Heartbeat
Discord's structure with a paywall, a course builder, and your own domain on top
Heartbeat is a community platform for creators, coaches, and cohort programs that combines Discord-style channels and threads with courses, live events, documents, voice and video rooms, automation workflows, and a built-in subscription checkout, running on your own domain with iOS and Android apps; it starts at $49 per month for up to 350 members with a 5 percent transaction fee, falling to 1.25 percent on the $849 Scale plan.
Overview
Heartbeat was founded in New York in 2020 by Murtaza Bambot and Mayhul Arora, and its design lineage is obvious the moment you open it. Where Circle and Mighty Networks look like membership sites, Heartbeat looks like Discord: a left rail of channels, threaded conversation, voice and video rooms you drop into, and a chat-first rhythm. The bet is that communities actually behave like chat, and that the mistake other platforms make is forcing forum conventions onto people who want to talk in real time.
On top of that chat substrate sits everything a community business needs and Discord will never build: a course builder with modules and progress tracking, live events with automatic recordings, documents that function as a knowledge base, a member directory, gamification, custom landing pages, a subscription checkout, and automation workflows that fire on member behaviour. The company reports over 37,000 communities on the platform and more than $25M paid out to creators, which is a real business though smaller than Circle's.
Pricing is member-count based, which is the structural difference from Circle and Skool and the thing that decides whether Heartbeat is cheap or expensive for you. Build at $49 a month, or $40 billed annually, covers 350 members and charges a 5 percent transaction fee. Grow at $149, or $124 annually, covers 5,000 members at 2.5 percent and adds unlimited workflows, an API, white-label emails, and 50 hours of video hosting. Scale at $849, or $766 annually, is unlimited members at 1.25 percent and is the only tier with a branded mobile app.
The 2026 addition is Pulse AI, which builds courses, pages, and workflows and handles some member engagement automatically. Every platform in this category shipped an AI layer this year, so treat it as table stakes rather than a differentiator. The genuine differentiators are the chat-first structure, the custom domain on every tier including the $49 one, and a transaction fee curve that starts high and falls further than most competitors reach.
Best for
Coaches, cohort operators, and creators running a chat-heavy paid community of a few hundred to a few thousand members who want Discord's conversational feel with a paywall, a course builder, automation, and their own domain, and who value real-time energy over threaded permanence.
Not the right fit for
- Large free communities; pricing is banded by member count, so a free community of 6,000 people costs $149 a month on Grow while producing no revenue to offset it, and the 350-member Build cap is reached faster than most people expect.
- Anyone selling high-ticket offers on the entry plan; the Build tier's 5 percent transaction fee is the highest published rate among the serious platforms in this category and stacks on top of Stripe's own processing.
- Businesses that need a branded mobile app without a large budget; the branded app is a Scale feature at $849 a month, which is more than four times the price of the plan most communities of that size would otherwise sit on.
- B2B customer communities needing SSO, a support-desk integration, an ideas portal, and search-indexed public discussion; Heartbeat is built for private paid communities and has none of that shape.
- Teams that want public discussion ranking in Google; the whole product is architected around a gated, chat-first experience and organic search is not an acquisition channel here.
How it works
- 1
You start a 14-day trial without a credit card, name the community, and point a custom domain at it. Unlike almost every competitor, the custom domain is included on the entry tier rather than held back, so a $49 community already runs at your own address.
- 2
You structure the community as channels with threads, the way a Discord server or a Slack workspace is structured, rather than as a feed or a set of forum categories. Channels carry permissions, so free and paid tiers see different rooms.
- 3
Live conversation happens in voice and video rooms that members drop into, and scheduled events with RSVPs, automatic recordings, and recurring series handle the formal sessions. Recordings return to the community rather than living in a separate Zoom folder.
- 4
Courses are built as modules with lessons and progress tracking, running either self-paced or as cohorts with a timeline, and documents provide the knowledge-base layer for reference material that does not belong in a course.
- 5
Money runs through Heartbeat's own subscription checkout, gating channels and courses by membership tier, with the platform taking its percentage before payout. Automation workflows tie the whole thing together, firing on triggers like joining, completing a lesson, or going quiet, which is how a small team runs a large community without manual chasing.
Feature breakdown
22 features in 4 modulesChat-first community structure
The Discord lineage, which is either the reason you buy it or the reason you do not.- Channels and threads
- A left-rail channel structure with threaded replies, unlimited on every tier, so conversation feels immediate rather than like posting to a forum.
- Voice and video rooms
- Persistent rooms members drop into without scheduling anything, which is the mechanic that produces spontaneous conversation and that no forum-shaped platform reproduces.
- Direct messages
- Member-to-member DMs inside the community, so private conversation does not leak out to WhatsApp and take the relationship with it.
- Member directory and profiles
- A searchable directory on every tier, which matters most for cohort and mastermind communities where members are meant to find each other.
- Gamification
- Participation rewards to surface active members, present but less central to the product than in Skool, where it is the whole point.
- Native iOS and Android apps
- Real mobile apps on every tier including the $49 plan, carrying Heartbeat branding until you reach Scale.
Courses, events, and content
The layer that turns a chat server into a product you can sell.- Course builder
- Modules and lessons with member progress tracking, unlimited on every tier, running either self-paced or as structured cohorts.
- Cohort-based delivery
- Courses can be run on a timeline with a shared cohort rather than purely self-paced, which is the format most coaching businesses actually sell.
- Live events with recordings
- Scheduled events with RSVPs, recurring series, and automatic recordings that land back in the community rather than in a separate cloud folder.
- Documents
- A knowledge-base layer for reference material, unlimited on every tier, so the community wiki does not need to be a separate Notion.
- Video hosting allowance
- 50 hours on Grow and 200 hours on Scale. Build has no included hosting allowance, so a video-heavy course on the entry tier means hosting elsewhere.
- Custom landing pages
- One on Build, fifteen on Grow, fifty on Scale. These are the sales pages in front of the paywall, and one page is genuinely limiting for anyone running multiple offers.
Monetization
A fee curve that starts steep and falls a long way.- Built-in subscription checkout
- Recurring memberships and one-time purchases with automatic channel and course gating, so access follows payment status without manual work.
- Transaction fee by tier
- 5 percent on Build, 2.5 percent on Grow, 1.25 percent on Scale, charged on top of Stripe's own processing of roughly 2.9 percent plus 30 cents. The Build rate is the highest published figure among serious platforms here.
- Member-count bands as the pricing axis
- 350 members on Build, 5,000 on Grow, unlimited on Scale. Unlike Circle and Skool, growth in members alone moves you up a tier regardless of revenue.
- Tiered access by channel and course
- Free and paid membership levels can coexist in one community, with permissions deciding who sees which channels and courses.
Automation, AI, and integrations
How a two-person team runs a two-thousand-person community.- Automation workflows
- Five workflows on Build and unlimited on Grow and above, firing on triggers like joining, completing a lesson, or inactivity, which is the difference between manual member chasing and a system.
- Pulse AI
- Heartbeat's 2026 AI layer, which builds courses, pages, and workflows and assists with member engagement. Useful, but every competitor shipped something comparable this year.
- White-label emails
- Notification and campaign email under your own sending identity from the Grow tier, so transactional mail stops advertising the vendor.
- API access
- Available from the Grow tier, which also makes bulk export practical. Build has no programmatic route to your data.
- Zapier, Stripe, Zoom, and Google Calendar
- A workmanlike integration set covering payments, video, scheduling, and general automation, without the CRM depth a B2B platform would carry.
- Branded mobile app
- Your own app in the App Store and Google Play, exclusive to the Scale tier at $849 a month. There is no cheaper route to it.
Use cases
4 documentedCoach running a chat-heavy accountability group
Two hundred members currently in a free Discord, where the coach cannot charge anyone, cannot see who has completed what, and cannot stop the server from being a firehose.
Heartbeat Build at $49 keeps the channel structure and the real-time feel the members are used to, adds a paywall, a course with progress tracking, and a custom domain. The 5 percent fee stings, but at 200 members and modest pricing the absolute number is small.
Cohort program operator
Four cohorts a year, each needing private channels, a timeline-based curriculum, weekly live calls, and access that ends when the cohort does.
Cohort courses with a timeline, permissioned channels per cohort, recurring events with automatic recordings, and workflows that onboard and offboard members automatically, so the fourth cohort costs the same effort as the first.
Creator outgrowing the entry tier
Twelve hundred members, $18,000 a month in membership revenue, and a 5 percent fee quietly costing $900 a month.
Moving to Grow at $149 halves the fee to 2.5 percent, saving $450 a month against a $100 price increase, and adds unlimited workflows, an API, white-label emails, and video hosting. The upgrade is a margin decision that pays for itself immediately.
Community with an engagement problem
Members join, post once, and disappear, and nobody on the team has time to notice or intervene.
Workflows detect inactivity and trigger re-engagement sequences, Pulse AI drafts the content, and voice rooms give members a low-effort way back in that posting to a forum does not.
Pricing
from $49 per month, or $40 per month billed annually (Build)Flat monthly subscription banded by member count, with a separate percentage transaction fee on everything sold through Heartbeat's checkout that falls as you move up tiers.
| Plan | Price | Includes |
|---|---|---|
| Build | $49 per month, or $40 billed annually |
Carries a 5 percent transaction fee, the highest published rate among serious platforms in this category, on top of Stripe's own processing. |
| Grow | $149 per month, or $124 billed annually |
The plan most working communities land on. The fee halving alone justifies the upgrade at around $4,000 in monthly sales. |
| Scale | $849 per month, or $766 billed annually |
The only route to a branded app, and a very large jump from $149. The member cap on Grow is what usually forces it, not the feature list. |
Billing notes
- Annual billing saves roughly 18 percent on Build, 17 percent on Grow, and 10 percent on Scale, quoted as $40, $124, and $766 per month respectively.
- The transaction fee is charged on top of Stripe's processing, so the all-in rate on Build is roughly 7.9 percent plus 30 cents per membership charge. Model that number, not the 5 percent.
- Member count, not revenue, is what moves you between tiers. A large free audience pushes you up the ladder without generating anything to pay for it, which is the opposite of how Circle and Skool price.
- The Grow upgrade pays for itself at about $4,000 in monthly sales purely on the fee difference, before counting the API, workflows, and white-label emails.
- The jump from Grow at $149 to Scale at $849 is the largest single step in this category, and it is triggered by passing 5,000 members even if your revenue has not grown proportionally.
- Build includes no video hosting allowance, so a video-heavy course on the entry tier means paying for hosting somewhere else.
Value assessment: Heartbeat is priced well at the bottom and awkwardly at the top. Fifty dollars a month for a custom domain, unlimited courses and events, mobile apps, a member directory, and a real checkout is the best entry-level package in this category, and the 14-day trial with no card required makes it genuinely low-risk to try. The problem is the shape of the curve. Member-count banding punishes free growth, the 5 percent Build fee is steep enough to matter as soon as revenue is real, and the leap from $149 to $849 is severe for a community that has grown members without growing income. The sweet spot is a Grow-tier community: a few thousand members, real revenue, 2.5 percent fees, and unlimited workflows for $149. Either side of that band, a competitor is usually cheaper.
Strengths & limitations
Strengths
- The chat-first structure genuinely produces a different community feel from forum-shaped competitors, and voice and video rooms create spontaneous conversation that scheduled events cannot.
- A custom domain on the $49 entry tier, which almost nothing else in this category offers at that price.
- Unlimited channels, courses, events, and documents on every plan, so the entry tier is feature-complete rather than crippled.
- Native iOS and Android apps included from the entry tier, which is a meaningful engagement advantage over web-only platforms like Bettermode and Discourse.
- Automation workflows are a real operational feature rather than a checkbox, and unlimited workflows on Grow let a very small team run a large community.
- The transaction fee falls to 1.25 percent, lower than Circle's Business tier and Mighty Networks' Scale tier, for communities that get to that volume.
- A 14-day trial with no credit card required, which is a cleaner evaluation than Skool's card-required auto-converting trial.
Limitations
- Member-count pricing bands are the wrong shape for free communities, since 5,000 members costs $149 a month whether or not any of them pay you anything.
- The 5 percent Build transaction fee is the highest published rate among serious platforms here, and stacking it on Stripe means roughly 7.9 percent all-in on the entry plan.
- The branded mobile app requires the $849 Scale tier, which is a very expensive way to get your own icon on a phone.
- The step from Grow to Scale is a 5.7-fold price increase triggered by member count, with no intermediate tier to soften it.
- No SSO, no support-desk integrations, no ideas portal, and no search-indexed public discussion, so it is not a candidate for a B2B customer community.
- The company is small and lightly funded, with roughly $700,000 in disclosed angel funding and no priced institutional round announced as of 2026, which is a genuine consideration when the platform will hold your revenue and your archive.
- API access starts on Grow, so a Build-tier customer has no programmatic route to export their own data.
Head-to-head comparisons
4 alternativesHeartbeat vs Circle
from $89 per month (Professional)Circle costs $89 with unlimited members and a 2 percent fee, against Heartbeat's $49 for 350 members and a 5 percent fee. Circle is forum-shaped with a deeper monetization and email stack; Heartbeat is chat-shaped with better automation workflows and a custom domain at half the price. Take Heartbeat for a small chat-heavy community where the real-time feel matters. Take Circle the moment membership numbers or revenue grow, because unlimited members and a lower fee will beat Heartbeat's banding quickly.
Full Heartbeat vs Circle comparisonHeartbeat vs Skool
from $9 per month (Hobby)Skool costs $9 or $99 with no member limits at all, but gives you one fixed layout and permanent Skool branding. Heartbeat costs $49 to $849, bands you by member count, and gives you channels, threads, voice rooms, documents, workflows, and your own domain from the entry plan. Choose Skool if cost and simplicity dominate and you do not mind being a tenant; choose Heartbeat if you want real structure, automation, and a community that lives at your own address.
Full Heartbeat vs Skool comparisonHeartbeat vs Mighty Networks
from $79 per month, or $950 per year (Launch)Mighty Networks at $79 with a 2 percent fee and unlimited members is the safer choice for a growing community, and it is stronger on cohort courses and structured member matchmaking. Heartbeat is cheaper to start at $49, feels more like Discord, and has better automation workflows. If your community is conversational and small, Heartbeat wins; if it is course-led and growing, Mighty Networks wins on both member limits and fee structure.
Full Heartbeat vs Mighty Networks comparisonHeartbeat vs Whop
from $0 per month, then 2.7 percent plus 30 cents per successful card transactionWhop charges no monthly fee and takes 2.7 percent plus 30 cents, with a large marketplace that can send you buyers, and it will gate a Discord you already run rather than asking you to move. Heartbeat charges $49 a month and gives you a real product with courses, documents, workflows, and your own domain. If you already have a Discord and only need billing and access control, Whop is cheaper; if you want to own the community experience end to end, Heartbeat is the actual platform.
Full Heartbeat vs Whop comparisonImplementation & onboarding
- Setup time
- A live community in an afternoon. Channel structure, a course outline, a landing page, and Stripe connection are all self-serve, and the custom domain is included from the entry tier so you are not deferring that step.
- Learning curve
- Low for anyone who has used Discord or Slack, which is most of the target market, and that familiarity is the main argument for the chat-first model. Automation workflows are the one area with a real learning curve, and they are also where most of the operational value sits.
- Onboarding
- Self-serve on Build and Grow with a 14-day trial and no credit card. Scale adds dedicated onboarding and same-day support. There is no mandatory implementation service at any tier.
- Migration notes
- There is no bulk importer for another platform's discussion archive, so moving in from Discord or Circle means recreating structure and re-inviting members. Moving out is constrained by tier: API access starts on Grow, so Build customers have no programmatic export path and would be extracting content by hand. If data portability matters, do not build a serious archive on the entry plan.
Platform, API & security
- Platforms
- Web appNative iOS appNative Android appBranded iOS and Android apps on ScaleCustom domain hosting
- API
- API access from the Grow tier, covering member and content operations, plus Zapier for teams that would rather not write code. No API on Build.
- Compliance
- GDPRPayment processing handled through Stripe
- Data residency
- Not published.
- SSO
- Not offered. Members authenticate with Heartbeat accounts, which rules the platform out for internal or product-authenticated communities.
- Security notes
- Heartbeat does not publish an audit certification or trust centre on its public site. Payments run through Stripe. Buyers with a formal security review should request current documentation directly rather than assuming SOC 2 coverage.
Support & resources
- Channels
- Email support on all plansPriority support on GrowSame-day support and dedicated onboarding on Scale
- Documentation
- Help centre covering channels, courses, events, workflows, payments, custom domains, and the API.
- Community
- Heartbeat runs its own community of Heartbeat operators on the platform, which functions as both support channel and product demonstration.
Company
- Founded
- 2020
- Headquarters
- New York, New York, United States
- Ownership
- Venture-backed, angel and seed stage
- Founders
- Murtaza Bambot, Mayhul Arora
- Employees
- Not published
- Funding
- Approximately $700,000 in seed-stage angel funding from Reform Ventures, Outlander VC, Social Starts, Maroon Alliance, and individual angels. No priced Series A or later round has been publicly disclosed as of 2026.
Funding history
| Round | Amount | Year | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Seed / angel | Approximately $700,000 | 2021 | Participants included Reform Ventures, Outlander VC, Social Starts, and Maroon Alliance. |
Timeline
- 2020Founded in New York by Murtaza Bambot and Mayhul Arora, building a chat-first community platform shaped more like Discord than like a forum.
- 2022Adds courses, documents, and events, turning the chat product into something a coaching or cohort business can sell.
- 2024Ships automation workflows, letting very small teams run large communities through triggers rather than manual member chasing.
- 2025Reports passing 37,000 communities on the platform and more than $25M paid out to creators.
- 2026Launches Pulse AI, which builds courses, pages, and workflows and assists with member engagement.
Integrations
- Stripe for payments and subscriptions
- Zoom
- Google Calendar
- Zapier
- API access on Grow and Scale
- Email notifications with white-label sending on Grow and above
Frequently asked questions
11 questionsWhat is Heartbeat?
Heartbeat is a community platform for creators, coaches, and cohort programs. It uses Discord-style channels and threads as its structure, then adds courses with progress tracking, live events with recordings, documents, voice and video rooms, automation workflows, a member directory, and a subscription checkout, all on your own domain with iOS and Android apps.
How much does Heartbeat cost?
Build is $49 a month, or $40 billed annually, for up to 350 members. Grow is $149, or $124 annually, for up to 5,000 members. Scale is $849, or $766 annually, for unlimited members. There is a 14-day free trial with no credit card required, and no free plan.
What is Heartbeat's transaction fee on paid memberships and courses?
5 percent on Build, 2.5 percent on Grow, and 1.25 percent on Scale, charged on top of Stripe's own processing of roughly 2.9 percent plus 30 cents. The Build rate is the highest published fee among the serious platforms in this category, so the all-in cost on the entry plan is close to 7.9 percent plus 30 cents per charge. The Grow upgrade pays for itself on fees alone at around $4,000 in monthly sales.
How do member limits work and what happens when I exceed them?
Pricing is banded by member count: 350 on Build, 5,000 on Grow, unlimited on Scale. This is the key structural difference from Circle and Skool, which do not limit members at all. It means a large free audience pushes you up a tier without generating revenue to pay for it, and the jump from $149 to $849 at 5,000 members is the steepest single step in this category.
Can I run Heartbeat on my own domain and white-label it?
The custom domain is included on every tier including the $49 Build plan, which is unusually generous. White-label email under your own sending identity starts on Grow. A fully branded mobile app in the App Store under your own name requires the $849 Scale tier, and there is no cheaper route to it.
Are courses and events first-class features?
Yes, and unlimited on every tier. Courses support modules, lessons, and member progress tracking, running self-paced or as timeline-based cohorts, which is the format most coaching businesses actually sell. Events support RSVPs, recurring series, and automatic recordings that return to the community. Video hosting allowances, though, only start on Grow at 50 hours.
Does Heartbeat have mobile apps?
Yes, native iOS and Android apps on every tier, including the entry plan. They carry Heartbeat's branding until you reach the Scale tier, which is the only plan that includes your own branded app in the App Store and Google Play.
Will my Heartbeat community be found in Google?
No, and you should not plan on it. Heartbeat is architected around a gated, chat-first experience for paying members, not around public indexable discussion. If organic search traffic from community content is part of your acquisition plan, Discourse or Bettermode are built for that and Heartbeat is not.
How is Heartbeat different from just running a free Discord?
The structure is deliberately similar, which is the point. What you get on top is a paywall with recurring billing, a course builder with progress tracking, documents, automation workflows, a member directory, a custom domain, and a mobile experience that belongs to you rather than to Discord. What you give up is Discord's price of zero and its enormous existing user base. If your community is free and casual, Discord is fine; if you are charging for it, Discord has no answer.
How hard is it to get my data out of Heartbeat?
Harder than it should be on the entry plan, because API access starts on Grow. A Build customer has no programmatic export route and would be extracting content manually. There is also no bulk importer for another platform's archive coming in. If a portable archive matters to you, do not build one on the $49 tier.
Who owns Heartbeat and how financially stable is it?
Heartbeat was founded in 2020 in New York by Murtaza Bambot and Mayhul Arora. It has raised roughly $700,000 in seed-stage angel funding from investors including Reform Ventures and Outlander VC, and no priced Series A or later round has been publicly disclosed. The company reports over 37,000 communities and more than $25M paid to creators. It is a real business, but it is far more lightly capitalized than Circle or Mighty Networks, which is worth weighing when the platform will hold your revenue.
Editorial verdict
Heartbeat is the best answer for a specific and common situation: you have a community that behaves like a Discord server, and you want to charge for it without losing what makes it feel alive. Channels, threads, and voice rooms preserve the real-time energy, while courses, documents, workflows, and a checkout make it a business, and the custom domain on the $49 plan undercuts everyone. The catch is the pricing shape. Member-count bands punish free growth, the 5 percent entry fee is the steepest here, and the $149 to $849 cliff arrives on member count rather than on revenue. Buy it for a paid chat-first community in the few-hundred to few-thousand range, ideally sitting on the Grow tier where the economics are genuinely good. Look elsewhere if your community is free and growing, if you need SSO or public search visibility, or if a lightly funded startup holding your subscription revenue is a risk you would rather not take.
Written by the SaaSTracker editorial team. Awards, when shown, are judged against the published criteria in our methodology.