Beehiiv Review: Perfect Email for Buzzy Content Creators?

This Beehiiv review focuses on email newsletter software that’s rapidly gaining popularity among podcasters and wider content creators. Let’s find out what all the fuss is about.

Once, the Internet was an information superhighway. Now, it’s a crowded city center out of Blade Runner. Everywhere you turn, someone is trying to sell you something, the pavement is slippery, and you’ll never know who’s a bot. Fortunately, this means people appreciate sustained individual attention more than ever. To sustain your flow of information, a sound email marketing system can help you cut through the clutter and engage with your audience. To be specific, Beehiiv helps you use email to engage your podcast audience meaningfully and monetize your content at an affordable price.

Our link to Beehiiv is an affiliate, which means we’d earn a commission should you choose to sign up through it. Rest assured, this doesn’t cost you an extra cent, and doesn’t cloud our judgement when it comes to writing fair and honest reviews!

What is Beehiiv? 

Is it a website? Is it an e-mail platform? It’s both. E-mail newsletters are making a comeback, and Beehiiv leads the resurgence. 

Social media platforms make it harder to stand out and reach your audience, and tech companies are prioritizing privacy. Podcasters need to reach their audience in a meaningful, trackable way without exhausting their own resources. Though email newsletters may seem old, they avoid what promoters call “interruption marketing.” It’s a promotional approach that’s more respectful to your audience. They’ve chosen to get emails from you. You can track what email they open or links they click on. This consensual flow of information is worth building on, and that’s what Beehiiv is doing.

Beehiiv’s founders came from the Morning Brew newsletter and launched Beehiiv soon after the global pandemic skyrocketed demand for trustworthy news sources. Tyler Denk’s growth plans circumvented algorithms by incentivizing sharing and improving SEO. He and his co-founders brought everything he learned at Morning Brew to Beehiiv. Now, those growth philosophies can work for you. 

Beehiiv Review: Features

Beehiiv helps you create an email that includes almost any element you can include in a blog post. Then, you send it to your audience and get data you can use to find out what they want more of or don’t. Plus, they can communicate with you via replies or comments. 

You start by making a simple website. When I say “make,” I mean “pick out colors and fonts.” There are some toggle switches to click on, but no coding. Each email that you create and send updates the website. You can write text, embed images, and posts from Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, or X (Twitter). Your subscribers can read your content in their email or on your website, or you can link to outside content. It’s as easy as social media. 

Tracking audience behavior is easier with email than with a podcast. Beehiiv’s 3D Analytics helps you see how your followers respond to your email. And, with Beehiiv, you can segment your audience so you can send different email messages to different segments. This might not seem like such a big deal, but most email marketing software only offers the features Beehiiv does at higher prices or with thousands of subscribers. 

Monetize Your Content with Beehiiv

Monetization is simple, too. Pick out ads from Beehiiv’s Ad Marketplace, and include them in your posts. Or, use Boosts to recommend other Beehiiv newsletters to your followers. When your subscribers click through and subscribe, you get paid. You can also sell premium subscriptions. Beehiiv doesn’t charge a percentage, simply a flat rate. Which brings us to…

Beehiiv Review: Pricing

Again, Beehiiv offers more features and flexibility at lower prices than other email marketing platforms. These prices are effective when you pay annually. 

• Launch. Beehiiv’s free tier allows you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, unlimited sends, campaign analytics, and access to its recommendation network. 
• Grow. For $42 a month, you get everything from the Launch tier and up to 10,000 subscribers, custom domains, the option to sell premium subscriptions, segmentation, polls, survey forms, and multiple logins. You can also join Beehiiv’s exclusive online community of newsletter creators. 
• Scale. For $84 per month, you get everything from the Grow tier and up to 100,000 subscribers, use of their Advanced web builder, access to the Ad network, segmented publishing, automation, boosts, 3D analytics, A/B testing, priority support, and use of Beehiiv’s AI. 
• Enterprise. You get everything from the previous tiers, more subscribers and publications, a dedicated account manager, access to early features, advanced security, and access to their Newsletter XP course.  The price is “Contact the Sales Department.”

In addition, when you sign up at the Launch level, you get a 30-day trial of Beehiiv’s features at the Scale level. This way, you can try out all the advanced features and get priority support while still in the beginning stages. As my grandmother would say, all this and heaven too. 

Is Beehiiv Good for Podcasters? 

Did you not read the last paragraph? Beehiiv is significantly less expensive than other email marketing platforms for the amount of features you get. For podcasters growing their email list from the ground up, the ability to make a newsletter that’s as feature-rich as Beehiiv’s for free is unusual.  

There is one caveat for podcasters, though. I’ve been digging through Beehiiv all day and still can’t find a way to embed a podcast episode in a Beehiiv post. 

Look at all these options. So many choices, Bobby! Beehiiv will let you embed posts from YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, or X(Twitter). However, neither the “Embed Link” option nor the “Code Block” option will embed a podcast episode. If you simply enter the URL, the post displays the URL. Why? Who knows? I’ve been scouring Beehiiv’s extensive knowledge base like it’s my teeth and I’ve got a dentist appointment in an hour.

Editor’s Note

We’re waiting to hear back from Beehiiv about the podcast embed issue and will duly update this review if new info becomes available!

A workaround for being unable to embed a podcast episode (such as in Substack) would be to submit your podcast’s RSS feed to YouTube. Then, embed the YouTube video of the episode you want to promote in the Beehiiv post. However, YouTube doesn’t share its tracking data with media hosts. So instead, practice writing an excellent call to action, and tell your followers to listen wherever they get their podcasts. 

Since you can’t embed a podcast episode in a Beehiiv post, I take back the “all this and heaven too” statement. But, the fact remains that Beehiiv offers more features and flexibility at affordable prices than other email marketing software. 

Beehiiv Review: You Bring The Nectar, They’ll Let it Flow 

In 1973, Karl Von Frisch won the Nobel Prize for deciphering how bees dance to share information about resources such as food and water, how far away they are, and how to find them. With simple patterns of ellipses and carefully counted wiggles, a honeybee can tell thousands of her sisters which direction to fly, how far, and what her reward will be.

Maintaining communication with your audience can be as tiring as wiggling your spiracle at a crowded intersection. But, Beehiiv can make sharing your latest episodes and supplementary information with your fans much easier. You don’t have to do any complicated dance moves unless you want to.