I have used a great deal of different e-mail list systems for many years. In the last couple of years, I have actually been a massive supporter of digital sovereignty and possessing your own system. Because of that (and the incredible features), I have actually been using Tinker Solution Beehiiv.
So, it is indeed an unusual move for me to determine to use BeeHiiv. Besides, it is a hosted application and I am paying regular monthly for it.
Why did I do this?
In this BeeHiiv review, I wish to go over why I made the switch to BeeHiiv for my e-newsletters. I intend to attend to the concern of digital sovereignty while utilizing the system and I would certainly additionally like to deal with why I chose to use it over Substack.
Allow’s dive in …
BeeHiiv: Constructed For Newsletters
In Issue # 435 of my e-newsletter called My Pastime + A Huge Change In Approach, I talked about exactly how and why I decided to transform my recreational vehicle blog right into mainly a newsletter. I determined that was the business model I wished to seek with that said home.
But, to intentionally pursue it as an e-newsletter, I wanted a system that was purpose-built for that. I was utilizing FluentCRM for the e-mail list for Happily RV, but FluentCRM is not a newsletter system. It is constructed to be a CRM and marketing automation device and, truthfully, utilizing it for e-newsletters is a bit of a waste. More on that in a bit.
As I claimed in that concern of the e-newsletter …
Put simply, BeeHiiv is a platform with devices developed into it certain to my objective. Things such as:
- Ability to publish (to the blog) and send out the e-mail at the same time without having it be 2 different activities.
- Integrated in newsletter referral program. FluentCRM does not have that and I would certainly have needed a third-party device like Sparkloop.
- Integrated capacity 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, though, so there are means to do that.
- Capacity to do paid “boosts” on the BeeHiiv network to promote your e-newsletter.
- Integrated advertisement network, if I pick to monetize with ads in the newsletter. And I may.
- Built-in capacity to run a paid newsletter upgrade and generally run a costs e-newsletter. And BeeHiiv doesn’t take a cut.
Primarily, BeeHiiv is purpose-built for newsletter publishers with features aimed at growth. The system was actually constructed by the individuals who accumulated the innovation for Early morning Brew. They understand what they’re doing.
That is the point right here. BeeHiiv is constructed from scratch for the function of running a newsletter. FluentCRM has a various purpose.
And I finished off with this:.
I might undoubtedly be relocating The Edge over to BeeHiiv as well. A minimum of, I’m strongly considering it.
Well, I really did not consider it for long. As a matter of fact, I just went for it. And actually, The side was re-branded over to The Early morning WP, set off as it’s own home to ensure that I can grow it a lot more intentionally also.
The objective is that each newsletter has the capacity to be branded as it’s very own media entity and expanded independently. Happily RV was young, so very easy to change. But, The Morning WP (formerly The Side) was hidden in a sea of things right here at the Blog Marketing Academy. By dividing it off, I can do what I can to expand it on it’s own. It will clearly constantly be closely connected with the Blog Marketing Academy, however does not have to be a part of it.
I switched to BeeHiiv since it was built for this purpose. FluentCRM was not.
Newsletters Versus Just A Typical Email Listing
There’s a difference in between a newsletter platform and just an email checklist.
You can organize your e-mail listing anyplace you want and there are a variety of them out there, from Aweber, ActiveCampaign, Drip, ConvertKit … over to self-hosted alternatives like GroundHogg and FluentCRM.
What’s the distinction?
The main distinction is that, with an e-newsletter platform, the act of publishing suggests that it is mosting likely to your web site and to your email customers concurrently.
With both BeeHiiv and Substack, you have an internet site. You are releasing to that internet site. But, you are additionally dispatching to all subscribers at the same time. The web site and it’s subscribers are done in one. This makes administration of the system much easier.
With a lot of email systems, any newsletter you set up is done as an email campaign. It is built totally independently from your site. So, for instance, you may publish a short article to WordPress however then you would need to separately construct and send out an e-mail to your list to send it to customers. These are after that 2 separate sets of archives and two separate actions since blog posts and your e-mails are not inherently connected.
The closest thing that turns WordPress right into a true e-newsletter platform is Newsletter Glue.
It is a suitable name because it pretty much “adhesives” your newsletter to your WordPress articles and allows them to be the same thing. Absolutely, something like E-newsletter Glue would be a solid alternative if I wanted to continue to self-host every little thing. Nonetheless, you would certainly shed the development tools that feature a system like BeeHiiv.
Publishing an e-newsletter inherently includes a different set of requirements than a typical email list.
You do not typically need much marketing automation. You do not normally require autoresponder sequences, event tracking, and all the bells and whistles of a marketing automation platform.
What you DO need, though, is one seamless posting experience and development devices to assist you build your customer base that are specific to newsletters.
BeeHiiv vs Substack
When I introduced to my customers that I was going to switch the newsletter over to BeeHiiv, I had many people ask me why I was choosing it over Substack.
To be clear, also besides the truth that I picked to choose BeeHiiv, that doesn’t indicate I believe Substack sucks. In fact, because Substack has been about much longer, it is elder and has even more features.
Despite the fact that BeeHiiv is younger, there are a couple points that at first obtained my interest:.
- BeeHiiv is particularly tailored to e-newsletter publishers. Actually, it is essentially built by the same people who constructed the technology behind Morning Brew. On the other hand, SubStack targets writers. In the real life, doesn’t matter. However, the noticeable positioning of BeeHiiv towards newsletter development called me out over the even more generic positioning of being a “developer”. Development is what I’m interested in here.
- That branding and differentiation likewise implies that BeeHiiv has some relatively large brands and large publications utilizing it. Whereas SubStack is aimed even more at solo makers. Once again, it just tells me the customer character distinction in between the two business.
Sending our my e-newsletter using FluentCRM really did not exactly suck. The only factor I would contemplate drinking points up is if I believed I could expand the checklist quicker. And BeeHiiv talked precisely to that objective.
Because of the targeting, I actually don’t see BeeHiiv and Substack as direct competitors. I think BeeHiiv is targeting a various kind of consumer. In fact, if anything, I see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being a lot more straight rivals.
But, let’s dive much deeper than just the placing below.
Points That Make BeeHiiv Better Than Substack
Overall, BeeHiiv appears like it was constructed by people who understanding email marketing. On the other hand, SubStack seems much more tailored toward makers.
As an example, BeeHiiv uses personalized fields on customers. Now, it isn’t as established as something like FluentCRM. Yet, it has it. Substack doesn’t.
BeeHiiv offers Automations. Actually, it is an aesthetic automation builder that works a whole lot like what we have within FluentCRM.
To be clear, the automation capability is still early-phase. It is still rather limited in triggers and the only activity is the ability to send out an email. Nonetheless, improvements are coming. Quickly enough, automations will certainly have brand-new triggers in addition to new activities, such as changing personalized areas, sending out webhooks, etc. I have actually currently seen improvements to their automations simply considering that I started making use of the system. As an example:
- Capability to activate automations based on which particular embed form they came in on.
- Ability to instantly do re-engagement (and take care of individuals based upon opens and non-opens).
- Capacity to do fundamental conditional reasoning branches.
Substack does not have automations like this. Likely, it never will. Substack simply can’t do this due to the fact that the target audience of Substack just wouldn’t think to approach this like an e-mail marketing professional.
When it pertains to composing your newsletters, the composing interface of BeeHiiv is simply a lot more tailored toward newsletters. Actually, it in fact has resemblances to the WordPress block builder in just how it functions. I locate it to be extra user-friendly, personally.
Substack’s writing user interface behaves and tidy, however it would certainly be much more equivalent to the classic editor for WordPress. Toolbar on top.
This difference is greater than simply form. For instance, with BeeHiiv you can put a “Section” and then put anything you want in it. After that, you can put Exposure options on that area to reveal it just to paid clients, conceal it from email, hide from customers, reveal just to clients, and so on. Substack offers nothing such as this.
And when/if the moment comes that I begin a premium membership model, BeeHiiv does not take any kind of revenue. Actually, you literally link as much as your own Stripe account and it charges directly to it. With Substack, they will certainly take 10% of your profits. Relying on how many clients you get, that 10% can be quite a bit more money than the regular monthly cost of BeeHiiv.
Lastly, BeeHiiv has an API. This might seem unpopular, but what it indicates is that there are integrations with BeeHiiv. You can in fact make BeeHiiv collaborate with the outdoors utilizing tools like Zapier or Make.com. This is HUGE. Substack essentially has … absolutely nothing. No integrations in all.
In general, I just seemed like BeeHiiv was extra built toward actual email marketing. It was constructed by people who “get it”. Even the opt-in kinds and the landing page designs seem better constructed for conversions. Development is the name of the game with BeeHiiv.
Despite the fact that there are still features I wish to see BeeHiiv include, I such as the direction it is going more than Substack.
Points That Make Substack Better Than BeeHiiv
As I have claimed, Substack placements itself towards “developers” greater than email marketers and e-newsletter proprietors. For that reason, you see some things tailored extra toward people that just believe in terms of content development.
For example, Substack supports podcasts. BeeHiiv does not.
Also, while BeeHiiv does sustain multiple magazines, they are treated quite individually. Whereas Substack does have the capacity to cross-post to several publications at the same time. This isn’t something I require, yet … cool for individuals that could need it.
Substack additionally has even more social capability built-in. For instance, it has a chat feature to host talks with customers. It likewise has a “Notes” feature which works kind of like a social media newsfeed where you can share points from various other “Stacks” you read. Fascinating. In general, Substack is established to be extra like a social network which sustains long-form content.
Generally, Substack is additionally more … minimalist. You either care for that or don’t. Directly, I don’t. Nonetheless, if the goal is simplicity of interface and, truthfully, features … Substack functions pretty well.
But, I’ll be clear here …
When it concerns real marketing, I don’t think there’s much question that BeeHiiv is better fit. I searched for even more factors that make Substack much better than BeeHiiv, but frankly … I have a hard time locating them.
BeeHiiv Vs ConvertKit
While BeeHiiv and Substack are often through to be the closest rivals, I in fact see BeeHiiv and ConvertKit being the closer competitors. Both are pursuing the very same target audience and have comparable capacities.
ConvertKit is also placed at creators (like Substack), however it is much more strongly satisfying individuals that do it for organization. ConvertKit has great aesthetic automation structure, it’s own commerce system, and more. ConvertKit is a really good platform.
I’m not going to bore you with a full feature-by-feature failure below. ConvertKit is well known already. Yet, right here’s exactly how I feel BeeHiiv and ConvertKit contrast …
Things ConvertKit Is Much Better At …
Already, ConvertKit has extra versatility when it concerns it’s automations. I will likewise state that I discover ConvertKit’s automation builder to be a little bit extra instinctive than that of BeeHiiv.
ConvertKit supports tagging. This is just a fundamental feature of email lists that allows division in a much more flexible method than BeeHiiv currently does. I expect BeeHiiv to support labeling at some point soon, truthfully. It seems like an oversight that it is missing Tinker Solution Beehiiv.
ConvertKit does currently provide the capability to offer things using their very own platform. BeeHiiv does not. If that is necessary to you, it might be a big deal for you. For me, nonetheless, I would constantly pick a more straight choice anyhow. For me, I choose to use my very own system powered by WooCommerce.
ConvertKit has actually been around much longer and for that reason has way much more integration alternatives. Lots of web-based tools and WordPress plugins incorporate with ConvertKit. ConvertKit also has their own WordPress plugin that is fairly powerful. For example, their plugin now also sustains member-gated material as well as auto-embed of your newsletter archives right into your website. In essence, this more closely puts ConvertKit right into direct competitors by having you have the ability to release to your site and your email listing at the same time.
BeeHiiv is severely lacking in these type of third-party integrations right now. It’ll get there. But, we’re not there yet with it.
ConvertKit is also hectic dealing with the growth tools of BeeHiiv. For instance, BeeHiiv has the referral program and the Suggestion Engine where you can not only incentivize people to share your newsletter with advantages, yet you can additionally pay per lead within the internal ad network of BeeHiiv to expand your list. These are actually remarkable features of BeeHiiv. However …
Did you know ConvertKit obtained Sparkloop? Sparkloop is among 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 … Tinker Solution Beehiiv
BeeHiiv is a lot earlier in it’s item cycle than ConvertKit. Part of that suggests less features and less integrations, which is all-natural for this phase of the cycle. Nonetheless, it also implies that they are swiftly creating.
In the short time that I have actually been a customer of BeeHiiv, I have actually observed nearly weekly launch of new features right into the system. And these aren’t undersized little features … but huge features that are fairly vital. Their speed of development at this point has gone over.
I likewise quite value just how responsive they are. Actually, among their product news regarding some layout enhancements to the website design features actually included a tiny issue with the content width. I merely replied to that email to tell them. I swiftly got a reply directly from the chief executive officer:.
That very same day, the problem was dealt with.
Few days later on, I gave them an additional suggestion …
Indeed, in a bit over a week of that exchange, the capacity to set off automations based upon the embed form made use of was included in 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 price. Both systems offer free plans, however the BeeHiiv free plan offers 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 even more beneficial. ConvertKit appears cheaper in the beginning look since their pricing web page reveals reduced numbers, nevertheless the client limits are much lower and your rate swiftly boosts as your listing expands.
With BeeHiiv, your initial degree paid plan begins at $42/mo (paid yearly), however you can have up to 10,000 clients. That exact same size checklist is mosting likely to run you $100/month with ConvertKit.
If you upgrade to the “Scale” plan with BeeHiiv (their finest plan and the one I directly use), you can grow your checklist up to 100,000. A listing of that dimension would certainly run you $566/month with ConvertKit. If you want their referral network, too, that puts you at the $733/month plan. That’s if you pay yearly, as well. With BeeHiiv, you can get all that for simply $84/month if you pay every year.
BeeHiiv remains in a totally different organization when it concerns pricing (in a great way).
Will BeeHiiv ultimately boost costs? They may as time goes on. However, I’m presuming individuals like myself that are currently in will be locked-in. We’ll see just how points proceed.
Things I Would Like BeeHiiv To Add
Among the things you most definitely require to keep in mind is that BeeHiiv is reasonably young. They do seem to develop rather quickly and make new item news somewhat usually, however there are some fundamental features I really want they had that I require to simply wait on.
One is that they require to have a setting on registration types where I might select an automation to run right at the form degree. That would certainly be outstanding for many reasons. Currently, registration types look OK, yet there’s really little settings for them to aid in segmentation.
It would be nice to have identifying at the client level. This would certainly be powerful.
I believe webhooks need to be part of automations to make built-in automations less complicated and minimize reliance on outside tools like Zapier.
There are additionally some small administrative user interface changes that would be handy. For example:
- Capacity to bulk edit/remove clients.
- Ability to mass edit articles (for example, to mark a bunch of them at the same time).
- Having a few standard areas as basic on subscribers (like the name).
- Some more modification alternatives for the site (such as more adaptable color options, heading control, and so on).
So, yeah … there are some drawbacks. Points I wish they perform with it in the near future. BeeHiiv is respectable, yet it isn’t ideal and certainly not almost as created as something like FluentCRM or any other real CRM item.
It probably never ever will be, either. As I said, the objective is various so it wouldn’t a lot a great deal of sense for BeeHiiv to end up being a full marketing automation system. I guess you never know, though.
Last Thoughts On This BeeHiiv Review
I like BeeHiiv fairly a lot. Enough where I made a decision to switch my own newsletters over to the system despite my individual preference for digital sovereignty and owning my own system.
Basically, for the newsletter posting model particularly, I saw enough worth in their platform to require the adjustment.
Bear in mind, I do not utilize BeeHiiv as my unique e-mail listing. I make use of BeeHiiv wherefore it is proficient at, but I deliberately have things set up to ensure that I also keep my list “in home” inside of FluentCRM.
If you utilize BeeHiiv, I suggest you do the exact same. It is simply a great insurance policy, 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 question is … should YOU use BeeHiiv?
In my opinion, if you are making use of Substack today, I ‘d absolutely think about switching to BeeHiiv. It will simply be a lot more business-friendly. It is targeting various capacities and various requirements. And also, BeeHiiv also has import devices for Substack, so the button needs to be quite simple.
If you get on ConvertKit currently, I ‘d possibly stay put unless you have a big email list and are therefore being fleeced with their high month-to-month bill. You will certainly not (yet) have every feature of ConvertKit with BeeHiiv, but they are iterating promptly. There’s additionally a respectable chance you’re not even using a few of those fancier features of ConvertKit and you do not even need them. Therefore, BeeHiiv could quickly be a far better and much more inexpensive fit.
Finally, if you plan to be really willful regarding growing a newsletter, I believe BeeHiiv is THE platform to take into consideration and maintain and eye on for you.
If you utilize BeeHiiv with eyes wide open about what it is made to be, it is just one of the very best 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 on your own. And if you wind up not sticking to the paid plan, you’ll discover the complimentary account to be rather feature abundant.