Skool vs Circle vs Mighty Networks (2026): Fees, Courses and Live Classes Compared
Skool from $9 with a 10% fee, Circle from $89 with 2%, Mighty Networks from $79 with 2%. 2026 pricing and three tests to run before you host a live course.
By Classentra Editorial
Three community platforms come up in every "where should I host my course" thread: Skool, Circle and Mighty Networks. They look similar from the outside (a feed, a members list, a courses tab, a calendar) and they are priced in three different shapes. This is the comparison we wanted to read before picking one: the numbers as the vendors publish them, the thing each platform is actually good at, and the three tests to run on a trial if your product is a live course rather than a community.
Numbers were read from each pricing page on 16 October 2026.
Pricing, side by side
| Skool | Circle | Mighty Networks | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cheapest plan | Hobby, $9/mo | Professional, $89/mo (annual billing) | Launch, $79/mo |
| Fee on it | 10%, all-in | 2% plus Stripe processing | 2% plus processing |
| Next plan | Pro, $99/mo, 2.9% all-in | Business, $199/mo, 1% | Scale, $179/mo, 1% |
| Top self-serve plan | Pro | Scale, $419/mo, 1% | Growth, $354/mo, 0.5% |
| Free plan | No | No | No |
| Trial | Yes (length not stated on the page) | 14 days, no card | 14 days, no card |
| Members | Unlimited | Unlimited | Not capped on the page |
| Courses | Unlimited | Included | Included |
| Live | Unlimited live calls on the calendar | Live streams and rooms: 15 room participants, 100 stream attendees, 10 hours a month on Professional | Streaming metered: 20 hours and 100 viewers a month on Launch |
Two notes on reading that table. Skool's fee is all-in: card processing is inside the 10% or 2.9%, so there is no separate Stripe bill. Circle and Mighty charge their percentage on top of your processor's cut, which in the US is usually 2.9% + 30¢. And Circle's prices are quoted on annual billing, so $89 a month means committing to about $1,068 up front.
What each one is actually good at
Skool: the feed
Skool is the simplest of the three, and that is the point. One feed, one leaderboard, one classroom tab, one calendar. The gamification (points, levels, unlockable content) is the engine, and for a community where members post daily it works. The classroom is a list of modules with videos, text and links. There are no grades, no attendance records and no certificates, and the design cannot be changed much beyond a logo and a cover image.
At $9 a month Hobby is the cheapest door on this list, but the 10% fee means that door costs more than Pro once you sell roughly $1,300 a month. We ran the numbers in the Skool pricing breakdown and spent 30 days inside.
Circle: the polish
Circle is the most designed of the three. Spaces instead of one feed, so you can separate a cohort from an alumni group from a help desk. Courses with lessons and drip, events with RSVPs, live streams and live rooms, a branded look, and a lot of automation on the higher plans. It is the platform agencies recommend, and it looks the part.
The costs are the price floor and the live caps. $89 a month on annual billing is the entry, and the live room on that plan holds 15 participants for 10 hours a month. A weekly two-hour class with 20 people is already outside Professional. Our comparison with Circle goes through the cost crossovers.
Mighty Networks: the app
Mighty's differentiator is the mobile experience and, on its Pro tier, a branded app in the stores under your name. Launch at $79 gives you a community with courses and events, and streaming of 20 hours and 100 viewers a month. Scale at $179 adds automations, API access and 30 streaming hours.
Mighty is the right answer when "I want my members to open my app" is the sentence you keep saying. For a teacher who runs weekly sessions, the metered streaming hours are the number to check against your calendar before you sign.
A worked example: $1,000 a month
Ten sales a month at $100 each, cheapest plan on each platform, processor counted at 2.9% + 30¢ where it sits on top.
| Platform | Monthly cost |
|---|---|
| Skool Hobby | $9 + $100 = about $109 |
| Skool Pro | $99 + $29 = about $128 |
| Circle Professional | $89 + $20 + $32 = about $141 |
| Mighty Networks Launch | $79 + $20 + $32 = about $131 |
At this volume they land within $30 of each other, except Hobby, which only looks cheap until the 10% hits. Above about $1,300 a month Skool Pro becomes the cheapest of the three on raw dollars, because its fee is the lowest and it is all-in. Below that, Hobby wins on subscription and loses on fee, and it is close to a wash.
The cost difference is not the decision. The product shape is.
If your product is a live course, run these three tests on the trial
All three were built as community products first. A live course has different load-bearing parts: a schedule, a room, a record of who came, work that gets handed in, and something at the end that says you finished. Before you commit a cohort to any of them, do these three things during the trial.
- Mark one student absent. Schedule a session, run it, and try to record who attended. If the answer is "I'll keep a spreadsheet," you have found the first thing you will stop doing by week three.
- Collect and grade one assignment. Post a task, have a test account submit it, give it a mark. If the platform's answer is a comment thread, that is your gradebook.
- Issue one certificate. If completion matters to the people you teach (it does for anyone who learns for work), find out whether the platform can say "this person finished" in a form they can show someone.
If all three pass, pick on price and feel. If they fail, you are about to pay for a community and rebuild a school around it with Google Sheets.
Where Classentra fits
Classentra is the other shape: a teaching platform with a community inside each course, not a community with a course tab. Sessions are scheduled on your own Zoom, Meet or Teams with the link generated per session, attendance is captured for every session, assignments are submitted and graded in the course, and certificates issue on completion.
The pricing is also a different shape. Free is $0 with two courses and 30 free roster spots (paying students never count). Educator is $39 a month with unlimited courses and students. The fee is all-in for US and Canadian Stripe accounts, 9% + 30¢ on Free and 6% + 30¢ on paid plans, paid straight into your own Stripe account. At the $1,000 example above, Educator is about $102 a month and Free is about $93.
That makes Classentra cheaper than all three at this volume, but that is not the argument. The argument is the three tests. Here is the direct Skool comparison, and here is how to decide if you are weighing those two specifically.
If you are choosing between the three and your product is something people are supposed to finish, start free below and run the three tests on us too. No card required.