How to Brand Your Notifications

Courier Brands let you apply a consistent look and feel to your email and inbox notifications. You can maintain a single brand or create multiple brands for white-labeling, multi-tenant apps, or different product lines. Brands are fully API-enabled via the Brands API. By the end of this tutorial you’ll have a brand configured with a logo, colors, footer, and social links, and you’ll know how to apply it to notifications.

Prerequisites

A Courier account
Your brand assets ready: logo image, hex color codes, social media URLs

Understanding Email Brand Templates

Courier offers three template types for brands:

Template Type	Best For	Customization Level
Standard	Most use cases; visual editor	Logo, colors, footer, social links
Handlebars	Custom header/footer layouts	Handlebars templating in header/footer
Custom MJML/Handlebars	Fully custom email layout	Complete control over HTML structure

This tutorial uses the Standard template. For custom MJML/Handlebars templates, see the Brands reference.

Step 1: Create a Brand

Open the Brand Designer

Navigate to Templates > Brands in the Courier dashboard and click New Brand.

Creating a new brand

Name your brand

Give your brand a descriptive name (e.g. “Acme Corp”). Optionally set a brand_id if you plan to manage the brand via the API.

Step 2: Customize Your Brand

Upload a logo

In the Brand Designer, locate the Logo section and upload your logo. Requirements:

JPEG, PNG, or GIF format
Maximum 5MB
Ideally 140px wide (height is flexible)

Set brand colors

Configure your color palette:

Primary - Buttons, links, and key accent elements
Secondary / Tertiary - Supporting accent colors
Header - Background color of the email header bar

Configure the footer

Add your company name and optional legal text. You can use built-in variables:

{datetime.year} - Current year (e.g. for © {datetime.year} Acme Corp)
{urls.unsubscribe} - One-click unsubscribe link
{urls.preferences} - Link to the user’s preference page

Add social media links (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter/X, Medium) to display icon links in the footer.

Preview and publish

Click Preview to see how your brand looks in a sample email. When you’re satisfied, click Publish.

Step 3: Apply the Brand

Set as Default

Setting a brand as default means it automatically applies to all notifications that don’t specify a different brand. Open the brand settings and click Set as Default.

Setting a brand as the default

Every email notification uses the default brand unless you explicitly disable brands in the template settings or specify a different brand in the send request.

Apply to Specific Notifications

If you don’t want the brand as default, you can assign it per notification:

Open the notification template
Go to Template Settings
Select your brand from the dropdown

Specify at Send Time

Pass a brand_id in the Send API request to override the default brand:

curl -X POST https://api.courier.com/send \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $COURIER_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "message": {
      "brand_id": "your-brand-id",
      "to": { "email": "recipient@example.com" },
      "content": {
        "title": "Welcome!",
        "body": "This uses your custom brand."
      }
    }
  }'

import Courier from "@trycourier/courier";

const client = new Courier({ apiKey: "your_api_key" });

await client.send.message({
  message: {
    brand_id: "your-brand-id",
    to: { email: "recipient@example.com" },
    content: {
      title: "Welcome!",
      body: "This uses your custom brand.",
    },
  },
});

from courier import Courier

client = Courier(api_key="your_api_key")

client.send.message(
    message={
        "brand_id": "your-brand-id",
        "to": {"email": "recipient@example.com"},
        "content": {
            "title": "Welcome!",
            "body": "This uses your custom brand.",
        },
    },
)

Advanced Customization

Custom Templates

For more control over the email layout, select Use Custom Template in the Brand Designer. This lets you write Handlebars and HTML or MJML for the header and footer while still using drag-and-drop content blocks for the email body.

Custom template editor in the Brand Designer

Custom CSS

You can customize the <style> element in the <head> section of your emails. This works with both Standard and Custom template brands. See CSS Classnames for available selectors.

Snippets

Snippets are reusable pieces of Handlebars code that you can call from any template block:

Create a snippet in the Brand Designer (e.g. my_snippet)
In a notification, add a Template Block and call it: {{>my_snippet}}

Using a snippet in a template block

Snippets support variables, so you can pass dynamic content into them via the send request. A snippet defined in the default brand is available in all custom brands unless the custom brand defines its own snippet with the same name.

Brand Variables

Any brand attribute you can configure in the UI is also available as a Handlebars variable. For example, {{var "brand.social.facebook"}} renders the Facebook URL. Available variables include:

brand.colors.primary, brand.colors.secondary, brand.colors.tertiary
brand.email.header.barColor, brand.email.header.logo.image, brand.email.header.logo.href
brand.social.facebook, brand.social.instagram, brand.social.linkedin, brand.social.twitter, brand.social.medium

Send Messages

Design Messages

User Journeys

Inbox & Preferences

Deploying and Debugging

Migrate to Courier

How to Brand Your Notifications

Prerequisites

Understanding Email Brand Templates

Step 1: Create a Brand

Step 2: Customize Your Brand

Step 3: Apply the Brand

Set as Default

Apply to Specific Notifications

Specify at Send Time

Advanced Customization

Custom Templates

Custom CSS

Snippets

Brand Variables

​Prerequisites

​Understanding Email Brand Templates

​Step 1: Create a Brand

​Step 2: Customize Your Brand

​Step 3: Apply the Brand

​Set as Default

​Apply to Specific Notifications

​Specify at Send Time

​Advanced Customization

​Custom Templates

​Custom CSS

​Snippets

​Brand Variables

Prerequisites

Understanding Email Brand Templates

Step 1: Create a Brand

Step 2: Customize Your Brand

Step 3: Apply the Brand

Set as Default

Apply to Specific Notifications

Specify at Send Time

Advanced Customization

Custom Templates

Custom CSS

Snippets

Brand Variables