Circle review

How much does Circle take from each sale?

Circle takes 2% of each sale on the Professional plan and 1% on Business and Scale, and Stripe's fees come on top. Circle's help center gives the full stack for a subscription as Circle's fee plus Stripe's 2.9% + $0.30 card fee plus 0.7% for Stripe Billing.

On a $30 monthly membership on Professional, that works out to about $1.98 per payment before the plan price. Circle's pricing page shows $89 a month on annual billing, and the price data on the same page lists $99 for month-to-month billing.

Business at $219 a month halves the transaction fee. It only pays for itself once you sell more than $12,000 a month, because the extra $120 in plan cost has to come out of 1% savings. Compare take-home pay across platforms on the fee table.

Refund through Circle, not the Stripe dashboard. Circle's help center says its transaction fee comes back automatically on refunds made in Circle and does not come back on refunds made directly in Stripe.

What do you get on the Professional plan?

Professional covers what most paid communities need: discussion spaces, courses, live events, a member directory, gamification, a website, and payments. It includes unlimited members, 3 admins, 10 moderators, 20 spaces, and 200GB of storage. Extra admins cost $10 a month each, and extra moderators or spaces cost $20 a month per 10.

Members use Circle's iOS, Android, and desktop apps, which carry Circle's name. Your own branded app requires Circle Plus, which has custom pricing.

Business adds workflows, custom profile fields, API access, branded email notifications, and removes Circle branding. Scale adds AI agents and unlimited workflows. Most solo creators can skip both until the community runs itself.

Email marketing costs extra. Circle's Email Hub starts at $99 a month for 10,000 contacts, charged on top of your community plan, with the first 30 days free. If you already pay for an email tool, you can skip it.

Do you own your members on Circle?

Yes. Circle connects to a Standard Stripe account in your name, so customers and payment history sit in your own Stripe dashboard.

Every plan includes a custom domain. Admins can download member lists as CSV files, and Circle support will send a full export of members with emails, plus posts, comments, spaces, and events, on request.

This is the main reason to pay Circle's price. If you leave, your customer list and payment records stay in accounts you control, which is the opposite of how Skool and Discord work.

The flip side is that Circle will not find members for you in any way you can plan around. Circle Discover is a marketplace where communities can list their offer, but Circle does not publish how listings rank or whether it takes a commission. If you want a platform that markets you, Skool runs a discovery feed and paid promotion, at the cost of a 30% commission on members it brings in.

How do Circle payouts work?

Circle does not hold your money. Members pay into your Standard Stripe account, and Stripe moves the money to your bank on the payout schedule set for your account and country.

Paywalls support recurring billing from daily to annual, one-time payments, and installment plans. Circle can charge in 22 currencies, including USD, EUR, GBP, CAD, and AUD, and members can subscribe from any country.

The catch is where you live. Circle's help center says admins in India and Malaysia cannot connect Stripe at all, so they cannot sell through Circle.

Who should skip Circle?

Skip Circle if you are testing an idea with a few dozen members. The $99 plan price is your biggest cost at low revenue, and Skool's $9 Hobby plan or a free Discord server costs less while you find out if people will pay.

Skip it too if you want the cheapest possible take-home at scale. Skool Pro's 2.9% + $0.30 includes card processing, so it beats Circle at every revenue level. Mighty Networks is the closer match if you like Circle's ownership model but want unlimited spaces on the entry plan.