Easy setup, but misleading language and moving goalposts broke my trustWhat went right:Beacons is genuinely easy to set up. You can get a bio page live quickly, and the all-in-one concept (links, products, email capture, media kit) is appealing, especially for non-technical users.What went wrong:The issues are around transparency and trust.Domain ownership is misleading. Domains purchased through Beacons are not actually owned by the user. You are not the registrant and have no access to DNS, transfer locks, or the registrar. To take your domain with you, there is a $70 domain processing/transfer fee, plus a high annual renewal cost. This was not clearly disclosed at purchase and is buried in the Terms of Service.This became a real blocker when I needed to configure DNS for third-party tools (e.g., Stripe and email verification) and when planning for long-term portability.Paid features changed without notice. I upgraded specifically to remove the Beacons logo. After upgrading, the Beacons icon later reappeared without prior notice, and the option to remove it was no longer available. Changes like this make it hard to trust what a paid plan actually guarantees.Overall, the language around ownership and features feels hidden and misleading, rather than clearly explained up front.Conclusion:Beacons is easy to use, but the lack of transparency around domain ownership and the way paid features can change without notice caused me to lose trust in the platform.If you care about owning your domain, controlling DNS, and avoiding platform lock-in, I strongly recommend purchasing your domain directly from a registrar you control and connecting it manually.
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