EarlyBird Platform Help

Step 1 — Gather context

If references/learnings.md exists, read it first for accumulated platform knowledge.

1. What are you trying to do?
   - A) Pick a tier — Free vs Starter vs Superior vs Shipper (driven by visit + conversion caps, not features)
   - B) Build the page — templates, AI copy, blocks, custom domain, private mode, OG tags
   - C) Capture leads — email subscription, payment/pre-order, or contact form
   - D) Get data out — Zapier, native Mailchimp, Airtable, code injection
   - E) Collect money pre-launch — payment forms, commission tiers, Stripe
   - F) Author a custom template — HTML/React + Tailwind + the JSON options schema
   - G) Decide whether EarlyBird is the right bet at all vs Carrd / Waitlister / Leadpages

2. What's your expected launch traffic? This is the decisive question — plans are capped on monthly visits and conversions, and a Show HN / Product Hunt spike is exactly when a cap bites.

3. Where must the leads end up? Stay in EarlyBird / Mailchimp / Airtable / CRM / your own backend — drives whether Zapier is mandatory.

Skip-ahead rule: if the user's prompt already contains enough context, skip to Step 2.

Step 2 — Route or answer directly

If the question is EarlyBird-specific, continue to Step 3.

Step 3 — EarlyBird platform reference

Read references/platform-guide.md for the full reference — capabilities tagged by automation surface, tiers and the visit/conversion caps, the three lead-capture form types, payment commissions, integrations, lead data shape, quick-start recipes (Zapier lead pipeline, payment-triggered fulfillment, custom template), and the peer comparison grid.

Read references/earlybird-api-reference.md for the developer surface — why there is no public REST API, the complete Zapier trigger inventory, the native Mailchimp connector, and the template SDK options schema with verbatim code.

Answer the user's question using only the relevant section. Don't dump the full reference.

Step 4 — Actionable guidance

Focus on the user's specific situation:

• State plainly that there is no public REST API and no webhooks — say both, in those words, whenever integration comes up. api.earlybird.im is the app's own internal backend, not a documented product surface — never write code against it. The entire automation surface is the Zapier app (two triggers: New Lead, New Payment — and no actions) plus the native Mailchimp connector; Airtable and everything else go through Zapier. If the user needs to push data into EarlyBird, that is not possible — say so plainly.
• Size the plan on the visit cap, not the feature list. Exceeding the monthly visit cap causes access restriction — the page stops serving, which is a total loss exactly during a launch spike. EarlyBird emails a warning at 90% of the cap; treat that as a page-down alert, not a nudge. Recommend the tier one step above the realistic launch-day spike.
• Whenever caps come up, spell out the two failure modes separately — they are independent limits with different symptoms. Hitting the visit cap takes the page offline for everyone. Hitting the conversion cap leaves the page up and serving normally while signups silently stop being recorded — traffic keeps arriving, the form looks fine, and nothing is saved. Never let "the page goes dark" stand as a description of both; name which cap causes which. When a user reports "my waitlist stopped growing" but the page still loads, check the conversion counter before anything else.
• EarlyBird cannot send email. There are no broadcasts, no newsletters, no autoresponders. Always pair it with an ESP and wire leads out from day one — a list you cannot email is not an asset. Route the sending question to /sales-email-marketing.
• Set up lead egress before you drive traffic, not after. No CSV/lead export is documented anywhere in the help center, so treat the Zapier New Lead trigger (or the Mailchimp connector) as your only guaranteed copy of the data, and confirm it fires with a test submission before launch.
• Flag the maintenance risk when the user is choosing a platform or planning anything load-bearing. The public changelog's most recent entry is v1.7.6 from September 2023, and the pricing-page FAQ is unpopulated — the product is live and billing but shows no public development activity for years. Do not describe it as abandoned (site, billing, help center, and Zapier app all work), but do tell the user to keep an external copy of leads and avoid depending on unshipped roadmap items.
• Pages are standalone only — there is no embeddable form widget, so EarlyBird cannot add capture to a site you already have. If the user has an existing site, this is the wrong tool.
• When authoring a custom template, explain both halves: a JSON options array (name, title, type, default, ai, fields) paired with HTML/React + Tailwind markup. Stress that name must be unique at each level or the template errors, that capture types are email_capture, payment, and contact, and that the {...option} spread on Form is mandatory.
• Present all pricing, caps, and commission percentages as best-effort and point the user to https://earlybird.im/pricing to confirm before committing.

If you discover a gotcha, workaround, or tip not covered in references/learnings.md, append it there.

Gotchas

> Best-effort from research (2026-07) — review these, especially plan-gated features and pricing that may shift.

1. Visit cap = page goes dark. Caps are per month and per plan (100 on Free up to 200,000 on Shipper). Overage restricts access rather than billing you — the failure mode is an outage, not an invoice.
2. Conversion cap is separate and also hard (10 on Free up to 5,000 on Shipper). Both caps must clear for a launch to work; people size for traffic and forget conversions.
3. No public REST API and no webhooks. Zapier's two triggers are the only supported egress. There are no Zapier actions, so nothing can be created in EarlyBird programmatically.
4. No email sending of any kind — pair with Mailchimp or another ESP from the start.
5. No embeddable forms — hosted standalone pages only; you cannot drop a capture form onto an existing site.
6. No referral or viral mechanics. If queue-jumping or leaderboards matter, use /sales-waitlister or /sales-launchlist instead.
7. Payments carry a platform commission on top of Stripe fees, decreasing by tier (roughly 5% → 1% → 0% at Shipper). At meaningful pre-order volume, the commission can exceed the subscription saved by staying on a lower tier — do the arithmetic.
8. Code injection is a premium, paid-tier feature — analytics, pixels, and third-party widgets are unavailable on lower plans, so free-tier pages cannot be instrumented beyond built-in analytics.
9. Dormant since 2023 by public signals. Changelog stops at v1.7.6 (2023-09-30), the pricing FAQ has questions but no answers, /integrations returns a 500, and docs.earlybird.im returns a 521 — only help.earlybird.im works. Keep leads mirrored elsewhere.
10. In custom templates the {...option} spread on Form is mandatory — omitting it silently breaks capture, since that spread is what binds the form to EarlyBird's backend.

Related skills

• /sales-idea-validation — Whether a landing page's signups actually prove demand (evidence ladder, smoke tests, pre-sales)
• /sales-funnel — Landing-page and funnel strategy across builders
• /sales-audience-growth — Growing the list once the page is live
• /sales-waitlister — Waitlister (referrals, leaderboards, REST API + signed webhooks)
• /sales-launchlist — LaunchList (one-time lifetime pricing waitlists)
• /sales-leadpages — Leadpages (conversion-focused pages with A/B testing)
• /sales-unbounce — Unbounce (A/B testing, dynamic text replacement)
• /sales-mailchimp — Mailchimp (the native connector destination)
• /sales-email-marketing — What to send once the list exists
• /sales-do — Not sure which skill to use? The router matches any sales objective to the right skill. Install: npx skills add sales-skills/sales --skill sales-do -a claude-code

Examples

Example 1: Picking a tier for a Product Hunt launch

User says: "I'm launching on Product Hunt next month and want a simple page collecting emails. Is the free EarlyBird plan enough?"
Skill does: Says no — the Free plan allows 100 monthly visits and 10 conversions, and a Product Hunt feature blows through both in minutes; exceeding the visit cap restricts access so the page goes dark mid-launch. Recommends sizing to Superior or Shipper for the launch month based on realistic spike traffic, notes the 90%-of-cap warning email is effectively a page-down alert, and flags that conversions are capped separately. Presents prices as best-effort with a pointer to the pricing page.
Result: User upgrades for the launch month and keeps the page online through the spike.

Example 2: Getting leads into a CRM automatically (developer)

User says: "How do I push EarlyBird signups into my own backend and my CRM in real time?"
Skill does: States there is no public REST API and no webhooks, and that api.earlybird.im is an internal endpoint that must not be coded against. Walks through the only supported path: the Zapier New Lead trigger (plus New Payment for pre-orders) fanned out to the CRM and a catch-hook on their backend, or the native Mailchimp connector for the simple case. Notes there are no Zapier actions, so data cannot be written back into EarlyBird, and advises verifying the Zap with a test submission before driving traffic since no CSV export is documented.
Result: User ships a Zapier-based lead pipeline with a verified test lead and an off-platform copy of the data.

Example 3: Deciding whether to build on it at all

User says: "EarlyBird looks perfect for validating my idea but the site feels quiet. Should I trust it?"
Skill does: Gives the evidence rather than a verdict — site, billing, help center, and Zapier app are all live, but the public changelog stops at v1.7.6 in September 2023 and the pricing FAQ is unpopulated. Recommends it as fine for a short, disposable validation page, but advises mirroring every lead out via Zapier, not depending on roadmap items, and choosing /sales-waitlister or Carrd if the page needs to live for years or needs referrals.
Result: User runs a 6-week validation page with leads mirrored to Mailchimp, and plans a migration path.

Troubleshooting

The landing page suddenly stopped loading for visitors

Symptom: Page was live and converting, then returned an access restriction or stopped serving — often on the biggest traffic day
Cause: The plan's monthly visit cap was exhausted; EarlyBird restricts access rather than charging overage. A warning email fires at 90% of the cap and is easy to miss
Solution: Check the visit counter in the dashboard and upgrade to restore service immediately. For launches, pre-emptively move to a tier well above expected spike traffic and treat the 90% email as a page-down alert. Caps reset monthly, so a temporary upgrade for the launch month is often the cheapest fix.

Signups stopped being recorded while traffic kept climbing

Symptom: Analytics show visitors arriving but the lead list has stopped growing
Cause: The conversion cap (separate from the visit cap) was reached — 10 on Free, up to 5,000 on Shipper
Solution: Compare the conversion counter against the plan limit before debugging the form. Upgrade to raise the cap; leads that arrived after the cap are not recoverable, which is why lead egress to Mailchimp or Zapier should be configured before launch, not after.

Captured leads are stuck in EarlyBird with no way out

Symptom: User wants a CSV or an API pull of collected emails and cannot find one
Cause: No lead export is documented in the help center, and there is no public REST API or webhook to fetch them
Solution: Set up egress going forward — the native Mailchimp connector (page settings → "Integration with apps") or the Zapier New Lead trigger into Airtable, Notion, Slack, or a catch-hook. Verify with a test submission. For leads already collected, contact support, since manual dashboard copying is the only self-serve option. Treat this as a reason to never let EarlyBird be the sole store of record.

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