I have made use of a great deal of different email list systems over the years. In the last number of years, I’ve been a substantial supporter of digital sovereignty and having your own system. For that reason (and the incredible features), I have actually been using Beehiiv Concierge Onboarding.
So, it is indeed an unusual move for me to decide to make use of BeeHiiv. Nevertheless, it is an organized application and I am paying regular monthly for it.
Why did I do this?
In this BeeHiiv review, I want to review why I made the switch to BeeHiiv for my e-newsletters. I wish to deal with the concern of digital sovereignty while utilizing the platform and I ‘d also such as to resolve why I selected to use it over Substack.
Allow’s dive in …
BeeHiiv: Developed For Newsletters
In Problem # 435 of my newsletter called My Hobby + A Large Change In Method, I discussed just how and why I determined to turn my motor home blog site right into largely a newsletter. I decided that was the business design I intended to seek with that residential or commercial property.
But, to purposefully pursue it as an e-newsletter, I desired a system that was purpose-built for that. I was using FluentCRM for the email checklist for Happily RV, however FluentCRM is not an e-newsletter system. It is built to be a CRM and marketing automation tool and, frankly, utilizing it for newsletters is a bit of a waste. More on that particular in a little bit.
As I stated because concern of the e-newsletter …
Simply put, BeeHiiv is a system with devices developed into it particular to my function. Points such as:
- Capacity to publish (to the blog site) and send the email concurrently without having it be 2 separate actions.
- Constructed in newsletter referral program. FluentCRM doesn’t have that and I would certainly have needed a third-party tool like Sparkloop.
- Built-in capacity to do cross-promotions with various other e-newsletters on the BeeHiiv system.
- ” Magic Hyperlinks”, which are essentially one-click subscription links. Great for promo in various other e-newsletters. FluentCRM has Smart Hyperlinks, however, so there are means to do that.
- Capacity to do paid “boosts” on the BeeHiiv network to advertise your newsletter.
- Built-in ad network, if I pick to monetize with advertisements in the e-newsletter. And I may.
- Integrated capability to run a paid newsletter upgrade and generally run a premium e-newsletter. And BeeHiiv doesn’t take a cut.
Primarily, BeeHiiv is purpose-built for e-newsletter publishers with features aimed at growth. The system was essentially developed by the people that built up the modern technology for Early morning Mixture. They know what they’re doing.
That is the factor below. BeeHiiv is built from the ground up for the objective of running a newsletter. FluentCRM has a different objective.
And I finished off with this:.
I might undoubtedly be relocating The Side over to BeeHiiv as well. At least, I’m highly considering it.
Well, I didn’t consider it for long. In 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 very own residential or commercial property so that I can grow it a lot more intentionally too.
The objective is that each newsletter has the ability to be branded as it’s very own media entity and expanded independently. Happily motor home was young, so simple to change. Yet, The Early morning WP (formerly The Side) was hidden in a sea of things here at the Blog Site Marketing Academy. By dividing it off, I can do what I can to grow it on it’s very own. It will obviously constantly be very closely linked with the Blog site Marketing Academy, however doesn’t need to be a part of it.
I changed to BeeHiiv because it was developed for this function. FluentCRM was not.
Newsletters Versus Simply A Normal Email Listing
There’s a difference between a newsletter platform and simply an email list.
You can host your e-mail listing just about anywhere you want and there are a number of them out there, from Aweber, ActiveCampaign, Drip, ConvertKit … over to self-hosted alternatives like GroundHogg and FluentCRM.
What’s the difference?
The main difference is that, with a newsletter platform, the act of publishing suggests that it is going to your internet site and to your e-mail clients concurrently.
With both BeeHiiv and Substack, you have a website. You are releasing to that site. But, you are additionally sending to all customers at the same time. The site and it’s subscribers are done in one. This makes administration of the system much less complex.
With the majority of e-mail systems, any type of newsletter you established is done as an email campaign. It is built completely independently from your site. So, as an example, you might publish a short article to WordPress however after that you would certainly need to individually develop and send out an e-mail to your list to send it to clients. These are after that 2 separate sets of archives and 2 separate actions since blog posts and your emails are not inherently connected.
The closest point that transforms WordPress into a real newsletter platform is Newsletter Glue.
It is a fitting name since it pretty much “adhesives” your newsletter to your WordPress articles and allows them to be the same thing. Definitely, something like E-newsletter Glue would certainly be a solid choice if I wished to remain to self-host everything. However, you would certainly lose the growth tools that feature a platform like BeeHiiv.
Publishing an e-newsletter inherently comes with a different collection of demands than a normal e-mail checklist.
You do not typically require much marketing automation. You don’t normally require autoresponder series, event tracking, and all the bells and whistles of a marketing automation system.
What you DO demand, however, is one seamless publishing experience and development tools to help you construct your client 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 fact that I selected to choose BeeHiiv, that does not mean I assume Substack draws. As a matter of fact, due to the fact that Substack has actually been about longer, it is more mature and has more features.
Although BeeHiiv is more youthful, there are a couple things that at first obtained my attention:.
- BeeHiiv is specifically tailored to e-newsletter authors. In fact, it is actually constructed by the exact same individuals who built the technology behind Early morning Mixture. On the other hand, SubStack targets authors. In the real world, does not matter. However, the noticeable positioning of BeeHiiv toward e-newsletter growth called me out over the even more common positioning of being a “designer”. Growth is what I want here.
- That branding and distinction additionally indicates that BeeHiiv has some rather big brands and huge magazines using it. Whereas SubStack is intended even more at solo creators. Again, it just informs me the customer avatar distinction between the two business.
Sending our my e-newsletter by means of FluentCRM really did not exactly suck. The only reason I would certainly ponder shaking points up is if I assumed I might expand the list quicker. And BeeHiiv talked precisely to that goal.
As a result of the targeting, I in fact don’t watch BeeHiiv and Substack as straight competitors. I think BeeHiiv is targeting a various sort of customer. As a matter of fact, if anything, I see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being a lot more direct competitors.
Yet, allow’s dive deeper than just the placing below.
Things That Make BeeHiiv Better Than Substack
Generally, BeeHiiv feels like it was constructed by individuals who recognizing e-mail marketing. On the other hand, SubStack seems extra geared towards creators.
As an example, BeeHiiv offers custom fields on clients. Currently, it isn’t as established as something like FluentCRM. Yet, it has it. Substack doesn’t.
BeeHiiv supplies Automations. In fact, it is an aesthetic automation builder that functions a great deal like what we have within FluentCRM.
To be clear, the automation functionality is still early-phase. It is still rather restricted in triggers and the only activity is the capability to send an e-mail. Nevertheless, enhancements are coming. Soon sufficient, automations will have brand-new triggers in addition to new activities, such as modifying custom-made fields, sending out webhooks, etc. I have actually currently seen enhancements to their automations simply since I started making use of the system. For example:
- Capability to set off automations based on which certain embed kind they came in on.
- Capability to instantly do re-engagement (and deal with individuals based upon opens up and non-opens).
- Ability to do fundamental conditional reasoning branches.
Substack does not have automations like this. Likely, it never ever will. Substack simply can not do this because the target audience of Substack just wouldn’t think to approach this like an email online marketer.
When it pertains to writing your e-newsletters, the composing user interface of BeeHiiv is just more geared toward e-newsletters. Actually, it really has similarities to the WordPress block builder in exactly how it functions. I find it to be a lot more intuitive, personally.
Substack’s creating user interface is nice and clean, however it would certainly be more equivalent to the timeless editor for WordPress. Toolbar at the top.
This difference is greater than just kind. As an example, with BeeHiiv you can insert a “Area” and afterwards placed anything you want in it. After that, you can put Presence alternatives on that particular section to show it just to paid clients, hide it from e-mail, hide from subscribers, reveal only to customers, and so on. Substack uses absolutely nothing such as this.
And when/if the time comes that I begin a costs subscription design, BeeHiiv doesn’t take any kind of revenue. Actually, you actually attach as much as your own Stripe account and it charges directly to it. With Substack, they will certainly take 10% of your profits. Depending on the amount of subscribers you obtain, that 10% can be a fair bit more cash than the month-to-month price of BeeHiiv.
Lastly, BeeHiiv has an API. This may appear nerdy, but what it suggests is that there are integrations with BeeHiiv. You can actually make BeeHiiv collaborate with the outside making use of tools like Zapier or Make.com. This is HUGE. Substack literally has … absolutely nothing. No integrations whatsoever.
Overall, I just felt like BeeHiiv was more developed toward genuine e-mail marketing. It was built by people that “get it”. Even the opt-in types and the landing page designs appear far better developed for conversions. Development is the name of the game with BeeHiiv.
Despite the fact that there are still features I wish to see BeeHiiv include, I like the direction it is going greater than Substack.
Things That Make Substack Better Than BeeHiiv
As I have stated, Substack positions itself towards “makers” greater than email marketers and newsletter proprietors. For that reason, you see some points tailored a lot more toward individuals who simply believe in terms of material creation.
As an example, Substack supports podcasts. BeeHiiv does not.
Also, while BeeHiiv does sustain several magazines, they are treated fairly individually. Whereas Substack does have the capability to cross-post to multiple magazines at the same time. This isn’t something I require, but … great for people who might need it.
Substack likewise has even more social performance built-in. As an example, it has a conversation feature to host chats with subscribers. It also has a “Notes” feature which functions type of like a social media newsfeed where you can share points from various other “Stacks” you read. Fascinating. Overall, Substack is established to be extra like a social network which supports long-form material.
On the whole, Substack is additionally extra … minimal. You either take care of that or don’t. Personally, I do not. Nevertheless, if the goal is simpleness of user interface and, truthfully, features … Substack functions pretty well.
Yet, I’ll be clear here …
When it involves real marketing, I don’t believe there’s much question that BeeHiiv is much better matched. I tried to find even more factors that make Substack better than BeeHiiv, yet truthfully … I have a tough time discovering them.
BeeHiiv Vs ConvertKit
While BeeHiiv and Substack are often via to be the closest competitors, I really see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being the closer rivals. Both are pursuing the exact same target market and have similar capacities.
ConvertKit is likewise positioned at designers (like Substack), however it is much more strongly catering to people that do it for business. ConvertKit has nice visual automation building, it’s own commerce platform, and more. ConvertKit is a truly wonderful system.
I’m not going to bore you with a complete feature-by-feature malfunction below. ConvertKit is popular already. But, below’s exactly how I really feel BeeHiiv and ConvertKit compare …
Points ConvertKit Is Better At …
As of now, ConvertKit has much more flexibility when it comes to it’s automations. I will additionally state that I locate ConvertKit’s automation builder to be a little bit extra intuitive than that of BeeHiiv.
ConvertKit supports labeling. This is simply a standard function of email checklists that enables segmentation in a much more flexible way than BeeHiiv presently does. I expect BeeHiiv to support tagging at some time quickly, honestly. It feels like an oversight that it is missing Beehiiv Concierge Onboarding.
ConvertKit does currently offer the capability to sell points via their own system. BeeHiiv does not. If that is necessary to you, it may be a big deal for you. For me, nonetheless, I would always select a much more straight alternative anyhow. For me, I favor to utilize my very own system powered by WooCommerce.
ConvertKit has actually been about a lot longer and for that reason has way much more integration options. Tons of online tools and WordPress plugins incorporate with ConvertKit. ConvertKit also has their own WordPress plugin that is fairly effective. For instance, their plugin currently even supports member-gated content as well as auto-embed of your newsletter archives right into your site. In essence, this extra very closely places ConvertKit into straight competition by having you have the ability to publish to your site and your e-mail list at the same time.
BeeHiiv is severely lacking in these sort of third-party integrations right now. It’ll arrive. However, we’re not there yet with it.
ConvertKit is also busy tackling the growth tools of BeeHiiv. As an example, BeeHiiv has the referral program and the Suggestion Engine where you can not just incentivize individuals to share your e-newsletter with rewards, however you can also pay per lead within the internal advertisement network of BeeHiiv to grow your list. These are truly incredible features of BeeHiiv. Yet …
Did you understand ConvertKit acquired Sparkloop? Sparkloop is one of the most well known viral promotion systems for newsletters … and ConvertKit bought it. You can see the creating on the wall of what this indicates for the platform moving forward.
Points BeeHiiv Is Better At … Beehiiv Concierge Onboarding
BeeHiiv is a lot previously in it’s item cycle than ConvertKit. Part of that means much less features and much less integrations, which is all-natural for this phase of the cycle. However, it also suggests that they are swiftly creating.
In the short time that I have been a customer of BeeHiiv, I have actually witnessed practically weekly launch of new features into the platform. And these aren’t puny little features … however large features that are rather important. Their speed of development now has been impressive.
I also quite appreciate just how receptive they are. In fact, one of their product statements regarding some layout enhancements to the website design features really had a small problem with the content width. I merely replied to that email to tell them. I rapidly got a reply directly from the CEO:.
That same day, the issue was dealt with.
Couple of days later, I provided an additional tip …
Indeed, in a little bit over a week of that exchange, the ability to trigger automations based on the embed kind used was added to the system.
That kind of responsiveness and direct involvement of the team is something I actually appreciate.
An additional major factor of differentiation here is the price. Both systems use totally free plans, nevertheless the BeeHiiv free plan supplies more capacity and more subscribers (2,500 vs 1,000) than ConvertKit.
Once you go to paid plans, the pricing of BeeHiiv is likewise even more positive. ConvertKit appears less expensive at first look because their pricing web page shows lower numbers, nonetheless the customer limits are much reduced and your price quickly boosts as your list expands.
With BeeHiiv, your first level paid plan begins at $42/mo (paid yearly), nevertheless you can have up to 10,000 subscribers. That same size listing is mosting likely to run you $100/month with ConvertKit.
If you upgrade to the “Range” plan with BeeHiiv (their ideal plan and the one I directly use), you can grow your checklist approximately 100,000. A checklist of that size would certainly run you $566/month with ConvertKit. If you desire their referral network, also, that puts you at the $733/month plan. That’s if you pay every year, too. With BeeHiiv, you can obtain all that for just $84/month if you pay annually.
BeeHiiv is in a totally various organization when it involves pricing (in a good way).
Will BeeHiiv at some point raise prices? They may as time goes on. But, I’m thinking people like myself who are currently in will be locked-in. We’ll see just how points proceed.
Things I Would Like BeeHiiv To Include
One of things you most definitely require to remember is that BeeHiiv is fairly young. They do appear to evolve rather quickly and make brand-new item statements rather often, however there are some basic features I actually want they had that I require to simply wait for.
One is that they need to have a setup on membership forms where I could select an automation to run right at the form level. That would be incredible for so many reasons. Currently, membership kinds look OK, however there’s really little setups for them to aid in segmentation.
It would certainly be nice to have marking at the customer degree. This would be effective.
I assume webhooks ought to be part of automations to make built-in automations simpler and decrease dependence on outside devices like Zapier.
There are additionally some small administrative interface adjustments that would come in handy. For instance:
- Capacity to bulk edit/remove clients.
- Capacity to bulk edit blog posts (for example, to identify a bunch of them at the same time).
- Having a few fundamental areas as typical on clients (like the name).
- Some even more personalization options for the site (such as even more versatile color choices, heading control, etc).
So, yeah … there are some shortcomings. Things I wish they perform with it in the future. BeeHiiv is respectable, but it isn’t perfect and certainly not nearly as developed as something like FluentCRM or any other actual CRM item.
It most likely never ever will be, either. As I said, the function is various so it would not a lot a lot of sense for BeeHiiv to come to be a complete marketing automation system. I presume you never understand, though.
Final Ideas On This BeeHiiv Review
I like BeeHiiv rather a great deal. Enough where I decided to change my own e-newsletters over to the platform in spite of my personal preference for digital sovereignty and having my own system.
Simply put, for the e-newsletter posting version particularly, I saw sufficient value in their system to require the change.
Bear in mind, I do not make use of BeeHiiv as my exclusive email listing. I make use of BeeHiiv wherefore it is good at, yet I deliberately have points establish so that I additionally keep my list “in house” inside of FluentCRM.
If you make use of BeeHiiv, I suggest you do the same. It is simply an excellent insurance plan, for one. However, having a full-featured marketing automation system for your checklist will certainly be of high use (FluentCRM is a complete marketing automation system and BeeHiiv is not and likely never will be).
So, the concern is … should YOU utilize BeeHiiv?
In my opinion, if you are making use of Substack right now, I ‘d definitely think about changing to BeeHiiv. It will merely be much more business-friendly. It is targeting various capabilities and different needs. Plus, BeeHiiv even has import devices for Substack, so the switch needs to be rather straightforward.
If you are on ConvertKit currently, I ‘d most likely stay put unless you have a huge e-mail listing and are consequently being fleeced with their high regular monthly expense. You will not (yet) have every feature of ConvertKit with BeeHiiv, however they are repeating promptly. There’s also a pretty good opportunity you’re not also utilizing several of those fancier functions of ConvertKit and you don’t even require them. Because of that, BeeHiiv might easily be a much better and much more economical fit.
Finally, if you plan to be very deliberate about growing a newsletter, I believe 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 made to be, it is among the most effective games in town now. This is the platform to view.
BeeHiiv provides a 14-day trial on their paid plans. It is worth taking a look at for yourself. And if you wind up not sticking with the paid plan, you’ll find the complimentary account to be rather feature abundant.