Heartbeat vs LaunchPass Comparison 2026
Heartbeat asks you to move the whole community onto its own platform, with channels, threads, courses and events built in, from $49 a month plus a 5 percent fee, no free plan. LaunchPass instead puts a paywall in front of a Discord, Slack or Telegram community you already run, free to start or $29 a month for Premium at a 3.5 percent fee on top of Stripe. Pick Heartbeat if the community has outgrown Discord and needs somewhere new. Pick LaunchPass to keep the community where it already lives.
A community with courses and events built in
Charge for access to a Discord or Slack group
At a glance
- LaunchPass starts cheaper, at $29.
- Only LaunchPass has a free tier.
- LaunchPass takes 3.5% of what you earn against Heartbeat's 5%.
Side by side
Heartbeat | LaunchPass | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price (they differ) | From $49 | From $29 |
| Pricing model (they differ) | Free trial, then paid | Free plan, paid tiers |
| Free tier (they differ) | No | Yes |
| Billing | Monthly or annual | Monthly or annual |
| Free trial | 14 days | 14 days |
Heartbeat
A community with courses and events built in
Heartbeat runs channels, threads, events, courses and a member directory in one place, which is the shape most creator communities end up wanting after outgrowing a Discord server. Payments run through it and it takes a cut that falls as the plan rises. There is no free plan, and a community that stops paying is deactivated rather than frozen.
Our note
Work out the transaction fee at your own revenue before comparing headline prices: at $5,000 a month collected, Grow costs less in total than Build. Against Circle and Mighty Networks this is the one with courses and events genuinely built in rather than bolted on.
Only on this side
- Covers courses & coaching
LaunchPass
Charge for access to a Discord or Slack group
LaunchPass puts a paywall in front of a chat community you already run, and hands out and removes the roles as people pay and lapse. It connects to Discord, Slack and Telegram, and the money arrives through your own Stripe account. It manages access rather than hosting anything, so the community stays where your members already are.
Why people weigh these two
- LaunchPass instead of Heartbeat
- LaunchPass answers the same monetization need without leaving chat, charging for access to a Discord or Slack group, free to start with paid plans from $29 a month.
- Heartbeat instead of LaunchPass
- Heartbeat starts at $49 with no free tier, more than LaunchPass' $29, but it hosts the whole community with courses and events rather than paywalling an existing Discord.
Which one should you pick
Pick Heartbeat if the chat platform itself is the problem, threads nobody can find later, no course player, no real event calendar. Build is $49 a month plus a 5 percent transaction fee, falling on the dearer plans, with a 14-day trial to move a group across and see whether they post. There is no free plan, and migrating a whole community is real work LaunchPass never asks you to do.
Pick LaunchPass if your community already exists on Discord, Slack or Telegram and works fine there, it just needs a way to charge for entry. There is a free tier and Premium is $29 a month with a 3.5 percent fee, and the money lands directly in your own Stripe account rather than being held. Nothing about the community has to move.
Common questions
- Do I have to move my community to use LaunchPass?
- No, that is the whole point of it: it paywalls a Discord, Slack or Telegram community you already run, in place. Heartbeat works the opposite way, hosting channels, threads, courses and events on its own platform instead.
- Which one is cheaper to start?
- LaunchPass has a free tier, and Premium is $29 a month with a 3.5 percent fee. Heartbeat has no free plan at all, starting at $49 a month plus a 5 percent fee, though that fee falls to 1.25 percent on its highest tier.
- Does LaunchPass host courses or events like Heartbeat does?
- No. LaunchPass only manages who has paid and grants or removes their role. Heartbeat runs the courses, the event calendar and the discussion itself, which is the reason to move rather than just add a paywall.
- Where does the membership money go with each one?
- With LaunchPass it lands directly in your own Stripe account. Heartbeat also runs payments through Stripe, but takes its transaction fee, 5 percent down to 1.25 percent by plan, off the top before the rest reaches you.
Ratings are the average of reviews readers left. The facts are stated by each tool’s own listing and are not verified by CloutStack. How we make money.