
HipChat is now free for teams of 5 users or fewer - jpadilla_
http://blog.hipchat.com/2013/03/21/hipchat-now-free-for-teams-of-5-users-or-fewer/
======
jedberg
One critical thing I recently learned -- Hipchat is run exclusively out of
Amazon's US-East region. If you're using Hipchat for anything operational,
make sure you aren't also exclusively in US-East. Otherwise, if there is a
region-wide issue in Us-East, you're gonna have a bad time.

~~~
orourkek
Great point. But speaking from experience, if you're using Us-East
exclusively, you're [eventually] gonna have a bad time anyways...

~~~
jedberg
This is very true. :)

~~~
anonfunction
HipChat I hope your taking notes!

~~~
powdahound
Read you loud and clear. We are split across all 4 US-East availability zones
currently, but its true that we are not multi-region - yet.

~~~
jedberg
Hey there. Didn't intend to call you out, just wanted to make sure other's
didn't get bit. :) You don't have an email in your profile, but shoot me one
and maybe we can chat a bit more.

------
jtchang
Awesome. I am just looking into chat options for our small but growing team.

As an aside I think IRC is being sold short on this chart:

<https://www.hipchat.com/compare>

Nothing wrong against it since it is mosting a marketing comparison chart. IRC
is fairly hard to use if you aren't familiar with it already so I get it.

We decided to try out an IRC channel because it was easy to get started, no
cost really, and knowing how to connect to IRC is important if you ever want
to get support inside #python or #django. Plus lots of other open source
projects have IRC so it is good to know.

~~~
Fauntleroy
Shameless plug here, re: "IRC is fairly hard to use if you aren't familiar
with it already"

I'm currently working on a web based IRC client called Relay.js
(<https://github.com/Fauntleroy/relay.js>), which is my attempt at making IRC
a little more approachable. It's pretty basic at the moment, but I hope to
make it something really special in the coming months.

~~~
RaphiePS
Ooh, if you're open to suggestions, my number one frustration with IRC goes
like this: I'm connected and happily chatting, but then my Wifi blips and I'm
disconnected. There's no chat log, so I don't know what I missed. And on
crappy connections, this can happen pretty frequently.

I know there are programs that'll keep you online and collect chat logs even
if you disconnect, but it seems ridiculous to have to set up a server just so
I can chat.

If you fix this problem, I'd happily fork over at least $10/month, maybe more.

~~~
Fauntleroy
I have plans for something like that in the future, but first I'd like to
perfect the client itself (a persistent connection _would_ require a server).

For now you can always try out <https://www.irccloud.com> or
<https://github.com/thedjpetersen/subway>

~~~
glomph
<https://github.com/leedo/alice> is another one. Used to be hosted but they
stopped running it.

------
onemorepassword
HipChat has surprisingly been the most effective productivity tool we've taken
up in the past 5 years.

After only a month of use, virtually all communication and notification
streams (GitHub, Jenkins, Zendesk, systems monitoring) in our company have
converged in HipChat. It's hard to imagine we've ever done without.

------
tosh
This is great news. If you want to see why HipChat makes sense: take a look at
our integration with HipChat

[https://www.blossom.io/blog/2013/03/12/take-a-look-at-our-
ne...](https://www.blossom.io/blog/2013/03/12/take-a-look-at-our-new-hipchat-
integration.html)

If you have a product that creates more value for your customers if you
integrate with HipChat this is now a no-brainer :)

Revenue wise integrating was definitely worth it for us.

~~~
alittletooraph
I like that the project you decided to use in your mockup on your homepage is
"Duke Nukem Forever - release once it is perfect and not one second earlier".

~~~
tosh
We thought it would be funny :) But unfortunately some people don't get the
joke so we might change it going forward. Glad you like it :)

------
shanelja
Aside from the phone applications, what makes Hipchat better than say, Skype?

~~~
ryanbrunner
The biggest difference is that HipChat is primarily about "rooms" and less
about messaging individual people (although you can do that too). It makes for
much better team workflow, because it enables a lot more passive information
sharing. Most people in a room don't want to be actively involved in
everything, but they would like to passively just see what's going on.

Secondly, it's centralized around a company, so you know that everyone has
everyone else on HipChat, unlike Skype, where everyone needs to manage their
contact list separately.

Finally, the notification features are really nice. I can just @mention
someone's name, and it's like summoning them into the room to answer a
question for me. It's way smoother than adding someone to a Skype
conversation, since they'll be able to trace back the history of the
conversation.

~~~
timedoctor
Rooms can be created on Skype, that's the way we use skype in our business, we
create a group chat between all the relevant people and then favorite it and
it's the same as a room.

The contact list issue is good I think for larger companies especially in the
beginning.

I'm wondering about how the integrations could be used in our business, and
I'm also wondering if we can integrate our software with HipChat

~~~
ryanbrunner
I think the difference is that rooms are a _focus_ of HipChat, and an
afterthought / hack in Skype. Similar to how individual, "not in a room"
conversation is an afterthought in HipChat.

In both cases you can technically do it, but the app doesn't go out of it's
way to make it easy or well-supported. If you find you're using your favorited
lists to chat more than one-on-one conversations, I'd really recommend trying
out HipChat.

For what it's worth, we regularly use Skype at our office as well as HipChat.
They both excel at what they were designed to do, and we don't necessarily see
a problem with using two tools if it means you don't have to shove a round peg
into a square hole.

------
netcraft
Does it work with multiple organizations? Can I have an account that is free
for me and 4 friends, but also be part of an organization that someone else
pays for?

Or as a contractor - could I be part of two different paying organizations?

~~~
netcraft
Looks like that's not possible.

[http://help.hipchat.com/knowledgebase/articles/64418-how-
do-...](http://help.hipchat.com/knowledgebase/articles/64418-how-do-i-sign-in-
to-multiple-accounts-)

so I wonder how it works for billing - if my boss creates a room that has more
than 5 people in it and I join too, is it who opens the room that pays?

~~~
marcins
One person creates the "organisation", and then creates users/accounts within
that organisation (or invites people). The organisation pays the bills. I
assume it's not "first 5 people free" if you have more but either "up to 5
people free' or $2/mo/user - so if you have 6 it's 6 x $2/mo. Similar to
Atlassian's other products with their $10/10 user tier.

Looking at the Billing screen of our 45 user account it doesn't seem like
anything has changed (will still be $90/mo)

------
greg_mazurek
This is a perfect size team for using HipChat. We tried HipChat at Gilt with
around 40 engineers and it was too cumbersome because of the number of groups.

I hope they finally allowed users to edit their comments. That was one notable
issue I had. Also, there was no such thing as a "private" group because admins
had access to all groups.

------
kayoone
For <5 people, what does this give that a Skype Group conversation cant
especially as people will need to instal/use another client ?

~~~
sgk284
When my team and I started using HipChat, I wasn't really sure what to expect
(since every chat application prior to it seemed pretty much the same).

I've found these benefits:

\- Works on all of my devices. If someone @mentions me, it'll notify my phone
just like a text message and/or email me (unless I disable that). And I can
reply from my phone's hipchat client.

\- Chat rooms and 1-on-1 work seemlessly. Chat rooms can also be public or
private.

\- History is persistent and searchable.

\- Sharing files is as easy as a click. Sharing screenshots/mockups/images is
as easy as copy/paste (we use this a lot)

\- On the right-hand side of the chat room there is a list of all links &
files shared in the room that you can easily search through.

\- You can have guest access in chat rooms.

-It integrates with github and other services so that when we do certain things with our repository, it will notify one of our chat rooms.

And a million other little things. There is no single feature that made me
think "I must use HipChat, this is awesome.", but rather a bunch of minor
things that "just worked" and fit nicely together into a great experience.

It's worth every penny.

~~~
yarianluis
Not to mention that urls to images get posted in-line. Do you know how many
funny animated GIFs can be posted on a chat room?

This sounds like me being facetious, but it's a great morale booster for
teams.

------
ballard
I've paid for hipchat in the past for managing teams in multiple timezones
across the globe. Flowdock's ability to set tags and easily search
conversations is great when you need to find that one temporary server
password mentioned by a previous ops shift makes it much more useful in this
case. Flowdock take note re: pricing.

------
bredren
We were surprised to see our account go from paid to free this morning.
Hipchat has been a great tool for our startup. We had initial pushback that
IRC implementations could cover us and be free and better.

Hipchat was extremely easy and multiplatform. It just worked. (except animated
gifs sometimes) Even our strongest holdout for IRC has at least stopped
talking about IRC.

The company has been iterating on their new mac os x client with releases
every week or two since it launched. I'm still impressed with this company's
quality and am psyched that we now have one less bill to pay.

------
mathrawka
If you had 6 users, you were not converted to a free account (obviously).

I had an account that became unneeded today, so I removed it... and then I
contacted support about getting the free plan.

Their message about contacting support to get switched over is basically a lie
because they tell you to delete your account and sign up new.

Sure, I'm paying for it now and get value from it, but every dollar matters at
this point and if they are gonna help me save $10/month then I'd be happy! But
instead I feel jaded.

~~~
powdahound
Hey - Garret from HipChat here. That support info is not correct, and I'll
investigate. All you need to do is go to the billing admin area and select the
option to cancel your paid subscription. The message there will tell you that
you have 5 users and that it's OK to cancel.

------
Vitaly
I just don't get it how is that they don't understand that they really impair
the growth by not having cross-account chatrooms... We switched from Skype to
HipChat for our internal company communications, but we still use Skype for
chats with all the clients. IF only I could tell them to create an account so
we can chat... ugh. And no, I can't just give them access to our account, we
have plenty of open rooms that should still be company-only.

------
foobar2k
For those asking "why is HipChat better than X", one of the big reasons lies
with the number of integrations with other products.

Our product Bugsnag (<https://bugsnag.com>) has HipChat integration, so you
can instantly see errors from your apps appear in your chat room. We've also
set up curl scripts to post into chat whenever there is a deploy, or push to
GitHub.

------
brokentone
Genius move. Unless their infrastructure is really tuned for it, there is a
cost of doing business under, say $10/mo (not to say that there aren't
companies successfully doing micro payments and such). Premium support, CC
processing, etc add up. However, using this lower rung as a hook to get people
in the door is great, and it feels more honest than a trial window (although
I'm certainly not hating on trials)

------
timedoctor
Hi there powdahound, what is the main benefit of hipchat versus using Skype? I
see on the home page "persistant chat rooms" but I use that feature in skype
(I create a chat with several people and then favourite it). I'm not
understanding the potential benefit. We have a team of more than 40 people all
working virtually.

------
tempestn
Glad I saw this. We've got a team of three at SearchTempest and have been
communicating almost entirely by email and gchat thus far. Have been meaning
to try something a bit more feature rich for a while. Was planning to check
out Google Hangouts, but HipChat sounds ideal. Will give it a look.

------
jpadilla_
We've been using HipChat at Blimp since the very first day, we've even
integrated it as our Support Chat. We are only three at the moment but have
paid for up to 4 users. One less thing we have to pay for, and still be able
to use such a great product.

------
rheide
This is awesome news. I use hipchat every day for two different organizations.
Great product.

------
samirahmed
I think this is strategically a good move, as free and Open source
alternatives like Kandan would be more attractive to teams of under 5 users
than a paid (even though very affordable) solution like Hipchat.

------
daemon13
Unfortunately, I missed the IRC era.

Can someone recommend good tutorials on:-

1\. Using IRC [beginner] & [advanced]?

2\. How to set-up own IRC server and which are the good ones?

------
ax25
Or just use Google chat and this: <https://github.com/mattlong/hermes> Of
course, until Google pulls the plug.

------
ianstormtaylor
Anyone use HipChat and Olark? I'm worried that switching off our regular chat
will make me sign on more and our users won't be able to contact us on Olark.

------
ksec
I am still thinking since the files stored on Hipchat are public ( with a long
and hard to guess URL ). What are HN's take on this?

------
nubela
I signed up specifically just so I could have the bitbucket integration. But
hey, deadlink. Oh well.

~~~
powdahound
Fixed now - sorry about that. :)

~~~
nubela
Lets see! Thanks!

------
thomaslutz
Please release the self-hosted version, and we will start using it.

~~~
powdahound
We're working hard on it. If you'd like to get on the list early, and help us
by providing some info, please check here: <https://www.hipchat.com/firewall>

~~~
thomaslutz
I already did, thanks!

------
zdgman
Standard Atlassian MO for all of their products. They get you by having what
would be a fairly small team in your company (usually 5 people) using their
product and they are the trojan horse that then makes you end up purchasing a
license.

~~~
locopati
That sounds like it's either an unclear arrangement ('trojan horse') or a bad
thing ('makes you end up purchasing'). Atlassian makes great products and, if
your team/company grows to the size where you need to pay, the cost is far
less than the value of time saved. Sometimes, it's worth avoiding the hassle
of free/open-source projects for critical tools.

I say this is a very happy paying Atlassian paying customer.

~~~
zdgman
We pay for Atlassian products at my company as well. I just call their
business model the "trojan horse". I personally don't prefer their products
but that is not to say they are bad.

------
theltrj
I'm a little unclear, can i connect via an IRC client to this?

~~~
twodayslate
I think this is the only way?
[http://jasongarber.com/blog/2012/05/18/connecting-to-
hipchat...](http://jasongarber.com/blog/2012/05/18/connecting-to-hipchat-from-
irc)

------
phil_ives215
We switched from hipchat to hall.com and haven't looked back

------
orangethirty
Six people are $12 a month. Five people are $0 a month.

~~~
propelledjeans
If you hire a sixth person, I'm sure you can afford $12 a month.

~~~
orangethirty
But what if I'm an old customer with 6 people on the team? Now I see that they
are giving away what I have been paying for. Not a very strategically sound
decision.

~~~
axyjo
You've been paying for 6 users. You're still paying for 6 users.

~~~
alittletooraph
But what if he just hired that 6th person? Think of all the months he was
paying $10!

------
beachstartup
does anyone know the legality of using/modifying a movie poster in that way?

~~~
bryogenic
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_work>

