Why We Built a Free Alternative to Easy-Speak

If you're a Toastmasters club officer, you've probably spent way too much time wrestling with scheduling software. After years of paying $150/year for Easy-Speak's 2005-era interface, we decided enough was enough. Here's the story of why we built Toastmanagers.

The Easy-Speak Problem

Don't get us wrong—Easy-Speak was revolutionary when it launched 15+ years ago. But the Toastmasters community deserves better in 2025.

The issues we kept running into:

• The Price Tag: $100-200 per year, per club. For software that hasn't meaningfully updated in years.
• The Interface: Looks and feels like it's from 2005. Because it is.
• Mobile? Forget It: Try managing your schedule on your phone. Good luck.
• Manual Everything: Role assignment? Manual. Balance fairness? Manual. Checking who did what? Manual.
• Setup Time: 1-2 hours to get started. Seriously.

We'd spend 2+ hours every meeting planning roles, trying to remember who did what last time, and manually sending reminder emails. There had to be a better way.

What We Built Differently

1. Actually Smart Scheduling

Our algorithm automatically balances role assignments across your entire club history. Not just the current schedule—all time. If John has been Speaker 5 times and Sarah only twice, Sarah gets priority. True fairness.

2. Modern, Mobile-First Design

We built Toastmanagers in 2024, for 2025. It works perfectly on your phone, tablet, and desktop. Dark theme, smooth animations, actually pleasant to use. Your club officers will thank you.

3. Automated Email Reminders

Lock a meeting, and members automatically get beautiful HTML email reminders 7 days and 1 day before their roles. No more "I forgot I was Toastmaster!" panics.

4. Professional PDF Agendas

Right-click any meeting, generate a PDF agenda. Includes roles, timeline, themes, and your custom event structure. Print it or email it. Takes 5 seconds.

5. It Just Works

Drag-and-drop role reordering. Cascade date updates. Discord-style invites. Archive past meetings. Lock meetings to prevent changes. We built all the features you actually need, not bloated enterprise nonsense.

Why It's Free

Here's the thing: we're not trying to build a business (yet). We're Toastmasters who were frustrated with existing options.

We made it free because:

1. Toastmasters changed our lives. This is our way of giving back to the community.
2. $150/year felt exploitative. Especially for outdated software that barely works.
3. We want feedback. Real clubs using it will tell us what to build next.
4. Growth over profit. Get 1,000 clubs using it, figure out monetization later.

Could we charge? Sure. Will we eventually add premium features? Maybe. But the core scheduling, email reminders, and agendas will always be free.

What We're Missing (And Why That's OK)

We're honest about what we don't have:

• Pathways Integration: Use Toastmasters International's official app for that.
• Contest Management: You run contests 2-3 times per year. Manual is fine.
• 15 Years of Features: Easy-Speak has had a decade+ head start.

But here's what we do have: everything you use 80% of the time, done 10× better, for $0 instead of $150/year.

The Results So Far

Since launching our beta:

• Average setup time: 5 minutes (vs 1-2 hours for Easy-Speak)
• Time saved per meeting: ~2 hours (automatic role balancing)
• Mobile experience: Actually works (vs "desktop only")
• Cost: $0 (vs $150/year)
• User satisfaction: Significantly higher

Try It Yourself

Look, we know switching software is a pain. But we've made it as painless as possible:

1. Sign up (30 seconds, no credit card)
2. Create your club (1 minute)
3. Add your members (2 minutes)
4. Generate your first schedule (1 click)

Total time: 5 minutes. If you hate it, you lost 5 minutes. If you love it, you save 2 hours every meeting and $150 every year.

Questions? We're Here to Help

Have questions about switching? Want to see a feature we're missing? Just email us at managerstoast@gmail.com. We respond to every message.

We're building this for the Toastmasters community, not at them. Your feedback shapes what we build next.

---

About the Author: The Toastmanagers team includes active Toastmasters from Dallas, Texas who got tired of overpaying for outdated software. We built the tool we wished existed.