CoHunt vs HuntStand

Most hunters using HuntStand don't know who owns it. On June 1, 2022, HuntStand's parent company TerraStride Inc. was acquired by GSM Outdoors - a hunting-hardware conglomerate whose brand portfolio includes Stealth Cam, Muddy, Halo Optics, Walker's Game Ear, Western Rivers, Birchwood Casey and more. HuntStand has been a GSM property for nearly four years.

That ownership is not a footnote. It shapes the product. HuntStand's trail-camera integration is limited to Stealth Cam and Muddy - both GSM brands - via Command Pro. Tactacam, Spypoint, Reconyx, Browning, Moultrie and Bushnell are not supported. HuntStand Ultimate subscribers are funnelled into the HuntStand Gear Store where they get up to 50% off GSM-brand hardware. HuntStand's published privacy policy permits targeted advertising, third-party marketing sharing, and data transfer to successor entities in a merger or sale - with your harvest photos, GPS tracks, stand markers and hunting logs sitting on GSM-controlled servers under your real-name account.

CoHunt is the opposite. $24.99 per year, flat. No account required. No advertising business model. No trail-camera hardware sales funnel. No corporate parent that makes cellular cameras which need your photos to justify their cost. No GSM ownership chain. Just a hunting app that does maps, communication, ballistics and trail cameras - and then gets out of the way.

Who Owns Your Hunting App?

HuntStand was a small Columbia-based startup built by TerraStride Inc. when it launched. That changed on June 1, 2022, when GSM Outdoors - the Texas-based hunting-hardware holding company - acquired TerraStride. GSM Outdoors is not a software company. It's a portfolio of hunting-hardware brands that includes:

• Stealth Cam - cellular trail cameras
• Muddy - treestands, blinds and trail cameras
• Halo Optics - rangefinders and optics
• Walker's Game Ear - hearing protection and electronic ear protection
• Western Rivers - electronic game calls
• Birchwood Casey - gun cleaning and targets
• ...and roughly a dozen more hunting and shooting-sport brands

When you use HuntStand, you are using an app owned by the company that makes the cellular cameras. That creates three structural realities every HuntStand subscriber is paying into, whether they realise it or not:

1. The trail-camera lock-in

HuntStand's native trail-camera integration runs through Command Pro, and Command Pro only supports Stealth Cam and Muddy cellular cameras. Both are GSM brands. If you already own Tactacam, Spypoint, Reconyx, Browning, Moultrie or Bushnell cameras, HuntStand does not natively support them - because they are competing hardware to GSM's own. There is no neutral "plug any brand in" model. The app's integration strategy is engineered around what GSM sells.

2. The Gear Store funnel

HuntStand runs a retail storefront at store.huntstand.com that sells GSM-brand hardware at member discounts. HuntStand Ultimate subscribers get up to 50% off GSM gear; Pro subscribers get 10–20% off. The pitch is "membership value," but the structural effect is that HuntStand's $99.99/year Ultimate subscription doubles as a funnel for cellular camera and hardware sales. The app is a lead-generation channel for the parent company's hardware business.

3. The data-and-ads business model

HuntStand's own privacy policy, as published on huntstand.com/privacy, permits:

• Targeted advertising - HuntStand uses Google Analytics and runs targeted ads. Opt-out requires contacting support; there is no one-click in-app toggle.
• Sharing with third-party marketing partners - "To third parties to market their products or services to you if you have consented to/not opted out of these disclosures."
• Successor-in-interest data transfer - your data transfers with the company in any future merger, divestiture or sale.
• Public exposure warning - the policy's own language: "The information you share in public areas may be viewed by any user of the Application."
• Server-stored everything - account profile, device location, hunting logs, harvest photos, stand markers, GPS tracks and trail-cam images all live on HuntStand/GSM servers.

An account is required. Anonymous use is not possible.

Quick Comparison Overview

Why Hunters Switch to CoHunt

Your hunting data doesn't live on a hardware company's servers

CoHunt collects zero user data. No account is required. There is no harvest feed, no group newsfeed, no "public areas" for information to leak into. There is no corporate parent that sells cellular trail cameras and has a structural reason to keep your hunting photos. CoHunt has published a transparency report confirming it has never received a government data request - because there is no data to hand over.

No ads. No marketing partners. No Gear Store funnel.

CoHunt is subscription-only. There are no advertisements anywhere in the app. There is no partner marketing sharing. There is no affiliated hardware store selling cellular cameras, treestands or blinds at "member discount." $24.99 per year is the entire business model.

Works with the trail cameras you actually own

CoHunt integrates with Spypoint - which is not a GSM Outdoors brand - and includes AI-powered species detection, a real camera dashboard (battery, signal, temperature), photo and video gallery, time-of-day filtering, and automatic camera placement on your map. You don't have to buy Stealth Cam or Muddy hardware to get good trail-camera integration. You just need the cameras you already have.

Encrypted messaging that never touches a server

HuntStand's group chat is ordinary server-routed messaging under a privacy policy that permits marketing use. CoHunt's chat is peer-to-peer end-to-end encrypted. Messages are never stored on CoHunt servers because there's no message server in the loop. Your coordination with your hunting party is yours and no one else's.

Off-grid messaging that actually works

HuntStand's Friend Locator needs a cellular connection. So does its group messaging. Across much of the North American and European backcountry, that connection isn't there. CoHunt was built off-grid first:

• Offline maps download fully and run with no signal
• Bluetooth mesh messaging passes chat and positions hunter-to-hunter via BLE with no cell, WiFi or internet
• Meshtastic LoRa radio integration lets your team carry small, cheap LoRa nodes that mesh across kilometres of forest - no infrastructure required. No other hunting app integrates with Meshtastic.

A built-in ballistics calculator

HuntStand has no ballistics calculator at any tier. CoHunt includes a full one: any caliber, automatic correction for wind, temperature, humidity, altitude and atmospheric pressure, plus DOPE card PDF export. That's a separate paid app most HuntStand users end up buying anyway - at $24.99/year CoHunt replaces both.

75% lower cost

CoHunt is $24.99 per year. HuntStand Ultimate is $99.99. Over five years that's a $375 difference per hunter - and CoHunt includes encrypted chat, Bluetooth mesh, Meshtastic LoRa, ballistics and dog tracking that HuntStand doesn't offer at any price. You pay less and get more.

Dog tracking

HuntStand does not integrate with any dog GPS collar system. CoHunt supports Tractive GPS dog trackers in real time, shared with the entire hunting group. Essential for bird hunters and hound hunters that HuntStand simply doesn't address.

What HuntStand Still Has

Being straight about what HuntStand offers that CoHunt doesn't:

• HuntZone scent-cone mapping and LandZone waterfowl landing prediction are HuntStand-proprietary tools that some whitetail and duck hunters genuinely like.
• 15-day county-level game-activity forecasts and exclusive rut maps sourced from state wildlife agencies, bundled into the Ultimate tier.
• Stand reservation system inside Group Hunt Areas, which larger deer leases sometimes rely on.
• Deep Stealth Cam / Muddy cellular camera integration, including AI species tagging and live streaming - best in class, if those are the cameras you already own.

If those specific features are central to how you hunt, HuntStand still does them well. For most hunters, none are worth the $75/year price difference, the account requirement, the advertising, or the ownership chain.

Common Questions

Is GSM Outdoors actually relevant to how HuntStand works?

Yes, structurally. HuntStand's trail-camera integration supports only GSM brands (Stealth Cam and Muddy). The Gear Store sells GSM hardware to HuntStand Ultimate subscribers at discounts. HuntStand's privacy policy permits targeted advertising and marketing sharing. The incentive alignment is straightforward: the parent company sells hardware, the app funnels subscribers toward that hardware, and the subscription fee is only one of three revenue streams.

Can I use CoHunt without creating an account?

Yes. CoHunt does not require an account to use the app. Your contacts are paired via QR code scanning, not by uploading a contact list. There is no real-name registration, no email verification requirement, no phone number confirmation. HuntStand requires all of the above.

Can I import my existing waypoints and tracks from HuntStand?

Yes. CoHunt supports standard GPX import and export, so waypoints, tracks and hunt areas can be transferred between apps. The two apps speak the same coordinate format.

What about the HuntStand social features?

HuntStand's Friends, Friend Locator, group newsfeed and group message board are all built around uploading data - your location, your photos, your harvests - to HuntStand servers where they are visible to the users you've added, and potentially to "any user" in public areas (per HuntStand's own privacy policy language). CoHunt has no social network, no public feed, no harvest sharing, and no "discover other hunters" component. Your hunting stays yours.

How does CoHunt compare to HuntStand for remote-area safety?

HuntStand's Friend Locator and group messaging both require a cellular connection. In mountain valleys, deep timber, swamp bottoms or any backcountry without a signal, they simply don't work. CoHunt's Bluetooth mesh and Meshtastic LoRa let your team stay in touch hunter-to-hunter with no cellular infrastructure at all. For group hunts where the team spreads out across rough country, that is a real safety upgrade.

Why should I care who owns my hunting app?

Because ownership shapes the product. A hunting app owned by a cellular camera conglomerate has a structural incentive to integrate with its own camera brands, to push its own hardware through a gear store, and to monetize user data through advertising. An independently developed hunting app with no corporate parent has no such incentives. The features you see, the integrations that exist, and the privacy policy you accept all flow from who cuts the paychecks.

How to Switch

1. Export your HuntStand data as GPX - waypoints, tracks, hunt areas. Keep a local copy.
2. Install CoHunt from the App Store or Google Play. No account required.
3. Import your GPX files. Property boundaries appear automatically.
4. Pre-download offline maps for your hunting grounds.
5. Pair your hunting party via QR contact share. Group tracking, encrypted chat and waypoint sharing come on automatically.
6. If you run Meshtastic LoRa nodes, pair them via Bluetooth for off-grid messaging.
7. Cancel HuntStand at the end of your billing period - and keep $75/year in your own pocket.

The Bottom Line

HuntStand is a $99.99/year subscription wrapped around an advertising business model wrapped around a Gear Store for GSM Outdoors hardware. Your account, your GPS tracks, your harvest photos and your trail-cam uploads all live on servers owned by the company that makes the cellular cameras. None of that is hidden - it's all in HuntStand's privacy policy and in public M&A records - but most HuntStand subscribers don't know about it.

CoHunt is $24.99/year, independently developed, and has no corporate parent selling cameras, treestands or hearing protection that needs to be funnelled through the app. No account required. No ads. No data collection. No hardware store. And it includes encrypted messaging, Bluetooth mesh, Meshtastic LoRa, a ballistics calculator and dog tracking that HuntStand doesn't offer at any tier.

You pay 75% less and you get more - and your hunting data stays off GSM Outdoors servers. For most hunters, that's an easy call.