Ever wondered which platform is better for online courses: Circle or Teachable?
It’s a common dilemma. Choosing the right platform is crucial for creators, impacting everything from student experience to your bottom line.
Many struggle to compare these two popular options.
This post breaks down Circle vs Teachable, exploring their features, pricing, and best use cases.
We’ll help you decide which one best suits your needs. Are you ready to make the right choice?
Overview
We’ve explored Circle and Teachable, investigating their functionalities and user experience.
Our hands-on testing, combined with analyzing user reviews and expert opinions, has led us to this detailed comparison, helping you make an informed decision.
They offer a 14-day free trial, and no credit card is required. Click here to explore Circle’s features and see how it can elevate your community!
Pricing: It has a free plan. Paid plan Starts at $89/month
Key Features:
- Memberships
- Events
- Live Streams
Create and sell beautiful online courses with Teachable. Launch quickly and easily with their intuitive platform.
Pricing: It has a free plan. Paid plan Starts at $59/month
Key Features:
- Customizable Sales Pages
- Integrated Email Marketing
- Detailed Course Analytics
What is a Circle?
So, what’s the deal with Circle? It’s more than just a course platform.
Think of it as a hub for your online community and your courses.
It combines learning management with community features, letting you build a thriving space for your students.
It’s all about engagement and connection.
Also, explore our favorite Circle alternatives…
Our Take
Build a powerful community hub with Circle. Get a clean, branded space for your members to connect, with a variety of monetization options, and reduce your transaction fees from 4% to 2% by upgrading to the professional plan.
Key Benefits
Circle prides itself on fostering deeper connections and providing a distraction-free environment. They have a proven track record, powering communities for big names like Adobe, ConvertKit, and Teachable.
- Clean and organized: Easy to navigate and find what you need.
- Spaces for different topics: Keep conversations focused.
- Rich member profiles: Get to know your members better.
- Events and live streams: Host engaging online gatherings.
- Integrations: Connect with your favorite tools.
Pricing
Circle offers a 14-day free trial and three main pricing plans:
- Professional Plan starts at $89 per month: This unlocks more features and integrations.
- Business Plan starts at $199 per month: This unlocks everything in Professional Plus.
- Enterprise Plan starts at $419 per month: This is for large organizations with specific needs.
- Plus Branded App: Custom Pricing.
Pros
Cons
What is Teachable?
Let’s talk about teaching. It’s a dedicated online course platform.
It’s built specifically for creating and selling online courses.
Think of it as your all-in-one shop for course creation, hosting, and sales.
It’s very focused on the learning experience.
Also, explore our favorite Teachable alternatives…
Our Take
Build your online business with confidence. With the teachable Builder Plan, you can sell up to 5 products with a 0% transaction fee. Stop losing money on fees and start keeping more of what you earn today.
Key Benefits
- Easy to Use: Teachable has an intuitive drag-and-drop course builder. This means you can create a course without any technical skills.
- Comprehensive Tools: It offers all the essential tools for a course creator. This includes quizzes, student management, and certificates.
- Unlimited Hosting: Even on some of the lower-tier plans, Teachable offers unlimited video storage and courses. This is great for creators with lots of content.
Pricing
- Starter: $29/month.
- Builder: $69/month.
- Growth: $139/month.
- Advanced: $309/month.
Pros
Cons
Feature Comparison
Circle vs Teachable Feature Comparison Circle is a platform for building a thriving online community, while Teachable is a solid platform that focuses on structured course delivery and robust sales features.
1. Primary Focus and Core Value
- Circle: The circle platform’s primary focus is building a thriving online community and maximizing community engagement, with online courses as an integrated course offering within the community spaces.
- Teachable: The primary focus is creating online courses and sell online courses, acting as a dedicated online school and learning management system for course creators.
2. Community Features
- Circle: Offers superior community features, including integrated discussion forums, gamification (leaderboards, points), and a seamless social-style feed to drive student engagement.
- Teachable: Includes basic community features like simple discussion forums within the course curriculum, but these are minimal and often require integration with other platforms like facebook group alternatives, making the community aspect an afterthought to course content.
3. Course Functionality and Tools
- Circle: Offers a flexible course builder where course content is integrated with community posts, but lacks dedicated LMS features like graded quizzes and completion certificates.
- Teachable: Teachable offers a robust course builder and rich course functionality, including graded quizzes, course compliance features, and the ability to issue course completion certificates.
4. Live Streaming and Events
- Circle: Features native live streaming and the live streaming feature, allowing community builders to host events and run live streams for the entire community directly on the platform circle.
- Teachable: Teachable offers limited native live video tools and requires integration with other platforms (like Zoom) to host events and online classes.
5. Sales Tools and Monetization
- Circle: Circle’s features for marketing features and sales are limited, but it allows online business owners to charge for private spaces and memberships via paywalls.
- Teachable: Teachable offers strong sales tools, including a sales page builder, affiliate program, upsells, and the ability to create promotions to sell courses successfully and drive more sales.
6. Pricing and Transaction Fee
- Circle: Circle’s pricing is tiered (professional plan, business plan, enterprise plan), increasing in cost based on advanced features and usage limits, and it charges a transaction fee (which decreases with higher tiers).
- Teachable: Teachable offers a free plan (with high transaction fees) and paid plans like the basic plan and business plan, with 0% transaction fees on higher tiers, which is why many teachable reviews mention its flexibility.
7. Customization and Branding
- Circle: Provides extensive custom domain and branding customization options, giving community builders full control access over the look and feel of their online community platform.
- Teachable: Teachable offers good branding options for the online school and course pages, but overall customization options are more limited than the circle platform.
8. Analytics and Reporting
- Circle: Provides circle’s features for community management and engagement analytics, giving community builders a deep understanding of community members activity and group discussions.
- Teachable: Offers advanced reporting on course sales, sales performance, student data, and course completion, which is crucial for course creators focused on the bottom line.
9. Mobile App Experience
- Circle: Has a dedicated mobile app for the circle community (iOS and Android), ensuring new members have seamless access and interaction across community spaces.
- Teachable: Teachable mobile friendly design is strong, and it offers teachable app for students to access teachable courses, providing a good mobile experience for online learning platforms.
10. Audience and Best Fit
- Circle: Best for community builders and online business owners who prioritize a thriving online community experience over traditional course structure.
- Teachable: A solid platform best for course creators looking to create and sell their first online course with built-in marketing and a robust learning management system.
11. Support and Integrations
- Circle: Circle offers priority support on higher tiers, and integrations circle seamlessly with third party integrations like google forms and Zapier.
- Teachable: Teachable offers live chat support on its business plan and teachable integrations for email marketing, focusing on sales performance and business operations.
What to Look for When Choosing a Community Platform?
- Prioritize the platform’s main value: Is it the community building and engagement (circle platform), or is it the reliability and ease of use for the course builder (teachable platform)?
- Assess the scalability and limits: Look for platforms that offer unlimited members and unlimited students in their core plans.
- Check the complexity of the user interface: The user interface should be simple for new users and allow them to create courses without needing to research other online course platforms.
- Examine the monetization system: Does it have teachable payments or support a third-party payment processor? Look for a low or 0% transaction fee on the best pricing circle plan for your business.
- Look for a dedicated community platform space with more advanced features like multiple spaces and space group organization, as noted in a circle review or circle.so review.
- The course builder should include tools to set specific course goals and create milestones to track student data.
- A cool feature is native live events and the live stream capability, which helps to engage members and provide coaching services.
- The platform should upload videos easily and securely host all your videos without forcing you to use other platforms for hosting.
- Investigate the availability of support channels and customer support, such as priority support or a live chat support option, to ensure fast help.
- A strong sales focus is vital: Look for sales pages tools and the ability to create a high average order value through upsells and bundles.
- Check if the platform is teachable legit and has a strong reputation, often indicated by an active teachable community and educational resources like teachable u.
- Ensure the platform’s key features are robust enough for your entire strategy, not just the basics (basic plan), and look for automation tools to send a welcome message or manage email marketing.
- The teachable app or skool mobile app must offer a great mobile experience to ensure other members and community members can access content and group discussions easily.
- Consider what other advanced features are missing and if the platform is an expensive platform compared to other platform options that might offer similar tools.
- The platform should empower creators with the ability to create coaching programs and host youtube videos or similar video content directly, enhancing the user experience.
- Ensure the platform supports sustainable businesses by providing tools to manage the entire business and is not just focused on basic monetization.
- Check that the platform can find courses easily through an internal search and provides rich community features like group discussions for all members.
Final Verdict
So, which platform wins in the Circle vs Teachable showdown? It depends on your needs.
If community is your top priority, Circle is the clear winner.
Its strength lies in community engagement. However, Teachable is better if your main focus is selling courses and you need robust sales tools.
Both platforms offer valuable features, but they cater to different priorities.
We’ve broken down everything you need to know, from pricing to features so that you can make the best choice.
Choosing the right platform is crucial for your online success, so take your time, consider your goals, and pick the one that aligns best with your vision.
We’re confident this guide has helped you make the right choice.
More of Circle
Here is a comparison of Circle with the specified alternatives:
- Circle vs Skool: Circle focuses broadly on community customization, while Skool adds strong gamification and simplified course delivery.
- Circle vs Swarm: Circle offers general community building, while Swarm emphasizes highly structured interest-based groups.
- Circle vs Teachable: Circle is primarily a community platform, whereas Teachable is focused on course creation with an integrated community.
- Circle vs GoHighLevel: Circle specializes in community features, while GoHighLevel is a comprehensive marketing automation suite that includes community tools.
- Circle vs MightyNetworks: Circle offers robust community features, while Mighty Networks integrates community tightly with courses, content, and events.
- Circle vs Bettermode: Circle provides customizable community spaces, while Bettermode focuses on deep branding and white-label community solutions.
- Circle vs Thinkific: Circle is a dedicated community platform, while Thinkific is mainly for online courses with the community as an add-on.
- Circle vs LearnWorlds: Circle builds diverse communities, while LearnWorlds integrates community specifically with interactive online learning.
- Circle vs Disco: Circle is for general community building, while Disco focuses specifically on cohort-based learning communities.
- Circle vs Kajabi: Circle is centered on community, whereas Kajabi is an all-in-one platform for courses, marketing, and community.
- Circle vs Wylo: Circle provides a structured platform for creators, while Wylo connects individuals through interest-driven discovery and communities.
- Circle vs Whop: Circle builds direct communities for creators, while Whop is a marketplace for selling access to digital communities and products.
More of Teachable
Here is a brief comparison of Teachable with the listed alternatives:
- Teachable vs Skool: Teachable excels in structured learning and quizzes, while Skool’s gamified community engagement features are significantly superior.
- Teachable vs Swarm: Teachable offers a comprehensive suite for marketing and student management, whereas Swarm focuses on gamified community engagement.
- Teachable vs Circle: Teachable is simpler for creating and selling courses, while Circle is superior for building a community space with advanced features.
- Teachable vs Disco: Teachable simplifies structured course delivery, while Disco excels in cohort based course models and collaborative learning experiences.
- Teachable vs Kajabi: Teachable is more affordable and has a flexible course editor, while Kajabi is a true all in one platform with advanced sales tools.
- Teachable vs GoHighLevel: Teachable is creator-focused with integrated tax/payouts, while GoHighLevel is an agency CRM with expansive sales tools.
- Teachable vs MightyNetworks: Teachable provides a more intuitive, beginner-friendly course builder, whereas MightyNetworks offers more robust community building features.
- Teachable vs Bettermode: Teachable is focused on course sales and a learning management system, while Bettermode is a dedicated, highly customizable community space.
- Teachable vs thinkific: Teachable has built-in tax handling and payment flexibility, while thinkific offers more advanced tools often suited for enterprise users.
- Teachable vs Wylo: Teachable provides a robust course builder and strong sales tools, while Wylo is often cited as a good entry-level option with growing community features.
- Teachable vs LearnWorlds: Teachable is user-friendly for content creation, while LearnWorlds offers a broader range of quiz types and interactive video content features.
- Teachable vs Whop: Teachable is the established course creation platform, while Whop acts as a marketplace to monetize digital products and access communities.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which platform is better for building a membership site?
Circle is generally better due to its strong community features. Teachable can also host memberships, but its community tools are less robust.
Is Kajabi a better alternative to Circle or Teachable?
Kajabi is another platform worth considering. It combines course creation, marketing, and community features but is typically more expensive than Circle or Teachable.
Can I host live webinars on Circle and Teachable?
Both platforms support hosting webinars, often through integrations with third-party tools. For details, check each platform’s specific features and integrations.
Can I use my URL with Circle or Teachable?
Both platforms typically allow you to use a custom domain or URL for your school or community. This helps with branding and professionalism.
Where can I get access to more information about these platforms?
Check out the official websites of Circle and Teachable for detailed documentation, pricing information, and free trials. Many comparison articles and reviews are also available online.
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