Opportunities › Community chat platform pricing for large groups › Proposed app
Hearthroom
Flat-price group chat for clubs and non-profits. Add every member, pay one fee.
- Score
- 53
- confidence 58
- Evidence
- 8
- items on the page
- Rivals
- 3
- named in sources
- First version
- 45 d
- estimate
- Type
- Desktop and mobile
- PWA: on computers and phones alike
ScreensConcept
Desktop and mobile: Community admins set up billing and manage roles at a desk, while members chat and check channels throughout the day on phones. Sample screens on a computer and a phone, in the proposed brand. Their numbers are sample data.
Plan
Within band$29/mo
- Band
About this appAI proposal
Hearthroom is a chat app for communities of 50 to a few thousand people. You pay one monthly price set by the size band of your group, not a fee for each member. Adding a volunteer, a newcomer or a lurker never raises the bill.
It is made for organizers of non-profits, hobby clubs and enthusiast groups, such as retro computing communities. Channels, threads, voice-free text rooms, roles and searchable history are included on every tier, so you do not pay extra to unlock basics.
Existing tools either charge per seat, which gets costly as a group grows, or are free but tied to one platform's rules. Hearthroom keeps the cost predictable and shows you the next price step before you reach it.
- Tagline
- One fee for the whole community. Add everyone.
- Voice
- WarmPlainDependable
- Why this name
- A hearth is where a group gathers, and a room is where chat happens. Two plain words, easy to say, and they suggest warmth instead of cost.
In the first version
Members say which features they would use. It tells PWAS what people want; it changes no score.
One price per size band
Pick a band such as up to 100 or up to 500 members. Everyone inside it gets every feature, with no per-seat charges.
No member yet
Price step preview
See how close you are to the next band and what it would cost, with a notice before any change. No surprise invoices.
No member yet
Channels and threads
Organize talk by topic with channels, threaded replies, pins and search across the full history.
No member yet
Roles for volunteers
Give moderators, event leads and newcomers different permissions. Rotate roles as volunteers change.
No member yet
Brand identityAI proposal
Check the name against trademark registers before using it.
Palette
#C2501FEmber · primary#FBF5EAParchment · surface#2A2320Charcoal · text#4C7A5AMoss · accent#E8D9BFSand · secondary surface#1F4B52Deep Teal · data
Typography
Aa
Hearthroom
PricingAI proposal
The material gives Discord Nitro at about $9.99/month and a $8 per user per month rival. Slack's verified page lists €8.25 to €18 monthly plans. Our flat tiers are a starting point to test.
Small
$9 a month
- Up to 100 members
- All features
- Unlimited history
Community
$29 a month
- Up to 500 members
- All features
- Roles and approval queue
- Annual invoicing
Large
$79 a month
- Up to 2,000 members
- All features
- Priority support
- Annual invoicing
Would you pay Small · $9 a month?
Your answer tells PWAS which prices people accept. It changes no score.
No answers yet.
What it could be worthEstimate
What a software business making this much sells for today, from real deals. Pick a monthly revenue.
If it makes
Worth about
$194,000
Sale range $132,000 to $263,000
$120,000 a year in revenue
From 87 software businesses listed and sold on Empire Flippers in the last year, revenue vetted by the broker: they sell for about 19× their monthly revenue, most between 13× and 26×.
Measured on profit, the middle deal is 32× monthly net profit: about 2.7 years of profit.
An estimate, not an offer or financial advice. A real price depends on profit, growth, churn, how much of the work is the owner's, and the buyer.
How it would growAI proposal
How the product would reach new customers through its own use, and how the first ones would be found. A plan to test, not a result.
- Built-in loop
- Users invite others. Organizers share invite links in their forums and social pages. Every new member joins the community by link and sees the Hearthroom name on the join page and in the installed app.
- Do they become customers?
- Members of one community are often organizers of another club or non-profit, so some could become buyers. Test how many invited members go on to start their own paid community.
- First customers
- Volunteer organizers of hobbyist and non-profit communities of 80 to 400 members, starting with retro computing and similar enthusiast clubs that already pay for or look at chat tools.
- Where to reach them
- Hacker News threads: Join discussions on chat pricing and offer to migrate a few groups by hand, with free setup help.
- Hobby forums and clubs: Post in retro computing and maker forums offering a pilot with a locked flat price.
- Non-profit tech groups: Reach treasurers and admins in volunteer-tech communities with a cost comparison sheet.
- First milestone
- Five communities of 100 or more members paying a flat monthly fee, and still active after 60 days.
Why people already pay for this
- Public claimSlack pricing was too expensive for a nonprofit, and the cost continues to climb as the organization grows.
- Public claimOrganizations are actively switching from Slack to free alternatives due to pricing concerns.
- Public claimDiscord is being adopted as a free alternative to paid team communication platforms.
- Public claimCommunity organizers find per-user pricing prohibitive at scale, even for modest group sizes
- Public claimLarge community organizers would accept higher absolute fees if priced as flat monthly subscriptions
Tech stack
Every proposal builds on the same PWA base, installable from the browser on any phone or computer. Dashed boxes are what this app adds.
- AppNext.js and TypeScript
- PWAManifest and service worker
- UITailwind CSS
- Data and authSupabase Postgres
- PaymentsStripe
- EmailResend
- HostingVercel
- This app · Realtime messagingManaged websocket or pub/sub serviceLive chat needs low-latency delivery and presence beyond what plain Postgres polling gives.
- This app · Push notificationsWeb Push via service workerMembers need alerts on phones when the app is installed as a PWA.
RisksAI inference
- CommercialFlat pricing may attract the largest, most active groups and leave margin thin. Band limits and the lower weight for read-only members need testing against real usage.
- CommercialCommunities already live on Discord, which is free for many. Moving a whole group is hard, and the evidence is public claims, not proof of willingness to switch.
- TechnicalReliable realtime delivery, offline sync and push on iOS web apps are harder than they look and shape the first version's quality.
- PlatformWeb push on iOS requires the PWA to be installed to the home screen, which may reduce notification reach compared with native apps.
- RegulatoryHosting user messages brings moderation duties, takedown handling and privacy rules, especially for groups with minors.
Everything marked AI proposal or AI inference was written by a model from the evidence on the opportunity page. The proposed name must be checked against trademark registers before it is used.