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Getting started

This page walks through the first 30 minutes of running a Mission Broadcast site for a new missionary. By the end you'll have:

  • Signed in and found the dashboard
  • Picked an intake address for letters from the missionary
  • Sent (or queued) your first broadcast
  • Decided whether to set up a custom domain now or later

If you already have an account and just need a specific feature, jump to the section that applies.

Before you start

You'll need:

  • A Google account — Mission Broadcast uses Google sign-in.
  • The missionary's email address, mission name, and mission location. (You can change all of these later.)

One account can run multiple missionaries

Parents with several children serving missions — or a ward communication clerk helping a few families — can manage every missionary site from the same Google sign-in. After the first missionary is set up, the "Pick a missionary" screen lets you create or switch between sites.

Step 1 — Claim the site

  1. Open https://missionbroadcast.com and click Sign in.
  2. Choose the Google account you want to associate with this missionary. (You can grant access to more managers later.)
  3. If this is your first time signing in, you'll be asked to create a missionary site. Fill in:
    • Missionary name — what subscribers see in the from-line ("Sister Pehrson", "Elder Pehrson"). Honorific is optional.
    • Site slug — the unique path under missionbroadcast.com/m/ (e.g., m/elderpehrson). Lower-case letters, numbers, and hyphens only.
    • Mission start date — used for retention math and the end-of-mission letter book.

You'll land on the dashboard. From here you can navigate using the left-hand sidebar.

Step 2 — Test the intake address

Every Mission Broadcast site has an intake address that the missionary emails their letters to. The dashboard shows it at the top:

  • Free tier: letters+<your-slug>@missionbroadcast.com
  • Paid tier with a custom domain: letters@<your-domain>

Tell the missionary to use this address. When mail arrives:

  • If the sender matches one of the approved senders on the missionary doc, it lands in the Letters tab for review.
  • Anyone else's email bounces with a polite note explaining how subscriptions work.

Approved senders default to the missionary's own email

The first time you save the missionary's email under Settings → "Missionary's direct email", we add it to the approvedSenders list. Add a parent's relay address too if you plan to forward letters from home.

Step 3 — Add some subscribers

The Subscribers tab takes single-row entries (name + email) or a bulk CSV/text import. Three things to know:

  1. Importing skips duplicates. Re-running the bulk import on the same list won't double-send to anyone.
  2. Subscribers can unsubscribe themselves via a link in every broadcast. The unsubscribe state lives forever — even if you accidentally re-add the same email, they stay unsubscribed.
  3. Free-tier cap. Free accounts can hold up to 100 subscribers. You'll see a soft warning at 80% and a banner at 100%. Past the cap, imports still run but new broadcasts pause until you upgrade or trim the list. See Plans & pricing.

Step 4 — Send a test letter

You don't have to wait for the missionary's first email. From the dashboard:

  1. Click Compose in the sidebar.
  2. Write a subject and body. (The body has a rich editor — paste from Word or Google Docs and the formatting comes along.)
  3. Click Save to keep it as a draft, or Broadcast to send it right now to every subscriber.

Or, queue a real letter the missionary already sent:

  1. Click the Pending tab in Letters.
  2. Any email forwarded to the intake address shows up here.
  3. Click a row to preview; Broadcast sends to subscribers, Trash drops it.

Auto-relay (paid tier)

Once you trust the missionary not to send anything that needs review, flip Settings → "Auto-relay letters" to on. Letters skip the pending queue and broadcast immediately on arrival.

Step 5 — Decide on a custom domain

You can run the entire account forever on the path URL (https://missionbroadcast.com/m/<slug>) we give you for free. But many families prefer their own domain — it's friendlier in print and easier to share.

If you already own a domain (or you're willing to buy one for ~$12/yr at any registrar), you can:

  • Use it for the public archive (so the missionary's site is at https://elderpehrson.com instead of the path URL), and
  • Use it for the intake address (so subscribers email letters@elderpehrson.com).

The setup involves three small pieces of DNS work at your registrar, all guided step-by-step. See Custom domain (BYO).

What's next

  • Set up that custom domain while you have the energy — it gets harder to come back to later.
  • Read the plans page to understand what's free and what isn't.
  • If you get stuck on anything, the floating chat bubble at the bottom-right of any account page sends a real email to a real human. Reply within two business days, no scripted nonsense.

Skim done. Want depth on one topic? Pick a card from the homepage.