Skool vs Circle vs Mighty Networks compared

The short answer

• Skool: the cheapest and simplest, with courses, live calls and level-based gamification, but your group lives on skool.com
• Circle: a custom domain, courses, gamification and Zapier on every plan, with payments through your own Stripe account
• Mighty Networks: unlimited Spaces and pricing in hundreds of local currencies, with courses and a custom domain from Launch

Pricing and transaction fees

None of the 3 has a free plan, and each offers a 14-day free trial. Prices are in USD as of October 2026.

Skool has 2 plans: Hobby at $9/month and Pro at $99/month. Skool is the merchant of record, so you can't connect your own Stripe account, but its fee includes card processing: 10% + 30 cents per transaction on Hobby, and 2.9% + 30 cents on Pro (3.9% + 30 cents on charges above $900). Our Skool pricing guide has the details.

Circle runs from Professional at $89/month billed annually ($99 monthly) through Business at $199 ($219) and Scale at $419, with Circle Plus priced by sales. You connect your own Stripe account (2.9% + 30 cents per US card charge), and Circle adds 2% on Professional, 1% on Business and Scale, and 0.5% on Circle Plus.

Mighty Networks runs from Explore at $29/month billed annually ($35 monthly) through Launch at $79 ($95), Scale at $179 ($215) and Growth at $354, billed annually only. Its fee comes out of your Stripe earnings: 5% on Explore, 2% on Launch, 1% on Scale and 0.5% on Growth, plus Stripe's own fee. Purchases in Mighty's iOS app go through Apple, which takes 15%. See our Mighty Networks pricing guide.

Tip: Skool's Growth Boost is on by default and takes a 30% commission on recurring charges from paying members Skool brings you. Turn it off in your Discovery settings if you don't want that.

For 100 members paying $20/month ($2,000/month), on monthly billing and including Stripe's $88 where the platform uses it:

• Skool Pro: $99 + $88 Skool fees = $187/month
• Mighty Networks Launch: $95 + $40 fee + $88 Stripe = $223/month ($207 billed annually)
• Mighty Networks Explore: $35 + $100 fee + $88 Stripe = $223/month
• Circle Professional: $99 + $40 fee + $88 Stripe = $227/month ($217 billed annually)
• Skool Hobby: $9 + $230 Skool fees = $239/month
• Circle Business: $219 + $20 fee + $88 Stripe = $327/month

Courses, spaces and limits

All 3 include unlimited members on every plan, so the plan price doesn't rise with headcount.

• Skool: unlimited courses, videos and live calls on both plans
• Circle: courses on every plan; Professional includes 3 admins, 20 spaces, 200GB storage and 100 live stream attendees, Business 5 admins, 30 spaces, 500GB and 200 attendees, and Scale 10 admins, 100 spaces, 1TB and 500 attendees
• Mighty Networks: unlimited Spaces on every plan and courses from Launch; Launch includes 3 hosts, 10 moderators, 200GB and 20 livestream hours a month for 100 attendees, Scale 5 hosts, 15 moderators, 500GB and 30 hours for 200, and Growth 10 hosts, 100 moderators, 1TB and 40 hours for 1,000

Gamification

Skool is built around its leaderboard: 1 like = 1 point, 9 levels, and courses can unlock when a member reaches a level. Circle has points, 9 levels and a leaderboard on every plan. Mighty Networks starts points, badges and basic leaderboards on Launch and saves advanced leaderboards for Growth.

Branding, custom domains and apps

Skool has no custom domain: every group lives on skool.com, and Pro only adds a custom skool.com/your-name URL (first change free, then $100 per change). Circle includes a custom domain on every plan and white-labels the community from Business up. Mighty Networks adds a custom domain on Launch and white-label email on Growth.

All 3 have free apps under their own brand: Skool for iOS and Android, Circle for iOS, Android and desktop, and Mighty Networks for iOS and Android. An app with your brand costs extra: Circle Plus (custom price) or Mighty Pro, from $17,000/year.

Integrations and automation

Circle includes Zapier on every plan. Skool adds Zapier, webhooks and affiliates on the $99 Pro plan. Mighty Networks unlocks Zapier, Kit and affiliates on Scale ($179/month billed annually) and adds optional SSO on Growth.

Which one should you pick

• Pick CommentCamp for a $0 community on the website you already run, with comments, threads and member levels next to your content
• Pick Skool for the lowest bill and simplest setup: at $2,000/month in sales, Skool Pro costs less than any self-serve Circle or Mighty Networks plan
• Pick Circle for a custom domain, Zapier and your own Stripe account from day one
• Pick Mighty Networks for unlimited Spaces, local-currency pricing or up to 1,000 livestream attendees on a self-serve plan

For more options, see the best online community platforms.

If you already run a website

All 3 put your community on a separate platform with a monthly bill. CommentCamp, our product, is the $0 community on your own site: free comments and community spaces for blogs, publications and WordPress sites, built for discussion around your own content. You get unlimited comments and threads, spam filtering and a moderation queue, plus optional member levels, quests and accepted answers (Q&A).

It launches with an official WordPress plugin and a universal embed script. Readers never hit a paywall to read or comment, there are no ads, and your data is never sold. WordPress comment import and full data exports are on the roadmap.

Note: CommentCamp is in private early access, onboarding the first cohorts of sites. Join the waitlist to get your site in.