Circle.so Pricing (2026): Every Plan, Fee and Add-On Explained

Circle plans at a glance

Circle sells four plans. Professional, Business and Scale have published prices, and Circle Plus is quoted by its sales team. Circle's pricing page shows prices billed yearly; month-to-month prices for Professional and Business come from the same page's plan data.

Prices and limits as of October 2026, from Circle's pricing page and help center. Sources at the end of this page.

Every plan includes unlimited members, courses, events, a website, a member directory, gamification, a custom domain, and Circle's iOS, Android and desktop apps. Business adds workflows, custom profile fields, branded email notifications, activity scores, Circle's APIs and the option to remove Circle branding. Scale adds AI agents, webhooks, custom single sign-on and priority support.

Every plan starts with a 14-day free trial without a credit card, and Circle offers a 30-day money-back guarantee on monthly and yearly plans.

What Circle's transaction fee costs per sale

Circle takes its percentage from every paywall payment, on top of what Stripe charges, because paywalls run through a Stripe account in your name. In Circle's own example, a Business-plan subscription pays 1% to Circle, then 2.9% + 30¢ to Stripe Payments and 0.7% to Stripe Billing.

How the stack works:

• Subscription and installment paywalls use Stripe Billing, which adds 0.7%.
• One-time paywalls use Stripe Invoicing, which Stripe prices at 0.4% per paid invoice, capped at $2.
• Circle's fee shows up in Stripe as an application fee next to Stripe's processing fees, and comes out of your payouts.
• International cards and currency conversion cost extra on Stripe (1.5% and 1% on US accounts), and Stripe Tax adds its own fee if you turn it on.

Cost of a single charge as of October 2026, US cards, before Circle's plan price. Sources at the end of this page.

Subscriptions: price × (Circle's fee + 2.9% + 0.7%) + 30¢. One-time paywalls: price × (Circle's fee + 2.9%) + 30¢, plus Stripe Invoicing's 0.4% (at most $2). The Whop column uses 2.7% + 30¢ per card payment, plus 0.5% billing on subscription charges.

Two details affect what you keep. Circle refunds its own fee automatically only when you issue a refund from inside Circle; refund from the Stripe dashboard and Circle keeps it. And buy now, pay later costs more: Circle's example for an Affirm purchase on Professional is 2% to Circle plus about 6% + 30¢ to Stripe.

Professional vs Business vs Scale: which costs least at your revenue

On fees alone, Business becomes cheaper than Professional above about $12,000 a month in sales, where its 1-point lower fee covers the $120 higher plan price. Billed yearly, the break-even drops to about $11,000. Scale never beats Business on fees, because it charges the same 1% for at least $200 more a month.

Monthly cost as of October 2026. US cards, $49/month membership, Professional and Business billed monthly, Scale at its yearly rate. Sources at the end of this page.

Monthly cost here means the plan price, plus the percentage fees on sales, plus 30¢ for each $49 charge. Circle's percentage is its plan fee plus Stripe's 2.9% and the 0.7% Billing fee; Whop's is 2.7% plus 0.5% billing. US cards, no add-ons, no payout fees, rounded to whole dollars. Billed yearly, Professional comes to $151, $710 and $3,195 at these levels, and Business to $251, $720 and $2,805.

Fees aren't the only reason to move up. You need Business for workflows, the Admin API, custom profile fields or removing Circle's branding, and Scale for AI agents, webhooks, single sign-on or more than 5 admins without add-ons.

Whop costs less than every Circle plan in this table, because it has no plan fee and its 3.2% on renewals sits below the 4.1% that even Circle Plus pays once Stripe is added. You can run your own mix in the Circle fee calculator, or read the full Whop vs Circle comparison for the features behind the numbers.

Add-ons and usage charges

Circle's plan price covers set limits, and most limits can be raised for a monthly fee. Some charges, like storage, start automatically.

Add-on prices as of October 2026, from Circle's pricing page and help center. Sources at the end of this page.

Three of these catch people out:

• Storage overages are automatic. Since November 15, 2025, Circle adds 50 GB blocks once you pass your limit, and live recordings count toward storage. Only support can remove a block, after you free up space.
• Email Hub is billed monthly by subscribed contacts, even on a yearly community plan, and it moves up a tier automatically as your list grows.
• Circle AI credits have been billed since July 29, 2026. Unused credits roll over up to 1 times your monthly allotment on monthly billing, or 3 times on yearly billing.

Billing rules worth knowing before you pay

Circle's refund and plan-change rules favor deciding early. They're short enough to read in full on Circle's help center, and these are the ones that cost money.

• The 30-day money-back guarantee covers both monthly and yearly plans. After 30 days, Circle doesn't refund the rest of the subscription or unused time.
• Upgrades take effect immediately, with unused time credited. Downgrades wait until the end of the billing cycle, with no credit, and Circle cancels a scheduled downgrade automatically if you're still over the lower plan's limits on the date.
• Plans bought before March 1, 2026 keep their original limits only while you stay on them. Circle stopped selling Enterprise in March 2026.
• Payment migrations into Circle are free for communities with $100,000 or more in yearly revenue, and course migrations are free on yearly Business plans and up.

This page explains published fees. It isn't financial or tax advice.

How Circle's pricing has changed

Circle's two core plans have held their prices since at least February 2025, while the plans around them changed.

• February 2025: archived pricing shows a Basic plan at $49 a month ($39 billed yearly) with 100 members, 1 admin and a 4% fee, next to Professional at $99 ($89) and Business at $219 ($199).
• March 2025: Basic no longer appears on the archived pricing page from March 7.
• November 15, 2025: Circle starts enforcing storage limits and billing overages automatically.
• March 2026: Circle stops selling Enterprise; plans bought before March 1 keep their limits.
• July 29, 2026: Circle AI moves to credit billing.
• Late September 2026: Scale appears at $419 a month billed yearly. It isn't on the archived pricing page from September 20 and is on the live page on October 3.

Is Circle worth the price?

Circle is worth it when members pay for the community itself: structured spaces, live rooms, workflows and, on Circle Plus, an app in your own name. It gets expensive when you mainly sell access and the plan fee plus a percentage on every sale outweighs the features you use.

The costs that add up are the stack of Circle's fee, Stripe's 2.9% + 30¢ and Stripe Billing's 0.7% on every renewal, plus add-ons metered by contacts, storage, live hours and AI credits. Circle also supports Stripe only, so buyers can't pay with PayPal.

If those costs are why you're here, compare the options in our Circle alternatives roundup, or see how Circle sizes up against the simpler, cheaper community in Skool vs Circle vs Whop. Skool's model is different again, a plan fee plus an all-in percentage, which our Skool pricing breakdown explains.

Already decided to leave? Because Circle subscriptions live in your own Stripe account, Whop Migrations can carry active card subscriptions to Whop with their renewal dates. The Circle to Whop playbook covers the order of operations, and every Whop fee is listed on our fees page.