I have made use of a lot of different email list systems throughout the years. In the last couple of years, I’ve been a substantial advocate of digital sovereignty and possessing your own platform. Because of that (and the awesome features), I have actually been making use of Beehiiv RSS Ingestion.
So, it is without a doubt 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 testimonial, I wish to go over why I made the switch to BeeHiiv for my newsletters. I want to deal with the concern of digital sovereignty while making use of the platform and I ‘d also such as to deal with why I selected to utilize it over Substack.
Allow’s dive in …
BeeHiiv: Built For E-newsletters
In Issue # 435 of my e-newsletter called My Pastime + A Huge Change In Strategy, I talked about just how and why I decided to turn my RV blog right into largely an e-newsletter. I chose that was business version I intended to seek keeping that residential property.
Yet, to intentionally seek it as an e-newsletter, I wanted a platform that was purpose-built for that. I was using FluentCRM for the e-mail checklist for Gladly recreational vehicle, but FluentCRM is not an e-newsletter system. It is constructed to be a CRM and marketing automation device and, frankly, using it for newsletters is a little a waste. More on that particular in a bit.
As I said because problem of the newsletter …
Simply put, BeeHiiv is a platform with devices developed right into it details to my objective. Things such as:
- Capacity to release (to the blog site) and send out the e-mail all at once without having it be 2 separate actions.
- Integrated in newsletter referral program. FluentCRM does not 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 Links”, which are generally one-click subscription links. Great for promo in various other e-newsletters. FluentCRM has Smart Links, though, so there are methods to do that.
- Capability to do paid “boosts” on the BeeHiiv network to promote your e-newsletter.
- Integrated 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 primarily run a premium newsletter. And BeeHiiv does not take a cut.
Basically, BeeHiiv is purpose-built for e-newsletter publishers with features aimed at development. The platform was literally built by the people that built up the modern technology for Morning Brew. They recognize what they’re doing.
That is the factor right here. BeeHiiv is constructed from scratch for the function of running a newsletter. FluentCRM has a various purpose.
And I ended off with this:.
I may indeed be moving The Edge over to BeeHiiv too. At the very least, I’m highly considering it.
Well, I didn’t consider it for long. As a matter of fact, I simply went all out. And in fact, The side was re-branded over to The Morning WP, triggered as it’s own property to ensure that I can expand it much more intentionally too.
The goal is that each e-newsletter has the capability to be branded as it’s own media entity and expanded separately. Gladly recreational vehicle was young, so very easy to change. But, The Morning WP (formerly The Side) was buried in a sea of things below at the Blog Site Marketing Academy. By separating it off, I can do what I can to expand it on it’s very own. It will obviously always be very closely connected with the Blog site Marketing Academy, yet does not have to be a part of it.
I switched over to BeeHiiv because it was developed for this purpose. FluentCRM was not.
E-newsletters Versus Just A Normal Email Listing
There’s a difference in between a newsletter system and simply an e-mail listing.
You can hold your email listing anyplace you want and there are a number of them around, from Aweber, ActiveCampaign, Drip, ConvertKit … over to self-hosted choices like GroundHogg and FluentCRM.
What’s the difference?
The key difference is that, with an e-newsletter platform, the act of publishing implies that it is going to your internet site and to your email clients at the same time.
With both BeeHiiv and Substack, you have a site. You are publishing to that web site. Yet, you are additionally dispatching to all clients at the same time. The web site and it’s clients are done in one. This makes administration of the platform much easier.
With a lot of e-mail systems, any type of e-newsletter you established is done as an email campaign. It is constructed totally independently from your internet site. So, for instance, you could release a write-up to WordPress but after that you would require to independently develop and send an e-mail to your list to send it to subscribers. These are after that two separate collections of archives and 2 different actions because article and your e-mails are not inherently connected.
The closest point that transforms WordPress right into a true newsletter platform is E-newsletter Glue.
It is a suitable name since it pretty much “glues” your e-newsletter to your WordPress posts and permits them to be the same point. Absolutely, something like E-newsletter Glue would be a strong option if I intended to remain to self-host every little thing. Nevertheless, you ‘d shed the growth tools that feature a platform like BeeHiiv.
Publishing an e-newsletter inherently features a various set of needs than a typical e-mail listing.
You do not usually require much marketing automation. You don’t usually require autoresponder sequences, occasion monitoring, and all the bells and whistles of a marketing automation platform.
What you DO demand, though, is one smooth publishing experience and development tools to help you construct your client base that are specific to newsletters.
BeeHiiv vs Substack
When I revealed to my customers that I was mosting likely to change the newsletter over to BeeHiiv, I had many individuals ask me why I was selecting it over Substack.
To be clear, even besides the truth that I chose to select BeeHiiv, that does not suggest I believe Substack sucks. As a matter of fact, since Substack has been around much longer, it is elder and has more features.
Although BeeHiiv is younger, there are a pair things that originally got my interest:.
- BeeHiiv is particularly customized to e-newsletter authors. As a matter of fact, it is literally built by the very same folks that developed the technology behind Morning Brew. On the other hand, SubStack targets writers. In the real life, doesn’t matter. But, the obvious positioning of BeeHiiv toward e-newsletter development called me out over the more common positioning of being a “creator”. Growth is what I have an interest in here.
- That branding and differentiation additionally suggests that BeeHiiv has some fairly huge brand names and huge publications utilizing it. Whereas SubStack is aimed more at solo creators. Once again, it just informs me the customer character distinction in between both firms.
Sending our my newsletter using FluentCRM really did not precisely draw. The only reason I would certainly contemplate drinking points up is if I believed I could expand the listing much faster. And BeeHiiv talked precisely to that objective.
As a result of the targeting, I actually don’t view BeeHiiv and Substack as direct rivals. I assume BeeHiiv is targeting a different kind of consumer. Actually, if anything, I see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being much more straight rivals.
However, allow’s dive much deeper than just the positioning right here.
Things That Make BeeHiiv Better Than Substack
Overall, BeeHiiv looks like it was developed by individuals who comprehending e-mail marketing. On the other hand, SubStack appears a lot more tailored toward creators.
For instance, BeeHiiv offers customized areas on clients. Now, it isn’t as created as something like FluentCRM. Yet, it has it. Substack does not.
BeeHiiv uses Automations. Actually, it is a visual automation builder that functions a whole lot like what we have within FluentCRM.
To be clear, the automation performance is still early-phase. It is still rather minimal in triggers and the only activity is the ability to send out an email. Nevertheless, improvements are coming. Quickly enough, automations will certainly have brand-new triggers in addition to brand-new actions, such as customizing customized fields, sending webhooks, and so on. I have actually already seen improvements to their automations just given that I started making use of the platform. As an example:
- Capacity to activate automations based on which particular embed form they came in on.
- Ability to immediately do re-engagement (and take care of individuals based upon opens and non-opens).
- Capability to do fundamental conditional reasoning branches.
Substack does not have automations such as this. Likely, it never ever will. Substack simply can’t 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 writing your newsletters, the composing interface of BeeHiiv is just more tailored toward e-newsletters. In fact, it really has similarities to the WordPress block builder in exactly how it functions. I discover it to be extra instinctive, personally.
Substack’s composing user interface behaves and clean, yet it would be much more comparable to the timeless editor for WordPress. Toolbar on top.
This difference is more than just kind. As an example, with BeeHiiv you can place a “Area” and afterwards put anything you want in it. Then, you can put Presence choices on that area to show it only to paid subscribers, conceal it from email, conceal from customers, reveal just to clients, and so on. Substack offers nothing like this.
And when/if the moment comes that I start a premium membership model, BeeHiiv does not take any kind of earnings. As a matter of fact, you literally connect as much as your very own Stripe account and it bills straight to it. With Substack, they will take 10% of your profits. Depending on how many customers you obtain, that 10% can be quite a bit more cash than the regular monthly expense of BeeHiiv.
Lastly, BeeHiiv has an API. This could seem unpopular, but what it means is that there are integrations with BeeHiiv. You can actually make BeeHiiv collaborate with the outside making use of devices like Zapier or Make.com. This is HUGE. Substack literally has … nothing. No integrations whatsoever.
Overall, I just seemed like BeeHiiv was much more developed toward genuine email marketing. It was developed by people who “get it”. Also the opt-in kinds and the landing page makes seem better built for conversions. Development is nitty-gritty with BeeHiiv.
Even though there are still features I want to see BeeHiiv include, I like the direction it is going more than Substack.
Things That Make Substack Better Than BeeHiiv
As I have actually claimed, Substack positions itself toward “makers” greater than e-mail marketing experts and e-newsletter proprietors. Because of that, you see some things geared much more toward individuals who just believe in terms of content production.
For instance, Substack supports podcasts. BeeHiiv does not.
Also, while BeeHiiv does sustain numerous magazines, they are treated fairly independently. Whereas Substack does have the capability to cross-post to numerous publications at the same time. This isn’t something I require, yet … awesome for individuals who could need it.
Substack likewise has even more social performance built-in. As an example, it has a chat feature to host talks with clients. It likewise has a “Notes” function which functions sort of like a social networks newsfeed where you can share points from various other “Stacks” you’re reading. Interesting. Overall, Substack is established to be extra like a social network which supports long-form material.
On the whole, Substack is likewise extra … minimalist. You either look after that or don’t. Personally, I don’t. However, if the goal is simpleness of user interface and, truthfully, features … Substack works rather well.
However, I’ll be clear below …
When it concerns real marketing, I don’t believe there’s much question that BeeHiiv is much better suited. I searched for more points that make Substack much better than BeeHiiv, however truthfully … I have a difficult time discovering them.
BeeHiiv Vs ConvertKit
While BeeHiiv and Substack are often via to be the closest rivals, I really see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being the closer competitors. Both are pursuing the exact same target audience and have comparable capabilities.
ConvertKit is additionally placed at designers (like Substack), yet it is much more strongly dealing with people who do it for service. ConvertKit has good aesthetic automation structure, it’s very own commerce platform, and more. ConvertKit is an actually wonderful platform.
I’m not mosting likely to bore you with a full feature-by-feature breakdown below. ConvertKit is well known already. However, right here’s how I really feel BeeHiiv and ConvertKit contrast …
Points ConvertKit Is Better At …
As of now, ConvertKit has a lot more adaptability when it comes to it’s automations. I will certainly likewise claim that I discover ConvertKit’s automation builder to be a little bit much more intuitive than that of BeeHiiv.
ConvertKit supports identifying. This is just a fundamental feature of email listings that enables segmentation in a far more versatile way than BeeHiiv presently does. I expect BeeHiiv to sustain labeling at some time soon, truthfully. It feels like an oversight that it is missing out on Beehiiv RSS Ingestion.
ConvertKit does now supply the capacity to market points by means of their own platform. BeeHiiv does not. If that is very important to you, it might be a big deal for you. For me, however, I would certainly constantly pick a more direct option anyway. For me, I choose to use my very own platform powered by WooCommerce.
ConvertKit has been around much longer and because of that has way much more integration options. Lots of online tools and WordPress plugins integrate with ConvertKit. ConvertKit also has their own WordPress plugin that is quite powerful. As an example, their plugin currently even sustains member-gated web content as well as auto-embed of your e-newsletter archives right into your site. Basically, this much more carefully puts ConvertKit right into straight competition by having you have the ability to publish to your site and your email checklist at the same time.
BeeHiiv is badly doing not have in these type of third-party integrations presently. It’ll arrive. However, we’re not there yet with it.
ConvertKit is even busy taking on the growth tools of BeeHiiv. For example, BeeHiiv has the referral program and the Suggestion Engine where you can not just incentivize people to share your e-newsletter with benefits, yet you can also pay per lead within the inner ad network of BeeHiiv to expand your listing. These are truly amazing features of BeeHiiv. But …
Did you recognize ConvertKit acquired Sparkloop? Sparkloop is among the most well known viral promo systems for e-newsletters … and ConvertKit bought it. You can see the composing on the wall surface for what this suggests for the platform moving forward.
Things BeeHiiv Is Much Better At … Beehiiv RSS Ingestion
BeeHiiv is much earlier in it’s item cycle than ConvertKit. Part of that implies much less features and much less integrations, which is all-natural for this phase of the cycle. Nonetheless, it likewise implies that they are quickly establishing.
In the short time that I have been a customer of BeeHiiv, I have actually witnessed practically once a week release of brand-new features right into the system. And these aren’t puny little features … however huge features that are quite crucial. Their speed of growth at this point has actually gone over.
I also quite appreciate how receptive they are. As a matter of fact, among their item statements regarding some design improvements to the website design features actually consisted of a tiny issue with the web content width. I simply replied to that email to tell them. I swiftly got a reply straight from the chief executive officer:.
That very same day, the issue was repaired.
Couple of days later on, I provided one more tip …
Indeed, in a bit over a week of that exchange, the ability to cause automations based on the embed type made use of was added to the system.
That type of responsiveness and direct participation of the team is something I truly appreciate.
Another major point of distinction here is the cost. Both systems use free plans, nonetheless the BeeHiiv free plan uses a lot more ability and more subscribers (2,500 vs 1,000) than ConvertKit.
When you go to paid plans, the pricing of BeeHiiv is additionally even more desirable. ConvertKit seems cheaper at first glimpse because their pricing web page shows lower numbers, nonetheless the customer limits are much reduced and your rate swiftly increases as your listing grows.
With BeeHiiv, your very first degree paid plan starts at $42/mo (paid yearly), nonetheless you can have up to 10,000 clients. That same size checklist 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 personally make use of), you can grow your listing up to 100,000. A listing of that size would run you $566/month with ConvertKit. If you desire their referral network, also, that places you at the $733/month plan. That’s if you pay yearly, also. With BeeHiiv, you can get all that for simply $84/month if you pay annually.
BeeHiiv remains in a completely different organization when it comes to pricing (in a great way).
Will BeeHiiv at some point enhance rates? They may as time goes on. However, I’m thinking people like myself who are already in will certainly be locked-in. We’ll see just how things continue.
Points I Would Like BeeHiiv To Include
One of things you absolutely require to remember is that BeeHiiv is fairly young. They do seem to develop rather rapidly and make new product statements rather often, however there are some fundamental features I actually wish they had that I need to just wait for.
One is that they need to have a setting on subscription types where I can select an automation to run right at the kind degree. That would be incredible for numerous factors. As of now, registration forms look OK, however there’s really little settings for them to assist in division.
It would be nice to have labeling at the subscriber degree. This would certainly be effective.
I assume webhooks should become part of automations to make built-in automations less complicated and minimize dependence on outdoors devices like Zapier.
There are additionally some minor management interface adjustments that would certainly come in handy. For example:
- Capacity to bulk edit/remove customers.
- Capability to mass edit blog posts (as an example, to identify a bunch of them at the same time).
- Having a couple of standard fields as conventional on customers (like the name).
- Some even more modification choices for the internet site (such as more flexible color selections, headline control, etc).
So, yeah … there are some shortcomings. Points I wish they make with it in the future. BeeHiiv is respectable, however it isn’t perfect and certainly not virtually as created as something like FluentCRM or any other genuine CRM product.
It probably never ever will certainly be, either. As I said, the function is different so it wouldn’t a lot a lot of feeling for BeeHiiv to become a complete marketing automation platform. I think you never ever recognize, though.
Last Thoughts On This BeeHiiv Testimonial
I like BeeHiiv rather a lot. Enough where I chose to switch my own e-newsletters over to the system regardless of my personal preference for digital sovereignty and having my very own system.
Basically, for the e-newsletter posting design particularly, I saw enough value in their platform to necessitate the change.
Bear in mind, I do not utilize BeeHiiv as my special email list. I utilize BeeHiiv wherefore it is proficient at, however I purposefully have things set up to ensure that I also maintain my list “in house” within FluentCRM.
If you use BeeHiiv, I recommend you do the exact same. It is simply an excellent insurance plan, for one. However, having a full-featured marketing automation system for your listing will certainly be of high usage (FluentCRM is a complete marketing automation platform and BeeHiiv is not and likely never will be).
So, the concern is … should YOU use BeeHiiv?
In my point of view, if you are utilizing Substack right now, I ‘d definitely think about switching to BeeHiiv. It will merely be extra business-friendly. It is targeting different abilities and different requirements. Plus, BeeHiiv also has import tools for Substack, so the switch ought to be rather uncomplicated.
If you get on ConvertKit currently, I ‘d probably stay unless you have a huge email list and are therefore being wooled with their high monthly costs. You will certainly not (yet) have every feature of ConvertKit with BeeHiiv, yet they are repeating quickly. There’s also a respectable possibility you’re not even utilizing a few of those fancier functions of ConvertKit and you do not even require them. Because of that, BeeHiiv might easily be a much better and a lot more budget-friendly fit.
Lastly, if you plan to be extremely deliberate about growing a newsletter, I believe BeeHiiv is THE platform to consider and keep and eye on for you.
If you use BeeHiiv with eyes wide open concerning what it is made to be, it is one of the best video games around today. This is the system to enjoy.
BeeHiiv provides a 14-day trial on their paid plans. It deserves having a look at on your own. And if you end up not sticking with the paid plan, you’ll locate the totally free account to be quite feature abundant.