Circle Pricing in 2026: Plans, Transaction Fees, and the Real Cost
Circle's plans start at $49/month on Basic, $89/month on Professional, $199/month on Business, and $360/month on Enterprise, all billed annually as of October 2026. Pay monthly instead and those numbers nearly double. The sticker price is only half the story: Circle layers a transaction fee on paid memberships, from 4% on Basic down to 0% on Enterprise, on top of Stripe's standard 2.9% + $0.30.
Circle pricing at a glance (October 2026)
Here is what you pay Circle each month, read from their pricing page and verified October 2026. Monthly billing is the top number; annual billing is the discounted rate shown per month.
| Plan | Monthly billing | Annual billing (per month) | Transaction fee | Admin seats |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | $89 | $49 | 4% | 1 |
| Professional | $199 | $89 | 2% | 4 |
| Business | $419 | $199 | 0.5% | 10 |
| Enterprise | $719 | $360 | 0% | 25 |
Annual billing saves between 45% and 50% off the monthly rate. If you are not ready to commit to a year, that gap is the first number to put in your spreadsheet.
The transaction fee is the number most creators miss
Circle's monthly plan price is only half the math. If you charge for your community, Circle takes a cut of every paid transaction before Stripe gets involved. That cut shrinks as you move up tiers, but on Basic it is 4%, and 4% of serious community revenue is a bigger line item than the subscription itself.
Walk the math at $10,000 per month in membership revenue. On Basic: $49 plan fee plus 4% transaction fee ($400) adds up to $449 going to Circle every month. On Enterprise: $360 plan fee plus $0 transaction fee. Enterprise beats Basic above roughly $7,775 in monthly community revenue; below that threshold, Basic wins. Professional sits in the middle: at 2% plus $89/month, it beats Basic above $2,000 in monthly revenue and holds the lead until Business at $199 overtakes it near $7,300.
Running these numbers before you pick a plan is worth more than any feature audit. The quick heuristic: if your community revenue is above $8,000/month and you are still on Basic, you are leaving $100+ a month on the table.
What each Circle plan actually includes
Circle sells five product lines inside the same subscription: Community, Courses, Live, Branded App, and Workflows (their automation engine). Not every feature appears on every tier.
Basic ($49/mo annually) gives you one community space with unlimited members, native courses, events, and payments. It covers one admin and three moderators, caps you at 100 participants in a live room, and leaves advanced analytics, Workflows, and the API out.
Professional ($89/mo annually) adds Workflows (Circle's automation engine), unlimited moderator seats, SSO for one identity provider, and advanced reporting. This is the first plan where you can automate onboarding, drip content, and member tagging without stitching in Zapier.
Business ($199/mo annually) adds live streaming for up to 1,000 participants, white-label features, Co-pilot (Circle's AI assistant), and drops the transaction fee to 0.5%. Branded App is sold separately on top of this plan at roughly $360/month extra.
Enterprise ($360/mo annually) removes the transaction fee entirely, raises SSO to multiple identity providers, and adds dedicated support and SLAs. This is the tier most agency-managed and venture-backed communities land on.
Circle pricing vs the alternatives
Circle is not the only option, and the gap most creators care about is total stack cost, not the headline plan number.
| Platform | Starting price (annual) | Transaction fee | Who it's for | Honest limitation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Circle | $49/mo | 4% on Basic, 0% on Enterprise | Established communities with structured content and events | Transaction fees stack on top of Stripe; built-in email is thin |
| Skool | $99/mo flat | 0% platform fee | Lean operators who want gamification baked in | One community per account; no course drip; same price for every creator |
| Kajabi | $149/mo | 0% platform fee | Course creators who want email built in | Entry price is roughly 3x Circle Basic; community is lighter than Circle's |
| Mighty Networks | $41/mo | 2% on Community, 3% on Business plan | Social-feed style communities | Fewer paid product formats than Circle; branded app is a jump up |
| Zanfia | $31/mo | 0% platform fee | Creators who want courses, communities, and newsletters on one bill | Communities inside the mobile app are rolling out behind a workspace flag; native email campaigns are gradually opening to all workspaces |
The gap worth staring at is total stack cost. Circle Basic plus a separate course tool plus an email tool plus analytics turns into a $200-$300 monthly stack by the time you add Kit or ConvertKit, Hotjar, and a Zapier plan. The full creator stack math gets ugly fast when every tool bills separately.
Who each Circle plan actually fits
Basic is for a creator with one community under 500 paying members who does not need automation yet. Flat monthly fee, manual onboarding, no drip? Basic covers the job.
Professional is the first plan that pays off for most working creators. Workflows (member tagging, drip content, onboarding sequences) save enough hours to justify the $40 gap over Basic. If you have thought seriously about how to price your subscription, Professional is usually where you land.
Business is for creators doing six figures a year inside the community. The transaction fee drop from 2% to 0.5% is real money at that volume, and live streaming for up to 1,000 participants replaces a dedicated webinar tool.
Enterprise is for anyone where the transaction fee itself is the biggest line item: $30,000+ in monthly community revenue, agencies managing multiple creators under one account, or communities bundled with a corporate program.
Where Circle fits in a 2026 creator stack
Circle is a community-first product. It has added courses, events, and automation over the past three years, but a creator who leads with a course and treats the community as a bonus will fight Circle's interface more than they build with it. That is where course-first platforms and all-in-one tools often take the win.
Two frames help cut through pricing noise. A platform fee is what the platform takes; a processor fee is what Stripe or PayPal takes. Platforms can set their platform fee to anything they want, including zero. Stripe's 2.9% + $0.30 in the US is non-negotiable. Any platform that charges you both is double-dipping on a cost you cannot avoid.
Zanfia takes 0% platform commission on customer sales as of October 2026; only the standard payment processor fee applies. On $10,000 in monthly revenue, that is roughly $319 to Stripe and $0 to Zanfia on transaction fees, versus $319 to Stripe plus $400 to Circle on Basic. Pair that with voice-first product creation (dictate a product idea and the assistant drafts the course scaffold, checkout page, and automation flow) and an AI team that works inside the business rather than next to it, and the comparison shifts from "which platform has more features" to "which platform leaves more revenue in my account." Selling mechanics live in the checkout from day one: order bumps on every product, installment plans that split a $600 course into four payments, and 12 product types that can be bundled or sold as plans under one brand. See the current Zanfia pricing for the full plan matrix.
Picking a Circle plan without overspending
Run the breakeven math first. Below $2,000 in monthly community revenue, Basic beats Professional. Between $2,000 and $7,300, Professional wins. Between $7,300 and $32,000, Business is cheapest. Above $32,000, Enterprise. The math assumes the transaction fee is applied to every paid dollar going through Circle's checkout.
Second, check whether you need the features that only unlock higher up. Workflows start on Professional; live rooms above 100 participants start on Business; multi-provider SSO sits on Enterprise. Paying for Business to get live streaming you use twice a year is worse than paying for Zoom Webinar once.
Third, remember annual billing locks you in for 12 months. Circle offers a 14-day refund window on new annual plans, but after that the discount costs mobility. If you are still testing product-market fit, start monthly even though the price is roughly double. Our breakdown of pricing psychology works both ways: the anchor Circle uses to make annual look cheap also makes monthly look wasteful, and that is a feeling, not a calculation.
If you have not shortlisted platforms yet, our side-by-side of the best community platforms for creators covers Circle alongside Skool, Mighty Networks, and the all-in-one alternatives.
FAQ
Does Circle have a free plan?
Circle does not offer a permanent free plan as of October 2026. The entry point is Basic at $49/month billed annually, or $89/month billed monthly. New annual plans include a 14-day refund window, but there is no forever-free tier.
Is Circle's transaction fee charged on top of Stripe's fee?
Yes. Circle's transaction fee (4% on Basic, 2% on Professional, 0.5% on Business, 0% on Enterprise) sits on top of the payment processor fee charged by Stripe, which is roughly 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction in the US. On $10,000 of community revenue on Basic, that is $400 to Circle plus about $319 to Stripe.
At what revenue level is Circle Enterprise cheaper than Basic?
Circle Enterprise beats Basic above roughly $7,775 in monthly community revenue. Basic costs $49/month plus a 4% transaction fee; Enterprise costs $360/month with a 0% transaction fee. Below that threshold, Basic wins on total cost; above it, the fee savings on Enterprise outweigh the higher plan price.
Does Circle's Branded App come with every plan?
No. The Branded App is a separate paid add-on, available only on top of the Business or Enterprise plans at roughly $360/month extra as of October 2026. Lower tiers get the standard Circle-branded web experience and mobile browser access only.
Which Circle plan unlocks automation workflows?
Workflows (Circle's automation engine for member tagging, drip content, and onboarding sequences) start on the Professional plan at $89/month billed annually. Basic does not include Workflows at all, so creators on Basic who need automation usually bolt on Zapier or move up a tier.