I have actually made use of a great deal of various e-mail list systems over the years. In the last number of years, I have actually been a big supporter of digital sovereignty and possessing your very own system. Therefore (and the awesome features), I have been using Beehiiv Newsletters.
So, it is certainly a weird move for me to make a decision to utilize BeeHiiv. Nevertheless, it is a held application and I am paying month-to-month for it.
Why did I do this?
In this BeeHiiv review, I wish to discuss why I made the button to BeeHiiv for my e-newsletters. I wish to attend to the issue of digital sovereignty while using the platform and I ‘d also like to attend to why I selected to use it over Substack.
Allow’s dive in …
BeeHiiv: Developed For E-newsletters
In Concern # 435 of my e-newsletter called My Hobby + A Big Change In Method, I spoke about just how and why I chose to transform my motor home blog site right into mostly an e-newsletter. I chose that was the business design I intended to seek with that said property.
However, to deliberately seek it as an e-newsletter, I wanted a system that was purpose-built for that. I was using FluentCRM for the email checklist for Gladly motor home, but FluentCRM is not an e-newsletter system. It is constructed to be a CRM and marketing automation device and, honestly, using it for newsletters is a little bit of a waste. A lot more on that particular in a bit.
As I stated in that issue of the e-newsletter …
Put simply, BeeHiiv is a platform with tools constructed into it particular to my function. Points such as:
- Capacity to publish (to the blog site) and send the e-mail at the same time without having it be 2 different actions.
- Integrated in newsletter referral program. FluentCRM doesn’t have that and I would certainly require a third-party device like Sparkloop.
- Built-in ability to do cross-promotions with other e-newsletters on the BeeHiiv platform.
- ” Magic Links”, which are primarily one-click membership web links. Great for promo in other e-newsletters. FluentCRM has Smart Hyperlinks, however, so there are ways to do that.
- Capacity to do paid “boosts” on the BeeHiiv network to advertise your e-newsletter.
- Built-in ad network, if I pick to generate income from with ads in the e-newsletter. And I may.
- Built-in capability to run a paid newsletter upgrade and essentially run a costs newsletter. And BeeHiiv does not take a cut.
Generally, BeeHiiv is purpose-built for newsletter authors with features focused on growth. The system was actually constructed by the people who accumulated the modern technology for Early morning Brew. They know what they’re doing.
That is the point here. BeeHiiv is developed from the ground up for the objective of running an e-newsletter. FluentCRM has a various purpose.
And I ended off with this:.
I might without a doubt be moving The Side over to BeeHiiv too. At least, I’m highly considering it.
Well, I really did not consider it for long. Actually, I just went for it. And as a matter of fact, The side was re-branded over to The Early morning WP, set off as it’s very own building to make sure that I can grow it a lot more deliberately too.
The objective is that each e-newsletter has the capability to be branded as it’s own media entity and grown independently. Happily RV was young, so simple to change. But, The Early morning WP (previously The Side) was hidden in a sea of things below 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 obviously constantly be closely linked with the Blog Marketing Academy, yet doesn’t have to be a part of it.
I switched over to BeeHiiv due to the fact that it was built for this function. FluentCRM was not.
Newsletters Versus Simply A Typical Email List
There’s a distinction in between a newsletter system and just an email checklist.
You can hold your email listing just about anywhere you desire and there are a variety of them available, from Aweber, ActiveCampaign, Drip, ConvertKit … over to self-hosted choices like GroundHogg and FluentCRM.
What’s the distinction?
The main distinction is that, with a newsletter system, the act of posting indicates that it is mosting likely to your site and to your email customers all at once.
With both BeeHiiv and Substack, you have a website. You are releasing to that site. But, you are additionally sending off to all customers at the same time. The website and it’s clients are done in one. This makes monitoring of the platform much easier.
With a lot of e-mail platforms, any type of newsletter you established is done as an email campaign. It is built entirely independently from your web site. So, as an example, you could publish a write-up to WordPress but after that you would certainly require to independently develop and send an e-mail to your checklist to send it to subscribers. These are after that 2 separate sets of archives and 2 different actions because blog posts and your emails are not inherently connected.
The closest point that transforms WordPress into a real e-newsletter platform is Newsletter Glue.
It is a suitable name since it basically “glues” your newsletter to your WordPress messages and enables them to be the very same point. Absolutely, something like E-newsletter Glue would be a solid option if I intended to continue to self-host every little thing. However, you would certainly lose the growth tools that include a system like BeeHiiv.
Posting an e-newsletter naturally includes a various collection of requirements than a regular email checklist.
You don’t generally need much marketing automation. You don’t generally need autoresponder series, event monitoring, and all the bells and whistles of a marketing automation system.
What you DO demand, however, is one smooth posting experience and growth tools to assist you develop your customer base that specify to newsletters.
BeeHiiv vs Substack
When I announced to my clients that I was going to switch over the newsletter over to BeeHiiv, I had lots of people ask me why I was choosing it over Substack.
To be clear, also besides the reality that I picked to go with BeeHiiv, that does not mean I believe Substack sucks. As a matter of fact, since Substack has actually been around longer, it is more mature and has even more features.
Despite the fact that BeeHiiv is more youthful, there are a pair things that originally got my attention:.
- BeeHiiv is especially customized to newsletter authors. In fact, it is literally constructed by the exact same individuals that developed the innovation behind Early morning Brew. On the other hand, SubStack targets authors. In the real life, does not matter. However, the evident positioning of BeeHiiv toward newsletter growth called me out over the even more common positioning of being a “creator”. Development is what I’m interested in below.
- That branding and distinction additionally indicates that BeeHiiv has some rather huge brand names and huge magazines utilizing it. Whereas SubStack is aimed more at solo designers. Once more, it simply tells me the consumer character difference between both companies.
Sending our my newsletter through FluentCRM really did not exactly suck. The only factor I would ponder drinking points up is if I assumed I can expand the listing faster. And BeeHiiv spoke exactly to that goal.
Due to the targeting, I in fact do not check out BeeHiiv and Substack as direct competitors. I assume BeeHiiv is targeting a various type of consumer. In fact, if anything, I see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being much more straight rivals.
But, allow’s dive deeper than just the placing here.
Points That Make BeeHiiv Better Than Substack
On the whole, BeeHiiv appears like it was built by people who understanding e-mail marketing. On the other hand, SubStack appears more geared towards designers.
As an example, BeeHiiv offers custom-made areas on clients. Now, it isn’t as created as something like FluentCRM. Yet, 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 within FluentCRM.
To be clear, the automation capability is still early-phase. It is still quite limited in triggers and the only action is the capacity to send out an email. Nonetheless, enhancements are coming. Soon enough, automations will certainly have new triggers in addition to new activities, such as customizing custom fields, sending webhooks, and so on. I have actually already seen enhancements to their automations just because I started using the platform. For instance:
- Capacity to activate automations based on which certain embed form they was available in on.
- Ability to automatically do re-engagement (and deal with individuals based on opens and non-opens).
- Capability to do standard conditional reasoning branches.
Substack does not have automations similar to this. Likely, it never will. Substack just can not do this due to the fact that the target market of Substack simply wouldn’t believe to approach this like an e-mail marketing professional.
When it comes to creating your newsletters, the composing user interface of BeeHiiv is simply a lot more geared toward newsletters. Actually, it in fact has similarities to the WordPress block builder in exactly how it works. I locate it to be a lot more instinctive, personally.
Substack’s writing interface is nice and tidy, yet it would certainly be a lot more equivalent to the classic editor for WordPress. Toolbar on top.
This difference is greater than simply kind. For instance, with BeeHiiv you can put a “Section” and afterwards placed anything you desire in it. After that, you can put Exposure alternatives on that section to reveal it just to paid clients, conceal it from email, conceal from clients, reveal just to customers, etc. Substack offers absolutely nothing such as this.
And when/if the moment comes that I start a costs membership model, BeeHiiv doesn’t take any kind of income. Actually, you essentially attach up to your own Stripe account and it charges straight to it. With Substack, they will take 10% of your earnings. Depending upon the amount of clients you get, that 10% can be a fair bit more money than the month-to-month cost of BeeHiiv.
Finally, BeeHiiv has an API. This could seem unpopular, but what it suggests is that there are integrations with BeeHiiv. You can actually make BeeHiiv work with the outside making use of tools like Zapier or Make.com. This is HUGE. Substack actually has … nothing. No integrations whatsoever.
Overall, I just felt like BeeHiiv was more developed towards genuine e-mail marketing. It was constructed by people that “get it”. Also the opt-in forms and the landing page makes seem far better constructed for conversions. Growth is nitty-gritty with BeeHiiv.
Although there are still features I want 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 stated, Substack positions itself toward “creators” more than email marketing professionals and e-newsletter owners. Therefore, you see some points tailored more towards individuals that simply believe in terms of material creation.
For instance, Substack sustains podcasts. BeeHiiv does not.
Also, while BeeHiiv does support multiple publications, they are dealt with quite separately. Whereas Substack does have the capacity to cross-post to numerous publications at the same time. This isn’t something I call for, yet … amazing for individuals who might require it.
Substack likewise has more social performance built-in. For example, it has a conversation feature to host chats with clients. It additionally has a “Notes” function which functions type of like a social media newsfeed where you can share points from various other “Stacks” you’re reading. Interesting. Generally, Substack is established to be more like a social network which supports long-form content.
Generally, Substack is additionally a lot more … minimalist. You either look after that or do not. Directly, I do not. However, if the goal is simplicity of user interface and, frankly, features … Substack works pretty well.
However, I’ll be clear below …
When it pertains to real marketing, I do not believe there’s much doubt that BeeHiiv is much better fit. I looked for more factors that make Substack better than BeeHiiv, yet frankly … I have a difficult time finding them.
BeeHiiv Vs ConvertKit
While BeeHiiv and Substack are commonly via to be the closest rivals, I really see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being the closer opponents. Both are going after the exact same target audience and have comparable abilities.
ConvertKit is also placed at makers (like Substack), yet it is much more highly catering to individuals that do it for business. ConvertKit has wonderful aesthetic automation structure, it’s own business system, and more. ConvertKit is a truly wonderful system.
I’m not mosting likely to bore you with a complete feature-by-feature malfunction here. ConvertKit is popular currently. But, below’s how I feel BeeHiiv and ConvertKit contrast …
Points ConvertKit Is Much Better At …
Already, ConvertKit has more adaptability when it comes to it’s automations. I will additionally say that I locate ConvertKit’s automation builder to be a bit much more user-friendly than that of BeeHiiv.
ConvertKit supports marking. This is simply a standard function of email listings that enables division in an even more versatile method than BeeHiiv currently does. I expect BeeHiiv to support marking at some time soon, honestly. It feels like an oversight that it is missing Beehiiv Newsletters.
ConvertKit does now provide the capacity to market things through their very own system. BeeHiiv does not. If that is necessary to you, it might be a big deal for you. For me, however, I would certainly constantly pick an extra direct choice anyway. For me, I favor to utilize my very own platform powered by WooCommerce.
ConvertKit has been around much longer and because of that has way extra integration options. Lots of web-based tools and WordPress plugins integrate with ConvertKit. ConvertKit also has their own WordPress plugin that is rather powerful. For example, their plugin currently also supports member-gated content along with auto-embed of your newsletter archives right into your website. In essence, this much more closely places ConvertKit into direct competitors by having you have the ability to publish to your website and your e-mail list at the same time.
BeeHiiv is badly doing not have in these sort of third-party integrations currently. It’ll get there. However, we’re not there yet with it.
ConvertKit is also hectic taking on the growth devices of BeeHiiv. As an example, BeeHiiv has the referral program and the Suggestion Engine where you can not just incentivize people to share your e-newsletter with benefits, however you can additionally pay per lead within the internal advertisement network of BeeHiiv to grow your list. These are truly amazing features of BeeHiiv. Yet …
Did you know ConvertKit got Sparkloop? Sparkloop is just one of the most popular viral promotion platforms for newsletters … and ConvertKit bought it. You can see the composing on the wall of what this means for the system moving forward.
Points BeeHiiv Is Better At … Beehiiv Newsletters
BeeHiiv is a lot earlier in it’s product cycle than ConvertKit. Part of that implies less features and less integrations, which is all-natural for this stage of the cycle. Nevertheless, it additionally implies that they are quickly developing.
In the short time that I have 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 big features that are quite essential. Their rate of growth now has actually gone over.
I also very much value how responsive they are. In fact, one of their item statements concerning some layout enhancements to the website design features really contained a little problem with the material width. I merely replied to that email to tell them. I rapidly obtained a reply directly from the CEO:.
That same day, the issue was repaired.
Few days later, I provided another tip …
Certainly, in a little bit over a week of that exchange, the capability to trigger automations based upon the embed type used was contributed to the system.
That sort of responsiveness and direct participation of the group is something I truly value.
Another significant point of differentiation right here is the cost. Both systems use cost-free plans, nonetheless the BeeHiiv free plan uses much more capability and even more clients (2,500 vs 1,000) than ConvertKit.
Once you most likely to paid plans, the pricing of BeeHiiv is also FAR more favorable. ConvertKit appears less costly initially glance since their pricing web page shows lower numbers, nonetheless the client restrictions are FAR lower and your cost swiftly increases as your list expands.
With BeeHiiv, your first level paid plan starts at $42/mo (paid each year), however you can have up to 10,000 clients. That same dimension checklist is going to run you $100/month with ConvertKit.
If you update to the “Range” plan with BeeHiiv (their best plan and the one I directly use), you can expand your checklist as much as 100,000. A listing of that dimension would certainly 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, as well. With BeeHiiv, you can get all that for just $84/month if you pay each year.
BeeHiiv remains in an entirely various league when it involves pricing (in a great way).
Will BeeHiiv eventually increase costs? They may as time goes on. However, I’m thinking individuals like myself who are currently in will be locked-in. We’ll see exactly how points proceed.
Things I Would Certainly Like BeeHiiv To Include
One of the things you definitely require to keep in mind is that BeeHiiv is fairly young. They do appear to evolve rather rapidly and make new item news somewhat often, but there are some fundamental features I really wish they had that I need to simply wait for.
One is that they need to have a setup on registration forms where I could choose an automation to run right at the form degree. That would be remarkable for a lot of reasons. Already, registration types look OK, but there’s very little settings for them to help in division.
It would certainly be nice to have labeling at the customer degree. This would be effective.
I believe webhooks need to become part of automations to make integrated automations much easier and minimize dependence on outside tools like Zapier.
There are also some small management user interface modifications that would be handy. For example:
- Capacity to bulk edit/remove customers.
- Capacity to bulk edit posts (as an example, to identify a bunch of them at the same time).
- Having a couple of standard fields as standard on customers (like the name).
- Some more personalization choices for the site (such as more flexible shade selections, heading control, and so on).
So, yeah … there are some shortcomings. Points I wish they do with it in the future. BeeHiiv is respectable, however it isn’t ideal and certainly not nearly as established as something like FluentCRM or any other genuine CRM product.
It possibly never will be, either. As I claimed, the function is different so it would not a lot a lot of sense for BeeHiiv to become a complete marketing automation platform. I presume you never understand, though.
Final Ideas On This BeeHiiv Review
I such as BeeHiiv fairly a whole lot. Sufficient where I made a decision to switch my very own newsletters over to the system despite my individual preference for digital sovereignty and having my own platform.
Simply put, for the e-newsletter posting model specifically, I saw enough value in their system to call for the modification.
Remember, I do not make use of BeeHiiv as my special email checklist. I use BeeHiiv wherefore it is good at, however I deliberately have things establish to ensure that I also keep my checklist “in house” inside of FluentCRM.
If you utilize BeeHiiv, I suggest you do the exact same. It is just a great insurance policy, for one. But, having a full-featured marketing automation platform for your listing will be of high use (FluentCRM is a full marketing automation platform and BeeHiiv is not and likely never ever will be).
So, the question is … should YOU utilize BeeHiiv?
In my point of view, if you are utilizing Substack right now, I ‘d certainly consider switching to BeeHiiv. It will simply be a lot more business-friendly. It is targeting different capacities and different needs. And also, BeeHiiv even has import devices for Substack, so the button needs to be rather straightforward.
If you are on ConvertKit now, I ‘d most likely stay unless you have a large email list and are as a result being wooled with their high monthly costs. You will not (yet) have every feature of ConvertKit with BeeHiiv, yet they are repeating rapidly. There’s additionally a pretty good possibility you’re not even utilizing several of those fancier functions of ConvertKit and you do not also require them. Therefore, BeeHiiv might easily be a far better and a lot more economical fit.
Lastly, if you plan to be really deliberate about expanding an e-newsletter, I believe BeeHiiv is THE platform to consider 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 one of the most effective video games in town today. This is the system to see.
BeeHiiv uses a 14-day trial on their paid plans. It deserves taking a look at on your own. And if you end up not sticking with the paid plan, you’ll find the cost-free account to be fairly feature rich.