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Shorthand
Create stunning, high-end digital stories and immersive web experiences without code.
What it does
Provides a visual editor for creating immersive, 'scrollytelling' web stories. Features high-performance hosting with global CDN delivery. Enables team collaboration and shared asset libraries for consistent branding. Supports embedding of external interactive elements (maps, charts, forms). Offers 'Shorthand Social' for creating optimized content for social media platforms.
Why it works
Visual Impact: Delivers the 'wow factor' of custom-developed sites with zero technical overhead. Engagement: Immersive layouts lead to significantly higher time-on-page compared to standard CMS articles. SEO Friendly: Content is output as clean, crawlable HTML that performs well in search rankings. Ease of Use: Designed specifically for writers and designers rather than developers.
Category: Marketing & Growth
Team Size: 26-100
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As of 2026
Marketing & Growth
Revenue: $1M-$10M ARR
Create stunning, high-end digital stories and immersive web experiences without code.
Overview
Shorthand is a premium digital storytelling platform used by major media organizations and brands to create visually rich, long-form web content. It allows editorial and marketing teams to build immersive experiences featuring parallax scrolling, full-screen video, and interactive elements through a no-code visual editor, bridging the gap between standard blog posts and custom-coded microsites.
Funding status: Funded
Revenue source: Subscriptions
Customer type: B2B
Pricing: Subscription
Tech stack: React, Node.js, AWS
Platform: Web
Integrations: Google Analytics, HubSpot, Mailchimp, WordPress, Adobe Fonts
Founder story
Founded in 2013 by Ricky Robinson in Brisbane, Australia. Ricky, a computer scientist, saw a gap between the beautiful, custom-coded interactive stories being made by the New York Times and the capability of the average newsroom. He built Shorthand to democratize that level of visual storytelling for every creator.
What it does
- Provides a visual editor for creating immersive, 'scrollytelling' web stories
- Features high-performance hosting with global CDN delivery
- Enables team collaboration and shared asset libraries for consistent branding
- Supports embedding of external interactive elements (maps, charts, forms)
- Offers 'Shorthand Social' for creating optimized content for social media platforms.
Who it's for
- Journalists and Media Houses
- Content Marketing Managers
- University Communications Teams
- Internal Comms Professionals
Why it works
- Visual Impact: Delivers the 'wow factor' of custom-developed sites with zero technical overhead
- Engagement: Immersive layouts lead to significantly higher time-on-page compared to standard CMS articles
- SEO Friendly: Content is output as clean, crawlable HTML that performs well in search rankings
- Ease of Use: Designed specifically for writers and designers rather than developers.
Growth strategies
- Targeted high- prestige clients like the BBC and The Guardian to establish industry authority.
- Expanded into the higher- ed and corporate sectors to diversify beyond traditional journalism.
- Used a performance- based marketing narrative: 'Stand out in a world of boring content'.
- Successfully leveraged a 'white- glove' onboarding process to ensure high-quality output from new clients.
Alternatives
Comparison overview
- Ceros: More complex and design-heavy; Shorthand is the specialist for long-form, editorial storytelling.
- ReadyMag: Great for art direction; Shorthand offers better tools specifically for media and enterprise communications.
- Shorthand is the go-to choice for brands that want to tell deep, immersive stories without hiring a developer.