AudienceBench

How to Set Up the beehiiv Referral Program: Rewards, Milestones, and the Referral Block

Set up beehiiv's referral program step by step: reward types, milestones (3 on Lite, unlimited on Pro), milestone emails, the referral block, merge tags, and automations.

By AudienceBench Editorial · Published · Pricing & docs checked

beehiiv’s Referral Program gives every subscriber a personal referral link and rewards them when enough friends sign up through it: “refer 3 friends, get the bonus guide.” Once it’s set up, beehiiv tracks the referrals, sends the milestone emails, and shows you who’s owed what. Your remaining job is fulfilling any rewards that don’t deliver themselves.

This guide walks through the setup beehiiv describes in its help center: creating rewards and milestones, writing the milestone email, choosing how the referral block looks in your posts, building a custom referral section with merge tags, and triggering automations from referral activity. It also covers the plan limits and the quirks buried in beehiiv’s FAQ.

Our sources: beehiiv’s help articles on setting up the Referral Program, the Referral Program FAQ, custom referral sections, merge tags, the Referral action automation trigger, and the free trial, plus beehiiv’s referral feature page and pricing page. We checked all of them on October 31, 2026.

How we researched this: Everything below comes from beehiiv’s official help center, feature page, and pricing page. We haven’t run a beehiiv referral program ourselves, so there are no dashboards, results, or growth figures of our own here. Where beehiiv’s docs leave something unanswered, we say so.

About our links: beehiiv links on this page are affiliate links (/go/beehiiv). That’s the only program we earn from here. It has nothing to do with the referral program you run for your own readers, and our recommendations would be the same either way.

The short version

Detail
PlansLite, Pro, and Enterprise. Not on Free
MilestonesLite: 3. Pro and Enterprise: unlimited
Free trialAvailable, but limited to 3 milestones during the trial
Reward typesPhysical, Promo Code, Digital, Paid Subscription Gift
Who counts as a referralSomeone who subscribes through a subscriber’s referral link. They show as Pending until they confirm
Where readers see itA referral block in your emails (not on web posts), plus a personal referral hub page
AutomationsA Referral action trigger can start a workflow at a milestone or a referral count

Our take in one line: if you’re on Lite or higher, the Referral Program is worth turning on with one or two simple digital rewards. It costs nothing extra and runs on its own. Before you launch, decide whether your milestone emails will deliver the reward themselves (then turn on Auto Fulfill) or need manual review.

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Before you start

  • Plan: beehiiv’s pricing page lists the referral program on Lite, Pro, and Enterprise, with a dash for Free. The help article says it’s available on all paid plans and on the free trial.
  • Milestone limit: 3 milestones on Lite, unlimited on Pro and Enterprise. The trial article caps referral milestones at 3 during the trial, even though the trial is otherwise Pro.
  • Know the terms. beehiiv uses three: referrals (subscribers who sign up through a subscriber’s referral link), milestones (the number of referrals needed to unlock a reward), and rewards (what the subscriber gets for reaching a milestone).
  • Pick your rewards first. A milestone is just a referral count attached to a reward, so you create them together.

Step 1: Create a reward

Open Referral Program from the left panel of your dashboard and click + New Referral in the top right. beehiiv opens a three-step form with a summary on the right.

In Step 1: Set Up Reward:

  • Reward Name (required).
  • Reward Type (required). Four options:
    • Physical: merchandise such as t-shirts. beehiiv has partnered with Slingshot so you can dropship products to readers without holding inventory.
    • Promo Code: discounts or trial codes. Codes are managed from the reward’s 3-dots menu → Manage Promo Codes.
    • Digital: files, URLs, or access to digital products such as courses, ebooks, or PDFs.
    • Paid Subscription Gift: gives a paid subscription as the reward. It only appears if you have paid subscription offers enabled (see our paid subscriptions setup guide). beehiiv’s trial article lists paid subscriptions as held back until you upgrade, so expect this reward type to need a paid plan.
  • Number of Referrals Needed for Milestone (required): the referral count that unlocks this reward.
  • Description (required): tells subscribers what they’ll get.
  • Disclaimer (optional), Prefixed Article (optional, with a live preview of how the reward name reads), and an Image (optional).

The Continue button turns from gray to black once the required fields are filled in.

Step 2: Write the milestone email

Step 2: Set Up Milestone Email is the email a subscriber gets when they reach the milestone. It works like writing any beehiiv post: a Subject Line (required), optional Preview Text, and Content (required), with the usual / commands for blocks.

The important switch is Send Email After Review, above the subject line:

  • Off (default): the email goes out automatically the moment a subscriber reaches the milestone.
  • On: you review each referral before the email is sent.

Use Preview to check the email, then click Continue.

When to turn on review: for physical rewards or anything with real cost, reviewing first gives you a chance to look for suspicious sign-ups before you ship something. For a PDF or a link, automatic sending is usually fine. beehiiv already holds referred subscribers in Pending until they confirm, which it describes as a security measure against abuse of the program.

Step 3: Decide on Auto Fulfill

Step 3: Additional Settings has one option: Auto Fulfill. beehiiv says it’s meant for rewards delivered inside the milestone email itself (a download link or promo code, say), so the reward is marked fulfilled as soon as the email goes out. Leave it off for rewards you’ll handle yourself, like a shipped item, and mark them in the Fulfillment tab instead.

Click Save and you’re back on the Referral Program overview. Repeat for each milestone, keeping Lite’s limit of three in mind.

Step 4: Configure the referral block

The Configuration tab controls the referral block that appears in your posts:

  • Referral Program toggle: on by default. Turning it off removes all Referral Program merge tags from your posts.
  • Email Description: the text at the top of the referral block. Add one.
  • Referral Template Shown in Post: click the arrows to pick a layout:
TemplateWhat it shows
DefaultBasic text, a sharing button, and the subscriber’s unique link
Upcoming Milestone OnlyDefault content plus a preview of the next milestone
Reward Program OnlyUp to 3 upcoming rewards and the unique link
Upcoming Milestones and Reward ProgramDefault content, the next milestone, and up to 3 upcoming rewards

Step 5: Add the referral block to your posts

In the post editor, type /Referral Program and place the block where you want it. Then use Preview to see it styled for your publication. Each subscriber sees their own referral count, next milestone, and personal link.

The block only shows in email. beehiiv’s tech note says the referral block appears only in emails sent to subscriber inboxes, not on web posts, because the personalized link is tied to each subscriber’s email address. If most of your readers find you through your website, the block won’t reach them there.

A simple default is to place the block near the end of every issue, so it’s always there without crowding the content.

Optional: build a custom referral section with merge tags

If the four templates don’t fit your design, beehiiv’s custom referral section article (flagged as “currently being updated to reflect recent releases”) shows how to build your own. Type /ref in the post editor and choose Referral Program under Premium, then add your own heading, copy, and an image of your reward tiers. Type {{ to insert merge tags:

Merge tagWhat it shows
{{ rp_refer_url }}The subscriber’s personal referral link
{{ rp_referral_hub_url }}Their personal referral hub, where they track progress and rewards
{{ rp_num_referrals }}Their number of referrals
{{ rp_num_referrals_until_next_milestone }}Referrals left until the next milestone
{{ rp_next_milestone_name }}The next milestone’s name
{{rp_personalized_text}}How many referrals they have and how close they are to the next milestone

To turn a button or text into the referral link, highlight it, click the link icon, and paste {{rp_refer_url}} as the address. You can then select the elements, use the 6-dots menu → Group to section, and adjust colors, borders, and spacing under Visual settings. These merge tags rely on the Referral Program toggle in the Configuration tab being on.

Optional: trigger an automation from referrals

beehiiv’s Referral action trigger (on paid plans and the trial) starts an automation workflow when a subscriber either:

  • Referral milestone hit: reaches one of the milestones you’ve set up, or
  • Referrals achieved: reaches a specific referral count you type in.

To build one: Audience → Automations → Create automation, choose Referral action as the trigger, set the condition, optionally add more conditions or OR triggers, add actions (such as Send email), name it, choose Allow re-entry?, and click Publish.

This is handy for things milestones can’t do on their own. For example, you could send a thank-you or exclusive content at a referral count that isn’t one of your reward tiers, or follow up with top referrers a few days after a milestone. On Lite, where you only get three milestones, a “Referrals achieved” trigger lets you recognize other referral counts without a formal reward. Keep in mind that Lite allows 10 live custom automations (Pro is unlimited).

Monitor and fulfill rewards

The Referral Program dashboard shows three stats at the top: Subscribers with referrals, Total readers referred, and Referrals per subscriber. Below them are three tabs:

  • Overview: every reward, with its type, milestone number, and whether it auto-fulfills. The 3-dots menu offers Edit, Delete, and Manage Promo Codes.
  • Fulfillment: subscribers who’ve reached milestones and redeemed rewards. You can search and sort, click Download Referrals for a CSV, and use Actions → Manage Referrals, Mark as Ignored, or Mark as Pending.
  • Configuration: the referral block settings from Step 4.

Things beehiiv’s FAQ says that are easy to miss

  • Changing a milestone doesn’t re-count anyone. beehiiv only calculates rewards when a new subscriber is referred. Raising or lowering a milestone’s referral count doesn’t change who has already achieved it. A subscriber reaches a 3-referral milestone on exactly their 3rd referral.
  • Referred subscribers stay Pending until they confirm. Pending referrals become active automatically once the new subscriber confirms. beehiiv describes this as an anti-abuse step.
  • Your referral hub can use your own domain. The referral program’s URL follows whichever domain your account uses, so with a custom domain the hub lives on your domain instead of a beehiiv subdomain.
  • Moving from another platform? Importing existing referral data needs beehiiv’s team. Ask the beehiiv Agent (via Ask beehiiv) to help you submit a support ticket, or submit one from the Help page.
  • Subscriber changed email? beehiiv’s team can change it while keeping their referral history, again through a support ticket.

Referral program vs recommendations

These two get mixed up. The Referral Program rewards your own readers for bringing in friends. Recommendations are publisher to publisher: other newsletters suggest yours at signup, for free or paid per verified subscriber. Recommendations are on every plan (paid recommendations need Lite or higher). See our guide to beehiiv paid recommendations. You can run both at once.

What it costs

The Referral Program needs Lite or higher. Lite gets 3 milestones; Pro gets unlimited. Prices from beehiiv’s pricing page, checked October 31, 2026:

SubscribersLite (billed yearly / monthly)Pro (billed yearly / monthly)
1,000$49 / $59 per month$95 / $109 per month
2,500$69 / $79 per month$129 / $149 per month
5,000$95 / $109 per month$169 / $199 per month
10,000$119 / $139 per month$199 / $239 per month

Is Pro worth it just for more milestones? Probably not. Three tiers (for example 1, 3, and 10 referrals) is enough for most newsletters, and the Referral action trigger can mark other counts. Upgrade to Pro for its other features, and count unlimited milestones as a bonus. beehiiv’s free trial is 14 days of Pro with no credit card, but referral milestones are capped at 3 during the trial. Full breakdown: beehiiv pricing explained. Comparing platforms? Our Kit vs beehiiv for solo writers covers how each handles referrals.

Where beehiiv’s docs leave gaps

  • Downgrades: none of the articles we checked say what happens to milestones beyond three if you move from Pro to Lite or when a trial ends. The trial article only says you keep your content and subscribers on Free, and that Pro features you tried turn off.
  • Menu location: the setup article says to open Referral Program from the left panel of the dashboard. beehiiv’s site navigation groups it under Grow, and the exact sidebar label may differ in your account.
  • Fraud checks: beyond Pending-until-confirmed and the optional manual review, beehiiv doesn’t describe other anti-abuse checks for referrals.
  • The custom referral section article is flagged as being updated, so some steps or screenshots may not match the app.

Checklist

  • Confirm you’re on Lite or higher (or the trial, with its 3-milestone cap)
  • Choose your rewards and referral counts (no more than 3 on Lite)
  • Create each reward: name, type, description, referral count
  • Write each milestone email, and decide on Send Email After Review
  • Turn on Auto Fulfill only for rewards delivered inside the email
  • Add an Email Description and pick a template in Configuration
  • Add the /Referral Program block (or a custom section) to each post, then preview
  • Optional: build a Referral action automation for top referrers
  • Check the Fulfillment tab regularly and ship any manual rewards

Setting up a new newsletter from scratch? Our free Newsletter Launch Checklist covers the setup steps to check before your first send.

Our take

beehiiv’s Referral Program is one of the easiest growth features to switch on once you’re paying for Lite. The setup takes three short steps per reward, and the hard parts are choosing rewards and deciding how they’re delivered. Start with digital rewards that the milestone email can deliver automatically, keep manual review for anything you have to ship, put the referral block in every email, and remember that web-only readers won’t see it.

Try beehiiv · beehiiv pricing explained · beehiiv automation workflows · beehiiv paid recommendations

Sources

All sources below were checked October 31, 2026.