Verified · Trustpilot
The codebase was well documented and AI Agent friendly and security has been taken as a foundational component, not an afterthought as in many "vibe coded" products.
Kerry Patrick
Seedly CRM owner, agency
Seedly Communities vs Heartbeat Same toolkit. One payment.
Heartbeat is the closest thing to Seedly Communities in the rental market, feed, chat, courses, events, live rooms, payments. The difference is the deed. Their unlimited-members tier is $849 a month. Ours is $399 once.
Seedly Communities
$399
one time
You own itThe full source code, yours forever.
Heartbeat
$1,788
/ year
You rent itBuild is $49 a month, capped at 350 members with a 5% fee. Unlimited members costs $849 a month.
VS
The honest version
Feature parity, business-model gap.
Heartbeat deserves the honest credit first. It is a well-scoped product with custom domains on every plan, real monetization, and built-in automations, the closest feature-for-feature rival Seedly Communities has.
The structure is the story. Member caps per tier, 350 on Build and 5,000 on Grow, with unlimited only at $849 a month. Revenue fees of 5%, 2.5%, or 1.25% stacking on Stripe by tier. A branded app locked at the top tier, while the app that exists rates around 3.5 stars, with documented reports of white screens, phantom notification dots, and posts that appear published but never publish. Export means filing a support ticket.
When the feature lists match this closely, the comparison collapses to the business model. Rent the toolkit forever, with caps and fees, or buy the toolkit once for $399.
Side by side
Seedly Communities vs Heartbeat, row by row
Seedly Communities
Heartbeat
Price
$399 once
$49, $149, or $849 a month
Member caps
Unlimited
350 on Build, 5,000 on Grow, unlimited at $849/mo
Transaction fees
0%, your own Stripe
5%, 2.5%, or 1.25% by tier, plus Stripe
Own the software
Full source + commercial license
Never
Feed, chat, courses, events, live
All included
All present, comparable scope
Custom domain
Yes, with full design tokens
Yes, on all plans
Branded mobile app
Capacitor shells you configure
A managed branded app, at the $849 tier
Mobile experience today
Responsive web + shells
A dedicated app, rated about 3.5 stars with documented bugs
Managed hosting + uptime
Yours to run
Fully managed
Instant start
A guided deploy weekend
Live today
Automations
12 built-in workflow types + webhooks
Built-in automations
Data export
You hold the database
Support-ticket CSVs
Price
Seedly Communities$399 once
Heartbeat$49, $149, or $849 a month
Member caps
Seedly CommunitiesUnlimited
Heartbeat350 on Build, 5,000 on Grow, unlimited at $849/mo
Transaction fees
Seedly Communities0%, your own Stripe
Heartbeat5%, 2.5%, or 1.25% by tier, plus Stripe
Own the software
Seedly CommunitiesFull source + commercial license
HeartbeatNever
Feed, chat, courses, events, live
Seedly CommunitiesAll included
HeartbeatAll present, comparable scope
Custom domain
Seedly CommunitiesYes, with full design tokens
HeartbeatYes, on all plans
Branded mobile app
Seedly CommunitiesCapacitor shells you configure
HeartbeatA managed branded app, at the $849 tier
Mobile experience today
Seedly CommunitiesResponsive web + shells
HeartbeatA dedicated app, rated about 3.5 stars with documented bugs
Managed hosting + uptime
Seedly CommunitiesYours to run
HeartbeatFully managed
Instant start
Seedly CommunitiesA guided deploy weekend
HeartbeatLive today
Automations
Seedly Communities12 built-in workflow types + webhooks
HeartbeatBuilt-in automations
Data export
Seedly CommunitiesYou hold the database
HeartbeatSupport-ticket CSVs
Competitor pricing, fees, and review scores verified September 2026 from vendor pricing pages and cited third-party sources. Plans change often, so confirm current details on each vendor's site. Seedly Communities is a one-time license plus your own hosting on accounts you control.
The math that matters
Unlimited members, two prices.
Heartbeat's Grow plan is $149 a month, $8,940 over five years, and it caps you at 5,000 members. Build is $49 a month, $2,940 over five years, capped at 350 members with a 5% revenue fee. Unlimited members their way is $849 a month, $50,940 over five years. Unlimited members our way is $399, once. That is the starkest per-member math in the category.
The fees stack too. At $30,000 a year in member revenue on Grow, the 2.5% cut is about $750 a year on top of rent, before Stripe's own fees.
Seedly Communities has no member, seat, or admin caps, no revenue fee, and payments run through your own Stripe. Your ongoing cost is your own Convex and Vercel hosting. Bought together with Seedly CRM in one checkout, it is $249.
The real thing
This is the community you own. Not a demo, not a mockup.
your-community.com
Real-time chat, DMs, reactions, and typing indicators, with unlimited members and 0% fees, bought once.
The whole point
Growth should not be an invoice.
The caps are the quiet upgrade engine. Member 351 on Build is not a milestone, it is an invoice. On software you own, growth costs you nothing extra, which is the whole reason to own a toolkit you already like.
And the rent does not buy reliability. The 3.5-star app reports, white screens and posts that never publish, come from paying customers. Our mobile story is honest and modest, responsive web plus Capacitor shells you configure, but nothing about your community waits on a landlord's bug queue.
Owner Reviews - The Receipts
Don't take our word for it. Take theirs.
Every review 5 out of 5 on Trustpilot. These are Seedly owners on the code they were handed and whether I stood behind it. I build Seedly Communities the same way.
Read every review →Verified · Trustpilot
The ability to customize to the specific needs and functionality we need is immeasurably valuable.
Roc
Seedly CRM owner, agency
Verified · Trustpilot
The codebase made that far easier than it had any right to be: clear structure, sensible boundaries, and comments that explain why something works the way it does rather than restating the code.
Mike Wallerich
Seedly CRM owner, builds on the source
Verified · Trustpilot
You get the entire code base. So, you can just use Claude to add features or customize it any way you want.
Aaron Burleson
Seedly CRM owner
Verified · Trustpilot
Even if you do have some technical knowledge, what you're able to build on top of it and integrate with everything is just very impressive.
Will Hamilton
Seedly CRM owner, in-house dev team
Verified · Trustpilot
Andrew (the developer) did a great job and has always provided support.
Steve D
Seedly CRM owner
Verified · Trustpilot
Own your tech! No longer held hostage to features and unwanted downtimes at the most inconvenient time.
Jason Jackson
Seedly CRM owner
Verified · Trustpilot
The code is well documented and has plenty of help steps along the way that make setup and installation much simpler than they would otherwise be.
Jeremiah Svaren
Seedly CRM owner, resells to clients
Verified · Trustpilot
Andrew has been fair, and sometimes more than fair, in his interactions I've seen with prospects and customers (including me).
Matt Gordon
Seedly CRM owner
Verified · Trustpilot
Absolutely recommend to anyone who wants to be able to create the build of their dreams without starting from scratch.
Rain Delaware
Seedly CRM owner
Verified · Trustpilot
The reason I love Seedly is ownership, because you own the codebase instead of renting and watching the provider change things constantly.
Joshua Lockhart
Seedly CRM owner
Verified · Trustpilot
A true masterpiece of software that has a completely different model. You buy it, you own it, you have full control of it.
John Marx
Seedly CRM owner
Verified · Trustpilot
Andrew has created a tool that grows with you and doesn't lock you into anything you don't want.
Aaron Rountree
Seedly CRM owner
Verified · Trustpilot
It's expertly packaged, which makes it easy to work and build with. I'm not too technical myself, so the ease of use for this is why I recommend it to even beginners.
Christian Peralta
Seedly CRM owner
Verified · Trustpilot
Very well designed, completely worth the money.
Justin Deleon
Seedly CRM owner
Verified · Trustpilot
Andrew knows his stuff and has built an amazing software. Not only a solution for any business, but built with the end user truly in mind.
Lewis Vandervalk
Seedly CRM owner
Every review, 5 out of 5.
Read all reviews on Trustpilot →
Getting out
Getting out of Heartbeat, honestly.
Heartbeat's export runs through support tickets, posts, comments, docs, and members per their help docs. Request everything before you cancel, while the account still answers.
Then the standard manual move. Invite members through Seedly's invite links and email invites, re-seed your cornerstone content, and re-anchor subscriptions on your own Stripe with fresh opt-ins. No importer exists on our side.
Straight talk
When Heartbeat is the right call
Heartbeat gives you managed hosting, built-in automations, and a real if rough dedicated mobile app today, with zero deploy work. If you will never touch a deploy dashboard, rent theirs.
If you can spend one setup weekend, own ours.
Andrew
Founder, Seedly Communities
Questions, answered
Seedly Communities vs Heartbeat, the common questions
Feature for feature, what is actually different?
Less than you would think on the toolkit, feed, chat, courses, events, live, payments, both sides have them. The differences are the deed, the caps, and the fees. Heartbeat rents you the toolkit with member caps and a revenue cut. Seedly sells you the source once, with unlimited members and 0% fees.
Does Seedly have built-in automations like Heartbeat?
Yes. Twelve engagement automation types ship built in, welcome posts, at-risk member outreach, abandoned-cart recovery, onboarding drips, streak recovery, event follow-ups, and more, configured from the admin Workflows screen without code. Outbound webhooks and the REST API are there too for wiring into external tools.
What happens at member 351?
On Seedly, nothing, there are no member caps anywhere in the code. On Heartbeat's Build plan, member 351 is the moment you upgrade tiers, which is how caps are designed to work.
What about the mobile app?
Seedly ships responsive web plus Capacitor iOS and Android shells you configure and submit yourself, there is no managed native app service. Heartbeat has a dedicated app today, currently rated about 3.5 stars with documented bugs. Both halves of that sentence are true, so weigh them honestly.
What do I need to run it?
Your own Convex, Vercel, and Stripe accounts, plus Daily.co for live video and SendGrid or Postmark for email plus a guided deploy weekend. It is source you own, deployed on infrastructure you control, with no tier ladder waiting as you grow.
Stop renting. Own the thing your community runs on.
Buy the source once. Run it yourself. It is yours for good.
$399Once
One payment. Unlimited members. 0% platform fees.
- Full platform source code
- Unlimited members, no caps or seat fees
- 0% transaction fees, your own Stripe
- Feed, chat, classroom, events, live video
- Gamification with points, levels, and streaks
- White-label design tokens + your domain
- Commercial license included
Secure checkout via Stripe. Your license key is emailed instantly.
Compare Seedly Communities with others