Beeper

Beeper drops its waitlist and will remain free to use following acquisition

Ben Schoon | Apr 9 2024 - 7:52 am PT

Beeper, the all-in-one chat app that launched back in 2021, is finally opening its services to all users, dropping invites for good and the waitlist that hundreds of thousands are on.

Starting today, Beeper is removing its waitlist and no longer requiring an invite for new users. Anyone interested in trying it out can simply download the app on Android, iOS, or desktop platforms and start using it for free.

Beeper notes that signup on Android is easier than ever, too. The new app, available in beta now, supports setting up network connections from your phone (the desktop app was previously required) and the app will now prompt you to save your recovery code to Google Password Manager. That recovery code is needed to access your chats should you get signed out of all your devices, and Beeper doesn’t store it for you.

Prior to this, Beeper’s Eric Migicovsky says that around 450,000 users were waiting for access to the service.

With that, the big question becomes what Beeper will cost, especially as a paid version of the app was teased previously.

Beeper will, according to Migicovsky, “always” have a free tier. This will effectively include the experience as it exists today, with the ability to connect different chat networks to use within Beeper. The paid subscription will, whenever it arrives, act similar to Discord Nitro or Telegram Premium, unlocking more powerful features. When asked for an example, Migicovsky explained that using multiple accounts of the same connection (two WhatsApp accounts) would be a premium feature.

Another big change to Beeper is that, going forward, there will be no more cloud bridges.

WhatsApp and Google Messages will both transition to an on-device-based system for syncing messages between apps and Beeper, as well as to your other devices. It’s a more secure model, and based in part off of the work done on Beeper Mini’s iMessage connection. This new model is already in place for Signal connections.

This all comes as Beeper has been acquired by Automattic, the company that owns and operates WordPress.com.

Eric Migicovsky, Beeper’s CEO and now “Head of Messaging” at Automattic, says that Beeper will continue to operate independently, but will have the resources of Automattic behind it. This will also see the team behind Beeper expanding greatly, as Automattic’s other (very similar) messaging product, Texts.com, will be “folded” into Beeper. Details on the transition for current Texts.com users aren’t available just yet.

Beeper is available now on Google Play for Android, and Migicovsky tells us that revamped desktop and iOS apps are “in the works.”