# Circle

> Community platform with courses, events, payments and branded apps

Circle is a community-first platform for running a paid or free community under your own brand. Discussions, chat, courses, events and live streams sit in spaces members join, with payments, a website builder and gamification included. Higher plans add workflows, an API, AI agents and, on Circle Plus, a custom branded mobile app.

- **Category:** Courses & Communities
- **Made by:** Circle
- **Website:** https://circle.so
- **Runs on:** Web, iOS, Android
- **Facts last checked:** Oct 17, 2026

## Pricing

Circle is a paid product with a free trial, starting at $89 per month, billed annually ($99 billed monthly).

- **Pricing model:** Free trial
- **Free plan:** None.
- **Free trial:** 14-day free trial, no credit card required.

| Plan | Price | What you get |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Professional | $89 per month, billed annually ($99 billed monthly) | Unlimited members, courses, events, website, payments, apps, 3 admins, 20 spaces, 2,500 AI credits. Circle takes 2% of each sale. |
| Business | $199 per month, billed annually ($219 billed monthly) | 20 workflows, APIs and MCP, custom profile fields, branded emails, no Circle branding, 5 admins, 30 spaces. 1% transaction fee. |
| Scale | $419 per month, billed monthly or annually | AI agents and AI workflows, unlimited workflows, webhooks, custom SSO, 10 admins, 100 spaces, 5,000 AI credits. 1% transaction fee. |
| Circle Plus | Custom | Custom branded iOS and Android apps, unlimited admins and spaces, Email Hub with 10,000 contacts, a dedicated expert. 0.5% transaction fee. |

Read from https://circle.so/pricing on Oct 17, 2026. Prices change, so confirm with Circle before buying.

## Ways to pay less

- **Lower monthly price with annual billing** (Annual discount): Circle's pricing lists Professional at $89 a month billed annually against $99 monthly, and Business at $199 against $219. Scale costs the same either way. Source: https://circle.so/pricing

## Key features

- **Spaces, discussions and chat:** Members join topic spaces for posts and chat, with a member directory, rich profiles and gamification. Professional allows 20 spaces.
- **Courses:** Courses live inside the community on every plan, and course migration from another platform is free on annual Business plans and above.
- **Events and live streams:** Live events, live streams and live rooms: Professional covers 100 stream attendees, 15 room participants and 10 hours.
- **Payments and website:** Paid memberships and products through Circle's checkout, a website builder and a custom domain on every plan.
- **Workflows, API and AI:** Business adds workflows, APIs and an MCP server; Scale adds AI agents, AI moderation and webhooks. Extra AI credits cost $10 per 1,000.
- **Email Hub:** An optional add-on for broadcasts, scheduled campaigns, sign-up forms, segments and marketing automations to contacts and members.

## Good for

- Creators and brands whose main product is a community
- Communities that also sell courses and run live events
- Teams that want automations and an API around their community

## Worth knowing

- Circle takes 2% of each sale on Professional, 1% on Business and Scale and 0.5% on Circle Plus.
- Email Hub costs extra on top of any plan except Circle Plus: $19 a month for up to 1,000 contacts, $99 at 10,000.
- Workflows, the API and removing Circle branding need Business; AI agents and webhooks need Scale.
- An app under your own name in the app stores is only in Circle Plus, which is priced through sales.

## ToolGPA grades

**GPA: 2.8 out of 4**, graded Oct 17, 2026. Circle is the most complete of the community platforms: spaces, chat, courses, events and live streams, payments and a website, with workflows and an API on Business. Its app has a 4.87 from about 86,000 ratings. It costs more than Skool or Mighty Networks once its 2% cut is in, and email marketing is an add-on.

- **Value for money: C.** Graded against its alternatives, community platforms. Professional is $89 a month billed yearly plus Circle's 2% of sales, $40 on $2,000: $129 a month. That's mid-pack, above Skool Pro ($82.50) and Mighty Networks ($119), below Heartbeat ($140).
- **Free plan and trial: C.** No free plan, but a 14-day trial with no card needed, which is enough to set up spaces and invite a few people.
- **Features: B.** Spaces with posts and chat, courses, events, live streams and rooms, paid memberships, a website builder, gamification and AI credits on every plan. Nothing in the listing shows a gap in the job; workflows and the API just start on Business.
- **Ease of use: A.** 4.87 from about 86,000 App Store ratings, the strongest record in this category. Members open the app and they're in.
- **Platforms and integrations: B.** Web, iPhone and Android, with Zapier, Stripe, PayPal, Slack, HubSpot, Mailchimp and Teachable, plus an API and MCP on Business. No desktop app, which an A needs.

These are ToolGPA's own grades. Graded from this listing, whose facts were read from Circle's own pages on 17 October 2026, and its App Store rating. Not based on using the product, and shorter than our full reviews.

## Where it stands among course and community platforms

- Circle's GPA of 2.8 is higher than 16 of the 18 other course and community platforms we grade, and level with 2.
- It stands best on ease of use (A, above 17 of 18) and worst on value for money (C, above 3).
- Its paid plans start at $89 a month, against a middle price of $41 for the category: 15 of the 17 others that charge start lower.
- On features, ease of use and platforms it scores 3.3 out of 4. Nothing scores higher for less, though at least one tool matches that score at a lower price.

The category's chart of price against score: https://toolgpa.com/charts/courses-communities

## Keep it, or make your own?

**Keep it.** To replace Circle you would be making connections to other products, each kept working as those products change. That is not a weekend's work, with an AI app builder or without one. It is one of the better ones too: its GPA of 2.8 is higher than 16 of the 18 other course and community platforms we grade. It costs $1,068 a year.

- You could make: Online courses: an app builder makes this well.
- You could not: Connections to other products, each kept working as those products change.
- You could not: Newsletters sent to thousands of people that still reach the inbox.
- You could not: A members' space with posts, chat and events that people keep coming back to.
- You could not: A real app for iOS and Android. Something home-made would be a web page.
- You could not: AI features, unless you pay a model provider for each request yourself.
- You could not: The depth: we grade its features B, which means it covers the whole job.

A judgement by ToolGPA from this listing, by rules that are the same for every tool. Nothing was built to test it.

## What people say

- **App Store rating of the iPhone and iPad app:** 4.9 out of 5 from 86,034 ratings in the United States, read Oct 17, 2026. This is the store's rating of the app, not a score from ToolGPA. Source: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id1509651625

## Works with

Zapier, Stripe, PayPal, Slack, Google Analytics, HubSpot, Mailchimp, Teachable

**Tags:** Online courses, Community, Workflow automation, Email campaigns, AI features, Public API

## Alternatives

- [Mighty Networks](https://toolgpa.com/tools/mighty-networks): Community platform with courses, livestreams and paid memberships. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/circle-vs-mighty-networks)
- [Skool](https://toolgpa.com/tools/skool): Community platform with courses, events and paid memberships. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/circle-vs-skool)
- [Heartbeat](https://toolgpa.com/tools/heartbeat): Paid community platform with courses, events and member payments. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/circle-vs-heartbeat)
- [Disco](https://toolgpa.com/tools/disco): Branded learning academy for cohort courses, community and AI help. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/circle-vs-disco)
- [Kajabi](https://toolgpa.com/tools/kajabi): All-in-one platform for selling courses, coaching and communities. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/circle-vs-kajabi)

## Sources

The prices, plans, platforms and features above were read from these pages on Oct 17, 2026:

- https://circle.so/pricing
- https://circle.so/integrations
- https://apps.apple.com/us/app/circle-communities/id1509651625

Page: https://toolgpa.com/tools/circle
Listed by ToolGPA (toolgpa.com).