Growing an audience
Running the business
Both cover memberships & subscriptions and community platforms. Here is what separates them on price, billing, what you can take with you, and coverage.
| Memberful | Mighty Networks | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | From $49 | From $79 |
| Pricing model | Paid subscription | Free trial, then paid |
| Free tier | No | No |
| Billing | Monthly or annual | Monthly or annual |
| Free trial | Not stated | 14 days |
| API | Yes | Not stated |
| Data export | Not stated | Not stated |
| Their cut | 4.9% of what you earn | 2% of what you earn |
| Runs on | Web | Web, iOS, Android |
| Covers | Memberships & Subscriptions, Community Platforms, Monetization & Payments | Community Platforms, Courses & Coaching, Memberships & Subscriptions |
| Works with | Nothing in particular | Nothing in particular |
| Founded | Not listed | Not listed |
| Reader rating | No reviews yet | No reviews yet |
| Live deals | None right now | None right now |
Paid memberships bolted onto a site you own
Memberful sells memberships from a site you already run rather than moving your audience to a platform, and it is the tool most WordPress publishers reach for when they start charging. One price covers everything and the money is charged on top as a percentage. Nothing is billed until a first payment comes in, so a launch that never launches costs nothing.
Our note
The 4.9 percent is the number to model, because it is charged on revenue rather than on profit: at $2,000 a month collected it is about double the subscription. Against Ghost, which takes nothing, this wins on flexibility and loses on arithmetic once you are large.
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Community, courses and memberships
Mighty Networks puts the community first and hangs courses, events and paid memberships off it, which is the opposite order from a course platform that added a forum later. Members get a branded app rather than another tab. The transaction fee on the entry plan is small but real, and it disappears as the plans get dearer.
Our note
Against Circle and Skool this is the one that ships an app under your own name, and it is priced accordingly. If the app is not the point, the other two do the community half for less.
Ratings are the average of reviews readers left. The facts are stated by each tool’s own listing and are not verified by CloutStack. How we make money.
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