Honeycommb

Honeycommb builds a private social network under your name rather than a forum, with a feed, profiles and posts that behave the way members already expect. Pricing is by how many people have registered, not by which features you want, so the whole product is on the cheapest tier. Branded iOS and Android apps are a separate add-on with its own launch fee, and that is the line item most budgets trip over.

The subscription is banded by how many people have registered, starting at $24.99 a month for the first hundred and rising through $49, $99 and $149. Every band gets every feature, which is unusual and is the point Honeycommb makes about its own pricing. The add-ons are where the real money is: dedicated mobile apps are $299 a month plus a $1,499 launch fee, discounted to $499 if paid yearly, and the white label bundle is $149 a month. Paid subscriptions cost nothing up front and take 5 percent of each transaction.

A community that has outgrown a group on somebody else's platform and wants the app icon on a member's home screen to be theirs. If you are still testing whether the community exists at all, the app add-on and its launch fee are money spent ahead of the answer.