Beeper is now free
TLDR: We are changing Beeper’s pricing
Beeper is now free to use! Previously, Beeper cost $10 per month.
Before you get your hopes up too much… we still have a waitlist that we are working through. But as soon as we send you an invite, you’ll be able to start using Beeper for free. Sign up on beeper.com.
Later this year, we will introduce an optional paid subscription with extra features called Beeper Plus.
Why make this change?
When we started building Beeper, our initial idea was to create a Superhuman-like app for pro users. Since we were building an app exclusively for professional users, it made sense to require a monthly fee.
But over time, I realized that my heart wasn’t in building a chat app just for pros. While I love using Superhuman and other high efficiency apps, I knew that if we focused exclusively on productivity, we would suck the joy out of chat.
Chat is not like email. At best, email is a to-do list that other people add things to. At worst, it’s an inbox filled with transactional alerts and spam. I don’t open my email inbox and feel happy.
For me, chat is very different. It is one of the few places online where I truly smile 😃. It’s a fun, vibrant place where I hang out with friends, share photos with family and work with my colleagues. I want to preserve that amazing feeling, and stop chat from turning into an email-like experience.
So, we adjusted our idea slightly and shifted to building what we think is the best chat app on Earth. We want you to fall in love with Beeper, make it your default chat app, and invite your friends to chat on Beeper as well.
But up until now, we charged everyone on Beeper a $10/month subscription fee. Most people are not ready to pay for a chat app, especially given that all other chat apps are free*.
Today, we are making Beeper free for everyone.
* Most chat apps are offered at no-cost to you, but come with dubious associated business models (harvesting your data to show ads, hardware ecosystem lock-in, etc).
How can we offer something this great for free?
Throughout 2022, we focused a lot on reducing the cost of running Beeper. Now we’re passing those savings along to you. We also recognized that in order to make it easy for you to recommend Beeper to your friends, Beeper needed to be free to use.
How will we make money?
Later this year, we will launch an optional paid subscription, called Beeper Plus, which includes additional features like larger chat history backup, access to multiple network connections, and more. By making Beeper free, more people will feel comfortable sharing it with their friends, enabling more people to start using Beeper. Through the optional paid subscription, we will earn enough money to run the app.
Currently, everyone who signs up for Beeper will enjoy a free trial of some features that will be part of Beeper Plus. Later in 2023, we will begin charging for Beeper Plus. We will give you a warning before then and switch everyone by default to the free plan. No credit card or payment is required to use Beeper.
The founders of Farcaster wrote a post on monetizing via subscriptions - we agree with it all!
FAQ
If you paid for Beeper already, thank you so much for your trust and support! As a token of our gratitude, we are pleased to offer you a free lifetime access to Beeper Plus.
If you are currently using Beeper, but did not prepay - we have not charged your credit card at all. If you would like to delete your credit card from your account, in Beeper Desktop click Settings → Manage Subscription.
How much will Beeper Plus cost? It will cost $5-10 USD per month.
Which features will be part of the free plan, and which will be in Beeper Plus?
We plan to shift only a few currently free features to Beeper Plus, and introduce a number of new features (adding multiple accounts per network) specifically for Beeper Plus subscribers.
Now I'm sad that I didn't have the cash to prepay my first year and jump the list. I plan to sub regardless but I'm one who prefers to pay more up front as an "endowment" rather than pay monthly forever. But on the flip side now I'll tell everyone I know to get on the waiting list. Keep up the great work, and I'm looking forward to the opportunity to support this software which has become a huge part of my daily life.
I've been using beeper for over a year now and it's been incredible to watch it grow and mature. I can't wait til it's available to more folks so they can experience it!