Community Platform Cost: Circle vs Skool vs WordPress Plugin

For a 2,000-member community, the cheaper option long term is whichever one’s cost grows slowest as you add members and revenue. A hosted platform like Circle or Skool bills through a plan price, a fee on payments, or both. A WordPress community plugin bills for hosting, an optional licence and payment processing, and none of those is a share of what your members pay you. We can’t hand you a verdict without your numbers, so this guide gives you the formula and the questions to ask.

We make BuddyNext, a WordPress community plugin, so we have an interest in this answer. To keep it fair, we’ve kept every rival’s money figures out of this page. Prices and fees change often, and a number we printed today could be wrong by the time you read it. Each vendor’s own pricing page is the source, and we point you to them below.

Why is this question hard to answer?

Because the three kinds of cost scale differently, and a price comparison taken on one day hides that.

A community at 200 members and a community at 2,000 members don’t feel like the same purchase. At 200, almost any option is cheap. At 2,000, with paying members, the details start to matter: a percentage on payments, a plan tier set by member count, or a server that needs more memory.

So don’t compare today’s bill. Compare how each bill behaves as you grow. There are three behaviours to watch.

• Flat. The cost stays the same as members grow. Self-hosted licences and fixed plan prices behave this way, until you cross a limit.
• Stepped. The cost jumps when you pass a tier. Many hosted plans work like this, and so does server hosting when you outgrow a plan.
• Proportional. The cost rises in line with something, such as a percentage of revenue. This is the one that’s easy to miss at the start and expensive to notice later.

What does each option cost, in plain terms?

Here are the cost models, with no figures. Where we say “check”, the number lives on the vendor’s page and nowhere else.

Circle

Circle is a hosted, all-in-one platform with community spaces, courses, live events, payments and a branded mobile app. It’s billed monthly on public tiers that climb for larger plans, and it also charges a per-transaction fee on payments, depending on tier, on top of Stripe and PayPal fees. There’s no free plan, though a trial is offered. Check circle.so for the current plans and fees.

The model: stepped plan prices, plus a proportional fee on payments.

Skool

Skool is a hosted, deliberately simple platform for creators: one feed, built-in courses and gamification, under flat monthly prices. There’s no per-member billing, which is a real advantage when you grow. Its pricing page lists a transaction fee on payments, and the percentage differs between plans. There’s no truly free tier, only a trial. Check skool.com/pricing for the current plans and fees.

The model: flat plan prices, plus a proportional fee on payments that depends on the plan.

A WordPress community plugin

A plugin such as BuddyNext runs on your own WordPress site. You pay a host, and you pay for a licence if you want the paid features. Payments run through your own payment processor account. BuddyNext’s core is free with no key. Pro, which adds paid plans and gated spaces, is a licence you can look up on our pricing page.

The model: hosting that steps up when you outgrow a server, a licence that’s flat or annual, and processing fees that come from the processor, not the plugin.

For the rest of the plugin field, such as BuddyBoss, PeepSo or FluentCommunity, each vendor’s own site has the current licence terms. Our roundup of WordPress community plugins says who each one suits.

What is the formula?

Write down five variables. Each comes from a page you can open today.

• M: the number of members you expect, for example 2,000.
• P: the number of those members who pay, and what each pays per month.
• H: your monthly hosting bill, for the self-hosted option.
• L: your licence cost per year, divided by twelve, for the self-hosted option.
• F: the platform’s fee on payments, as a percentage, for the hosted option.
• S: the hosted platform’s monthly plan price at your size.

For a hosted platform, your monthly cost is roughly:

S + (F × your monthly member revenue) + processing

For a self-hosted community, it is roughly:

H + L + processing

Payment processing appears on both sides. It’s what Stripe, PayPal or another provider charges to move the money, and it’s usually similar wherever you collect, so it mostly cancels out of the comparison. If you’re not charging members at all, the revenue term is zero and the comparison collapses to S against H + L.

The key difference is in the middle term. On a hosted platform it grows with revenue. On a self-hosted site it doesn’t exist.

How does the revenue share grow with members?

Here’s a worked example. It is made up. It doesn’t describe any real platform, any real customer, or any real price. It exists to show how one term in the formula behaves, using placeholders you replace with your own numbers.

Take two placeholders:

• p = what one paying member pays you per month
• f = the platform’s fee on payments, as a share (so 5% is 0.05)

The platform’s share per paying member is p × f. Call that c. It’s a small amount per person, which is why it’s easy to wave away.

Now multiply by the number of paying members:

Nothing complicated happens in that table, and that’s the lesson. The share is a straight line. Five times the paying members is five times the share. Twenty times the members is twenty times the share. Over a year, multiply the monthly figure by twelve.

Now compare that line to a flat cost. Hosting and a licence, H + L, don’t change as paying members go from 100 to 2,000, until a server upgrade steps the line up once. So the two lines cross somewhere. Below the crossing point, the hosted option costs less. Above it, the self-hosted option does.

To find your crossing point, set the two costs equal and solve for the number of paying members:

Paying members at the crossing point = (H + L − S) ÷ c

If S is higher than H + L, the hosted plan price alone is already more than the self-hosted costs, and the self-hosted option wins at any size on money alone. If S is lower, divide the gap by c to see how many paying members it takes before the revenue share catches up.

Two things make this estimate honest:

1. Use your real paying share. A 2,000-member community rarely has 2,000 payers. If one in five pay, P is 400, not 2,000. Many communities are mostly free members with a paid tier on top.
2. Add the step costs. A busier site may need a bigger server at some point. Put that jump into H for the larger sizes.

Run the formula for 500, 1,000 and 2,000 members. If the answer flips between them, you’ve learned that the right choice changes as you grow, and you can plan the move before it’s urgent.

What if you charge nothing?

Many communities don’t sell membership at all. They run a customer community, an alumni group, a course cohort or a product forum, and the value is indirect.

For those, the revenue term is zero. The comparison becomes the hosted plan price against hosting plus a licence. Here, the fee structure of the hosted platform doesn’t matter, but plan tiers do, since a hosted plan that steps up with member count can climb even when you earn nothing from members.

A free community is also where a self-hosted plugin is easiest to justify. BuddyNext’s free core has no key and nothing that expires, so the licence term can be zero for as long as the free feature set is enough. You can read what’s in each tier on the free vs Pro page.

What does self-hosting add that isn’t money?

This is the part cost guides skip. Self-hosting isn’t free of effort, and the effort is a cost.

Setup time. Installing a plugin takes minutes. Making it feel like your community, with spaces, rules, a welcome flow and a brand, takes days. Hosted platforms have fewer settings, so there’s less to decide, and some people find that a relief.

Updates and security. WordPress, the theme and the plugins all need updates. A managed WordPress host takes on part of this. The rest is yours, and a skipped update is the usual way a site gets hacked.

Backups and recovery. You need a working backup and you need to have tested a restore. On a hosted platform, that’s someone else’s job.

Performance. A community with thousands of members, a busy feed and search needs a host that can keep up. Your hosting bill may be the line that moves as you grow, and it’s worth choosing a host that scales without a migration.

None of these is a reason to avoid self-hosting. They’re a reason to count your own hours at whatever your time is worth, or to pay a developer or a managed host to carry them.

What does moving between platforms cost?

Moving is a cost, and it happens at the worst time: when the community is big enough that the fees hurt.

There’s no direct importer from Circle, Skool or Facebook groups into BuddyNext. The real path is to export members’ emails from the old platform where it allows it, then use BuddyNext’s bulk CSV invitation tool to bring them in. Posts, courses and files are mostly rebuilt by hand, so a community with years of content takes weeks, not hours.

Paid subscriptions don’t transfer. They’re held by the old platform and its payment setup, so paying members subscribe again on your new site. Expect some to drop off at that moment. Plan a clear message, a date, and a short overlap where both run.

The self-serve importers we offer are for BuddyPress and BuddyBoss communities only, covered on our migration pages. Moving within WordPress, from one plugin to another, is generally easier than leaving a hosted platform, because your data is already in your own database.

The lesson for cost is simple: the cheapest time to choose is before you have 2,000 members. If you expect to grow and you’d rather not move later, weigh the exit cost now. A platform that lets you export your members and content is cheaper to leave than one that doesn’t, whatever its price.

What does moderation cost?

A community of 2,000 members needs someone watching it. This is true on every platform, and it’s often the biggest ongoing cost of all, since it’s hours every week.

The amount depends on how members behave and on how the community is set up. Open registration and public posting draw spam. Invite-only or paid communities draw less. Whatever the platform, plan for:

• A moderation queue someone checks daily.
• Clear rules posted where members see them.
• More than one moderator, so the community doesn’t depend on a single person.
• Tools that reduce the load: reports from members, a review queue for new accounts, and rules that hold risky posts.

BuddyNext’s free core includes a moderation queue. Pro adds auto-moderation rules, bulk moderation and an AI-assisted option. The hosted platforms each have their own moderation tools. Look at them in a trial with a realistic amount of content, not an empty space. A tool that looks fine with ten posts can be tedious with a thousand.

What does email cost?

Email is the quiet cost. Members come back to a community mostly because something told them to: a reply, a mention, a digest. Those messages need to land in the inbox.

On a hosted platform, the platform sends them. Whether they reach the inbox is its job, though you also depend on its templates and limits.

On a self-hosted WordPress site, your site sends them. Out of the box, WordPress mail from a basic host often lands in spam. You’ll want a transactional email service and correct sender records for your domain. That’s usually a modest recurring cost and an hour or two of setup, and it’s one of the most common surprises for people moving from a hosted tool.

BuddyNext Pro has broadcast email and drip sequences. Check the features page for the current list. Even so, sending to thousands of people needs a sending service behind it, so add that line to your budget.

Which option fits which situation?

Use your numbers first, then these rules of thumb.

• A hosted platform is likely the better start if you have no technical help, want to launch this week, earn little so far, and would rather not think about servers. Circle and Skool are both built for that case.
• A WordPress plugin is likely cheaper over years if you already run a WordPress site, expect thousands of members, charge for membership, and are comfortable with, or can pay for, the upkeep.
• A mix is common. Some communities start hosted, learn what members want, and move once the revenue share is visibly large. Others start on WordPress and stay.

When you’re choosing, ask what you’ll regret. If you’d regret paying a growing percentage for years, lean toward owning the platform. If you’d regret spending a month on setup, lean toward hosted.

How should you actually compare them?

A short checklist gets you to a real answer in an afternoon.

1. Open each vendor’s current pricing page and write down the date.
2. Fill in the five variables above with your own expected numbers.
3. Run the formula at 500, 1,000 and 2,000 members.
4. Add the time costs: setup, moderation hours per week, and email.
5. Add the exit cost: what it would take to leave in two years.
6. Try the top two for a week with real people.

For the plugin side, the live demo lets you try BuddyNext with seeded members and spaces. It lasts four hours and asks for an email address. For the platform side, take the trials the vendors offer. If you’d like more on how the fee models differ, read our guide on platforms that don’t charge per user or take a cut. If you’re weighing a specific hosted tool, our Circle comparison and Skool alternative page cover how each one differs from BuddyNext.

The cheapest option is the one you can afford to run well. A low bill on a community nobody has time to look after costs more than a higher bill on one that grows.