward newsletter development called me out over the even more generic positioning of being a “maker”. Development is what I’m interested in below.
- That branding and differentiation also implies that BeeHiiv has some relatively huge brands and huge publications using it. Whereas SubStack is intended even more at solo developers. Once more, it just informs me the consumer character difference between both companies.
Sending our my e-newsletter via FluentCRM didn’t specifically draw. The only factor I would certainly consider drinking points up is if I believed I can expand the list faster. And BeeHiiv talked exactly to that objective.
As a result of the targeting, I actually do not see BeeHiiv and Substack as straight rivals. I assume BeeHiiv is targeting a different kind of consumer. In fact, if anything, I see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being much more direct competitors.
Yet, let’s dive much deeper than simply the positioning below.
Things That Make BeeHiiv Better Than Substack
Overall, BeeHiiv feels like it was built by individuals that comprehending e-mail marketing. On the other hand, SubStack appears a lot more tailored toward creators.
As an example, BeeHiiv uses customized fields on customers. Currently, it isn’t as created as something like FluentCRM. However, it has it. Substack doesn’t.
BeeHiiv offers Automations. In fact, it is an aesthetic automation builder that functions a whole lot 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 activity is the capability to send out an email. Nonetheless, enhancements are coming. Soon enough, automations will have new triggers as well as brand-new actions, such as changing customized fields, sending webhooks, and so on. I have actually already seen enhancements to their automations just because I started using the system. As an example:
- Ability to set off automations based on which details embed kind they can be found in on.
- Ability to instantly do re-engagement (and manage people based upon opens and non-opens).
- Capability to do standard conditional logic branches.
Substack does not have automations such as this. Likely, it never will. Substack simply can not do this because the target market of Substack just would not think to approach this like an e-mail marketing professional.
When it comes to composing your e-newsletters, the composing interface of BeeHiiv is just more tailored towards e-newsletters. In fact, it actually has similarities to the WordPress block builder in exactly how it functions. I locate it to be extra user-friendly, directly.
Substack’s writing user interface behaves and tidy, but it would certainly be more equal to the timeless editor for WordPress. Toolbar at the top.
This distinction is more than simply type. For example, with BeeHiiv you can put a “Area” and afterwards placed anything you want in it. Then, you can place Presence alternatives on that area to reveal it only to paid customers, hide it from e-mail, conceal from clients, reveal only to clients, etc. Substack provides absolutely nothing similar to this.
And when/if the time comes that I begin a costs subscription version, BeeHiiv does not take any kind of income. Actually, you actually link approximately your own Stripe account and it bills directly to it. With Substack, they will take 10% of your income. Depending upon the amount of subscribers you get, that 10% can be quite a bit even more money than the monthly cost of BeeHiiv.
Lastly, BeeHiiv has an API. This may seem nerdy, but what it means is that there are integrations with BeeHiiv. You can in fact make BeeHiiv deal with the outside utilizing devices like Zapier or Make.com. This is HUGE. Substack essentially has … absolutely nothing. No integrations at all.
In general, I simply felt like BeeHiiv was extra constructed toward actual email marketing. It was constructed by people that “get it”. Also the opt-in forms and the landing page develops appear better constructed for conversions. Growth is nitty-gritty with BeeHiiv.
Even though there are still features I would love to see BeeHiiv include, I such as 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” greater than e-mail marketers and e-newsletter proprietors. Therefore, you see some points tailored much more toward individuals that simply believe in terms of material creation.
For instance, Substack sustains podcasts. BeeHiiv does not.
Additionally, while BeeHiiv does sustain numerous publications, they are treated fairly separately. Whereas Substack does have the capability to cross-post to several magazines at the same time. This isn’t something I call for, however … awesome for people that may need it.
Substack likewise has more social performance built-in. For instance, it has a chat function to host talks with clients. It also has a “Notes” feature which functions type of like a social networks newsfeed where you can share things from various other “Stacks” you read. Fascinating. Generally, Substack is established to be a lot more like a social network which supports long-form material.
On the whole, Substack is also extra … minimalist. You either care for that or do not. Personally, I do not. However, if the objective is simplicity of user interface and, truthfully, features … Substack functions pretty well.
Yet, I’ll be clear right here …
When it pertains to real marketing, I don’t believe there’s much doubt that BeeHiiv is better fit. I tried to find more factors that make Substack much better than BeeHiiv, however truthfully … I have a tough time finding them.
BeeHiiv Vs ConvertKit
While BeeHiiv and Substack are usually with to be the closest competitors, I in fact see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being the closer competitors. Both are going after the exact same target audience and have comparable abilities.
ConvertKit is likewise positioned at designers (like Substack), yet it is far more strongly catering to individuals who do it for business. ConvertKit has good visual automation building, it’s own commerce platform, and a lot more. ConvertKit is a truly nice platform.
I’m not going to bore you with a full feature-by-feature failure right here. ConvertKit is well known currently. However, here’s exactly how I feel BeeHiiv and ConvertKit compare …
Things ConvertKit Is Better At …
Already, ConvertKit has extra versatility when it involves it’s automations. I will certainly likewise state that I locate ConvertKit’s automation builder to be a little bit much more instinctive than that of BeeHiiv.
ConvertKit sustains marking. This is just a fundamental function of email listings that allows division in an even more flexible means than BeeHiiv currently does. I expect BeeHiiv to sustain labeling eventually soon, frankly. It feels like an oversight that it is missing Tailwind CSS Beehiiv.
ConvertKit does currently offer the ability to market things via their own platform. BeeHiiv does not. If that is necessary to you, it might be a big deal for you. For me, nonetheless, I would always select an extra straight option anyhow. For me, I choose to utilize my very own platform powered by WooCommerce.
ConvertKit has actually been around a lot longer and because of that has way much more integration choices. Lots of online tools and WordPress plugins incorporate with ConvertKit. ConvertKit also has their very own WordPress plugin that is quite effective. For instance, their plugin currently also sustains member-gated material along with auto-embed of your e-newsletter archives right into your website. In essence, this much more closely places ConvertKit into direct competition by having you have the ability to release to your site and your e-mail checklist at the same time.
BeeHiiv is seriously lacking in these sort of third-party integrations at the moment. It’ll get there. However, we’re not there yet with it.
ConvertKit is even hectic dealing with 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 benefits, however you can also pay per lead within the inner advertisement network of BeeHiiv to grow your list. These are really amazing features of BeeHiiv. Yet …
Did you recognize ConvertKit got Sparkloop? Sparkloop is one of one of the most well known viral promotion systems for newsletters … and ConvertKit bought it. You can see the writing on the wall surface of what this means for the platform moving forward.
Points BeeHiiv Is Much Better At … Tailwind CSS Beehiiv
BeeHiiv is a lot previously in it’s product cycle than ConvertKit. Part of that suggests less features and much less integrations, which is all-natural for this stage of the cycle. However, it additionally implies that they are rapidly developing.
In the short time that I have been a customer of BeeHiiv, I have actually witnessed nearly weekly launch of brand-new features into the platform. And these aren’t puny little features … yet huge features that are rather crucial. Their speed of advancement at this point has actually been impressive.
I likewise quite appreciate just how receptive they are. As a matter of fact, one of their item statements about some style enhancements to the website design features actually consisted of a tiny trouble with the web content width. I simply responded to that email to tell them. I quickly obtained a reply straight from the CEO:.
That very same day, the problem was taken care of.
Couple of days later, I provided another tip …
Indeed, in a bit over a week of that exchange, the ability to trigger automations based upon the embed type utilized was included in the system.
That sort of responsiveness and straight participation of the team is something I really appreciate.
Another major point of distinction below is the cost. Both platforms supply free plans, however the BeeHiiv free plan uses extra capability and more clients (2,500 vs 1,000) than ConvertKit.
Once you most likely to paid plans, the pricing of BeeHiiv is additionally even more favorable. ConvertKit appears more affordable at first glimpse due to the fact that their pricing page reveals lower numbers, nonetheless the customer restrictions are much reduced and your price quickly increases as your checklist grows.
With BeeHiiv, your first level paid plan begins at $42/mo (paid every year), however you can have up to 10,000 subscribers. That very same size list is going to run you $100/month with ConvertKit.
If you upgrade to the “Range” plan with BeeHiiv (their finest plan and the one I personally utilize), you can grow your list as much as 100,000. A listing of that size would 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 each year, as well. With BeeHiiv, you can obtain all that for just $84/month if you pay each year.
BeeHiiv is in a totally various organization when it comes to pricing (in an excellent way).
Will BeeHiiv eventually increase costs? They may as time goes on. But, I’m presuming individuals like myself who are already in will be locked-in. We’ll see just how things proceed.
Points I Would Certainly Like BeeHiiv To Add
Among the things you definitely require to bear in mind is that BeeHiiv is fairly young. They do appear to progress rather promptly and make brand-new item statements rather frequently, however there are some fundamental features I actually want they had that I require to simply await.
One is that they require to have a setup on membership types where I might select an automation to run right at the kind degree. That would be remarkable for many factors. Currently, subscription types look OK, yet there’s extremely little setups for them to aid in segmentation.
It would be nice to have identifying at the client degree. This would be effective.
I believe webhooks should belong to automations to make integrated automations much easier and lower reliance on outdoors tools like Zapier.
There are additionally some minor administrative interface modifications that would certainly be handy. For example:
- Ability to bulk edit/remove subscribers.
- Ability to mass edit posts (as an example, to mark a lot of them at the same time).
- Having a couple of fundamental fields as typical on subscribers (like the name).
- Some more modification alternatives for the web site (such as more versatile color choices, headline control, etc).
So, yeah … there are some drawbacks. Points I wish they make with it in the near future. BeeHiiv is pretty good, but it isn’t perfect and absolutely not nearly as created as something like FluentCRM or any other genuine CRM item.
It possibly never ever will be, either. As I stated, the purpose is various so it wouldn’t a lot a great deal of sense for BeeHiiv to come to be a full marketing automation system. I presume you never ever understand, though.
Final Thoughts On This BeeHiiv Review
I such as BeeHiiv quite a whole lot. Sufficient where I chose to switch my own newsletters over to the platform in spite of my personal choice for digital sovereignty and having my very own platform.
Simply put, for the newsletter publishing version especially, I saw adequate worth in their system to warrant the adjustment.
Remember, I do not use BeeHiiv as my special email listing. I use BeeHiiv wherefore it is efficient, but I intentionally have things set up to ensure that I also keep my listing “in home” within FluentCRM.
If you use BeeHiiv, I recommend you do the very same. It is just an excellent insurance plan, for one. But, having a full-featured marketing automation platform for your listing 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 inquiry is … should YOU utilize BeeHiiv?
In my point of view, if you are utilizing Substack right now, I ‘d most definitely consider switching to BeeHiiv. It will merely be a lot more business-friendly. It is targeting different capacities and various requirements. Plus, BeeHiiv also has import devices for Substack, so the switch ought to be pretty straightforward.
If you are on ConvertKit now, I ‘d possibly stay unless you have a huge email listing and are therefore being wooled with their high monthly expense. You will not (yet) have every feature of ConvertKit with BeeHiiv, but they are repeating swiftly. There’s additionally a respectable chance you’re not also making use of a few of those fancier functions of ConvertKit and you don’t also need them. Because of that, BeeHiiv can conveniently be a much better and much more budget friendly fit.
Last but not least, if you plan to be very intentional about expanding an e-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 about what it is created to be, it is one of the very best video games around now. This is the system to enjoy.
BeeHiiv provides a 14-day trial on their paid plans. It is worth checking out for yourself. And if you end up not sticking to the paid plan, you’ll locate the complimentary account to be rather feature rich.