Using subdomains in Beefree

Please note that these options are only available if you are the Owner or an Admin of your Beefree account. You may see different options in your account depending on which plan you're using. 

Overview

It's important that we protect our subscribers' assets. One way we accomplish this is by assigning every Beefree account a unique subdomain. This ensures that our customers will never be impacted by the actions of another user. If you are on a Team or Enterprise plan, this also allows you to customize your subdomain.

Below we'll talk about how this release impacts Free, Team, and trial accounts. This information also applies in part to Enterprise subscribers. Further documentation for Enterprise can be found in Using custom domains in Beefree.

Subdomains will apply to the hosted versions of your emails and pages that you have designed in Beefree. Please note that the subdomain does not extend to assets hosted through the file manager. However, you can always use externally hosted images (or files) if you prefer to have more control over this.

What is a subdomain?

If you're on the less technical end of things, this is a completely understandable question to ask. The easiest example of a subdomain is the one that we use for the Beefree platform (https://pro.beefree.io). In this example, "pro" is our subdomain, while "beefree.io" is our primary domain. However, the domain that we use for our hosted assets is different:

• postedstuff.com (Free, Team, and Enterprise customers)
• posted-stuff.us (trialing customers)

To implement subdomains, we add a string of characters in front of the domain that the customer is using. This subdomain is unique to your Beefree account.

If you want to learn more, check out GoDaddy's documentation on this topic: https://www.godaddy.com/help/what-is-a-subdomain-296.

Trial and Free accounts

If you are trialing Team or using a Free plan, your subdomain is assigned randomly. It is created upon account creation.

Free and trial accounts have no customization permissions over the subdomain. However, you can still see these options in your account settings.

If you're on a trial, you'll see the option to skip the trial period on the My subscription page. You can begin a paid subscription to begin using subdomains at any time.

If you are on a Free plan, you'll see that you need a paid plan to customize your subdomain.

Team accounts

If you are using Team, then you have the option to customize your subdomain! A randomly generated subdomain will be available for you at first. 

Before we get started, please keep the following information in mind:

• Your subdomain can only be changed once. You'll see this reflected in Beefree throughout the customization workflow.
• Your custom subdomain can be composed of 20 characters maximum. You can use characters such as capital letters and dashes. However, you cannot use dots (.) or special characters/symbols.

To customize your subdomain, click the pencil icon to the right. This will change your subdomain to an editable text field.

Type your desired subdomain. When you're ready, press the purple checkmark button to the right of the textbox. We'll perform an automatic check to make sure your subdomain is available. Some text will generate below the textbox to let you know whether or not this subdomain is available. If you decide you don't want to change your subdomain right now, you can also use the gray X icon to cancel.

Upon clicking the checkmark, a modal will open for you to confirm the changes that you are making. This includes a preview of your full subdomain and a warning that you will not be able to change this domain again. If you are happy with what you see, press Confirm to save your new subdomain.

Once saved, your custom subdomain is immediately available for use. The pencil icon disappears after customization since it can only be changed once.

This same customization option exists in Enterprise plans. However, this version of Beefree offers even more extensive customization options. For more on Enterprise options, please jump to Using custom domains in Beefree.