Reign vs Heartbeat.

Questions people ask before moving.

Can I run cohort courses and a community on the same Reign site?

Yes. Learnomy runs the courses, lessons, quizzes and certificates, and BuddyNext gives each cohort its own space with a feed and member list. Students sign in once and move between the classroom and the discussion without a second account. Between cohorts the site stays up as a library and alumni space, so the people who finished one run are still there to welcome the next. You can see the shape on the course community demo on /demos/ before you set anything up.

Can I replicate Heartbeat chat on WordPress?

Partly. BuddyNext gives you direct messages (with MediaVerse), space 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 bills every month whether or not a cohort is running. Reign is a flat theme licence 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 on an entry-level plan. Past a few thousand active members you want managed hosting with object caching. The bill follows your traffic, not your member count, 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.