Choosing among the best community platforms for your private group

Bettermode describes itself as an all-in-one customer community platform. Its plans include Q&A, discussions, events, polls, private messaging and chat. There is no free plan, only a 14-day trial with no credit card. Starter costs $149 a month billed yearly, or $199 month to month, for up to 10,000 members. Growth costs $1,500 or $1,750 a month for up to 25,000. Bettermode's pricing and product pages describe no way for members to pay for access.

Circle puts a community, courses, live events, a website and payments on one plan, with iOS, Android and desktop apps. There is no free plan, only a 14-day trial. Plans start at $89 a month on annual billing, for unlimited members. Members pay through Circle's Stripe integration. Circle's transaction fee is 2% on Professional, 1% on Business and 0.5% on Circle Plus. Stripe's processing fee is a separate charge on each payment.

Discord describes itself as a place to talk, play and hang out, with voice, video and text chat and low-latency streaming. The app is free, with in-app purchases, and Nitro is its premium subscription. Paid access comes through Server Subscriptions, which need US banking information and US identification given to Stripe. Discord states that Server Subscriptions will not be available outside of the United States. Its Creator Revenue FAQ describes a 90/10 split: the owner receives 90% of each membership payment, and Discord keeps 10%. Its Monetization Terms calculate that 10% after transaction taxes and fees. The same terms take a 6% payment processing fee out of the payment on desktop and in the browser.

What a paid Discord server requires, and what it costs next to Groupanda, is compared row by row on its own page.

Discourse organizes discussions into categories and tags, and its Pro plan includes chat. The free hosted plan has unlimited members, 2 staff seats and 10 categories. Pro costs $100 a month and Business $500, and Discourse is also free and open source if you run it on your own server. Paid access comes from its Subscriptions plugin on Pro and above. The plugin sells recurring or one-time subscriptions to a group and needs a Stripe account. Neither the plugin page nor the pricing page states a Discourse fee on those payments.

Groupanda is a workspace for private communities: real-time chat in channels, with an owner, admins and members, and plans that members buy. It is free, with no member limit and no time limit. You can offer up to 5 plans side by side. Each is a monthly subscription or a one-time payment with no renewal date, and each opens its own channels. Members buy a plan in the browser, and the iOS and Android apps send them there. On a paid group the member pays the price you set. Out of that payment, Groupanda keeps a 6% platform fee. Stripe's processing fee is deducted from your payout. Nothing is added on top of what the member pays. Stripe Connect pays out to the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union, Norway, Liechtenstein, Canada, and Switzerland.

What Groupanda does not have: threads, voice or video calls, screen share, bots and integrations, or membership analytics. You search messages within a channel, one channel at a time.

See full pricing

For plans, access and fees in detail, read how Groupanda works as a membership platform.

Heartbeat combines chat channels, discussions, courses, events and voice and video rooms, with iOS and Android apps. There is no free plan, only a 14-day trial with no credit card. Build costs $49 a month, or $490 a year, for up to 350 members, and Grow costs $149 a month for up to 5,000. Members pay through memberships and checkout pages. Heartbeat keeps 5% of each payment on Build, 2.5% on Grow and 1.25% on Scale, on top of Stripe's processing fee.

Kajabi puts courses, coaching, communities, memberships, a website and email marketing in one account, and its communities can be private, paid or tiered. There is no free plan, only a free trial, and every plan has a 30-day money-back guarantee. Basic costs $143 a month billed annually, or $179 month to month. Kajabi says it takes no cut of your sales. Payments through Kajabi Payments carry a processing fee that differs by country. If Kajabi Payments is offered where you are and you use another payment provider instead, Kajabi charges what it calls an additional processing fee. It is 2% on Basic, 1% on Growth and 0.5% on Pro, and PayPal is excepted.

Mighty Networks combines a community with courses and automations, and its top plan, Mighty Pro, adds your own branded apps. There is no free plan, only a 14-day trial. Launch costs $79 a month on annual billing or $95 month to month, for unlimited members. Members can pay by subscription or one-time payment, for the whole network or a single space. Mighty Networks takes 2% on Launch, 1% on Scale, and 0.5% on Growth and Mighty Pro.

Skool pairs a community with courses and live calls. Hobby costs $9 a month and Pro $99, both with unlimited members. Billed yearly, they come to $7.50 and $82 a month. Skool processes the payments itself, and its fee includes processing. It takes 10% plus 30 cents per transaction on Hobby, and 2.9% plus 30 cents on Pro, or 3.9% plus 30 cents on transactions above $900. Its Growth Boost, on by default, adds a 30% commission on members Skool brings you, for as long as their subscription stays active. You can turn it off in the group's settings. Payouts go to your bank account every Wednesday.

What Skool costs next to Groupanda, and how Groupanda works as a Skool alternative, are compared row by row on a separate page.

Slack is a workplace chat tool, priced per user. Its free plan shows and searches the last 90 days. Slack says messages and files more than one year old will be permanently deleted from free workspaces. Of its three paid plans, Pro and Business+ are priced per user per month, and Enterprise+ goes through sales. Workspaces of up to 250 members that qualify for its nonprofit programme can get Pro free. A paid workspace is billed for its active members, and Slack's pages describe no way for members to pay for access.

Slack's per user pricing, and what its free plan does to your history, are compared row by row on a separate page.

Swarm calls itself a video-powered community platform. Discussions mix text with video replies and voice notes, and every plan includes live streams, courses and events. There is no free plan, only a 14-day trial with no credit card. Launch is listed at $19 a month for 1,000 members and one space, and Scale at $149 for unlimited members. The pricing page does not say whether those prices are billed monthly or yearly. Members can buy tiered memberships, courses, downloads, event tickets and bookings. Swarm takes 10% on Launch, 2% on Growth and 0.5% on Scale.