- beehiiv Blog
- Posts
- Email Newsletter App Options: Which Is Best for You?
Email Newsletter App Options: Which Is Best for You?
Find the App With the Tools and Features You Need
Chad Montgomery & Lenore Sterner
May 9th, 2023
This article has been updated to maintain its accuracy and relevance.
What if I told you you didn’t have to settle? That there is a right one out there for you?
That’s right–there is an email newsletter app out there that will give you the best of both worlds. (When it comes to people though…well, you’ll have to ask someone else).
Choosing an app for your email newsletter can be difficult. It may feel as if each option forces you to settle, giving up some features in exchange for others. There are several options to choose from, and each comes with pros and cons that aren’t always obvious until you start using the app.
Most of the options are not one-size-fits-all solutions. Instead, most have focused on a specific niche such as e-commerce, creators, or writers. Tailoring its features to the needs of that subset.
In this post, we will review the pros and cons, and then highlight our favorite app–one that has tools and features suited for any niche or industry. By the end of this article, you will have the confidence to make the right decision for your email newsletter app.
Table of Contents
Our Top Pick for the Best Email Newsletter App
beehiiv
Okay, maybe I am a bit biased here, but let me explain.
beehiiv provides a comprehensive newsletter platform complete with a premium ad network, excellent pricing, and best-in-the-industry analytics, with a complete focus on making your newsletter the best it can be.
Pros
beehiiv has a robust set of features that make it the ideal choice for your newsletter app, many of which are available on the $0 launch plan.
Custom website
Custom newsletters
3D analytics
Subscriber tagging and advanced segmentation
Easy-to-use content management system
Ad Network
Boost Network
Premium Subscriptions
Surveys, Forms, and Polls
Custom Website
beehiiv hosted websites are fully integrated with your newsletter, and without writing any code whatsoever, you can make an amazing website. Better yet, you can do it all in one place, without having to worry about finding a separate site to build your page.
Just check out some of these amazing websites that are built on beehiiv:
The Daily Bite looks effortlessly cool with pink, purple, and lime green.
This screenshot doesn’t do Ponderer’s website justice. Just go experience those satisfying animations.
Andy’s Newsletter looks crisp and memorable with a simple logo and a visually pleasing background.
You can create world-class newsletters with ease – and save your newsletter creations as a template to use time and again, getting your content out quickly so you can publish faster, and grow more.
Big Desk Energy is one newsletter created on beehiiv, and looks amazing with retro pc vibes.
3D Analytics
3D analytics provide incredible insight to your subscribers. You can get actionable data into your content, marketing, and acquisition strategies so that you can truly create a world-class experience for your subscribers.
Subscriber tagging and advanced segmentation
You can create subscriber tags that give you a simple and effective way to segment your audience, organize your subscriber list, and take your engagement to the next level. Using these tags, you can categorize your audience however you want.
The segmentation tool allows you to create segments based on data points that you can use for analytics and personalization. No matter what portion of your audience you wish to send to, you’ll find an option to suit your needs.
Easy-to-use content management system
The content management system is easy to use – but at beehiiv, easy doesn’t mean basic. The content management system allows you to save templates for reuse in new posts. Writing in the editor is intuitive and allows you to quickly create a captivating newsletter. If you’re working in a team, collaborating within the content management system is a breeze.
Ad Network
You can monetize your newsletter with premium advertisers, without all the stress of going out and securing your own sponsors. You’ll automatically get matched with sponsors that are a great fit for your audience, and getting paid is fast and easy.
Boost Network
If you’re looking to monetize your newsletter, you can apply to Boost, or recommend, other newsletters. Each new subscriber to your newsletter will be shown your boosted recommendations, and when you opt-in to the newsletter that’s recommended to you, you’ll get paid.
If you’re looking to grow your newsletter, you can use the Boosts network to acquire new subscribers quickly. You can set your own price and everything is fully integrated for you.
You can create premium subscriptions, even at different tiers with unique price points. The possibilities are endless.
Surveys, forms, and polls
Gathering information from your subscribers has never been easier with options for surveys, forms, and polls directly in beehiiv. You can even use the info you gather to create segments of your audience to give them a truly personalized experience.
Cons
Currently, beehiiv does not support pre-made email templates (but new features are launching constantly). And even though you don’t have pre-made templates at your disposal, any email design you create can be saved as a template to use later.
There is also no live chat support currently available, but there is an amazing Chatbot Assistant named Buzz which is available on any page. You can talk to Buzz in natural language just like you would a human being, and Buzz will get you the resources you need or put you in touch with someone who can assist you.
Other Great Options For Your Email Newsletter App
Want to check out the competition? Great idea. There are several other options for email newsletter apps. Here are just a few of the main contenders.
Mailchimp
Best for email automation
Mailchimp is a marketing giant and has many services under one roof. Its size works as both a pro and a con.
Mailchimp’s focus is certainly not newsletters. They are an email marketing service that happens to include newsletter functionality as a part of that service.
The size of the brand means they can offer landing pages, A/B testing, and segmentation–all key features in an email newsletter app. They are also able to offer automated email sequences which are, arguably, their bread and butter.
Mailchimp’s versatility comes at a significant cost though–a cost that will penalize and potentially limit your email sends as you grow.
The Mailchimp marketing platform’s pricing for up to 10,000 contacts will cost you $135 per month for the standard plan, or $350 for the premium plan. These plans will limit you to 120,000 or 150,000 emails sent per month, respectively. If you’re planning on sending a daily newsletter, you would blow through these caps in the 3rd week of the month.
Compare that to beehiiv’s plans, where you get unlimited email sends, even on the $0 Launch plan (up to 2,500 subscribers).
Convert Kit
Best for creators - musicians, podcasters, and authors
The Convert Kit platform focuses its app on creators. They are a direct competitor to Mailchimp, offering landing pages and email marketing automation.
Unlike Mailchimp, Convert Kit does offer the ability to set up a paid newsletter. Convert Kit’s newsletter product also focuses on creators by offering the ability to set up sales funnels to pitch subscribers on a product or service.
Convert Kit integrates with Stripe to accept payments for products listed within the newsletter. They charge a slightly increased rate for this service, at 3.5% + $0.30 as a transaction fee.
The biggest concern with choosing Convert Kit as your newsletter app is its pricing. The pricing scales very quickly, in a similar fashion to Mailchimp.
They do have a free plan for up to 10,000 subscribers–but after that, it’ll cost you $100 per month for 10,000 subscribers on their basic Creator Plan.
Substack
Best for writers
Substack is a streamlined newsletter-only app. It has a minimalistic interface–which, if your focus is on writing only, is a positive for most writers.
One of Substack’s best features–one beehiiv has also taken inspiration from–is recommendations. This feature allows one newsletter to endorse another on the platform, which can be mutually beneficial to both newsletters in helping them grow.
Substack allows writers to create free, paid, or hybrid newsletters where only some content is behind a subscription. The app is free to use but charges a substantial fee for subscriptions.
The fee on subscriptions is the biggest downside to Substack. They charge a 10% fee and also have the 2.9% + $0.30 transaction fee and a 0.7% billing fee for recurring subscriptions from Stripe.
Drip
Best for e-commerce
If you’re running an e-commerce business, you will want to consider Drip for handling your newsletter.
Drip is an all-in-one marketing solution for e-commerce. The platform handles automated email sequences using advanced segmentation which allows for increased personalization in your emails.
If you’re running a stand-alone newsletter, or a business in any other niche, however, Drip is not going to be for you. The entire platform is designed to integrate with e-commerce stores, and each feature has been built with e-commerce in mind.
Pricing for Drip starts at $39 per month for up to 2,500 people, then scales every 500 subscribers from there.
Best Free Email Marketing App (Getting Started)
We created beehiiv to be the best newsletter app available. You only need to look at newsletters like The Milk Road, Exec Sum, and Payload to see the potential for success with our app.
Getting started with beehiiv is a simple process that will have you up and running in minutes.
beehiiv’s Pricing Tiers - Amazing Free Plan
beehiiv has a best-in-the-industry forever free plan that allows you to grow up to 2,500 subscribers and send unlimited emails to all of them.
The Scale and Max plans start at $39 and $99 per month respectively, and take your newsletter to the next level with monetization, automations, and more.
What Makes beehiiv the Best Free Email Newsletter App?
beehiiv has a robust set of features entirely focused on growing your newsletter.
I use beehiiv for my own newsletter, currently in the proof-of-concept stage, on the free Launch plan. Having the ability to quickly put together a newsletter from a saved template allows me to create my weekly curation newsletter in about an hour.
I have all of the features I need available to me, including open rates, click-through rates, and what links are getting clicks in each newsletter sent. This has allowed me to zero in on what type of content my subscribers are wanting to interact with and is helping me create a better newsletter for my audience.
Best Email Marketing App (Closing Thoughts)
Ultimately, to choose the best app for your newsletter you will need to decide what features are most important to you and what your vision is for your newsletter over the long term.
There are great options for you to choose from. The best part about healthy competition–it drives innovation. There are subtle differences between the major newsletter apps, though, and you will need to decide what makes each one the right choice for your business.
Start with the app that makes the most sense for your newsletter today. You can always migrate over to another service later if your plans change.
We are confident that beehiiv will provide your newsletter with the best opportunity to grow, with the best features, at an extremely competitive price. Get started with your free launch plan today and come see what all the hype is about.
Reply