Circle is a cloud-based solution 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 rich discussion posts, private messaging, events, livestreams, and online courses.
However, the features the platform offers vary significantly between its 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.
How Much Does Circle Cost?
Circle offers three pricing plans. Take a look at the table below to compare the monthly and yearly plans.
| CIRCLE PLAN | MONTHLY | YEARLY |
|---|---|---|
| Basic | $49/month | $39/month |
| Professional | $99/month | $89/month |
| Enterprise | $399/month | $360/month |
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 out before making a decision.
Now, let’s take a closer look at each of these plans.
How Do the Circle Pricing Plans Compare?
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.
Basic Plan: $49/month
The Basic plan costs $49 per month and covers the core features you need to build an online community:
- Core community-building tools, including spaces and posts
- Group chats and private messaging
- Directory of active members
- Ability to use your own domain
- Free mobile apps for end users
- Customer support via email
It also includes single sign-on integration with platforms like Teachable and MemberSpace.
While the Basic plan offers enough features to allow you to launch your community, create spaces, and kickstart engagement, it also has some significant limitations:
- You can only have up to 100 members.
- You can have just one admin and one moderator.
- The storage is limited to 10 GB.
- Circle charges a transaction fee of 4% for this plan.
- You can’t create online courses.
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.
Professional Plan: $99/month
Circle’s Professional plan costs $99 per month and provides a significant upgrade over the Basic plan. In fact, it’s highlighted as “Most Popular” on the Circle website, and it does offer great value for money.
Apart from the features included in the Basic plan, the Professional plan includes the following upgrades:
- Built-in online course builder
- Ability to livestream natively
- Advanced analytics
- SSO integration with more platforms (e.g. WordPress)
- Ability to completely white-label the platform
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:
| BASIC | PROFESSIONAL | |
|---|---|---|
| Community members | 100 | Unlimited |
| Administrators | 1 | 3 |
| Moderators | 1 | 10 |
| Spaces | 10 | 20 |
| Attachment storage | 10 GB | 100 GB |
| Transaction fees | 4% | 1% |
The Professional plan will be the best plan for most creators. It offers all the important platform features and is reasonably priced as well. Plus, the limits are generous, so you can stay on this plan for a long time.
Enterprise Plan: $399/month
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 Professional plan, you also get:
- API access
- Custom single sign-on
- Priority email support
- A dedicated customer service manager (if you choose the annual plan)
In addition to these new features, you also get the following limit increases:
| PROFESSIONAL | ENTERPRISE | |
|---|---|---|
| Attachment storage | 100 GB | 1 TB |
| Transaction fees | 1% | 0.5% |
| Spaces | 20 | 100 |
| Livestreaming hours | 20 | 40 |
| Livestream attendees | 100 | 1,000+ |
| Administrators | 3 | 10 |
| Moderators | 10 | 100 |
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 want the advanced features or if you run a truly large community, you can consider going with the Enterprise plan.
Circle Pricing Add-Ons
Apart from the regular pricing plans, Circle also offers some add-ons that allow you to increase the service limits without upgrading the plan.
For example, you can get an additional ten moderators for your community by paying $10 per month. Similarly, you can get ten extra livestreaming hours for $50/month.
However, the add-ons are available only for the Professional and Enterprise plan subscribers and are charged on top of your monthly cost.
Is Circle Expensive?
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.
Mighty Networks pricing starts out at $39/month for its Community plan, which is comparable with Circle’s Basic plan ($49/month). While the $10-cheaper price tag is nice, Mighty Networks has an even bigger advantage here: its cheapest plan allows for unlimited members.
When we get to compare the most popular plans, though, the advantage shifts in Circle’s favor. Mighty Networks offers the Business plan ($119/month + 2% transaction fee), which is considerably pricier than Circle’s Professional plan ($99/month + 1% transaction fee).
Here, Circle offers a much more affordable option with similar features: unlimited members, native livestreaming, online courses, etc. Additionally, Circle supports white-labeling and SSO integrations, which aren’t available in Mighty Networks.
Circle also has another competitor, Peerboard, one of the more budget-friendly community platforms. It has a free plan that allows for 500 members, more than Circle’s Basic plan, which allows only 100.
However, Peerboard misses out on several important features that Circle offers, including online courses, livestreaming, and free mobile apps.
Here’s a side-by-side look at each platform’s pricing plan:
| PLAN | CIRCLE | MIGHTY NETWORKS | PEERBOARD |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free plan | n/a | n/a | $0/month |
| Basic plan | $49/month | $39/month | $29/month |
| Professional plan | $99/month | $119/month | $79/month |
| Enterprise plan | $399/month | Custom | $299/month |
Circle.so Pricing: Final Thoughts
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 just 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 includes all the platform features, including online courses and livestreaming. Plus, your community can have unlimited members.
Lastly, if you’re an established brand with a big community management team, you should be looking at the Enterprise plan. The priority email support plus the API access, and the vastly increased limits make it worthwhile.
Still have more questions about Circle.so pricing? Drop us a comment below!
