Community platform transaction fees range from 0.5% to 10% of every sale, charged on top of your monthly plan. On Circle the fee runs from 2% to 0.5%, on Mighty Networks from 2% to 0.5%, and on Skool it is 10% on Hobby or 2.9% on Pro. All figures here cover subscription plus platform percentage, excluding subscription billing tools and card processing.
Quick Summary
- TrueCommunity: no platform percentage and no per-member fee. Plans are $119 a year (Solo), $199 a year (Studio, 5 sites) and $299 a year (Agency, 30 sites), and they renew at the same price. The free plugin is a complete community with basic courses. This comparison excludes recurring subscription billing, which TrueCommunity does not provide yet.
- Circle: Professional is $89 a month with a 2% fee, Business is $199 with 1%, Scale is $419 with 1%, and Circle Plus is custom with 0.5% (annual billing).
- Mighty Networks: Launch is $79 a month with 2%, Scale is $179 with 1%, Growth is $354 with 0.5%.
- Skool: Hobby is $9 a month with a 10% fee, Pro is $99 with 2.9%.
- At $10,000 a month in sales, the platform percentage alone is $1,200 to $2,400 a year on Circle or Mighty at their lower tiers. On Skool Hobby it is $12,000 a year.
Prices checked on October 16, 2026 on each vendor’s own pricing page. The tables below take the figures shown there and calculate from them.
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What a transaction fee is, and what it is not
A transaction fee is a percentage the platform keeps from each payment your members make through it. It is separate from the monthly plan price. You pay the plan whether you sell anything or not, and the percentage grows with every dollar of revenue.
That second property is what makes it a different kind of cost. A plan price is predictable. A percentage is a tax on your success, and it quietly changes which plan is cheapest as you grow.
Card processing is a third layer. The payment processor charges its own fee on each card payment, and that is separate from what the platform takes. The tables in this article show only the plan price and the platform percentage, so your real take-home will be lower once processing is added.
Key takeaway: Judge any hosted community by its effective take rate: (plan price + platform percentage) divided by your monthly sales. The plan price looks small, but the percentage is what you will feel at scale.
Assumptions used in this article
We model two monthly sales levels, $5,000 and $10,000, with all revenue going through the platform’s own payments. Plans are priced as shown on each vendor’s page, and Circle states its prices are based on annual billing. Taxes and card processing are excluded everywhere, and so is any recurring billing layer on the WordPress side.
Circle: community platform transaction fees by plan
Circle’s pricing page lists transaction fees as a row in the plan comparison. The fee drops as you move up, but the plan price rises much faster.
| Circle plan | Price per month (annual billing) | Transaction fee | Notable limits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Professional | $89 | 2% | 3 admins, 20 spaces |
| Business | $199 | 1% | 5 admins, 30 spaces, workflows, APIs |
| Scale | $419 | 1% | 10 admins, 100 spaces, SSO, webhooks |
| Circle Plus | Custom | 0.5% | Custom branded mobile apps |
Prices checked on October 16, 2026 on circle.so/pricing. Excluding subscription billing tools and card processing.
Notice that Scale has the same 1% fee as Business. Moving from Business to Scale at $419 a month buys limits, SSO and AI features, not a lower fee. Only Circle Plus drops the fee further, and its price is quoted on request.
Circle’s page also lists add-ons that sit outside the plan. The optional Email Hub is $99 a month for 10,000 contacts on top of the community plan, and extra Circle AI credits cost $10 per 1,000. Admin API requests are not included on Professional at all.
Mighty Networks: the fee falls with each plan
Mighty Networks shows its transaction fee in the Payments section of its plan comparison. Its structure is similar to Circle’s, but the fee keeps falling at the top tiers.
| Mighty plan | Price per month (as shown on the page) | Transaction fee |
|---|---|---|
| Launch | $79 | 2% |
| Scale | $179 | 1% |
| Growth | $354 | 0.5% |
| Mighty Pro | Custom | 0.5% |
Prices checked on October 16, 2026 on mightynetworks.com/pricing. The page offers monthly and annual billing toggles and lists Launch at $950 a year. Excluding subscription billing tools and card processing.
The cheapest plan on the page is Launch, and it carries a 2% fee. There is no tier with a 0% fee, so every Mighty plan takes a cut of every sale.
Mighty reserves custom-branded apps for Mighty Pro. Migration services come with Growth and above, and APIs and MCP access start at Scale.
Skool: two plans, two very different fees
Skool has the simplest pricing page and the widest gap between tiers. The cheap plan is cheap only until you sell something.
| Skool plan | Price per month | Transaction fee |
|---|---|---|
| Hobby | $9 | 10% |
| Pro | $99 | 2.9% |
Prices checked on October 16, 2026 on skool.com/pricing. Excluding card processing and subscription billing tools.
Both plans include unlimited members, courses, videos and live calls. The only structural difference on the page is the fee, so the choice between them is pure arithmetic: how much do you sell?
Watch out: A $9 plan with a 10% fee can cost more in a month than a $99 plan. Selling just $1,300 a month on Hobby already costs more than Pro does at the same sales.
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What each platform takes at $5,000 and $10,000 a month
Here is the monthly cost of plan plus platform percentage, calculated from the prices above. Each figure is the plan price plus the percentage of sales.
| Platform and plan | At $5,000 a month | At $10,000 a month |
|---|---|---|
| TrueCommunity Solo ($119 a year, no platform fee) | about $10 | about $10 |
| Circle Professional ($89 + 2%) | $189 | $289 |
| Circle Business ($199 + 1%) | $249 | $299 |
| Mighty Launch ($79 + 2%) | $179 | $279 |
| Mighty Scale ($179 + 1%) | $229 | $279 |
| Mighty Growth ($354 + 0.5%) | $379 | $404 |
| Skool Hobby ($9 + 10%) | $509 | $1,009 |
| Skool Pro ($99 + 2.9%) | $244 | $389 |
Prices checked on October 16, 2026 on each vendor’s own pricing page. Excluding card processing and recurring subscription billing. TrueCommunity monthly figure is the $119 yearly Solo price divided by 12, rounded.
The TrueCommunity row needs context. It excludes recurring subscription billing, because paid memberships are planned but not shipped. Courses can be sold through WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads, and the plugin takes no percentage of those sales.
Yearly cost at $10,000 a month
Monthly numbers hide how large the difference becomes over a year. Multiplying the $10,000-a-month column by 12 gives these totals.
| Platform and plan | Platform percentage per year | Plan plus percentage per year |
|---|---|---|
| TrueCommunity Solo | $0 | $119 |
| Circle Professional | $2,400 | $3,468 |
| Circle Business | $1,200 | $3,588 |
| Mighty Launch | $2,400 | $3,348 |
| Mighty Scale | $1,200 | $3,348 |
| Mighty Growth | $600 | $4,848 |
| Skool Hobby | $12,000 | $12,108 |
| Skool Pro | $3,480 | $4,668 |
Prices checked on October 16, 2026 on each vendor’s own pricing page. Excluding card processing and recurring subscription billing.
The pattern is clear: a lower fee tier rarely pays for itself at $10,000 a month. Mighty Growth saves $600 a year in percentage compared with the 1% tiers, but its plan costs far more. Hosted platforms stay in the $3,300 to $4,900 range at this revenue, while the Skool Hobby route is the outlier at over $12,000.
Break-even points: when does a higher plan pay for itself?
Upgrading to cut the fee only works above a certain monthly revenue. The break-even is the plan price difference divided by the fee difference.
- Circle Professional to Business: $110 more per month for 1 percentage point less. Break-even is $11,000 a month in sales, so below that Professional costs less on fees alone.
- Mighty Launch to Scale: $100 more for 1 point less. Break-even is $10,000 a month, which is why both plans cost $279 at that level.
- Mighty Scale to Growth: $175 more for 0.5 points less. Break-even is $35,000 a month.
- Skool Hobby to Pro: $90 more for 7.1 points less. Break-even is about $1,268 a month.
The Skool number is the one to remember. Almost any community that actually sells should be on Pro, which makes Hobby a plan for people who are not selling yet.
Cost check: Upgrade for features, not for the fee. Circle Business at 1% only beats Professional above $11,000 a month in sales, and Mighty Growth only beats Scale above $35,000.
Costs the fee percentage does not show
Platform fees are only part of total cost of ownership. Several limits and add-ons on the vendor pages change the real bill.
- Annual commitment: Circle’s listed prices are based on annual billing. Mighty Networks offers monthly and annual billing, and Skool lists a yearly option as “2 months free”.
- Email: Circle’s Email Hub is an extra $99 a month on top of the community plan for 10,000 contacts, so a Business plan with it comes to $298 a month before any percentage.
- API and SSO access: Circle includes no admin API requests on Professional and puts custom SSO and webhooks on Scale at $419 a month. Mighty lists APIs and MCP access from Scale upward.
- Branded mobile apps: Circle reserves custom branded apps for Circle Plus, and Mighty reserves them for Mighty Pro. Both are custom-priced.
- Extra AI credits: Circle sells extra credits at $10 per 1,000, so heavy AI use can add to the bill.
Then there is exit cost. On a hosted platform your members, content and payment history live on the vendor’s system, so leaving means a migration project. Mighty offers migration help from the Growth plan, and Circle lists migration services on Business and above.
Can you avoid platform fees with a self-hosted WordPress community?
Yes, for the platform percentage. A WordPress community plugin charges a flat license fee, and nothing is taken from each sale by the plugin. Payment processing fees still apply, because that cost belongs to the card network and your gateway, not to the community software.
TrueCommunity is built for this model. It is a community and LMS plugin for WordPress, with a private social network and a course builder in one plugin, running on your existing WordPress accounts and your own database. There are no per-member fees and no platform cut.
The free TrueCommunity plugin on WordPress.org already includes the activity feed, profiles, groups, messages and courses with auto-graded quizzes. Pro adds advanced course rules, course selling and gamification. The Free vs Pro comparison lists exactly what moves where.
Plans on the pricing page are flat. Solo is $119 a year for one site, Studio is $199 a year for five sites ($39.80 per site), and Agency is $299 a year for 30 sites ($9.97 per site). Every plan has the same features, yearly plans renew at the same price, and there is a 14-day money-back guarantee, described in the refund policy.
How course sales work without a platform cut
TrueCommunity does not process payments itself. Course selling uses WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads, and a successful purchase enrolls the buyer automatically. The Sell a course doc explains the setup and the requirement that a sold course is set to Private.
Your costs on those sales are whatever your store and payment gateway charge. There is no extra percentage added by the community plugin.
What you take on yourself
Self-hosting is not free of work. You pay for hosting, you keep WordPress updated, and you set up your store and email delivery. The install guide lists the requirements: WordPress 6.3 or later, PHP 8.0 or later and pretty permalinks.
The upside is that the community runs in its own layout on any theme. Setup is covered in the quick setup guide, and existing WordPress users can be brought in with the migrate users tool.
When TrueCommunity fits (and when it does not)
TrueCommunity fits if your main worry is that fees grow with your revenue and you want to own your site and member data. It also fits if you sell courses one time, or want a free community to test with before paying. It is a good match for coaches, associations, schools and creators who already run WordPress or are willing to.
It is not the best choice in several cases, and you should know them before switching.
- Recurring memberships: paid memberships and subscription billing are planned but not shipped. If your revenue is a monthly membership, a hosted platform handles that today, and a WordPress setup would need a separate billing layer.
- A dedicated mobile app: there is no TrueCommunity app yet. The community works in phone browsers, while Circle Plus and Mighty Pro offer branded apps if an app is core to your offer.
- Certificates and SCORM: TrueCommunity does not offer certificates or SCORM. Mighty lists badges, certifications and SCORM embeds on its comparison page, so check that list if credentials matter.
- Admin-only creation: only site administrators can create groups and courses, so a model where every member opens their own space does not fit.
- No technical time: if you do not want to manage a WordPress site at all, a hosted platform trades fees for convenience.
If you are unsure, start with the free plugin. Nothing in Free moves to Pro, and upgrading keeps your posts, groups, courses and members in place.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Circle charge transaction fees, and how much?
Yes. Circle’s pricing page lists 2% on Professional, 1% on Business, 1% on Scale and 0.5% on Circle Plus. The percentage applies to member payments made through Circle, and you pay it in addition to your monthly plan, so choose the plan using your sales figure, not only the headline price.
Does Skool take a percentage of my sales?
Yes. Skool’s pricing page shows a 10% transaction fee on Hobby ($9 a month) and a 2.9% transaction fee on Pro ($99 a month). Because of that gap, Pro is cheaper than Hobby once sales pass roughly $1,268 a month, so a community with real revenue rarely belongs on Hobby.
What is the cheapest Mighty Networks plan, and what fee does it charge?
Launch is the cheapest plan shown, at $79 a month, with a 2% transaction fee. The Scale plan at $179 cuts that to 1%, and Growth at $354 cuts it to 0.5%. The Launch-to-Scale upgrade pays for itself on fees alone only above $10,000 a month in sales.
Which community platform has the lowest total fees at $5,000 or $10,000 a month?
Among the hosted platforms, Mighty Launch is lowest at $5,000 a month ($179), and Mighty Launch and Scale tie at $279 at $10,000 a month. A self-hosted WordPress setup with TrueCommunity has no platform percentage at all, with a $119 yearly Solo license. Remember that the WordPress route excludes recurring subscription billing and card processing, and you cover hosting yourself.
Is there a community platform with no transaction fees?
Every hosted platform in this comparison charges a percentage on at least one plan, and none of the Circle, Mighty or Skool tiers shown is at 0%. A self-hosted WordPress plugin removes the platform percentage because you pay a flat license fee instead. The gateway still charges its own processing on card payments.
At what revenue does it make sense to upgrade a plan to get a lower fee?
Divide the plan price difference by the fee difference. For Circle that is $11,000 a month from Professional to Business, for Mighty it is $10,000 a month from Launch to Scale, and for Skool it is about $1,268 a month from Hobby to Pro. Also weigh features, since some upgrades add API access or SSO that matter more than the fee.
Can I avoid platform fees by self-hosting a WordPress community plugin?
You avoid the platform percentage, but not payment processing or hosting. With TrueCommunity you pay a flat yearly or lifetime license, with every Pro feature in every plan, and sell courses through WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads. Compare plans on the TrueCommunity pricing page, or try the free plugin first.
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