Back to Resources
● Platform comparison · 2026
One platform. One bill.
Skool, Circle, Kajabi and Mighty each do part of the job. Sutra does the whole thing — in a single subscription.
Most creators don't pay for one tool. They pay for a community platform, then bolt on email marketing, a separate course tool, a website builder, an automation app, and a transaction fee on every sale. Sutra is a conversational learning platform that holds all of it in one place — community, courses, broadcast email, a real website, automations, and payments — where what participants write, reflect on, and surface together becomes the curriculum itself. This page lays the field out plainly: what each platform really costs once the add-ons are included, where Sutra changes the economics, and how to tell which one fits your work.
Compared here: Sutra, Skool, Circle, Kajabi, Mighty Networks
The all-in-one math
Six tools, six logins, six invoices — or one.
To run a learning business on most platforms, you assemble a stack. Each piece is its own subscription, its own login, and its own price increase. Sutra includes every one of these in the plan — at no extra cost.
◎ Community platform
Typically $89–$199/mo
Circle, Skool, Mighty…
✓ Included in Sutra
▤ Course / LMS tool
Typically $59/mo
Teachable, Thinkific…
✓ Included in Sutra
✉ Marketing email
Typically $49–$99/mo
Kit, Mailchimp, Email Hub…
✓ Included in Sutra
◧ Website & landing pages
Typically $29/mo
Squarespace, Webflow…
✓ Included in Sutra
⚡ Automation
Typically $29/mo
Zapier, Make…
✓ Included in Sutra
◆ Surveys, quizzes & affiliates
Typically $25–$49/mo
Typeform, Rewardful…
✓ Included in Sutra
A cobbled-together stack
$280–$460 / mo across 5–6 tools
Plus a per-sale platform fee on most plans, and the integration work to keep it all talking to each other.
Sutra Silver — most popular
$82 / mo
Billed annually · everything above included · 0% platform fee
Your true annual cost
Pick a platform. See the real number.
Set your revenue, choose a competitor and plan, and add the separate tools Sutra bundles. The result is the all-in cost of running on that platform for a year — next to Sutra Silver.
Static worked example
Your annual member / course revenue: $50,000
Compare against: Circle Business
Add the separate tools Sutra bundles: yes
$3,092 per year saved with Sutra vs Circle Business
- Circle Business plan: $2,388/yr
- 1% platform fee on $50,000: $500/yr
- Separate tools Sutra bundles: $1,188/yr
- Circle all-in: $4,076/yr
- Sutra Silver, everything included: $984/yr
Side by side
The whole field, on one screen.
Pricing reflects each platform's current (2026) published plans. "Included" means it ships in the plan with no separate subscription. Fees shown are each platform's stated platform/transaction fee on the popular plan; standard payment processing (~2.9% + 30¢) is passed through by all of them, Sutra included.
✓ native / included · ~ partial / add-on / via integration · ✕ not available
Why all-in-one
The savings are the start. The point is the work.
Consolidating tools saves money, but the deeper reason to hold everything in one place is that learning stops leaking between apps. On Sutra, the conversation, the course, the emails and the data are the same system.
❝ The community is the container
On other platforms the course sits in one tab and the community in another. On Sutra, the course is conversational — what participants write and reflect on becomes first-class content, not a thread off to the side.
✦ AI that works on your material
Sutra's AI synthesizes discussion into highlights, themes and bridging prompts, builds courses from your PDFs and videos, and remembers you between sessions — because it's reading one connected system, not scattered exports.
⛁ Your platform behaves like a database
Custom properties on spaces and people, nestable and reusable spaces, action-level analytics and clean exports — the structure a serious program needs, without a separate CRM or spreadsheet layer.
✉ Email that already knows your members
Broadcasts, journeys and re-engagement run on the same member data as your spaces — no syncing a separate email tool, no add-on invoice, no contacts cap to manage.
◧ A real, indexable website
Every space can be a public, SEO-ready page or a gated product on the same tree — so you grow through content without paying for a separate site builder.
$ Keep more of every sale
Sutra's most-popular Silver plan and its Gold plan charge a 0% platform fee. On most other platforms, reaching a low fee means climbing to their most expensive tier — or never getting to zero at all.
The honest verdict
When Sutra is the right answer — and when it isn't.
No platform wins for everyone. Here's the clean decision rule across the whole field.
Choose Sutra if…
Your work is learning that grows through participation.
- You teach courses or cohorts where reflection and participation — not just watching or posting — drive the outcome.
- You'd rather pay one subscription than stitch together community, courses, email, a website and automation across five tools.
- You want AI that synthesizes discussion and builds from your PDFs and videos, with persistent creator memory.
- You grow through content & SEO and want every page indexable, plus native broadcast email and a paying affiliate program.
- You want your platform to behave like a database — custom properties on spaces and people.
- You'd rather not pay a platform fee on every sale to reach a fair price.
Choose a specialist if…
Your business leans on one platform's flagship strength.
- Skool — you want the simplest possible paid community, launched in an afternoon, with leaderboards and a discovery marketplace.
- Circle — you want best-in-segment member-facing AI agents, polished live streaming, and enterprise trust signals (SOC 2, SSO).
- Kajabi — you want a mature commerce engine: funnels, BNPL, 140+ currencies and automated sales tax in one place.
- Mighty — you want a done-for-you, fully branded iOS/Android app and member-to-member networking at large scale.
- A branded native app under your own name is non-negotiable today — Sutra ships a strong native app, but not a white-label one.
Everything your learning business needs, in one place.
Start free, keep your unlimited spaces and members, and only pay when you're ready — with no platform fee on your most-popular plan.
Try Sutra free →
Sourcing note. Pricing and capabilities reflect each platform's current (2026) published plans, verified June 2026 against sutra.co/pricing, skool.com, circle.so/pricing, kajabi.com/pricing and mightynetworks.com/pricing, and triangulated against independent third-party reviews. Plan-cost figures use annual-billing effective pricing: Sutra Silver ≈ $82/mo ($984/yr); Skool Hobby ≈ $9/mo, Pro ≈ $82/mo; Circle Professional ≈ $89/mo, Business ≈ $199/mo, Circle Plus ≈ $360/mo (custom); Kajabi Kickstarter ≈ $71/mo, Basic ≈ $143/mo, Growth ≈ $199/mo, Pro ≈ $399/mo; Mighty Launch ≈ $66/mo, Scale ≈ $149/mo, Growth ≈ $295/mo. Transaction-fee figures are each platform's stated platform/transaction fee or third-party-processor surcharge: Sutra 0% (Silver/Gold), 2% (Bronze), 10% (Free); Skool ~2.9% on Pro (rising to ~3.9% above $899/mo of sales per group) and 10% on Hobby; Circle 2% / 1% / 0.5%; Kajabi 5% / 2% / 1% / 0.5% surcharge on non-Kajabi-Payments sales (Kajabi Payments avoids it but adds +0.7% on subscriptions and +1.5% on international cards); Mighty 2% / 1% / 0.5%. Standard payment-processor fees (e.g. Stripe ~2.9% + 30¢) and Apple/Google in-app fees are excluded and apply on top for every platform, Sutra included. "Separate tools Sutra bundles" figures are illustrative market-typical prices for email marketing, a course/LMS tool, a website builder and automation, applied only to platforms that don't already include them; your actual prices will vary. The calculator is an estimate for comparison only, not a quote.