A community for your online course: when and what it costs
Do you need a community for your course? When it pays, Circle (from $89/month) and Skool ($9 and $99/month) list prices, moderation and how to measure it.
“Add a community” is the most repeated advice to people selling courses, but a community is ongoing work, not a feature to switch on. This guide helps you decide whether you need one, what it may cost and how to keep it alive without it becoming a second job.
An honest premise: the price lists we cite are those of two platforms, Circle and Skool. The Mighty Networks and Discord pages were not readable by our reading tool, so we do not compare them. We found no independent studies proving that a community raises completion or sales.
Do you really need a community?
You do when the result you promise also comes from exchange: feedback on work, questions others have already asked, a group that motivates. You do not if the course is a technical tool to consult alone or if you have no time to run one. A question to decide: if you removed the community, would the course lose value for the student? If the answer is no, you may not need one yet. If yes, ask what to promise: access to your time, exchange between students or both. Promising your time within the price changes the calculation, as we explain in how much to charge for an online course. A low-effort alternative is a time-limited cohort, described in cohort or self-paced course.
How much does a community platform cost?
In the official price lists read on 16 October 2026, Circle offers the Professional plan at $89 a month with annual billing and a 2% transaction fee; Skool offers a Hobby plan at $9 a month with 10% fees and a Pro plan at $99 a month with 2.9%.
List prices by platform
| Plan | Dollars per month |
|---|---|
| Skool Hobby | 9 $ |
| Circle Professional | 89 $ |
| Skool Pro | 99 $ |
On both platforms members are unlimited; Circle lists higher plans (at $199 and $419 a month with 1% fees) and a custom plan at 0.5%. Transaction fees matter as much as the monthly price: with a $300 course sold to a hundred people, the gap between 2% and 10% is $2,400. That calculation is an example with our own numbers. Before choosing, simulate your case: number of members, price and expected transactions in a year, and compare the total cost rather than the monthly fee alone.
Dedicated platform or a social group?
A social group is free and quick to launch, but gives you less control: data, access and rules are decided by the platform. A dedicated platform costs, but keeps access, course and payments in one place. The choice depends on how much you want to control. If you sell a paid course, you need a simple way to grant and remove access, which is why a platform that handles enrolment is usually used. If the community is a free extension for building trust before the sale, a social group or an email list may suffice. For the list read creator newsletters. In any case keep a copy of contacts in your own email list: if the platform changes or closes, the community does not vanish with it.
How do you start without enormous work?
Start small: one discussion space, three written rules, one topic a week and a time when you reply. A community of fifty active people beats one with five hundred sign-ups who never write.
Tell newcomers what they will and will not find: response times, topics, behaviour not allowed. Propose a simple first gesture, for example introducing themselves and saying what result they seek. Give a fixed block of your content calendar to the community, otherwise it gets lost in full weeks. Identify one or two members who gladly answer others and thank them openly: peer conversation is what makes a community different from a support channel. After three months decide whether to continue, scale back or close.
How do you moderate and protect content?
With written rules, a way to report problems and the ability to remove access. A community where students share course content must be managed like the course: clear terms on what is forbidden, and a way to step in. If part of the course lives inside the community, the same measures apply as in account sharing in online courses and the per-student watermark described in per-student watermarks for video courses. For members' privacy, use only the data needed, tell them how it is handled and do not share lists of people. If you hold personal data of EU citizens the data protection regulation applies: have the notices checked by a professional. For content members publish, specify in the rules who owns it and how it may be reused.
How do you measure the result?
With three simple measures: how many members post each week, how many reply to other members and not only to you, and how many students finish the course compared with those who do not take part. They are your observations, not proof of cause. People who join a community are often already more motivated, so a higher completion among participants does not prove the community produces it. So compare the same indicators over time, and set them against the cost in hours and money. If after a quarter conversations are few and your time is high, consider scaling the community down to periodic meetings. For metrics in general read creator metrics that matter. A well-kept community has an effect numbers capture poorly: the testimonials you will cite in later sales.
Key terms. A community is a space where a group of people exchange questions and answers. Moderation is the set of rules and interventions that keep the space orderly. The transaction fee is the share a platform keeps on each payment. An active member is someone who posts or replies regularly.
How we checked this. We read the Circle and Skool pricing pages on 16 October 2026 and drew the prices and fees reported above. We could not read the Mighty Networks and Discord pages and found no independent studies on the effects of a community on completion and sales, and we say so. Contact: hi@heytea.app. Editorial note: we fact-check every figure against the sources listed below and correct mistakes openly.
Frequently asked questions
Do you need a community to sell a course?
No. Many courses work without one. A community makes sense when the result you promise benefits from exchange between students or from access to you, and when you have the time to run it. An empty community does more harm than none, because it suggests an abandoned product.
How much does a community platform cost?
In the price lists we read on 16 October 2026, Circle started from $89 a month (annual billing) with a 2% transaction fee, and Skool from $9 a month with 10% fees or from $99 a month with 2.9%. Prices are in dollars, exclude tax and change over time.
Dedicated platform or a social media group?
A social group is free and quick to launch, but leaves you little control over data and access, and the platform can change rules. A dedicated platform costs, but keeps course, access and payments together. We did not read the price lists of other services such as Mighty Networks or Discord, so we do not compare them.
How much time does running a community take?
It depends on size, but plan a regular presence: answering within stated times, proposing a weekly topic, running a live meeting now and then. We found no independent measures of the time required: log your own for a month before promising a service.
How do I measure whether the community works?
With a few measures: how many members post each week, how many reply to other members and not just to you, how many students finish the course compared with those who do not take part. They are your own observations, not proof of cause: people who take part are often already more motivated.