Questions, answered for businesses

You get a referral QR code in the app. Put it where people already stand still: the counter, the receipt, the table tent, the window. Someone scans it, installs Beam, and that install is attributed to you.

Every attributed install pays you back in credits, which spend exactly like money on your next beam. The customers you bring in help fund the reach you buy later.

This is the cheapest reach on the platform, because you are converting people who already chose to walk into your shop. Start here before you spend anything.

Pick a genuinely quiet hour, keep the radius tight, and make the offer good enough to move someone off their sofa. A weak discount sent wide costs more and works worse than a strong one sent to the few streets around you.

Set a redemption cap the first time. It bounds your exposure while you learn what the response rate looks like.

You pay for the people you can actually reach, not for how big a circle you drew. A beam starts at $5. If fewer than ten people are in range, that is the whole price, whatever length or options you choose.

Radius is not charged for. A wide beam over a quiet area reaches few people and costs the minimum; a tight beam downtown reaches many and costs more. That is the point.

The builder prices your beam live as you move the sliders, so you never commit to a number you have not seen.

Yes, in the sense that matters: if your credit balance covers the price, the beam costs you nothing new. No card is charged.

Credits come from two places. You buy them in packs, or you earn them from referral installs through your QR code. A business that works its QR code steadily can run beams it never paid cash for.

Credits do not expire, and they spend on any beam.

Free lets you run one beam at a time, which is enough to learn whether this works for your shop. You still pay per beam.

Growth is $199 a month and includes a $500 monthly beaming allowance, so it pays for itself if you beam regularly, and it lifts the one-at-a-time limit.

People with Beam who are inside the radius you set, during the window you set. You control the radius from 0.2 up to 25 miles, the start time and duration, an optional cap on total redemptions, and optional audience targeting.

Targeting narrows who is eligible and raises the price, because you are asking for a more specific audience. For a local shop, a tight radius usually does more than heavy targeting.

1. The customer shows their screen: a large QR code with a six-character code under it.
2. Open the Validate tab and tap Scan QR Code. The camera opens.
3. Point it at their screen. The deal comes up as ready to use.
4. Confirm. The claim is marked used and cannot be reused.

It takes a few seconds and needs no hardware beyond the phone or tablet already on your counter. Scanning is the primary action because it is what the customer's screen shows first, and because a camera cannot misread characters that are easy to confuse by eye.

Note the direction of it: the customer claims a deal in their app and gets a code. You redeem that code at the counter. Nothing is charged to them either way.

Type the six characters into the field on the same screen and confirm. The result is identical. Dim screens, cracked glass and awkward angles are the usual reasons a scan will not catch, and typing six characters takes a couple of seconds.

Already Used means that claim has been redeemed. Each claim is good for one redemption, so a code that has been through the counter once, or a screenshot of it passed to a friend, will not go through again.

Expired or Released means the claim lapsed before they got to you. A claim holds for 60 minutes by default. If the beam is still running, ask them to claim it again on the spot and scan the new code.

Yes. Set the start time and it goes live on its own, which is how most businesses use it: set up the quiet-Tuesday beam on Monday and leave it. You can edit a scheduled beam before it starts, though the fields that determine the price lock once it is paid for.

Yes. You connect your Google Business Profile so we can confirm the business is real and that you are the one running it. It protects customers from claimed offers at places that do not exist, and it pulls in your address and details so you are not typing them twice.

1. A verified business profile.
2. An offer you are comfortable honouring at the counter.
3. Credits, or a card, to cover the beam.
4. Your referral QR code printed and on the counter.