I have used a lot of different e-mail list systems over the years. In the last couple of years, I’ve been a significant proponent of digital sovereignty and having your very own system. For that reason (and the remarkable features), I have been making use of Beehiiv Merge Tags.
So, it is indeed an unusual move for me to determine to utilize BeeHiiv. Nevertheless, it is a hosted application and I am paying month-to-month for it.
Why did I do this?
In this BeeHiiv review, I want to review why I made the button to BeeHiiv for my newsletters. I intend to resolve the problem of digital sovereignty while using the platform and I would certainly likewise like to address why I picked to utilize it over Substack.
Let’s dive in …
BeeHiiv: Developed For E-newsletters
In Problem # 435 of my newsletter called My Hobby + A Huge Change In Strategy, I discussed how and why I determined to turn my RV blog into mainly an e-newsletter. I decided that was business design I wanted to go after with that building.
However, to purposefully pursue it as an e-newsletter, I wanted a system that was purpose-built for that. I was utilizing FluentCRM for the email listing for Gladly recreational vehicle, but FluentCRM is not an e-newsletter system. It is built to be a CRM and marketing automation device and, honestly, using it for e-newsletters is a bit of a waste. Extra on that in a little bit.
As I said in that problem of the newsletter …
Simply put, BeeHiiv is a system with devices built right into it certain to my purpose. Points such as:
- Ability to publish (to the blog site) and send out the email concurrently without having it be two separate activities.
- Built in e-newsletter referral program. FluentCRM does not have that and I would require a third-party tool like Sparkloop.
- Built-in ability to do cross-promotions with other e-newsletters on the BeeHiiv system.
- ” Magic Links”, which are primarily one-click membership web links. Great for promo in various other e-newsletters. FluentCRM has Smart Hyperlinks, however, so there are means to do that.
- Capability to do paid “boosts” on the BeeHiiv network to advertise your e-newsletter.
- Integrated advertisement network, if I pick to monetize with advertisements in the newsletter. And I may.
- Built-in capacity to run a paid newsletter upgrade and primarily run a premium e-newsletter. And BeeHiiv does not take a cut.
Essentially, BeeHiiv is purpose-built for e-newsletter authors with features focused on growth. The system was actually built by the people that built up the technology for Morning Brew. They know what they’re doing.
That is the factor right here. BeeHiiv is built from scratch for the function of running a newsletter. FluentCRM has a different purpose.
And I ended off with this:.
I might without a doubt be relocating The Edge over to BeeHiiv too. At the very least, I’m strongly considering it.
Well, I didn’t consider it for long. Actually, I simply went for it. And as a matter of fact, The EDGE was re-branded over to The Early morning WP, set off as it’s very own residential or commercial property so that I can grow it extra deliberately as well.
The objective is that each e-newsletter has the ability to be branded as it’s own media entity and grown independently. Gladly recreational vehicle was young, so simple to change. However, The Morning WP (previously The Side) was hidden in a sea of stuff right here at the Blog Marketing Academy. By dividing it off, I can do what I can to expand it on it’s very own. It will certainly always be closely linked with the Blog Marketing Academy, however doesn’t need to be a part of it.
I switched over to BeeHiiv because it was built for this objective. FluentCRM was not.
Newsletters Versus Simply A Normal Email List
There’s a distinction between a newsletter platform and just an e-mail list.
You can hold your e-mail list anyplace you want and there are a number of them around, from Aweber, ActiveCampaign, Drip, ConvertKit … over to self-hosted options like GroundHogg and FluentCRM.
What’s the distinction?
The key difference is that, with an e-newsletter system, the act of publishing implies that it is mosting likely to your website and to your e-mail customers simultaneously.
With both BeeHiiv and Substack, you have a site. You are releasing to that internet site. Yet, you are likewise dispatching to all subscribers at the same time. The internet site and it’s subscribers are done in one. This makes monitoring of the system much less complex.
With most email platforms, any type of newsletter you set up is done as an email campaign. It is built completely separately from your website. So, for instance, you might publish a write-up to WordPress but then you would need to independently build and send an e-mail to your list to send it to customers. These are then two separate collections of archives and two separate activities because blog posts and your emails are not inherently linked.
The closest point that transforms WordPress into a real e-newsletter system is Newsletter Glue.
It is a suitable name since it basically “adhesives” your e-newsletter to your WordPress blog posts and allows them to be the same point. Absolutely, something like E-newsletter Glue would certainly be a solid option if I wished to continue to self-host whatever. Nevertheless, you ‘d shed the development tools that feature a system like BeeHiiv.
Publishing a newsletter inherently comes with a different set of demands than a typical e-mail list.
You do not typically need much marketing automation. You do not typically need autoresponder sequences, occasion monitoring, and all the bells and whistles of a marketing automation system.
What you DO need, though, is one seamless posting experience and growth devices to assist you build your subscriber base that specify to e-newsletters.
BeeHiiv vs Substack
When I announced to my subscribers that I was mosting likely to switch 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 reality that I chose to select BeeHiiv, that does not suggest I assume Substack sucks. In fact, since Substack has actually been about longer, it is elder and has more features.
Although BeeHiiv is more youthful, there are a pair things that originally obtained my interest:.
- BeeHiiv is especially customized to newsletter authors. Actually, it is literally constructed by the exact same folks that constructed the technology behind Early morning Mixture. On the other hand, SubStack targets writers. In the real life, does not matter. But, the noticeable positioning of BeeHiiv towards newsletter growth called me out over the more generic positioning of being a “creator”. Development is what I have an interest in below.
- That branding and differentiation likewise indicates that BeeHiiv has some rather large brand names and large magazines utilizing it. Whereas SubStack is aimed even more at solo designers. Once more, it simply informs me the client character difference between the two firms.
Sending our my newsletter by means of FluentCRM didn’t precisely draw. The only reason I would contemplate drinking things up is if I assumed I might GROW the list quicker. And BeeHiiv spoke precisely to that goal.
Because of the targeting, I really do not see BeeHiiv and Substack as straight rivals. I believe BeeHiiv is targeting a various type of consumer. Actually, if anything, I see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being more straight rivals.
However, let’s dive deeper than just the placing here.
Things That Make BeeHiiv Better Than Substack
Generally, BeeHiiv seems like it was developed by individuals who recognizing e-mail marketing. On the other hand, SubStack appears much more geared towards developers.
For instance, BeeHiiv provides customized areas on subscribers. Currently, it isn’t as created as something like FluentCRM. Yet, it has it. Substack does not.
BeeHiiv provides Automations. As a matter of fact, it is an aesthetic automation builder that functions a whole lot like what we have inside of FluentCRM.
To be clear, the automation capability is still early-phase. It is still quite minimal in triggers and the only action is the capacity to send an e-mail. Nonetheless, improvements are coming. Quickly enough, automations will have new triggers along with brand-new activities, such as customizing custom-made areas, sending webhooks, etc. I have actually already seen improvements to their automations just considering that I started using the system. For example:
- Ability to set off automations based on which details embed form they was available in on.
- Capacity to instantly do re-engagement (and manage individuals based upon opens up and non-opens).
- Ability to do fundamental conditional logic branches.
Substack does not have automations such as this. Likely, it never will. Substack simply can’t do this since the target market of Substack simply wouldn’t believe to approach this like an email marketing expert.
When it involves composing your newsletters, the composing interface of BeeHiiv is just much more geared towards newsletters. Actually, it in fact has similarities to the WordPress block builder in how it works. I locate it to be much more user-friendly, personally.
Substack’s creating user interface behaves and tidy, however it would certainly be much more equal to the timeless editor for WordPress. Toolbar at the top.
This difference is more than just kind. For example, with BeeHiiv you can place a “Section” and afterwards placed anything you want in it. After that, you can put Visibility choices on that particular area to show it only to paid customers, hide it from e-mail, hide from clients, reveal just to subscribers, and so on. Substack offers nothing such as this.
And when/if the moment comes that I begin a costs subscription model, BeeHiiv does not take any income. As a matter of fact, you essentially link up to your own Stripe account and it bills straight to it. With Substack, they will take 10% of your revenue. Depending on the number of clients you obtain, that 10% can be a fair bit more cash than the regular monthly expense of BeeHiiv.
Lastly, BeeHiiv has an API. This could seem nerdy, but what it implies is that there are integrations with BeeHiiv. You can actually make BeeHiiv work with the outdoors making use of devices like Zapier or Make.com. This is HUGE. Substack actually has … absolutely nothing. No integrations at all.
Generally, I just felt like BeeHiiv was a lot more constructed towards genuine email marketing. It was built by individuals that “get it”. Even the opt-in types and the landing page designs appear far better constructed for conversions. Development is the name of the game with BeeHiiv.
Despite the fact that there are still features I would love to see BeeHiiv add, I such as the direction it is going greater than Substack.
Things That Make Substack Better Than BeeHiiv
As I have said, Substack positions itself toward “designers” more than e-mail marketing experts and newsletter proprietors. For that reason, you see some things tailored more towards individuals who simply think in regards to material production.
For example, Substack sustains podcasts. BeeHiiv does not.
Also, while BeeHiiv does sustain numerous publications, they are treated quite individually. Whereas Substack does have the capacity to cross-post to numerous publications at the same time. This isn’t something I need, yet … trendy for people who may need it.
Substack likewise has more social functionality built-in. For instance, it has a chat function to host chats with clients. It additionally has a “Notes” feature which functions sort of like a social media newsfeed where you can share points from other “Stacks” you read. Fascinating. On the whole, Substack is established to be more like a social media which supports long-form content.
In general, Substack is also more … minimalist. You either look after that or do not. Personally, I do not. Nonetheless, if the objective is simpleness of user interface and, frankly, features … Substack works rather well.
However, I’ll be clear here …
When it concerns real marketing, I don’t believe there’s much question that BeeHiiv is better matched. I tried to find more factors that make Substack far better than BeeHiiv, yet truthfully … I have a hard time locating them.
BeeHiiv Vs ConvertKit
While BeeHiiv and Substack are frequently via to be the closest rivals, I actually see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being the closer rivals. Both are pursuing the same target market and have comparable capabilities.
ConvertKit is additionally placed at designers (like Substack), yet it is far more strongly catering to people who do it for organization. ConvertKit has wonderful visual automation building, it’s own business platform, and more. ConvertKit is an actually good system.
I’m not mosting likely to bore you with a full feature-by-feature break down below. ConvertKit is popular already. Yet, right here’s how I really feel BeeHiiv and ConvertKit compare …
Points ConvertKit Is Better At …
As of now, ConvertKit has more adaptability when it pertains to it’s automations. I will also state that I discover ConvertKit’s automation builder to be a little bit extra user-friendly than that of BeeHiiv.
ConvertKit supports labeling. This is simply a basic function of email listings that allows segmentation in a far more versatile method than BeeHiiv currently does. I expect BeeHiiv to sustain tagging at some point quickly, frankly. It seems like an oversight that it is missing out on Beehiiv Merge Tags.
ConvertKit does now provide the ability to offer things via their own platform. BeeHiiv does not. If that is very important to you, it may be a big deal for you. For me, nonetheless, I would constantly choose a more direct option anyway. For me, I favor to use my very own platform powered by WooCommerce.
ConvertKit has actually been about much longer and for that reason has way more integration choices. Tons of online devices and WordPress plugins integrate with ConvertKit. ConvertKit even has their own WordPress plugin that is fairly effective. For example, their plugin now also sustains member-gated content along with auto-embed of your e-newsletter archives right into your site. Basically, this more closely places ConvertKit right into straight competitors by having you have the ability to release to your website and your email list at the same time.
BeeHiiv is seriously lacking in these sort of third-party integrations currently. It’ll get there. Yet, we’re not there yet with it.
ConvertKit is even hectic dealing with the development tools of BeeHiiv. For instance, BeeHiiv has the referral program and the Suggestion Engine where you can not only incentivize individuals to share your e-newsletter with rewards, yet you can likewise pay per lead within the internal ad network of BeeHiiv to expand your checklist. These are really remarkable features of BeeHiiv. Yet …
Did you know ConvertKit got Sparkloop? Sparkloop is just one of the most popular viral promotion platforms for e-newsletters … and ConvertKit bought it. You can see the writing on the wall wherefore this means for the platform moving forward.
Things BeeHiiv Is Better At … Beehiiv Merge Tags
BeeHiiv is much 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 additionally means that they are rapidly developing.
In the short time that I have actually been a customer of BeeHiiv, I have witnessed virtually regular release of new features into the platform. And these aren’t undersized little features … however huge features that are rather vital. Their speed of development at this moment has actually gone over.
I additionally quite appreciate just how receptive they are. Actually, one of their item announcements concerning some layout enhancements to the website design features in fact contained a little trouble with the material size. I simply responded to that e-mail to tell them. I quickly got a reply straight from the chief executive officer:.
That same day, the problem was taken care of.
Couple of days later, I gave them an additional recommendation …
Sure enough, in a bit over a week of that exchange, the capability to activate automations based upon the embed kind utilized was included in the system.
That type of responsiveness and direct involvement of the group is something I really appreciate.
One more major factor of distinction below is the cost. Both platforms offer cost-free plans, nevertheless the BeeHiiv free plan uses much more ability and more customers (2,500 vs 1,000) than ConvertKit.
As soon as you go to paid plans, the pricing of BeeHiiv is likewise FAR more favorable. ConvertKit appears less expensive initially look due to the fact that their pricing page reveals reduced numbers, nonetheless the client limits are much lower and your price rapidly raises as your checklist grows.
With BeeHiiv, your initial degree paid plan starts at $42/mo (paid each year), nevertheless you can have up to 10,000 clients. That exact same size list is going to run you $100/month with ConvertKit.
If you update to the “Range” plan with BeeHiiv (their finest plan and the one I directly utilize), you can grow your listing approximately 100,000. A listing of that dimension would 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 yearly, too. With BeeHiiv, you can get all that for simply $84/month if you pay each year.
BeeHiiv is in a totally various organization when it involves pricing (in an excellent way).
Will BeeHiiv eventually enhance prices? They could as time goes on. But, I’m guessing individuals like myself who are currently in will certainly be locked-in. We’ll see how points continue.
Things I Would Like BeeHiiv To Add
Among things you certainly need to keep in mind is that BeeHiiv is relatively young. They do seem to evolve instead swiftly and make new product statements rather commonly, yet there are some standard features I really desire they had that I require to just wait on.
One is that they require to have a setting on subscription kinds where I might select an automation to run right at the type level. That would certainly be amazing for many factors. Currently, membership types look OK, but there’s very little settings for them to help in segmentation.
It would certainly behave to have marking at the client level. This would be powerful.
I assume webhooks ought to belong to automations to make built-in automations simpler and decrease dependence on outdoors tools like Zapier.
There are likewise some minor management interface adjustments that would certainly come in handy. For instance:
- Capability to mass edit/remove subscribers.
- Capacity to mass edit posts (for instance, to mark a bunch of them at the same time).
- Having a few basic fields as basic on customers (like the name).
- Some more customization options for the website (such as more adaptable color selections, headline control, etc).
So, yeah … there are some imperfections. Things I hope they do with it in the near future. BeeHiiv is respectable, yet it isn’t ideal and definitely not nearly as established as something like FluentCRM or any other real CRM product.
It possibly never ever will be, either. As I stated, the purpose is various so it wouldn’t a lot a great deal of feeling for BeeHiiv to end up being a full marketing automation system. I think you never understand, though.
Last Ideas On This BeeHiiv Review
I such as BeeHiiv quite a lot. Sufficient where I chose to switch my own newsletters over to the platform regardless of my personal choice for digital sovereignty and possessing my very own platform.
Put simply, for the newsletter posting model specifically, I saw enough value in their system to necessitate the adjustment.
Keep in mind, I do not utilize BeeHiiv as my special e-mail list. I utilize BeeHiiv for what it is efficient, however I purposefully have things set up to make sure that I additionally keep my checklist “in residence” within FluentCRM.
If you utilize BeeHiiv, I suggest you do the same. It is simply a great insurance coverage, for one. However, having a full-featured marketing automation platform for your listing will certainly be of high usage (FluentCRM is a full marketing automation platform and BeeHiiv is not and likely never will be).
So, the inquiry is … should YOU use BeeHiiv?
In my opinion, if you are utilizing Substack today, I ‘d certainly think about switching over to BeeHiiv. It will simply be a lot more business-friendly. It is targeting various capabilities and different demands. Plus, BeeHiiv even has import tools for Substack, so the button should be pretty simple.
If you are on ConvertKit now, I ‘d most likely sit tight unless you have a large email listing and are as a result being wooled with their high monthly expense. You will certainly not (yet) have every feature of ConvertKit with BeeHiiv, however they are repeating promptly. There’s additionally a respectable chance you’re not also utilizing a few of those fancier functions of ConvertKit and you don’t also require them. For that reason, BeeHiiv might quickly be a much better and a lot more budget friendly fit.
Lastly, if you plan to be very intentional concerning growing a newsletter, I assume BeeHiiv is THE platform to take into consideration and keep and eye on for you.
If you utilize BeeHiiv with eyes wide open concerning what it is made to be, it is just one of the best video games around today. This is the platform to see.
BeeHiiv uses a 14-day trial on their paid plans. It deserves checking out for yourself. And if you wind up not sticking with the paid plan, you’ll locate the totally free account to be quite feature abundant.