The Circle vs Skool vs Mighty Networks cost at 500 members paying $30 a month, card processing included, runs about $684 on Skool Pro and $914 to $974 on Mighty Networks and Circle. A WordPress site with TrueCommunity Pro and $30 hosting lands near $625, before subscription billing, which TrueCommunity does not include yet. Against Circle and Mighty, much of the gap is platform fees stacked on Stripe.
Quick Summary
- Skool Pro is the cheapest hosted option at this size: $99 a month plus an all-in 2.9% + $0.30 per charge. That comes to about $684 a month at 500 members paying $30.
- Circle and Mighty Networks add a platform cut on top of Stripe. At 1% to 2% of $15,000, that is $150 to $300 a month. It puts their totals at $914 to $974, or $230 to $290 above Skool Pro.
- Skool Hobby is the expensive trap: its 10% + $0.30 per charge brings the month to $1,659. Pro becomes cheaper once you collect more than about $1,268 a month.
- WordPress with TrueCommunity Pro (Solo) lands near $625 a month before subscription billing, assuming $30 of hosting. That is about $59 below Skool Pro and $289 to $349 below Circle and Mighty.
- The WordPress number has a gap: TrueCommunity has no built-in subscription billing yet. WordPress stays cheaper than Skool Pro as long as your billing tool costs less than about $59 a month.
Ready to own your community?
Circle vs Skool vs Mighty Networks cost: the 500-member model
Per-member comparisons often hide the real bill because they mix flat fees, percentage fees and processing fees. To compare fairly, every option here uses the same formula:
Monthly cost = plan fee + platform cut + card processing (including the fixed fee per charge).
Assumptions:
- 500 paying members, each billed $30 a month. That is 500 charges and $15,000 in monthly revenue.
- Card processing is Stripe’s standard 2.9% + $0.30, which is $435 plus $150, or $585 a month.
- Skool acts as merchant of record, so its fee already includes processing. Circle and Mighty charge their fees on top of Stripe.
- Hosting for the WordPress site is set at $30 a month. Swap in your own host’s price.
- SaaS prices come from published pricing listings as of October 13, 2026. Plan names and prices on these platforms change often, so confirm them on each vendor’s pricing page before you buy.
The 30-cent fixed fee deserves attention. At 500 charges a month it is $150 you will actually pay, and many quick comparisons leave it out.
| Option | Plan fee (or plugin + hosting) | Platform cut | Card processing | Monthly total | Yearly total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Circle Professional | $89 | $300 (2%) | $585 | $974 | $11,688 |
| Circle Business | $199 | $150 (1%) | $585 | $934 | $11,208 |
| Mighty Networks Launch | $79 | $300 (2%) | $585 | $964 | $11,568 |
| Mighty Networks Scale | $179 | $150 (1%) | $585 | $914 | $10,968 |
| Skool Pro | $99 | Included in the fee | $585 (2.9% + $0.30) | $684 | $8,208 |
| Skool Hobby | $9 | Included in the fee | $1,650 (10% + $0.30) | $1,659 | $19,908 |
| WordPress with TrueCommunity Pro, Solo yearly (excluding subscription billing) | $39.92 ($9.92 plugin + $30 hosting) | $0 | $585 | $624.92 | $7,499 |
| WordPress with the free TrueCommunity plugin (excluding subscription billing) | $30 (hosting) | $0 | $585 | $615 | $7,380 |
Prices checked on October 13, 2026. Assumes 500 members at $30 a month, Stripe at 2.9% + $0.30 per charge and hosting at $30 a month. The Solo plugin cost is $119 a year divided by 12.
Cost check: Card processing is $585 in every row except Skool Hobby. What your platform choice actually changes is the rest: plan, platform cut and hosting. That is where about $59 a month separates WordPress from Skool Pro, and $289 to $349 separates it from Circle and Mighty.
What each platform actually charges
Circle
Circle prices by plan tier rather than by member. The Business plan, for example, is listed with unlimited members, 5 admins, 15 moderators, 30 spaces and 250GB of attachment storage, so adding members does not raise the plan fee. The cost that grows with you is the paywall fee. Circle’s own paywall transaction fee page lists 2% on Professional, 1% on Business and Scale, and 0.5% on Circle Plus.
The plan prices used here are $89 a month for Professional and $199 for Business, both on annual billing. Month-to-month billing is listed higher, at $129 and $219. There is no free plan, only a 14-day trial.
The Circle fee sits on top of Stripe’s. Circle’s help page gives the example of a Business-plan subscription sale: 1% to Circle, plus 2.9% + $0.30 for Stripe payments, plus 0.7% for Stripe Billing. That last 0.7% is not in the table above. On $15,000 of monthly revenue it would add $105.
Business beats Professional once the 1% saving outweighs the $110 higher plan fee. That happens at about $11,000 a month in revenue, or roughly 367 members at $30.
Skool
Skool has two plans, Hobby at $9 a month and Pro at $99 a month, with a 14-day trial on both. According to published Skool pricing details, Hobby charges 10% + $0.30 per paid transaction. Pro charges 2.9% + $0.30 on charges up to $899, and 3.9% + $0.30 above $900. A $30 membership sits far below that threshold.
Skool is the merchant of record, so these fees are all-in with no separate Stripe fee. That makes the headline percentages look better than Circle’s and Mighty’s, but they are not directly comparable. The fair comparison is the total, and the total is why Skool Pro leads the hosted options in the table.
Each additional Pro community costs another $99 a month, with no bundle price. If you plan several separate communities, multiply the plan fee accordingly. Check Skool’s own terms for any extra commission that can apply to members the platform refers to you.
Mighty Networks
Mighty Networks changed its plan lineup in 2025 and retired the old names. A 2026 Mighty Networks pricing breakdown lists the current fees as 2% on Launch, 1% on Scale, and 0.5% on Growth and Mighty Pro. A separate comparison lists Launch at $79 a month, Scale at $179 and Growth at $354, and notes that no plan reaches 0%.
Some listings still show the older lineup, with Community from $41 a month at a 3% fee. Prices and names have moved before, so confirm the lineup on Mighty’s pricing page. There is a 14-day trial.
The full bill is the subscription, plus the platform fee, plus Stripe’s processing, plus any optional add-ons such as Engagement Boosts for extra storage or livestreaming hours. Moving up to Growth does not help at this size. $354 plus 0.5% of $15,000 ($75) plus $585 of processing is $1,014, so Scale at $914 is cheaper.
Scale beats Launch once you collect more than about $10,000 a month, or roughly 333 members at $30. Below that, Launch is the cheaper plan.
Key takeaway: On Circle and Mighty, your plan choice is a bet on revenue. The higher plan only pays off above roughly $10,000 to $11,000 a month, and every extra member still pays Stripe plus a platform cut.
How the bill changes as you grow
At $30 per member, Stripe’s fees come to $1.17 per member per month: $0.87 for the percentage plus $0.30 fixed. A 1% platform cut adds $0.30 per member, and a 2% cut adds $0.60. So the percentage-fee platforms get more expensive faster than a flat-cost setup as membership grows.
| Option | 250 members | 500 members | 1,000 members |
|---|---|---|---|
| Circle Business | $566.50 | $934 | $1,669 |
| Mighty Networks Scale | $546.50 | $914 | $1,649 |
| Skool Pro | $391.50 | $684 | $1,269 |
| WordPress with TrueCommunity Pro (Solo yearly) | $332.42 | $624.92 | $1,209.92 |
Prices checked on October 13, 2026. Formula: plan or hosting cost plus $1.17 per member for Stripe, plus the platform cut where one applies. WordPress uses $9.92 for the plugin and $30 for hosting. At 250 members, Circle Professional and Mighty Launch would be the cheaper plans on those platforms, per the break-even points above.
The gap between WordPress and Skool Pro stays at about $59 at every size. Both pay the same processing and differ only in fixed costs. The gap between WordPress and Circle Business widens from $234 at 250 members to $309 at 500 and $459 at 1,000. A busier site may need a bigger hosting plan at 1,000 members, so scale the hosting assumption too.
Costs outside the monthly model
A single monthly total hides several line items that can change the answer. Check these before you commit:
- Circle Email Hub: sold as a separate paid add-on. One published example puts it at $99 a month, which would add about $1,188 a year if you need it.
- Mighty Networks branded app: Launch, Scale and Growth include the generic Mighty app but not your own listing in the app stores. A branded app costs extra.
- Skool extra communities: another $99 a month for each additional Pro community.
- Stripe Billing on Circle: the 0.7% line described above. At 500 members that is $105 a month.
- Skool Hobby: at $9 it looks nearly free, but 10% + $0.30 per charge makes it the most expensive option in the table once you take real payments.
Watch out: A free-looking entry plan is rarely free once members pay through the platform. Run the formula with your real price and member count before trusting any headline number.
Try TrueCommunity free, upgrade when you need more
What WordPress costs, and where the number has a gap
The WordPress column uses TrueCommunity, a community and LMS plugin that puts a private social network and a course builder on your own site. It uses your existing WordPress accounts and stores data in your own database. It charges no per-member fees and takes no platform cut. The free TrueCommunity plugin on WordPress.org is a complete community with basic courses. Pro is an add-on for advanced courses, course selling and gamification.
| Plan | Sites | Yearly | Per site (yearly) | Lifetime | Support |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Solo | 1 | $119 | $119.00 | $249 | Email, about 2 business days |
| Studio (best value) | 5 | $199 | $39.80 | $399 | Priority, about 1 business day |
| Agency | 30 | $299 | $9.97 | $599 | Priority, about 1 business day |
Prices checked on October 13, 2026, in US dollars, on the TrueCommunity Pro pricing page. Yearly plans renew at the same price. Plans differ only by site count and support level.
The model uses the Solo yearly plan because a single community on a single site is the common case. If you only need the community and basic courses, the free plugin takes the monthly total to $615. The comparison of free and Pro features shows exactly what the paid add-on changes.
The billing gap, stated plainly
TrueCommunity does not process payments and does not yet offer paid memberships or subscription billing. Course sales work through WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads as one-time purchases of Private courses, as described in the guide to selling a course with WooCommerce or EDD. Payment fees there depend on your store and gateway. If you charge $30 a month for access, you need a separate recurring-billing tool, and that tool has its own price and setup.
That is why every WordPress figure in this article excludes subscription billing. The useful question is how much headroom you have:
- Against Skool Pro: WordPress stays cheaper until a billing layer costs more than about $59 a month ($709 a year).
- Against Mighty Networks Scale: the headroom is about $289 a month ($3,469 a year).
- Against Circle Business: the headroom is about $309 a month ($3,709 a year).
Before you rely on any billing tool, confirm how it controls access to your community. Test it on a staging site and price it from the vendor’s own page.
Other WordPress costs to budget
- Hosting: set at $30 a month in this model. Every $10 change in your hosting bill moves the monthly total by $10.
- Requirements: WordPress 6.3 or newer, PHP 8.0 or newer and pretty permalinks. See the TrueCommunity install guide.
- Setup time: the five-step quick setup guide covers name, logos, modules, email and bringing in existing site users. There are no import tools for content from Circle, Skool or Mighty Networks, so posts and courses are rebuilt by hand.
- Maintenance: backups, security and updates are yours to manage, or your host’s.
The three-year view
Platform fees compound. If membership holds at 500 and prices stay where they are today, the yearly totals multiply directly.
| Option | Year 1 | Each later year | 3-year total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Circle Business | $11,208 | $11,208 | $33,624 |
| Mighty Networks Scale | $10,968 | $10,968 | $32,904 |
| Skool Pro | $8,208 | $8,208 | $24,624 |
| WordPress, TrueCommunity Pro Solo yearly | $7,499 | $7,499 | $22,497 |
| WordPress, TrueCommunity Pro Solo lifetime | $7,629 | $7,380 | $22,389 |
Prices checked on October 13, 2026. The lifetime row is $249 once, plus $360 a year of hosting and $7,020 a year of card processing. Lifetime covers core Pro plugin updates and excludes future paid add-ons.
Over three years, before any billing tool, WordPress on the yearly plan costs:
- $2,127 less than Skool Pro
- $10,407 less than Mighty Networks Scale
- $11,127 less than Circle Business
Whether the Skool gap survives a billing plugin depends on that plugin’s price, so check it against the $709-a-year headroom from earlier.
Quick tip: Run the formula with your own price per member, not $30. At $15 a member, the $0.30 fixed fee becomes 2% of each charge instead of 1%. Percentage cuts also produce half the dollars, so flat plan fees and hosting weigh more heavily in the comparison.
What you give up by leaving a hosted platform
The hosted platforms are not simply more expensive for the same product. They bundle things a WordPress build has to assemble.
- Billing is built in. Circle, Skool and Mighty handle recurring payments on the platform. On WordPress that is a separate tool and a separate setup.
- Hosting and uptime are theirs. You do not manage servers, backups or plugin updates.
- Mobile. Mighty includes a generic app on its plans. TrueCommunity has no dedicated mobile app yet, though it works in phone browsers.
- Member-created spaces. TrueCommunity gives you ownership of members and data, but group and course creation is admin-only, so members cannot start their own groups.
When TrueCommunity fits (and when it does not)
It fits when:
- You already run, or are comfortable running, a WordPress site and want to own your members and data.
- You want community and courses in one plugin, sharing the same members, quizzes and optional gamification, rather than a separate course tool.
- Your revenue is growing and you want platform cuts to stop scaling with it.
- You sell courses as one-time purchases through WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads, or you run a free community.
- You want to try before paying. The free plugin already includes the community, courses and quizzes, and free features stay free.
It does not fit when:
- You need recurring membership billing working out of the box. Paid memberships and subscription billing are planned, not shipped.
- You want a dedicated mobile app. There is none yet.
- You do not want to manage hosting, backups and updates.
- You need certificates, SCORM or xAPI, or you need members creating their own groups and courses. None of these are available.
- You want a large, long-established user base to lean on. TrueCommunity is a new product with very few installs, so expect a younger ecosystem than the hosted platforms.
When you are ready to price a plan, the pricing page lists every tier. Every payment, including yearly renewals, carries a 14-day money-back guarantee.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does a 500-member community cost per month on Circle, Skool and Mighty Networks?
At 500 members paying $30 a month, the totals are:
- Skool Pro: about $684
- Mighty Networks: about $914 (Scale) to $964 (Launch)
- Circle: about $934 (Business) to $974 (Professional)
These totals include Stripe’s 2.9% + $0.30 per charge, except on Skool, where the fee is all-in. Confirm each vendor’s current plan prices before you buy.
Is Skool cheaper than Circle and Mighty Networks?
Yes. At this size Skool Pro is cheaper by about $230 to $290 a month, because it charges no separate platform cut on top of processing. The exception is Skool Hobby, whose 10% + $0.30 fee makes it the most expensive option once you take real payments. Pro beats Hobby once you collect more than about $1,268 a month.
Do Circle and Mighty Networks charge transaction fees?
Yes. Both charge a percentage on paid memberships and courses, on top of Stripe’s fees. Circle lists 2% on Professional and 1% on Business and Scale, and Mighty lists 2% on Launch and 1% on Scale. Higher plans cut the percentage but raise the monthly fee, so the upgrade only pays off at higher revenue.
Is a WordPress community really cheaper than Circle, Skool or Mighty Networks?
It is cheaper before billing costs: about $625 a month with TrueCommunity Pro Solo and $30 of hosting, versus $684 to $974 on the hosted platforms. WordPress stays below Skool Pro as long as your recurring-billing tool costs under about $59 a month. Hosting, setup time and maintenance are also yours to budget.
Can TrueCommunity charge members a monthly subscription?
Not by itself. TrueCommunity does not process payments and has no built-in subscription billing, and paid memberships are planned rather than shipped. You can sell Private courses as one-time purchases through WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads, or add a separate billing tool for recurring access.
What if my community is free and I only pay for the software?
Then only the plan fees matter, and the gap narrows:
- Circle Professional: listed at $89 a month
- Skool Pro: $99 a month
- Mighty Networks Launch: $79 a month (some listings still show an older Community plan from $41)
A WordPress site on the free TrueCommunity plugin costs only hosting, set at $30 a month in this model, and the free plugin includes the community plus courses and quizzes.
Does the yearly TrueCommunity price go up at renewal?
No. Yearly plans renew at the same price you paid, with no intro discount followed by a jump. If a license lapses, the plugin keeps working, but updates and support stop until you renew.
Build your community on a site you own