A thriving community can be the backbone of your online business, but it’s rarely the only thing you need. To grow your audience and generate revenue, you also need tools for email marketing, digital products, a website, and sales funnels — in addition to a space for conversations.
Circle (or Circle.so) is a solid choice if your main priority is building community. It offers interactive discussion spaces, live events, and membership tools to keep your audience engaged.
But if you’re looking for a platform that helps you not only manage a community but also build an entire business, you might need a solution with more built-in features.
In this post, we’ll cover:
-
Circle’s pros and cons: What it does well and where it has limitations
-
6 alternatives to Circle for different types of businesses
-
How to choose the right platform based on your goals
If you want to run a business where your community is just one part of the bigger picture, these alternatives might be a better fit. But first, here’s the lowdown on Circle.
Circle Pros and Cons
Circle is a well-known platform for building online communities, and it does that well. If you already have an engaged audience and want to focus on growing a paid community, it could be a good fit.
But since Circle is built primarily around community features (with things like courses added on), it may not be the best choice if you want to lead with your products. Here’s a breakdown of the pros and cons to help you decide.
Circle pros (community, courses, branded app support)
Circle has strong community tools, and you can use the platform for organized discussions, events, live streams, and chats. Community members can set up rich profiles and can also use search and filtering features to find people in their area or with shared interests.
Circle also lets you offer community-based courses. These courses are designed to be very interactive since they’re connected to the community, and within your courses, you can host office hours, livestreams, cohorts, and live Q&A sessions.
On the checkout side, you can gate certain parts of your community, offer different payment tiers, create subscription plans, and offer upsells to increase the value of each order.
And if your community really takes off, Circle has a feature where you can set up your own branded app for Android and iOS stores. This add-on has custom pricing that isn’t listed on their website, but it’s nice to know the option is there if you think you’ll need a custom app in the future.
While there’s a lot Circle does well, no tool is right for everyone. Here are a few downsides to keep in mind.
Circle cons (expensive, storage and space limits, need more tools for building your audience)
A big barrier to using Circle is the price. Circle is on the expensive side compared to other creator community platforms. All plans have space and storage limits, as well as transaction fees.
Plus, you’ll likely need to add more tools to build your business, like a sales funnel tool, a blogging platform, and a website builder.
Here’s how Circle’s plans and pricing work:
-
Professional Plan ($99/month or $89/month billed annually): Unlimited members, 3 admins, and 10 moderators. Includes 20 spaces, 100GB attachment storage, courses, live streams, and custom branding. 2% transaction fee.
-
Business Plan ($219/month or $199/month billed annually): Unlimited members, 5 admins, and 15 moderators. Offers 30 spaces, 250GB attachment storage, workflows, custom profile fields, and API access. 1% transaction fee.
-
Enterprise Plan ($399/month or $360/month billed annually): Unlimited members, 10 admins, and 100 moderators. Provides 100 spaces, 1TB attachment storage, unlimited workflows, custom single sign-on (SSO), and priority support. 0.5% transaction fee.
-
Plus Branded App (Custom pricing): Includes all Enterprise features plus your own iOS and Android apps, dedicated launch team, and higher limits across the board.
Circle also has a Marketing Hub add-on which lets you add email marketing to any plan. The Marketing Hub includes email sign-up forms, automations, and campaigns, and it’s free to use if you have less than 100 subscribers.
But after that, the pricing jumps to an extra $19/month for up to 1000 subscribers and $29/month for up to 1500 subscribers. (For comparison purposes, Podia’s email add-on only costs $9/month or $7/month paid annually for up to 500 subscribers, and $17/month or $13/month paid annually for up to 1500 subscribers.)
Of course, you don’t have to use the Marketing Hub add-on if you don’t want to, but then you’ll need another tool for sending emails, running automations and campaigns, and keeping track of your audience information.
Additionally, Circle doesn’t have many features for actually growing an audience for your community. The best community in the world isn’t going to grow if no one knows about it. And Circle doesn’t have a website builder, blogging, lead magnets, or link in bio features, which can make it hard to get visibility on your work.
Finally, Circle only has community and course product types, which could feel limiting as you grow. If you wanted to offer digital downloads and ebooks, for example, there isn’t a native way to do that in Circle. You may need to connect other tools if you branch out into other types of learning materials.
That said, if you know you only want to run a community and you’ve already got your marketing and audience locked in, this might not be an issue. But if you’re building a different kind of online business, these alternatives to Circle are worth a look.
#1 Podia — Best all-in-one business and community alternative to Circle
Podia is an all-in-one Circle alternative where you can build a community alongside your online courses, digital products, website, email marketing, affiliates, and everything else you need to grow.
All plans come with unlimited landing pages and blogging, and you can use Podia’s easy website builder to set up your site exactly the way you want. This gives you lots of ways to bring people into your business and reach new customers, all from one hub that you can customize.
You can also create unlimited courses, products, and community plans for your members, and you can set up product bundles that pair community access with other resources you’ve created.
Within your community, you can customize your badges, create private and all-access community areas, and share rich media like videos, images, embeds, text, and links. You can also tag or mention people in community comments so they get a notification.
Community access can be bundled with any other product you make, and you can also add discussion forums directly inside your courses and products depending on the type of program you’re offering.
Podia also has a full-featured email marketing tool with automations, sales funnels, email templates, analytics, and newsletters so you can stay in touch with your people. Podia Email is an optional add-on, with prices starting at $7/month.
How does Podia help you grow a business?
Podia is a tool for building your full online business, and your community can be a part of that. You’ll have all the tools you need to run a system where you share your knowledge, grow an audience, automate your marketing, and scale with more products and affiliates as your business evolves.
-
Mover Plan ($39/month or $33/month billed annually): Includes your website, online store, email marketing, unlimited products, online courses, blogging, landing pages, custom domain, and online community. 5% transaction fees.
-
Shaker Plan ($89/month or $75/month billed annually): Offers all features in the Mover Plan plus affiliate marketing. No transaction fees.
Both plans come with a 30-day free trial and include access to Podia’s email platform for up to 100 subscribers. Additional subscribers can be added for a fee. Both plans also include free migrations so if you’ve already built products on another platform, Podia can help you move for free.
Pros: You can make digital products like courses, downloads, webinars, and coaching programs with the same tool you use to run your community. Your community can have unlimited members and spaces, and you can create as many different payment tiers or areas as you like. You can also add discussion forums to individual products (like a Q&A section within your course) as another way to boost engagement.
After working with over 150,000 solo business owners, one of the most common things we hear is that having everything in one place means more time to do what you love.
As women empowerment coach Merinda Smith puts it,
“Podia is the backbone of my online business. It’s where I attract potential customers with free lead magnets. It is where I nurture them with valuable content, and convert them into paying students of my core course, Beyond Success. I love the seamless integration between landing pages, course hosting, and email sequences. Everything is streamlined in one place, freeing up hours each week that I can now dedicate to creating new content and engaging with my clients.”
Cons: Podia isn’t the best fit if you’re looking for code-level customizations or if you want to fully DIY your setup with integrations. Podia also doesn’t have the option to build a branded community app, so if this is a priority, you may need other tools.
#2 Mighty Networks — community-focused Circle alternative
Like Circle, Mighty Networks is a community-centered platform that lets you build courses and create other interactive experiences for your members. Every plan includes unlimited members, spaces, and moderators, so you can structure your community however you like.
Compared to Circle, Mighty Networks has a lower starting price for solo business owners who want to make a community. Circle’s starting plan is the Professional Plan ($99/month or $89/month billed annually), but Mighty Networks lets you start with the Community Plan ($49/month or $41/month billed annually).
You can host live events, personalize your community feeds, enable member profiles, and add gamification elements to keep people active and connected. Plus, built-in chat and live streaming make it easy to interact with your members in real-time.
If you want to charge for access, Mighty Networks lets you offer paid memberships with one-time or recurring payments. You can also sell online courses within your community, but you’ll need to upgrade to the Course plan or higher. This unlocks the ability to create courses with dedicated community spaces so students can interact, ask questions, and learn together.
While Mighty Networks gives you tools for community engagement, it doesn’t include a website builder, blogging tools, or email marketing. If you need features to grow your audience (like sales funnels, lead magnets, or email campaigns), you’ll need to connect and pay for additional tools. Mighty Networks also charges a transaction fee on all plans, which could feel limiting as you grow.
How does Mighty Networks help you grow a business?
Mighty Networks lets you set up an interactive community space where people can chat, attend events, join live sessions, and meet other people with shared interests. There’s also a built-in member referral program, which encourages your existing community members to invite others.
Mighty Networks pricing
-
Community Plan ($49/month or $41/month billed annually): Unlimited members, spaces, hosts, and admins. 250GB total storage and 5 streaming hours per month. 3% transaction fee.
-
Courses Plan ($119/month or $99/month billed annually): Unlimited courses, challenges, course automations, and resource libraries. 1TB storage and 20 streaming hours per month. 2% transaction fee.
-
Business Plan ($219/month or $179/month billed annually): Integrations with other tools, enhanced live streaming, white-labeling, and SSO. 2TB of storage and 30 streaming hours per month. 2% transaction fee.
-
Path-to-Pro Plan ($360/month billed annually): Advanced automated workflows, additional white-labeling, dedicated services, and support. 3TB of storage and 40 streaming hours per month. 1% transaction fee.
Pros: You can set up a community with unlimited members, spaces, hosts, and admins on all plans, and you can upgrade if you want to add courses to your community in the future. Mighty Networks also has lots of gamification and community engagement tools like questions, polls, top contributors, streaks, and events.
Cons: Mighty Networks has transaction fees on all plans, which could add up as your business brings in more money. There are also storage limits and streaming hour limits on all plans. Finally, you’re not able to export your member data unless you’re on the Courses plan or above, which could make it difficult to move your community in the future.
#3 Bettermode — community platform with support features
Bettermode is a customer community platform that’s designed to help businesses connect with their clients. This is a great tool for providing support, answering questions, setting up a help center, and getting customer feedback.
There’s a lot Bettermode can do, but the setup is relatively straightforward since there are pre-made templates for discussion forums, articles, events, Q&A areas, job boards, changelogs, product updates, upvoting, and other tools you can use to connect with your customer base.
You can tag members, send DMs, customize your badges, and let members build out nice member profiles. You can also choose which spaces are available to the public and which are private.
The downside is that Bettermode does not natively support paid memberships, so if you want to charge for community access, you’ll need to set it up with another tool and an integration like Zapier. The tool is really designed to be a community for your customers, not a sellable product.
How does Bettermode help you grow a business?
The tool is primarily meant for businesses to support their customers. It can help you provide much better customer support and let existing customers connect and get more resources, which enhances your business.
Bettermode pricing
-
Free Plan ($0/month): Includes a Bettermode.io subdomain, 100 members, 20 spaces, 1,000 monthly email credits, 1 translation locale, and 1GB of storage.
-
Pro Plan ($59/month or $49/month billed annually): Provides unlimited members, 20 spaces, 5 collaborators, 10,000 monthly email credits, 25 GB storage, and 2 translation locales.
-
Enterprise Plan (Custom): Customizable plan with added security and integrations.
Pros: You can test out Bettermode for free if you have under 100 members in your community. Bettermode works great for customer communication, and you can customize your space however you like with fun features like leaderboards, upvotes, and resource centers.
Cons: It’s not the best fit if you want to sell access to your community or run a product membership. There’s no native way to sell digital products, and there’s no feature for setting up a website, so you’ll need additional tools for that.
#4 Discord — free forum and community software
Discord is a group chat and forum tool that can work for online communities. It’s mainly a way for people to hang out online, and there are features for live streaming and sending voice/text notes to other members in your space.
Unlike Circle, Discord doesn’t have features for making online courses. Out of the box, it’s not really set up for selling community access either, although you do have the option to create a membership to your server by setting up different plan tiers and charging monthly fees. Overall, Discord is more of a casual chat space than a structured membership.
The perks? It’s free to use, you can add fun emojis and stickers in your space, and it’s available on desktop or mobile devices so your members can have community access anywhere they go.
How does Discord help you grow a business?
Discord is a good option if you want to be able to easily chat and message with your people, and it’s free to set up. While small business owners might struggle to build a business only with Discord (for example, you would need other tools for your website, email list, products, etc.), it’s a good tool to use for staying connected.
Discord pricing:
-
Free Plan ($0/month): Offers unlimited messaging, voice, and video calls, 25MB upload limit, standard voice quality, and access to basic features like custom emojis within the same server.
-
Nitro Basic ($2.99/month or $29.99/year): Includes all Free Plan features plus 50MB upload limit, use of custom emojis and stickers across servers, custom app icons, and a Nitro badge on your profile.
-
Nitro ($9.99/month or $99.99/year): Offers all Nitro Basic features plus 500MB upload limit, HD video streaming up to 4K at 60fps, two server boosts, animated avatars and profile banners, ability to join up to 200 servers, longer messages up to 4,000 characters, custom Discord tags, and access to exclusive activities.
Pros: Discord is great for real-time interaction, and members can engage instantly via chat, voice, or video. Creating and managing a Discord server is free, making it accessible for any business or creator. Plus Discord has direct integrations with YouTube and Podia so you can connect your work with your community.
Cons: Discord is primarily a chat tool, so you’ll need other software to create a landing page or website promoting your community. Discord is also not set up to sell digital products, courses, or structured memberships. The platform emphasizes quick chat conversations as opposed to long, organized posts, so you may need another tool for your programs. You’ll also need another tool for email marketing.
#5 Kajabi — all-in-one with products and community
Kajabi is an all-in-one tool for building courses, products, and community. You can sell everything from coaching programs and podcasts to memberships and paid newsletters, and you can manage everything in one place.
Each Kajabi account comes with one community. Within that community, you can set up different Access Groups to determine what certain members can see. Each Access Group can be free or paid and can include challenges, circles, meetups, leaderboards, livestreams, and announcements that only members of that group can interact with.
In addition to communities, Kajabi has your website, blog, and landing pages so you can promote your work. That said, there are product limits and contact limits on all plans, which could be a problem as your business and community grows.
For example, Kajabi’s Basic plan ($149/month or $119/month billed annually) only includes 3 products, and each Access Group you create in your community counts as one product.
If you had a business with one free community plan, one paid community plan, and one online course, you’d need to upgrade to the Growth Plan ($199/month or $159/month billed annually) to make anything else.
How does Kajabi help you grow a business?
Kajabi is a good option for building a community that’s automatically connected to your website, products, courses, and audience. You can charge for community access and Kajabi doesn’t charge transaction fees on any plans.
Kajabi pricing
-
Kickstarter Plan ($89/month or $71/month billed annually): Includes 1 website, 1 product, 1 community, 250 contacts, 7,500 marketing emails, 0% transaction fees.
-
Basic Plan ($149/month or $119/month billed annually): Offers 1 website, 3 products, 10,000 contacts, unlimited marketing emails, 3rd party integrations. 0% transaction fees.
-
Growth Plan ($199/month or $159/month billed annually): Provides 1 website, 15 products, 25,000 contacts, unlimited marketing emails, 24/7 support, affiliate programs, custom domain, custom branding, multiple admin users, and webhooks. 0% transaction fees.
-
Pro Plan ($399/month or $319/month billed annually): Features 3 websites, 100 products, 100,000 contacts, unlimited marketing emails, and custom code editor. 0% transaction fees.
Pros: The main pro of Kajabi is that it’s an all-in-one option, meaning that your community is connected to products, website, and email. Kajabi also has helpful community features like live rooms and challenges.
Cons: Kajabi is one of the more expensive all-in-one community tools on the market, and there are product and contact limits on all plans. If you had a large free community, for instance, you might need to upgrade to a more expensive plan just to increase your contact allowance, without necessarily earning more money.
On top of that, each Access Group you create in your community counts toward your product limit. To make more than a handful of products and community areas, you’ll need a higher-tiered (and higher-priced) plan.
#6 Facebook groups — free social media community space
Facebook groups are one of the OG online communities, and there are millions of groups out there that people can join. Facebook groups have feeds where people can interact with each other, post questions and comments, and share information.
Anyone can create a Facebook group, and you can set your group to public or private. You can also go live, create events, share polls, and add files so people in your group can find what they need.
Even though Facebook groups are free to set up, there’s no way to charge for access on the platform. It’s possible to do a workaround where you use another tool to create a product that people have to buy before receiving an invite to your Facebook group, but that can require a lot of clunky manual work.
How do Facebook groups help you grow a business?
Facebook groups work well if you’re trying to grow your reach, but they’re hard to monetize. This is a good option only if you need to communicate with lots of people for free around a shared interest, but for paid or VIP access communities, a paid tool will give you more control.
Facebook groups pricing
Facebook groups are free for anyone to create or participate in.
Pros: On the plus side, Facebook groups are free to use and there’s a low barrier to entry since a lot of people have Facebook accounts already. There’s also the possibility that people find you organically on the platform using Facebook’s search feature.
Cons: Social media is known for being distraction-central, so a downside is that your content will be fighting with ads, sponsored content, and other posts on Facebook. For people who don’t use or like Facebook, getting them to create an account could be a deterrent to joining your group.
Plus, you don’t have a way to export your member list or move them to a new platform if you want to switch in the future, and there’s no way to contact members outside of Facebook.
What’s the best Circle alternative for my solo business?
The right community platform for you depends on the goals you have for your business. Are you setting out to make just a community space? Do you need customer support tools for your existing audience? Are you looking for an all-in-one tool with built-in features for growing your community as well as your business?
The right choice for you depends on the business you’re making. So to refresh, here are six solid Circle alternatives and who they work best for:
-
Podia: Best all-in-one Circle alternative for building a full business along with your community
-
Mighty Networks: Best community-focused platform with a lower starting price than Circle
-
Bettermode: Best for creating a free community with customer support features
-
Discord: Best for hosting casual chat forums on your own server
-
Kajabi: Good all-in-one product and community tool if you only have a small number of products
-
Facebook groups: Best community tool for getting discovered by new people and growing a free group
My recommendation? If you’re starting an online business, go with an all-in-one tool like Podia.
You can set up a beautiful community that’s automatically connected to your courses, digital downloads, webinars, coaching sessions, and everything else. You’ll also have essential marketing tools like your website, blog, landing pages, and email all connected under one roof.
See what you can make on your 30-day free trial, and happy creating!
