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In this article, I showcase what I believe are the best online community platforms (free and paid) to complement your small business.
Are you searching for the best community platforms to run alongside your brand?
Our whole lives have been built around interacting and connecting with others.
We’re taught to share with others, make friends, and work together in groups from a very young age!
That’s because, as humans, we naturally long for a sense of belonging.
Which is why it’s crucial to build an online community for your brand.
Read more: My Top Recommended Online Tools For Small Business.
Quick Summary
- All profitable and reputable brands are built through having a loyal community following. Therefore, it’s essential to build an online community in order to become successful.
- Skool.com is the overall best community-building platform, Circle is best for customization and flexibility, and Kajabi is an ideal choice for selling courses.
- If you’re after an internal online community platform, go with Slack. But if you’re looking for the best free online community platform, Facebook Groups are the way to go.
- If you’re looking to monetize your brand and build a loyal online community, check out my Skool.com video guide here.
Stew Recommends Skool.com (Best Value)
Skool is a simple, feature packed and easy to use online community platform for creators and business owners. Skool allows you to launch your community and monetize in just a few clicks.
Claim your FREE 14-day Trial and launch your community in minutes.
Best Online Community Platforms 2024
Think about it…….people love to be surrounded by like-minded people. We crave community!
By building a community with one of these best online community platforms, your audience will love participating in something meaningful.
Plus, it’s an excellent way to build, nurture, and promote your brand!
Whether you already have your own community or you’re thinking about creating one, you’ll need a community platform to help you get started.
I will share and review 5 of the best online community platforms (free and paid) today.
By using one of these best online community platforms, people can openly connect, interact, and engage with each other!
So, which one of these online community platforms is best for your brand and tribe?
Read more: Top 5 FREE Productivity Apps.
Why Should You Have An Online Community?
Online communities are great for many reasons.
In fact, did you know that all successful and profitable brands are built through a loyal community?
An online community promotes a closer relationship between your brand and your audience.
How? By providing a safe place for your community members to share their knowledge, ask questions, network, or hang out with like-minded people.
You can also share new products or information, give exclusive discounts, and receive honest feedback from loyal and invested members.
Plus, an online community can help increase the awareness and online presence of your brand!
By leveraging the appropriate online community platform, you can establish a dedicated fan base and cultivate impactful relationships among your audience members.
Read more: My Top 5 Team Communication Software For Small Business.
Top 5 Online Community Platforms
We’ve now established why it’s important to build a loyal community.
Let’s break down and discuss the best paid and free online community platforms for small businesses!
Are you ready?
1. Skool.com
Best overall online community platform
Skool.com is an innovative online community platform and educational hub where course creators, consultants, educators, and businesses can share content within their community.
With Skool.com, creators can effortlessly share ideas and host engaging discussions with their exclusive Skool.com tribe.
Additionally, you can offer coaching sessions or consultations, unlocking a world of possibilities for connecting with your audience!
Skool.com aims to simplify community management. Think of it as a more advanced and enhanced version of a Facebook or LinkedIn group.
And Skool.com is so much more than just a community platform!
You can monetize your skillset by offering:
- Paid memberships.
- Courses.
- Events and other valuable content.
This means you can convert your community into valuable paying customers!
What’s more, Skool.com features an innovative auto-affiliate function.
You can earn a recurring monthly commission from any members who sign up to Skool.com and establish their own groups – allowing for even greater monetization potential.
Whether you’re a content creator or a dedicated community member, Skool.com will exceed your expectations!
Read more: Skool.com Review 2024
My Favorite Feature Of Skool.com
Many other best online community platforms on this list miss the mark regarding gamification.
But Skool.com’s interactive and captivating gamification aspect truly sets it apart from the rest!
The unique gamification feature builds a competitive yet fun and playful atmosphere within your online community platform space.
How does it work?
- Members essentially earn points when they ‘like’ another member’s post or comment (each ‘like’ equals one point).
- Once they’ve reached a specific number of points, they’ll climb to the next level, unlocking specific courses, deals, or memberships you’ve created.
- The higher they ascend the leadership ladder, the more courses and deals they unlock!
The ultimate goal? To enhance motivation for your exclusive members to actively participate in community activities.
As the community creator, you can customize nine levels to offer and entice exclusive content related to your brand when members achieve specific milestones.
Read more: Best Platform To Sell Online Courses
What I Like:
- Skool’s easy-to-use and intuitive interface has an extremely shallow learning curve.
- The sign-up process is super simple – you’ll be up and running with Skool.com in just a few minutes.
- The mobile app is responsive and adaptable for on-the-go teams.
- The built-in chat feature means you don’t have to use internal communication software like Slack.
- Skool’s pricing structure is super simple, with just one plan ($99 per month).
- Your members can set up push notifications for posts they find interesting.
What I Dislike:
- There’s currently no video hosting feature.
- The price is quite high for creators after just a community platform (who aren’t interested in creating courses or memberships).
- There’s no group chat feature. You can only message people directly.
2. Circle
Best online community platform for customization and flexibility.
Circle is next up on my best online community platform list which supports various community-building motivations.
If you want to build a community through multiple topics or interests, Circle may be your best choice!
With Circle, you can tailor your community’s appearance to your preferences.
This incredible level of customization is beneficial for coaches, creators, and business owners seeking complete control over their online space.
With a comprehensive array of community-building tools, including:
- Courses.
- Posts.
- Events.
- Articles.
- Memberships.
- Messaging capabilities.
Circle provides the ultimate paid community platform solution for those who value flexibility above all.
They outshine their competition by offering built-in video hosting, live streaming features, advanced marketing tools, and automation workflow capabilities.
My Favorite Feature Of Circle
Circle’s level of flexibility and customization is undoubtedly the standout feature of this online community platform!
Firstly, you can add your brand colors, upload your logo, and use custom subdomains to change the look and feel of your exclusive community.
And did you know you can embed your Circle community, spaces, or specific posts on your website or blog?
This dynamic feature lets you build a standalone community within your website.
That’s right, users can comment on your Circle content without leaving your page!
Plus, you can easily integrate your Circle community on another platform like Teachable or Kajabi.
But the customization of Circle doesn’t stop there.
In terms of user experience, Circle’s ‘Spaces’ (similar to Slack’s ‘Channels’) are also customizable.
Spaces are like private or public online forums that assist with managing and organizing conversations within your online community.
What I Like:
- Their built-in video streaming capabilities are robust and made to suit any business owner or creator.
- The number of integrations! You can integrate your Circle online community platform with just about any other online tool you use.
- The interface is crisp, modern, and easy to use.
- Circle’s level of support is incredible! In addition to their helpful knowledge base, you’ll have access to networking groups and receive weekly training sessions.
- For small communities, the price is affordable ($49 per month for 100 members or less).
What I Dislike:
- Some features aren’t available on lower-tiered plans.
- There are limited reporting and analytical features.
- There are transaction fees that you can’t avoid (no matter which plan you go for).
- All plans limit the number of spaces, admins, and attachment storage.
3. Kajabi
Best online community platform for selling online courses
Are you after the best community platform with comprehensive features to help establish, expand, and manage your online business and tribe?
Enter Kajabi.
Kajabi is so much more than just a community-building platform.
From courses, website creation, payment handling, memberships, sales funnels, email marketing, podcasts, and more, Kajabi has everything!
In terms of specific community features, Kajabi packs a punch.
You’ll get:
- Unlimited video hosting.
- Member segmentation capabilities.
- Subscription membership tiers.
- Close-captioned lessons.
- Challenges.
- Leaderboards.
- Newsfeeds.
- Direct messaging, and more.
You may be thinking…….do I really need everything that Kajabi offers?
The answer is – not necessarily.
If you’re focusing on building and nurturing your community, the extensive array of features provided by Kajabi may be overwhelming.
But if you’re looking for a one-stop shop to help grow and scale your business, there’s nothing else like Kajabi!
My Favorite Feature Of Kajabi
Kajabi was designed explicitly with course and membership creators in mind, and its user-friendly, feature-rich platform undoubtedly delivers on its promise!
What sets Kajabi apart is its dynamic and full-featured courses, which help support and build strong communities!
Regardless of the subject matter – whether finance, business, meditation, personal development (or anything else), Kajabi has something to offer you!
With Kajabi, you can create any course you like – from mini-courses, comprehensive programs, memberships, or online coaching courses.
Then, simply enhance the learning experience by incorporating interactive elements like built-in quizzes, surveys, tests, and assignments.
Additionally, Kajabi’s drip course feature allows you to gradually release course content to your exclusive members over a specific period.
Say goodbye to tedious and overwhelming course creating from scratch!
With Kajabi, you can effortlessly create, market, and sell your personalized and professional course all in one user-friendly dashboard.
The course builder interface is straightforward, allowing you to structure your content into categories and lessons and add content individually or in bulk.
What I Like:
- Kajabi has everything you need to build, market, and sell any digital product to your audience.
- The interface is intuitive and easy-to-use platform.
- The number of online resources and training support is incredible, with hundreds of videos and articles available.
- Their seamless mobile app is perfect for agile teams.
- Their customer support is second to none!
What I Dislike:
- The price tag – plans start from $140 a month, which many small businesses or creators just getting started simply can’t afford!
- The community aspect isn’t as personalized as other community-driven platforms.
- Although Kajabi is marketed as an all-in-one platform, you can’t sell physical products.
- There’s no ‘community’ plan for teams just looking to build their online community.
Read more: Kajabi vs ClickFunnels
4. Slack
Best internal online community platform
You’re probably wondering why Slack is on this list of best online community platforms.
Slack is a transformative messaging and communication tool that effectively unifies remote offices and enables seamless team collaboration.
It has become indispensable to many businesses worldwide (including ours!)
So, can Slack also be a suitable platform for hosting your community?
While Slack excels in its intended purpose, it was not specifically tailored to be a comprehensive community-building tool.
Slack works well as an internal online community and collaborative platform (say, if your teammates work at various locations).
You can seamlessly direct message or group message team members (called ‘Channels’), attach files, video call, tag other members, and screen share with your teammates on one easy-to-use platform.
Additionally, it would be suitable as a basic community platform for coworking spaces that need a centralized hub to keep up to date with events, announcements, and general conversations.
And with Slack’s ‘SlackConnect’ feature, you can connect your external partners or clients to your Slack workspace for more streamlined communication.
If you do decide to utilize Slack as the hub for your community, it’ll cost you a lot as your community grows (because you pay per user).
Plus, you’ll likely encounter limitations sooner rather than later and end up back at square one.
Read more: How To Use Slack
My Favorite Feature of Slack
It’s clear that Slack isn’t the best online community platforms out there.
But, it is an excellent option for teams that want to boost internal morale and improve the sense of community within their teams.
So, what’s the best thing about Slack?
The fact that it can integrate with just about any platform within your tech stack.
Slack can easily connect with over 2500+ third-party apps. This means you can simply use all your favorite tools with Slack (all without leaving your Slack Workspace!)
From Google Drive, Loom, Asana, Canva, Monday.com, Calendly, Shopify, Twitter, and MailChimp, you can turn Slack from a basic communication software to a fully functional online platform!
However, there are limitations when connecting your Slack account with other online community platforms.
Read more: Slack vs Monday.com
What I Like:
- The intuitive mobile app with real-time push notifications means you can always stay connected with your team.
- There’s a free plan!
- The interface is sleek and easy to use.
- You can use Slack with many online platforms that don’t offer in-chat functionality.
What I Dislike:
- Slack wasn’t intended to be an online community platform but an internal communication and productivity tool.
- If you do use it for your online community, you’ll likely have to upgrade to a paid plan (from $7.25 per user per month), which can get pretty pricey once your community grows.
- There’s no way you can monetize your skillset on Slack.
5. Facebook Groups
Best free online community platform for teams just getting started.
Many of the paid online community platform interfaces mentioned above mimic how a Facebook group is displayed.
You could even say that Facebook used to be the number one online community platform choice!
If you’re a Facebook user, you likely already belong to a Facebook group of some sort.
But with so many other options available today, is Facebook the best platform to launch your online community?
There are many positives to using Facebook as a free online community platform.
Firstly, all members will need a Facebook profile to join and probably already know how to use the platform.
You can create and connect your community to private or public groups, direct message or view your members and their profiles, and seamlessly post links to videos, URLs, images, events, or other resources.
Group updates are sent as a notification to members, and posts, comments, and other content are available only to group members.
Plus, you can easily manage group permissions and members.
Read more: How To Create And Grow A Facebook Group?
My Favorite Feature Of Facebook Groups
The best feature of using Facebook Groups as your online community platform is the fact that it’s so accessible.
Almost everyone already has a Facebook account, so you won’t run into people not knowing how to use it!
It’s also so easy to set up. You have the option to set up a Facebook Group from your personal Facebook account or your Facebook Business Page.
Plus, you can easily connect your Facebook Group to other applications within your tech stack like Buffer, ActiveCampaign, or Later.
What I Like:
- It’s completely free to get started.
- Members likely already know how to use the platform and must already have an account.
- Perfect for communities after real-time regular updates and a forum to ask and receive questions.
- The Facebook mobile app is responsive and quick.
What I Dislike:
- Moderating your group can be time-consuming (especially if you make your Facebook Group public and get a lot of spam comments).
- The algorithms within Facebook can sometimes result in your posts getting lost on your members’ feeds, meaning your posts may not reach everyone.
- There’s little you can do in terms of customization within your group.
- Monetizing your brand is much more difficult.
Stews Final Thoughts
And that wraps up this best online community platforms comparison article!
As you can see, there are many online platforms that you can use to build and foster your audience and grow your brand.
These are just some of the best choices out there!
No matter which you choose, you should think about the following:
- What type of content do you want to share?
- Your budget.
- The long-term goal of your business – do you want to monetize your skillset or just share your knowledge and interact with your audience?
- Your existing tech stack and which tools you might like to integrate with.
I recommend testing some of the above platforms (most have free trials or free plans) to see which you prefer for your business and brand.
And when you do, let me know how you get on!
Frequently Asked Questions
What Is The Largest Online Community?
The biggest online community by far is Reddit, which is an online space where people can unite over common interests.
Reddit has over 55 million daily users!
What Is An Online Community Platform?
A community platform is a safe place where people with shared interests, goals, or commonalities meet, connect, and build relationships.
How Do You Create An Online Community?
- Think about your niche and define your goals.
- Choose from one of the above best online community platforms that best aligns with your brand.
- Build a profile and guidelines.
- Add members!
