---
title: "Publishing a custom"
description: "What has to be ready, what the checklist means, and what changes after."
slug: "en/customs/overview/publishing-a-custom"
url: "https://docs.custom.one/en/customs/overview/publishing-a-custom/"
capability: "funnel"
published_at: "2026-10-26T03:22:30.877Z"
---
Until you publish, a custom is a **draft**: private, and safe to change. The
first publish makes it reachable; every publish after that replaces what the
public sees with what you've built since.

## What has to be ready

Publishing runs a set of checks and refuses if any fail. They cover the things
that would break for a visitor — a quiz with no starting question, a missing
contact step or end screen, no video background, a scene with no recording, a
clip filmed the wrong way round, something broken on your **Landing page**. An
Outreach custom has no quiz, so it is never asked for one.

When something is missing, **Publish** opens a list headed **Almost there!**.
Each row says what's wrong and has a **Fix →** button that takes you to the tab
that fixes it.

Before your first publish, the count on the **Publish** button — **2 left**,
say; the Quiz tab doesn't show it — and the banner on
[Overview](/en/customs/overview/) show what's still missing: your video
background, your clips and, on a Quiz custom, your quiz. They're a guide: the checks
that run when you publish are the ones that decide.

You also need an active plan or a free trial that hasn't ended. If your trial has ended, **Publish** takes you to the upgrade page instead.

## Warnings you can publish past

Some things are flagged without blocking you. The most common is a **question
that something still points to after you deleted or changed it** — a module on a
page, a scene's conditions, a score, or a landing-page audience — or a condition
that none of your current answers can match.

They appear under **Heads up before you publish**, with **Publish anyway**.
Overriding is a real choice, not a formality: whatever pointed at that answer
will have nothing to show. It's worth clicking through the list before deciding.
**Publish anyway** is only offered once nothing else is blocking.

## What changes when you publish

Your link starts working, or starts serving your newest work. Until then it
serves whatever you published last — so a custom can be live and collecting
answers from a version you've since moved well past.

The header tells you which, on every tab: next to the custom's name it says
**Draft** until the first publish, then **Live · v3** (the number of the live
version). If your customs have been taken offline for a billing reason, it says
**Suspended** instead — see [Plan and billing](/en/settings/plan-and-billing/). When you have edits that aren't out yet, an amber **v4 edits** appears
beside it and **Publish** becomes **Publish changes**.

On a Quiz custom, the **Quiz** tab's link has a dot too: green means live and
current, amber means live but your edits aren't out yet.