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CompareVerified 2026-11-07

MemberPad vs Circle

Circle is a polished, community first platform with strong workflows, a website builder and established mobile apps. MemberPad suits creators who want community, courses, podcasts, live broadcasting, audio rooms and monetization inside one product, without a monthly platform bill.

The short version

Choose Circle if

  • You want the most refined community software here and you are willing to pay a monthly fee for it. Circle has had years of polish that shows in a hundred small places.3
  • You need automations. Circle publishes over a hundred triggers and actions, and nothing in MemberPad comes close to that.3
  • You want the platform to disappear entirely. Circle removes its own branding on the $199 Business plan, and MemberPad always shows a Powered by MemberPad link on a public page.1
  • Your community already earns well. Past roughly $1,271 a month in member revenue, Circle Professional costs you less in fees than MemberPad does.1

It is a tie on

  • Both ship native iPhone and Android apps and list desktop apps beside them, so members can open either one wherever they happen to be.1
  • Both host courses with their own video, run live streams and live rooms, take payments through Stripe, and put your community on your own domain.1
  • Both have real iPhone and Android apps rather than a website in a wrapper, and neither caps how many members you can have.1
  • Both charge their cut on top of payment processing rather than instead of it, so the honest comparison on either side is always the combined figure.6

Choose MemberPad if

  • You have a podcast, or you want one. Circle sells itself to podcasters as the community layer beside a show, and it does not host audio or issue a private feed. MemberPad gives every member their own authenticated RSS feed.4
  • You are not earning yet. Circle starts at $89 a month before a single member has paid you anything. MemberPad costs nothing until money moves.1
  • Your teaching needs marking. MemberPad ships graded quizzes, assignments a creator reviews, and certificates on completion, and holds the next lesson shut until a member passes.
  • You have a show. Circle sells itself to podcasters as the community beside the show, and MemberPad hosts the audio and gives every member a private RSS feed of their own.4

At a glance

One row per category. The full table, with every row and every source, is further down.

The eight categories at a glance. Every row here also appears in the full table below.
CapabilityCircleMemberPad
Real time chatThe difference between a forum people check weekly and a room they sit in.YesChat and discussion spaces on every plan3YesLive rooms with typing and presence, free on every community8
Build courses inside the platformA course hosted somewhere else is a second login and a second bill.YesCourses are a first class space type3YesCourses, modules and lessons, with video uploaded here or linked from YouTube8
Private member only podcast feedA private feed puts your paid show in the app people already listen in.NoNo RSS feed. Circle offers to sell access to a private space4YesAn RSS feed unique to each member, authenticated per person8
Broadcast to an audienceOne to many video, where the audience watches rather than joins.YesLive streams from Professional upward1YesAny audience size, but the community needs one paid tier8
What the platform takesThe number that decides how much of every membership actually reaches you.Different2% on Professional, 1% on Business, 0.5% on Plus, plus the monthly fee1Different9% of what a member pays, and nothing at all before that7
Desktop appA window that stays open is very different from a tab that gets closed.YesDesktop apps listed beside iOS and Android on every plan1YesWindows and macOS installers that update themselves9
On demand video libraryA back catalog people can browse is worth more than the same videos buried in a feed.DifferentVideo lives inside course and content spaces, not a separate library3YesUploads or YouTube links, browsable, with progress, bookmarks and comments8
Start without paying anythingWhat you owe in the months before the community is earning anything at all.No$89 a month on Professional, and there is no free plan1YesNothing. There is no MemberPad subscription to buy7

What each one costs

The two pricing models are opposites, which makes the comparison unusually clean. Circle charges a fixed monthly fee and a small percentage on top. MemberPad charges no monthly fee and a larger percentage. One is cheap when you are big and expensive when you are small, and the other is the reverse.1

Both figures below include payment processing, because both platforms charge their own cut in addition to it rather than instead of it. Leaving Stripe out of one side and not the other is the most common way these comparisons get written misleadingly, including by us if we were not careful.6

The crossover sits at roughly $1,271 a month in member revenue. Below that MemberPad costs you less in total. Above it, Circle Professional does, and the gap widens the more you earn. If you are already past that line and you do not need podcasting, Circle is the cheaper home.1

Circle Professional

$89/moplus 2% of each sale

  • Billed annually, no monthly rate published
  • Unlimited members
  • Courses, live events and desktop apps

Circle Business

$199/moplus 1% of each sale

  • Billed annually, no monthly rate published
  • Adds workflows and Circle APIs
  • Removes Circle branding

Circle Scale

$419/moplus 1% of each sale

  • Billed annually, no monthly rate published
  • AI agents and unlimited workflows
  • Webhooks and custom SSO

Circle Plus

Custom pricingplus 0.5% of each sale

  • Custom branded mobile apps
  • Unlimited admins, moderators and spaces
  • 10K Email Hub contacts included

MemberPad

$0/moplus 9% of each sale

  • No plans and no tiers
  • Uncapped members
  • No feature behind a higher plan

What each one takes on top

Where a percentage is shown above, Circle charges it on top of card processing, which Stripe bills separately, so what a sale really costs is the two added together. MemberPad takes 9% of what a member actually pays you, and card processing sits on top of ours as well, billed by Stripe on your own account. There is one plan, nothing is held back behind a higher one, and a month where nobody pays you costs nothing.

From about $1,271 a month, Circle Professional costs less than MemberPad. Below that we are cheaper, mostly because there is no monthly bill to pay in a quiet month.

  • Professional overtakes us at about $1,271 a month
  • Business overtakes us at about $2,488 a month
  • Scale overtakes us at about $5,238 a month

Community

Circle is a community product first, and years of polish show

If the only thing you needed was the best place for a few thousand people to talk to each other, Circle would be an easy recommendation. Spaces are a genuinely good organizing idea, the member directory is searchable, and the automations are the real thing rather than a checkbox.3

MemberPad organizes the same job slightly differently. Chat rooms sit in sections beside one community feed, with real time presence and typing, and chat is free on every community rather than sitting behind a plan. Members get profiles, follows and private notes on each other.

One place where Circle is simply ahead, and worth saying plainly. Circle has more than a hundred automation triggers, and MemberPad has webhooks and an API instead. On moderation the two are close: a MemberPad moderator can delete a message, mute, time someone out and ban, and the owner picks which of those each moderator gets.1

Courses

Courses are where the two products stop resembling each other

Circle courses hold video, audio, text and files, and Circle describes engagement in terms of live sessions, messaging and gamification rather than assessment. That is a coherent choice for a community first product, and for a lot of teaching it is enough.5

MemberPad treats a course as something a member can pass or fail. Quizzes are graded and hold the next lesson shut until the score clears. Assignments are handed in and reviewed, and a creator can approve them or send them back for another try. Certificates are generated on completion in the community accent color.

Scheduled release here is worth describing exactly. A section or a single lesson opens either at a fixed date and time, or a set number of days after that member started the course or joined the community, so week three can stay shut until week three whether your cohort starts together or one at a time.

The third way in is the one Circle has no equivalent for. A course can be set to open at a gamification level, and a member below it sees how far they have to climb and how many points are left rather than a message telling them to pay. Circle names gamification on its platform page without saying what a level does, so this row is a partial for them rather than a cross.3

Podcasting

If you have a show, this is the clearest difference between them

Circle is explicit about this on its own page for podcasters, and the honest reading of that page is that Circle is the community and monetization layer that sits beside your show. It does not claim to host your audio or to hand your listeners a feed.4

The practical consequence is a second product and a second bill. Your audio lives with a podcast host, your paid tier lives in Circle, and members get access to a premium space rather than to episodes in the app they already listen in.4

MemberPad hosts the audio and gives every single member their own authenticated RSS feed, so a paid show turns up in their podcast player alongside everything else they subscribe to. One tap subscribe covers Apple Podcasts and Overcast, and other players take the feed URL by hand.

Live

Both go live, and they meter it very differently

Circle includes live streams and live rooms from the $89 Professional plan upward, and publishes no hour cap on them. If you go live constantly, that is a meaningful advantage and you should weigh it heavily.1

MemberPad meters live time as a monthly pool of participant minutes that grows with your revenue. It starts at 1,500 minutes, which sounds generous and is not: a broadcast costs eight pool minutes per wall clock minute, so the free floor is around three hours of broadcasting a month.

The pool grows by ten minutes for every dollar of monthly recurring revenue, so a community earning $1,000 a month has about twenty four hours of broadcasting. There is also a harder gate worth knowing before you plan around it: live broadcasts, video rooms and audio rooms all require at least one paid tier in your own community, so a completely free community cannot start one.

Money

The fee is the same shape, but the bill is not

Circle charges 2% on Professional, 1% on Business and 0.5% on Plus, and every one of those sits on top of Stripe rather than including it. MemberPad charges 9%, also on top of Stripe. On percentages alone Circle wins comfortably, and that is worth stating before the rest of it.1

What the percentage leaves out is the monthly fee, which you owe in the months when nothing has sold. A community that made nothing in January still owes Circle $89 for January. MemberPad bills nothing at all until a member pays you, which is a different kind of risk to carry while you are finding out whether the thing works.1

Run the numbers and the picture is simple. Below roughly $1,271 a month in member revenue, MemberPad costs less in total. Above it, Circle does, and it keeps pulling ahead. Someone doing $5,000 a month pays MemberPad about $595 and Circle about $334.1

Access

Where your members can actually open it

Both have real iPhone and Android apps rather than a website in a wrapper. A branded app that carries your name instead of the platform’s is a Circle Plus feature, custom priced, and MemberPad has no version of it at any price.1

Both list desktop apps as well, Circle on every plan and MemberPad as Windows and macOS installers that update themselves, so the two are level here. Whether a desktop app matters depends entirely on your audience: for a community people dip into on a phone it is irrelevant, and for one people work alongside all day it is the difference between a window that stays open and a tab that gets closed.1

One use for the desktop app is easy to miss: it is mostly for you rather than for your members. Running a busy community means a window you keep open all day, and that is a different thing in a dedicated application than in a browser tab competing with thirty others.

Content

What else lives alongside the community

Circle covers this with spaces. A course is a space, an event is a space, a content library is a space, and that consistency is part of why the product feels coherent. It also comes with a proper website builder, which is more than MemberPad offers.3

MemberPad splits them into named sections instead: a video library with progress and bookmarks, a file library, photo albums, notebooks, events with timezones and RSVPs, polls, and a shop for digital products and physical merch. The merch is the creator’s own stock, packed and shipped by them, because nothing on MemberPad prints or fulfills an order.

Neither arrangement is obviously better and they fail differently. One space type for everything keeps Circle coherent and makes a large community's sidebar very long, while named sections keep our surfaces distinct and give a new member more places to learn before anything feels familiar.

Value

What you owe before anything has worked

This is the question that should decide it for most people reading, and it is less about features than about which risk you would rather carry. Circle asks for $89 a month up front and then takes very little of what you earn. MemberPad asks for nothing up front and then takes 9%.1

If you are established, already earning, and you do not need a podcast feed, Circle is a genuinely good product and will cost you less. If you are starting, or your revenue is seasonal, or you want the whole thing in one place with audio included, the shape of MemberPad fits better.

One more cost that is not money. Circle lets you white label from the Professional plan, and MemberPad always puts a Powered by MemberPad link on a public page with no setting to remove it. If your brand cannot carry someone else’s name on it, that decides this for you today.1

Everything we checked

Every row carries a note rather than a tick, and every claim about Circle links to the page it came from.

Circle and MemberPad compared. Every claim about Circle is sourced, and was last checked on 2026-11-07.
CapabilityCircleMemberPad
Community Whether people actually talk to each other, and what happens when the room gets busy.
Separate spaces for separate topicsOne undifferentiated feed is where a growing community starts to feel noisy.YesSpaces for discussion, courses, events and content3YesChat rooms grouped into sections, beside one community feed8
Real time chatThe difference between a forum people check weekly and a room they sit in.YesChat and discussion spaces on every plan3YesLive rooms with typing and presence, free on every community8
Direct messages between membersMembers who can reach each other privately stay for each other, not only for you.PartialChat is a named platform feature, member messaging is not detailed3PartialOne to one or groups of up to 10, but starting one needs a paid tier8
Member profilesA face and a history is what turns an account into a person other members recognize.YesProfiles plus a searchable member directory3YesPublic profiles with follows, blocks and private member notes8
Moderation toolsWhoever helps you run the place needs powers that stop short of your own.YesDedicated moderator roles are named on the platform page3YesPick each moderator's powers: moderate messages, time out, ban8
Points, levels or a leaderboardVisible progress is one of the few things that reliably brings people back daily.YesGamification and automated nudges are named on the platform page3YesPoints, levels, streaks, badges, celebrations, and a leaderboard the creator switches on8
Courses Whether you can teach something and check that it landed, not just publish videos.
Build courses inside the platformA course hosted somewhere else is a second login and a second bill.YesCourses are a first class space type3YesCourses, modules and lessons, with video uploaded here or linked from YouTube8
Course video hosted for youEmbedding from YouTube means your paid lessons live on someone else’s player.YesUpload video, audio, text and files into a lesson5YesHosted and streamed by us, uploads capped at 1080p8
Quizzes and graded assessmentsChecking that someone learned it is the difference between a course and a playlist.PartialLessons carry video, audio, text and files; quizzes are not named5YesGraded quizzes that hold the next lesson shut until passed8
Assignments you reviewWork handed in and marked up is what cohort programs are built on.PartialEngagement is live Q and A and messaging, not marked work5YesAssignments a creator reviews, approves or sends back8
Certificates on completionA certificate is the thing a member posts, which is free marketing for you.PartialNot named on Circle’s own courses page either way5YesGenerated on completion, in the community accent color8
Release lessons on a scheduleDrip keeps a cohort together and stops a member finishing in a weekend and leaving.PartialCohort courses with fixed dates, but no lesson by lesson release5YesOn a fixed date, or a number of days after each member starts8
Courses that unlock by taking partEarning your way into the next course is a reason to show up that a paywall never gives anybody.PartialGamification is named, but nothing says a level can open a course3YesA course can open at a level, showing the climb rather than a paywall8
Podcasting Whether a paid show reaches members in the app they already listen in.
Host podcast audioPodcast hosting is otherwise a separate product and a separate monthly bill.NoCircle sits beside a podcast host rather than replacing one4YesAudio hosted here, organized into shows and episodes8
Private member only podcast feedA private feed puts your paid show in the app people already listen in.NoNo RSS feed. Circle offers to sell access to a private space4YesAn RSS feed unique to each member, authenticated per person8
Plays in normal podcast appsAudio that only plays on the website is not really a podcast.NoWithout a feed there is nothing for Apple Podcasts to take4PartialOne tap subscribe covers Apple Podcasts and Overcast only8
Lock a show to a paid tierAudio is one of the easiest things to charge for, if the platform lets you.DifferentSell entry to a premium space holding episodes and back catalog4YesA whole show can be held to a paid tier8
Live experiences What you can run live, and what the platform charges you in time or money to run it.
Broadcast to an audienceOne to many video, where the audience watches rather than joins.YesLive streams from Professional upward1YesAny audience size, but the community needs one paid tier8
Two way video roomsOffice hours, coaching calls and cohort sessions all need faces on both sides.YesLive rooms are included from Professional upward1YesTwo way rooms, and again a paid tier is required8
Audio only roomsFar lower effort to show up to than video, so far more people do.PartialLive rooms exist; an audio only mode is not separately named1YesAudio only rooms with a stage, paid tier required8
Replays saved automaticallyMost of a live session’s value is watched by people who missed it.PartialLive events are named, but recordings and replays are not1YesSaved automatically and publishable to the video library8
How live time is meteredEvery platform meters live somehow, and the shape of the limit decides what you can run.DifferentNo published hour cap, but live needs the $89 plan or above1DifferentA monthly minute pool that grows with your own revenue7
Monetization How money gets from a member to you, and how much of it survives the trip.
Recurring paid membershipsRecurring revenue is the reason most creators move onto a platform at all.YesPaywalls and subscriptions are a core Circle feature3YesMonthly and yearly tiers, charged on your own Stripe account7
One time purchasesNot everything should be a subscription, and not every buyer wants one.YesPaywalls support one time payments as well as recurring3YesAny piece of content can be sold once instead of gated8
Digital products and downloadsA template pack or a preset is often the first thing a member ever buys.PartialSold as access to a space rather than as a download3YesDownloads or external links, sold from a shop tab8
Sell physical merch you shipA shirt, a record or a print is something a fan will buy long before a membership.NoSells memberships, courses, coaching and events, and no physical goods are named3YesVariants, stock and shipping rates. You ship within the US, and buyers need no account8
Coupons and promo codesA launch or a seasonal offer needs a code you can hand out and expire.YesDiscount codes are part of the paywall tooling3YesPercent or amount, once, repeating or forever, scoped per tier8
Free trials on a paid tierA trial is the cheapest way to show someone what is behind the wall.YesPaywall trials are supported on paid spaces3YesUp to 365 days, with the card taken up front8
Affiliate program for membersMembers who earn for referring are the cheapest growth channel there is.PartialReferrals run through automations rather than a built in program3YesMembers earn a commission on referrals at a rate you set8
What the platform takesThe number that decides how much of every membership actually reaches you.Different2% on Professional, 1% on Business, 0.5% on Plus, plus the monthly fee1Different9% of what a member pays, and nothing at all before that7
Access Every screen a member might open it on, and whether it feels native there.
Web appWhere most members will actually read, and the only surface search engines see.YesThe web app is Circle’s primary surface3YesA full web app, server rendered for speed and search9
iPhone appPush notifications and a home screen icon are what make a community a habit.YesA shared Circle app, with a branded one on Plus1YesPublished on the App Store as a native app9
Android appHalf the phones in most audiences, and often the majority outside the US.YesA shared Circle app, with a branded one on Plus1YesPublished on Google Play as a native app9
Desktop appA window that stays open is very different from a tab that gets closed.YesDesktop apps listed beside iOS and Android on every plan1YesWindows and macOS installers that update themselves9
Your own domainThe address decides whether the community reads as yours or as rented.YesCustom domain from the Professional plan upward1YesYour own domain on any community, with no upgrade8
Content What else can live alongside the conversation without a second product.
Posts with mediaThe everyday surface. Whatever is awkward to post here will simply not get posted.YesRich posts are the core of every Circle space3YesCreators and admins post text, sixteen images, video and polls, and members comment and react8
On demand video libraryA back catalog people can browse is worth more than the same videos buried in a feed.DifferentVideo lives inside course and content spaces, not a separate library3YesUploads or YouTube links, browsable, with progress, bookmarks and comments8
Events and a calendarAnything recurring needs a place members can see it coming.YesEvents are a first class space type with a calendar3YesRepeating events with timezones, RSVPs, a waitlist, and reminders to everyone going8
File libraryTemplates, worksheets and swipe files are what members quietly value most.PartialFiles attach to posts and lessons rather than a library5YesA file library, 50 MB a file, folders one level deep8
PollsThe lowest effort thing a quiet member will ever do, and often their first.YesPolls are available inside community spaces3YesIn posts and in chat rooms, results hidden until you vote8
A public page that sells the communityThe page a stranger lands on decides whether they ever become a member.YesA full website builder is included on the platform3YesA public page by default, a block builder, and a link in bio page8
Value What the whole arrangement costs you, including the parts that are not the fee.
Start without paying anythingWhat you owe in the months before the community is earning anything at all.No$89 a month on Professional, and there is no free plan1YesNothing. There is no MemberPad subscription to buy7
Members without a capA member cap turns your own growth into a bill you did not plan for.YesUnlimited members on every published plan1YesMembers, communities, posts, courses and tiers are all uncapped7
Email your membersEmail is the only channel you keep if the platform ever goes away.YesBroadcasts from Business, and an Email Hub add on at $99 a month1Partial5,000 sends a month to start, growing with your revenue7
API and webhooksThe difference between a platform you can build around and one you cannot.PartialAPIs and workflows from Business at $199, webhooks from Scale at $4191YesA documented public API and outbound webhooks8
Remove the platform brandingWhether the product reads as entirely yours, or visibly built on someone else.YesCircle branding comes off on Business, and branded apps come with Plus1NoA Powered by MemberPad link always sits on the public page8

Moving from Circle to MemberPad

  1. Export your member list from Circle first

    Do this before anything else, because it is the asset you cannot rebuild. Circle gives you a member export, and that list is what the rest of the move runs on.

  2. Rebuild spaces as rooms and sections

    Circle spaces map onto MemberPad chat rooms grouped into sections, plus the community feed. Discussion spaces usually become rooms, and content spaces usually become the video library or a notebook.

  3. Move courses lesson by lesson

    There is no course importer on either side. Video re uploads, and while you are in there it is worth adding the quizzes and assignments that Circle courses do not have.

  4. Set your tiers up before you invite anyone

    Pricing, trials and coupons should exist before the first member arrives, because moving someone between tiers afterwards is more work than getting it right once.

  5. Point your domain and invite in waves

    Custom domains are ungated on MemberPad, so the address can carry across on day one. Invite in waves rather than all at once so you can fix anything awkward on a small group first.

What does not come across

MemberPad imports your Circle member export and emails everyone a one tap invitation to join, so you are not signing each member up by hand. It sends invitations rather than adding people silently, so the ones who come across are the ones who chose to, which is the honest shape of a community move.

Paid subscriptions do not transfer between platforms. Members have to re subscribe on the new one, and some fraction of them will not. Anyone who tells you a migration is painless is describing the content, not the billing.

If you rely on Circle automations, budget real time to work out what replaces each one. MemberPad has webhooks and a public API rather than a visual builder, so some of them become a small integration and some of them become a habit instead.3

Questions people actually ask

Is MemberPad cheaper than Circle?

Below roughly $1,271 a month in member revenue, yes, and by a lot when you are starting out because MemberPad has no monthly fee at all. Above that figure Circle Professional is cheaper, because its 2% plus $89 a month beats a flat 9% once the revenue is large enough. Both figures include Stripe processing on each side.

Does Circle support podcasts?

Not as a host. Circle markets itself to podcasters as the community and monetization layer beside a show, and its own podcasters page does not claim to host audio or to issue an RSS feed. You keep your podcast host and sell access to a premium space. MemberPad hosts the audio and gives each member a private feed.

What is the best Circle alternative for creators who also teach?

If your teaching needs checking rather than only publishing, MemberPad is the closer fit, because it has graded quizzes, assignments a creator reviews and certificates on completion, and it holds the next lesson shut until a member passes. It also releases lessons on a schedule now, either on a date or a number of days after each member starts, which Circle does not name on its courses page either way.

Does Circle have a free plan?

No. Circle publishes a fourteen day trial and a thirty day money back guarantee, but the cheapest ongoing plan is Professional at $89 a month. MemberPad has no plans at all, so a community that is not charging its members anything costs nothing to run indefinitely.

Can I use my own domain on both?

Yes on both, with one difference in how you get there. Circle includes a custom domain from the Professional plan upward, so it comes with the $89 a month. MemberPad does not gate custom domains at all, so any community can point its own address at itself from day one without an upgrade.

Which one has better mobile apps?

Both ship genuine native iPhone and Android apps rather than a wrapped website, and both list desktop apps too. The difference is a fully branded app carrying your name: Circle offers one on custom priced Circle Plus, and MemberPad has none at any price.

What does MemberPad do worse than Circle?

Two things worth knowing before you move. There is no way to remove the Powered by MemberPad link from a public page, where Circle removes its own branding on the $199 Business plan. And Circle has over a hundred automation triggers where MemberPad has webhooks and an API, which is the difference between wiring something up in an afternoon and writing it yourself.

Can I move my members from Circle to MemberPad automatically?

Not as a silent transfer, and no platform can do that honestly, but close. Upload the member list you export from Circle and MemberPad emails each person a one tap invitation to join, sent in waves on a dedicated address. Paid subscriptions are the exception, because payment methods never move between platforms, so each paying member re subscribes on the new plan.

Is Circle worth $89 a month?

It depends almost entirely on whether you are already earning. For an established community with steady revenue the Professional plan is reasonable value and its 2% fee is far below ours. It is also $89 you owe in a month when nothing sold, which is a different kind of risk while you are still finding out whether the thing works.

Should I run a Circle community and a MemberPad one at the same time?

Nothing stops you technically and it is rarely a good idea. Two communities means two places members have to check and two places you have to show up, and the usual outcome is that one of them quietly dies while still costing you a monthly fee. Picking one and moving properly beats hedging.

How this was checked

Every figure about another platform on these pages came from that platform’s own published pricing, feature or documentation pages, and each one is listed with the date it was read. Where a company does not publish an answer, the page says that rather than guessing at one.

Nothing here is based on testing a competitor’s product hands on, and no page claims otherwise. Claims about MemberPad are checked against the code that ships rather than against our own marketing, which is why several of them are unflattering.

Fee comparisons put both sides on the same footing. Some platforms quote a percentage that already covers card processing and some quote one that sits on top of it, and treating those two numbers as the same thing is the most common way a comparison like this misleads.

Last verified

Who published it

This comparison was written and published by MemberPad, so read it knowing we make one of the two products in it. We have tried to earn your trust the only way that works, which is by being specific about what the other platform does better and where ours falls short.

Competitor pricing and features change. If you find something here that is out of date or wrong, the sources and the date we checked them are listed on every page so you can see exactly what we were looking at, and we would rather hear about it than have it sit here.

Drew AumanFounder, MemberPad

Sources

  1. 1PricingCircle · circle.so · checked 2026-11-07
  2. 2Paywall transaction feesCircle · help.circle.so · checked 2026-11-07
  3. 3The all in one community platformCircle · circle.so · checked 2026-09-17
  4. 4The complete community platform for podcastersCircle · circle.so · checked 2026-09-17
  5. 5CoursesCircle · circle.so · checked 2026-09-17
  6. 6PricingStripe · stripe.com · checked 2026-11-07
  7. 7PricingMemberPad · memberpad.com · checked 2026-11-07
  8. 8FeaturesMemberPad · memberpad.com · checked 2026-11-07
  9. 9AppsMemberPad · memberpad.com · checked 2026-11-07

Try it before you decide.

Creating a community is free, and the 9% only applies once a member pays you something.