Circle Vs Mighty Networks 

Circle and Mighty Networks are community platforms meant to help you create your own space online.

This is appealing to membership owners or creators wanting more control over the groups they run their program in.

Both platforms also allow you to monetize your community by selling a membership subscription or online courses.

Mighty Networks was probably one of the first mover in this industry but many other platforms, like Circle, have created a very competitive environment.

In this comparison review we break down exactly how these two platforms compare and which might be a good choice for you.

Let’s start with one of the most considered criteria for online creators, maybe just starting out, the cost.

First, note that both platforms offer a 14 days free trial for you to get started and give it a go.

Then you’ll have 4 paid plans to choose from:

This is the main feature for both platforms and probably what most creators gravitating to these will value.

If you’ve never been inside a community platform, know that it looks and feels very much like a Facebook group… but one that you fully control.

What both Circle and Mighty Networks will allow you to do is create different “threads” or “channels” of discussion for your members for different topics.

In each of these, members can create Posts or engage with other people’s messages.

Each post can have media, likes, comments,etc. Just like you would on any social media platforms.

This is relatively similar for both platforms here.

You can also live stream directly inside the community:

On top of this, other things are integrated in your community like Events where you can have a calendar for your member to see what’s upcoming (again here, similar on both platforms).

But also courses that can be bought and accessed in just a few clicks - more on those later.

Each member can also engage in private chats and network that way - you can turn that off however.

One of the main differences between the two platforms is how they both allow members to connect in these ways.

Mighty Networks allows them to have a very extended profile, see what conversations they’re a part of, but also group them in buckets so that you can more easily know if that would be someone you want to network with.

Circle is a bit more lightweight on that front with a more simple member’s profile and most interactions meant to be had within the community itself.

Another way Mighty Networks get a bit more extra is how you can lay out people’s feed.

Highlighting specific topics, the “latest activity”, hashtags, Discovery tabs and other things you want to draw attention to.

Here again Circle is a bit more straightforward.

But it does also have engagement features that Mighty Networks doesn’t offer.

For example, Circle has a Gamification feature, allowing you to enable your members to earn points, reward and a chance to grab a spot on the leaderboard:

This is a great way to create a friendly competition for your members to keep engaged with each other and unlock bonuses.

Both platforms give you extensive Analytics on the activity within your community to monitor it closely:

This is a great way to keep a pulse on everything happening at a glance.

Lastly, Circle and Mighty Networks both offer a mobile app.

Which members can access on any plan you’re on.

That being said, if you want a custom branded app it will come at an extra cost.

Another important feature for most creators as they’re looking for more ways to monetize their community are digital courses.

Note here that Circle and Mighty Networks are not specialists in that area and in fact only recently expanded to offer this feature.

These are supposed to be addons to your community, not the core part of your offer.

Both platforms will get you an easy curriculum builder to upload your course’s content.

You can upload videos directly or other multimedia files: audio, PDF, images,etc.

But only Mighty Networks really offers a bit more with learning tools like quizzes and assessments.

The platform also lets you do the kind of things you’d expect from a course platform such as drip scheduling or live student cohorts.

The layout of the course is a also relatively more immersive than Circle:

This might not be a deal breaker if you’re not looking for something advanced here.

But overall Mighty Networks does a better job with this feature.

That being said, both platforms allow you to see analytics such as student progress and nudge them to continue watching the course.

When it comes to charging members, both Circle and Mighty Networks make this very easy on you.

You create checkout pages and add payment options directly in the platform.

Whether that's recurring monthly or yearly subscriptions, trials, one-off payment or split payment, different currencies…

All of that is supported by both platforms.

The main difference here comes from the payment processor.

Circle uses their own native payment processor (a white-label version of Stripe) to allow you to take payments and see all information directly in Circle.

Mighty Networks goes the more usual route of letting you connect your own Stripe account.

Note that neither platform supports Paypal payments.

The upside of the way Circle does it here is that you have everything within Circle and can also enable Apple Pay or Google Pay for instance.

The downside is that they do take an extra processing fee: from 4% to 0.5% depending on your plan.

Neither is better or worse here, it just depends on what you value.

The last thing to mention here is how both platforms deal with affiliate programs.

In Mighty Networks, this is called the Ambassador program and can be enabled any time to allow members to refer your community to their friends.

You can set different rewards and tiers:

Of course rewards can also be a commission to payout (manually).

Circle has a more traditional affiliate feature here with a commission based program.
Not that for both platforms, payout to affiliates will have to be done manually.

Circle Vs Mighty Networks: The Bottom Line

Circle would be a better choice if you’re looking for a simple and lightweight community platform and value simplicity.

Mighty Networks would be a better choice if you’re looking for a most robust community platform with advanced features.