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The basics

What is lightbreak? Newsletter software for local media

lightbreak pulls in the news, homes, restaurants, events, pets and jobs your readers care about and builds one edited issue in your voice.

TJ LarkinOctober 1, 2026 · 1 min read

lightbreak is newsletter publishing software for local media. It pulls in local news, restaurants, businesses, homes, events, pets and jobs, writes each story in your publication's voice, makes GIFs for homes, pets and restaurants, checks the whole issue with a review agent, and pushes the finished issue to Beehiiv or ActiveCampaign.

Most publications on lightbreak ship an issue in under 15 minutes from source to send. The manual workflow usually takes 2 to 3 hours.

Why we built it

lightbreak came out of our own newsrooms. We run more than 20 local publications with 170,000+ subscribers, and we couldn't find a tool that solved the production problem. So we built one.

Every feature exists because we needed it on a Thursday morning at 7am, with two hours to deadline and a part-time contributor on the keyboard. If it didn't earn its place in our own newsroom, it didn't ship.

Every feed your town has, in one place

lightbreak checks your sources every morning. When you open it, the stories are already waiting.

  • News from the city, schools, county and police.
  • Pets from shelters, ready to adopt.
  • Places: new restaurants and businesses.
  • Homes: new listings near you.
  • Events from community calendars.
  • Jobs: who is hiring in town.
  • Videos from local channels.
  • Your own: paste any website or RSS feed.

Stories with their own GIFs

Drop in a listing, a restaurant or the pet of the week, and lightbreak writes the story and makes a moving GIF for it from the listing or the place's own photos.

You keep your email platform

lightbreak works with Beehiiv and ActiveCampaign today. Your subscribers, delivery history and list health stay exactly where they are. Moving over costs nothing.

Pricing

Pricing depends on how many publications you run. Book a demo and we'll build a real issue with you on the call.

lightbreak is a product of 8th replay.

We build software for local media, and we run 20+ local publications on it ourselves. If lightbreak fits, its siblings might too.

8threplay.com
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