When Mighty Networks is the better choice
You need native mobile apps with push and the full breadth of an established suite, including big reach features. Mighty delivers more there.
Pukalani vs Mighty Networks
Modular instead of a suite — your community, your design, your data in Germany.
Mighty Networks brings community, courses and events together, mobile apps included. That's strong if you want the full breadth. Pukalani is the lean counter-proposal: only the products you need, hosted in Germany, no transaction fee – and individual products are embeddable in your own website.
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
You want native iOS/Android apps with push, or a community with 50,000 members and enterprise SSO? Then the big suites are (still) the better choice. For everyone who wants to start lean, fair and privacy-close, we're the right way.
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
Whose look is it?
The branding capabilities are very subpar… I wish there were more flexibility with what you could do to design the landing pages.
Elsewhere, removing the platform's branding is a plan feature: at Circle only on the $199 plan, at Bettermode only from Growth at $1,500.
There is no "Powered by Pukalani" on your community and no foreign logo – on no plan, because there is nothing to switch off. The theme catalogue, your own fonts and your base colour are included from the first plan; a custom domain from Pro.
Quotes in the original, collected on 10 August 2026.
When Pukalani fits
You want to start lean, pay predictably, host in Germany and decide yourself which products are even visible – without ballast you never open.
Start your community – free
No risk, no minimum term, data export included.