Circle vs Mighty Networks: Which Platform is Best?

Considering Circle vs Mighty Networks for your community platform? Let us do the research for you and share everything you need to know when making a decision.

By Joanna Taylor  •  Updated 24 September 2023

Circle vs Mighty Networks

Building a website where you can host an online community, accept paid memberships, and sell online courses can be a daunting task. So much so that it scares business owners and creators away from these great opportunities.

Platforms such as Circle and Mighty Networks have emerged as leading tools for community managers and creators. Both platforms promise to help you build, nurture, and monetize your online communities, but which one truly stands out?

In this guide, we’ll take a closer look into the features, pricing, user experience, and integrations of both Circle and Mighty Network. Our aim is to give you a clear idea of which one suits your needs the best.

Circle vs Mighty Networks: Feature comparison

Let's take a look at an overview of how Circle vs Mighty Networks measure up against each other in terms of feature set:

What is Circle.so

Circle is an online community platform that allows individuals and businesses to create a branded space where they can grow a community. 

It gives you all the tools you need to start your online community in little time since you don’t have to worry about building the platform itself. 

In this space, you can have paid members and engage with them through discussions, courses, events, chat, and live streams.

Circle Alternatives vs Mighty Networks

What are Circle.so's Main features

Spaces: Circle operates through distinct "spaces" designed for different types of interactions. These spaces encompass discussions, events, real-time chat, and courses. You can create public or private spaces where everyone can access and interact over the same topics. With multiple spaces, you can allow members to view different content based on their tier. So, people that pay more can get more exclusive content.

Customization: You can customise your community spaces as much as you want to fit your brand identity and vision. The ability to control access levels, content display, and topic order ensures a truly unique community experience.

Payment options for members: You can choose from a variety of payment options for your community members to pay for access to your content. These methods include one-time fees, subscriptions with different durations, and free trials. More options will make it easier for you to convert new users.

Engagement tools: Private messaging, group chats, live streams, weekly digests, automated check-ins, bulk DMs, and event spaces allow you to engage with your audience in many ways. As a result, you can create unique member experiences that will keep the interest of people.

Circle Pricing

Basic ($49/month): Delivers essential tools for community engagement, including discussions, member profiles, unlimited events, group chats, private messaging, and moderation.

Professional ($99/month): Gives you access to courses and live-stream video experiences.

Business Plan ($219/month): Offers workflows, customizable fields, API access, email white-labelling, content co-pilot, and more.

Enterprise Plan ($399/month): Includes a Customer Success Manager, API Access for more advanced integrations, customizable profile fields to tailor member interactions, and more.

Circle Pros

Intuitive interface: Circle focuses on having an intuitive interface that’s easy to understand and use.
Integrations: Circle seamlessly integrates with existing websites, online courses, and tech platforms. This means that it’s very easy to connect your community platform to your current operations.
Customization: The platform's high degree of customization enables you to build a community space that aligns with your unique brand and goals.
Engagement and interaction: Circle gives you plenty of options to create unique member experiences.
Payment flexibility: The various payment options and membership tiers give you multiple ways to monetize your community in a way that suits your audience.

Circle Cons

Feature limitations: Circle does not offer all the features available on Mighty Networks, such as native website building and AI assistance.
Only helps for community building: Creators without an existing online presence might need to set up these elements separately. For example, Circle won’t help you build a website, just your community page. Newer creators who want to establish their business online will need separate platforms for that.
Not very cost-effective: Circle costs more than Might Networks. The difference might not seem like much, but you should also consider that Circle has fewer features.

What are Mighty Networks Main features

Website building: Mighty Networks gives you access to an easy-to-use website builder to help you consolidate your online business. This is a highly beneficial feature for creators in the beginning stages of their careers.

Online courses: Just as with Circle, you can use this platform to create online courses and sell them. But with Mighty Networks, you can create a cohort-based course with a feed and chat or a content-based course. The main difference is that cohort courses are more interactive and collaborative.

Mighty Networks alternative

Advanced AI assistance: To make things easier, Might Networks helps you set up your community with the help of AI. This feature will assist you with smart recommendations to create your community site. Some of the things it can help you with are creating a landing page, tagline, social announcements, invitations, posts, community plan, and more.

Easy content distribution: Mighty Networks seamlessly integrates articles, courses, and events, streamlining content distribution and enhancing member participation. Plus, it makes it easy to create all kinds of courses from the platform.

Custom app: Mighty Networks also gives you the possibility to have your own branded mobile app in the Apple App Store and Android Play Store. This way, your community experience is even more branded and powerful.

Mighty Networks pricing

Community ($39/month): Includes unlimited members, native live streaming, chat, events, website building, and paid memberships.

Business ($119/month): This plan adds features like online course creation, integrations, advanced analytics, and featured content.

Mighty Pro (custom pricing): Customized iOS and Android mobile apps, white-label capabilities, and specialized support.

Mighty Networks pros

Unified online business: Mighty Networks empowers creators to establish a comprehensive online presence, integrating websites, communities, courses, and content within a single platform.
Feature-rich: Mighty Networks offers a wealth of capabilities that other platforms don’t, including website building with custom domain, plenty of engagement tools, robust events management, and in-depth member profiles.
Enhanced engagement: With all of the platform’s features, Mighty Networks encourages more community participation, increasing audience engagement and loyalty.

Mighty Networks cons

Overwhelming to some: For creators who already host courses elsewhere, the abundance of features in Mighty Networks might not align with their specific needs.
User experience complexity: While feature-rich, Mighty Networks' user interface might be a challenge in terms of navigation and ease of use.

Circle vs Mighty Networks: Which Is Better?

Circle and Mighty Networks are both strong contenders, but they cater to slightly different audiences and needs. 

Circle, with its intuitive interface and seamless integrations, is designed for creators and businesses who already have an established online presence and need an efficient platform to build and manage their community. 

It's an excellent choice for those prioritising an easy-to-use, streamlined community-building experience. However, the pricing might seem steep given the feature limitations when compared to Mighty Networks.

Mighty Networks, on the other hand, presents itself as a holistic solution for independent creators at any stage of their online journey. Its comprehensive toolkit, which includes website building and AI-assisted setups, empowers creators to start from scratch, merge their offerings, and monetize their skills and knowledge. 

But this abundance of features can be daunting, especially for those who only need specific tools.

Final considerations

In the end, both platforms can help you build an engaged community. 

Mighty Networks is more affordable and offers a larger set of features than Circle. But this makes the platform more complex and not as easy to use. 

Circle offers a platform focused on simplicity and quality features.

We've shared our research, we recommend trying out these platforms to see which works best for you.

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Explore Kourses, a platform that might align better with your desire for a more comprehensive and feature-rich online course builder experience.

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