Circle.so Pricing 2026: The Real Cost

Circle.so looks affordable on the pricing page. $89/month if you pay annually. That’s the number they want you to anchor on.

But the real cost of running a Circle community? It’s higher than that. Sometimes significantly higher. Transaction fees stack on top of Stripe fees. The email add-on costs extra. Admins cost extra. And Circle killed their old Basic plan, so there’s no cheap entry point anymore.

I’ve gone through every tier, every add-on, and every overage charge so you can see what Circle actually costs in 2026.

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The three plans (plus one you can’t price yourself)

Circle offers three public plans and one enterprise-style custom tier:

	Professional	Business	Enterprise
Monthly price	$129/mo	$219/mo	$499/mo
Annual price	$89/mo	$199/mo	$419/mo
Members	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited
Spaces	20	30	100
Admins	3	5	10
Transaction fee	2%	1%	0.5%
Workflows/automation	No	Yes	Yes
API access	No	Yes	Yes
Remove branding	No	Yes	Yes

There’s also a Plus tier above Enterprise with custom pricing. You’ll need to talk to their sales team for that one.

A few things jump out immediately. The Professional plan at $89/month locks you out of automation, API access, and white-labeling. If you’re running a paid community and want to build any kind of automated onboarding or integrate Circle with your other tools, you’re forced into the Business tier at $199/month minimum.

That’s a steep jump for features most community builders will want within their first few months.

The transaction fee problem

This is the part that genuinely bothers me.

Circle charges a transaction fee on every payment your members make. Professional takes 2%. Business takes 1%. Enterprise takes 0.5%.

But here’s the thing — these fees stack on top of Stripe’s standard 2.9% + $0.30 processing fee. So on the Professional plan, you’re actually paying 4.9% + $0.30 on every transaction.

Let’s say you run a $99/month community with 200 paying members on the Professional plan. That’s $19,800/month in revenue. Circle takes 2% ($396) on top of what Stripe takes (~$634). You’re losing over $1,000/month in fees before you even count your subscription cost.

On Business, those numbers drop to about $830/month total in fees. Still not nothing.

Compare that to Skool, where the Pro plan charges 2.9% processing and that’s it. No additional platform transaction fee stacked on top. The difference compounds fast as your community grows.

The add-ons that inflate your bill

Circle’s base pricing doesn’t include email. If you want to email your members from inside Circle (which, let’s be honest, most community owners will), you need the Email Hub add-on. That starts at $99/month and scales up based on your contact count.

So take that $89/month Professional plan. Add Email Hub and you’re already at $188/month — and you still don’t have automation or API access.

Then there are overage fees:

• Extra admins beyond your plan limit: $10/month each
• Extra live stream attendees beyond your allotment: $20/month per 100 attendees
• Extra live stream hours: $50/month per 10 hours

None of these are outrageous on their own. But they add up in ways that the pricing page doesn’t make obvious. You’ll only discover them when the bill arrives.

What happened to the Basic plan?

Circle used to have a Basic tier in the $39-49/month range. They killed it. The cheapest way into Circle now is $89/month on an annual commitment, or $129/month if you want to go month-to-month.

For solo creators or people testing out the community model, that $89 floor is a hard sell. Especially when you can start a Skool community and test with real members at a lower effective cost because there’s no transaction fee stacking.

Some existing Circle users have also reported unexpected price increases — getting bumped from $89/month to $129/month without much warning. I can’t verify this across the board, but it’s worth knowing about if you’re evaluating Circle for a long-term home.

Circle vs Skool pricing: a direct comparison

	Circle (Professional)	Skool (Pro)
Monthly price	$129/mo ($89 annual)	$99/mo
Transaction fee	2% + Stripe’s 2.9%	2.9% only
Email built-in	No (+$99/mo add-on)	No
Admins included	3	Unlimited
Automation	Not included	Not applicable
Branding removal	Not included	Not applicable
Free trial	14 days	14 days

The raw subscription price is close — $89 vs $99 annually. But once you factor in Circle’s stacked transaction fees and the email add-on, Skool ends up cheaper for most community operators.

Where Circle wins is customization. If you need deep branding control, multiple isolated spaces, API integrations, and workflow automation, Circle gives you that. Skool is intentionally simple — one feed, one leaderboard, gamification baked in. You get less flexibility but more member engagement out of the box.

I’ve written about this in more detail in my AI Video Bootcamp review, which runs on Skool. The engagement levels in Skool communities are consistently high because the platform removes friction rather than adding options.

Who should actually pay Circle’s prices?

Circle makes sense if you need multi-space architecture with isolated member groups, or if white-labeling is a hard requirement. Established course creators running multiple programs with thousands of members will get value from the Business or Enterprise tiers.

But if you’re running a single community, selling one membership, and you want to keep your costs predictable — Circle’s pricing model works against you. The stacked fees, the missing features on lower tiers, and the add-on costs mean your real monthly bill will almost always be higher than the advertised price.

For most people reading this, Skool at $99/month with no hidden fees is the simpler, cheaper choice.

The 14-day free trial

Circle does offer a 14-day free trial with no credit card required. That’s generous, and I’d recommend using it if you’re genuinely torn. Build out a few spaces, test the course tools, see how the member experience feels.

Just make sure you calculate your real monthly cost — subscription plus transaction fees plus any add-ons — before you commit past the trial.

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Comparing platforms? See our Skool vs Circle breakdown and AI Video Bootcamp review.