Ready to build a thriving paid online community? Choosing the right platform between Skool and Circle is key.
Both offer great features, but which is best for you?
This post breaks down Skool vs Circle strengths and weaknesses, focusing on pricing, ease of use, and engagement tools.
By the end, you’ll confidently choose the platform to set your community up for success.
Skool vs Circle: Overview
To give you the most accurate comparison, I dove deep into both platforms.
This included exploring their features firsthand, comparing pricing plans, and even testing out their community engagement tools. Let’s see how they stack up!
But first, it’s important to understand that Skool and Circle, while both community platforms, have slightly different focuses.
Skool is geared towards course creators who want to build a community around their courses.
While Circle caters to a wider range of communities, including those not centered around courses.
Skool offers a streamlined platform for building online courses and fostering thriving communities. Try it now!
Pricing: 14-day free trial available. Paid plan Starts at $99/month
Key Features:
- Simple Course Creation
- Built-in Community
- Gamification
They offer a 14-day free trial, and no credit card is required. Click here to explore Circle’s features and see how it can elevate your community!
Pricing: It has a free plan. Paid plan Starts at $89/month
Key Features:
- Memberships
- Events
- Live Streams
What is Skool?
Ever wished for a platform that combines courses and community?
That’s Skool in a nutshell. It’s designed for creators who want to teach and build a tight-knit community around their content.
Think of it as a blend of your favorite online course platform with a social media feel.
Also, explore our favorite Skool alternatives…
Our Take
It excels at building engaged communities and offers excellent value for its price. However, it loses a few points due to its slightly limited course customization and fewer marketing integrations than other platforms. If community is your top priority, Skool is worth checking out.
Key Benefits
Kajabi’s biggest strength is its comprehensive suite of tools.
They’ve helped over 75 million customers turn their passions into profitable businesses.
You get everything you need to create, market, and sell your digital products.
- All-in-one solution: No need for separate website, email, and course platforms.
- Built-in marketing tools: Create funnels, automations, and email campaigns right inside Kajabi.
- No transaction fees: You keep 100% of your earnings on all plans (minus payment processor fees).
- 24/7 support: Get help whenever you need it with their customer support team.
- Mobile apps: Members can access your content and community on the go.
Pricing
- Hobby: $9/month
- Pro: $99/month.
Pros
Cons
What is Circle?
We are looking for a versatile platform to host your community.
Circle might be your answer. It’s designed for a wide range of communities, from membership sites and coaching programs to online courses and fan clubs.
Think of it as your own customizable online space to connect and engage.
Also, explore our favorite Circle alternatives…
Our Take
Build a powerful community hub with Circle. Get a clean, branded space for your members to connect, with a variety of monetization options, and reduce your transaction fees from 4% to 2% by upgrading to the professional plan.
Key Benefits
Circle prides itself on fostering deeper connections and providing a distraction-free environment. They have a proven track record, powering communities for big names like Adobe, ConvertKit, and Teachable.
- Clean and organized: Easy to navigate and find what you need.
- Spaces for different topics: Keep conversations focused.
- Rich member profiles: Get to know your members better.
- Events and live streams: Host engaging online gatherings.
- Integrations: Connect with your favorite tools.
Pricing
Circle offers a 14-day free trial and three main pricing plans:
- Professional Plan starts at $89 per month: This unlocks more features and integrations.
- Business Plan starts at $199 per month: This unlocks everything in Professional Plus.
- Enterprise Plan starts at $419 per month: This is for large organizations with specific needs.
- Plus Branded App: Custom Pricing.
Pros
Cons
Feature Comparison
Skool vs Circle Feature Comparison Both Skool and Circle are modern platforms offer unique features for community building and creators; the choice between them often hinges on design control and focus on creating courses.
1. Primary Platform Focus
- Skool: Is a highly streamlined and simple community space, geared towards high engagement and blending the community feature seamlessly with creating courses.
- Circle: Is a feature-centric platform for online communities, offering robust tools that prioritize customization features compared to its competitor, and wider versatility for content.
2. Course Creation Tools
- Skool: The course creation tools are simple and native, allowing users to create courses and embed them directly, with all the features included in its single pricing tier.
- Circle: Features a more advanced course creation area with options for progress tracking, but its full functionality is tied to higher tiers, meaning all the features are not available on the lowest paid plan.
3. Customization Features
- Skool: Offers very limited customization features compared to Circle; all communities look similar, providing a consistent, minimal aesthetic but restricting branding.
- Circle: Provides extensive customization features, allowing users to control branding, design, and use a custom domain, giving creators more control over their community space.
4. Unlimited Members and Pricing Model
- Skool: Offers one simple pricing plan that includes unlimited members and unlimited courses, making the cost predictable for scaling creators.
- Circle: Has tiered pricing, and while higher plans offer unlimited members, the cost scales based on the number of spaces and access to advanced features.
5. Community Organization
- Skool: Utilizes a single, familiar discussion feed model, similar to a facebook group, organized by categories for straightforward navigation.
- Circle: Uses “Spaces” and “Space Groups” to organize discussions, content, events, and courses into separate, dedicated areas, offering superior scalability for complex online communities.
6. Gamification
- Skool: Features a powerful, native gamification system with points, levels, and leaderboards that directly unlocks content, driving high engagement within the active community.
- Circle: Recently added gamification features (leaderboards, badges) to compete, but its system is integrated with its workflow automations rather than being the core community feature.
7. Native Video Hosting and Live Events
- Skool: Includes native video hosting for course content and community posts but relies on external tools (like Zoom) for live events, which is a key limitation.
- Circle: Offers native video hosting and includes built-in live streaming and event management tools, allowing community members to host and attend live sessions directly on the site.
8. Mobile App Experience
- Skool: Provides a dedicated skool mobile app (iOS and Android) that is highly praised for its clean, intuitive interface, providing a smooth experience for community members.
- Circle: Also offers a mobile app with a rich feature set, maintaining consistency with its desktop functionality for all the features available.
9. Monetization Flexibility
- Skool: Monetization is simple, supporting paid membership subscriptions directly through its integrated payment system.
- Circle: Provides greater flexibility, supporting not just subscriptions, but also one-time purchases and multiple product offerings within a single community, allowing users to add tiers.
10. Platform Automation and Integrations
- Skool: Lacks extensive native automation features and has fewer integrations compared to Circle, often relying on Zapier for core connections.
- Circle: Boasts a more robust set of workflow automations and integrations, making it a powerful choice for creators who need to connect their online communities with a broad tech stack.
11. User Experience and Interface
- Skool: The user friendly interface is simple, minimal, and fast-loading, often cited in a skool review as being “addictive” for its lack of distractions, making it easy for skool users to adopt.
- Circle: Has a modern, sleek user friendly interface, offering a professional feel that appeals to users who want a highly polished and professional community creation space.
What to look for when choosing an online community platform?
- Think about your needs: What features are essential for your community? Do you need in-depth courses, advanced customization, or specific integrations?
- Consider your budget: Both platforms have different pricing structures. Choose the one that fits your budget and offers the best value for your needs.
- Try before you buy: Take advantage of free trials to test both platforms and see which one feels right for you.
- Factor in future growth: Choose a platform that can scale with your community as it grows.
- Remember support: Look for a platform with responsive and helpful customer support.
- Community focus: Skool leans towards course-based communities, while Circle is more versatile.
- Facebook Groups: If you’re looking for a free option to start with, Facebook Groups can be a good starting point, but they need the features and customization of Skool or Circle.
- Video hosting: Both platforms offer video hosting, so you can easily share videos with your community.
- Enable dark mode: While not a deal-breaker, Circle offers a dark mode option, which some users may prefer.
Final Verdict
So, which platform wins? It’s a close call, but we choose Circle.
Why? Circle is like a Swiss Army knife. It has lots of tools and can do many things.
You can change it to look exactly how you want. It also works with other apps you might use.
This makes it great for different kinds of communities.
Skool is awesome, but it’s simpler. It’s like a really good kitchen knife – perfect for certain tasks, like making courses.
But Circle is better if you need more features and want to grow a bigger community.
Do you want something super easy to use and focused on courses?
Then the Skool community might be best. But if you want more options and think your community will get big, Circle is the winner.
More of Skool
Here’s a brief comparison of Skool against the listed alternatives:
- Skool vs Circle: Skool integrates community with gamified courses, while Circle focuses primarily on customizable community building.
- Skool vs Teachable: Skool blends community with courses and gamification; Teachable centers on course creation with community as an add-on.
- Skool vs GoHighLevel: Skool is for community/courses with gamification; GoHighLevel is a broad marketing automation platform, including community features.
- Skool vs MightyNetworks: Skool emphasizes gamification within its community/course structure; MightyNetworks offers a wider range of content, event, and community options.
- Skool vs Bettermode: Skool offers integrated courses and gamification; Bettermode provides deeper customization for branded community experiences.
- Skool vs Thinkific: Skool combines community, courses, and gamification; Thinkific is primarily a course platform with community features.
- Skool vs LearnWorlds: Skool adds gamification to community and courses; LearnWorlds focuses on interactive online courses with integrated communities.
- Skool vs Swarm: Skool integrates courses and gamification with the community; Swarm focuses on structured, interest-based community interactions.
- Skool vs Disco: Skool includes gamified courses and community; Disco specializes in cohort-based learning and learning communities.
- Skool vs Kajabi: Skool is focused on community and courses with gamification, while Kajabi is an all-in-one business platform that includes courses, marketing, and community.
- Skool vs Wylo: Skool provides a platform for creators with courses and gamification; Wylo connects people through interest-based community discovery and interaction.
- Skool vs Whop: Skool offers a creator platform with gamified communities and courses; Whop is a marketplace and platform for selling access to communities and digital goods.
More of Circle
Here is a comparison of Circle with the specified alternatives:
- Circle vs Skool: Circle focuses broadly on community customization, while Skool adds strong gamification and simplified course delivery.
- Circle vs Swarm: Circle offers general community building, while Swarm emphasizes highly structured interest-based groups.
- Circle vs Teachable: Circle is primarily a community platform, whereas Teachable is focused on course creation with an integrated community.
- Circle vs GoHighLevel: Circle specializes in community features, while GoHighLevel is a comprehensive marketing automation suite that includes community tools.
- Circle vs MightyNetworks: Circle offers robust community features, while Mighty Networks integrates community tightly with courses, content, and events.
- Circle vs Bettermode: Circle provides customizable community spaces, while Bettermode focuses on deep branding and white-label community solutions.
- Circle vs Thinkific: Circle is a dedicated community platform, while Thinkific is mainly for online courses with the community as an add-on.
- Circle vs LearnWorlds: Circle builds diverse communities, while LearnWorlds integrates community specifically with interactive online learning.
- Circle vs Disco: Circle is for general community building, while Disco focuses specifically on cohort-based learning communities.
- Circle vs Kajabi: Circle is centered on community, whereas Kajabi is an all-in-one platform for courses, marketing, and community.
- Circle vs Wylo: Circle provides a structured platform for creators, while Wylo connects individuals through interest-driven discovery and communities.
- Circle vs Whop: Circle builds direct communities for creators, while Whop is a marketplace for selling access to digital communities and products.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which platform is easier to use, Skool or Circle?
Skool is generally easier to get started with, thanks to its simpler interface and streamlined features. Circle has a steeper learning curve due to its wider range of customization options.
Can I use Skool or Circle for free?
Both platforms offer free trials. Skool has a limited free plan, while Circle provides you a 14-day free trial to test its features.
Does Skool have a dedicated member directory?
No, Skool currently lacks a dedicated member directory. Circle, on the other hand, offers a searchable member directory to help members connect.
Which platform is the best for selling online courses?
Skool is specifically designed for course creators, with tightly integrated course features. While Circle can host courses, it’s not its primary focus.
Can I integrate my email marketing tools with Skool and Circle?
Yes, both platforms offer integrations with popular email marketing tools. Circle has a wider range of direct integrations, while Skool relies mainly on Zapier for connections.
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