# Heartbeat

> Paid community platform with courses, events and member payments

Heartbeat is a platform for running a paid online community on your own domain, with chat channels, threaded discussions, direct messages, courses, documents and live events in one space. Memberships, one-time offers and paid waitlists are sold through built-in Stripe checkout, and Heartbeat keeps a share of each payment that falls from 5% to 1.25% on higher plans. Members use it in a browser or in desktop and mobile apps.

- **Category:** Courses & Communities
- **Made by:** Heartbeat Chat
- **Website:** https://www.heartbeat.chat
- **Runs on:** Web, macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS, Android
- **Facts last checked:** Oct 17, 2026

## Pricing

Heartbeat is a paid product with a free trial, starting at $40 per month, billed annually ($49 billed monthly).

- **Pricing model:** Free trial
- **Free plan:** None.
- **Free trial:** 14-day free trial, no credit card required.

| Plan | Price | What you get |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Build | $40 per month for up to 350 members, billed annually ($49 monthly) | Unlimited channels, courses, events and checkout pages, 5 automation workflows, 1 landing page, custom domain. Heartbeat keeps 5% of payments. |
| Grow | $124 per month for up to 5,000 members, billed annually ($149 monthly) | Unlimited workflows, 50 hours of video hosting, 15 landing pages, affiliates, API access, white-label emails, no Heartbeat branding. 2.5% fee. |
| Scale | $766 per month, unlimited members, billed annually ($849 monthly) | A white-label branded mobile app, advanced analytics, 50 landing pages, 200 hours of video and same-day support. 1.25% fee. Sold through a call. |

Read from https://www.heartbeat.chat/pricing on Oct 17, 2026. Prices change, so confirm with Heartbeat before buying.

## Ways to pay less

- **Save 17% with annual billing** (Annual discount): Build is $490 a year instead of $49 a month and Grow $1,490 instead of $149, two months free; Scale saves 10% at $9,200 a year. Source: https://www.heartbeat.chat/pricing

## Key features

- **Channels, discussions and messages:** Organize the community into public and private channels with threaded posts and live chat, plus one-to-one and group DMs and a member directory.
- **Courses and documents:** Evergreen courses with drip release or cohort courses with fixed dates, with quizzes, assignments and a discussion on every lesson, beside a document library.
- **Events and video rooms:** Live events with RSVPs, reminders, calendar sync and Zoom recordings, plus voice and video rooms for up to 256 people at once.
- **Payments and offers:** Sell subscriptions, one-time offers, tiered memberships and paid waitlists, with coupons, trials, upsells and ready-made checkout pages.
- **Workflows:** Send emails and DMs, grant access or follow up automatically when members join, attend, finish a course or go quiet. Build allows 5 workflows.
- **Pulse AI:** An AI co-builder that sets up the space, channels and first pages from a description of your community and builds landing pages.

## Good for

- Coaches and creators charging a monthly membership for a community
- Communities that mix discussion, courses and live calls in one place
- Members who want desktop apps as well as web and mobile

## Worth knowing

- Heartbeat keeps 5% of payments on Build, 2.5% on Grow and 1.25% on Scale, on top of Stripe's fee (typically 2.9% + 30 cents).
- Member limits count admins and moderators: 350 on Build and 5,000 on Grow.
- On Build, native video hosting is a $19 a month add-on with 50 hours; API access and removing Heartbeat branding start on Grow.
- The white-label branded mobile app is only on Scale, at $766 a month billed annually, which is sold through a call.

## ToolGPA grades

**GPA: 2.6 out of 4**, graded Oct 17, 2026. Heartbeat is a paid community with real chat: channels, threads, DMs, courses, events and video rooms for up to 256 people, in apps for every computer and phone. The fee is the catch. Build keeps 5% of payments on top of Stripe's, so $2,000 of sales a month costs $140, more than Circle or Mighty Networks.

- **Value for money: C.** Graded against its alternatives, community platforms. Build is $40 a month billed yearly but keeps 5% of payments, $100 on $2,000: $140 a month. Grow's 2.5% makes $174. Dearer than Skool Pro ($82.50), Mighty ($119) and Circle ($129), level with Kajabi ($143).
- **Free plan and trial: C.** No free plan, but a 14-day trial with no card needed, enough to set up channels and a first course.
- **Features: B.** Channels, threads, DMs, evergreen and cohort courses with quizzes, events with Zoom recordings, video rooms for 256, paid offers and waitlists, workflows and Pulse AI. Nothing in the listing shows a gap in the job; video hosting on Build is a $19 add-on.
- **Ease of use: C.** No App Store rating on record. Pulse AI sets up the space and channels from a description, but you're still building a community and its offers.
- **Platforms and integrations: A.** Web, Mac, Windows, Linux, iPhone and Android, the widest spread in this category, with Stripe, Zapier, Zoom, Google and Outlook calendars and an API from Grow.

These are ToolGPA's own grades. Graded from this listing, whose facts were read from Heartbeat's own pages on 17 October 2026. Not based on using the product, and shorter than our full reviews.

## Where it stands among course and community platforms

- Heartbeat's GPA of 2.6 is higher than 15 of the 18 other course and community platforms we grade.
- It stands best on platforms and integrations (A, above 18 of 18) and worst on ease of use (C, above 0).
- Its paid plans start at $40 a month, against a middle price of $41 for the category: 7 of the 17 others that charge start lower.
- On features, ease of use and platforms it scores 3.0 out of 4, and no tool on the category's chart scores higher without costing more.

The category's chart of price against score: https://toolgpa.com/charts/courses-communities

## Keep it, or make your own?

**Keep it.** To replace Heartbeat you would be making connections to other products, each kept working as those products change. That is not a weekend's work, with an AI app builder or without one. It is one of the better ones too: its GPA of 2.6 is higher than 15 of the 18 other course and community platforms we grade. It costs $480 a year.

- You could make: Online courses: an app builder makes this well.
- You could not: Connections to other products, each kept working as those products change.
- You could not: A members' space with posts, chat and events that people keep coming back to.
- You could not: Apps for macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS and Android that stay in step with each other.
- You could not: AI features, unless you pay a model provider for each request yourself.
- You could not: The depth: we grade its features B, which means it covers the whole job.

A judgement by ToolGPA from this listing, by rules that are the same for every tool. Nothing was built to test it.

## Works with

Stripe, Zapier, Zoom, Google Calendar, Outlook Calendar, Google Analytics, Meta Pixel, Google Tag Manager

**Tags:** Online courses, Community, AI features, Workflow automation, Public API

## Alternatives

- [Circle](https://toolgpa.com/tools/circle): Community platform with courses, events, payments and branded apps. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/circle-vs-heartbeat)
- [Skool](https://toolgpa.com/tools/skool): Community platform with courses, events and paid memberships. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/heartbeat-vs-skool)
- [Mighty Networks](https://toolgpa.com/tools/mighty-networks): Community platform with courses, livestreams and paid memberships. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/heartbeat-vs-mighty-networks)
- [Disco](https://toolgpa.com/tools/disco): Branded learning academy for cohort courses, community and AI help. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/disco-vs-heartbeat)
- [Kajabi](https://toolgpa.com/tools/kajabi): All-in-one platform for selling courses, coaching and communities. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/heartbeat-vs-kajabi)

## Sources

The prices, plans, platforms and features above were read from these pages on Oct 17, 2026:

- https://www.heartbeat.chat/pricing
- https://www.heartbeat.chat
- https://www.heartbeat.chat/feature/workflows
- https://www.heartbeat.chat/downloads
- https://www.heartbeat.chat/about

Page: https://toolgpa.com/tools/heartbeat
Listed by ToolGPA (toolgpa.com).