On this page
Circle is a paid community platform that bundles discussions, courses, events, and a website builder into one product. There is no free plan, only a trial. Here is what the pricing page at circle.so/pricing actually shows, as of September 2026, so you can budget before you commit.
The plans
Circle sells three tiers, all billed per community rather than per member:
| Plan | Price | Admins | Moderators | Transaction fee |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Professional | $89/mo | 3 | 10 | 2% |
| Business | $199/mo | 5 | 15 | 1% |
| Circle Plus | Custom pricing | Unlimited | Not stated | 0.5% |
All three tiers list "unlimited members." There is no entry-level or starter plan below Professional. Both Professional and Business currently show a 14-day free trial on the pricing page.
Member and admin limits per tier
Circle does not cap member count on any tier, so pricing does not scale with community size the way some competitors' plans do. What does scale is who can manage the community:
- Professional: 3 admin seats and 10 moderator seats.
- Business: 5 admin seats and 15 moderator seats.
- Circle Plus: unlimited admin seats. The page does not state a moderator number for this tier, and describes the plan generally as having "highest limits" without listing exact figures for things like API rate limits or storage.
If your team is small, Professional's 3 admins may be enough. A larger volunteer moderation team is the main reason communities outgrow Professional and Business on this axis, not member count. If you run a community with a dozen or more volunteer moderators, check the moderator seat count against your actual roster before you commit to a tier, since going over it means either upgrading or reassigning who holds which role.
Worth noting: because member count is uncapped on every tier, a community that grows from a few hundred to a few thousand members does not automatically force an upgrade the way it would on a platform that prices per member. The trigger to move up a tier on Circle is almost always admin or moderator headcount, or wanting a feature (workflows, the admin API, SSO) that is gated to a higher plan.
Transaction fees
Circle takes a cut of payments processed through its own paid-membership and course-payment tools:
- Professional: 2% per transaction
- Business: 1% per transaction
- Circle Plus: 0.5% per transaction
This is on top of whatever your payment processor (Stripe, in Circle's case) already charges. If you plan to sell paid memberships or courses through Circle itself, this fee compounds with your plan's monthly cost, so it is worth modeling against your expected revenue before picking a tier.
As a rough way to think about it: on $10,000 of monthly membership revenue processed through Circle, the 2% Professional fee is $200, the 1% Business fee is $100, and the 0.5% Plus fee is $50, before payment processor fees. The $110 monthly gap between Professional and Business ($89 vs $199) starts to pay for itself in the transaction-fee difference alone once you are processing meaningful revenue through the platform. Below that revenue level, Professional's lower base price usually wins. If you are not selling anything through the platform, the transaction fee is irrelevant to you and Professional's other limits, mainly admin seats, matter more than the fee schedule.
Annual vs monthly billing
As of September 2026, the pricing page at circle.so/pricing shows only monthly prices for Professional ($89/mo) and Business ($199/mo), with no visible annual toggle, "billed yearly," or percentage-off messaging on the page. Circle Plus is quoted as custom pricing with no monthly figure shown at all, which usually means it is negotiated and likely billed annually by default for larger accounts. If you want annual billing or a discount for paying upfront, ask Circle's sales team directly rather than assuming a rate, since the public page does not currently state one.
What you get at each tier
Professional ($89/mo) includes Circle AI, courses, discussions, events, a website builder, live streams, live rooms, custom branding, reporting and analytics, paid memberships, gamification, a custom domain, and a weekly digest email. This is a full community-plus-courses stack for a single admin or small team running one community.
Business ($199/mo) includes everything in Professional, plus workflows (automation), custom profile fields, Circle MCP, a headless member API, an admin API, branded email notifications, an AI content co-pilot, automated transcriptions, and activity scores. This tier is aimed at teams that want to build integrations or automate member management, not just run discussions and courses.
Circle Plus (custom pricing) includes everything in Business, plus AI agents and AI workflows, custom single sign-on (SSO), the highest stated limits, 10,000 Email Hub contacts, priority technical support, concierge onboarding, and an optional branded mobile app. This tier is built for larger organizations that need SSO, dedicated support, or a fully white-labeled app.
Who it fits
Circle fits a creator or company that wants courses, paid memberships, events, and discussion in a single product, and is willing to pay a flat monthly fee plus a per-transaction cut for that convenience. It makes the most sense once you are already selling something, since the course player and payment tools are a core part of what you are paying for. If discussion is a small part of what you need and you are mainly funding a course business, the $89 to $199 monthly cost plus transaction fees can be worth it.
It fits less well if you only need a place for members to talk. Paying for a course player, events calendar, and website builder you will not use, on top of a transaction fee on any payments you do collect, is expensive for a plain discussion board.
There is also a lock-in question worth asking before you sign up. Circle is not open source and is not self-hostable, so if you ever want to leave, you are exporting members and content rather than moving a server. That is true of most hosted community suites, Forumera included, so it is not a reason to avoid Circle specifically. It is a reason to be sure the tier you pick actually matches what you need today, since switching plans later is easy but switching platforms later is not.
Cheaper and free alternatives
If discussion is the actual job, and courses, events, and a website builder are not, a dedicated forum is usually cheaper and does that one job better.
Forumera is a hosted forum platform: no self-hosting, a forum live in about two minutes. The free plan has unlimited members, threads, and posts, built-in moderation tools, 10 themes, and 6 UI languages, with no ads. Free forums auto-archive after 90 days of inactivity, and there is no course player, no built-in payments, and no plugin marketplace, so if you need Circle's course or payments tools specifically, Forumera will not replace them. Pro is $19/month flat, with no per-member or transaction fee: a custom domain, no "Powered by Forumera" footer, forums that never auto-archive, 100 AI credits a month, and priority email support. See Forumera vs Circle for a direct comparison, or the online community platform overview for what a forum-first community looks like.
Two other paid community suites compete more directly with Circle on the courses-plus-community model:
- Skool has historically sold a single flat monthly plan rather than Circle's tiered structure. See Skool pricing for current numbers.
- Mighty Networks also uses tiered plans by features, similar in shape to Circle's approach. See Mighty Networks pricing for current numbers.
If chat, not discussion or courses, is the actual need, Discord's free tier or a self-hosted option is worth a look too. See Discord alternatives.
Frequently asked
Does Circle have a free plan?
No. Circle offers a 14-day free trial on the Professional and Business plans, but there is no permanent free tier as of September 2026. Check circle.so/pricing for the current trial terms.
What is the cheapest Circle plan?
Professional, at $89/month, is the lowest listed price. There is no lower tier.
Does Circle charge fees on top of the monthly price?
Yes, on payments processed through its built-in membership and course tools: 2% on Professional, 1% on Business, and 0.5% on Circle Plus, on top of standard payment processor fees.
Is there a cheaper alternative to Circle for a discussion-only community?
If you do not need courses, events, or built-in payments, a dedicated forum like Forumera costs less: free for unlimited members and posts, or $19/month for a custom domain and no auto-archiving, with no transaction fee. See Forumera vs Circle.
Ready to see whether a plain forum covers what you actually need before paying for a full course-and-community suite? Create your forum and try it free.