Hampton vs Vistage: Which Founder Peer Group Fits You?

I paid $13,000 for a mastermind when I was making $15K to $20K a month.

Stupid decision, right?

Six months later I was at $75K a month. Best money I ever spent.

So when founders ask me "Hampton or Vistage?", I take the question seriously. Both are real peer groups with real vetting. But they're built for two different people, and picking the wrong one means paying five figures to sit in a room that isn't for you.

Here's the honest comparison, with the numbers both sites don't put next to each other.

Hampton vs Vistage at a glance

→ Short version: Hampton is a curated club of tech founders. Vistage is a CEO coaching institution.

Now the parts that actually decide it.

Who each one actually accepts

Hampton is picky, and loudly so.

You need one of three things: a business doing $3M+ in annual revenue, $3M+ raised in venture funding, or a previous exit above $10M. They raised that bar in 2025 (it used to be $1M revenue and a $5M exit). You also have to live in one of their 18 chapter cities, because core groups meet in person only.

The result is a dense room. Hampton says the average member runs a $23M revenue company, and only about 2% of applicants get in. The whole thing was started by Sam Parr (The Hustle, My First Million) and Joe Speiser, so the network skews heavily toward internet businesses: SaaS, ecommerce, agencies, media.

Vistage has no published revenue minimum. In practice it's built for mid-market CEOs, and most groups cluster around $5M to $50M companies across every industry you can think of: manufacturing, construction, logistics, professional services.

That industry mix cuts both ways. A Vistage group gives you the 30-year operator who has managed 200 employees through two recessions. It does not give you someone who understands churn, CAC payback, or why your Stripe MRR graph makes you nauseous.

What the meetings look like

This is the biggest structural difference, bigger than price.

Hampton's core group is about 8 founders plus a trained facilitator. You meet once a month for roughly 3 hours, in person, in your city (they skip August and December). Groups are matched on a "Mirror, Mentor, Mentee" model: peers at your stage, a couple people ahead of you, a couple behind. Placement takes around 90 days after you're accepted. Around the core group there's a 1,000+ member digital network, chapter events, and retreats.

Vistage is a heavier commitment. Groups run 12 to 16 members and meet for a full day every month, often with an outside speaker in the morning and executive sessions in the afternoon. On top of that you get a monthly 1:1 with your Vistage Chair, usually a former CEO or executive who now coaches for a living.

→ Hampton sells you peers. Vistage sells you peers plus a coach.

If you've never had structured coaching, the Chair alone might justify the price. If what you're starving for is people who are living your exact problems this quarter, a room of 8 tech founders beats a room of 15 mixed-industry CEOs every time.

What they cost

Neither one is transparent, which tells you the customer they want.

Hampton stopped publishing pricing. The last public number was $8,500 a year back in 2023, and current members report paying somewhere between $8,500 and $15,000 depending on when they joined. There's a 45-day money-back guarantee if you show up to your commitment call, which is a fairer deal than most groups at this level offer.

Vistage pricing depends on your chapter and program, but budget roughly $13,000 to $22,000 a year for the flagship Chief Executive program, plus an initiation fee around $2,500. Their Emerging Leaders programs run cheaper, usually $5K to $10K.

So a typical year costs you maybe $10K at Hampton and $16K+ at Vistage. The extra Vistage money is buying the full-day format and the 1:1 coaching. Whether that's worth $6K a year depends entirely on whether you'll use the coach.

I wrote a full breakdown of what these groups charge in how much does a mastermind cost if you want the wider market picture.

The vetting and the vibe

Hampton's application has five steps: application, interview, a community veto, founder review, then core group placement. The ~2% acceptance rate is part of the product. Everyone in the room got filtered hard, so members actually share real numbers (revenue, salaries, acquisition offers) because the trust is structural.

Vistage vets too, but at 45,000 members the filter is more about fit and seniority than exclusivity. What Vistage has instead is durability. The company has run peer groups since 1957. Your Chair has probably seen your problem forty times. The playbooks are polished.

The vibe difference is real, though. Hampton feels like a group chat of internet founders that occasionally meets in person. Vistage feels like a board meeting with a coach. Neither is wrong. But you know which room you'd rather be in at 8am on a Tuesday.

Where each one falls short

Hampton's weaknesses:

• In-person only core groups. Not in one of the 18 cities? You're out, no matter your revenue.
• The $3M bar excludes most bootstrapped founders. Plenty of profitable SaaS founders doing $1M to $2M ARR are more sophisticated than a $3M funded startup burning cash, but rules are rules.
• No 1:1 coaching. Facilitators run the meeting, they don't coach you between sessions.

Vistage's weaknesses:

• A full day a month is a lot. Founders at fast-moving companies feel it.
• Industry mix means less pattern-match. You may be the only software person in the room.
• The demographic skews older and more corporate. If your business lives on the internet, you can feel like a translator.

I went deeper on the whole category in Hampton alternatives, and if you're weighing Vistage against the other legacy networks, Vistage vs EO covers that fight.

Not at $3M yet? Read this part

Both of these groups quietly agree on one thing: they don't want you until you've already made it.

Hampton wants $3M+. Vistage wants mid-market. But the years when a peer group changes your trajectory the most are the years before that, when you're at $5K to $50K MRR making lonely 10pm decisions about pricing and churn with nobody to call.

That gap is exactly why I built Profitable Founder Club.

Full disclosure: this one's mine.

It's a mastermind for SaaS founders between $5K and $50K MRR pushing to $100K MRR. Bi-weekly calls where we solve 3 member problems per session, monthly Q&As with founders already past $100K MRR, and each batch is capped at 20 people so nobody hides in the back.

I joined my first mastermind at $15K a month and 6x'd in six months. The Club is me building the room I wish I'd had a year earlier.

Apply to Profitable Founder Club

The bottom line

Pick Hampton if you're a tech or internet founder past $3M (revenue or raised), you live in a chapter city, and what you want is a tight room of people building the same kind of company. It's the better peer match for anyone whose business lives online, and at roughly $10K it's the cheaper of the two.

Pick Vistage if you run a company outside tech, you want structured 1:1 coaching alongside the group, and you can commit a full day a month. The Chair model is the real differentiator, and no one else has 69 years of reps running it.

And if you're not at either bar yet, don't wait around. The founders who show up to Hampton at $3M usually got there because they found their room early.

FAQ

Is Hampton cheaper than Vistage?

Usually, yes. Hampton doesn't publish pricing, but the last public figure was $8,500 a year (2023) and members report $8,500 to $15,000 now. Vistage's flagship program typically runs $13,000 to $22,000 a year plus a roughly $2,500 initiation fee, though its Emerging Leaders tiers cost $5K to $10K.

What are Hampton's membership requirements?

One of three: $3M+ in annual revenue, $3M+ raised in venture funding, or a previous exit above $10M. You also need to live in one of Hampton's 18 chapter cities because core groups meet in person only, and your business should be tech, internet, or digital-first. About 2% of applicants get in.

Does Vistage have a revenue minimum?

There's no hard published minimum, but Vistage is built for mid-market companies and most Chief Executive groups cluster around $5M+ in revenue. Smaller companies usually get routed to Emerging Leaders programs instead of the flagship CEO groups.

Can I join Hampton or Vistage as an early-stage founder?

Realistically, no. Hampton's $3M bar and Vistage's mid-market focus both exclude founders below roughly $1M to $3M in revenue. At that stage you'll get more from a group built for your bracket, like Profitable Founder Club for SaaS founders at $5K to $50K MRR, where the problems on the table match the ones on your desk.