Heartbeat

The short version

Heartbeat is the automation-minded one. Channels for threads and chat, groups, courses, events with Zoom and Google Calendar, a docs section, voice and video rooms, and workflows that do things when members do things: joined, finished a course, went quiet. It's Circle's feature list with a rules engine underneath, at a lower price.

The trade is the fee. 5% on the $49 plan, on top of Stripe, dropping to 2.5% at $149 and 1.25% at $849. And a member cap of 350 on Build that'll surprise anyone moving a Facebook group.

Heartbeat's own comparison page says Skool's gamification is "more developed" than theirs. Rare honesty from a vendor, and we've taken them at their word.

Pricing we checked

Three plans. 14-day trial, no card. Communities that don't upgrade are deactivated, and deleted after 30 days inactive.

• Build: $49/mo ($40 annual). 350 members including admins, 1 landing page, 5 workflows, weekly digest, badges and gamification, Zapier, Zoom and Google Calendar, member migration, Heartbeat branding.
• Grow: $149/mo ($124 annual). 5,000 members, 15 landing pages, unlimited workflows, auto-responder and DM rules, white-label emails, affiliate program, API, 50 hours native video, branding removed.
• Scale: $849/mo ($766 annual). Unlimited members, white-label branded mobile app, 50 landing pages, 200 hours video, dedicated onboarding, same-day support.

Unlimited channels, courses, groups and documents on every plan. Unlimited admins, who count as members.

The 350-member cap is the number to check before you buy. Free members count. A free group of 400 is a Grow plan at $149.

Transaction fees

5% on Build, 2.5% on Grow, 1.25% on Scale, on top of Stripe's 2.9% + 30¢. Heartbeat says so in its FAQ and again on its Skool comparison page. At $500/mo in sales, Build's fee is $25, so Grow pays for itself around $4,000/mo in revenue. Below that, Build plus 5% is cheaper.

Payments

Stripe only, your own account. Cards, Cash App Pay, Link, SEPA, iDEAL, Bancontact, bank transfers: whatever your Stripe supports. Rated "Stripe only."

Community and gamification

Thread channels for posts, chat channels for real-time, groups with their own channels, automated access groups driven by tags and purchases, a member directory, and voice and video rooms for up to 256 people with unlimited hours. Events with RSVPs, Zoom and Google Calendar. Documents as a wiki. Landing pages, waitlists, upsells, checkout pages, all inside.

Gamification: badges and what Heartbeat itself calls "partial gamification." No points ladder, no levels that unlock content, a leaderboard they rate as partial. Rated "Points or badges." If a leaderboard is your engagement engine, this isn't it.

Courses

Native courses with lessons, cohorts, drip and completion tracking, unlimited on every plan. Not LearnWorlds-deep, but a real course player inside the community, with workflows that fire on completion. Rated "Yes."

The three email questions

Does it send members a digest? Yes, weekly, and it's well designed. You pick a day and hour; it arrives in each member's own timezone. Top threads, upcoming events (listed first), unread DMs, mentions, new documents, new members, scoped to what that member can see. Skipped for anyone who opted out, lapsed, got one in the last five days, or had nothing new. Members can turn it off but can't change the frequency. Rated "Digest with content (daily or weekly)."

Can you email your members from inside it? Yes. Email-all-members broadcasts on every plan, posts sent as email, and workflows with email actions (5 on Build, unlimited on Grow). Auto-responders and DM rules on Grow. White-label sender on Grow. Rated "Sequences and automation."

Can you get your list out? Yes. Members export themselves, any time, from Manage Members. ESP sync is Zapier, or the API on Grow. No native Kit or Mailchimp app. Rated "Zapier or API only."

Getting in and getting out

Members in: Member data migration on every plan, with importers for Circle and Peerboard and a switch guide for Skool. Paying members from Skool need Skool's help, because Skool owns the Stripe relationship. Rated "Yes."

Members out: The member CSV is self-serve. Everything else is a support request: a ZIP of posts, comments, documents and course lesson text, with a link that expires in 48 hours. Not exported: chat messages, DMs, uploaded media (links only), events, offers, payment records, course structure and progress. Rated "Members, posts and comments," with those gaps noted.

Courses in: Rebuild. The importers bring community content; course structure doesn't survive either direction. Rated "Manual rebuild only."

Mobile app

Heartbeat's shared app on Build and Grow. Your own white-label app on Scale at $849/mo, which is the only "included" branded app on this site, at a price that makes BuddyBoss's $499/yr look like a rounding error. Rated "Your own branded app," because it's on a listed plan.

Who it's for

• Coaches and course businesses who want automations: tag, unlock, remind, nudge, without Zapier.
• Anyone leaving Circle for a lower price with the same shape.
• Communities that run on events and calls more than on a feed.

Who should skip it

• Anyone whose engagement model is a leaderboard. Heartbeat says so itself.
• Free communities over 350 people on a budget.
• Anyone who wants to export chat or DMs. You can't.

Known limitation

5% fee on Build, on top of Stripe. 350-member cap on Build including free members and admins. Gamification is badges only; Heartbeat's own comparison rates its leaderboard as partial. Content export is by support request and excludes chat, DMs, media, events and course progress.

Sources

Checked 16 Oct 2026 against the Heartbeat pricing page, Heartbeat's own "Heartbeat vs Skool" comparison (vendor-written, used for the gamification admission and fee confirmation), and help centre articles: How Weekly Digest Emails Work in Heartbeat; Can I request an export of my Heartbeat community?