I have utilized a great deal of different email list systems throughout the years. In the last number of years, I have actually been a big supporter of digital sovereignty and owning your own platform. Because of that (and the outstanding features), I have been making use of Beehiiv Vs Medium.
So, it is certainly a weird move for me to choose to use BeeHiiv. After all, it is an organized application and I am paying month-to-month for it.
Why did I do this?
In this BeeHiiv evaluation, I intend to discuss why I made the switch to BeeHiiv for my e-newsletters. I want to deal with the problem of digital sovereignty while utilizing the platform and I ‘d likewise like to deal with why I selected to utilize it over Substack.
Allow’s dive in …
BeeHiiv: Built For Newsletters
In Concern # 435 of my newsletter called My Leisure activity + A Big Change In Strategy, I talked about how and why I made a decision to turn my RV blog site right into mainly an e-newsletter. I made a decision that was business version I wanted to go after keeping that residential or commercial property.
But, to purposefully seek it as a newsletter, I desired a platform that was purpose-built for that. I was making use of FluentCRM for the email checklist for Gladly motor home, yet FluentCRM is not a newsletter system. It is built to be a CRM and marketing automation device and, honestly, utilizing it for e-newsletters is a bit of a waste. A lot more on that in a little bit.
As I claimed because problem of the e-newsletter …
Simply put, BeeHiiv is a platform with tools constructed right into it details to my objective. Points such as:
- Capability to release (to the blog) and send out the e-mail simultaneously without having it be two different actions.
- Built in e-newsletter referral program. FluentCRM does not have that and I would certainly have needed a third-party device like Sparkloop.
- Integrated ability to do cross-promotions with other e-newsletters on the BeeHiiv platform.
- ” Magic Links”, which are essentially one-click membership links. Great for promo in various other e-newsletters. FluentCRM has Smart Links, though, so there are ways to do that.
- Capability to do paid “boosts” on the BeeHiiv network to promote your e-newsletter.
- Built-in ad network, if I select to generate income from with ads in the newsletter. And I may.
- Built-in capability to run a paid newsletter upgrade and essentially run a costs newsletter. And BeeHiiv doesn’t take a cut.
Primarily, BeeHiiv is purpose-built for newsletter publishers with features aimed at development. The platform was actually developed by the individuals that built up the modern technology for Morning Brew. They understand what they’re doing.
That is the factor below. BeeHiiv is developed from the ground up for the objective of running an e-newsletter. FluentCRM has a various objective.
And I ended off with this:.
I might without a doubt be moving The Edge over to BeeHiiv also. A minimum of, I’m highly considering it.
Well, I really did not consider it for long. In fact, I just went for it. And actually, The EDGE was re-branded over to The Early morning WP, set off as it’s own property so that I can grow it a lot more intentionally too.
The goal is that each newsletter has the ability to be branded as it’s own media entity and expanded independently. Happily recreational vehicle was young, so easy to transition. However, The Early morning WP (previously The Side) was buried in a sea of things right here at the Blog Marketing Academy. By dividing it off, I can do what I can to grow it on it’s very own. It will undoubtedly always be closely connected with the Blog site Marketing Academy, but doesn’t have to be a part of it.
I switched to BeeHiiv since it was built for this objective. FluentCRM was not.
E-newsletters Versus Simply A Regular Email Checklist
There’s a distinction in between a newsletter system and simply an e-mail list.
You can host your e-mail checklist anywhere you want 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 difference?
The main distinction is that, with an e-newsletter system, the act of posting suggests that it is going to your site and to your email subscribers concurrently.
With both BeeHiiv and Substack, you have a site. You are publishing to that site. However, you are additionally sending off to all subscribers at the same time. The site and it’s subscribers are all in one. This makes administration of the system much less complex.
With many email platforms, any newsletter you established is done as an e-mail campaign. It is developed totally individually from your internet site. So, for example, you could release a short article to WordPress yet then you would need to independently develop and send out an e-mail to your listing to send it to clients. These are after that 2 separate sets of archives and two different activities because blog posts and your e-mails are not naturally connected.
The closest point that turns WordPress into a real e-newsletter system is E-newsletter Glue.
It is a fitting name since it pretty much “glues” your newsletter to your WordPress articles and enables them to be the very same thing. Certainly, something like E-newsletter Glue would be a solid choice if I wanted to continue to self-host every little thing. However, you ‘d shed the growth devices that feature a platform like BeeHiiv.
Posting an e-newsletter inherently includes a various set of demands than a typical email checklist.
You do not normally require much marketing automation. You don’t usually require autoresponder series, occasion monitoring, and all the bells and whistles of a marketing automation platform.
What you DO demand, though, is one seamless publishing experience and development devices to assist you build your subscriber base that specify to e-newsletters.
BeeHiiv vs Substack
When I introduced to my clients that I was going to change 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 fact that I picked to choose BeeHiiv, that doesn’t indicate I believe Substack draws. In fact, since Substack has actually been around much longer, it is elder and has even more features.
Although BeeHiiv is more youthful, there are a couple points that at first obtained my focus:.
- BeeHiiv is especially customized to e-newsletter authors. In fact, it is essentially developed by the exact same individuals who developed the technology behind Morning Mixture. On the other hand, SubStack targets authors. In the real life, doesn’t matter. Yet, the obvious positioning of BeeHiiv toward e-newsletter growth called me out over the more common positioning of being a “maker”. Development is what I want below.
- That branding and distinction also implies that BeeHiiv has some fairly huge brands and large publications using it. Whereas SubStack is aimed more at solo creators. Once more, it simply tells me the client avatar difference in between both business.
Sending our my newsletter using FluentCRM really did not exactly draw. The only reason I would contemplate drinking things up is if I thought I can GROW the checklist quicker. And BeeHiiv talked specifically to that goal.
As a result of the targeting, I in fact don’t check out BeeHiiv and Substack as direct competitors. I think BeeHiiv is targeting a different sort of consumer. In fact, if anything, I see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being extra direct competitors.
However, let’s dive much deeper than simply the placing below.
Things That Make BeeHiiv Better Than Substack
On the whole, BeeHiiv looks like it was constructed by individuals who understanding e-mail marketing. On the other hand, SubStack appears a lot more tailored towards developers.
For example, BeeHiiv offers customized fields on subscribers. Now, it isn’t as developed as something like FluentCRM. However, it has it. Substack doesn’t.
BeeHiiv provides Automations. In fact, it is an aesthetic automation builder that functions a lot like what we have inside of FluentCRM.
To be clear, the automation performance is still early-phase. It is still rather limited in triggers and the only action is the capacity to send an email. However, improvements are coming. Soon enough, automations will have brand-new triggers along with new actions, such as changing personalized areas, sending out webhooks, and so on. I’ve currently seen improvements to their automations just because I began using the platform. For example:
- Capability to cause automations based on which particular embed form they came in on.
- Capacity to automatically do re-engagement (and manage people based upon opens and non-opens).
- Capability to do basic conditional logic branches.
Substack does not have automations similar to this. Likely, it never ever will. Substack just can’t do this because the target audience of Substack simply wouldn’t think to approach this like an email marketer.
When it comes to composing your e-newsletters, the creating interface of BeeHiiv is just extra geared towards e-newsletters. In fact, it actually has resemblances to the WordPress block builder in exactly how it works. I find it to be a lot more intuitive, personally.
Substack’s creating interface is nice and clean, yet it would be more equivalent to the timeless editor for WordPress. Toolbar on top.
This distinction is more than just kind. As an example, with BeeHiiv you can insert a “Area” and after that put anything you desire in it. After that, you can put Exposure alternatives on that area to show it only to paid subscribers, conceal it from email, conceal from subscribers, show only to clients, etc. Substack supplies absolutely nothing like this.
And when/if the time comes that I start a costs membership model, BeeHiiv does not take any type of earnings. As a matter of fact, you actually connect approximately your own Stripe account and it bills directly to it. With Substack, they will certainly take 10% of your earnings. Relying on the number of subscribers you obtain, that 10% can be quite a bit more money than the monthly price of BeeHiiv.
Lastly, BeeHiiv has an API. This may seem unpopular, yet what it suggests 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 … nothing. No integrations whatsoever.
In general, I simply seemed like BeeHiiv was more constructed towards genuine e-mail marketing. It was developed by individuals that “get it”. Also the opt-in kinds and the landing page develops seem much better developed for conversions. Growth is nitty-gritty with BeeHiiv.
Although 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 placements itself towards “designers” more than email marketing professionals and e-newsletter owners. For that reason, you see some things tailored more towards individuals that simply think in terms of web content development.
For instance, Substack sustains podcasts. BeeHiiv does not.
Likewise, while BeeHiiv does sustain several publications, they are dealt with fairly independently. Whereas Substack does have the capacity to cross-post to several magazines at the same time. This isn’t something I call for, but … cool for individuals that may require it.
Substack likewise has more social functionality built-in. For instance, it has a chat function to host talks with subscribers. It additionally has a “Notes” feature which functions type of like a social media newsfeed where you can share points from various other “Stacks” you’re reading. Interesting. On the whole, Substack is established to be more like a social media network which sustains long-form material.
Generally, Substack is also much more … minimalist. You either care for that or don’t. Personally, I do not. However, if the goal is simpleness of user interface and, truthfully, features … Substack functions pretty well.
Yet, I’ll be clear below …
When it comes to real marketing, I don’t assume there’s much uncertainty that BeeHiiv is better suited. I searched for more factors that make Substack far better than BeeHiiv, yet truthfully … I have a tough time finding them.
BeeHiiv Vs ConvertKit
While BeeHiiv and Substack are often through to be the closest competitors, I in fact see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being the closer opponents. Both are going after the very same target market and have similar abilities.
ConvertKit is also positioned at designers (like Substack), but it is far more highly accommodating people who do it for business. ConvertKit has good aesthetic automation structure, it’s own commerce system, and a lot more. ConvertKit is an actually great platform.
I’m not going to birthed you with a complete feature-by-feature breakdown here. ConvertKit is popular already. However, right here’s exactly how I really feel BeeHiiv and ConvertKit compare …
Things ConvertKit Is Much Better At …
Currently, ConvertKit has more versatility when it involves it’s automations. I will also say that I discover ConvertKit’s automation builder to be a little bit more intuitive than that of BeeHiiv.
ConvertKit supports marking. This is simply a standard function of email lists that makes it possible for segmentation in a much more flexible means than BeeHiiv currently does. I anticipate BeeHiiv to sustain tagging eventually soon, truthfully. It feels like an oversight that it is missing out on Beehiiv Vs Medium.
ConvertKit does currently offer the ability to market things via their own platform. BeeHiiv does not. If that’s important to you, it may be a big deal for you. For me, nevertheless, I would certainly always pick a more direct option anyhow. For me, I prefer to use my very own platform powered by WooCommerce.
ConvertKit has actually been around much longer and for that reason has way much more integration choices. Lots of web-based devices and WordPress plugins integrate with ConvertKit. ConvertKit also has their own WordPress plugin that is fairly effective. For example, their plugin now even supports member-gated material as well as auto-embed of your e-newsletter archives right into your site. Fundamentally, this much more carefully puts ConvertKit right into direct competition by having you have the ability to release to your website and your email listing 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 hectic taking on the growth tools of BeeHiiv. For example, BeeHiiv has the referral program and the Suggestion Engine where you can not only incentivize individuals to share your newsletter with benefits, however you can likewise pay per lead within the internal advertisement network of BeeHiiv to expand your listing. These are truly incredible features of BeeHiiv. However …
Did you recognize ConvertKit acquired Sparkloop? Sparkloop is just one of the most popular viral promo systems for newsletters … and ConvertKit bought it. You can see the composing on the wall surface for what this implies for the system moving forward.
Points BeeHiiv Is Better At … Beehiiv Vs Medium
BeeHiiv is much earlier in it’s item cycle than ConvertKit. Part of that implies less features and much less integrations, which is natural for this phase of the cycle. However, it additionally indicates that they are rapidly establishing.
In the short time that I have been a customer of BeeHiiv, I have seen nearly weekly release of brand-new features into the system. And these aren’t undersized little features … but huge features that are quite crucial. Their speed of advancement at this point has been impressive.
I likewise significantly value just how receptive they are. As a matter of fact, one of their item statements concerning some design enhancements to the website design features in fact contained a tiny issue with the content size. I just replied to that email to tell them. I swiftly obtained a reply directly from the CEO:.
That exact same day, the concern was repaired.
Few days later on, I provided another pointer …
Indeed, in a little bit over a week of that exchange, the capacity to cause automations based on the embed form made use of was included in the system.
That type of responsiveness and direct involvement of the team is something I truly appreciate.
An additional significant point of distinction below is the cost. Both systems offer free plans, nonetheless the BeeHiiv free plan provides extra capability and more customers (2,500 vs 1,000) than ConvertKit.
Once you go to paid plans, the pricing of BeeHiiv is likewise even more positive. ConvertKit seems less costly initially glimpse due to the fact that their pricing web page reveals lower numbers, nonetheless the client limitations are FAR lower and your rate quickly raises as your list grows.
With BeeHiiv, your initial level paid plan begins at $42/mo (paid every year), nonetheless you can have up to 10,000 clients. That same size list is mosting likely to run you $100/month with ConvertKit.
If you update to the “Scale” plan with BeeHiiv (their finest plan and the one I directly use), you can grow your list as much as 100,000. A checklist of that size would certainly run you $566/month with ConvertKit. If you want their referral network, as well, that puts you at the $733/month plan. That’s if you pay annually, as well. With BeeHiiv, you can obtain all that for simply $84/month if you pay yearly.
BeeHiiv remains in a completely different league when it comes to pricing (in an excellent way).
Will BeeHiiv at some point boost rates? They could as time takes place. But, I’m thinking people like myself who are already in will be locked-in. We’ll see how things proceed.
Things I Would Certainly Like BeeHiiv To Add
One of things you certainly need to bear in mind is that BeeHiiv is relatively young. They do seem to develop instead rapidly and make brand-new item news somewhat typically, however there are some standard features I really want they had that I require to simply wait on.
One is that they require to have a setup on subscription types where I might select an automation to run right at the type degree. That would be outstanding for numerous factors. Already, registration kinds look OK, yet there’s very little setups for them to help in division.
It would certainly behave to have tagging at the customer degree. This would be powerful.
I believe webhooks should be part of automations to make integrated automations much easier and minimize reliance on outdoors devices like Zapier.
There are also some small management user interface modifications that would certainly be handy. As an example:
- Ability to mass edit/remove clients.
- Capability to bulk edit blog posts (as an example, to label a number of them at the same time).
- Having a few fundamental fields as basic on customers (like the name).
- Some more modification options for the web site (such as more flexible shade selections, headline control, etc).
So, yeah … there are some imperfections. Points I wish they make with it in the future. BeeHiiv is pretty good, however it isn’t excellent and absolutely not nearly as developed as something like FluentCRM or any other actual CRM product.
It possibly never will be, either. As I stated, the purpose is different so it wouldn’t much a lot of sense for BeeHiiv to become a full marketing automation system. I guess you never know, though.
Final Thoughts On This BeeHiiv Evaluation
I like BeeHiiv rather a great deal. Enough where I determined to switch my own newsletters over to the platform in spite of my personal choice for digital sovereignty and owning my very own platform.
Basically, for the newsletter posting model particularly, I saw sufficient value in their system to require the change.
Keep in mind, I do not use BeeHiiv as my exclusive e-mail list. I utilize BeeHiiv of what it is good at, however I purposefully have things set up so that I also keep my listing “in residence” inside of FluentCRM.
If you use BeeHiiv, I recommend you do the exact same. It is simply an excellent insurance plan, for one. But, having a full-featured marketing automation system for your list will certainly be of high usage (FluentCRM is a full marketing automation system and BeeHiiv is not and likely never will certainly be).
So, the concern is … should YOU use BeeHiiv?
In my viewpoint, if you are utilizing Substack right now, I ‘d most definitely think about changing to BeeHiiv. It will just be a lot more business-friendly. It is targeting various capacities and various demands. Plus, BeeHiiv even has import devices for Substack, so the button should be pretty simple.
If you get on ConvertKit currently, I ‘d probably sit tight unless you have a big email checklist and are for that reason being fleeced with their high month-to-month expense. You will not (yet) have every feature of ConvertKit with BeeHiiv, yet they are iterating swiftly. There’s also a respectable opportunity you’re not also using several of those fancier features of ConvertKit and you do not also require them. For that reason, BeeHiiv could easily be a far better and extra budget-friendly fit.
Lastly, if you plan to be really deliberate about growing an e-newsletter, I believe BeeHiiv is THE system to take into consideration and keep and eye on for you.
If you use BeeHiiv with eyes wide open regarding what it is developed to be, it is just one of the best games around now. This is the system to see.
BeeHiiv provides a 14-day trial on their paid plans. It deserves checking out on your own. And if you end up not sticking with the paid plan, you’ll discover the free account to be fairly feature rich.