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It has been a month since I signed up for Beehiiv’s scale plan. Although the free plan is super generous, I wanted to test some of the features you can only get with the paid plans.

So, for the last month, I’ve been experimenting with the additional features, and I’m going to share my thoughts so far.

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Recap of free features vs paid

I was extremely impressed with Beehiiv’s free plan and I think it’s a great plan if you aren’t looking to monetise your content straight away.

You can have up to 2500 free subscribers, 3 publications, unlimited email sends and a custom app. You can also customise your domain. The website design is limited, but you can post unlimited blogs and newsletters.

For a full comparison of Beehiiv versus Substack and Ghost, check out this article I wrote a few weeks ago:

If you want to add paid subscription options to your site, then you need to upgrade to the Scale plan (or higher).

The cheapest plan is $49 per month or $517 per year. That gets you up to 1000 subscribers. Once you hit 1000, the price increases to $69 per month. I’m nowhere near 1000 subs yet, so I’m on the cheapest plan, and it currently works out at around £38 per month.

As well as allowing you to paywall content and set up memberships, the web design options are slightly better, you get more comprehensive data, and you can add surveys and polls to your emails and posts. You can also set up email automations.

In addition to all that, the paid plan gives you access to the Boost and Ads features, which allow you to make a few extra pennies.

Covering the cost of the paid plan

If you’re attracting paid subscribers, then you only need a handful before you start covering your costs.

I don’t have any paid subscribers on Beehiiv yet (but I did only set up a paid option last week). Luckily, Beehiiv does give you other features to help cover the costs.

Beehiiv Boosts

I wrote about this a few weeks ago, but the general idea is that you receive a small fee when people subscribe to any newsletters you recommend.

You can view the different offers in the “Boost Marketplace” and then submit an application to any you feel are a good fit.

To make money from Boosts, you turn on your recommendation page. Then, whenever someone subscribes to your newsletter, they get asked if they would also like to subscribe to your recommended newsletters.

I received a Boost request within a week of signing up for the paid plan, and it looked like a good fit, so I accepted. However, I noticed the other day that the status of this Boost is “paused” - I assume this is because the publication is taking a break from promoting their newsletter in this way.

I haven’t been particularly active in seeking out Boost opportunities. I did apply to one that I thought was a good publication. It’s still pending, so we’ll see if anything comes of it.

As it stands, I don’t have any active Boosts. As I said, I haven’t been particularly proactive at submitting applications. I had thought more opportunities would come through like the first one, but so far they haven’t.

Beehiiv Ads feature

Another way you can make money is by using Beehiiv’s ad feature. This is something I have been actively using (we’re now on week four of ads).

The ad opportunities have been coming in thick and fast. I’ve had so many that I can’t take advantage of them all. Firstly, because I only want to run ads for publications I think are interesting or relevant. Secondly, because I don’t want to overload my emails with ads. And thirdly, because I think there is a limit of two ads per email (although I haven’t tried running more than that).

The ads feature is really easy to use. When an opportunity comes in, it shows how much you’ll earn per click. You can view the publication, and if you like the look of it, you can choose which date you want to run the ad and which version of the ad you want to run.

Once you’ve done that, you just add the ad to your email (like the one I’ve added to the top of this email).

You only make money from ads if readers click on those ads within 72 hours of the email being sent (so if you’re reading this on Tuesday, your click won’t earn me any pennies).

The first two weeks I ran ads, I had one per email. Last week and this week, I selected two - one main one for the top of the email and a secondary one to go at the end. I’ll do the same next week and then see what else comes in.

In the three weeks so far, I’ve only had one click, which means I’ve only earned a dollar so far. And, as Beehiiv helpfully informs me, that covers 2% of my subscription:

Will I make any money this week? Depends on whether you like the look of my ads or not. I’ll let you know in next week’s monthly results email.

So is Beehiiv worth paying for?

As a package, I do think you get a lot for your money. £38 might feel expensive compared to the other two platforms, but you get a lot of extra features.

Beehiiv is the only platform that allows you to set up automation, and I do think that’s a good feature to have. There are cheaper platforms for automation, but when you add in the other stuff you get with Beehiiv, it makes sense to have it all in one place.

I also really like the platform. It’s easy to use and offers a lot. Plus, the founders are active on Reddit and Discord. They are constantly improving and adding features, and I think once the web design feature is fully rolled out, the platform will be even better.

And while I might not be covering my costs yet, I only need a couple of paying subscribers to cover the monthly fee.

Speaking of which, here’s a quick reminder of what you get in a paid plan.

Weekly Progress Report

Not a lot to report this week. I’ve been busy pre-writing content and scheduling social media posts because I’m off on holiday in a couple of weeks, so I need to get ahead.

I did get my first paid sub via my Ghost site, which is exciting. The membership is the same whichever platform you subscribe through, so it’s going to be interesting to see which site attracts the highest number of upgrades.

I also did a talk about content marketing this week, and it reminded me how much I love the subject. If you know anybody looking for speakers/presenters or podcast guests, please do recommend me - I have plenty of content to share.

Next week is going to be mainly focused on content creation as I always have a bit extra to do at the end of the month.

And I’ll be collating my monthly results and figures to share with you next Friday, so you’ll find out whether these ads make me any pennies.

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Upcoming events

All events are included in my monthly membership for £20 per month, but if you’d prefer not to commit, you can book any event on an ad-hoc basis at £15 per event. Here’s a reminder of what I’ve got coming up.

That’s about it from me for now. As always, thanks for reading and do let me know if you have any questions, comments or feedback.

P.S If you like my content and would like to show your support, you can buy me a beer here.