I have used a lot of various e-mail list systems throughout the years. In the last number of years, I’ve been a big advocate of digital sovereignty and owning your very own system. Therefore (and the amazing features), I have been making use of Is Beehiiv Profitable.
So, it is without a doubt a weird move for me to determine to make use of BeeHiiv. Besides, it is an organized application and I am paying month-to-month for it.
Why did I do this?
In this BeeHiiv review, I intend to look at why I made the button to BeeHiiv for my e-newsletters. I intend to deal with the concern of digital sovereignty while making use of the system and I ‘d also like to attend to why I chose to utilize it over Substack.
Allow’s dive in …
BeeHiiv: Built For Newsletters
In Issue # 435 of my newsletter called My Pastime + A Big Shift In Strategy, I discussed how and why I chose to turn my motor home blog right into mostly a newsletter. I chose that was business design I intended to pursue with that said property.
Yet, to purposefully pursue it as a newsletter, I wanted a system that was purpose-built for that. I was utilizing FluentCRM for the e-mail list for Gladly recreational vehicle, yet FluentCRM is not a newsletter platform. It is constructed to be a CRM and marketing automation device and, honestly, utilizing it for e-newsletters is a little bit of a waste. Much more on that particular in a bit.
As I said because concern of the e-newsletter …
Basically, BeeHiiv is a system with tools constructed right into it specific to my purpose. Points such as:
- Capacity to release (to the blog) and send out the email all at once without having it be two different activities.
- Constructed in e-newsletter referral program. FluentCRM doesn’t have that and I would require a third-party device like Sparkloop.
- Built-in capacity to do cross-promotions with various other e-newsletters on the BeeHiiv platform.
- ” Magic Hyperlinks”, which are generally one-click registration web links. Great for promotion in various other newsletters. FluentCRM has Smart Links, however, so there are means to do that.
- Ability to do paid “boosts” on the BeeHiiv network to advertise your newsletter.
- Built-in ad network, if I pick to generate income from with advertisements in the newsletter. And I may.
- Built-in capacity to run a paid e-newsletter upgrade and basically run a premium newsletter. And BeeHiiv does not take a cut.
Generally, BeeHiiv is purpose-built for e-newsletter authors with features targeted at growth. The system was essentially developed by the people that built up the innovation for Morning Mixture. They know what they’re doing.
That is the factor here. BeeHiiv is developed from scratch for the function of running an e-newsletter. FluentCRM has a different purpose.
And I ended off with this:.
I may indeed be relocating The Side over to BeeHiiv too. At least, I’m highly considering it.
Well, I really did not consider it for long. Actually, I simply went all out. And in fact, The side was re-branded over to The Early morning WP, triggered as it’s own building so that I can grow it more deliberately also.
The goal is that each newsletter has the capability to be branded as it’s very own media entity and grown individually. Gladly recreational vehicle was young, so very easy to shift. However, The Early morning WP (previously The Edge) was hidden in a sea of stuff right here at the Blog Marketing Academy. By separating it off, I can do what I can to grow it on it’s own. It will obviously always be very closely linked with the Blog Marketing Academy, yet doesn’t need to be a part of it.
I switched to BeeHiiv since it was built for this purpose. FluentCRM was not.
E-newsletters Versus Simply A Normal Email Listing
There’s a distinction between an e-newsletter system and just an email list.
You can hold your email listing anyplace you want and there are a variety of them available, from Aweber, ActiveCampaign, Drip, ConvertKit … over to self-hosted alternatives like GroundHogg and FluentCRM.
What’s the difference?
The primary difference is that, with an e-newsletter system, the act of posting means that it is mosting likely to your site and to your e-mail subscribers concurrently.
With both BeeHiiv and Substack, you have a site. You are publishing to that internet site. However, you are likewise dispatching to all customers at the same time. The web site and it’s customers are done in one. This makes management of the system much easier.
With many email platforms, any e-newsletter you established is done as an email campaign. It is built completely independently from your internet site. So, for instance, you may release a short article to WordPress but then you would require to independently develop and send an email to your checklist to send it to subscribers. These are then 2 different sets of archives and 2 separate activities due to the fact that article and your emails are not inherently linked.
The closest point that transforms WordPress right into a real e-newsletter system is E-newsletter Glue.
It is a suitable name due to the fact that it practically “adhesives” your newsletter to your WordPress blog posts and enables them to be the same point. Certainly, something like E-newsletter Glue would certainly be a strong choice if I intended to remain to self-host everything. However, you would certainly shed the growth devices that come with a platform like BeeHiiv.
Posting an e-newsletter naturally features a various collection of needs than a typical e-mail listing.
You do not usually need much marketing automation. You do not usually require autoresponder series, event tracking, and all the bells and whistles of a marketing automation system.
What you DO requirement, however, is one seamless posting experience and development devices to assist you construct your subscriber base that are specific to newsletters.
BeeHiiv vs Substack
When I introduced to my clients that I was mosting likely to change the newsletter over to BeeHiiv, I had lots of people ask me why I was picking it over Substack.
To be clear, also besides the fact that I selected to choose BeeHiiv, that does not suggest I believe Substack draws. As a matter of fact, because Substack has been about longer, it is more mature and has even more features.
Although BeeHiiv is younger, there are a couple points that initially obtained my interest:.
- BeeHiiv is especially customized to newsletter publishers. In fact, it is literally built by the same individuals that constructed the technology behind Morning Mixture. On the other hand, SubStack targets writers. In the real life, doesn’t matter. But, the noticeable positioning of BeeHiiv towards newsletter development called me out over the more common positioning of being a “maker”. Growth is what I’m interested in here.
- That branding and distinction additionally means that BeeHiiv has some rather huge brand names and huge magazines utilizing it. Whereas SubStack is intended more at solo developers. Once more, it simply informs me the customer avatar difference in between the two business.
Sending our my e-newsletter by means of FluentCRM didn’t specifically draw. The only reason I would certainly ponder shaking points up is if I thought I could GROW the listing quicker. And BeeHiiv talked precisely to that goal.
Because of the targeting, I in fact don’t watch BeeHiiv and Substack as straight rivals. I believe BeeHiiv is targeting a different kind of consumer. Actually, if anything, I see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being extra straight competitors.
But, let’s dive much deeper than just the positioning right here.
Things That Make BeeHiiv Better Than Substack
In general, BeeHiiv looks like it was constructed by individuals who understanding e-mail marketing. On the other hand, SubStack appears extra tailored toward creators.
For example, BeeHiiv offers custom-made areas on clients. Now, it isn’t as created as something like FluentCRM. But, it has it. Substack does not.
BeeHiiv provides Automations. Actually, it is a visual automation builder that works a lot like what we have inside of FluentCRM.
To be clear, the automation capability is still early-phase. It is still rather minimal in triggers and the only activity is the capability to send out an e-mail. Nevertheless, improvements are coming. Soon enough, automations will have brand-new triggers in addition to brand-new actions, such as customizing personalized fields, sending out webhooks, etc. I have actually currently seen improvements to their automations simply considering that I began making use of the platform. For example:
- Capacity to set off automations based upon which specific embed form they can be found in on.
- Capability to immediately do re-engagement (and deal with people based on opens and non-opens).
- Capacity to do standard conditional reasoning branches.
Substack does not have automations similar to this. Likely, it never will. Substack just can’t do this because the target audience of Substack just would not think to approach this like an e-mail marketing professional.
When it concerns writing your newsletters, the composing user interface of BeeHiiv is just a lot more tailored toward e-newsletters. As a matter of fact, it really has similarities to the WordPress block builder in how it functions. I discover it to be a lot more user-friendly, directly.
Substack’s writing interface behaves and clean, yet it would certainly be a lot more comparable to the traditional editor for WordPress. Toolbar on top.
This difference is greater than simply form. For example, with BeeHiiv you can place a “Section” and afterwards put anything you desire in it. After that, you can put Presence alternatives on that particular section to reveal it only to paid customers, hide it from email, conceal from subscribers, reveal only to subscribers, etc. Substack provides absolutely nothing such as this.
And when/if the moment comes that I start a premium subscription model, BeeHiiv doesn’t take any type of income. As a matter of fact, you literally connect up to your own Stripe account and it bills directly to it. With Substack, they will certainly take 10% of your revenue. Depending upon the amount of customers you obtain, that 10% can be a fair bit even more money than the month-to-month price of BeeHiiv.
Lastly, BeeHiiv has an API. This might appear unpopular, however what it suggests is that there are integrations with BeeHiiv. You can in fact make BeeHiiv work with the outside using tools like Zapier or Make.com. This is HUGE. Substack essentially has … nothing. No integrations in all.
In general, I simply seemed like BeeHiiv was more developed towards real e-mail marketing. It was developed by people that “get it”. Also the opt-in types and the landing page creates seem far better constructed for conversions. Development is nitty-gritty with BeeHiiv.
Even though there are still features I wish to see BeeHiiv add, I like the instructions it is going more than Substack.
Points That Make Substack Better Than BeeHiiv
As I have actually said, Substack placements itself towards “makers” more than e-mail marketing professionals and newsletter proprietors. For that reason, you see some things geared more towards individuals who simply assume in regards to content creation.
As an example, Substack sustains podcasts. BeeHiiv does not.
Additionally, while BeeHiiv does sustain multiple magazines, they are dealt with fairly separately. Whereas Substack does have the capability to cross-post to several publications at the same time. This isn’t something I call for, yet … great for people who might need it.
Substack also has even more social functionality built-in. For example, it has a conversation function to host talks with customers. It additionally has a “Notes” function which functions type of like a social media sites newsfeed where you can share things from various other “Stacks” you’re reading. Fascinating. On the whole, Substack is established to be extra like a social media which supports long-form content.
On the whole, Substack is likewise a lot more … minimal. You either look after that or do not. Personally, I don’t. Nevertheless, if the objective is simpleness of interface and, truthfully, features … Substack functions pretty well.
However, I’ll be clear right here …
When it pertains to real marketing, I do not believe there’s much uncertainty that BeeHiiv is better fit. I tried to find more factors that make Substack better than BeeHiiv, yet frankly … I have a difficult time locating them.
BeeHiiv Vs ConvertKit
While BeeHiiv and Substack are typically with to be the closest rivals, I actually see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being the closer opponents. Both are pursuing the very same target audience and have comparable capacities.
ConvertKit is likewise positioned at makers (like Substack), but it is much more strongly dealing with individuals that do it for business. ConvertKit has nice aesthetic automation building, it’s own business platform, and a lot more. ConvertKit is an actually great system.
I’m not mosting likely to bore you with a complete feature-by-feature malfunction below. ConvertKit is well known currently. But, below’s exactly how I feel BeeHiiv and ConvertKit compare …
Things ConvertKit Is Much Better At …
As of now, ConvertKit has much more flexibility when it concerns it’s automations. I will likewise claim that I find ConvertKit’s automation builder to be a bit much more user-friendly than that of BeeHiiv.
ConvertKit sustains identifying. This is simply a standard function of e-mail listings that makes it possible for division in a much more flexible way than BeeHiiv presently does. I expect BeeHiiv to support tagging eventually quickly, honestly. It seems like an oversight that it is missing Is Beehiiv Profitable.
ConvertKit does currently offer the ability to sell things by means of their very own system. BeeHiiv does not. If that is necessary to you, it might be a big deal for you. For me, nonetheless, I would constantly select an extra direct alternative anyhow. For me, I favor to utilize my very own system powered by WooCommerce.
ConvertKit has been around a lot longer and therefore has way extra integration alternatives. Tons of online devices and WordPress plugins incorporate with ConvertKit. ConvertKit even has their very own WordPress plugin that is quite powerful. As an example, their plugin currently even sustains member-gated material as well as auto-embed of your e-newsletter archives right into your website. In essence, this much more closely places ConvertKit right into straight competitors by having you have the ability to publish to your website and your e-mail listing at the same time.
BeeHiiv is seriously lacking in these type of third-party integrations presently. It’ll get there. Yet, we’re not there yet with it.
ConvertKit is even hectic dealing with the development tools of BeeHiiv. For example, BeeHiiv has the referral program and the Recommendation Engine where you can not only incentivize people to share your newsletter with advantages, but you can also pay per lead within the internal advertisement network of BeeHiiv to grow your checklist. These are really remarkable features of BeeHiiv. But …
Did you know ConvertKit acquired Sparkloop? Sparkloop is just one of the most well known viral promo platforms for e-newsletters … and ConvertKit bought it. You can see the composing on the wall surface for what this implies for the system going forward.
Things BeeHiiv Is Much Better At … Is Beehiiv Profitable
BeeHiiv is much earlier in it’s product cycle than ConvertKit. Part of that means much less features and less integrations, which is natural for this stage of the cycle. Nevertheless, it likewise implies that they are quickly establishing.
In the short time that I have been a customer of BeeHiiv, I have experienced almost regular launch of new features into the platform. And these aren’t undersized little features … however big features that are quite vital. Their rate of growth at this moment has been impressive.
I additionally quite value just how responsive they are. Actually, among their product announcements regarding some layout enhancements to the website design features actually contained a tiny problem with the web content size. I simply responded to that e-mail to tell them. I rapidly got a reply straight from the CEO:.
That same day, the problem was repaired.
Couple of days later on, I gave them another idea …
Indeed, in a little bit over a week of that exchange, the ability to trigger automations based upon the embed form used was contributed to the system.
That kind of responsiveness and straight participation of the group is something I really appreciate.
One more significant point of differentiation below is the price. Both systems supply cost-free plans, nonetheless the BeeHiiv free plan uses much more capability and more subscribers (2,500 vs 1,000) than ConvertKit.
When you most likely to paid plans, the pricing of BeeHiiv is additionally much more favorable. ConvertKit seems less expensive initially glance since their pricing web page reveals reduced numbers, however the subscriber limitations are much lower and your price swiftly boosts as your list grows.
With BeeHiiv, your first level paid plan starts at $42/mo (paid each year), however you can have up to 10,000 subscribers. That same dimension checklist is mosting likely to run you $100/month with ConvertKit.
If you upgrade to the “Range” plan with BeeHiiv (their finest plan and the one I directly make use of), you can expand your list approximately 100,000. A listing of that dimension would run you $566/month with ConvertKit. If you want their referral network, also, that puts you at the $733/month plan. That’s if you pay annually, also. With BeeHiiv, you can obtain all that for simply $84/month if you pay yearly.
BeeHiiv is in a totally various organization when it pertains to pricing (in a great way).
Will BeeHiiv ultimately increase costs? They could as time takes place. Yet, I’m guessing individuals like myself that are already in will certainly be locked-in. We’ll see exactly how things continue.
Things I Would Like BeeHiiv To Include
Among things you most definitely need to remember is that BeeHiiv is fairly young. They do seem to progress instead quickly and make brand-new item statements rather frequently, but there are some standard features I truly desire they had that I need to just wait on.
One is that they need to have a setting on membership types where I might pick an automation to run right at the type degree. That would certainly be outstanding for so many reasons. As of now, membership forms look OK, yet there’s extremely little settings for them to assist in division.
It would certainly behave to have marking at the subscriber degree. This would certainly be effective.
I assume webhooks must be part of automations to make built-in automations simpler and lower reliance on outdoors devices like Zapier.
There are likewise some small management user interface modifications that would certainly come in handy. For instance:
- Ability to bulk edit/remove subscribers.
- Capacity to mass edit messages (for example, to tag a bunch of them at the same time).
- Having a couple of fundamental areas as conventional on customers (like the name).
- Some more personalization options for the website (such as more flexible color selections, heading control, etc).
So, yeah … there are some imperfections. Points I wish they make with it in the near future. BeeHiiv is respectable, yet it isn’t best and definitely not nearly as developed as something like FluentCRM or any other actual CRM product.
It most likely never ever will be, either. As I said, the objective is various so it wouldn’t much a lot of sense for BeeHiiv to become a complete marketing automation system. I presume you never understand, however.
Last Ideas On This BeeHiiv Testimonial
I such as BeeHiiv fairly a lot. Enough where I decided to change my own newsletters over to the platform in spite of my individual preference for digital sovereignty and owning my very own system.
Put simply, for the e-newsletter posting design specifically, I saw adequate value in their system to warrant the change.
Bear in mind, I do not make use of BeeHiiv as my special e-mail checklist. I make use of BeeHiiv of what it is proficient at, however I intentionally have things establish to make sure that I likewise keep my checklist “in residence” within FluentCRM.
If you use BeeHiiv, I suggest you do the exact same. It is simply a great insurance policy, for one. However, having a full-featured marketing automation platform for your checklist will be of high usage (FluentCRM is a complete marketing automation system and BeeHiiv is not and likely never will be).
So, the question is … should YOU make use of BeeHiiv?
In my viewpoint, if you are utilizing Substack right now, I ‘d definitely consider switching over to BeeHiiv. It will just be more business-friendly. It is targeting various capabilities and various needs. And also, BeeHiiv also has import tools for Substack, so the button must be quite straightforward.
If you get on ConvertKit now, I ‘d possibly stay unless you have a huge email checklist and are for that reason being fleeced with their high regular monthly bill. You will not (yet) have every feature of ConvertKit with BeeHiiv, yet they are repeating rapidly. There’s additionally a pretty good opportunity you’re not also making use of some of those fancier features of ConvertKit and you do not even require them. Because of that, BeeHiiv might easily be a much better and extra economical fit.
Lastly, if you plan to be extremely intentional regarding expanding a newsletter, I think BeeHiiv is THE platform to think about and keep and eye on for you.
If you utilize BeeHiiv with eyes wide open about what it is made to be, it is among the most effective games in town right now. This is the system to watch.
BeeHiiv provides a 14-day trial on their paid plans. It deserves checking out for yourself. And if you end up not sticking to the paid plan, you’ll locate the free account to be fairly feature abundant.