Growing an audience
Running the business
Both cover community platforms. Here is what separates them on price, billing, what you can take with you, and coverage.
| LaunchPass | NodeBB | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | From $29 | From $20 |
| Pricing model | Free plan, paid tiers | Free plan, paid tiers |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Billing | Monthly or annual | Monthly or annual |
| Free trial | 14 days | 14 days |
| API | Not stated | Not stated |
| Data export | Not stated | Not stated |
| Their cut | 3.5% of what you earn | Not stated |
| Runs on | Not stated | Web |
| Covers | Community Platforms, Memberships & Subscriptions, Monetization & Payments | Community Platforms |
| Works with | Discord | Nothing in particular |
| Founded | Not listed | Not listed |
| Reader rating | No reviews yet | No reviews yet |
| Live deals | None right now | None right now |
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.
Our note
Sensible if your community is already somewhere and already wanted. Compare it against DoorFee if the community is on Discord, since DoorFee sells the membership as well as gating it, and against Circle or Skool if you were half thinking of moving anyway.
Only on this side
Forum software you can host yourself
NodeBB is forum software in the old sense, with categories and threads, built on Node.js and released under the GPL. You can run it on your own server for nothing, or pay NodeBB to host it and keep the plugins and backups somebody else's problem. Hosted plans are sized by pageviews rather than by seats, so a busy community with three moderators costs the same as a quiet one with thirty.
Our note
Take the self-hosted route only if somebody on your side is comfortable keeping a Node application patched. Otherwise the $20 plan is cheaper than the hours, and it is the same software either way.
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.