Skool vs Circle vs Kajabi

Disclosure: This page includes affiliate links to tools with a verified partner program (Kit, LearnWorlds), labelled where they appear. Skool, Circle and Kajabi links are direct and earn us nothing. How we make money.

Skool, Circle and Kajabi all host paid communities, but they are built for different businesses. Skool is the cheapest and simplest, and it owns your payment relationship. Circle is the most flexible community product and runs payments through your own Stripe account. Kajabi is a whole business platform (site, email, funnels, courses, community) that charges no platform fee on sales and costs the most per month.

Quick answer

Skool fits if…

• Your product is a community with a course library, and you want the fewest moving parts.
• You are fine with skool.com in the address bar and no branded app.
• You sell more than about $1,270 a month (Pro) or are still validating (Hobby).

Circle fits if…

• You want your own domain, your own Stripe account and a community that looks like your brand.
• You expect to integrate with other tools (Circle's Business plan adds API access and automations).
• You may want a fully branded iOS and Android app later (Circle Plus).

Kajabi fits if…

• The community is one part of a business that also needs a website, email marketing, funnels and courses.
• You would otherwise pay for three or four separate tools.
• You want zero platform fee on sales and a branded app (Pro plan).

Who this is for

Creators, coaches and educators choosing where paying members will live. Moving a paid community is painful: members have to re-join, re-enter cards, and relearn where things are. So the questions that matter most are what you pay at your real member count and what you can take with you.

The criteria

We compared all three on the same eight criteria, from each vendor's pricing page and help center on Oct 7, 2026: plan price, transaction fee, payment processing, member and admin limits, courses, live features, custom domain and apps, and data ownership and export.

Side by side

List prices change often. Check each vendor before you buy.

What you actually pay: Example at $29/month

Example (hypothetical). Assumptions: a single $29/month membership; every member is charged once a month by US domestic card; no VAT, refunds, chargebacks, coupons, failed payments or churn; each platform on its cheapest plan that fits, billed monthly; Circle's Stripe costs taken from Circle's own published fee example (2.9% + $0.30 processing plus 0.7% Stripe Billing); Kajabi on Kajabi Payments. Gross revenue is $2,900 at 100 members and $29,000 at 1,000 members.

How to read it:

• At 100 members, the spread is about $116 a month. Skool Pro is cheapest; Circle and Kajabi land within $2 of each other. At this size, pick on fit, not fees.
• At 1,000 members, Skool Hobby is the expensive choice by far. Its 10% fee costs roughly $2,000 a month more than Skool Pro. If you are on Hobby and growing, the upgrade is not optional.
• Circle's percentage fee is the cost to watch as you grow. On Circle Business ($219/mo billed monthly, 1% fee), the 1,000-member cost drops to about $1,853, still above Skool Pro and Kajabi Basic.
• Kajabi's higher tiers don't pay for themselves on fees alone here. Growth's lower card rate saves about $29 a month at 1,000 members but costs $70 more. You'd move up for contacts, admins or the branded app, not for the rate.
• Annual billing shifts the totals a little. Annual plans cut Circle Professional to $89 and Kajabi Basic to $143 a month, saving $10 and $36 respectively.

Kajabi Basic caps contacts at 2,500, and contacts include free leads as well as paying members. A 1,000-member community with a big free email list may need Growth. Kajabi sells extra contacts in blocks of 25,000 for $125 a month.

Skool

Skool is a feed, a classroom, a calendar and a leaderboard. The gamification (points, levels, content that opens up at a level) is designed to keep members posting, and Skool Discovery can bring in new members, with a 30% commission if you opt into Growth Boost. It's the fastest of the three to set up because there's the least to configure.

The trade is control. Skool is the merchant of record; you can't bring your own Stripe account, and we found no documented way to move active subscriptions elsewhere. No custom domain, no branded app, and Zapier only on Pro. Read the full Skool review.

Circle

Circle is the community product with the most configuration: spaces for discussion, chat, events, courses and live streams, a custom domain on every plan, and white-labeling from the Business plan. Payments go through your own Stripe account, so customer and subscription records live in an account you control. That's the strongest portability position of the three.

The trade is cost creep. Circle's own fee (2% on Professional) stacks on top of Stripe's processing and Billing fees, and limits on admins, spaces, live hours and email add-ons have paid top-ups. Circle's Email Hub is an add-on at $99 a month per 10,000 contacts. A fully branded mobile app requires Circle Plus at custom pricing. BestCreates hasn't published a full Circle review yet.

Kajabi

Kajabi treats the community as one product among many: courses, coaching, newsletters, a website, funnels and email marketing on one bill. It doesn't take a revenue share. With Kajabi Payments you pay card processing only, and the rate falls slightly on higher plans. The Pro plan includes a branded mobile app.

The trade is the entry price, and plan limits based on contacts rather than members. If you already run email on another platform and have a site you like, you'd pay for overlap. Our Kajabi review and Kajabi alternatives cover that decision.

Portability and data export

This is the section to read twice. Three things decide how hard leaving will be: who holds the payment relationship, whether you can export member emails, and whether your community lives on your domain.

Our advice, whichever you choose: from day one, send every paying member's name and email to an email platform you control, such as KitAFFILIATE (affiliate link). On Skool that means the Pro plan plus Zapier. On Circle and Kajabi it's a native or Zapier connection. Your community platform can change its pricing next year; your list stays yours.

Other options worth knowing

• Mighty Networks: community, courses and events, with transaction fees of 2% (Launch), 1% (Scale) and 0.5% (Growth). Annual-billed prices are $79, $179 and $354 a month; branded apps are on Mighty Pro (custom pricing). The plan to compare if you like Circle's shape but want built-in courses with quizzes.
• Whop: a checkout and access layer, popular with Discord-based communities. Whop's fee page lists 2.7% + $0.30 per domestic card charge, with optional billing, tax and orchestration fees on top, and payout fees from $2.50 for next-day ACH.
• Discord Server Subscriptions: sell paid roles inside a server. Discord says owners keep 90% after applicable deductions. Discord's creator support pages say the owner must be in the US with US banking for Stripe, the first payout needs $100 in earnings (then $25), and payouts come within 45 days after month-end. You don't get member emails, so it's the weakest option for ownership.
• Patreon: creators who published after Aug 4, 2025 pay a 10% platform fee plus processing (2.9% + $0.30 for US cards). Better for posts and supporter tiers than for a discussion-first community.
• Memberful: memberships on your own site, if you want the community elsewhere and billing under your control.

Pros and cons

Skool · 7.6 / 10

• + Cheapest at every member count on Pro, in our Example
• + Fastest to set up; community, courses and calls on both plans
• + Handles EU VAT as merchant of record
• − 10% Hobby fee is punishing at scale
• − No custom domain, no branded app, no own-Stripe option
• − Integrations limited to Zapier on Pro

Circle · Circle review

• + Your domain and your Stripe account on every plan
• + Most configurable community product of the three
• + Clear upgrade path to a fully branded app
• − Platform fee stacks on top of Stripe's fees
• − Paid add-ons for email, extra admins, spaces and live hours
• − API access starts on Business ($219/mo monthly)

Kajabi · 7.9 / 10

• + No platform fee on sales
• + Website, email, funnels, courses and community in one bill
• + Branded app on Pro
• − Highest entry price ($179/mo monthly, $143/mo annual)
• − Contact caps include free leads, not just members
• − You pay for site and email tools you may already have

The verdict

There's no universal winner, and we wouldn't pick one for you without knowing your business.

• Pick Skool if your product is the community, you want to launch this week, and you can live with Skool owning the billing relationship. Go straight to Pro once you're past about $1,270 a month.
• Pick Circle if you care most about brand, domain and keeping subscriptions in your own Stripe account, and you're prepared to pay a little more per member for that control.
• Pick Kajabi if the community is one part of a larger business and Kajabi would replace your site, email and course tools. If it would replace only one of them, it's probably the wrong buy.

What would change our recommendation: if Skool added custom domains or own-Stripe payments, it would be the default for most solo creators. If Circle dropped its platform fee on Professional, it would close most of the cost gap. If the course is the product and the community is a bonus, look at a dedicated course platform such as LearnWorldsAFFILIATE (affiliate link) or our best tools for course creators guide.