Best Online Community Platforms (2026)

Start by writing down what your members do in a normal week: watch lessons, join a coaching call, post questions, or chat with each other. The platform that suits you is the one built around the activity members are paying for.

Skool works well when the week is lessons plus a regular group call. Circle and Mighty Networks suit structured memberships with several spaces and an events calendar. Discord suits groups that mostly chat, and Patreon suits fans who pay for extra posts and access to a creator.

This guide compares ten community platforms for creator businesses: what each costs at $1,000, $5,000 and $20,000 a month, and what you can take with you if you leave. It doesn't cover software for associations, HOAs or customer support.

The short list

Prices are in US dollars. Cohort tools range from fixed start dates to lessons that open after someone joins.

How we chose

We scored each platform on five things:

• Membership cost: the plan, platform fees, processing and recurring-billing charges.
• Member experience: discussions, messages, events and mobile access.
• Courses and cohorts: lessons, group schedules and live sessions.
• Control: your domain, your app, exports and whether payments can move.
• Running it: setup, moderation and upkeep.

We left out association, HOA and customer-support software, because those tools are sold to organizations managing dues, boards or support tickets rather than creators selling memberships. We also left out platforms with no way to charge members directly.

The platforms

1. Heartbeat

Heartbeat is made for communities that charge members to join. Members talk in channels and DMs, meet at live events and take courses together, and the membership plans and checkout sit in the same place, so you don't need a separate payment tool. It fits a paid membership, a group coaching program or a cohort course where members learn from each other as well as from you.

Every plan includes courses, which can run evergreen or as a cohort with its own start date and member group. Members use the Heartbeat app on their phones, and the Scale plan adds your own branded app in the App Store and Google Play. Pulse, Heartbeat's AI, can set up your channels, a starter course and your first offer. Heartbeat has a 14-day free trial, with no card required.

Start your free trialSee pricing

2. Circle: for a structured paid membership

Circle suits a paid membership where members have spaces for discussion, a library of courses, and regular events. Professional covers all of that, plus a custom domain, for $89 a month billed annually.

You also pay a 2% platform fee, card processing, and 0.7% on recurring payments. An app carrying your brand needs Circle Plus, which is priced on request. See Heartbeat vs Circle, Circle alternatives and how to switch from Circle for a closer look.

3. Mighty Networks: for learning across several spaces

In a larger membership, some members are taking a course while others come for events or a smaller interest group. Mighty Networks puts each of these in its own space, so a course discussion doesn't get buried under event chatter in one shared feed. Its cohort courses let a group start on the same day and move through the lessons together.

Launch costs $950 a year and takes a 2% platform fee on top of Stripe processing. Scale costs $2,150 a year and lowers the fee to 1%. On the subscription and platform fee alone, the two cost the same at $10,000 in monthly sales, and Scale is cheaper above that. A branded app needs Mighty Pro, which is priced separately. See Heartbeat vs Mighty Networks and how to switch from Mighty Networks.

4. Skool: for lessons and regular calls

Skool puts teaching, discussion and group calls in one place, with a community feed, classrooms and a calendar. You can also hold a lesson back until a set number of days after someone joins, for example seven, so new members get it in order.

Hobby is $9 a month and Pro is $99. Hobby takes 10% plus $0.30 per payment. Pro takes 2.9% plus $0.30 on payments up to $899, and 3.9% plus $0.30 above that. Processing is included in both. Once you're making about $1,270 a month, Pro costs less overall.

Check two settings before you launch. Skool's Growth Boost is on by default and takes a 30% commission on members Skool brings you, for as long as they stay subscribed, though you can turn it off. And Skool lists a "Custom URL" on both plans, but its pricing page doesn't mention using your own domain, so confirm that first if it matters. See Heartbeat vs Skool, Skool pricing, Skool vs Circle and how to switch from Skool.

5. Podia: for a community next to other products

Podia suits creators who also sell downloads, courses and coaching, because those products and the community are sold and run from the same account. You can organize discussions into spaces, create group chats and direct messages, and limit access by the product or plan a member bought. Courses can have start dates and timed sections.

Mover costs $49 a month and takes a 5% platform fee. Shaker costs $99 a month with no platform fee, so above $1,000 a month in sales it costs less on those two charges alone. Stripe or PayPal still charge processing. Podia has no member app, so members use a web browser. See Podia pricing and Podia alternatives.

6. Kajabi: for a membership tied to your marketing

Kajabi brings your website, email campaigns and sales funnels into one platform, with a community alongside them. Basic costs $179 a month and includes five products, 2,500 contacts and one community.

Before choosing it, add up what you pay today for the tools it could replace, such as your email service, website hosting and funnel builder. If that total is close to $179 a month, moving everything into Kajabi can make sense. If you only need somewhere for members to talk, you'd be paying for email and funnel features you won't use.

On Kajabi Payments, subscriptions add 0.7% to the usual 2.9% plus $0.30. Cohort courses need Growth or Pro, and a branded app is a $199-a-month add-on below Pro. See Heartbeat vs Kajabi, Kajabi alternatives and Skool vs Kajabi.

7. Thinkific: for recurring access to a course library

Thinkific fits a membership built around a course library. Start, its cheapest plan, is $109 a month and includes memberships, one community, certificates and live cohorts with Zoom sessions.

On Thinkific Payments you avoid the third-party gateway fee, but you still pay processing, 0.7% on subscriptions, and a 0.5% fee wherever Thinkific assesses tax, even when the tax comes to zero. An app with your own branding is a separate $199-a-month add-on. See Heartbeat vs Thinkific, Thinkific alternatives and how to switch from Thinkific.

8. BuddyBoss: for a WordPress community you run yourself

BuddyBoss adds a community to your own WordPress site, with a feed, groups, forums, private messages, memberships and courses. The site and its data sit on your hosting, so you're also the one paying for that hosting, installing updates and fixing things when a plugin breaks.

Launch costs $199 the first year and $399 after that, with no BuddyBoss fee on sales. The Start plan takes 2.9% of sales through BuddyBoss's own checkout. A branded app starts at $499 for the first year and $999 afterwards, for one app store, and it stops working if you cancel its subscription.

9. Patreon: for fan memberships and regular content

Patreon works when people already follow your work and will pay for extra posts, early access or time with you. It has no course tools, so it's a poor fit if members need assignments and progress tracking.

There's no monthly subscription. New creators pay 10%, plus processing of 2.9% plus $0.30. Only pages published on or before August 4, 2025 keep older rates, so don't plan around those if you're new. See Heartbeat vs Patreon and how to switch from Patreon.

10. Discord: for a chat-first community

Discord suits a group whose members mostly talk, share links and meet on voice calls. Server Subscriptions let you sell roles, and each role can open private channels and other perks. Discord has no lessons or assignments, so a course would need a second tool.

Discord advertises a 90/10 split, but it also takes 6% for payment processing on desktop, and mobile purchases can cost more. Server Subscriptions are only for US-based owners with US banking and ID, and your first payout requires at least $100 in earnings. See Heartbeat vs Discord and how to switch from Discord.

Which platform for which business

Match the platform to the thing members are paying for:

• A paid community where members learn from each other: Heartbeat or Circle.
• Testing a paid group with a small audience: Skool Hobby or Patreon. You pay mostly when you earn, but both get expensive as you grow.
• Running weekly coaching calls: Circle, Skool or Mighty Networks. Compare events, reminders and recordings first.
• Selling recurring access to courses: Thinkific or Kajabi.
• Selling courses, downloads and coaching together: Podia or Kajabi, priced against the tools each would replace.
• Building a fan membership: Patreon.
• Wanting your own site and database: BuddyBoss, if you're ready for hosting and upkeep.
• Running a chat-first group: Discord, if you meet its payout rules.

If your current platform mostly works and fees are the problem, price its next plan up before you move. A move means rebuilding content and access rules and asking members to pay again.

Calculating all-in costs: plan price, fees, and more

We priced a US creator charging $50 a month per member through web checkout. At $1,000, $5,000 and $20,000 a month, that's 20, 100 and 400 payments, and card processing alone comes to $35, $175 and $700.

Each figure adds the plan price, platform fees, card processing and any recurring-billing charge we could confirm. Every row keeps one plan across all three columns. We left out sales tax, app-store purchases, currency conversion, refunds, payout fees, commissions and add-ons.

Rows marked + are partial totals: the plan, platform fee and standard card processing only. Stripe may add a recurring-billing charge on those accounts.

At $1,000 most totals fall between $115 and $156, so at that size the features you need and the fixed monthly bill matter as much as the percentage fee. By $20,000 the spread is wide, from $799 on Skool Pro to $3,080 on Discord. Setups that take a bigger cut of each payment (Discord, Patreon, Skool Hobby and Podia Mover) climb fastest. Patreon can still be worth it if it replaces tools you'd otherwise pay for, such as a separate checkout.

How we worked out the fees. Circle adds its 2% fee and 0.7% recurring billing. Kajabi and Thinkific add 0.7% on subscriptions, and Thinkific adds its 0.5% assessment fee (we assumed no sales tax). Skool's fees include processing. Discord takes 6% for desktop processing, then 10% of the rest. Circle ($1,068 a year) and Mighty Networks ($950 and $2,150 a year) use annual billing, so their rows are monthly equivalents, while the others use monthly prices. BuddyBoss depends on your hosting and checkout.

What you actually control

Platforms often say you own your audience. To find out what that means on the plan you'd buy, check these six things. The last column is how Heartbeat answers each one.

On Heartbeat, your domain, your member list and the Stripe account your members pay through are yours on every plan, and your content comes out whenever you ask. Here is what five of the other platforms say in their help docs:

• Circle's member export includes names, emails, tags and profile fields. To connect a new Stripe account, you must first cancel active subscriptions.
• Podia's contact export leaves out tags, and cancelling Podia stops active subscriptions for good. Set up billing on your new platform first.
• Patreon exports fan emails, but fans can stop sharing theirs.
• Discord members join with Discord accounts, so you won't have an email list unless you build one.
• BuddyBoss runs on your own site, but its branded app stops working if the app subscription ends.

If a branded app matters to you, see our guide to white-label community apps.

Frequently asked questions