Quick Answer
60-second read
Getting started with Simplified takes five steps: sign up for the free trial, set up your brand kit, choose between the classic tools or briefing Riley for a full campaign, review and approve the output, then publish or schedule. Most first-time users have a first working asset (or a full Riley campaign) produced within their first session — this guide walks through both paths with the specific settings you’ll see.
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This tutorial was last updated July 2026, walked through directly on Simplified’s current dashboard, including its newer Riley agent workflow.
What You’ll Need Before Starting
An email address to sign up, and ideally your brand assets ready (logo, brand colors, a short description of your business) — these feed into your brand kit, which both the classic design tools and Riley use to keep output consistent with your brand.
Step 1: Start Your Free Trial
Sign up at Simplified to start your 7-day free trial of Riley Starter, which includes full access to 5 Riley campaigns, 100K AI words, 100 AI designs, and the underlying design, video, writing, and scheduling toolset — not a stripped-down preview.
Step 2: Set Up Your Brand Kit
Add your logo, brand colors, fonts, and a short brand description. This is what keeps both manually-built assets and Riley-produced campaigns visually and tonally consistent with your brand, rather than generic-looking output.
Step 3a: Using the Classic Tools Directly
If you’d rather build assets yourself, open the Design, Video, or Writing tool from the dashboard directly. Each works similarly to a standalone editor — pick a template, customize it with your brand kit applied automatically, and export or schedule when done. This path skips Riley entirely and doesn’t use any Riley campaign credits.
Step 3b: Briefing Riley for a Full Campaign
Alternatively, open Riley and describe what you need in plain language — for example, “Launch our spring promo on Instagram and LinkedIn.” Specify which output type you want: a social batch (6 posts), an email sequence (3-5 emails), or a paid ad creative set (3 A/B variants for Meta or Google). Riley uses your brand kit automatically and produces the full set of assets from that single brief.
Step 4: Review and Approve
Whether you built assets manually or briefed Riley, review the finished output before it goes live. For Riley specifically, this review step is built into the workflow — nothing publishes or schedules automatically without your approval, so you can request changes if something doesn’t match what you had in mind.
Step 5: Publish or Schedule
Once approved, publish immediately or use Simplified’s built-in social scheduling to queue posts for later. Email sequences and ad creative sets can be exported or connected to your existing email/ad platforms depending on your workflow.
Common Beginner Mistakes to Avoid
- Skipping the brand kit setup — both the classic tools and Riley rely on it for consistent output; skipping it leads to generic-looking results that don’t match your brand.
- Writing vague Riley briefs — the more specific your brief (platform, tone, campaign goal), the closer the finished output will be to what you actually need, reducing revision cycles.
- Assuming Riley campaigns roll over — they reset each billing period, so there’s no benefit to saving them up; use your monthly allowance rather than letting it go unused.
- Not budgeting for the current price point — Simplified’s entry tier is now $79/month, notably higher than older pricing you may have seen referenced elsewhere; see our full Simplified review for the complete current breakdown.
Next Steps
Once you’ve tried both the classic tools and Riley, it’s worth knowing how Simplified compares to specialist alternatives. If copywriting quality is your main concern, see our Simplified vs Jasper comparison. If design is your main concern, see our Simplified vs Canva comparison.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need to use Riley, or can I just use the classic tools?
You can use Simplified’s design, writing, video, and scheduling tools directly without ever briefing Riley — they’re included on your plan regardless. Riley is an additional, optional layer for when you want a full campaign assembled from a single brief rather than building each asset yourself.
How long does it take to brief a Riley campaign?
Writing the brief itself takes a couple of minutes — it’s plain language, similar to briefing a freelancer or team member. Riley then takes some time to produce the finished assets, after which you review and approve (or request changes) before anything is scheduled or published.
What counts as one Riley campaign?
One brief-to-approval cycle producing a single output type: a social batch (6 posts), an email sequence (3-5 emails), or a paid ad creative set (3 A/B variants). If you need multiple output types from one brief, that uses multiple campaign credits.
Can I edit what Riley produces before it ships?
Yes — Riley shows you the finished work for review and approval before anything is scheduled or published, and you can request edits at that stage rather than having to start a new campaign from scratch for small changes.
What happens if I run out of Riley campaigns for the month?
Additional Riley campaigns cost $10 each and can be added from your account without upgrading your entire plan. Unused campaigns don’t roll over between billing periods, so there’s no benefit to under-using your monthly allowance to save credits.
Related Resources
- 🧩 Simplified Review 2026 — Full hands-on review, pricing, and verdict
- ✍️ Simplified vs Jasper — All-in-one breadth vs specialist copywriting depth
- 🎨 Simplified vs Canva — AI copywriting integration vs the design market leader
- ✍️ Rytr Review — For pure AI writing without the design/video bundle
