Moving your list from beehiiv

The beehiiv subscriber export is a CSV, and Issue Mint reads two columns out of it: the email address, and a first name if you have one. Everything else in the file, and beehiiv exports a good deal, is ignored.

The one decision worth making before you upload is which readers you are bringing. beehiiv exports its inactive and unsubscribed readers alongside the active ones, and Issue Mint treats every row you give it as somebody to mail.

Where the export lives

The beehiiv export sits with your audience rather than in your account settings: open the subscriber list and look for the export or download option above it.

On a large list beehiiv may prepare the file in the background and email you a link rather than downloading it in the browser, so check your inbox if the page seems to have done nothing. If beehiiv lets you export a saved segment rather than the whole audience, that is the easiest way to bring only the readers you want, because it saves you filtering a spreadsheet afterwards.

Which columns matter

The address column, and a first name column if your signup form was collecting names.

A beehiiv export usually also carries a status column separating active readers from the ones who unsubscribed or never confirmed, a tier column if you run a premium version, the date each reader joined, and a set of acquisition columns recording where they came from. Issue Mint reads none of them. That includes the status column, so filtering is a job for the export or for a spreadsheet, not for the import.

What to map on the mapping screen

Point the email field at the address column, and either point the first name field at your name column or set it to not importing names.

Issue Mint reads the header row and pre-selects both, so this is usually a confirmation rather than a decision. You also tick that these people gave you permission to email them and write a line about where the list came from, which importing a CSV covers along with file size, delimiters and the encoding traps that come with editing an export in a spreadsheet first.

What the counts mean afterwards

Every import finishes with an email carrying three counts: imported, skipped and invalid.

Imported is the number of readers now on your list. Skipped means the address was already there, appeared twice in the file, or is suppressed from an earlier hard bounce or complaint, which no import will override. Invalid means the row is not an address, or its domain cannot receive mail anywhere any more. Refused addresses are named on your subscribers page and kept for 180 days, so a difference of a few hundred between the file and the list is something you can actually investigate.

Why the imported figure is lower than beehiiv’s

beehiiv counts subscribers, including ones it has stopped mailing, while Issue Mint counts readers you can mail. The gap is made of the rows you filtered out, plus duplicates and dead domains.

If the gap is much larger than you expected, open the invalid list first. A list grown through paid acquisition or a giveaway tends to carry more dead domains than one grown from a website, and this is the moment that becomes visible. Once you start sending, subscriber analytics tracks the list from there.

If the import waits for a check

An import above 5,000 addresses, or one that more than doubles your existing list, is held for one of us to look at before anything is mailed.

The readers land either way and you can see them in your list, marked as waiting. Releasing rarely takes long, and a held import explains what we are looking at and why. Accounts sending through their own Amazon SES or SMTP credentials are not subject to it.

What you gain by moving, and what you rebuild

Your list moves. Your beehiiv posts, referral programme, segments and ad placements do not.

The parts worth rebuilding deliberately are the ones this product treats as first-class: sponsorship slots with prices and a bookable calendar, and click tracking on your own domain so a sponsor sees your name on the links rather than a platform’s. The Issue Mint and beehiiv comparison sets out where each one is stronger, including the cases where beehiiv is the right answer.