swells.app

What It Is

Swells is a SaaS platform built around observations, signals, and reflections. Its goal is to help individuals and organizations sense emerging trends before change becomes obvious. Rather than being a traditional survey tool or metrics dashboard, it captures day-to-day observations from frontline people, then uses AI and visualization to help teams with sense-making.

Core Features

The product workflow is divided into three steps: Observe, Sense, and Reflect. In the observation stage, users can input text, photos, and voice notes, with an emphasis on quickly capturing “things they noticed.” In the Sense stage, AI extracts patterns and signals from collective observations. In the Reflect stage, teams are prompted to ask questions and reflect based on signal activity. For visualization, Swells offers four perspectives: River, a time-based flow; Constellation, a similarity relationship map; Signal Landscape, a signal terrain view; and Sentiment, an emotional temperature view. These are well suited to handling unstructured information and weak signals.

Pricing and Trial

Swells offers a 30-day free trial with no credit card required and full access during the trial period. The Individual plan is £10/month, with 1 user and 200 observations per month. The Team plan is £30/month, with up to 10 users and 1,000 observations. The Organisation plan is £50/month, with up to 50 users and 5,000 observations. The pricing structure is clear and suitable for small teams testing the product, but plans for large enterprises or higher usage have not been disclosed.

Pros and Cons

Its main advantage is its distinctive positioning: it can turn hard-to-quantify topics such as organizational culture, impact evaluation, and systems change into discussable signals. Its multiple visual views are also more helpful for spotting patterns than a standard list. The drawbacks are that public information does not clarify data security and compliance, permission models, API availability, self-hosting, or broader integration capabilities. At present, only Google login is visible, and the information needed for enterprise software procurement is still relatively limited.

Who It’s For and Access from China

Swells is suitable for personal reflection, organizational culture teams, change management, impact evaluation, and multi-organization collaboration topics. It is more of an insight and sense-making tool than a project management platform or traditional BI product. Access from mainland China is unknown, and payment methods have not been disclosed. If access, payment, or compliance becomes a limitation, alternatives or complementary tools may include Notion, Airtable, Miro, Dovetail, Culture Amp, and Qualtrics.