Creating member badges in your community

Badges are labels you award to members of your community to recognize them for something: being an early joiner, a paid supporter, a local organizer. Each badge has a name, a color style, and a short description that members see when they hover over it.

Community admins award badges. Members do not earn them automatically through activity.

Creating and awarding badges is an admin-only job. Think of it as one of the perks of running the show: you get to decide who gets recognized and why.

Community admins can create, award, and manage badges. Moderators and members can't, though they can still see and enjoy the badges you set up. Curious what else falls under each role? Read Community member roles and permissions for the full breakdown.

Good news if you're wondering whether this requires an upgrade: it doesn't. Badges are available to any publication with access to Community, at no extra cost.

1. In your community, go to Configure, then Badges.
2. Click on the + New Badge button. 
   
   
3. A modal will open for you to create your badge. 
   
   
   
   First, enter a badge name. This is what members see, for example 'Founding Members.' Names are limited to 40 characters and must be unique within your community.
4. Choose a badge style. Five color presets are available: purple, blue, green, yellow, and pink.
5. Add a description, for example 'Awarded to our earliest believers.' A description is required, is limited to 100 characters, and appears when a member hovers over the badge. When done, click on Continue. 
   
   

6. Choose who should receive the badge: Specific members or Members in a segment. Or, if you prefer not to assign the badge, click on I’ll do this later. 
   If you selected Specific members, click on the Next button to move to the next step. 
   

   
   
   If you selected Members in a segment, use the dropdown to select which segment you’d like to select from, then click Next. 
   
   
   Reminder: Only subscribers who are community members can receive badges.
7. For both options, when you get to the next page, you can click Create badge immediately to create your badge without assigning any members to the badge. 
   
   
   
   Or, if you’re ready to assign members now, click the check box next to the member(s) you’d like to give the badge to then click on the Assign members button. 
   
   

When you create a badge, you choose one of two ways to decide who gets it: hand-picking specific members, or connecting the badge to a segment. Both are set from the same step in the creation flow, and you can revisit who has the badge later from Edit members (see 'Managing badges after you create them' below).

Hand-pick your recipients. Select as many members as you want, then assign. Use this when the group is small or does not map cleanly to a segment.

Connect the badge to a segment you have already built. Everyone in that segment is preselected, and you can deselect anyone you do not want to include before you assign. Those exclusions stick: an excluded member stays excluded even as the segment changes.

Two things to know about segment-based badges:

• Only members of your community receive the badge even if the segment contains subscribers. Subscribers who have not joined your community will not show a badge, because they have no community profile to display one on.
• Dynamic segments keep the badge up to date. Static segments do not. If you connect a dynamic segment, the badge's recipients refresh automatically as people enter and leave that segment, within about a day. If you connect a static segment, the recipient list is a snapshot taken when you assigned it, because a static segment does not change on its own. Read Creating and using segments in beehiiv for the difference.

Each badge on the Badges page has a 3 dots menu with three options.

Choose Edit badge. You can rename the badge, rewrite its description, and switch to a different color preset at any time. Changes apply everywhere the badge already appears.

Choose Edit members. Check a member to award them the badge, or uncheck a member to revoke it. The footer shows a running count of your changes, for example '1 member added, 1 removed.' Click Save changes to apply.

Revoking a badge this way affects that member only. The badge itself, and everyone else who has it, is unaffected, and you can re-award it to the same member later. On a segment-based badge, unchecking someone excludes them permanently, so the next segment refresh will not hand the badge back.

Choose Delete badge. Every member who had the badge loses it, and the badge is removed from your community. This cannot be undone.

Badge display is limited to keep names readable, and it varies by where you're looking:

• Desktop (feed and comments): up to two badges show in-line next to a member's name.
• Mobile (feed and comments): one badge shows in-line next to a member's name.
• Profile: a member's full set of badges always shows, regardless of device.

Badges display most recently awarded first, so if a member has three or more, only their newest one or two show in-line and the rest are visible on their profile.

Community admins and moderators always show their Admin or Moderator label in that in-line space, and it takes priority over badges there. Their badges are still visible on their profile.