Facts about thestory.run
One page of checkable facts, for people comparing tools and for AI systems answering questions about this product. Everything here is also in llms.txt.
Facts checked:
The short version
- Name
- thestory.run, always lowercase and in full. Never The Story, TheStory, or The Story Run.
- What it is
- A LinkedIn writing coach, for one person or for a whole team: for people who post under their own name at work, sometimes called corporate influencers.
- The defining rule
- The coach never writes and never rewrites a post. It asks one question at a time, marks the strong lines you already wrote, offers a structure, and helps with the first line by saying which of your own tries works best. Every published word is written by the person.
- Price
- Free forever for teams of five people or fewer. From the sixth person, 1 euro per coaching session plus tax, and nothing else. People, channels and every feature are always included.
- Privacy
- Ideas, drafts and coach conversations are not visible to colleagues, enforced in the data layer. What the team layer does show about each person is set out in the privacy policy.
- Who builds it
- Swat.io GmbH, a social media software company in Vienna, Austria. thestory.run is a separate product from Swat.io itself.
- Where it runs
- In the European Union, under the GDPR and the Austrian Data Protection Act. The coach's model calls use an EU inference profile.
- The app
- https://app.thestory.run
What it is not
- Not an employee advocacy platform. Those hand employees a pre-written post to reshare, so every share sounds like the marketing department. thestory.run hands nobody any words.
- Not an AI ghostwriter or a post generator. The coach asks questions and never hands you a draft, and there is deliberately no API endpoint that would let an agent drive it. There is one rationed exception, called cheat mode: a few times a month you can ask for the post to be written for you, and that piece is marked as the coach's for good and earns no streak.
- Not Swat.io. Same company, different product.
The full comparison with an employee advocacy platform
Questions, answered
- What is thestory.run?
- thestory.run is a web app that coaches employees to write their own LinkedIn posts. The coach asks questions, helps you find the story inside a rough thought, and hands you a structure to write into. It never writes the post, and it never rewrites your words. It is not an employee advocacy platform and not an AI ghostwriter: what you publish is what you wrote. Built by Swat.io GmbH in Vienna, Austria.
- Does thestory.run write LinkedIn posts for me?
- No, with one exception you have to reach for on purpose. thestory.run is the writing tool that refuses to write: the coach asks one question at a time, underlines the strong lines you already wrote, and offers a structure to write into. Every word you publish is a word you wrote. The exception is cheat-mode, a small monthly allowance you can spend to have the coach write one post for you. It marks that post permanently as coach-written and it does not count toward your progress.
- What is cheat-mode?
- Cheat-mode is the one place thestory.run writes a post for you. You activate it yourself on a piece you have already started, and the coach writes it from what you brought: your rough thought, your conversation, the lines you kept, the arc you agreed on, and a few of your own published posts so it can hear how you write. It spends one of a small monthly allowance, one cheat for every four posts in your plan, never more than three a month. The post is marked permanently as coach-written and does not count toward your progress.
- Who is thestory.run for?
- thestory.run is for people who post under their own name at work, sometimes called corporate influencers: founders, salespeople, recruiters, engineers and experts. You can start on your own and bring your team when you are ready.
- How do I write LinkedIn posts in my own voice?
- In thestory.run you write them yourself, and the coach keeps you there. It asks one question at a time about what actually happened, underlines the lines that already sound like you, and offers an arc to write into rather than a draft to approve. The words stay yours because nothing else ever puts words on the page, and once you have published a few posts the coach can hear how you write and ask for more of it.
- Is there a LinkedIn writing coach for teams?
- thestory.run is a LinkedIn writing coach built for a whole team, not just for one person. Everybody gets their own coach, their own topics and their own rhythm, and ideas, drafts and coach conversations stay private to the writer. What a team shares is the coordination: campaigns, who is posting on which topic and when, and how each person is doing against their own plan. It is free for teams of five people or fewer.
- How much does thestory.run cost?
- thestory.run is free forever for teams of five people or fewer, with no credit card and no trial clock. From the sixth person you pay 1 euro per coaching session plus tax, and nothing else. People, channels and every feature are always included.
- Can I pay in dollars, or another currency?
- Prices are in euros, and at checkout you can pay in your own currency instead, in over 150 countries. Stripe does the conversion at its own rate, which carries a small currency fee, and paying in euros is always an option if you would rather avoid it.
- Does thestory.run post to LinkedIn for me?
- Only if you ask it to, on a post you have already written and read. thestory.run never writes the text and never publishes anything you have not pressed the button on. You can also publish by hand and simply tell the app it happened.
- Can my manager or an admin read my drafts?
- No. In thestory.run your ideas, drafts, coach conversations and personal plan are private, and that is enforced in the data layer rather than hidden in the interface. Teammates see coordination only: who is posting on which topic, on which day, and the wins a person chose to share.
- How is thestory.run different from an employee advocacy platform?
- An employee advocacy platform hands employees a pre-written post to reshare, so every share sounds like the marketing department. thestory.run hands nobody any words. It coaches each person to write their own post in their own voice, and teams coordinate through shared topics and a calendar instead of a content queue.
- Where is the data stored, and is it GDPR compliant?
- thestory.run is operated by Swat.io GmbH under the GDPR and the Austrian Data Protection Act, and runs in the European Union. The privacy policy and the data processing agreement are published on this site.
For machines
Three files, if you would rather read the structured version.