What community platforms actually cost in 2026
Skool, Circle, Mighty Networks, Kajabi, Teachable, Patreon and Gumroad — the monthly fee, the cut of your revenue, and the point where each one stops being the cheap option.
Every community platform publishes a monthly price, and almost none of them lead with the second number: the share of your revenue they keep. Which one is cheapest depends entirely on how much you're making, and the answer flips more than once as you grow.
Here is what each platform charges as of August 2026, and — more usefully — where each one stops being the cheap option.
The two numbers that matter
A platform charges you in one of two ways, and most use both:
- A monthly fee, which you pay whether you earn anything or not.
- A cut of your member revenue, which scales with how well you're doing.
A flat fee punishes you at the start, when you have no revenue to pay it from. A percentage punishes you later, when it compounds. The platforms differ mostly in which end of that trade they put you on.
One thing to hold constant: card processing is separate, roughly 2.9% + 30¢, and you pay it on every platform including this one. It's excluded everywhere below rather than counted against anyone.
What each one charges
| Platform | Cheapest paid plan | Cut of your revenue | Can it reach 0%? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Skool | $9/mo Hobby | 10% + 30¢, or 0% on $99 Pro | Yes, at $99/mo |
| Circle | $89/mo Professional | 2% / 1% / 0.5% by plan | No |
| Mighty Networks | $79/mo Launch | 2% / 1% / 0.5% by plan | No |
| Kajabi | $179/mo Basic | 0% on Kajabi Payments | Yes |
| Teachable | $39/mo Starter | 7.5%, 0% from $89 Builder | Yes, at $89/mo |
| Patreon | none | 10% flat | No |
| Gumroad | none | 10% + 50¢ a sale | No |
| Berrytap | none — Free is $0 | 10% / 5% / 0% by plan | Yes, on Scale |
Two things stand out.
Circle and Mighty Networks never reach zero. Both taper their cut as you move up — 2% down to 0.5% — but neither has a plan at any price that stops taking a share. On $10,000 a month, Mighty's best rate is still $50 a month on top of a $354 plan.
Patreon and Gumroad have nowhere to go. Patreon moved every new creator to a flat 10% in August 2025, replacing the old tiered rates. Gumroad takes 10% plus 50¢ per sale, and 30% if the buyer found you through its marketplace. Neither rate falls as you grow — 10% of your first $100 and 10% of your hundred-thousandth.
Where each one stops being cheap
This is the part the pricing pages don't show you. Using Berrytap's own plans as the reference — Free at $0 with a 10% fee, Growth at $29 with 5%, Scale at $299 with 0% — here's where each competitor overtakes:
- Skool — its flat $99 Pro plan beats Growth past roughly $1,400/mo in member revenue.
- Teachable — its $89 Builder plan beats Growth past roughly $1,200/mo.
- Mighty Networks — its 2% beats Growth's 5% past roughly $1,700/mo.
- Circle — its 2% beats Growth past roughly $2,000/mo.
- Kajabi — its flat $179 beats Growth past roughly $3,000/mo, and Scale past about $6,000.
If you're doing $5,000 a month and only care about the bill, Skool at $99 is hard to argue with. What you're buying at that price is a fee that never changes; what you give up is the option of getting it to zero.
The pattern
Read the table by what it costs to start and it sorts cleanly:
- $0 to begin: Berrytap, Patreon, Gumroad.
- Under $50: Skool ($9), Teachable ($39).
- $79 and up: Mighty ($79), Circle ($89), Kajabi ($179).
Then read it by what it costs at scale and the order almost reverses. The platforms that let you start free take a percentage, and percentages get expensive. The platforms that charge $79–$179 up front are the ones that stop taking a cut.
Berrytap sits deliberately at both ends: $0 and 10% while you're small, $299 and 0% when you're not, with a $29 step in between. That's the whole design — you pay in proportion to what you're making, and the fee has a floor of nothing.
How to actually choose
Work out your monthly member revenue first, then compare total cost at that number rather than comparing plan prices.
- Under $1,000/mo — the percentage platforms win, and the free-to-start ones win by more. Don't pay $89 a month for a community earning $300.
- $1,000–$3,000/mo — genuinely close. This is where a flat $99 and a 5% cut converge, and the product should decide it, not the price.
- Over $3,000/mo — the flat plans pull ahead, and the question becomes whether any of them will take your fee to zero. Circle, Mighty, Patreon and Gumroad won't.
And check the second number before you commit, not after.
Prices are as published in August 2026 and change often — Skool added its $9 tier, Patreon flattened to 10%, and Kajabi's entry plan moved from $89 to $179 in the last year alone. Verify against each platform's own pricing page before making a decision.
