The Circle community platform is used by many creators looking to kickstart their exclusive communities. But, like any tool, the Circle platform isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution.
Whether you’re looking to build your online community and monetize it for the first time, or you need the right tools to scale your existing membership community, it’s time to explore your options.
This guide will cover the top 4 Circle alternatives to help you find the best fit for your business and your community members.
Let’s dive in!
Top 4 Circle.so Alternatives at a Glance
| Platform | G2 Rating | Best for | Pricing |
| Uscreen | ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨4.8 out of 5 | Experienced video content creators monetizing online communities. | Starting from $149/mo. |
| Bettermode | ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨ 4.6 out of 5 | Non-technical creators and solo entrepreneurs building an online community around their business. | Free option available. |
| MightyNetworks | ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨4.6 out of 5 | Entrepreneurs and creators looking to build and monetize a highly interactive, community-driven platform. | Starting at $41/mo. |
| Slack | ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨4.5 out of 5 | Entrepreneurs and businesses that need a productivity tool for teams or online communities. | Free option available. |
The Best Alternatives to Circle for Community-Centric Creators
1. Uscreen
Best for: Experienced video content creators monetizing communities.
G2 rating ⭐: 4.8 out of 5.
What Makes Uscreen a Strong Alternative to Circle.so?
Uscreen is an all-in-one video membership platform that enables creatives and businesses to launch and scale their video-based membership alongside their exclusive built-in community.
Unlike other community platforms, Uscreen is a video-first platform built to monetize your content, grow your community, and provide a premium experience for your members.
Beautiful sites and apps: Uscreen’s website builder makes setup simple, allowing you to create your own website with custom branding without any coding knowledge or experience. With the option to add branded membership apps to your online platform, you can boost user engagement by making your community available across all devices. Again, all with no-coding involved!
Monetization made easy: Uscreen makes recurring payments easy while also supporting one-time payments and in-stream donations, making sure that you get the most out of every piece of content you create.
Comprehensive community features: from dedicated community spaces, to interactive live stream features and video comments, Uscreen has all the tools you need to turn your online community platform into a thriving hub for your vibrant community.
Built-in marketing and analytics: Uscreen has all the features and all the tools you need to stay on top of your membership marketing and business strategies. Built-in marketing tools allow you to reduce member churn and increase sign-ups, while integrations allow you to connect to your existing tech stack of third-party tools.
What Customers Say
What I like best about Uscreen is the Netflix-like format of delivering their videos. Since my users don’t follow a linear path to what their learning, I like that I can organize everything in a way that is best for them while still allowing them to search things on their own.
I also like that their team is very proactive in fixing any issues and making improvements on a monthly basis. They take the time to learn about your business and also learn how you are using their product.
Ryan R
Platform Highlights
- ✅ Community-Building Features: Supports community engagement through live streaming, live chatting, and community pages, enhancing member interaction and commitment.
- ✅ Monetization Tools: Robust monetization options, allowing creators to design subscription models, pay-per-view, and create other revenue streams.
- ✅ User-Friendly Interface: Uscreen offers an intuitive and easy-to-use interface that simplifies content management and organization.
- ✅ Website and Apps: Launch a website alongside your branded mobile and TV apps so members can engage with your community anytime, anywhere.
- ✅ Video-First Platform: Designed specifically for video creators, Uscreen excels in hosting and delivering on-demand videos and live streams, making it ideal for video-centric communities who want to build a content library, host virtual events, and interact with their members in real time.
- ✅ Integrated Marketing Features: Includes email marketing and analytics tools to help promote video content and track performance.
Cons to Consider
- ❌ Limited LMS Functionality: While Uscreen offers many features, it lacks LMS functionality for course-based communities.
- ❌ Cost: Uscreen can be expensive for some creators, especially those just starting out, due to its subscription pricing model.
- ❌ Additional member fees: $1.99 for Growth and $1.49 for Pro.
Is Uscreen the Right Alternative to Circle.so for Your Community?
Unlike Circle, Uscreen is a robust platform with an all-in-one feature set designed for video-first memberships who need more than just a basic community function to build the platform of their dreams.
From private community spaces and extensive community tools, to comprehensive monetization options, to best-in-class video hosting and live streaming – Uscreen has all the features you need to take your community to the next level.
Uscreen Pricing
- Growth: Priced at $149 per month plus $1.99 per paid member per month, it’s designed for creators growing a small video membership online. Create your own Netflix-style video catalog, deliver live-streaming events, and enjoy community features.
- Pro: Costs $499 per month with an additional $0.99 per paid member per month. This plan is perfect for serious creators expanding their communities and businesses.
- Plus: Custom pricing and suited to established creators who need full brand control on all devices.
Build, launch and manage your membership, all in one place.
2. Bettermode
Best for: Non-technical creators and solo entrepreneurs building a community around their business.
G2 rating ⭐: 4.6 out of 5.
What Customers Say
It’s so simple to use, you get what are essentially building blocks to make your community platform with and then you can add more functionaility and custom features if you’d like to.
I really like the design and layout of the platform and features, everything looks modern and clean. I love how you can make your own social media platform with Bettermode thanks to features like user profiles, messaging, and posts. I also love the team and community around Bettermode – Both are incredible.
Mathew B.
Why Choose Bettermode?
Bettermode is an online platform designed for businesses to create a fully customized community space.
Want something that’s strictly community-focused? How about something flexible enough, with customizable templates, analytics, and integrations? Bettermode’s custom community spaces allow you to create ‘containers’ that help better structure content in your community.
It also serves up strong access controls and moderation capabilities, includes leaderboards, reactions, notifications, and more.
Key Features
- Several authentication options, including social login and SSO.
- Customization and page templates.
- App integrations.
- Reactions and notifications.
- Feeds.
- Leaderboards and badges.
- Private messaging.
- Content embeds.
- Search functionality.
- Moderation controls.
Platform Highlights
- ✅ Complete Customization: Flexible branding and customization options.
- ✅ Community Focus: Good fit for community-only businesses.
- ✅ Integrations: Connect supporting apps for greater marketing capabilities.
Cons to Consider
- ❌ Lacks LMS Functionality: No course creation capabilities.
- ❌ No Video Content Library: No support for carousel or video library layouts and no integrations to support video libraries.
- ❌ Setup Complexity: Could prove complex for non-technical creators.
Is Bettermode the Right Alternative to Circle.so for Your Community?
As a community-only platform with community-building features, Bettermode is a perfect fit. It’s built to be a home for engagement and sharing for anything from support communities to tennis clubs, and more. But if you’re looking to center your community around a learning experience with LMS requirements, Bettermode’s not designed for that.
Bettermode Pricing
- Free: $0 — Best suited for hobbyists and individuals exploring web app creation.
- Lite: $24/mo — Ideal for small creators and freelancers needing more flexibility and growth.
- Pro: $59/mo — Made for creators and startups scaling their digital products.
- Business: $119 — Designed for brands, businesses, or emerging enterprises.
3. Mighty Networks
Best for: Entrepreneurs and creators looking to build and monetize a highly interactive, community-driven platform.
G2 rating ⭐: 4.6 out of 5.
What Customers Say
Might Networks, while remaining user-friendly with sensible defaults and templates, is so wonderfully configurable with tons of advanced feature under-the-hood.
For us, this means that as we grow, we can sophisticate and optimize—all without slowing down the initial implementation. And, with full white-labeling and the ability to upgrade to having our own stand-alone app, the level of sophistication available longterm is unmatched.
Curtis A.
Why Choose Mighty Networks?
Mighty Networks has bundled together some of the most important components for creator community business. You can offer paid memberships, create a community, and run challenges, and events. Features like chat and an activity feed give it a strong social feel too.
Key Features
- Personalized activity feeds for members.
- Option of public, private, or paid communities.
- Workflow automation with integrations.
- Create online courses.
- Course or resource library.
- Analytics dashboard.
- Custom domain.
Platform Highlights
- ✅ All-in-One Platform: Mighty Networks provides a home for your content, courses, and commerce, and provides a comprehensive solution for you to build an online community.
- ✅ Flexible and Scalable: Create spaces feature is robust enough to support various community types and small and large-scale communities.
- ✅ Ease of Use: New creators can build advanced communities with memberships and courses, as Mighty Networks provides guided setups.
- ✅ Cross-Device Functionality: Mighty Networks allows you to build your own website and apps.
- ✅ Monetization Tools: Several monetization options for your membership community base.
Cons to Consider
- ❌ Cost: Mighty Networks is competitively priced but may still be a significant investment for creators on a tight budget.
- ❌ Learning Curve: Could present a steep learning curve when configuring advanced features.
- ❌ Limited Customization: While flexible, some users have noted that there could be more options for customization to fully tailor the community experience.
Is Mighty Networks the Right Alternative to Circle.so for Your Community?
If you’re after a course platform with a well-integrated community solution, Mighty Networks is one of the best alternatives to Circle.so. It’s robust enough to do both without batting an eye and, most importantly, help you create a welcoming home for your community.
Mighty Networks Pricing
- The Courses Plan: $119/mo — Course-focused with LMS functionality, email tool integration, landing pages, native live streaming, analytics, group chat, and messaging functionality.
- The Business Plan: $219/mo — More customization options, 2TB storage, sell feature events, and offer automated questions and polls.
- Path-to-Pro: $360/mo — Dedicated Path-to-Pro, account management and strategy support.
- Mighty Pro: Contact for pricing — Launch a branded app with notifications, and receive account management and strategy support.
4. Slack
Best for: Entrepreneurs and businesses that need a productivity tool for teams or communities.
G2 rating ⭐: 4.5 out of 5.
What Customers Say
Enjoying the collaboration features of this platform, Being able to quickly reach out to team members, organize discussions, and share fun moments like GIFs and memes can definitely enhance teamwork and make the work environment more enjoyable.
Bhavesh M.
Why Choose Slack?
Slack’s no stranger to the conversation about community management. As a popular team communication platform, it’s more of a business productivity tool designed for professional communities.
However, it has certain community capabilities that make it effective for engaging with members. Direct messaging, audio and video calls for both group and individual engagements, and – on higher-tiered plans – you can collaborate with members on documents and lists.
Key Features
- Create dedicated channels.
- Slack connect — for working with internal partners.
- Messaging.
- Huddles.
- Clips
- Workflow builder.
- App integrations.
- Document and knowledge sharing.
- Lists.
Platform Highlights
- ✅ Free Plan: Anyone can launch a community. User monthly pricing is affordable too.
- ✅ Many Integrations: Connect supporting apps to run your business.
- ✅ Real-time Communication: Huddles and messaging allow for more community engagement.
Cons to Consider
- ❌ Limited Customization: Beyond creating channels, there are limited branding options.
- ❌ Scalability: Larger communities are harder to manage due to discussion forum and feed structure and large volumes of messages can be overwhelming to keep on top of.
- ❌ Designed for Work Teams: Slack is a business productivity tool and while it can be used to run communities, it can prove challenging for creators in need of a more flexible solution.
Is Slack the Right Alternative to Circle.so for Your Community?
As a popular team chat platform, Slack is seen as more of a solution for business productivity. But, the platform has made our list of Circle.so alternatives as a community platform for its basic functionality and free plan.
While it doesn’t have a particular stand-out community feature to brag about, it’s a great starting point for new creators on a tight budget. The Free Plan may be limited, but Slack communities offer more value than launching a group on Facebook groups or any other social network where community members are flooded with distractions controlled by algorithms.
Slack Pricing
- Free Plan: $0 — Limited message history, some app integrations, video and audio meetings, and a workspace.
- Pro: $4.38/user per month — Complete message history, all apps, group audio and video meetings, and collaborate on lists and documents.
- Business+: $15/user per month — 99% uptime guarantee, SAML-based single sign-on, data exports for all messages.
- Enterprise Grid: Contact for pricing — Data loss prevention, e-discovery and offline backups, HIPAA-compliant message and file collaboration, and a built-in employee directory.
Wrapping Up
Circle’s a powerful platform, but may not be the right fit for your thriving community. As you plot your next move away from Circle, consider what you want to be able to achieve with your community.
If you’re not launching a traditional course but are building a membership that’s fuelled by a thriving group of like-minded people, there are online community platforms that give Circle a good run for its money. Like Uscreen, it’s an intuitive membership-based platform with a strong community toolset, and you can still sell courses.
And with the option of branded no-code mobile apps for iOS, Android, and OTT apps for Apple TV, Roku, Android TV, Fire TV, and Apple Watch, you’ll be able to engage with and serve members no matter where they are.
Build, launch and manage your membership, all in one place.
FAQs
Circle.so is an all-in-one community platform with community-building elements. You can create discussion posts, live streams, events, group chat, memberships, and courses, and have multiple monetization options, all integrated into a single platform.
Different community platforms are designed to address different markets. Circle, for example, has a strong LMS solution for course creators, educators, and businesses who want to deliver learning experiences and build online communities around their brands.
Uscreen is just as unique. It’s built for video content creators, offering a Netflix-style layout that allows members to freely watch whatever they choose, not following the traditional LMS course structure.
To choose a community platform for your business, create two lists. The first should include features you want to offer your own community members, and the second, features and tools you need to run your community.
With both lists, review researched blog posts like this one and others for reviews on each platform. But don’t stop them. Once you have a shortlist, test drive each platform. Get a feel for how easy it is to use before committing.
