Best newsletter platform: Beehiiv or Mailchimp?
TL;DR
It’s impossible to find a perfect solution for newsletters. We really believe that Beehiiv is the best alternative for the Blocks with Benefits newsletter. Mailchimp looked somewhat complicated for content creation without any additional e-commerce ambitions. That’s just one perspective though – individual requirements are generally different.
Having said that, we can very much recommend giving Beehiiv a try. The first 30 days are free and you can register here.
Introduction
Email marketing requires a great platform – and Beehiiv or Mailchimp are both good options. Mailchimp has been around for a while, but the Beehive team has established a serious competitor in the recent past. Both offer unique features and benefits and they’re generally suited for different requirements.
Beehiiv specialises in creator-friendly tools and monetization of newsletters. It’s great for content creators, but also for companies and other organisations who want to keep their subscribers up to date on their day-to-day work or on a broader outlook. Mailchimp, on the other hand, offers many tools that cater mostly to specific business needs.
Finally, our disclosure: We use Beehive for our own newsletter because we found it to be the perfect option for our purposes. Depending on individual requirements, however, other alternatives such as Mailchimp may be better suited.
Overview and background
Both platforms provide various tools aimed at the requirements of newsletter publishers in very different areas.
Beehiiv
The team at Beehiiv has a clear focus on helping creators to scale and monetize their newsletters. You can find a clean interface and comprehensive tools to engage subscribers. Designing and managing emails and subscriber lists is very easy to do, although there is a lot of data available as well.
Mailchimp
Mailchimp mainly caters to businesses of all sizes. It includes robust automation features which make it straightforward to deliver targeted campaigns. You can also find a lot of statistical data about readers. In addition, Mailchimp can handle a whole marketing strategy which includes aspects like customer journeys as well as detailed segmentation.
Core features
Newsletter creation
Beehiiv comes with a simple editor with templates that are customised by drag-and-drop. Inserting dynamic content or collaborating with a team is also extremely user-friendly. Mailchimp also includes various drag-and-drop interfaces and a good selection of templates. However, the design of the interface is a bit more crowded. Getting the design right may therefore take a bit more time at the beginning.
Audience management
Beehiiv allows you to include an (almost) unlimited numbers of contacts and lists. It’s even possible to tag individual subscribers with keywords. That allows creators to grow quickly while not having to worry about increasing costs. Meanwhile, Mailchimp offers deep segmentation, comprehensive profiles and even social data. Campaigns can therefore be personalized to a large degree, allowing things like targeted offers for an online shop to be sent.
Workflow automation
Beehiiv makes it easy to set up workflows which are useful to schedule campaigns or trigger individual emails. Mailchimp provides the same possibilities with maybe even more potential for automation, e.g. triggers based on audience behaviour. Setting up the various features, however, is somewhat more complex than on Beehiiv, particularly when you’re only using them from time to time.
Content analysis
Beehiiv includes with a user-friendly dashboard that provides the most important insights at a glance. You can also look into more data for individual posts, enabling decisions regarding future content. Mailchimp also provides comprehensive reporting tools with insights into open or click-through rates and subscriber activity. The data is slightly more in-depth but it obviously takes time to do a thorough analysis.
Support and resources
Beehiiv has a very broad range of tutorials, walkthroughs and guides already which is constantly expanding. It addresses not only common questions but also a lot of potential tech issues for the correct setup.
Mailchimp has been around for longer and has a much larger team which allows for an even more extensive support system. For tutorials and FAQ articles, this doesn’t really make a big difference though. Personal support, however, is easier to reach although it should be noted that priority support is only an option for premium accounts.
Pricing structure
It’s not easy to compare Beehiiv and Mailchimp on prices. Both have different approaches which are reflected in the pricing structure for their plans.
Beehiiv has set package prices based on the number of subscribers. The free option allows for up to 2500 subscribers with no limits on the number of emails sent per month. For larger audiences, you need one of the two paid packages which provide a lot of additional features. If you want to use these features, you can switch earlier.
At Mailchimp, prices are based on the number of emails which are sent per month. That may get relatively expensive especially for larger audiences but it really depends on the individual requirements of the client. For companies with a monthly newsletter, the pricing is very different than for online shops which are sending out daily offers.
Additional features
Beehiiv provides integrated monetization options. That includes paid subscriptions, referrals to other newsletters and sponsorships. In addition, integration with other services, e.g. Zapier, is possible to add further functionalities.
Mailchimp has a different focus. You can, for example, integrate e-commerce operations with Shopify. Companies can then target email campaigns based on shop offerings and subsequently manage their customer relationships and sales on just one platform. Integrations with other platforms like HubSpot are also possible.
Beehiiv or Mailchimp – pros and cons
That was a lot of explanation so you should have a good picture by now. What’s left to say? The philosophy behind both platforms is useful to consider.
Beehiiv is a straightforward provider for creating newsletters. Mailchimp has a much larger suite of marketing tools which can be used in addition to emails. In a nutshell, that means that the client base on both platforms is somewhat different, largely based on individual requirements and capabilities.
The last thing to note is about Beehiiv: You’ll get free access to all analytics and other tools for the first 30 days. To make good use of that offer, you should know what you’re really looking for and maybe have some content ready to be sent out as a test.
And if that all sounds good, you can sign up here.