Looking for a Circle alternative?

What to export from Circle first

Circle's help centre (checked in October 2026) describes several exports, and they cover different things. Pull each one that applies to you before you touch the new site, and check what your own plan allows, since some admin features sit on higher plans.

• Member CSVs per space or space group. On a space's Members tab an admin can use Download CSV, and the file is emailed to the admin address. It carries name, email, role, joined date and last active date. Space groups work the same way.
• The member list from Manage audience. That page lists members with filters such as tag, role, space access, paywall subscription and join date. Circle also documents a member CSV export, so look for the export option on that page and confirm which filters it respects.
• A full community data export. Only admins can request it, by emailing Circle support. It arrives as CSV files covering members, spaces, posts, comments and events. The posts and comments files do not include uploaded media, so images and files need saving separately.
• Paywall subscriptions and transactions. Circle documents a separate export of member subscription and transaction data. If you charge for access, this is the record of who pays and when.
• Event attendees. The attendee list downloads as a CSV, and it includes only people who confirmed they were going, not people who were invited and never replied.

Open every file once and check it. The posts file is the most useful thing you will get for rebuilding, because it holds the text of every post with its author and date. Save your own copies of course videos, documents and images, since the text exports leave media behind.

What BuddyNext can bring in, and what it cannot

The free BuddyNext Importer plugin reads BuddyPress and BuddyBoss. It does not read Circle. Nothing crosses over by itself: members get invitations and you rebuild the content you want to keep.

• Bulk invites by CSV, in the free plugin. Under Members, the Invites tab takes a file with an email and an optional first name on each row, up to 500 rows per upload. You can resend or revoke an invite, and send single ones.
• Space invite links with an expiry of a day, a week, a month or never, an optional cap on uses, and a revoke button.
• Auto-join, so a new member lands in your Welcome Space and any other space you choose at signup. You can limit auto-join to members of chosen types.
• A member export of your own. The Members screen has an Export CSV button with ID, login, email, display name, registration date and suspension status. When you leave one platform you are always glad of the next one's export.
• Sign in with Google, Facebook, GitHub, Discord or Apple, if you set up each provider. It saves people a password on the first visit.

The text of your old posts is the part you rebuild. You will not republish thousands of posts, and you should not try. Choose the evergreen ones: onboarding posts, the answers people keep asking for, the rules. Post them as announcements or discussion threads and link to them from your welcome message. A developer can script a bulk load through the BuddyNext REST API if the archive really matters, but that is custom work, not a feature.

Mapping Circle to BuddyNext

Circle organises a community into spaces and space groups. BuddyNext uses spaces too, and the closest match to a space group is a space category or a sub-space. Spaces have three kinds of visibility: open, private and secret, and a secret space stays out of search.

• Spaces become spaces. Space groups become categories, or a parent space with sub-spaces, two levels deep.
• Paywalled spaces become Pro membership plans. A plan can open one or several spaces, and a space can be opened by several plans.
• Course content becomes Learnomy courses. Learnomy is a separate LMS plugin, and the bridge that ties it to BuddyNext is in BuddyNext Pro.
• Events become Eventonomy events, again with the bridge in BuddyNext Pro. BuddyNext does not host live video, so keep the tool you use for live sessions and put its link in the event.
• Automations. BuddyNext accepts signed requests from Make, Zapier and n8n to grant, extend or cancel a plan (that part needs Pro), and it can send outbound webhooks. Rebuilding a long automation chain is real work, so list yours now.

The move, step by step

1. 1Request the full data export from Circle support first, since it is the slowest item. Download the CSVs you can get yourself while you wait.
2. 2Decide per space: move, merge or retire. Write the list down and keep it.
3. 3Install BuddyNext on a staging site and create the spaces, categories and welcome flow. Pick each space's visibility.
4. 4Add payments if you charge. Create a plan for each Circle paywall, connect Stripe or PayPal, and attach each plan to the spaces it opens. Create a coupon if you want to give movers a founding discount.
5. 5Rebuild the posts that matter and pin the welcome post in the first space.
6. 6Invite a small group of active members from a CSV. Ask them to try signup on a phone, post, react, and open a gated space.
7. 7Announce the date in Circle, then invite everyone in batches, so the first week is calm and your email host does not throttle the invitation mail.
8. 8Switch the old community to read-only or archive it on the date you gave, after your active members have moved.

Keeping Circle running while you move

• Stay on your current Circle plan until the new site is where members answer each other. Check what a downgrade or cancellation changes for admins and exports before you do it.
• Put the new link at the top of the old community and in your Circle emails, and give the date the old one stops.
• Answer questions only in the new place after launch. Redirect people politely rather than answering twice.
• Hold paid members until last. BuddyNext cannot take over a subscription made on Circle, so each payer subscribes on the new site, or you record the payment they have already made with the Add order form in BuddyNext Pro. Agree the old billing end date with each one so nobody pays twice.

What you get instead, and which tier it is

• Free: feed with polls, spaces, profiles with custom fields, a directory with member types, notifications, hashtags, reports and a moderation queue, and a REST API.
• Free, with companions: direct messages on WPMediaVerse, and discussion forums per space on Jetonomy. Group conversations need WPMediaVerse Pro.
• BuddyNext Pro: memberships with monthly or annual billing, coupons, invoices, gated spaces, broadcast email and drip sequences, scheduled posts, analytics, member labels and live updates through a Pusher-compatible server.

One difference to plan for: Circle bundles live rooms, workflows and a branded app in one place, and BuddyNext spreads the same jobs across plugins you choose. That freedom costs setup time. If the bundle is what you value, say so honestly to yourself before you move.

Work out the cost with your own numbers

No figure on this page stands in for yours. Add up what Circle charges you in a year, including any transaction fee on payments. Then add hosting, the BuddyNext Pro licence if you need payments, and the fee your payment processor charges, which you pay on any platform. Put your own time on the other side of the sum.