Circle.so is a cloud-based solution and all-in-one platform that has gained a lot of traction in recent years as one of the best online community builders.
It lets you build and grow your online community through powerful tools such as organized discussions, private messaging, events, live streams, and online courses.
However, the features Circle offers vary significantly between pricing tiers, making it difficult to pick the best one for your needs.
This Circle.so pricing guide will give you a detailed breakdown of each of the tool’s pricing plans as well as an overview of Circle’s competitors and their correlating plans.
Let’s get started.
Circle offers five pricing plans with both monthly and yearly options.
As is often the case, paying for an entire year upfront can save you a lot of money, but we always recommend trying a monthly plan first. This way, you can check out all the features and only commit once you feel comfortable.
Apart from the monthly cost, Circle also charges a transaction fee, ranging between 0.5% and 4%, depending on your plan. This applies only when you process payments through Circle.
All plans come with a 14-day free trial, so you can use this period to try Circle before making a decision.
Now, let’s take a closer look at each of these plans.
Answer these simple questions and immediately find the right Circle pricing plan for your business!
Choosing the right plan almost always boils down to the features included in each one. In this section, we’ll cover each individual plan and explain its key features and costs.
The Basic plan costs $49 per month and covers the core features you need to build a community:
It also includes single sign-on integration with platforms like Teachable and MemberSpace.
While the Basic plan offers a custom domain and enough features to let you launch your community platform, create spaces, and kickstart engagement, it also has some significant limitations:
So, the Basic plan will be the best option for creators who are in the process of launching a new community. It’s a good place to launch and test your community.
Circle’s Professional plan costs $99 per month and provides a significant upgrade over the Basic plan. In fact, it’s their most popular plan, and it does offer great value for money.
Apart from the features included in the Basic plan, such as group chat rooms and direct messaging, the Professional plan includes the following upgrades to optimize member engagement:
Additionally, the Professional plan differs significantly from the Basic plan regarding the service limits. For example, the Professional plan allows you to host a community with unlimited members.
Here are all the increased limits found in Circle’s Professional plan:
The Professional plan will be the best plan for most creators. It offers all the tools creators need to build an engaged community and is reasonably priced as well. Plus, the limits are generous, so you can stay on this plan for a long time.
The Business plan costs $219 per month and brings automations and other advanced community management tools.
Apart from all the features available with the Professional plan, such as the course builder and SSO integrations, the Business plan also includes:
The Business plan further increases the limits available in your account. The table below shows the features with increased limits.
The Business plan is a good choice for creators (or brands) who need these advanced features or need increased feature limits.
Circle’s most expensive plan, the Enterprise plan, costs $399/month and targets creators and brands with bigger online communities.
Apart from everything in the Business plan, you also get:
In addition to these new features, you also get the following limit increases:
To sum up, no core community or course-related features are unique to this plan, so there is really no reason for individual creators to upgrade.
However, if you run a huge community, consider going with the Enterprise plan.
Circle Plus is another plan offered by the platform. While its pricing isn’t available publicly, the expected cost is around $30K/year.
Circle Plus’ main benefit is that it provides branded iOS and Android mobile apps for your community. The apps will be built and published on the App Store and Google Play Store by the Circle team, and they will also maintain and update the apps for you.
While the Plus plan also offers benefits like course migration and increased community limits, the main offering is mobile apps.
So, this plan is best for creators who want branded community apps, and you’ll need to get in touch with the Circle team for an exact quote.
While Circle is among the more popular community platforms, it’s not the only one. To put Circle’s capabilities and pricing in perspective, we should first take a look at one of its main competitors, Mighty Networks.
Overall, Circle is easier to use and more feature-rich than Mighty Networks, with public APIs and workflows among its offerings. If you want to learn more about their differences, read this Circle vs Mighty Networks guide.
Regarding pricing, Mighty Networks’ pricing starts at $49/month for its Community plan, which is comparable with Circle’s Basic plan ($49/month). However, Mighty Networks has a big advantage here: it allows for unlimited members on the entry-level plan.
When we compare their most popular plans, they offer a similar set of features, even though Circle has certain advantages:
Circle has another competitor—Kajabi. It is very different in terms of its capabilities, as it’s an all-in-one platform for course creation, membership sites, and sales funnels. As a result, the pricing model is also different, with Kajabi being more expensive.
However, it also features a community builder. Although it has some limitations compared to Circle, a significant advantage is that you can get a branded app for an additional $199/month, as opposed to approximately $30K/year with Circle.
In this guide, we went through Circle’s pricing plans in detail and covered the features included in each plan. We hope we could help you pick the right plan, but let’s summarize our recommendations.
If you’re starting out and launching a new community, you can start with the Basic plan.
Otherwise, the Professional plan will be the best option for most creators as it supports unlimited members and includes all the important features.
However, if you’re an established brand with a big community management team or you need advanced community management tools, you should look at the Business plan or the Enterprise plan.
Lastly, if you want branded apps for your community, you’ll need the Plus plan.
Still, have more questions about Circle.so pricing? Drop us a comment below!
Circle has four pricing plans. Its entry-level plan is the Basic plan which costs $49/month or $468/year. The most popular plan is the Professional plan which costs $99/month or $1,068/year.
Yes, Circle charges a 4% transaction fee on its Basic plan, a 2% transaction fee with the Professional plan, a 1% fee on the Business plan, and a 0.5% fee on its Enterprise plan.
With the Basic plan, you can have up to 100 active members in your Circle community. With the Professional. Business, and Enterprise plans, you can have unlimited members.
Yes, the Circle app is free to use. If you have an active Circle.so subscription, your members will be able to download the mobile apps for free to access your community.
No, you don’t need to put down your credit card information to access Circle’s 14-day free trial. You will only need to create an account to get started.
Yes, Circle has a 30-day 100% money-back guarantee. If you change your mind about Circle, you can contact its team for a full refund.
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Hey there! I’m Baidhurya, the brains behind SellCoursesOnline. I used to run a digital agency, where I helped course businesses launch their eLearning platforms. I also led the tech and marketing teams at StationX, helping it grow to 500K+ students. In addition, I created the popular supply chain network design course. With 8+ years of experience, I’m here to share my expertise and insights on course creation and platforms with you.
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