17 years helping Canadian businesses
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What Is Circle?

Circle is the all-in-one platform for creating, engaging, and monetizing community-powered businesses.

Whether you’re a global organization, growing brand, or passionate creator, Circle provides all the building blocks you need — courses, livestreams, chat, events, payments, and much more — to bring your vision to life.

Combine all the tools you need in one place, under your own brand, so you can focus on what matters most: helping your community thrive.

Who Uses Circle?

Established organizations, brands, and entrepreneurs looking for an all-in-one platform to seamlessly integrate their community and supercharge their growth.

Where can Circle be deployed?

Cloud-based
On-premise

About the vendor

  • CircleCo

Circle support

Countries available

Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, American Samoa, Andorra and 223 others

Languages

Brazilian Portuguese, English, Portuguese

Circle pricing

Starting Price:

US$49.00/month
  • Yes, has free trial

Circle offers a free trial. Circle paid version starts at US$49.00/month.

About the vendor

  • CircleCo

Circle support

Countries available

Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, American Samoa, Andorra and 223 others

Languages

Brazilian Portuguese, English, Portuguese

Circle videos and images

Circle Software - Community home feed
Circle Software - Paywall
Circle Software - Async discussion space
Circle Software - Event space
Circle Software - Community-powered courses
View 5 more
Circle Software - Community home feed
Circle Software - Paywall
Circle Software - Async discussion space
Circle Software - Event space
Circle Software - Community-powered courses

Features of Circle

  • Access Controls/Permissions
  • Activity Dashboard
  • Alerts/Notifications
  • Commenting/Notes
  • Communication Management
  • Content Management System (CMS) Software
  • Customizable Branding
  • Customizable Templates
  • Data Import/Export
  • Engagement Tracking
  • Event Management Software
  • Gamification Software
  • Member Directory
  • Mobile Access
  • Moderation
  • Multi-Language
  • Reporting & Statistics
  • Tagging
  • Third-Party Integrations
  • User Management

Alternatives to Circle

Online school management software that provides features such as payroll management, staff reporting, student profiles, and more.
elopage supports companies wishing to use an SaaS sales platform to generate more product sales with less effort.
Kartra is an all-in-one sales and marketing platform for creators, coaches and experts to monetize their knowledge and services online.
Create online courses and coaching services. Control your branding, student data, messaging and pricing all from one place.
An extremely easy yet powerful membership site plugin for WordPress. Sell online courses, access to community, and more with WishList.
School management software that provides various functionality like attendance, fees, vehicle tracking and more.
Kajabi is the all-in-one tool created to empower people to build digital products, market, and sell their expertise online.
Quip is a new way to collaborate with your team that combines documents, spreadsheets, to-do's, and chat in one seamless experience.
Create a passion-fuelled community with a private, owned community. Get your own fully-branded community on Web or App (iOS & Android)

Reviews of Circle

Average score

Overall
4.8
Ease of Use
4.8
Customer Service
4.5
Features
4.6
Value for Money
4.5

Reviews by company size (employees)

  • <50
  • 51-200
  • 201-1,000
  • >1,001

Find reviews by score

5
77%
4
23%
Vilma
Vilma
Community Building and Growth Specialist in Lithuania
Verified LinkedIn User
E-Learning, Self Employed
Used the Software for: 1-5 months
Reviewer Source

Everything I need for my community building in one place

5.0 last month New

Comments: My overall experience with Circle has been sincerely positive. It’s given me the tools to build a values-driven, supportive community where people can connect in meaningful ways. The platform is user-friendly once you get used to it, and features like Spaces and the ability to host courses and live meetings all in one place make managing my community much easier. Circle allows me to stay close to my community members, offer real support, and create a safe, inspiring environment. I’m really happy with how it has helped me grow my community and make it more engaging for everyone.

Pros:

The Spaces feature keeps discussions organized and helps members engage more easily. I also love that I can host my course directly on Circle, check in on students' progress, and offer help. Also, the ability to host live meetings within the platform saves time and money. Circle has given me the chance to create a safe, supportive space where everyone feels part of something special. And to do it away from other social media platforms.

Cons:

At first, Circle can feel a bit overwhelming due to its many features, but demo videos help for me and for my community, and it gets easier over time. Though I’m still new (3-4 months in), every feature I’ve used has been very helpful. It just takes a little time to adjust, which is normal.

Manami
entrepreneur, in US
Health, Wellness & Fitness, Self Employed
Used the Software for: 6-12 months
Reviewer Source

Circle: A Powerful Community Platform with Room for Growth

4.0 2 months ago New

Comments: My overall experience with Circle has been positive. It offers an excellent platform for community building with features like live streams, chats, and customizable spaces that help foster real-time engagement. The user-friendly interface makes it easy to manage content and interactions. However, there are some areas that could improve, such as more storage options and automation flexibility to streamline processes. Despite these, Circle has been a great tool for growing and engaging with my community.

Pros:

What I liked most about Circle is its community-focused features and the ability to seamlessly integrate content with interactive discussions, live events, and member engagement tools. It makes it easy to foster real-time conversations and customize spaces to suit my brand. The platform is highly flexible, allowing for easy monetization through memberships and subscriptions, which has been crucial for my business. Its intuitive interface and robust tools for building a connected community make it a standout choice for fostering deep, meaningful interactions.

Cons:

One downside I found with Circle is its limited storage for growing communities and the lack of advanced automation features. This means that larger communities might face storage constraints over time, and tasks like automating onboarding or integrating with other platforms could be more flexible. While Circle excels in community building, these areas could use improvement to streamline processes and provide more scalability as the community grows.

Alternatives Considered: Kajabi

Reasons for Choosing Circle: I switched to Circle because I needed a more community-focused platform that integrates both content and engagement in one place. My previous system was primarily centered around course creation, which lacked the same level of interaction and customization for building a thriving community. Circle offers features like live chats, member profiles, and flexible payment options, which have significantly enhanced member engagement. Compared to my old system, Circle’s real-time connection tools and ease of use made the transition worthwhile.

Switched From: Thinkific

Reasons for Switching to Circle: I chose Circle over Kajabi primarily because of its community-driven features. While Kajabi excels in course creation and marketing, Circle offers a more interactive and customizable platform for building engaging, real-time communities with tools like live streams, group chats, and personalized spaces. Circle also provides a more seamless integration of both content and community under one platform, which better suits my goal of fostering deeper connections with members. Its flexibility in managing discussions and events was the key factor in my decision.

Manuel
Freelancer for Content Creators in Germany
Design, Self Employed
Used the Software for: 6-12 months
Reviewer Source

Community first

4.0 2 months ago New

Comments: As a freelancer, I've built several Circle communities for my clients, which are mostly content creators who like to have a private community for monetizing their audience and having deeper conversations with their fans.

Pros:

Circle is the membership tool that places the most emphasis on community aspects. For me, it's the closest thing to social media, just in a private and (if necessary) paid environment. Also, the support chatbot is surprisingly helpful. I found a lot of solutions within seconds I otherwise needed to wait hours or days for.

Cons:

The course area needs some more features to be more competitive to other tools. In general, I'd like to have way more customization options, especially for the mobile apps to make it a more on-brand experience.

Alternatives Considered: Teachable, Memberspot and elopage

Reasons for Switching to Circle: because of the community features and native mobile apps

Andreea
Founder in US
Marketing & Advertising, Self Employed
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Circle made it so easy to host/manage my community!

5.0 3 weeks ago New

Comments: Overall, my experience has been super positive. I love all the admin tools, the customization options, the fact that I can take payments, have affiliates, add any type of content I want and interact with my members!

Pros:

Circle has made it so easy for me to set up my community and host my content and courses. I switched from a self-hosted platform and switching over was super easy. I love that I can add courses, blog-post style content, as well as videos and PDF files. It's also super easy to customize the look of my community. The platform also allows for members to interact with the content and post questions, which is really great! I have been using them for the last three years and I couldn't be happier!

Cons:

The transaction fees could be lower, but other than that I have been super happy with the platform.

Alternatives Considered: Kajabi

Reasons for Choosing Circle: Wanted something that was more robust and had a better look to it

Switched From: WishList Member

Reasons for Switching to Circle: All the awesome features, the cost, the ease of use

Mark
Founder in UK
Management Consulting, Self Employed
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source

Great tool for online communities

5.0 2 months ago New

Comments: I have found circle to be easy to implement, easy to have multiple layers of membership and a rich environment for interaction

Pros:

I love the community of circle users - on circle - who are there to support and help.

Cons:

Users were from facebook so there was a learning curve for them, albeit small, to use circle

Alternatives Considered: Mighty Networks

Reasons for Choosing Circle: It was a richer environment than the facebook groups

Switched From: Facebook Business Suite

Reasons for Switching to Circle: More experience as a user of other circle communities