Skool vs Circle vs Mighty Networks: What Each One Actually Costs in 2026
Pricing last verified .
Every comparison of these three platforms leads with the headline subscription. Skool Pro is $99.00 a month, Circle Professional is $89.00 a month on its recorded annual basis, and Mighty Networks Launch is $79.00 a month on its annual basis.
Those numbers are close enough to look like a coin flip, and they are also close to meaningless. The subscription is the smaller half of what you pay. The larger half is the cut each platform takes from every payment your members make — and the three companies do not calculate that cut the same way.
Once you run the arithmetic, the gap between the lowest and highest modeled cost at the highest tested revenue level is $280 per month, or $3,360 a year.
What each platform actually is
All three sell the same broad thing: a place to run a paid membership, host courses, and take recurring payments without stitching together separate community, course, and payment tools. Where they diverge is philosophy, and that philosophy turns out to predict the pricing.
Skool
Skool is the deliberately minimal option. You get a discussion feed, a course area, a calendar for live sessions, and a gamification layer — points for likes, levels, and a leaderboard of your most active members. That is close to the whole product.
There is no website builder, no email automation suite, and no branded app. The constraint is the product. Whether that reads as focus or as a missing feature list depends entirely on what you were going to use.
Circle
Circle is the opposite bet: a broad feature set with community spaces, courses, live streaming, branded mobile apps, payment processing, email marketing, a website builder, automation, analytics, and gamification. Circle positions itself as a platform that can cover the full customer journey, which is the usual reason people choose it.
The catch is structural and it shows up in the cost analysis below: this comparison covers Circle’s base plans only; add-ons are not included.
Mighty Networks
Mighty calls its customers “hosts” rather than creators — the framing is that you are convening people, not broadcasting at them. It describes a member-to-member community model and sells a strategy framework it calls Community Design.
Its clearest technical differentiator is mobile. Mighty ships native iOS and Android apps rather than web wrappers, and presents fully branded apps as a higher-tier offering. Mighty Pro is outside the numeric comparison because no plan price is included in the published figures reviewed.
If a real app in a real app store is a requirement for your audience, Mighty is the one of the three built around that assumption.
How this maps to price
| Philosophy | Pricing consequence | |
|---|---|---|
| Skool | Minimal, everything included | One flat price, no add-ons to track |
| Circle | Broad and modular | Base plan first; add-on totals are outside this model |
| Mighty | Mobile-first | Higher-tier branded apps; Launch and Scale are the modeled plans |
Keep that in mind through the next section. The lowest sticker price belongs to the platform whose billing basis and fee stack need the most careful reading.
The one difference that drives everything
Separate from the revenue comparison: Skool’s published transaction fee appears to be all-in. In the standard-member scenario used here, Skool Pro’s modeled rate is 2.9% + $0.30. Skool publishes a higher Pro tier for a single transaction above $900; this is a per-transaction threshold, not a monthly-revenue tier, and the modeled member charge of $50/member/month does not trigger it. That rate is not an unconditional statement about every transaction.
Circle and Mighty Networks publish a platform fee that sits on top of Stripe. Circle Professional’s platform fee is 2.0%, and its effective modeled rate is 5.6% + $0.30. Mighty Launch’s platform fee is 2.0%, and its effective modeled rate is 4.9%–5.6% + $0.30. Circle’s subscription surcharge is confirmed in the model; Mighty’s is inferred, so Mighty remains a range.
Those rate structures drive the results below. The fixed per-transaction component matters too, especially when a community has fewer members at the same revenue.
Published rates, side by side
| Plan | Annual billing | Monthly billing | Platform fee | Effective modeled rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Skool Hobby | $7.50/mo | $9.00 | 10.0% | 10.0% + $0.30 |
| Skool Pro | $82.50/mo | $99.00 | 2.9% | 2.9% + $0.30 |
| Circle Professional | $89.00/mo | not recorded | 2.0% | 5.6% + $0.30 |
| Circle Business | $199.00/mo | not recorded | 1.0% | 4.6% + $0.30 |
| Mighty Launch | $79.00/mo | $95.00 | 2.0% | 4.9%–5.6% + $0.30 |
| Mighty Scale | $179.00/mo | $215.00 | 1.0% | 3.9%–4.6% + $0.30 |
The verification date is shown with this article. Circle’s monthly figure is not recorded in the published figures used here, and all cost comparisons below use annual billing for every plan so that the basis is consistent.
The math
Three communities use the standard member price, with one transaction per member per month. Transaction count matters because of Stripe’s fixed per-transaction component.
| Platform plan | $500 revenue | $2,000 revenue | $5,000 revenue |
|---|---|---|---|
| Skool Hobby | $61Lowest cost | $220 | $538 |
| Skool Pro | $100 | $153Lowest cost | $258Lowest cost |
| Circle Professional | $120 | $213 | $399 |
| Circle Business | $225 | $303 | $459 |
| Mighty Networks Launch | from $107 to $110 per month† | from $189 to $203 per month† | from $354 to $389 per month† |
| Mighty Networks Scale | from $202 to $205 per month† | from $269 to $283 per month† | from $404 to $439 per month† |
Sources checked through 2026-08-26; individual source dates and verification status: Skool pricing — plan price (checked 2026-08-20) (directly verified); Skool Payments FAQs — transaction fee rates and tiers (checked 2026-08-21) (directly verified); Skool analytics definitions — fee includes payment processing (checked 2026-08-21) (directly verified); Circle pricing monthly billing availability — three checks of the Professional, Circle Plus, and Business tabs found no billing-period toggle (checked 2026-08-26) (directly verified; operator manual verification); Circle paywall transaction fees — vendor-side verbatim itemization of Stripe Payments and Stripe Billing rates in a paywall subscription fee example (checked 2026-08-21) (directly verified); Stripe US pricing — card processing rate (checked 2026-08-21) (directly verified); Stripe Billing pricing — pay-as-you-go tier rate / charged on Billing volume / one-off invoices excluded (checked 2026-08-21) (directly verified); Mighty Networks pricing — plan price and platform fee (checked 2026-08-20) (directly verified); Mighty Networks Stripe connection — who holds the Stripe account (checked 2026-08-21) (directly verified)
The ranking flips as you grow, and it flips hard.
At the smallest tested revenue level, Skool Hobby costs $61, while Circle Business costs $225. Hobby’s 10.0% + $0.30 modeled transaction rate sounds punishing, but its annual subscription is only $7.50 and the percentage fee is applied to a small base.
At the middle revenue level, Skool Hobby is the third-most-expensive option, behind Circle Business at $303 and Mighty Scale at $269–$283. Its own modeled cost is $220.
At the highest tested level, Skool Pro is cheaper than every alternative. The gap to Mighty Launch is $97–$132, the gap to Circle Professional is $142, and the gap to Circle Business is $202 per month.
Look at it as a take rate
The share of revenue that never reaches you is the subscription plus the transaction cost divided by revenue:
| Platform plan | $500/mo | $2,000/mo | $5,000/mo |
|---|---|---|---|
| Skool Hobby | 12.1% | 10.975% | 10.75% |
| Skool Pro | 20.0% | 7.625% | 5.15% |
| Circle Professional | 24.0% | 10.65% | 7.98% |
| Circle Business | 45.0% | 15.15% | 9.18% |
| Mighty Networks Launch | from 21.3% to 22.0%† | from 9.45% to 10.15%† | from 7.08% to 7.78%† |
| Mighty Networks Scale | from 40.3% to 41.0%† | from 13.45% to 14.15%† | from 8.08% to 8.78%† |
Sources checked through 2026-08-26; individual source dates and verification status: Skool pricing — plan price (checked 2026-08-20) (directly verified); Skool Payments FAQs — transaction fee rates and tiers (checked 2026-08-21) (directly verified); Skool analytics definitions — fee includes payment processing (checked 2026-08-21) (directly verified); Circle pricing monthly billing availability — three checks of the Professional, Circle Plus, and Business tabs found no billing-period toggle (checked 2026-08-26) (directly verified; operator manual verification); Circle paywall transaction fees — vendor-side verbatim itemization of Stripe Payments and Stripe Billing rates in a paywall subscription fee example (checked 2026-08-21) (directly verified); Stripe US pricing — card processing rate (checked 2026-08-21) (directly verified); Stripe Billing pricing — pay-as-you-go tier rate / charged on Billing volume / one-off invoices excluded (checked 2026-08-21) (directly verified); Mighty Networks pricing — plan price and platform fee (checked 2026-08-20) (directly verified); Mighty Networks Stripe connection — who holds the Stripe account (checked 2026-08-21) (directly verified)
At the highest tested revenue level, Skool Pro’s take rate is 5.15%, while Circle Business’s is 9.18%. Skool Pro leaves more of the modeled revenue with the operator at that level.
Note how badly the higher tiers perform at low volume. Circle Business at the smallest tested level carries a take rate of 45.0%. You are paying its annual subscription of $199.00 to move the platform fee from 2.0% to 1.0% on a small transaction base.
The Hobby-to-Pro crossover
Setting Skool’s two plans equal — the subscriptions shown above plus their modeled rates — produces a crossover of $1,268 per month on monthly billing and $1,056 per month on annual billing.
Below the relevant point, Hobby is cheaper. Above it, Pro is cheaper, and the gap widens fast. At the highest tested revenue level, staying on Hobby costs an extra $280 every month.
What this analysis does not tell you
- Feature parity. These platforms are not interchangeable. Mighty Networks presents branded mobile apps as a higher-tier feature. Circle has the broadest modeled feature set. Skool is deliberately minimal.
- Circle’s add-ons are outside this model. Only base plans are included here, so no add-on total or add-on break-even is presented.
- Free plans. No free-plan figures are included in the sources reviewed for these three platforms.
Which one should you pick
| If you are… | Pick | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Testing an idea, under $1,056/mo | Skool Hobby | $7.50 base on annual billing; the modeled fee is small in absolute terms at this size |
| Running an established paid community | Skool Pro | Lowest total cost at the modeled levels above $1,268/mo |
| Needing deep branding control | Circle Professional | At the highest tested revenue level, it costs $142 more than Skool Pro |
| Needing branded mobile apps | Mighty Scale | Choose it when the app is non-negotiable; this is a product decision, not a cost recommendation |
Methodology
We compared publicly published pricing only. No vendor paid for placement or reviewed this article before publication.
- Figures reflect each provider’s public pricing page, with the verification date shown with this article.
- Scenarios assume the standard member price, one transaction per member per month, processed through each platform’s standard payment integration.
- Stripe is modeled at its standard US online rate of 2.9% + $0.30. International cards, currency conversion, and negotiated rates will change the result.
- Skool’s published fee is treated as inclusive of payment processing, since its listed standard-member rate matches Stripe’s standard rate and its pricing page lists no separate processing charge. Skool’s published Pro schedule is tiered: a single transaction above $900 uses a higher tier; this is a per-transaction threshold, not a monthly-revenue threshold, and the modeled member charge of $50/member/month does not trigger it. This assumption is worth confirming against your own account.
- All cost figures use annual billing for every platform. Circle’s monthly price is not recorded in the sources used. Skool’s and Mighty’s monthly rates are shown in the comparison table.
- Several pricing pages show different figures depending on a billing-period toggle; the comparison uses the billing basis stated above.
Pricing changes without notice. We re-verify these figures quarterly.
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