Perfect themes
I purchased Reign theme from Wbcom Designs, the support team was very helpful and I got the perfect website what I was looking for. Good work Wbcom Designs
Real-time community · $179-$499/month
Reign vs Heartbeat.
Heartbeat is Discord-style chat built for paid communities, and for a cohort programme where the conversation is the product it does that well. Reign costs a one-off licence instead of $179 to $499 every month, runs courses natively rather than embedded, and can add events, a directory or a job board later without changing platform. The trade is the pace of live chat.
Honest take.
R
Reign wins
A one-off licence instead of $179 to $499 every month, which matters most for programmes that run in cohorts and go quiet between them. Courses run natively rather than embedded, so students never leave the site or hold a second login. Self-hosted, with the member and student records in your own database, and the freedom to add events, a directory or a job board later.
H
Heartbeat wins
Discord-style chat designed specifically for paid communities, with the paid layer built in rather than bolted on. For cohort programmes where the conversation is the product, the pace and informality genuinely drive engagement in a way a forum does not. The modern interface suits younger audiences, and the events and threads are well integrated with the chat.
What your members will notice.
Members notice the pace change immediately, because chat and a forum feel genuinely different, and a cohort mid-programme will feel it most. That is the argument for moving between cohorts rather than during one. What they gain is courses that live where the community lives, with no second login and no embedded player. Be direct that the chat is changing rather than hoping nobody mentions it.
6 comparisons.
| Feature | Reign | Heartbeat |
|---|---|---|
| Cost (3-year) | ~$1k | ~$6.5k-$18k |
| Real-time chat | BuddyNext messaging, free | Native + Discord-style |
| LMS / courses | Learnomy, installs free | Embedded only |
| Marketplace | WP Sell Services, free | Not supported |
| Source code | Yours, on your server | Closed |
| Job board or directory | WP Career Board + Listora, free | Not offered |
3 of our own plugins, and every one installs free.
Heartbeat embeds courses from elsewhere. Learnomy runs them on the same site and the same login, for nothing.
BuddyNext
Community engine
Member profiles, activity feed, groups, messages, notifications.
Free to install, Pro from $149/yr
Learnomy
Courses
Courses, lessons, quizzes, student progress, and certificates.
Free to install, Pro from $149/yr
Eventonomy
Events
Event listings, calendars, and free RSVPs.
Free to install, Pro from $69/yr
You buy the Reign theme once. These are ours and they install free, so the theme stays the only purchase until one part of your community earns enough to need its Pro plan.
What you are actually choosing.
Heartbeat is Discord-style chat built for paid communities, with threads, events and embedded courses on a monthly subscription. It suits cohort programmes and coaching groups where the conversation is the product. The choice is between renting a chat-first platform and owning a site that includes chat. BuddyNext gives you messaging, profiles, groups and a feed free, Learnomy runs courses natively on the same login rather than embedding someone else's, and Eventonomy handles the calendar. What you give up is the specific feel of a fast chat room.
What it costs over three years.
Heartbeat runs $179 to $499 a month, which is roughly $6,500 to $18,000 over three years, and the price tracks your plan rather than sitting still. Reign is $99 a year or $249 once, with the community, course and event plugins free. For a cohort programme running a few times a year the subscription can be dead weight between cohorts, whereas a licence does not care whether this month is busy.
What moving actually involves.
Heartbeat's export options are limited, so ask exactly what you can take out before you plan anything. Members are usually retrievable; chat history often is not in a usable form. That is less painful than it sounds, because chat is the least durable content you own. Rebuild the courses in Learnomy first since that is the material people paid for, move the events, and treat the chat archive as something you screenshot for reference rather than migrate.
When to stay on Heartbeat.
Stay on Heartbeat if your community lives in real-time chat and a cohort would stall without it. Fast, informal, Discord-style conversation is what it is built for, and BuddyNext messaging is a different thing with a different rhythm. If your members are in there all day and that is the value they are paying for, moving them to a forum will feel like a downgrade whatever the spreadsheet says.
How the pieces fit together.
Everything runs on one WordPress install, which is the part that changes how the site feels to use. One login, one member table, one set of roles. A member who joins the community is already the same person when they enrol on a course, RSVP to an event or post in the forum, because there is no integration between products, only plugins reading the same database. Against Heartbeat the notable change is that courses stop being embedded. Learnomy runs them on the same install and the same login, so a member's course progress and their community activity belong to one record rather than two systems linked by a URL. BuddyNext provides profiles, groups and messaging, and Eventonomy handles the cohort calendar with listings and RSVPs.
The first week.
Install the theme, BuddyNext and Learnomy, and rebuild the current cohort's course first, because that is the material people paid for and it has a deadline. Set up Eventonomy for the session calendar. Chat is the last thing to configure, not the first: get the durable material working, then decide how much of the conversation actually needs to move rather than assuming all of it does.
Questions people ask before moving.
- Can I replicate Heartbeat chat on WordPress?
- Partly. BuddyNext gives you direct messages, group conversation and notifications free, which covers a lot of it. What it does not reproduce is the always-on chat-room feel with instant presence. If that rhythm is the product, this is a real trade rather than a feature gap you can close.
- What happens to my courses?
- They move into Learnomy, free to install, which handles lessons, quizzes, progress and certificates natively. Heartbeat embeds courses from elsewhere, so this usually means your students stop bouncing between two logins, which is an improvement rather than a compromise.
- Can I export my chat history?
- Options are limited, so confirm what you can take before committing to a date. In practice chat history is the least valuable thing you own, because almost nobody reads a channel archive. Prioritise members and course content, and let the chat go.
- Is this cheaper for a small community?
- Usually, and more so if the community is seasonal. Heartbeat is $179 to $499 a month whether or not a cohort is running. Reign is $99 a year or $249 once with the plugins free, so quiet months cost you nothing beyond hosting.
- Do members need a new account?
- Yes. Password hashes never transfer between platforms, so everyone sets a new password once. Announce it clearly, more than once, and time it with something people want to come back for, like the start of a cohort or a new course release.
- Can I run cohorts with start and end dates?
- Yes. Learnomy handles enrolment and progress, drip content is available on the paid plan, and Eventonomy covers the session calendar. Combined with a membership plugin for access windows, a date-bound cohort behaves the way you would expect.
- What do I do about the chat archive?
- Realistically, let it go. Confirm what Heartbeat lets you export, keep anything genuinely reference-worthy as a proper post on the new site, and accept that almost nobody reads a chat archive. The energy is better spent on the course content.
- Is this viable for a small coaching business?
- Yes, and the economics favour it, especially if you run cohorts rather than a continuous programme. A subscription bills every month whether a cohort is running or not; a licence does not. The trade is that setup is your responsibility rather than a vendor's.
- What does hosting actually cost?
- Hosting is the running cost people forget to budget. A small community runs comfortably on shared or entry-level managed WordPress hosting for a few hundred dollars a year. Past a few thousand active members you want managed hosting with object caching, which is more like $50 to $100 a month. That is still an order of magnitude below $179 to $499 a month, and unlike a subscription it buys you infrastructure you control rather than access you rent.
- Can I move between cohorts without losing momentum?
- That is exactly when to do it. Finish the current cohort on Heartbeat, build the new site in the gap, and open the next cohort on it. Members arriving for a new programme have no expectation of the old platform, so the switch costs you nothing in momentum. Migrating mid-cohort is how you turn a platform change into a support problem.