When Skool is the better choice
You like the gamified, highly guided approach, want zero setup worries, and it's fine that your community looks like Skool. Then Skool is fast and coherent.
Pukalani vs Skool
Community and courses under your brand — without a cut of your revenue.
Skool is deliberately simple and strong on gamification. Entry is cheap, but on the Hobby plan it costs you 10% of your revenue. Pukalani takes no transaction fee, hosts in Germany, and lets you decide on design, domain and products yourself.
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?
At Skool your own address is part of the pricier plan: Hobby at $9 and Pro at $99 differ mainly in the fee rate and exactly that address. Changing the address later costs $100.
skool.com/pricing and help.skool.com
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
Your community should look and be named like YOU, your revenue stays fully yours, and privacy isn't just a checkbox. Plus you want to embed comments or events into your existing website.
Start your community – free
No risk, no minimum term, data export included.