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Beehiiv, a well-known platform for building and growing a newsletter business, has announced a series of new features that essentially turn the platform into an all-in-one hub for the creator economy. The move puts the company in even more direct competition with its top rival, Substack.
Tyler Denk, Beehiiv’s co-founder and CEO, says that the platform’s expansion is due to the growing needs of content creators, who are increasingly expected to work in several mediums, from newsletters to podcasts and video, in order to reach the largest audience possible.
Historically, Denk says, content creators have needed to rely on several platforms, like WordPress for their website and MailChimp for their email. But “when you’re a journalist or content creator,” he says, “you don’t want to spend your time piecing together six different pieces of tech. You just want to focus on creating content and hope that the tool you use allows you to do that pretty seamlessly.”
To provide this all-in-one service, Beehiiv is introducing 10 new and upgraded features to its platform. The one that Denk is most excited about is digital products. “A lot of our content creators are subject matter experts at different things,” says Denk, “and they want to sell ebooks, guides, templates, booking time, coaching sessions.” Denk acknowledges that other platforms already exist that help creators sell these kinds of products, but unlike competitors, Beehiiv won’t take a cut of those sales.
Another major new feature is the upgraded website builder. In 2024, Beehiiv acquired website-building platform TypeDream and debuted its original website builder, which mostly used drag-and-drop features to let users create their website. Now, the builder has received a “vibe coding” makeover that enables users to create a website by simply giving the tool a text-based prompt.
Other companies, like Lovable, have dominated the new vibe-coding space, but Denk believes his product is superior because it combines the power of generative AI with the drag-and-drop precision of their previous version. “There’s something nice about being able to get 90 percent of your website built in a minute just by prompting it properly,” says Denk. “But then you also can drag and drop to make everything pixel perfect.”
The update also brings dynamic content to the platform, a feature that Denk says has been requested by large enterprises. With dynamic content, one email can appear differently to different people. For example, Denk says he “could send one newsletter but make it so anyone who is a male in the database would get a Manscaped ad while female readers would get an ad for Kate Spade.” Gender is just one metric that can be used to determine dynamic content; others include engagement rates, age, and location. This information is collected through short surveys filled out by new subscribers.
Matt McGarry, a self-described “newsletter guy” and founder of newsletter marketing agency GrowLetter, says that dynamic content is the feature he’s most excited for. He says that dynamic content is widely used by every “eight figure or nine figure publisher that we’ve talked to,” but until now, hasn’t really been accessible for individual writers.
Content creators with podcasts will also be happy to hear that they can easily integrate their shows into their websites and newsletters. “When I try to share a podcast,” says Denk, “I have no idea if I should send the Apple link, the Spotify link, or the YouTube link, because I have no idea what the person I’m sending it to uses typically.” By partnering with a solo-run startup called Podpage, Beehiiv is able to give every podcast episode its own dedicated page on your website, with a transcript and options to open the episode on Spotify or Apple.
McGarry is bullish on Beehiiv’s direction, particularly its decision to prioritize customability. This is in direct opposition to main competitor Substack, which has gone all-in on creating a social media-like ecosystem of creators. McGarry says Substack forces creators to “build your business around our model,” while Beehiiv is “giving you the flexibility to build your business around the model that makes the most sense for you and your customers.”
Other features that Beehiiv announced include website analytics, a customizable link-in-bio page, new website and newsletter templates, and more tools to automate the customer journey.
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Ben Sherry
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