Heartbeat is a community platform that feels like Discord or Slack, with courses, events, documents and payments built in. It's for coaches and creators running paid communities, cohorts or memberships who want chat at the centre. There's a 14-day free trial with no card needed, and no free plan. Build is $49 billed monthly, or $40 a month billed annually as $490, for up to 350 members.
What it can do for you
Run channels and threads for discussion, host events, publish courses and documents, and sell memberships with checkout pages. Build includes five automation workflows, a custom domain and brand colours. For a cohort course with live calls, it puts everything in one place.
What people like
Reviewers like having chat, courses and events in one tool, with mobile apps and workflows to automate routine tasks. It suits groups that talk a lot.
The honest downsides
- 350 members on Build. Bigger communities need a higher plan.
- 5% fee on Build, on top of Stripe's processing fee.
- Stripe only. Reviewers note it's not an option where Stripe isn't available.
- Chat buries knowledge. Reviewers say older discussions are hard to find, so it's weaker as a knowledge base.
- No native call recording, and support experiences on Trustpilot are mixed.
Skip it if
- you want a searchable forum or knowledge base
- you expect more than 350 members soon
Alternatives
There's nothing we list that's clearly better for chat-first paid communities.
- Skool is simpler and cheaper to start, though its Hobby fee is higher.
- Circle for a more structured, branded community with unlimited members.
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