Hey Freelance Friends!

I still remember the moment we hit send on the very first issue of Freelance Forward earlier this year. Back then, I was using Brevo (Sendinblue) for my mailing list. The system worked really well, but the interface felt more like enterprise software than something designed for a writer. I spent more time tinkering with menus and buried settings than actually writing. When a friend in Cape Town mentioned Beehiiv, a platform built by some of the folks behind Morning Brew, I decided to give it a try, and you can too!

Beehiiv feels like it was made for people who love to write and want their newsletters to grow. It combines a clean editor with a simple website builder, audience‑growth tools, and built‑in monetisation. According to Email Tooltester, Beehiiv was designed specifically for independent creators, while many email marketing tools like Brevo aim to serve general business needs. That focus shows in the user experience.

Once you create a Beehiiv account, you’re guided through a handful of steps. The platform’s “Launch and Scale” section describes it neatly: sign up, import or build your audience, design your first newsletter and track performance. We found the process intuitive. After verifying our domain and uploading our subscriber list from Brevo, we headed straight into the editor.

The Beehiiv editor lives in your browser and looks like a blank page rather than a complicated dashboard. You can drag in sections, adjust columns and spacing, embed images and tables, and save your own templates. Brand controls are built into the editor; you can set colours, fonts and logos so every newsletter reflects your identity. We especially like the real‑time previews that show how an email will look on a phone or desktop before you hit send. Brevo’s editor is powerful, but it hides its features behind multiple sub‑menus. Beehiiv keeps things simple without sacrificing control.

Beehiiv also supplies a web‑hosted version of each newsletter. When you hit publish, the email goes out and the article lives on your Beehiiv‑hosted site too. The built‑in SEO tools and readability analysis help ensure the web version is discoverable. You can even add subscriber forms inside the editor, meaning people can join your list right from the article.

A good newsletter isn’t just about writing; it’s about building a community around your work. Beehiiv’s growth tools are some of its biggest strengths. We started by enabling Recommendations. Recommendations let you cross‑promote other newsletters and have them recommend yours. Beehiiv’s official page explains that the programme drives organic growth, automates reward tracking and lets you customise incentives like exclusive content or merchandise.

For paid acquisition, Beehiiv offers Boosts. Instead of spending blindly on ads, you set a cost‑per‑subscriber cap and the system partners you with relevant newsletters. Unengaged subscribers are automatically refunded. Boosts remove budget surprises by letting you fix your cost per subscriber, target audiences by interests or demographics and get refunds for inactive sign‑ups. After a week of running a Boost campaign, you can pick up several hundred engaged readers from other South African entrepreneurship newsletters at a predictable cost. Having grown up in a world where marketing budgets could vanish into poorly targeted ads, we found this transparency refreshing.

Beehiiv’s segmentation and analytics tools also help you understand your audience. You can group subscribers based on attributes, engagement or the form they used to sign up and then send targeted messages to those segments. The analytics dashboard goes deeper than simple open and click‑through rates; it tells you where subscribers came from (Instagram, X, your website), which countries they’re in and how different groups interact with your content. Brevo offers robust automation and transactional emails, but Beehiiv’s segmentation and origin tracking are far more detailed for newsletters.

Many freelancers dream of turning their newsletter into a source of income. Beehiiv approaches monetisation as part of the workflow rather than an afterthought. There are four main options: paid subscriptions, the ad network, direct sponsorships and digital products.

Paid subscriptions allow you to create multiple pricing tiers and pay‑what‑you‑want options. You can lock premium content behind a paywall while offering free previews, and even let readers gift subscriptions or buy bulk licences for their teams. Free trials and discounts encourage people to try before they commit. Unlike Substack, which takes a 10 % cut of subscription revenue, Beehiiv lets you keep 100 % of what readers pay, minus Stripe’s standard processing fee.

The Beehiiv Ad Network connects publishers with high‑quality advertisers and makes it easy to insert sponsored links into your newsletter. The platform tracks impressions, clicks and earnings in real time. For publishers, Beehiiv emphasises non‑intrusive ads, reliable fill rates and verified analytics. You choose which ads to run and can expect payouts based on unique opens (CPM) or clicks (CPC). When we tested the network, we earned enough to cover hosting costs without cluttering the newsletter with banners.

If you’d rather manage sponsorships yourself, Beehiiv’s Direct Sponsorships feature lets you set pricing, schedule ads and track performance directly in your dashboard. It comes with one‑click ad scheduling, Stripe‑integrated invoicing and automatic reporting so sponsors see verified clicks and engagement. There’s even a Sponsor Storefront that showcases your reach and pricing to potential advertisers. The process to enable direct sponsorships is straightforward: toggle it on, set your rates, review sponsor requests and schedule placements.

Recently Beehiiv added the ability to sell digital products and run “pay what you want” lifetime subscription offers, though we haven’t tested those yet. These features underscore Beehiiv’s philosophy: build everything you need to grow and monetise a newsletter in one place.

Since a lot of Freelance Forward readers have asked why I switched, here’s my honest take. Brevo is a full‑fledged marketing automation platform. It supports email, SMS, transactional messages and advanced workflows. SourceForge describes Brevo as helping businesses send targeted marketing, automation and transactional emails, with world‑class customer support. It’s great for e‑commerce or companies that need to trigger an SMS when someone abandons a cart. But as freelancers who just want to publish, grow and monetise a newsletter, Brevo felt overbuilt. Creating a newsletter meant navigating multi‑channel campaign options and features we don’t use.

Beehiiv, by contrast, was made for digital publishers. It’s a no‑code newsletter builder with a built‑in website, referral system and ad network. Email Tooltester notes that Beehiiv regularly releases features like lifetime subscriptions and a mobile app builder, and that its free plan allows up to 2,500 subscribers while still offering a custom website and domain. Where Brevo charges extra for some advanced features, Beehiiv bundles them into its Scale plan. Moreover, Beehiiv takes no cut of paid subscriptions while Substack charges 10 %.

That doesn’t mean Beehiiv is perfect. Its email editor offers fewer design templates than Brevo or Mailchimp and automations are only available on paid plans. If you’re looking for complex multi‑step sequences, Brevo’s automation builder might suit you better. And if cost is a major concern, Beehiiv’s jump from free to paid can feel steep. But for South African freelancers trying to build an audience and income around their words, Beehiiv hits the sweet spot between simplicity and power.

Writing a newsletter from Johannesburg feels different now than it did a few years ago. The pandemic accelerated our shift to digital communities, and today a newsletter can be as influential as a morning radio show. Beehiiv’s focus on creators means you’re not just sending emails; you’re building a publication with its own website, growth engine and revenue model. Features like the referral programme, Boosts and the ad network help you reach new readers without relying on social‑media algorithms, while paid subscriptions and direct sponsorships turn loyal fans into patrons.

You still need to write well and deliver value; no platform can replace that. But Beehiiv reduces the friction between idea and publication. It lets a freelancer in Jozi start a newsletter on Monday, grow a list by month‑end and begin earning from it soon after.

For us, that’s the kind of tool that keeps freelance journalism alive. If you’ve been thinking about starting your own newsletter, now might be the time. And if you’ve been using a platform designed for marketers rather than writers, Beehiiv might feel like a breath of fresh Highveld air.

Click here to try it for yourself!

Then hit reply and let us know your thoughts.

— The Profreelance Crew