Community platforms give a creator, brand or business its own space for members: discussion spaces, events and live sessions, courses, member profiles and direct messages, with payments built in for paid memberships. They replace a patchwork of a social media group, a newsletter tool, a course host and a checkout page.
Look first at what the platform takes from member payments, because transaction fees on lower tiers can cost more than the subscription. Then decide whether the community should be public or private, since public forum software and private member spaces are built differently, and check the mobile app and notifications: members who are not reminded to come back tend to drift away. Moving a community later is hard, so the first choice tends to stick.
At a glance
| Tool | Best for | Starting price | Free trial |
|---|---|---|---|
 Circle | Best for creators and brands selling memberships, courses and events in one paid community | $89/mo | 14 days |
 Skool | Best for coaches and course creators running one paid membership group | $9/mo | 14 days |
 Discourse | Best for open-source projects and companies running a public, searchable discussion forum | Free plan | 14 days |
 Patreon | Best for podcasters, video creators and artists who want paid memberships with no monthly fee | Free plan | No |
 Mighty Networks | Best for course creators and brands whose members will join from iOS and Android phones | $29/mo | 14 days |
5 of 5 tools
The ranking
In order, with what each tool is for and what it costs. Use the filters above to narrow the list.
Best for creators and brands selling memberships, courses and events in one paid community
Circle is a community platform for creators and brands that sell memberships, courses and events from one place. Plans are priced on annual billing from $89 a month, and Circle keeps 0.5% to 2% of paywall payments on top of Stripe's processing fees.
$89/mo
14-day free trial
Best for coaches and course creators running one paid membership group
Skool is a community platform for coaches and creators that puts a discussion feed, courses, a calendar and leaderboards in one group. Hobby costs $9 a month with a 10% + 30 cent fee per transaction; Pro costs $99 a month with 2.9% + 30 cents.
$9/mo
14-day free trial
Best for open-source projects and companies running a public, searchable discussion forum
Discourse is open-source forum and chat software for companies, startups and open-source projects that want public, searchable discussion. Hosting starts with a free plan, and Pro costs $100 a month for 5 staff seats with unlimited members.
Free plan
paid from $100/mo
Best for podcasters, video creators and artists who want paid memberships with no monthly fee
Patreon is a membership platform for podcasters, video creators, musicians and artists, with tiers, one-time sales, video and chats. It charges no monthly fee: new creators pay 10% of income, plus payment processing, currency conversion and payout fees.
Free plan
starting price
Best for course creators and brands whose members will join from iOS and Android phones
Mighty Networks is a community and course platform for creators and brands, with Mighty's iOS and Android apps included on every plan. Courses start on Launch, at $95 a month or $79 billed yearly, plus a 2% fee on member payments.
$29/mo
14-day free trial
Head to head
Feature-by-feature matchups between leading Membership & Community Platforms tools, with a clear verdict.
Methodology
We compare the tools on this page using what can be checked from the outside: published pricing and plan limits, documented features, and each vendor's own security, compliance and support documentation. This is desk research, not hands-on testing. Where something can only be judged by using a product, we say so rather than imply we measured it.
What we weigh here:
How the order is set:
Buyer's guide
Circle, Mighty Networks, Skool and Patreon all keep a share of what members pay, and on cheaper plans that share can cost more than the subscription. Skool's Hobby costs $9 a month and takes 10% + 30 cents per transaction, against $99 and 2.9% + 30 cents on Pro. Mighty Networks keeps 5% on Explore, at $35 a month, and 2% on Launch, at $95 a month or $79 billed yearly. Circle keeps 2% on Professional, $89 a month on annual billing. Both add Stripe's fee on top. Patreon has no monthly fee and keeps 10%, plus processing, so on $2,000 a month it takes $200 where Circle's 2% is $40. Compare totals at the revenue you expect, not plan prices.
Members need a way back in. Circle has web, desktop, iOS and Android apps from Professional up, and Mighty Networks includes its iOS and Android apps on every plan. Discourse has iOS and Android apps with push notifications for hosted communities, and members can reply by email. Skool sends in-app and email notifications, including digests of popular posts, and Patreon has iOS and Android apps. An app under your own brand needs Circle Plus or Mighty Pro, both priced by quote.
Discourse is built for public discussion: public sites serve search engine crawlers a server-rendered layout, with robots.txt and indexing controls, which suits a support forum or an open-source project. Circle and Mighty Networks can be public too. A Circle owner chooses which spaces logged-out visitors see and manages indexing in the SEO settings, and Mighty Networks gives control over search indexing from the Scale plan, though not during a free trial.
Moving later depends on what each platform exports. A Discourse backup moves a community between self-hosting and Discourse's hosting, and its Business plan includes a standard migration from Vanilla, phpBB, vBulletin, Slack or Drupal. Circle exports members as CSV files and lists payments migration on Professional and a standard migration service on Business. Mighty Networks exports member data as an Excel file from Launch and offers migration services on Growth, and Patreon lets creators export their email lists. Before committing, check whether posts and active subscriptions can move too.
FAQ
Entry plans run from free to $100 a month. Discourse has a hosted Free plan, its software is free to run on your own servers, and its Pro plan costs $100 a month. Skool's Hobby plan costs $9 a month, Mighty Networks' Explore $35 a month or $29 billed yearly, Circle's Professional $89 a month on annual billing and Skool's Pro $99 a month, while Patreon has no monthly fee. Most also keep a share of member payments: 10% + 30 cents per transaction on Skool Hobby, 2.9% + 30 cents on Skool Pro, 5% on Explore, 2% on Circle Professional and 10% on Patreon. On $2,000 a month, Patreon keeps $200 and Circle $40.
Choose Skool for one paid group with courses, a calendar and a leaderboard and little to configure: Pro costs $99 a month with a fee of 2.9% + 30 cents per transaction, and Hobby $9 a month with 10% + 30 cents. Choose Circle when the community needs several spaces, workflows or APIs: Professional costs $89 a month on annual billing with a 2% fee plus Stripe's processing, and Business, at $199 with a 1% fee, adds workflows, APIs and the removal of Circle branding. Skool bills monthly or yearly, while Circle publishes no month-to-month price. See Circle vs Skool.
It depends on whether the archive should be found in search. Discourse is built for public discussion, serving search engine crawlers a server-rendered layout with robots.txt and indexing controls, which suits support, developer and open-source communities. Circle and Mighty Networks can be public too: Circle owners choose which spaces logged-out visitors see and manage indexing in their SEO settings, and Mighty Networks offers search indexing control from its Scale plan, though not during a free trial. A paid membership can keep its spaces private behind a paywall on Circle, Mighty Networks or Skool.
Partly, and it depends on the platform. Discourse backs up a whole site from the browser, a backup moves a community between self-hosting and Discourse's hosting, and its Business plan includes a standard migration from Vanilla, phpBB, vBulletin, Slack or Drupal. Circle exports members as CSV files and lists payments migration on Professional and a standard migration on Business, Mighty Networks exports member data as an Excel file from Launch and offers migration services on Growth, and Patreon lets creators export email lists. Before committing, check whether posts and active subscriptions can move too.
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