Previewing and sending test emails of your post

Previewing your post is an essential step to ensure it looks and functions exactly as intended. In beehiiv, you have two main preview options: viewing your post styling directly in the editor, or sending a test email to see how it will appear in the inbox.

Test emails let you check your post from your subscriber’s perspective — making it easy to catch formatting issues or visual inconsistencies before publishing. You can send test emails to yourself, team members, or any email address you choose.

Below, we’ll cover some quick tips, then walk you through both previewing and test sending step by step.

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Quick tips to get you started

• Test emails vs. A/B testing: Sending test emails is different from A/B Testing, which allows you to test subject lines with a portion of your audience. A test email sends the entire post to yourself or your team, so you can check how it renders before sending it to your subscribers.
  
  
• Launch plan limits: Users on the Launch plan can send up to 4 test emails per day to yourself. If you are a team member added to a publication on a paid plan, you will have access to sending to your team or to outside emails, but only on the paid publication you have access to.
  
  
• Paid plan users can send up to 10 recipients per test email: While there’s no overall limit to the number of emails a paid plan user can send, test emails can only be sent to a maximum of 10 recipients at a time.
  
  
• Simulated Subscriber option: This feature lets you test personalized content as if it’s being sent to one of your subscribers. Though the email is only sent to the specified test addresses, it displays how it would look for that subscriber, making it great for testing personalization utilizing merge tags or the Referral Program.
  
  
• Magic Links may not work in test emails: There are a few reasons why Magic Links might not function properly in test emails.
  
  
• Test emails won’t include the ‘unsubscribe’ header: No need to worry — beehiiv automatically adds a one-click unsubscribe option to every published post, in compliance with the 2024 Security Mandates, even if it’s not visible in your test email.

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How to preview your post 

1. Open a new post draft or select to edit one of your saved posts or templates.
   
   
   
2. The Post Builder will open on the Compose page. After writing or editing your post, click on the Preview button in the upper right corner. You can access the preview at any time during the post creation process.
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. A popup will open with your preview options. 
   
   
   
   
   
   You can choose between Web or Email views, as well as how the post will look on Desktop or Mobile.
   
   
   
   
   
   
4. If you wish to refresh your preview, click the Refresh icon.
   
   
   
   
   
   
5. By default, your post preview will open on a Free Subscriber view. Click the dropdown menu to see different views, including Free subscriber or Non-subscriber or select one of your individual subscribers.
   
   
   
   
   
   
6. Each view will help you see how your stylization in the post builder looks in different scenarios. To see how your post will appear once it hits your subscribers’ inboxes, follow the instructions below to send a test email.

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How to send a test email of your post

1. Open a new post draft or select to edit one of your saved posts or templates.
   
   
2. In the dropdown, you can select team members to send the test email to by checking the box next to their names.
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. To send the test email to other addresses, enter up to 10 email addresses in the provided box, separating each with a comma.
   
   
   
   
   
   
4. If you want to simulate sending the email to a specific subscriber, select a subscriber from the dropdown menu under Simulated Subscriber. Any merge tags in the email will automatically be personalized with that subscriber's information.
   
   
   
   
   
   
5. Click Send test email to send your test email to the addresses you’ve entered.