Circle

Course businesses, membership operators and creator brands that want discussion, paid content and email in one place. Support teams meet Circle as the price anchor when they cost out a customer community, not as a help desk: there is no inbox, no ticket and no desk integration here.

Members are unlimited, which is the pitch. Professional is $89 a month and Business $199, both on annual billing, and no monthly rate is published anywhere. Circle Plus is quoted. Courses, events, live streams, gamification, a website builder, paid memberships and a custom domain are in the entry plan.

Nearly everything else is capped and separately priced. Admins run 3 and 5 at $10 a month each beyond that, moderators $20 per 10, spaces $20 per 10, live attendees $20 per 100, streaming $50 per 10 hours. AI credits stop at 2,500 a month on both paid plans and cost $10 per 1,000 after. Admin API requests are metered, the Headless API is billed per monthly active user, and Email Hub is $99 a month on top of an $89 plan. Circle also takes 2% of paid membership revenue, falling to 1% and 0.5%. Custom SSO is Circle Plus only.

Bettermode starts at $399 and caps members instead. Discourse and Flarum are the open-source floor. Filed under community forum software.