@thegibson @hacktivists been looking into Monocles Chat (Android) which is a fork of Conversations and Blabber.im. Interestingly they also offer their own default XMPP server but unlike Conversations payment is not required.

Downside is that I only see it on F-Droid and not on Google Play which may put off normal people.

What I'd try to do is find something like Blabber.im on the Play Store and agree on a certain XMPP server as the one that should be featured in the registration instructions.

The iPhone has Monal but it's only mostly functional and frankly iOS is a poor choice for non-corporate messaging in general unless you're okay with Signal.