Not every community needs to make money to be successful, some exist to build brand trust, support customers, or connect people with shared goals. The best growth happens when you adapt based on what your members want. On Whop, you get the tools to do exactly that — with built-in analytics, marketplace visibility, and an easy way to manage engagement all in one place.
The platform provides the infrastructure for members to communicate and collaborate with each other, share content, and participate in activities and events. The platform has all the features you need to build a full-fledged online community. For example, it supports forums, groups, events, private messaging, content management, mobile apps, etc. Below, we compare five of the top online community platforms available in 2026. Whether you’re running a university program, a startup accelerator, or a digital membership site, this breakdown gives you the clarity you need to make the right decision. An online community—if you’ve ever googled what is an online community—is a shared digital space where people discuss, support, and co‑create around a common interest.
Community Business Examples
We offer an affiliate program for our courses so that affiliates can sell our courses for us and increase our income. Many platforms don’t provide this feature, so that was a huge factor in our decision when looking for a new community platform. Platforms like these can be incredible tools for growing your connection to your audience and creating a sense of community within your business or organization. Here, customers share their experiences, offer advice, and sometimes participate in brand advocacy. Gaming communities, book clubs, and fan clubs for various entertainment media are some popular examples of these types of communities. They often host fan-driven events, discussions, and content creation – particularly user-generated content, making them highly dynamic and interactive.
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However this level of control also comes with some tradeoffs. Because of its sheer number of customization options, it can take you more time configuring your ideal setup which can be daunting if you’re not familiar with community tools. Compared to other platforms I’ve used including—Circle and Bettermode—Mighty has superior engagement tools. You can build interactive experiences to engage members through social mechanics that feel native. And while profit might not be the only reason to start, it’s a powerful outcome. You can charge for memberships, offer exclusive content, or use your community to launch new products.
A dedicated community platform helps you launch, monetize, and grow a community without fighting an algorithm. With most community software today, you can even schedule these weekly events ahead of time. This is an optional step, but you could soft launch your community to a smaller group and use this opportunity to fix any roadblocks initial users might encounter before a public launch. To promote engagement, members of the Buffer community organize weekly Zoom sessions.
Organizing special events will create a fun and engaging space. This could be special events centered around holiday celebrations, such as Christmas-themed events or national holidays. However, you can always offer workshops to help your community members learn a new skill, whether art, knitting, a language, or something else. https://www.instagram.com/cupidfeel_/ Remote workshops will ensure community members keep coming back for more, whether you have a large space or a small community designed for group coaching.
To create the most compelling experience for members, you need the right online community platform. The right choice will ultimately depend on balancing the features, ease of use, and pricing to best serve your own community’s needs. The platform provides tools for monetization, such as subscriptions and in-app purchases, making it a popular choice for creators looking to build sustainable communities. Disciple’s flexibility and focus on branded experiences make it an ideal solution for those who want to create a community that reflects their brand’s identity. The platform is particularly strong in its marketing and sales capabilities, with built-in funnels, automation, and a robust CRM.
It’s great for creators just starting out or running small communities. Circle gives you a clean, branded community with real-time chat, courses, events, and embeds so it feels native to your site. As an all-in-one platform, you’re likely to find Kajabi more than adequate. You’re able to offer more than course, and funnel features, based on proven funnels, help scale your brand with less effort. If you’re a course creator looking to sell memberships, coaching, podcasts, and build a community, Kajabi comes with all of that functionality out of the box. It’s all-in-one approach offers a world of possibilities, and you also have all the flexibility to expand to mobile apps, and run email marketing in one place too.
And, with full white-labeling and the ability to upgrade to having our own stand-alone app, the level of sophistication available longterm is unmatched. You’ll see what makes each platform unique, its pros and cons, read reviews from real customers, and more. Use these insights to identify what’s working and what isn’t. For example, if live streaming sessions are drawing large audiences, you might want to increase their frequency or explore new formats. Conversely, if a particular forum is inactive, consider revamping its content or closing it in favor of more popular topics. Discord has a free version and can accommodate the needs of any team.
To do this, run a poll to see which time works best for members. Alternatively, you can also run multiple sessions, depending on the activity and your group size. This will help make all community members feel included, no matter where they are in the world. You can message certain players privately to give them their roles. From then, you can use platform-specific tools (such as polls) to encourage “villagers” to vote. This classic game is sure to bring your community together for some lighthearted fun.
- With the right setup, and the right branded app, it also becomes reliable recurring revenue.
- The organization operates in more than 70 countries and has millions of members and supporters worldwide.
- Bettermode (formerly Tribe) is another white-label community platform for adding community spaces on brand websites.
- Invest time in understanding your audience’s interests and pain points, then tailor your content strategy accordingly.
Circle has also grown beyond being just a community platform into a full digital business suite. You can build professional website pages that act as your community storefront, landing pages for lead generation, or product sales pages. Skool is popular and a good starting for many creators but it falls shorts when it comes to branding, community management and value for money. At $99 per month, you can get a good bang for the buck with platforms like Heartbeat.
You can also use widgets as social components in your applications through APIs. Moreover, with the help of automation tools, we can grow organically and deliver the best customer support. Bettermode formerly known as Tribe, is a community platform designed to help businesses build branded online communities.
Look for a platform that aligns with your community strategy. If you run courses, a tool like GroupApp integrates community forums and learning seamlessly. Other options like Mighty Networks are popular, but it’s key to avoid a messy “Frankenstein stack” of tools. The goal is a smooth member experience on web and mobile app that supports your content creation. Paid community platforms, on the other hand, usually offer additional features, increased customization, and dedicated support. Consider your budget, the size of your community, and your required features when deciding between free and paid community platform options.
Many of these online community platforms integrate with Zapier, which provides for a lot more integrations. Reddit is a social media platform and online community where users can participate in discussions, share content, and engage with others on a wide range of topics. Reddit is organized into thousands of individual communities called “subreddits,” each dedicated to a specific interest, theme, or topic.
You can add a logo, cover image, favicon, and one theme color. Within these channels, members can participate in threaded discussions by sharing posts, images, audio, or video. The platform also provides detailed student progress reports, offering data on lesson views, completion rates, and participation levels. You can see who is enrolled, when they joined, and how far they have progressed in real-time.
When speaking with potential members, investigate the objectives, driving forces, worries, and advantages they hope to derive from the community. Metrics like contribution levels and frequency of engagement aid in success evaluation and provide direction for changes. Setting definite objectives is essential to drawing in new members, keeping them engaged, and advancing the community’s expansion. How you handle each of these will depend on the type of community you want to develop.
You can host one-off workshops or recurring masterminds with built-in RSVP tracking and automated reminders. Circle also allows you to host your community on a custom domain, fully white-label the experience, and even launch branded mobile apps. On the branding front, Circle allows you to change your community theme colors, upload your logo, and add custom Space icons. While it’s not as flexible as Bettermode, it’s more than enough to create a unique, branded experience for your community for most creators and coaches.
Communities are built one person at a time—focus on your first core group before optimizing for scale. Cohort completion hit 40%, against the 5–15% typical of self-paced courses, and community now drives 58% of SPI’s revenue. Through our work with 20,000+ community builders and 15 million of their members, we’ve identified what separates thriving communities from those that fizzle out.