If you're ready to bring your people together in one place, Circle and Skool are probably two of the first names you've come across. Both are tools for building online communities, but they take very different approaches.
Skool keeps everything as simple as possible, with one feed and a game-like feel. Circle gives you a customizable space with lots of room to organize and automate as you grow.
Throughout this comparison, I'll also talk about Podia as a third option.
Podia is an all-in-one home for your online business, and community sits at the center of it. Your community spaces are automatically connected to your courses, products, events, website, and email, so it's a helpful option to know about if you want your community to be part of a bigger business.
Keep reading to learn:
- How Circle and Skool's 2026 pricing and fees compare
- What each tool does well
- Where both tools leave a gap, and how Podia fits in
- A closer look at community, courses, and email
Community is one of the most rewarding things you can build as a creator, and it can be a meaningful source of income too. Of the 15,000+ creators who use Podia, those selling community access earn an average of $674 a month from it, and the average community membership is priced at $104.
Some of our top community creators have generated over $1M in membership revenue in the past year. (Source: Podia customer data, 2026.) The right tool can help you build something like that for your own people.
What changed for Circle and Skool in 2025–2026
Skool added a lower-cost Hobby plan at $9/month alongside its Pro plan at $99/month. Both plans now come with the same features but with lower transaction fees on the Pro plan.
Circle reorganized its plans with a bigger focus on AI and automation. Every plan now includes Circle AI credits, the Business plan adds workflows, APIs, and an MCP connection, and the new Scale plan adds AI agents and AI moderation. Email marketing is a separate paid add-on called Email Hub.
The result is two tools heading in different directions. Skool has kept things as simple as possible, while Circle has added more advanced features and more tiers.
Circle vs. Skool pricing
Here's a closer look at how Circle and Skool's plans compare today. (Pricing verified November 2026.)
Skool pricing:
Skool has two plans and a 14-day free trial, and you get two months free when you pay yearly. Both plans include the same features.
- Hobby: $9/month ($7.50/month billed annually), 10% transaction fee: unlimited members, courses, videos, and live calls, plus a custom URL and affiliates
- Pro: $99/month ($82.50/month billed annually), 2.9% transaction fee: everything in Hobby, with a lower transaction fee
Circle pricing:
Circle has three main plans, a custom-priced Circle Plus plan, and a 14-day free trial. Every plan includes unlimited members, courses, live events, a website, payments, gamification, a custom domain, and iOS, Android, and desktop apps.
Circle's pricing page only lists annual prices, and I couldn't find monthly pricing anywhere on their site. Their AI support chatbot couldn't tell me either. The monthly prices only showed up after I started a free trial, so here are both.
- Professional: $129/month ($89/month billed annually), 2% transaction fee: 3 admins, 20 spaces, 200GB of storage, and 2,500 AI credits a month
- Business: $219/month ($199/month billed annually), 1% transaction fee: 5 admins, 30 spaces, 500GB of storage, workflows, APIs, and the option to remove Circle branding
- Scale: $499/month ($419/month billed annually), 1% transaction fee: 10 admins, 100 spaces, 1TB of storage, AI agents, unlimited workflows, and priority support
Circle Plus adds a custom branded mobile app, unlimited admins and spaces, and a lower 0.5% transaction fee, but you'll need to talk to their sales team for pricing.
Email marketing isn't part of Circle's standard plans. Email Hub is a paid add-on charged on top of your community plan, and the price goes up with the number of contacts you have.
- Up to 100 contacts: free
- Up to 1,000 contacts: $19/month
- Up to 1,500 contacts: $29/month
- Up to 2,500 contacts: $39/month
- Up to 5,000 contacts: $59/month
- Up to 10,000 contacts: $99/month
So if you're on Circle's Professional plan with a list of 1,000 people, you'd pay $148/month on monthly billing, before any transaction fees.
Podia pricing:
For some additional context, here's how Podia compares. Podia has three plans, and every plan includes your community, website, blog, courses, coaching, digital products, events, email marketing, and unlimited members. There's a free 14-day trial, and free migrations are included on all paid plans.
- Mover: $49/month ($42/month billed annually), 5% transaction fee: 50 products, storage for 500 videos, 25 community spaces, and email marketing for up to 100 subscribers
- Shaker: $99/month ($84/month billed annually), 0% transaction fee: 150 products, storage for 1,000 videos, 100 community spaces, affiliates, upsells, and email marketing for up to 500 subscribers
- Earthquaker: $179/month ($150/month billed annually), 0% transaction fee: unlimited products, unlimited community spaces, unlimited video storage, unlimited assistant seats, and email marketing for up to 1,000 subscribers
Email is built into every Podia plan, so there's no separate tool to pay for. If your list grows past what your plan includes, you can add more subscribers any time from your billing page.
- Up to 1,500 subscribers: $17/month
- Up to 2,500 subscribers: $25/month
- Up to 5,000 subscribers: $42/month
- Up to 10,000 subscribers: $63/month
Let's see how this plays out by the numbers.
Say you have 40 members paying $25 a month, so your community brings in $1,000 a month. Here's what you'd pay on each entry-level plan.
- Podia Mover ($49/month): $49 for the plan plus $50 in transaction fees (5%), so $99 total.
- Skool Hobby ($9/month): $9 for the plan plus $100 in transaction fees (10%), so $109 total.
- Circle Professional ($129/month): $129 for the plan plus $20 in transaction fees (2%), so $149 total.
At this revenue level, Podia Mover is the least expensive of the three, with Skool Hobby a close second. The bigger difference is what you get for that price.
On top of your community, Podia Mover includes your website, blog, email marketing, and room for 50 products like courses, coaching, events, and digital downloads. With Skool, you'd need separate tools for your website and email, which adds to your monthly costs.
Podia continues to be the best price as your community grows.
At $2,000 a month, you could move to Podia Shaker and pay a flat $99 with no transaction fees. Skool Hobby would cost you $209 at that level, so you'd likely switch to Skool Pro at $157 ($99 for the plan plus $58 in fees). Circle Professional would come to $169, plus whatever you pay for Email Hub.
What does Skool do well?
Skool is built to be simple, and it does simple really well. Your community feed, courses, calendar, and member list all live in one space, so it's quick to set up and easy for members to find their way around.
Skool's best-known feature is its gamification. Members earn points when other people like their posts, they move up levels, and they show up on a leaderboard. You can also unlock courses at certain levels, which is a nice way to reward the people who show up and participate.
Skool also has a Discovery page where people can browse and join communities. If you're just starting out and don't have many readers or viewers yet, this can help new people find you.
And because both plans have the same features, Hobby is an inexpensive way to test an idea before you commit.
The tradeoff is that the simplicity that makes Skool easy to use also leaves less room to make it your own. Your community lives on skool.com, and there are limited options for changing how it looks. There's no website, blog, or landing page builder, so if you want a home for your business outside your community, you'll need a separate tool.
Skool also doesn't include email marketing. If you want to grow an email list, send a welcome sequence to new leads, or reach people who aren't members yet, you'll need to connect another tool. And since your courses live inside your community, Skool is a better fit for membership-style businesses than for selling a range of standalone products.
What does Circle do well?
Circle is a higher-ticket, flexible community tool with lots of ways to customize. You can organize your community into discussion spaces, chat spaces, events, and courses, and you can use your own domain, color themes, and custom code to match your brand.
Members get rich profiles, a member directory, and apps for iOS, Android, and desktop on every plan.
Circle includes a website builder, live streams, and gamification on all plans. If you have a larger community or a team, the Business and Scale plans add workflows, API access, and AI tools like agents and moderation, which can save you time as your community grows. On Circle Plus, you can get your own branded mobile app.
Circle is really designed with the community as the main product. Courses and other offers live inside your community as extras, rather than as products you sell on their own. That works well if your whole business is a membership, but it's less flexible if you also want to sell a standalone course, a coaching package, or a one-off workshop.
The other tradeoff is the price and the add-ons. Circle starts at $129/month, and the Professional plan comes with 20 spaces, live streams for up to 100 attendees, and 10 live hours. Extra spaces, admins, and live hours all cost more, and email marketing is a separate add-on, so your monthly bill can grow faster than you expect.
There's also a transaction fee on every plan, even at the top tier. And while Circle offers free payment migrations if you're eligible, free course migrations are only available on annual Business plans and above.
(For comparison, Podia includes free product and email list migrations on all paid plans.)
Where do both tools leave a gap?
Circle and Skool both put community first, which I love. But most creators eventually want a few things beyond their community, like a website people can find, an email list to stay in touch with people who haven't joined yet, and a handful of different products to offer.
With Skool, each of those means a separate tool. With Circle, email costs extra and your other offers live inside your community rather than as standalone products. Either way, you end up managing more connections than you planned for.
Moving your community later isn't how anyone wants to spend their time, so I always recommend picking a home base that has what you need today and room for where you're headed.
That's where Podia comes in.
With Podia, your community sits at the center of your business. You can create topic-based spaces, group chats, and DMs, with free or paid tiers, and your members get one home feed that brings together their courses, community spaces, and upcoming events.
Podia also gives you a choice in how you structure your offers.
You can sell courses, coaching, events, and digital downloads as standalone products, include them as part of your community, or bundle them together however you like. That makes it a good fit if you have lots of ideas you want to try. You can launch a digital download template one month, run a live workshop the next, and add a course to your community tier when you're ready, all without switching tools.
You can also host members-only workshops, create paid resource libraries, and plan in-person meetups for certain membership tiers. Your email marketing, website, blog, and landing pages are included on every plan, and there are no member limits.
As musician Harry Connick Jr., who runs the virtual piano learning experience Piano Party on Podia, puts it,
“The format and ease of use has given me the opportunity to connect with my community more meaningfully than ever before.”
If that fuller picture sounds like where you're headed, you can try Podia free for 14 days to see if it's the right fit.
Comparing the details
How do communities work with Circle, Skool, and Podia?
Skool gives you one community feed with categories, a calendar for live calls, and gamification built in. It's simple and focused, and members don't have many places to get lost.
Circle gives you more structure, with separate spaces for discussions, chat, events, and courses. You can create private spaces and organize everything in detail, though the number of spaces depends on your plan.
Podia's community is connected to everything else in your business. Members see their courses, community spaces, and events together in one home feed, and you can create free and paid tiers that give different people access to different spaces.
What’s better for selling courses: Circle, Skool, or Podia?
All three let you build courses with video lessons.
Skool's classroom lets you organize lessons into modules, and you can unlock courses by level or drip them out over time. It works well when your course is part of a membership.
Circle includes courses on every plan, with lessons, drip scheduling, and quizzes, and your courses live inside your community.
Podia lets you build self-paced, drip, and cohort online courses, with quizzes and completion certificates. You can sell a course on its own, include it in a community tier, or bundle it with coaching or events, and you can add future start dates, seat limits, access durations, and waitlists.
Podia also lets you enforce lesson order by locking future lessons until students complete earlier lessons and quizzes, and you can email students based on which lessons they’ve completed for more granular communication.
Do Circle and Skool have email marketing tools?
Skool doesn't include email marketing. You can reach your members inside Skool, but for growing a list or sending automated sequences, you'll need a separate tool.
Circle offers email marketing through its Email Hub add-on, which includes broadcasts, forms, automations, and segments. It's charged on top of your community plan, starting at $19/month for up to 1,000 contacts and rising to $99/month for 10,000.
Podia includes full email marketing on every plan, with automations, broadcasts, segmentation, tagging, lead magnets, and opt-in forms.
Mover comes with 100 subscribers, Shaker with 500, and Earthquaker with 1,000, and you can add more any time, starting at $17/month for up to 1,500 subscribers.
With Podia, you can send one-off broadcast emails for announcements and newsletters, as well as automated email campaigns for sales funnels and welcome sequences. You can also add an abandoned cart email that sends when someone fails to complete checkout.
Because everything is connected, your email tool knows what your subscribers have bought and which campaigns drove sales.
What’s the best fit for you?
Skool is a good fit if you want a simple, focused community that's easy to launch, and you don't need your own website or email marketing. The Hobby plan is an affordable option for testing your idea.
Circle is a good fit if your community is your main product, you have a larger community or a team, and you'll make use of its automation and AI tools. Just budget for the add-ons, especially if email is part of how you grow.
Podia is a good fit if you want your community, courses, coaching, products, email marketing, and website all working together in one place. You can sell each offer on its own or as part of your community, there are no member limits on any plan, and you can start small and grow into more space without switching tools.
If community is at the heart of what you're building and you have more ideas you'd like to try along the way, Podia gives you room for all of them. Start your free trial to see what you can build.
