The software a modern local media company runs on

The moment is familiar to anyone running a local publication. The website lives in one tool, the newsletter in another, the signup form in a third, and none of them talk to each other. A reader signs up, gets a line that says thanks, check your inbox, and that is the last thing you ever learn about them. The subscriber count goes up, the business does not.

Local Media HQ, a company based in Williamson County, Texas that runs more than 20 local publications, built three pieces of software to solve exactly this: larkfeed for the website, lightbreak for the newsletter, and greetform for the moment after someone subscribes. Each one handles one daily job a local publisher already recognizes.

larkfeed: the website that carries its own revenue

larkfeed puts local news, a business directory, an events calendar and a job board on one site. The directory starts full rather than empty: larkfeed loads more than 1,000 local businesses into it for you, each with a real page carrying photos, reviews, hours and a map. Every page is built with structured data, which in plain words means the page carries labels that tell Google and AI assistants what they are looking at, so a machine does not have to guess. That structure is why business owners want to be listed at all.

Owners claim their page for free, then pay the publisher to upgrade it. The publisher sets every price, and payment runs by card inside larkfeed, so there are no invoices to chase. The same site sells featured event spots, event spotlights, premium job placements and sponsor bands. Free submissions keep the calendar and job board full; the paid placements are what buyers spend on.

The writing side is AI-native. You pick a style, hand larkfeed your notes, photos and links, and it returns a finished designed article. A second AI edits and scores it. City council and school board meetings, plus permit filings, turn into drafts that wait for a person to approve. The company says a 1,254-word story takes about 10 minutes of human time, and no article goes live without your yes.

lightbreak: one newsletter issue in under 15 minutes

lightbreak is newsletter software for local media. You drag in local news, homes, restaurants, events, pets and jobs from the day's feed, and it writes each item in your voice, with a short summary called The Gist and a line on Why It Matters. A home listing becomes a Featured Home with the price, beds and baths. A restaurant or pet story can get its own moving GIF built from the place's own photos. You preview exactly what readers will get, then push the issue to Beehiiv or ActiveCampaign.

The numbers come from the company's own operation: more than 20 publications use lightbreak, serving more than 170,000 subscribers, and an issue takes under 15 minutes to build. Migration from an existing email platform costs nothing, because lightbreak connects to Beehiiv and ActiveCampaign rather than replacing them.

greetform: every new subscriber becomes a lead

greetform handles the moment most newsletters waste. The second someone subscribes, you have more of their attention than you will ever get again, and most newsletters spend it on a thank-you line. Instead, greetform asks a few questions, such as what the reader is most into, shows a sponsor offer matched to the answers, and hands the publisher a lead with everything attached, synced to Beehiiv, ActiveCampaign or Mailchimp. The company reports that 64 percent of new readers answer every question.

It is also the tool larkfeed uses for its business owner interviews: an owner answers questions in a form, and the story lands as a finished article waiting for approval. The free plan costs nothing, requires no card, and covers 250 new subscribers a month, one publication, one live survey, one form and three offers. Paid tiers exist beyond that, but greetform's free plan is the honest place to start.

Who this stack fits, and who it does not

The three tools were built for local media companies, local media entrepreneurs, and anyone who wants to run a local media business in their community, in any market. That includes established local brands that want to modernize and new operators building a local newsletter from scratch. It is not a fit for a team that wants a plain blog with no directory, no events calendar and no sales layer, because the whole design assumes you will sell pages, placements and leads. If you only need a simple email tool and nothing else, lightbreak's issue builder is more than you need and greetform's questions are beside the point.

The trade-off is that the pieces are built to work together, and using them separately is possible but leaves value on the table. larkfeed connects to lightbreak, so newsletter issues build from the site's own content, and greetform handles every form in the system. None of the three locks you out of your existing email platform.

How to try each one

If you would rather not build it yourself, Local Media HQ also sells a Launch Accelerator, a one-time $5,000 engagement where its team sets up a local newsletter operation in about a week, including Meta ad campaign setup, four implementation sessions, three post-launch calls and two months of email and Discord support. Ad spend is separate.