Bettermode

Companies that have outgrown a Slack or Discord group and want the archive to be theirs, on their own domain and indexable. Bettermode, previously Tribe and based in Toronto, sells that as a single hosted community rather than as seats.

Pricing is per community against a member cap. Starter is $499 a month, or $399 billed annually, for up to 10,000 members and 5 collaborators, with the core Q&A, discussion, events and polls apps, a custom domain and social login. Growth is $1,750, or $1,500 annually, for 25,000 members and 10 collaborators. Premium is quoted, starts at 100,000 members, and adds SAML, a 99.9% uptime SLA and a 90 day audit log.

The gap between the first two tiers is where the cost sits. Growth is 3.76 times Starter's annual price for 2.5 times the members, because it is really where the API, webhooks, sandbox, OAuth2 and the removal of the "Powered by Bettermode" badge live. A team at $399 a month has no documented way to get its members or posts back out. No import path is published either, which is awkward for a product sold as the replacement for a group that already holds years of history.

Discourse is the open-source comparison and can be self-hosted for nothing. Circle starts at $89 a month and takes a cut of paid memberships instead. Flarum is the free option for teams with a server. Filed under community forum software.