Beefree news

I can hardly believe it’s been a decade since Beefree’s humble beginnings. 

The first version of Beefree launched on October 18, 2014. We shared our excitement on Hacker News, and to our complete surprise, 20,000 people visited our minimalist-looking website in the first weekend. I remember thinking, “What??? We’re famous!!” 

A few days later, the hype died down, and we realized that no one had signed up for anything. For some back story, when Beefree first launched, we envisioned it as a growth marketing experiment for MailUp, an Italy-based email marketing platform.

We thought, "We’ll provide marketers with a free email builder and pitch them MailUp after they finish designing their email: many of them will sign up!" Except… nope. While people loved our email builder, they were loyal to the platforms they were using to send their emails. It’s safe to say that the experiment failed. 

But this was the start of bringing something to the market that many were in dire need of. In fact, we got a ton of unexpected feedback. One comment on Hacker News stood out: “Any chance of Beefree being embeddable, either as a service or open source?" 

From that comment came our first sale of “Beefree” for the license of an embeddable version of our email editor. 

10 years later, our content builder, Beefree SDK, is embedded in over 1,000 SaaS applications worldwide, including some of the biggest names in tech. Roughly half a million people per month, across all of those applications, use Beefree to design a massive amount of emails, landing pages, and other digital content. 

While our product has always been key to our growth, we wouldn’t be where we are today without a truly passionate group of people who deeply care about their work. In ten years, the team has grown from 6 to over 100, spanning Europe and the United States. 

So what better way to celebrate this important milestone, than to hear from the very voices of the amazing people that have been sharing in this adventure?

To you who are reading—thank you for being a part of this wonderful evolution. We can’t wait to see what’s next.

Massimo Arrigoni
Beefree Founder & CEO

Reflecting on a decade: 8 employees share about their time at Beefree

#1:  The power of teamwork is priceless 

As we celebrate a decade of innovation and growth, I can’t help but marvel at the journey. When I joined 7 years ago, there were just 9 of us, fueled by passion and vision. Now, we’ve grown into a dynamic team of over 100, each one of us playing a vital role in this success story.

My path to this company was anything but ordinary. After years of freelancing, launching businesses, and even co-founding a startup, I took a leap of faith to join this team—and I haven’t looked back. The greatest reward? Realizing that nothing compares to the thrill of achieving a goal as a team. The collective energy, shared ambition, and that moment of victory together—it's simply unbeatable.

Being part of this journey, with a team that’s constantly evolving, always aiming higher, and embracing every challenge, has been an incredible adventure.

Here’s to the next chapter of us pushing boundaries, breaking new ground, and doing it all together.

“The greatest reward? Realizing that nothing compares to the thrill of achieving a goal as a team.”
- Matteo Santagata, Full Stack Engineer Associate Manager

#2:  Build something that matters

Saying I’ve been working on Beefree SDK for 7 years feels totally normal to me. But every now and then, someone reminds me that it's actually rather extraordinary in the tech world. Some engineers switch roles every couple of years, trying them on like new pairs of shoes. Not too long ago, at a trade show, a young sales engineer looked at me, astonished, and said, “You must really love the work.” I just smiled, took a moment to reflect, and simply nodded, “Yes, yes, I really do.”

It wasn’t exactly a grand revelation, but it gave me pause. We’ve all heard the saying, "If you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life." It’s cliché for a reason, but that was the first time it clicked for me: Seven years doesn’t feel like seven years.

It’s hard to point to just one reason why.

It’s a mix of so many things—the culture of trust, the tangible impact of the features we build, like improving accessibility so someone can create content on their own for the first time. It’s all of those experiences combined that make the journey worth it. And honestly, I can easily see myself saying the same thing at our 20-year anniversary, still feeling like it all started yesterday.

“It’s a mix of so many things—the culture of trust, the tangible impact of the features we build, like improving accessibility so someone can create content on their own for the first time.”
- Matt Weber, Senior Software Architect

#3: Building community and growing across borders

I started working at Beefree in 2014, and it has been an incredible journey that I feel grateful to reflect on today. My time here has been filled with learning, growth, and some unexpected turns—most notably my move from Milan to Denmark in 2016. What could have been a challenging transition was made seamless by the company’s support, allowing me to continue working remotely from my new home.

Living in Denmark for the past years has profoundly shaped me. Denmark is a country built on the values of equality, trust, and community—principles that resonate deeply within Danish culture. One fun cultural aspect I encountered is “janteloven”, or “the law of Jante”, a Nordic philosophy that emphasizes humility and equality, discouraging any form of boasting or thinking of oneself as superior. It’s a reflection of how strongly Danes value the collective over the individual.

What I found most surprising was how these learnings from living in Denmark paralleled my experience at Beefree. Just like Denmark’s culture, Beefree emphasizes a sense of community and the importance of trust. This has taught me how critical teamwork is, and how much more enriching it is to celebrate successes as a team rather than just as individuals. There is something truly special about being part of a team where mutual trust and shared values create an environment where everyone can thrive.

Over the past decade, I’ve learned that both in work and in life, the real magic happens when people come together. The experience has taught me that no matter how far we are from each other geographically, a strong sense of community and shared purpose can keep us connected. As I look forward to the future, I am excited to keep building on these values with my colleagues at Beefree, growing together, one step at a time.

“I’ve learned that both in work and in life, the real magic happens when people come together.”
- Cinzia Tavernini, Senior Account Manager

#4:  Embrace change 

The idea of celebrating our tenth anniversary feels almost surreal. Has it really been ten years since we launched beefree.io?

Breaking down this journey into years, months, or days is hard. Looking back, I vividly recall the excitement and nervous energy as we launched the beta version, reaching out to connect with people around the globe. We called out, “We’re here to help you and learn with you,” hoping to serve others. Trying to visualize everything that’s happened since then feels like watching a fast-forwarded movie, where the number of people and the depth of relationships continually grow.

If there’s one constant since we began, it’s continuous change—fueled by constant learning and guided by the curiosity of explorers embarking on their first journey.

Perhaps that’s why it seems strange that ten years have passed—when you’re immersed in a journey like this, time loses its significance. We’re traveling with no fixed destination; what matters most is the act of traveling together.

This extraordinary journey has only been possible because of the remarkable people who have come together, united by strong principles and a shared purpose. I know this is a privilege, and I’m deeply grateful to everyone who has been part of this.

As we look ahead, I’m excited about the possibilities that await us. Here’s to continuing the journey, embracing the unknown, and discovering new horizons together.

“If there’s one constant since we began, it’s continuous change.”
- Guillermo Padilla, Head of Product

#5: Embrace the complexity of remote 

As I reflect on my journey with Beefree, leading People & Culture at a global company with roots in Italy and a dynamic business in the U.S. has been an adventure shaped by innovation and transformation.

Beefree has been running as a remote-first company for 10 years. At first, I thought leading remotely meant simply managing from a distance—overcoming time zone challenges while balancing flexibility and risk. But I quickly realized it’s far more complex. Remote work isn’t just about geography; it blurs boundaries between ‘nowhere’ and ‘everywhere.’ Without the right mindset and cultural mapping artifacts, it can be isolating and overwhelming. 

We are uncovering new ways of working to transform this challenge into an opportunity, fostering a culture of clear communication, empathy, and self-care. It’s a journey of continuous improvement—one I’m excited to keep learning from every day.

“It’s a journey of continuous improvement—one I’m excited to keep learning from every day.”
- Enrica Lipari, People & Culture Director

#6: 100 employees is complicated – and it is a treasure

Think of hosting a BBQ with 100 people. Or going on vacation with 100 people. Or how about throwing a birthday party for your little one with another 100 little ones? 100-people anything is complicated. How can it not be? I’m complicated. You’re complicated. How about 100 of us???  

Companies are this somewhat random mix of complicated human beings that get together to build things for other complicated humans. How cool is that? And yes, messy too. But as long as there’s a positive, respectful, caring cultural foundation that makes it (mostly) work, relax, take a deep breath, and enjoy daily new discoveries. That’s what building a company is ultimately all about.

“Companies are this somewhat random mix of complicated human beings that get together to build things for other complicated humans. How cool is that?”
- Massimo Arrigoni, CEO

#7:  It’s the People 

With apologies to Mars Blackman and Michael Jordan... it's not the shoes; so it's gotta be the PEOPLE! 

Like any sports organization, a business is made up of individuals working together for a common purpose (you know - a team). I've worked at many different companies over the years, and not a single one has come close to replicating the trust and passion found among my colleagues at Beefree... and I'm extremely grateful to be a part of this 10 year birthday celebration!

“I've worked at many different companies over the years, and not a single one has come close to replicating the trust and passion found among my colleagues at Beefree.”
- Cedric Adams, Business Development Manager

#8:  Growing together on an exciting journey

Being part of this project from day one has been an extraordinary journey, one that has shaped both my career and my perspective on teamwork and innovation. I started as a full-stack developer, diving into the code, shaping the first iterations of what would become a powerful tool for creativity. Today, I have the immense honor of leading a development team that has grown beyond what I could have imagined. Watching this team evolve growing in size, talent, and ambition—has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my career.

What truly stands out is the growth of the people. Over the years, I’ve witnessed colleagues take on new challenges, step into leadership roles, and push the boundaries of what we can achieve together. Every individual contribution has played a vital role in our collective success, and it's been a privilege to be part of such a collaborative and passionate group.

This journey, however, isn’t limited to our team alone. I’ve seen other departments flourish alongside us, each playing a crucial part in driving the project forward. Together, we’ve navigated challenges, celebrated victories, and pushed the envelope of what’s possible in our industry.

It's been an honor to stand on the front lines of this initiative, helping to create a platform that empowers people to express their creativity through successful newsletters.

As we look to the future, I’m filled with excitement for what’s to come. I couldn’t ask for a better team to embark on this journey. I’m excited to see what the future holds and to continue growing alongside the whole team.

“I've worked at many different companies over the years, and not a single one has come close to replicating the trust and passion found among my colleagues at Beefree.”
- Loris Cabrini, Head of Engineering

Happy birthday, Beefree!

While we’ve grown a lot, recently passing $15m in annual recurring revenue, a lot has also stayed the same. 

We’re still anchored in the same values and operating principles that have allowed us to maintain a 97% employee retention rate–really high for the tech industry.

True today as it was on October 18, 2014, our core job-to-be-done is the same: providing users with an accessible design tool that frees them up to do their best work. Anyone can start designing with Beefree: no questions asked, no form to fill out, no email address to submit, nothing. No friction. All sorts of businesses use it to design all kinds of emails and landing pages. 

To them, and to our past, present and future customers, thank you!

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If you’re in the email space, you’ve visited reallygoodemails.com. 

I’ve been a fan for years. There’s nothing like seeing fantastic messages designed by some of the world's best brands to inspire you. Perhaps as well-known as the website are the newsletters from Really Good Emails: witty, funny, and packed with great articles and best practices.

So when Mike Nelson, one of the founders of Really Good Emails (RGE), reached out to me months ago, I was all ears.

Mike and his partners had been volunteering their time on the RGE project for almost ten years and had decided that it was time to switch gears. To deliver more value to their millions of visitors, RGE needed more time, money, and full-time focus.

One thing they found in surveys is that RGE users wanted to “turn saved emails into customizable templates” and use them in any email tool. As it turns out, that’s exactly what people do with Beefree’s no-code email builder: create millions of emails monthly for all sorts of use cases in virtually every industry. They even create those emails inside hundreds of other applications where our tools are embedded. 

Mike clearly had the right idea, and I’m so glad he and his co-founders reached out. 

We started talking and sharing ideas and a vision for the future of RGE. There was a lot of alignment. We believed then—and even more strongly today—that a collaboration between RGE and Beefree could make the art and science of email creation more accessible, more inspiring, and simply, more fun.  

Our plans for the future

If you’re an RGE fan and have never heard of Beefree, our goal is to shorten your path from inspiration to creation. Over the next several months, we will work on various ways to make that happen.

If you’re a Beefree fan, we will add more inspiration to your email design process. You’ve seen the 1,700+ templates in our catalog. Now, we’ll leverage the 15,000+ designs on the RGE site to give you creative superpowers.

If you’re involved in email creation at all, the key point is this: by bringing together RGE's vast email catalog with Beefree's intuitive design tools, we will provide new ways for you to close the gap between finding inspiration and creating something valuable from it.

I've always believed that inspiration is the precursor to creation. Seeing a design that clicks with you, that sparks that "Aha!" moment, is crucial. And Really Good Emails has been that source of "Aha!" for many, including myself. Incorporating RGE's treasure trove into Beefree's ecosystem feels like a natural step toward enhancing the creative process for our community.

Bringing Beefree and RGE together

From a product point of view, you will start seeing integrations between RGE and Beefree. We’ll start small and get fancier over time. They will start shipping soon, and we’ll keep you posted. 

While that’s in the future, there are things we can deliver to you today.

• First, the Pro features on reallygoodemails.com become FREE for all, starting immediately. At Beefree, we love removing friction and agreed with our friends at RGE to start there. So, create new collections, add your favorite emails, and use the Chrome extension. It’s all free now.
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• Secondly, Unspam is back. It was hard for an all-volunteer team to host and grow this special email event. We have zero intention of changing the nature and objectives of the event, but we’re excited to support it and help it grow. Justine Jordan - Head of Strategy & Community at Beefree - took the lead on that, co-hosting Unspam 2024 in her own, authentic way.
  
  
• Third, I'm super excited to welcome Mike Nelson and Matt Helbig from RGE to the Beefree team. They have a lot of innovative ideas around the future of Really Good Emails, and we can’t wait to collaborate with them. Matthew Smith and Matt Cook will help as strategic advisors.

We live in a world where email continues to be the favorite channel for companies to communicate with their subscribers and for people like you and I to hear from our favorite brands (e.g., here and here). In this world, you - email creators - play such a crucial role.

You are the key stakeholders for both RGE and Beefree. Hundreds of thousands of you use our tools every month. Through Unspam and many other initiatives, we want to increase investment in email makers and creators. 

We need to do so to continue building products that make sense and are truly helpful: successful products only come from a lot of deep listening. We want to do so because we are part of the same community, and there’s no healthy RGE & Beefree without a thriving community.

I know it’s cliché to say it, but we truly believe this is a case where the whole has a real chance of being greater than the sum of the parts. Our tools - combined - will deliver a greater amount of value to you. Our efforts - combined - will have a greater impact.

Give us a bit of time to execute all of this, and keep us honest as we do so. If you have questions, we maintain a FAQ here and welcome your comments and feedback by emailing community@beefree.io. 

With heartfelt enthusiasm, optimism, and anticipation for what’s to come,

Massimo Arrigoni 

CEO, Beefree

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For many email creators, one of the most daunting challenges is manually writing HTML code or an over-reliance on external support to create HTML emails. Although email has been around since the early 70’s and is one of the best marketing strategies to implement (due to its high ROI and cost-efficiency), email continues to be a specialized skill only acquired by some.

That’s where HTML email builders, such as Beefree, come in. These solutions serve as a saving grace for many who heavily rely on email marketing programs but don’t have the deep HTML expertise, design skills, or resources to hire external support.

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Who is Beefree for? 

Beefree is a comprehensive email builder designed for both email novices and seasoned professionals. With its intuitive interface and robust features, Beefree empowers everyone to streamline their email design processes and independently design, customize, and deploy HTML emails and landing pages. 

In short, Beefree is for everyone.

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For beginners, Beefree’s drag-and-drop functionality, complemented by our extensive learning resources and design tools, simplifies crafting full email campaigns. No intricate coding knowledge or design expertise is necessary.

For seasoned email professionals, eliminating manual HTML coding reduces errors and enhances productivity, allowing for a greater focus on refining email campaign strategies and fostering innovation. 

Lastly, for Designers who have grown accustomed to outdated and rigid solutions or juggle multiple design and development tools, Beefree’s flexibility is a breath of fresh air. Beefree’s intuitive platform allows for maximum customization of emails and pages to create innovative designs. Additionally, time-saving features such as reusable content blocks and templates help Designers save valuable time, allowing them to focus their creativity on other projects. a

Regardless of skill level, Beefree serves as a catalyst for bringing creative visions to life. Whether you're exploring basic design concepts or pushing the boundaries of innovation, Beefree provides the tools and resources needed to transform ideas into impactful email campaigns.

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The Beefree philosophy: “Start for free. Upgrade as you Grow.” 

At the heart of the Beefree philosophy lies the principle of accessibility and scalability. That is why we have prioritized making our solutions intuitive, easy to learn, and adaptable to anyone. 

Over the years, we’ve ensured that our pricing options reflect that. In 2022, we launched a Free plan. Since then, the addition of the free plan has empowered thousands of users to begin crafting visually stunning campaigns without barriers. 

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Following our transition from BEE to Beefree in late 2023, we embarked on a journey to reevaluate our pricing options to better meet the evolving needs of our valued customers.

After many ongoing conversations with you, our community, we found a gap between our offerings from “Team” to “Enterprise.” It became clear that there was a growing demand for a more comprehensive option tailored to the requirements of businesses and organizations that weren’t quite ready for enterprise-level but had outgrown solutions catered to small teams. 

Understanding our users' challenges and aspirations drove us to refine our approach and introduce enhancements that would serve businesses at every stage of their growth journey. 

Today, we’re thrilled to take another significant step as we launch the new Beefree “Business” plan.

We recognize the importance of bridging the gap between our existing plans and ensuring each tier provides you with the necessary features and capabilities to support your diverse needs. As well as, empowering businesses of all sizes to effectively maximize their email marketing and communications efforts.

Which Beefree plan is right for you? 

Here at Beefree, we've carefully crafted our plans with your needs in focus. Each plan is tailored to correspond with different stages of your journey, enabling you to scale your email marketing endeavors as your business flourishes. Each of our plan names resonates with the various phases of your creative exploration:

• The "Starter" plan: Ideal for beginners and freelancers dipping their toes into email marketing. (Previously known as the “Free” plan).
  
  
• The "Professional" plan: Tailored for small teams to create targeted campaigns and optimize strategies for better results. (Previously known as the “Team” plan).
  

• *NEW* The “Business” plan: Geared towards growing businesses and marketing professionals who need a comprehensive solution to streamline their email marketing workflows and collaboration.
  
  
• The “Enterprise” plan: Custom plan for enterprise-level businesses and organizations with extensive email marketing requirements, operations, and high volume.  

Our “start for free, upgrade as you grow” philosophy allows you to choose the option that best aligns with your current goals and budget while offering the freedom to adapt as your business evolves easily.

Starter ($0/free)

Whether you're a freelancer building your portfolio or a small business testing the waters of email marketing, the Starter plan provides all the essential tools and resources necessary to help dip your toes into the world of email marketing without feeling overwhelmed. 

The Starter plan capabilities: Up to 10 designs (emails and pages), 6 monthly exports, and unlimited users with no roles. In addition, you’ll find a wealth of resources at your fingertips to support your journey: 

• Beefree Academy: To support email beginners on their journey to email design, we offer users a free comprehensive learning guide. The Beefree Academy offers various real-world examples and tutorials to help new Beefree users get the most out of the platform and learn email design best practices and techniques.
  

• Free template catalog: Access Beefree’s catalog of pre-designed email and page templates, covering a wide range of industries, occasions, and purposes. This enables beginners to create visually appealing and engaging emails quickly and effortlessly without extensive design expertise.

• Integration with sending platforms: With the Starter plan, users can connect their Beefree account to the leading sending platforms, allowing for seamless design export. By connecting Beefree with their ESP, users can leverage the full capabilities of both tools to reach their audience effectively and maximize campaign performance.

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Join the thousands of beginners and small businesses already experiencing success with Beefree’s Starter plan.

Professional ($30/month)

Say goodbye to constraints and hello to boundless creativity with the Professional Plan. This plan serves as a dynamic catalyst, propelling small teams into the realm of advanced email marketing strategies with confidence and ease. With more robust brand controls than the Starter plan, the Professional plan allows teams to tailor their email designs to perfectly reflect their brand identity and messaging while saving time.

• Unlimited design and templates: With no limits on creativity, you have the flexibility to explore endless possibilities and bring your ideas to life with ease. Create unlimited templates and reusable content to speed up email creation.
  
  
• Expanded exporting options: Distribute email campaigns as often as you like with unlimited exporting. Share your messages via your ESP, ZIP file, or download as PDF.
  
  
• Stronger collaboration features: Share ideas, provide feedback, and iterate campaigns together effortlessly. With features like design-specific commenting, user permissions and roles, and version history, staying organized and aligned is effortless. 

• Dynamic campaigns and analytics: Take your campaigns to the next level with personalized, data-driven strategies. Personalize your emails and pages with dynamic content and track the performance of landing pages designed in Beefree with tracking codes.

Plus, everything in the Starter plan.

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Unleash your creativity, drive engagement, and achieve your business goals with confidence and flair. Start a free trial. No credit card required!

⭐️ NEW ⭐️ Business ($160/month)

If you’re a business gearing up to scale your email marketing processes and campaigns, this plan is for you. The Business plan supports growing teams to optimize their strategies, streamline their workflows, and achieve better results without the complexity of enterprise-level solutions.

With advanced features for seamless collaboration, organization, and team and brand control, the Business plan helps navigate the intricacies of modern email marketing processes. 

A glimpse of what the Business plan offers:

• Tailored environments (also known as Workspaces): Create personalized and structured areas where your teams can collaborate seamlessly on different campaigns, departments, or projects. Included: 2 free workspaces. 
• Advanced user controls: Make sure every team member can access the necessary tools and resources for their roles while also protecting sensitive data and preventing unauthorized access. Included: 2 free users + 10 view-only members.  
• Integrated approval flow: Keep communication and feedback centralized by using an in-app approval workflow, making the approval process efficient and hassle-free. Included: 4 simultaneous “review for approvals” per workspaces. 
• Increased CDN/monthly data traffic: Ensure your business has the bandwidth and flexibility to handle the growth of your email marketing efforts smoothly. Included: 1TB of monthly CDN usage, 

Plus, everything in the Professional plan.
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Ditch manual processes and disjointed workflows—unlock the full potential of your team and watch your email marketing efforts thrive with the Business plan. Start a free trial.

Enterprise (Custom) 

The Enterprise plan is the cornerstone of our offerings, designed for those requiring the utmost in functionality, support, and customization. With unparalleled functionality and customization, this plan serves as a strategic asset for businesses seeking to thrive and succeed in an ever-evolving marketplace.

Whether managing multiple brands, business units, or campaigns, the Enterprise plan provides the flexibility and scalability needed to execute sophisticated, high-volume email marketing campaigns while maintaining control and compliance. Each Enterprise plan is personalized to suit your unique goals and objectives. 

Enterprise plan highlights: 

• Custom users & workspaces: Set up and organize your teams and projects to best suit your organization's structure and objectives.
• Premium support: With priority access to support resources and expertise, you can minimize downtime, maximize productivity, and achieve your business objectives with confidence.
• Dedicated Customer Success Manager: Your customer success manager will work closely with you throughout your onboarding and training process, providing strategic advice, personalized recommendations, and proactive support to ensure your success with Beefree.
• Advanced security measures: Protect your organization's sensitive data and ensure compliance with our premium security features, such as Okta SSO. 

Plus, everything in the Business plan. 
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Interested in learning more about our Enterprise plan? Book a free demo!

Benefits of an HTML email builder 

The benefits of Beefree as your HTML email builder are multifaceted, offering a range of advantages that enhance the efficiency, effectiveness, and visual appeal of email marketing campaigns. Regardless of your chosen plan, you'll enjoy a host of benefits designed to elevate your campaigns and drive results.

• Increase brand recognition: While many ESP editors are rigid and have design constraints, Beefree allows the freedom to design emails and pages that perfectly align with your campaign’s goals, audience preferences, and brand identity. With features such as layout adjustments, mobile design mode, and dynamic elements, your emails are guaranteed to always fall within the lines of your brand guidelines. 

• Save time and money: Create professional-looking emails quickly, request feedback, and work simultaneously, reducing the turnaround time for campaign creation and deployment.
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• Guarantee a seamless experience: Reach your audience anywhere on any device. Beefree’s HTML email builder generates responsive designs that adapt seamlessly to various devices and screen sizes. By delivering a consistent and user-friendly experience across devices, you can maximize engagement and drive better results for your email campaigns.

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Now, which plan is right for you? 

If you’ve made it this far then the Beefree HTML email builder might be for you ;). Now it’s time to find the perfect plan. 

Explore our plans and pricing page where you'll find a comprehensive breakdown of all of our options and features. Whether you're a newcomer eager to kickstart your email campaigns or a seasoned professional aiming to expand your reach, we're confident that you'll find exactly what you need to achieve your goals.

Embracing our "start for free, upgrade as you grow" philosophy, we offer you the flexibility to adapt and evolve seamlessly as your business progresses. We hope your Beefree journey is filled with opportunities for creativity, collaboration, and growth. 

Happy designing! 

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The story behind the name change

Every great story has a beginning, and ours started back in 2014 with a simple yet ambitious goal: to revolutionize email creation and empower individuals to effortlessly design email newsletters. This is how BEE —an acronym for "Best Email Editor" came into existence. Little did we know that this name would resonate so deeply with our users and become an integral part of our brand identity for nearly a decade.As our company grew, we realized that we had outgrown our humble code name. While BEE had served us faithfully, we knew it was time for a change. A rebranding that could truly capture our evolution, values, and aspirations. Thus, after an incredible nine years, we embarked on a meaningful journey, transitioning from BEE to Beefree. This change represents a natural progression, reflecting the essence of our brand's growth and the vast opportunities ahead.In this blog post, we invite you to join us as we dive into the story of our brand refresh. We'll share the motivations and considerations that led us to make this decision. Discover the significance of this evolution and how Beefree embodies our unwavering commitment to delivering innovative, intuitive, and exceptional content design experiences for our cherished customers. Together, let's explore the exciting new chapter of our brand and the remarkable possibilities that lie ahead.

Why the change:

1. Evolving beyond an email editor:

When we first launched BEE, our aim was to offer the finest email editor in the market. As we progressed, we realized the need to broaden our scope and improve our functionalities. Today, our tool has transformed into an all-encompassing design suite, incorporating AI capabilities and sophisticated features. These advancements facilitate brand control, expedite the design process, promote teamwork, and provide integration with various Email Service Providers (ESPs) and Marketing Automation Platforms (MAPs).Our email editor has become a powerful solution that empowers designers and marketing teams to streamline their email production processes, reducing production time by up to 3X or more. With Beefree, teams without extensive design skills can create professional-grade emails and landing pages that align perfectly with their brand, without the need for technical expertise.With our white-label email builder integrated into over 600+ SaaS companies, Beefree SDK now also provides a landing page builder, popup builder, file manager, and has many exciting components and services in the pipeline. Beefree SDK enables SaaS applications to offer customers a smooth and intuitive content creation experience.

2. Standing out from the crowd:

While BEE served us well for many years, we realized that the name presented challenges. A Google search for "BEE" yields over 2,000,000,000 results, primarily dominated by one of the world's most popular insects. Establishing a distinct online presence and effectively differentiating ourselves became increasingly difficult. We desired a name that truly captured our unique identity and offerings, allowing us to stand out in a crowded market.The transition to Beefree resolves the confusion caused by our previous name and creates a stronger brand presence that aligns with our expanded range of services and solutions. Beefree embodies the freedom to create, innovate, and break free from the limitations of traditional email design. While paying homage to our roots and exceptional email editing capabilities, it symbolizes our commitment to providing an unparalleled experience that empowers creativity and unleashes limitless possibilities.

Embracing Beefree: a serendipitous revelation

At first glance, the change may not appear significant to some of you. In fact, many of you have already referred to us as Beefree. Surprisingly, our web domain has always been Beefree.io, chosen somewhat accidentally due to its availability and affordability. This fortunate choice has proven to be a stroke of serendipity.The widespread adoption of Beefree among our users is a testament to their intuitive understanding of our brand and the freedom it represents. It aligns with our core values and our purpose of democratizing beautiful, on-brand content by providing tools that free you up to do your best work. This realization solidified our decision to embrace Beefree as our new brand name, reaffirming that accidents can lead to meaningful discoveries and pave the way for profound transformations. We are excited to tackle this new chapter as Beefree, united in our shared commitment to empowering your creative endeavors and breaking free from limitations.

Explaining the free in Beefree.

At Beefree, freedom lies at the core of our philosophy. We believe in granting our users the freedom to design with no limits, allowing their creativity to soar and their ideas to take flight. But our commitment to liberation extends far beyond the creative process itself—it encompasses our dedication to providing accessible solutions for all, regardless of budget or resources.That's why, just over a year ago, we introduced our freemium model. We wanted to ensure that anyone, regardless of their financial means, could experience the incredible potential and boundless possibilities that Beefree has to offer. We're here to empower individuals and businesses of all sizes, removing limitations and opening doors to new opportunities for innovation and success. In line with this commitment, we are actively investing in enhancing the accessibility of both our visual content builders and the assets they produce for people with disabilities.Our freemium model reflects our belief in the democratization of creativity. We're dedicated to making impactful solutions accessible to everyone because we firmly believe that greatness can be found in every corner, regardless of financial constraints.

What’s in it for you, our customers?

Our rebranding efforts go beyond just a change in appearance. They reflect our commitment to delivering even greater value to you, our beloved customers. With our fresh new look and feel, we are revitalizing our brand to align with our exponential growth, visionary outlook, and ever-evolving content needs. While our appearance evolves, our core values of excellence, reliability, and dedication to your satisfaction remain unwavering.As we venture on this exciting journey as Beefree, we are working diligently to bring you many innovative features and enhancements. At the heart of our work is the principle of staying as close as possible to the problems we are trying to solve. We believe that the best new features come from deeply understanding those frustrations. That's why we are investing more resources in customer research and will continue to turn insights from that research into cutting-edge content design tools. As heavy users of our own products, we are there with you along this journey.Our dedicated team is actively developing new solutions to enhance collaboration, streamline workflows, and unlock even more creative possibilities. You can count on a continuous stream of updates and improvements as a Beefree customer, empowering you to achieve remarkable results.As part of our rebranding initiative, we are simplifying the names of our products. BEE Pro will now be known as Beefree. This transition symbolizes our dedicated commitment to conveying simplicity and freedom, capturing the true essence of our product. Additionally, we introduce Beefree SDK, an evolution of BEE Plugin. This software development kit offers developers a comprehensive solution for seamlessly integrating the content creation workflow into any application.

Our rebranding journey

We're thrilled to begin this rebranding journey, where we've revitalized the very essence of who we are. We've delved deeply into our core foundations, carefully crafting a purpose, vision, and mission that truly embody our passion and commitment to empowering your creative and technological endeavors.Our Purpose is simple yet powerful: we want to democratize beautiful, high-performing content design. We believe in creating tools that free you up to do your best work, unleashing your creativity (or that of your users) without constraints.Our Vision is ambitious but inspiring: We strive to become the no-code design standard for all businesses. By enabling centralized content design and decentralized editing, we aim to empower teams to collaborate seamlessly and effortlessly, creating impactful content that resonates with their audience.Our Mission is at the heart of everything we do: We create intuitive design tools that empower you to produce on-brand content quickly and collaboratively. We want to help you drive real impact, making your ideas come to life in ways that captivate and inspire.Through this renewed focus on our purpose, vision, and mission, we are committed to providing innovative solutions that revolutionize the way businesses approach content design and empower individuals to excel in their creative endeavors. This commitment led us to develop a Beefree narrative, which is captured in this video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kq5qKtYBBI0

An overview of the new Beefree visual identity

Our new logo: a symbol of freedom and dynamic growth

As we embarked on our brand refresh journey, we recognized the need for a logo that would embody the essence of our evolution while maintaining a sense of familiarity. While our previous logo had a static and stable representation reminiscent of a hive, we wanted to make a subtle, yet important change that would highlight our brand's growth without overshadowing its roots.With great care and consideration, we refined our logo to embrace concepts that resonate deeply with our customers. The transformation captures the spirit of freedom, dynamism, and modernity, aligning our visual identity with the ever-evolving needs of our valued community. This change reflects our commitment to continuously evolve and provide innovative solutions that empower our customers to thrive in an ever-changing digital landscape.We invite you to explore our new logo with an open mind and discover the symbolism that resonates with you personally. Whether it's the reminder of a hive's strength, the symbolism of progress, the freedom of wings, or the exhilaration of a bird in flight, our logo is a visual representation of the limitless possibilities that lie ahead as we continue to evolve and serve you with innovative content design solutions.

Colors and fonts that define Beefree's new brand identity

In our rebranding journey, we have carefully chosen colors and fonts that reflect the essence of Beefree. Our primary color is Beefree Ultraviolet, HEX #7747FF, a violet that embodies the spirit of limitless possibilities and empowers users to break free from the constraints of traditional email design. Cherry pie, HEX #26045D, adds depth and sophistication to our visual identity, symbolizing our dedication to providing exceptional design experiences. Black rock, a darker purple, HEX #140231, creates a sense of elegance and enhances readability. Complementing these shades, the vibrant green, HEX #82EDA8, brings a fresh and energetic touch, representing growth and vitality.To ensure a modern, clean, and inclusive aesthetic, we have deliberately selected the fonts Urbanist and Inter. Urbanist strikes a balance between friendliness and professionalism, giving our brand a distinct personality. Inter, on the other hand, goes beyond aesthetics and prioritizes excellent legibility and versatility across various interfaces and devices. These choices reflect our commitment to inclusivity and accessibility, ensuring that our visual elements are legible and enjoyable for everyone. By combining these thoughtfully chosen fonts with our carefully selected colors, we create a cohesive and engaging visual experience that empowers your creative journey with Beefree.

Our Brand Architecture

Our legal name, BEE Content Design, Inc., remains unchanged, and we proudly continue to operate as a business unit under Growens. As mentioned earlier, we have transitioned from the name BEE to Beefree, embracing our new brand identity and simplifying our product names: BEE Pro is now Beefree, and BEE Plugin is now Beefree SDK.

Soar to new heights with Beefree!

In closing, the transition from BEE to Beefree marks a significant milestone in our brand's evolution. Deliberately embedding “free” in our name reflects our commitment to delivering even more value to you, our cherished customers: We will develop products that truly free people up to create their best content.Join us in embracing a future of email creation with no limits, and let's shape it together!For more information, explore our new websites at beefree.io and developers.beefree.io or try our products for free – Beefree and Beefree SDK.

For this month’s spotlight, we’re featuring Growen's (parent company of Beefree) People & Culture Director, Enrica Lipari. Enrica's role entails leading the company and it's business unit's human resource initiatives, acting on the enhancement of the cultural system, supporting the fast and sustainable growth of the group, and so much more.As a new parent with large responsibilities, Enrica shares her top tips on everything from maintaining a work-life balance, a strong company culture, and a 97% retention rate. Keep on reading!

Can you walk us through your journey as an HR professional?

Almost 20 years ago, I spontaneously decided to change my study path from Engineering to Communication Science. This shift is what catalyzed my HR career and allowed me to move from my birthplace (in the South of Italy) to Rome.I started by focusing on internal communication and organizational strategies and collaborating with some of my Professors who, at that time, were also HR Managers and Coaches. I had two internships, in a big consultancy company (where I basically learned how to approach processes and tools) and then in a very local one, where I was in charge of recruiting and training.After that, my first real working experience and love was at Neomobile (a mobile VAS Italian multinational company), where I grew to become an HR Business Partner and was offered more responsibility as an HR professional and learned a lot thanks to a lean agile change management journey. In 2016, I decided to leave my beloved company, colleagues, and city to move to Milan, where I opened a new chapter of my professional life. I accepted an opportunity to build up an HR Department from scratch for an Italian startup, where, in 2 years, I’ve passed from dust to stars and back. After being in charge of the organization's downsizing, I decided to leave for a safer choice, the big telco, where - being in charge of the Digital Transformation - I actually had time to recover, practice, and set up for my next future:

Growens and its magic galaxy. 

Now, after so many years and different experiences, I can confidently say that I love working in small/medium organizations, specifically in the tech industry, where we can adopt an agile way of working. I feel like I do my best work in complex, mutable, and fast-paced environments that leverage culture, friendliness, and transparency. Such as Beefree does.One thing that I have learned in my last 20 years is that HR is all about supporting people and matching their needs/ambitions with their organizations, and that's what I have been able to do for myself and others.

How do you balance being a parent and a high-ranking professional as the People & Culture Director of Growens?  

Well, I became a parent just 3 years ago, so I’m a very not experienced one (joke!).But in my short experience, I can say that it’s a matter of organization and awareness. Organization because, as usual, time is a limited resource, and assuming different responsibilities means training priority-setting skills and the ability to ask for help (easier than training to become a superhero!). As for awareness, it’s important to accept that we are not perfect, we will make mistakes, and we cannot give up! Nobody really trains you on how to become a perfect professional, but listening to your colleagues can. Nobody trains you to become the perfect parent, but your little ones will get you there.I feel pretty lucky to be able to work the job I love and be a parent, too. The key to balancing both is not to split roles: I feel like a P&C Director when I sleep, and I feel like a mother during my business meetings. I am a team player even when I’m on vacation, and I love to share moments with my family during business trips.And the true magic lies in being able to recharge, get help when needed, understand your limits, and respect your roles. This is what allows you to have the energy you need to balance both.

Working in a scale-up environment poses its own set of challenges.

What informs your decision-making and overall philosophy for your team?

Serving a tech scale-up within a fast-paced ecosystem means, above all, always being ready to be challenged. As well as avoiding the “standard” way of doing things and always pursuing our people's happiness, and working on co-designing and experimenting with different options with our stakeholders.As HR is important to take into consideration that our goal is to enable and support our people's growth and preserve and nurture our culture. Which at times can be very complex due to the several diversities (of businesses, products, Countries, etc.) At Growens, we are driven by 3 key principles:

• Transparency: We work visibly and communicate clearly, engaging in authentic and constructive relationships guided by continuous feedback;
• Simplicity: We work methodically in order to face complexity while making the usability and easy adoption of our “products;”
• Responsibility: We work on our people’s needs, providing guidance and empowering them to make decisions as individuals, as teams, and as larger organizations.

What are your tips for ensuring a company is as inclusive as possible?

I think that supporting an inclusive environment involves fostering a culture that respects and values diversity across different cultures and identities.In my experience, I find it important first to build up a distributed Committee (whose participants are volunteers representing diversities and allies we call “Grow Committee”) to start developing a Diversity and Inclusion Strategy, which is native and inclusive of different needs, practices, and points of view.Then, we find a strategy way to ensure that leaders and executives actively support and demonstrate their commitment to diversity and inclusion.In the meantime, work consistently with your core values (at Growens, those are passion, caring, trust, and open-mindedness) to encourage open dialogue and create a safe and inclusive space where all employees can voice their perspectives and concerns. At the same time, start an expert-partnered program to educate and train the entire organization through inclusivity skills training. And, of course, develop unbiased people management policies and practices adoption.Encouraging feedback is what has allowed us to be so diverse, regardless of how young we are. Through actively addressing feedback, taking appropriate actions, and continuously measuring and monitoring progress, we aim to create a safer, more inclusive environment.

Beefree has been a remote-first company since its inception.

How does your team work to ensure it’s a successful working model for its employees and the company?

We believe in people and understand that their potential can be unlocked regardless of where they work. With the Growens Way of Working (WoW), we work in a hybrid and flexible way, choosing every day how and where to work from: the office, home, or anywhere else.As P&C, to support all the people who are approaching remote work for the first time, we prepared a useful handbook with tips for performing at their best in any place. In fact, our “way of working” is not only about the location we work from, but above all, it’s about the ways we organize our work and timetables and collaborate around shared objectives.At Beefree, we even share some specific “operating principle” that enables the remote-first approach to success.While we value remote work, we do still invest in building stronger relationships by getting people together, so we budget and prioritize yearly staff and team retreats.

What are your tips on maintaining a strong company culture?  

Maintaining a strong company culture is essential for creating a positive and productive work environment.The first important thing is to define, communicate, and consistently translate behaviors and decisions based on the shared core values.Secondly, it’s key to set up a functional framework based on the positive reinforcement in the feedback loop (the way people communicate and share), reward, and people development (the role model setup).A strong adopted culture should promote a healthy work-life balance, encourage innovation and risk-taking, as well as an “inspect and adapt” approach, and promote diversity and inclusion. The culture should be consistently reinforced, celebrated, and integrated into all aspects of the organization.Since we all care and feel responsible for nurturing our culture, during our last company retreat, we shared a “Cultural Onboarding Workshop” aimed at pointing out all the key elements and operating principles of the Beefree culture. The goal was to provide new hires with relevant information and aim to support the best onboarding process while reducing the attrition risk for all the teams.

What are your best tips for how companies can foster higher retention rates?

Fostering higher retention rates is crucial for the long-term success and stability of a company; however, I honestly have shifted from focusing on retention rate to growth rate since it makes more sense to me to retain people who are happy in their growth path rather than just keeping people in the company that doesn't have a strong commitment.In my experience, I have seen that being able to foster retention is about the ability to mix and balance different ingredients that have a direct impact on the present commitment. For instance, competitive salaries and benefits packages, a positive and inclusive work environment, and a well-balanced work-life ratio, together with career opportunities, recognition, rewards, supportive leadership, and positive feedback practices.Nonetheless, since every company is unique, it's important to tailor retention strategies to align with the organization's culture and values, as well as regularly assess people's satisfaction and adapt the P&C strategy efforts to meet the evolving needs.

At SaaStr, you'll be sharing all about Beefree's 97% retention rate.

Can you share a sneak peek on your talk?

Alongside Beefree's CEO, Massimo Arrigoni, we will be sharing data and surveys that illustrate just why our employee retention rate is 97%.I can anticipate that our employees appreciate a holistic approach that combines a genuinely positive work culture, fair compensation, continuous learning, intentionally open communication, and a flexible work setup. In fact, we intentionally put in place policies and practices aimed at creating an environment where people can feel valued, supported, and motivated to contribute their best to the company's success.I encourage any SaaS company looking for ways to increase their retention rates as SaaStr to join us on September 6th. Massimo and I will be diving deep into our 5 secrets to our97% retention rate. If you already have your ticket, you can save your seat here! We hope to see you there!In the meantime, check out this article by our Beefree team on Boosting Employee Retention Rates Using Email. 

A broad need to create visually rich emails

Many people use a wide variety of applications to communicate and collaborate across teams and departments. However, the one thing those applications often tend to lack is friendly content creation tools to design visually rich messages, on their own.This realization led us to launch the first version of our free drag-and-drop email builder in the fall of 2014. The need was so great that over 20,000 people enthusiastically used it in the first weekend after its launch.In 2015, we saw a desire from other SaaS companies to provide a similar experience to their users. That's when we released an embeddable version of the email builder.One of our first customers was a communication platform used by high schools. Teachers and school administrators needed a friendly tool to create weekly newsletters for students and parents.This a perfect example of how broad the need was and still is.It’s not just marketers that need to create impactful emails, landing pages, and other visual assets. It’s anyone that has a need to communicate in a visually rich way.Fast forward 8 and a half years and the need is as large as ever. Now over 400,000 business professionals across industries are using our design tools every month.It’s in this context that we continue to look for new ways to democratize design. Our goal is to make content design accessible and inclusive for businesses and individuals alike. We believe that by providing intuitive design tools, we can empower anyone to create on-brand content that not only looks good but drives impact. This mission has been our guiding principle since our inception, and we've constantly been evolving to stay on the cutting edge of technology and design.In recent years, the rise of AI has sparked our curiosity. Which we then used to answer the big question.“Can artificial intelligence help us further pursue our mission of democratizing design?”The short answer is “yes”.

A no-code answer to complex needs

We understand that someone working on alumni engagement at a university should not have to worry about the technical implications of rendering an email on a smartphone set to “dark mode.”They have more important things to worry about, like the actual content and the tone of the message.With that in mind, we continued to invest in functionality that helps non-technical people design great content, quickly, and on their own.For instance, to tackle the challenge of designing an email that might be opened on a smartphone set to “dark mode,” we created features like Dark Mode Preview and Mobile Design Mode. The goal was to make it a breeze to design directly in mobile view, and millions of emails and landing pages are now designed that way, every month.Implementing AI is just another way we’re going to remove complexity, increase productivity, and unleash creativity.

The Rise of AI in Email Marketing

How AI assistants fit in

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been making waves in the tech industry. Its potential to revolutionize various aspects of our lives cannot be understated.We recognize the importance of embracing AI early on to fully understand both its opportunities and challenges. We are confident that by integrating AI into our toolset, we can harness its power to help people design impactful email campaigns.There are many concerns about AI replacing the roles of designers, marketers, and technologists. However, we see it as an opportunity to augment their skills and unleash their creativity. AI can take care of repetitive and mundane tasks, help reduce mistakes, and assist in the creation of more accessible content. It is really a tool that enables professionals to focus on higher-level strategic work.

Starting with text

There are many aspects of content creation where AI in email marketing can play a significant role. The first area that we are exploring is copywriting.For someone working on an alumni engagement campaign, a handy tool like ChatGPT could help get things started. For example…

Going back and forth between an AI application and your email design tool can quickly become a headache and a waste of time. We wanted to simplify the process.So we began by integrating OpenAI’s GPT technology directly inside our visual builder.Now, the person working on the email can simply select a paragraph block, click on “Write with AI”, and chat with the AI assistant right there and then. No more copying and pasting. No more spending time moving between applications.In fact, here is the same chat as above, but done directly in our visual email builder.

With the ability to save content blocks and re-use them later, someone could quickly create five variations of the same content, and save them for different use cases.For example, I could ask the AI assistant to rewrite the same paragraph with a different tone of voice, and at different lengths, and then save each of those variations as separate content blocks. This is great for A/B testing or for personalizing content for different audiences.

Beefree Gives SaaS a Competitive Advantage with AI

Hundreds of software companies have adopted our embeddable email, page, and popup builders. All for one simple reason. They don’t want to create their own. When identifying whether they should make versus buy decisions, they opt to save time, money, and brain power. In addition, they trust that our own focus on creating a fantastic user experience will benefit their customers too.When it comes to introducing AI, they expect us to deliver at least part of the solution. And that’s exactly what we are doing. By introducing the OpenAI add-on in our embeddable visual builder, we give SaaS companies a competitive advantage and an experience their users will love.We can’t wait to see how content creators will put these features to work.

How AI in Email Marketing is Transforming the Space for a More Accessible and Impactful Future

We’re excited about all the possible ways that introducing AI in email marketing and into our design tools can help people create better content.This will help in the creation of even more on-brand digital assets, at a faster speed than they do now.For instance, many HR teams design email communications with our tools. In the future, we hope to help them quickly create multiple drafts of an onboarding email series for new employees, using different styles and tones of voice.Using AI, we will also help people prevent content problems. For instance, they could review the content of a landing page against their company assets and point out a section that seems to contain an incorrect product description.And lastly, we are excited about leveraging AI to help content creators be more aware of accessibility guidelines (e.g. how an email might look to a color-blind person). And do so right at the time of creating the content, addressing issues before they are ever an issue.

What we see ahead

At Beefree, we see product improvements as a marathon, not a sprint.Although the speed of change is mind-boggling when it comes to AI-enabled products, we are going to approach the integration of artificial intelligence in our tools the way we handle all other product developments.We will start with the real problems people are trying to solve.By looking at how AI can help create better solutions to those problems, we'll release the first version of the new solution. As feedback starts to roll in, we'll then iterate on it, with a careful eye on data privacy and security.It’s going to take time to figure out the best and safest ways to use AI in email marketing to truly help people design content that better serves their communication needs.We’re ready and excited to explore them.

We’ve been busy bees this year. From attending the country’s best SaaS conferences to launching dozens of new features to improve email collaboration. We even changed our business model to offer you a free version of BEE Pro. And we’ve done it all to democratize beautiful, high-performing, on-brand content that is easy and accessible to all.

Let’s go back to where it all started …

A study by Zippia states that as of 2022, 26% of U.S. employees work remotely. That is 20% more than the 6% that worked remotely in 2019, according to the United States Census Bureau. This rise was something that no one saw coming. Not only did it change the way we worked individually, but it changed how we collaborated with our teams, departments, and organization. On top of that, the rise in remote work accelerated the need for the quick creation of digital assets by non-designers and the demand for smoother collaboration workflows.While tools like Adobe Creative Cloud and Figma existed, very few tools allowed for the smooth creation of engaging emails without needing knowledge in design, code, and HTML. This new way of working came with challenges, such as:

• Having to learn new tools for design and collaboration
• A loss in productivity due to miscommunications
• And an over-reliance on designers to maintain the brand guidelines of any outgoing emails.

Here enters BEE with our Freemium model.

As mentioned, our purpose since our inception has been to democratize design. We had a tool that allowed everyone to create high-performing emails and landing pages quickly, regardless of background, skill set, and budget.We just needed to make it accessible to all. And on March 30th, 2022, we did just that. As of November 2022, there are an average of 144 BEE sessions a minute and 207,212 per day. Totaling 75,632,731 sessions this year alone, spanning 35,000 BEE Pro users across 180 counties, including Netflix, Amazon, and Disney. According to these numbers, It’s clear to us that you’ve obviously been a busy bee too ;) Read more about our decision to go from a Free Trial to a Freemium Model here.

1,500 Free Email and Landing Page Templates.

In 2018 our creative BEE Team brought together a small group of designers from all over the world to begin the development of the BEE Template Catalog. The goal was to provide BEE users with an ever-growing, rich, and evolving collection of designs that allows you to quickly, easily, and consistently deliver better results. All while empowering designers to get paid and noticed for their unique work and style. With the launch of our free plan, our Template Catalog also became accessible to all free of charge. This year we’ve grown the catalog to over 1,500 email and landing page templates for any occasion and industry, becoming the largest in the market. There are a few things that make our catalog great. Not only are they professionally designed and mobile-optimized, but our drag-and-drop editor makes it easy to customize in minutes.In fact, Jim Maddock, a Freelance Email Developer who uses BEE Pro daily, shared with us that he can quickly build full email campaigns from start to finish within 30 minutes with the templates he has been able to customize for his clients. As of December 2022, 365,501 emails and landing were created using our template catalog. We can’t wait to see what you design next. Read more about our journey to 1,500 templates here.

Free email templates for every industry and occasion

We Focused on Better Email Collaboration in 2022. 

As a remote-first organization, we know all about remote collaboration. As our own team grows, we are constantly exploring new ways to make working together across different time zones effortless.Our learnings have inspired us to improve and develop features to make it easy for you and your teams to come together, design, and review content.

A centralized location for all your assets and project communications. 

We know the hassle of not having everything in one place. The constant back and forth in communication, delays in reviewing, and the never-ending search for that one file.Better collaboration starts with better communication and organization. Better communication means having a clear set of responsibilities, and brand guidelines, and easily giving and receiving useful design feedback.User Roles & Permission:On our mission to democratize design, we noticed that it did not come without its challenges.Brands fear a potential lack of brand consistency and even a lack of quality of the content produced by non-designers.Our goal was to put those concerns to rest.User roles and permission allow you to empower your team with specific tasks and responsibilities based on their skill set - whether that’s email copy, design, or providing feedback.This allows teams (big or small) to come together and work simultaneously on a project, all without having to worry about the brand identity being hindered because everyone has a specific role.

To further maintain brand control, improving our style guidelines became a priority.Style guidelines are a set of color palettes, fonts, and texts, predefined by designers. They’ve always been used to ensure brand consistency and cohesiveness throughout all brand touchpoints. But it wasn’t until the rise of remote work that we began to think of style guidelines as a way to empower everyone to create on-brand digital communications.These predefined set of guidelines already help cut email production speed by a lot, but to take it one step further, we made sure you could store them within BEE Pro.

Style guidelines feature on BEE Pro Team PlanLast but not least, the ultimate time saver: Saved RowsPart of better collaboration is also being able to design assets quickly to get things moving through the pipeline. Saved rows (also known as reusable content blocks) do just that.According to the Litmus 2020 State of Email Workflow Report, it takes teams 2 or more weeks to produce an email from beginning to end. With BEE Pro, the average time it takes users to create an email is 8 minutes and 46 seconds. We don’t know if this is due to our extensive template catalog or our ease of use, but we can say that the reusable content block feature plays a part. These ready-to-use templates help save time when producing repetitive content such as footers, headers, CTAs, and anything else you might be inserting regularly into your emails and landing pages.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCmxbuk4PRAIn other words, building tools for better collaboration was our main focus here at BEE in 2022, with an emphasis on email design systems.Email design systems are guidelines that allow anyone to create assets with ease while staying on brand. These systems are an all-encompassing way of speeding up email production, maintaining brand control, and establishing smooth collaboration workflows.In addition, they help tackle some of the most common challenges that teams face when collaborating, like:

• Assigning tasks to the wrong team members
• Heavily relying on creatives to establish brand guidelines 
• Constant delays in providing feedback 
• And, again, looking everywhere for that one file!

BEE x Integrations

This year, we were also committed to expanding our collaboration with other platforms. We’re proud that BEE Pro is an agnostic tool that works with whatever ESP you have. You can export your emails by copying and pasting the HTML or downloading a PDF with just a few clicks. However, our fan favorite is the ability to push directly to your ESP from BEE Pro. Over the last few years, we’ve integrated with 10+ email marketing platforms to ease your email marketing workflow. With the launch of our free plan this year, we made all of these integrations available to all subscriptions and expanded our partnerships to include Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Veeva Vault. We’ve also added the ability to export landing pages with our long-term partner, HubSpot. We hope to continue adding to this list in the New Year and provide you with a seamless email marketing experience.

A warm thank you from our hive

As passionate designers, we love beautiful design that drives people to action. As marketers, we know beauty must drive results. As technologists, we build reliable systems that are easy to use. And everything we do results from wanting to create the best possible tool for you all. We appreciate every piece of feedback you give us just as much as we appreciate all the praises. Thank you for trusting us to be an integral part of your team and customer communications. And if you haven’t tried BEE Pro yet, we hope that in the New Year, we can impress you :)Here is a note for our CEO Massimo Arrigoni 

“As of tonight (12.30), you've used our visual builder 75,631,442 times in 2022 to design your emails, landing pages, and more.That's a mind-blowing number that truly humbles us (we hope it was a good experience!!), totally motivates us (we'll make that experience even better next year!!), and - above all - triggers a really loud, heartfelt "Thank You!!!" from all of us at BEE.Thank you for trusting our products. We never take that for granted. Seriously. Happy 2023 to all of you!”

A sneak peek at what’s ahead

Over the last few years, you’ve trusted us to provide you with a best-in-class tool and templates. Now, it’s time for us to become your go-to source on all things email marketing.In 2023, we are committed to continuing to work on innovative ways to make email marketing effortless and collaboration seamless. Expect to work more collaboratively with your distributed teams and update your content across assets faster than ever.We also aspire to become a hub for current industry trends and practices. To do this, we’ve begun expanding and improving our Youtube channel and blog content to provide industry insights, resources for designing engaging and converting emails, and how-tos to get the most out of your BEE Pro subscription. We’re also hosting more webinars featuring top industry brands and leaders.We hope that the more knowledge we share, the more powerful of a business professional you’ll be, (whether it’s a sales leader, designer, or anything else in between) It’s our small way of saying “thank you.” Well, that’s all for now!In the meanwhile, sign up for our email newsletter! Stay updated on all things BEE and be the first to know when new BEE resources and features launch.Happy New Year!

Although digital marketing has changed since its beginning 20 years ago, it’s no secret that email remains the most reliable way to communicate with your audience. According to Statista, there are 306 billion emails sent daily. The popularity of email marketing - coupled with the dramatic rise in remote work - has led to a seismic decentralization of email design.More than ever, professionals, business owners, and creators rely on email communications to stay in touch with their audiences, and need tools that help them create those emails quickly and on their own.BEE Pro has helped over 350,000 people create emails and landing pages with no-code, fast design tools since 2016. Starting today, a new free plan will support even more projects with a 100% no-charge subscription available to everyone.

Decentralization of Email Design

Why are hundreds of thousands of people using a tool like BEE Pro? The rise of remote work over the last two years dramatically accelerated a decentralization of digital asset creation, including email design. What used to be the responsibility of email marketers and HTML specialists is now a collaboration between people from different backgrounds and skill sets, often working in different locations.As a result, many are expected to have some knowledge of email marketing and design to get things done, regardless of their profession or the department within a company.It's a new world that comes with a few challenges:

• For one, learning new email design tools often takes time. The more difficult they are, the steeper the learning curve.
• When it comes to collaborating, a lot of time can be lost through the constant back and forth between people not working in the same location. This results in a loss of productivity and deadlines.
• More importantly, there is an over-reliance on designers to maintain the visual identity of all outgoing emails. This sometimes results in even further delays and keeps designers from working on more important tasks.

If everyone needs to create digital assets, then design tools must be accessible regardless of background, skill set, and budget. In other words, this decentralization of design requires a democratization of design tools, which need to make it easy and fast for anyone to create the digital assets they need. Otherwise, decentralized teams find themselves moving too slowly.In this contest, to be more useful to more people around the world, BEE Pro will now join the list of collaborative design tools offering a totally free plan.

How BEE Pro Fits Into The Democratization of Design 

The democratization of design requires tools that are easy and flexible for everyone to use. But when those tools are available and adopted, another challenge arises: with more people designing, design consistency can be difficult to maintain, with possible negative consequences on a company's brand. Therefore, the same tools must also give a company brand control to ensure messaging and visual identity is consistent no matter who is designing.BEE Pro is not just a great design tool. It's a complete, no-code email and landing page creation suite that aims to address both concerns. Simple and fast design tools on one side. Brand controls on the other side.

Example of configuring brand style settings in BEE ProThe built-in drag-and-drop editor makes it easy for everyone from educators and HR Departments, to Solopreneurs and Designers to create beautiful and responsive emails and landing pages. Custom templates, reusable content blocks and predefined style settings provide ways to maintain a consistent brand identity.Up until now, we have offered a two-week free trial for those interested in testing out the platform. The new BEE Pro Free plan gives everyone the freedom to test and experiment at their own pace, without any time limits.

Examples of BEE Pro templatesWhat makes BEE Pro Free a particularly great place for everyone to get started is our rich email and landing page template catalog, which includes over 1300 free templates suitable for a wide variety of industries and use cases. The templates are professionally designed, mobile-optimized, and are fully editable through the drag-and-drop builder that's quick and intuitive for non-designers. For those with design experience, the editor provides full creative freedom to design from scratch.Another area in which BEE Pro helps decentralized teams is collaboration: it makes it really easy for team members and stakeholders to come together, design and review the content. For example, design-specific comment threads make reviewing and approving content faster and more accurate. For a quick inside look, here's a short video that shows how that works.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooO44Q8HtSQ

Democratization of Design is Empowering

The idea that everyone can design beautiful and responsive emails and landing pages sounds scary to some. They fear there will be a loss of quality or overall bad designs as a result of allowing non-designers to create. For designers, the threat lies in a perceived decrease in the need for their skillset. Along with the possible extinction of their positions altogether. Regardless of where you stand, we’re here to put your concerns to rest.We believe that democratizing design is empowering, and created BEE Pro to help remove those fears. It was built from the start to make the collaboration between designers and non-designers fast and effective. Professional designers can create an entire design system in BEE Pro, made of templates, reusable content blocks, and predefined styles (colors, fonts, etc.).

Example of reusable content blocks in BEE ProNon-designers are able to get tasks done faster by taking care of the last mile. The democratization of design empowers them to learn new skills that allow them to do their jobs more effectively. In return, these skills allow them to take charge of small design tasks and stop over-relying on other teams to meet deadlines.The truth is, designers and creative teams will always be essential to organizations. Design systems and tools aren’t a threat to their positions, but rather allows them to focus on more important tasks.

How It’s Done at BEE

At BEE, we embrace the democratization of design and the collaboration between designers and non-designers that goes with it.For example, our sales team often needs to quickly create and send emails to potential clients, or share landing pages with them. At times, this conflicts with the timeline and deadlines imposed on the design and marketing team. We spoke with Yuliana Pandelieva, our Graphic Designer, and Tyler Bennett, Head of Sales to share with us how they use BEE Pro to collaborate more effectively. Yuliana shared that she “created a collection of saved rows (i.e. reusable content blocks) within BEE Pro to create emails on the spot that are tailored specifically to their client's specific needs. This included bios for the people from the sales team, information about the different product plans, testimonials from clients, etc.”

Example of the saved rows feature created by Yuliana for our BEE Pro sales team“BEE as an organization already has established a recognizable design style that is being used in all external communications, so generally speaking the task at hand was to create the required extra content in the same visual style, so the modules can be easily added and interchanged when needed.”Tyler shared that the biggest benefit of this design system is that “what used to be weeks worth of work can now happen within a few hours.”Different members of the team often find themselves collaborating on new emails and landing pages. Available on the BEE Pro Enterprise plan, real-time co-editing allows for an even greater level of collaboration, with people designing and copywriting at the same time, and things getting done even faster.

Here you can find all of the BEE Pro features and how you can apply them to your own organization.

BEE Pro, now free for everyone.  

At BEE, we are fully embracing the democratization of design and are ready to support your organization in experiencing this new way of working. BEE Pro allows designers and non-designers to collaborate more efficiently, get things done faster, and stay on brand. The Free plan is a great way to get started, and paid plans are available when the tool is used more frequently, or when additional team management and brand control tools are needed.BEE Pro Free is now available to everyone.Before signing up, you can browse our catalog of over 1,300 professionally designed emails and landing pages, and try BEE’s visual builder to edit them, within two clicks.Over 10,000 emails and pages are designed and exported or published every day by BEE Pro users. Now it’s your turn!Sign up for your free account here.

Good news, email designers! We recently launched new and exciting BEE Pro updates that will help make your email design process smoother, faster, and easier. Today we'll show you how to:

• Undo and redo changes as you design
• View the design history of an email—and rewind and fast-forward to any point in your recent edit history
• Export your email to PDF for improved share and review processes

Undo, redo, and view change history

Made a mistake while assembling your email? It happens to all of us. Now, you can easily undo (and redo) as you design in BEE Free and BEE Pro.

Here's how it works: As soon as you make any updates or changes to an email, an Undo-Redo widget will appear at the bottom left corner of your design screen.

The widget includes Undo and Redo arrows to move easily between changes. TheUndowidget currently remembers the 15 most recent changes in the current browser session (it does not remember changes that happened during a different session).The clock icon, when clicked, expands to reveal a full timeline of all the latest changes:

For each event in the timeline, you'll see:

• An icon to identify the type of content that was changed (an image, text box, and so on)
• A description of what changed (including the new value assigned to the element, if any—e.g., 5px)
• The time the change was made

When the timeline is open, you can click on any event to return to a previous version.

When you select a previous step in the timeline, the content or row that was edited becomes highlighted. This way, you can easily spot the change within the email itself.Note: When you go back in time, the timeline for more recent changes remains available, allowing you to move forward again, without losing any of the edits.

Now it's easier than ever to fine-tune your emails and toggle between drafts. We hope you get a lot of use out of this new feature, and that it makes your design process better and easier!

Export emails to PDF

If you ever want to quickly send a work-in-progress email design with colleagues, this new feature should streamline your process. You can now turn any email into a PDF in both the BEE Free and BEE Pro platforms. This means you can now share your PDF email in Slack, print it out, email it, etc.

Downloading any message to PDF is easy. From theProjects screen, use the Edit drop-down menu to choose Export.

On the pop-up screen, simply tap Download a PDF file.

Then, you can choose which size you want your PDF to be.

Finally, click Download Your File, and there you have it!

Will you be trying these new BEE Pro updates? Let us know if you have any questions or ideas in the comments! Happy designing!

We're excited to meet thousands of designers this week at Adobe MAX 2017!

Get 1:1 Time With the BEE Team at Booth 285

If you design emails or work with anyone who does, make sure to stop by Booth 285 to meet our team.

We'll be showcasing our BEE email editorand new versions of BEE Pro, the hosted email creation suite for freelancers, marketing teams, and email agencies.BEE Pro provides awesome email creation tools coupled with smart features that cut down on email production time and cost.

Discover New BEE Pro "Agency" Features

Among the new features that we will be introducing in BEE Pro this week and showcasing at MAX 2017:

• Brand management in the new "Agency" version: create brands, configure brand settings, and manage user permissions
• Integration with Adobe Creative Cloud: browse graphics for your emails directly inside BEE's file manager
• ESP connectors: easily push email campaigns or templates to popular ESPs like MailChimp, SendGrid, MailUp, HubSpot, and more

... and much more.

Claim a Beautiful BEE T-Shirt & $100 Off on BEE Products

Come to the booth for a demo... and to pick up one of these beautiful t-shirts:

... which tells the whole story about BEE Pro: "I design stunning emails. Fast."

PLUS! We're giving $100 off on BEE products to users during demos. Swing by to claim the $100 credit and save money on our email design tools!"Drag & drop your creativity" with BEE! Come see us and make email design fun again!

It's our blog's one-year anniversary! We've rounded up our top 10 best Email Design Workshop Blog posts from our readers to celebrate this milestone.Over the past year, we'vetaken a magnifying glass to dozens of emails. We've talked aboutcolors, buttons, modules, GIFs, and so much more in our Design Inspiration series as well as gotten nerdy, analytical, and practical in our hands-on Workshops. We've even had fun! So thank you for coming back again and again for email design tips. Now, take a look back with us!

1. 10 tips for great welcome email design

One of our first-ever posts was about welcome email design. With super high open rates, welcome emails are one of the most critical messages for brands to get right.

We explored how to leverage great design to set the tone, represent your brand, show readers your gratitude, and make an all-around top-notch first impression. We even included one of our favorite animated GIFs from Warby Parker's welcome email:

2. A publisher's guide to email advertising best practices

If you want to monetize your email marketing, this post is your guide. We include examples of ad integration from top publishers, tech companies, and popular newsletters. We peel back the curtain on a few things: what AdChoices is, how to be transparent about sponsored content, and what your options are for connecting with ad networks. This post is essential reading for anyone in email advertising.

3. How to design bulletproof call-to-action buttons

We'll admit it: we have a thing for bright and bold buttons. Abig factor in getting readers torespond to your call-to-action is through eye-catching button design, which means the CTA must be bulletproof. And with the BEE editor, bulletproof design is built-in, so all your buttons will always work across any devices and email clients.

4. How Litmus built an engaging product announcement email

Email marketers use the web application Litmusto run inbox rendering previews, test for spam, and run analytics. Litmus is a must-have tool—and fittingly, the company sends must-read emails, too. We looked closely at one of their product announcement emails to see why it was effective, and we explored the question of whether videos belonged in emails.

5. Quick video: How to design an email... and not a website!

For video tutorials, we always aim to make quick videosto guide you on exactly how to do something new—fasterand easier. Our video tutorial on how to make sure your email isn't trying to be awebsite, is one of the most valuabledesign advice we've given. It's worth a watch!

6. 7 tips to send your best-ever Thanksgiving email

Thankfully, these seven tips still apply a year later. From subject lines to mobile design, this post has you covered for your Thanksgiving email campaigns.

7. 5 email newsletter templates to always have on hand

Email newsletter templates are so important—not because we're in the business of making cookie-cutter emails, but because it's critical to have a consistent, branded foundation. Without that foundation, you risk looking like an amateur to your subscribers. So make sure you have these five newsletter template layouts to start from, including a text-based template:

8. Top 4 tips for using animated GIFs in email

Who doesn't love an animated GIF? These little image files go a long way in livening up an email, demonstrating your product, and drawing readers' attention to something important. But they're not effective if they're aren't implemented with care. From the placement to the number of frames, this post walks you through how to optimize animated GIFs.

9. Best practices for email footer design

Email footers tend to bean afterthought for many marketers, so we're really happy this post has gotten a lot of attention. The reality is that footers contain important information and get plenty of action: readers look to footers for detailsabout your brand, where they can find you, and how to update their email preferences. Learn what to include in your footer (and what you have to state, legally), what to skip, and what design works.

10. Tutorial: How to add an HTML countdown timer to email

With the holiday season on the horizon again, we expect to seeplenty ofcountdown timers showing up in our inbox.Countdown timers are dynamic, attention-grabbing, and fun to use. Brands often use them to encourage subscribers to snag a last-minute deal, register for a workshop, or watch an event—but the opportunities are endless. They're incredibly useful for generating urgency, and the good news is that they're easy to create! So don't miss reading one of our best blog posts.

Thanks!

Thank you for a fantastic first year of email design workshopping. Let us know what design tips you found useful, and what you'd like us to cover for year two. Cheers, and happy emailing!SaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSave

Want to learn more about the history and mission of BEE, the drag-and-drop email editor brought to you by MailUp? Now’s your chance to go behind the scenes at BEE and meet Massimo Arrigoni, from the MailUp product team. As you may know, MailUp, the Italy-based email company, launched beefree.io in the fall of 2014 to give ANYONE (that includes you!) access to a completely free email editor that makes it simple to create well-designed, responsive emails. Then in the spring of 2015, MailUp announced an embeddable version of BEE, enabling developers to include the BEE editor in their own application.Watch as Massimo shares more about this history, along with some of the many benefits of using BEE. You’ll get a peek into the enhanced features available in BEE’s latest version and learn why MailUp decided to develop an embeddable version of the editor.From changing background colors at the row level to having more control over padding, BEE offers email designers an easy, free tool to create well-designed, fully-responsive emails. And now developers can provide the same email functionality to users of their applications by embedding BEE Plugin.Learn about some of the ways you can use BEE today -- watch now!

Ready to design your own responsive emails in a snap? Try out BEE now >>