Skool vs Circle vs Mighty Networks: What Each One Actually Costs in 2026

By Ryo KitamuraPublished 22 August 2026Updated 11 September 2026Pricing verified 20 August 2026How this was researched

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.

Skool vs Mighty Networks: fees or a branded app?

If you are choosing between Skool and Mighty Networks, start with the total cost of collecting your membership revenue. Skool’s published transaction fee covers payment processing; Mighty adds a platform fee to processing. Compare both subscriptions on the same billing basis, then use the cost table below at the revenue level closest to yours. The Mighty estimates remain a range because the subscription surcharge is inferred.

If your requirement is an app under your own brand, the Launch and Scale costs in that table do not price that requirement. Mighty Networks lists custom branded apps under Mighty Pro, with custom pricing. Request a quote and compare that cost separately. Access through a platform’s shared mobile app and an app carrying your own brand are different requirements.

This article compares the fee structures and modeled costs, including Circle as another option. It does not establish which platform will produce better member engagement or course outcomes.

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 and levels.

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.

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, 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.

How this maps to price

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 analytics definitions state that fees collected by Skool cover payment processing, so the published transaction fee is treated as 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

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.

Sources checked through 2026-09-06; individual source dates and verification status: Skool pricing — plan price; rendered page checked for both billing states and no plan comparison table or add-on/additional-cost section was present (checked 2026-09-06) (directly verified); Skool Payments FAQs — vendor-published transaction fee rates and per-transaction tiers; payout examples deduct the published fee from the membership price (checked 2026-09-06) (directly verified); Skool analytics definitions — vendor explicitly states that fees collected by Skool cover payment processing (checked 2026-09-06) (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:

Sources checked through 2026-09-06; individual source dates and verification status: Skool pricing — plan price; rendered page checked for both billing states and no plan comparison table or add-on/additional-cost section was present (checked 2026-09-06) (directly verified); Skool Payments FAQs — vendor-published transaction fee rates and per-transaction tiers; payout examples deduct the published fee from the membership price (checked 2026-09-06) (directly verified); Skool analytics definitions — vendor explicitly states that fees collected by Skool cover payment processing (checked 2026-09-06) (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

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, because Skool’s analytics definitions state that fees collected by Skool cover payment processing. 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.
• 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.