Choosing a community platform mostly comes down to one question: what are you actually building? A paid membership funded by course sales needs monetization tools built in. A branded customer or support community for an existing product needs something else entirely. This roundup covers four platforms that get lumped together in searches but solve different problems — Circle, Skool, and Mighty Networks are built to sell memberships and courses directly; Bettermode is built for brands running a customer or product community and charges no revenue share at all.
We verified every price, fee, and feature below against each platform’s official pricing and help pages.
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Quick Recommendations
| Platform | Best For | Starting Price | Free Plan Limits | Our Rating |
| Circle | An all-in-one community hub with courses, a website builder, and AI/API tools as you grow | $89/month, billed annually | No free plan — 14-day trial, no card required | ⭐4.5/5 |
| Skool | The cheapest, simplest way to launch a single gamified community | $9/month | No free plan — 14-day trial | ⭐4.3/5 |
| Mighty Networks | Structured courses, cohorts, and live events with unlimited spaces from day one | $79/month, billed annually | No free plan — 14-day trial (runs on Growth-plan features) | ⭐4.4/5 |
| Bettermode | Enterprise brand, customer, or support communities — not for selling courses or memberships | $149/month, billed annually | No free plan — 14-day trial, no card required | ⭐4.1/5 |
Ratings reflect our editorial assessment of features, pricing, and fit after researching each platform’s official documentation — not hands-on testing.
Comparison at a Glance
| If you want… | Choose |
|---|---|
| The lowest possible starting cost | Skool ($9/month Hobby plan) |
| A website builder, optional email marketing, and API access on higher tiers | Circle |
| Native quizzes, drip scheduling, and completion certificates for courses | Mighty Networks |
| Unlimited spaces on every plan, even the entry tier | Mighty Networks |
| The strongest built-in gamification (points, levels, leaderboards) | Skool |
| A branded customer or support community with no revenue share | Bettermode |
| Enterprise security features, including SOC 2 Type II controls, on the top tier | Bettermode |
| A branded, white-labeled mobile app | Circle (Circle Plus) or Mighty Networks (Mighty Pro) |
The Best Tools
1. Circle — Best All-in-One Platform
Circle positions itself as a full business hub rather than just a community feed: courses, a website builder, gamification, and Circle AI are included from the entry-level Professional plan ($89/month, billed annually), with a 2% transaction fee on top of Stripe processing. Business ($199/month) removes Circle’s branding and adds workflows and API access at a 1% fee. A newer Scale plan ($419/month) adds AI agents, unlimited workflows, webhooks, and custom SSO — still at a 1% fee, the same rate as Business, so the extra cost buys automation and AI headroom rather than lower fees. Circle Plus (custom pricing) drops the fee to 0.5% and adds optional custom branded mobile apps. Circle backs its Professional and Business plans with a 30-day, 100% money-back guarantee; its current terms explicitly exclude Scale and Circle Plus from that guarantee.
The trade-off is cost: Circle’s platform fee is added to separate Stripe processing (plus a documented 0.7% Stripe Billing charge on recurring memberships), so its total cost per sale runs higher than Skool’s all-in fee at equivalent revenue. Read our full Circle review
2. Skool — Best Budget Option
Skool strips the product down to one feed, one classroom, and a gamification system built around points and levels 1 through 9 — the feature it’s best known for. Hobby costs $9/month with a 10% + $0.30 transaction fee that already includes payment processing (Skool is the merchant of record and handles EU VAT for you). Pro ($99/month) drops that to 2.9% + $0.30 on sales up to $899, which comes out cheaper per sale than any tier of Circle or Mighty Networks once their separate Stripe processing is factored in. Skool’s classroom supports level- and time-based content unlocking through its Drip feature, but it doesn’t offer quizzes, assignments, or completion certificates. Multiple admins and other advanced tools are available on Pro. Subscription fees are non-refundable once paid. Read our full Skool review
3. Mighty Networks — Best for Structured Courses
Mighty Networks gives every plan, including the $79/month Launch tier (billed annually), unlimited spaces — a structural advantage over both Circle and Skool. Its course tools go further too: quizzes and tests, sequential and dripped content, and automatically awarded certifications are listed on every plan, alongside SCORM-compliant content embeds. Scale ($179/month) adds Zapier, Kit, and affiliate integrations plus Admin API access; Growth ($354/month) adds advanced automations, priority support, and migration services. Transaction fees run 2%/1%/0.5%/0.5% across the four tiers, added to separate Stripe processing that Mighty’s own documentation puts at 2.5% to 5%. One notable exception: purchases made through Mighty’s iOS app go through Apple In-App Purchase instead, and Mighty adds no fee of its own on those. Every free trial runs on Growth-plan features, and a 5% transaction fee applies to any sales made during the trial. Read our full Mighty Networks review
4. Bettermode — Best for Enterprise Customer Communities
Bettermode is a different kind of product from the other three. It’s built for brands running a customer, product, or support community — its customer list includes IBM, Lenovo, and HubSpot — not for creators selling courses or paid memberships. There’s no course or LMS functionality and no payment or paywall system anywhere in its feature set, and correspondingly, no transaction fee. Instead, Bettermode charges a flat monthly subscription: Starter runs $149/month billed annually (or $199/month billed monthly) for up to 10,000 members, five collaborators, a custom domain, and limited API access. Growth ($1,500/month annually) raises the member cap to 25,000, adds AI-powered search and full API and webhook access, and unlocks most of Bettermode’s advanced integrations. Premium is custom-priced for 100,000+ members and adds a custom CMS, SOC 2 Type II controls, SAML, and a 99.9% uptime SLA. If your goal is monetizing content directly, Bettermode isn’t built for that; if your goal is a branded space for customers or users to support each other, it’s the most enterprise-ready option here. Read our full Bettermode review
How to Choose
Start with what your community is actually for, not the feature list:
- Selling courses or a paid membership directly? Circle, Skool, and Mighty Networks all support this. Skool is cheapest to start and simplest to run; Mighty Networks has the strongest native course and certification tools; Circle offers the broadest surrounding toolkit (website, email, APIs). (Skool vs Mighty Networks)
- Running a branded community for an existing product, customers, or users — not selling access to it? Bettermode is purpose-built for this and skips the transaction-fee model entirely, but it won’t help you charge for content.
- Budget-constrained and testing an idea? Skool’s $9/month Hobby plan has the lowest starting price of the four, though its 10% + $0.30 transaction fee is relatively high once sales grow.
- Need multiple distinct spaces from day one? Mighty Networks includes unlimited spaces on every plan; Circle caps spaces by tier (20 on Professional); Skool has no concept of spaces at all — each group is a single feed. (Circle vs Mighty Networks)
- Need enterprise security and compliance? Bettermode is SOC 2 Type II compliant with SAML on its top tier; Circle carries SOC 2, GDPR, CCPA, and PCI SAQ compliance badges across its plans.
Our Recommendation
For most creators and coaches monetizing a community directly, Skool is the easiest starting point on cost alone, and Mighty Networks is the stronger pick once structured courses, certifications, or unlimited spaces matter more than starting price. Circle is the best fit if you want your community to double as a broader business hub — website, email, APIs — and can justify paying more per sale for that breadth. If you’re not selling access and instead need a branded space for customers or users, Bettermode is designed more specifically for that use case, trading a transaction-fee model for a flat enterprise subscription.
FAQ
Which community platform is cheapest to start? Skool, at $9/month for the Hobby plan, though its 10% + $0.30 transaction fee is the highest of the four once your sales grow. Mighty Networks’ Launch plan starts at $79/month (billed annually), and Circle’s Professional plan starts at $89/month (billed annually). Bettermode starts at $149/month but charges no transaction fee, since it isn’t built for selling access at all.
Which platform has the lowest transaction fees? It depends on how you measure it. Skool’s fee already includes payment processing, so Skool Pro (2.9% + $0.30 on sales up to $899) tends to be the cheapest in total once you add Stripe’s separate processing fees to Circle’s or Mighty’s platform fees. Bettermode charges no transaction fee at all, but it also has no built-in way to charge members for content.
Which platform is best for selling online courses? Mighty Networks has the most complete native course toolkit — quizzes, drip scheduling, certifications, and SCORM support — on every plan. Circle includes course hosting with a drag-and-drop builder but no native completion certificates. Skool’s classroom is more basic, without quizzes or certificates. Bettermode doesn’t support courses.
Is Bettermode a good fit for a paid membership community? No. Bettermode has no payment, paywall, or course-selling functionality in its feature set — it’s designed for branded customer and support communities that don’t charge for access, such as the ones IBM and Lenovo run.
Do any of these platforms have a free plan? No. All four offer a 14-day free trial instead of a permanent free tier. Circle’s and Bettermode’s trials require no credit card; Mighty’s runs on Growth-plan features and applies a 5% fee to trial-period sales.
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