Multi-Service Messaging app Beeper, allowing people to connect to all their chat apps from an interface, restarts Wednesday to offer a safer version that no longer requires the use of its own cloud services. In addition, Beeper introduces Premium offers that provide access to more accounts than its free level and includes power user features such as reminders, the ability to send messages later, an incognito mode to read messages without marking them read, AI Voice Note Disctions and more.
Now owned by WordPress.com Maker Automattic, who bought Beeper for $ 125 million by 2024, the app has almost fully integrated with competitor text.com, which Automattic also acquired the previous year for $ 50 million.
With a combined 30-person team (including contractors) and now operating under the Beeper brand, the Messaging app supports WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, X, Telegram, Signal, Matrix, Slack, Google Chat, Discord, LinkedIn and Google Messages (SMS/RCS). Only on Mac computers can Beeper also connect users with their iMessage chat, although Apple has closed this access in previous versions.
According to Automattic, the overall goal is to simplify the problem of having too many messaging apps to keep up with, while also keeping these chat safe.
The app has previously associated with Beeper Cloud before communication with Messaging Network, Beeper CEO Kishan Bagaria said. While this system remains standard, users will now have the opportunity to switch to beeps on the device, which will see the app connected directly to the Messaging network and jump the middleman.
“It ensures that end-to-end encryption is preserved and your privacy is as good as the official app,” Bagaria told TechCrunch in an interview prior to the app’s relaunch. However, whether the companies involved will appreciate having their own apps bypassed, however, to see.
“We have good relationships with some of these companies, and some of them are okay with this,” said Bagaria. “Others, we haven’t really heard from much.”
To avert any shutdowns of Messaging network providers, Beeper aims to support the business models for first-party apps when possible. For example, if Telegram shows ads, these ads will also appear in beeps.
In addition, EU rules that require Messaging platforms could be interoperable, put pressure on messaging app providers to leave a solution like Beeper’s alone.
Alongside the relaunch, there will now be an opportunity to upgrade to a new $ 9.99 per year. Month Premium Plan, Beeper Plus, which allows users to connect to 10 messaging services instead of only the five that free users have access to.
In addition, Plus subscribers have the option of planning messages to be sent later can set reminders to follow up on chats, read messages in incognito mode so that they do not feel pressured to respond immediately, access more accounts per day. Network, see AI Voice Note Transcriptions (processed via Openais Whisper model with user context) and replace their app icon for a custom version.
An even higher level, Beeper Plus, starting at $ 49.99 per Month, offers access to unlimited accounts and is designed with the needs of companies or social media managers in mind. (Annual subscriptions are also available at a reduced price of $ 99.99 per year for Beeper Plus and $ 499 per year for Beeper Plus.)
After Automattic acquired Beeper, the company combined its team with Texts.com to develop a new product that offered the best of both services. With Wednesday’s relaunch, these apps are now 99% integrated, Bagaria said, as there are only a few smaller features to be transferred.
In the end, Automattic’s latest acquisition, the personal CRMler, which can later be rescheduled, will also be integrated with bees, although it will remain an independent app.
“It will mostly be built on the top of the Beeper platform – it remains free,” Bagaria said. “Clay is a great app [as it] Works today. Then with Beeper it can just take more interactions and data, which will make it as 2x to 10x better. When done, I’m sure Clay can be a very powerful product. “
Beeper today has millions of registered users, including those from Texts.com. A small part of those still using texts.com is now offered the opportunity to migrate to beeps as it has added on-device technology that they prefer.
Bagaria said there may still be some remaining problems about reliability when moving to the model on the device, but they are prepared when edge cases emerge. At a later date, Beeper Cloud will be printed when the company is sure that the model on unit is capable of being everyone’s daily driver.
Further down the road, Beeper aims to make his data available to other companies with user permission and checks to protect privacy. For example, a MCP (Model Context Protocol) could one day let users connect to chat apps via Claude or Chatgpt to ask that thing that “summarize all my important messages from this evening.”
This development will take some time as Bagaria says he is also a “very privacy -conscious user” and would like a solution that is very transparent about what data is accessible and when and one that allows users to even manually say yes or no to data requests, maybe.
“We also don’t want to have server holdings where we have models that are trained on your data. It’s a complete no,” he said.