Switching
Switch without your community paying for it
Honest about import
The move in four steps
- 1Start in parallelCreate your Pukalani community for free – your old platform keeps running untouched. No risk, no deadline.
- 2Pick your productsSwitch on what you actually use. Many people notice here: nobody ever opened half of the old features.
- 3Bring the core contentImportant posts, pages and dates come along – guided, not guesswork. Old discussions can be archived on purpose instead of dragged along.
- 4Invite membersSend the invitation, log in with a code – no password required. Then you cancel over there when it feels right.
What you gain
- A predictable price with no transaction fee on your revenue
- Data in Germany, no ad tracking
- Your domain, your design – your community is named after you
- No lock-in: account export, community export and deletion are built in, not sold to you
An honest comparison
Compared honestly. Including where we're (not yet) the answer.
We only compare what we can back up — with sources and a date. Where we're weaker, it says so right here.
| Criterion | Pukalani | Circle | Skool | Mighty Networks |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Entry price per month | from €29 | $89 (Professional) | $9 (Hobby) | $79 (Launch) |
| Transaction fee | none | 2% | 10% (Hobby) · 2.9% (Pro) | 2% |
| Hosting / company base | Germany | USA | USA | USA |
| Courses with lessons and progress | yes (from Pro) | yes | yes | yes |
| Products can be switched off individually | yes | suite | suite | suite |
| Products embeddable in your own website | yes (comments, events) | n/a | n/a | n/a |
| Native mobile apps with push | no | yes | yes | yes |
“n/a” means: we couldn't verify it properly — so we don't claim anything. Spot a mistake? Tell us and we'll fix it.
Sources:CircleSkoolMighty Networks
Do the math
What a percentage fee actually costs
Almost every platform in this field takes a cut of what your members pay. That cut grows with your community; a fixed price does not. Set the sliders to your numbers.
That's €6,000 a month – €72,000 a year.
| Provider | Plan | Base price | Fee rate | Fee per month | Fee per year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pukalani | Pro | €149 | 0% | €0 | €0 |
| Circle | Professional | 89 $ | 2% | €120 | €1,440 |
| Mighty Networks | Launch | 95 $ | 2% | €120 | €1,440 |
| Skool | Pro | 99 $ | 2.9% | €174 | €2,088 |
| Heartbeat | Build | 49 $ | 5% | €300 | €3,600 |
| coapp | Starter | 19 € | 15% | €900 | €10,800 |
With us this column stays at zero no matter how big you get: Pro costs a flat €149 a month.
You pay the base price on top everywhere – which is why it sits in its own column and is not added in. Adding it up would be dishonest: the others quote dollars and pre-tax, we quote euros as a final price including 19 % VAT.
Payment fees are everyone's – the payment provider takes its share regardless of the platform. With Circle and Mighty Networks the platform fee comes on top of Stripe; with Skool processing is included, because Skool is merchant of record and files EU VAT itself. We aren't in your payment flow at all: you collect member contributions wherever you do today – we take nothing from it.
Added together – platform fee plus payment processing – 8 to 14 per cent of community revenue goes away at 500 paying members, depending on the provider.
Sources:CircleMighty NetworksSkoolHeartbeatcoappwbcomdesigns