You may have already built a good number of followers on Twitter using Twitter tools, or have built a large network on LinkedIn using LinkedIn tools, you are also increasing your email list using email marketing tools.
But you can grow your business faster if you can bring those like-minded people within the same place, which is your community platform.
Do you want to build a successful online community? This article will help you find the best platform for it.
We’ve picked the best options out there, from small communities to big businesses. These online community platforms will give you everything you need to make your community active and engaged.
You’re about to learn the key to making a great online community. Let’s get started!
Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links. This means if you click on one of the links and purchase anything I may receive some affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. Thanks in advance for your support.
Top 5 Online Community Platforms
Heartbeat.chat
Heartbeat is a beautiful online community platform to host conversations, events, content, etc with your custom domain. It is available for both desktop and mobile.
Heartbeat chat Review
Heartbeat is a great alternative to slack or discord. If your existing community is on slack or discord, you can import it to Heartbeat.
It is easy to create engaging conversations with threads and chats, you can host your content and recordings in heartbeat.
You can create events and send invites without using any other event platforms. It can also replace other online course platforms as you can create your cohort-based course using heartbeat chat & accept payments in different modes.
With a single click, you can jump into voice and video rooms and automate the match-up process for your members.
Integrations with Notion, Stripe, Zoom, Salesforce, Zapier, and Google calendar is available, if you want to build custom flows then you can use Heartbeat API. There are several other useful features that come with Heartbeat to scale your community.
Heartbeat chat Pricing
The Starter plan costs $29/month with just 1000 members, so if you are just starting out you can go with this plan.
To get unlimited members the Growth plan costs $99/month and business or enterprises can contact them to know the pricing of custom plans that comes with enterprise tools & full API access.
You will get 20% discount on your first three month if you purchase a paid plan by clicking the button below.
Passion.io
Passion io is a very useful no-code app builder and online course platform but you can also use it as your online community platform.
You can segment your audience by asking them about their needs and goals, answering their FAQs, send them push notifications.
You can create group-based challenges for your community to create engagement and use your own passion io app as a mobile sales funnel.
Connect with them in real time with live streaming, and use drip content to make them ready to buy from you, and upsell later on.
This is one of the best online community platforms for coaches to monetize their expertise with an easy-to-use platform.
If you want more details and pricing of this community platform then read the Passion io review.
Circle.so
Circle is one of the best online community platforms for brands and creators. You can use Circle so for membership, courses, live streaming, events, etc.
Circle so Review of Features
Circle so is an all-in-one online community management platform that gives you all the necessary features to create, engage, monetize, and manage your audience.
With the Circle community platform, you can create your own branded course, content, and resources. Create private spaces for your members and help them to share their ideas, host discussions, and get feedback from them.
To increase engagement rate you can offer them exclusive masterclasses, provide them group coaching, run live Q&As, and create cohort-based communities.
You can also send direct messages to your audience, go live with them and create a directory for the members to find each other easily.
You can offer flexible subscriptions or charge a one-time payment to earn from your community, you can also create up-sell or do cross-sell to potential customers.
You can use Single sign-on, get analytics and use thousands of integrations with Circle so community. Grow your own online community quickly by getting access to 8500+ community builders.
Circle so Pricing
With core features included the basic plan costs $49/month and is useful enough to start your community.
You will get more usage limits and access to key features with the Professional plan of $99/month.
The most powerful Enterprise plan costs $399/month which is required for brands with large communities.
You can save more by choosing to pay annually and each plan comes with a 14-day free trial.
Searchie.io
Searchie is an online membership site platform as well as an online course platform for content creators.
Searchie io Review of Features
Searchie is a platform to create & sell your digital courses with just a few clicks, you can repurpose your existing content and turn it into a course.
You can run a coaching business by providing premium coaching to your clients. You can turn your video content into a private podcast with Searchie and use it as a podcasting tool.
But here we are talking about an online community management platform, Searchie is more of a membership site rather than a simple community platform.
You can use audience segmentations and tags for your members and provide them with a tailored content experience.
It is very easy to use, you can add your content with a few clicks, it has integration with Canva, you can customize it quickly, and membership site templates are available.
It has features like auto-generated transcription, captions, get analytics of audience retention, visitor metrics, etc. Integrate it with WooCommerce, Shopify, Clickfunnels, or Thrivecart & collect payment using Stripe.
Searchie Pricing
The basic plan starts at $29/month with 1 hub and 5 hours of upload per month. The Pro plan costs $99/month with 3 hubs and 15 hours of upload per month.
You will get unlimited features with webhook, advanced tracking, and custom CSS with the Business plan that costs $199/month but you can save by choosing annual plans.
Uuki.live
Uuki is another top online community platform that helps you to create meaningful relationships with your audience.
Uuki Review of Features
Uuki community platform is useful for web3 creators also.
Your audience can interact with each other on your community page.
You can send your audience updates, create event pages and invite them & collect payments.
You can set up a one-time payment or subscription and sell your courses, coaching, or NFTs.
Uuki is a platform to create any type of community, like a product community, membership community, the education community, NFT community, brand community, etc.
Uuki Pricing
Each plan of Uuki gives you unlimited members, the starter plan costs $19/month with all core features. If you want custom SSO, webhooks, API access, or CSS customization then their Pro plan comes at $79/month and the advanced plan costs $259/month with a dedicated account manager, priority support, and other extra features.
More Community Management Platforms
Pensil
Pensil is another mobile-friendly community engagement platform that is useful for coaches, mentors, start-ups, brands, and for anyone who wants to run cohort-based courses.
Pensil Review of Features
You can create different groups for all kinds of use cases and increase engagement & retention. This also works as a replacement for Slack or Discord.
Customize your community as per your branding, host live events & give your audience an immersive experience. You can also share or upload your recordings to other platforms like Facebook, Youtube, etc.
You can use custom pages, send newsletters to your community, use gamification to increase engagement, and use integration with other third-party tools.
Pensil Pricing
You can use Pensil as a free online community platform with 1 admin, 1 GB storage & 200 members with some other features.
The paid plan starts at $45/month with unlimited members and more useful features like live sessions, custom domain, payment gateway, etc.
The highest plan is the Grow plan which costs $85/month with access to all integration and SSO.
Scenes (Best Alternative to Discord)
Imagine having discord as your own branded online community platform. Buildonscenes is the best community platform if you are looking for an alternative to discord.
Buildonscenes Review of Features
Scenes is an all-in-one community platform to run webinars, cohort-based courses, newsletters, forums, blogs, chats, etc.
It gives your community members a great experience if they use the mobile app to use Scenes which makes it better than discord, of course, you can use its web version too.
You can use Scene’s forum section as an alternative to both Reddit & Quora and set your stage to run live events.
Share any kind of media with your community members and give them the experience to engage with each other on the 2-D Metaverse. You can sell digital assets like NFT to your community.
You can assign roles for your community members, reward the loyal ones, and silence, kick or ban those who are hindering the growth of your community.
You can also create your own community currency which can be used to buy digital assets of your community.
Both Slack nor Discord were not made for mobile, Scenes solves that problem, and also gives you more features. You can use it to run your remote office also.
Scenes Pricing
You can book a 30 Minute Demo before buying any plan. However, it is offering a lifetime deal for now but the deal will not last forever.
Beam.gg (Gamified Community Platform)
If you intend to engage your community members using gamification then Beam gg is the community platform you are looking for.
Beam gg Review of Features
It has a mobile-friendly design so that you can stay engaged from anywhere using any device. They have built-in gamification features that will help you to retain your audience and keep them engaged.
You can use custom reactions, introduce fun challenges with rewards, keep them inspired with level & ranks, provide them badges, and assign them specific roles.
Filter out unwanted content, see the list of moderation actions, and keep your community safe.
Beam also lets you create subforums, post categories, polls, hashtags, user mentions, pinned posts, etc.
Customize your community as you wish, give access to your team members, increase the visibility of your content with built-in SEO optimization features, track engagement and check the community level with detailed community analytics.
Beam gg Pricing
The basic plan of $19/month gives you unlimited members and unlimited storage with other basic features.
Use your custom domain with the Plus plan of $59/month and get other essential features.
Get professional features, Single-sign-on & custom gamification with the Premium plan of $149/month. You can save 30% by choosing the annual plans.
Orbit.love
Orbit is a community growth platform to grow & measure your community across any platform.
Orbit Review of Features
Orbit helps you to automate your tasks & workflows like content creation, sending personalized messages, welcoming new members, adding them to a list, tracking their activity, etc.
Share your work with others & collaborate with them to grow your community, use permission management to restrict access to work.
You can integrate Orbit using API & webhooks with all other popular platforms, monitor & capture the activities of your community members & analyze them to create your community impactful.
Orbit love Pricing
Orbit is a free community growth platform with unlimited members, 2 seats, & starter integrations.
The paid Growth plan costs $200/month with 5 seats & 3 workflows. If you need unlimited workflows then the premium plan costs $1000/month.
Kommunity
Kommunity is a platform where you can create your own community from scratch or import your existing one. You can organize events and create custom registration.
You will get real-time data on your community’s statistics, sell tickets for your events, make it engaging with gamification, and provide badges.
Broadcast your events, upload post events materials and create surveys and Q&As to communicate better.
Use the discussion section to get feedback from your audience and share announcements, you can create and manage your live stream from one platform. There are so many features to explore.
Kommunity Pricing
It is a free community management platform with unlimited members, 1 organizer, 10 GB storage, unlimited forms, and 5 spaces,
The paid plan starts at $19.99/month but you will not get the custom domain, payment gateway & membership feature.
To avail of all the features of Kommunity the Growth plan costs $49.99/month.
Meltingspot
Meltingspot is a unique community platform with several features to grow your business.
Meltingspot Review of Features
You can create a spot easily and invite members to join the spot, you can make it public or private.
You can start or schedule webinars, conferences, meetups, workshops, etc with live or pre-recorded video.
Organize all your content in one place, create public or private discussion groups, and segment your audience for personalization.
Using Meltingspot as an online community platform you can increase your sales quickly.
Meltingspot Pricing
Meltingspot offers a free forever plan with all features included for up to 20 active members.
The paid Engage plan with up to 100 active members costs $89/month and you have to pay $0.99 for additional active members.
Habitate.io
Habitate is a comprehensive community platform to turn your audience into a community.
Habitate Review of Features
You can use this modern community platform with your own custom domain and bring your audience into one place.
Create engagements with discussions, schedule meet-ups, and share files with other community members very easily.
You don’t need slack or discord as Habitate gives you a forum where your community members can discuss with each other.
The calendar features help you to manage all your events and track them, share and exchange files with their C drive feature.
Habitate Pricing
You can taste the flavor of this community platform with just 1 GB of storage for $9/month (billed annually)
But if you want all features then the Fruit basket plan starts at $599/month which is very costly.
Bettermode (Formerly Tribe.so)
Bettermode is a unified customer community platform that was previously known as Tribe.so.
Bettermode Review of Features
Bettermode gives you 10+ pre-made templates to fulfill your various needs, you will get templates for ideation, job board, discussion, product updates, etc.
You can create flexible spaces, customize using your brand’s color & typography, use a custom domain, authenticate members, assign tags, let them use the social sign-in, make your community private or public and host it in multiple languages.
Bettermode can be integrated with all popular apps, you can also drive engagement using embeddable widgets.
Visualize the growth trend of your community with analytics, see which spaces are active, and which posts are driving engagement, and also look at the reach and engagement.
Bettermode is convenient to use on both mobile and the web, if you are a developer then you can build custom apps on top of Bettermode platform.
There are so many features like moderation, security, notifications, audit logs, etc whatever is necessary to manage and run a community successfully.
Bettermode Pricing
Bettermode is a costly platform, it is not for individuals, it is for businesses to manage their community of customers, the Advanced plan costs $599/month with advanced apps, API & webhooks, and fully white label.
Mighty Networks
Mighty Networks is a platform to build community, provide membership, or build courses.
Mighty Networks Review of Features
It is another platform that works on both the web and mobile, you can create your own branded apps.
Create a network with your audience with different spaces like chat or feed community, create cohort-based or content-only courses, or run events or series of events.
You can live stream to your entire network or to a particular space whatever you want.
Provide your audience with rich content like articles, videos, media, etc. You can bundle your course and membership with a subscription package and monetize your network.
welcome your new members, provide them with easy-to-use navigation, allow them to self-select categories, and put a spotlight on your top members.
Automate your community platform with ActiveCampaign, Hubspot, or other email & CRM software.
Mighty Networks Pricing
Beginners can start with the community plan which costs $33/month, the business plan is for coaches and costs $99/month and brands can go with the path to pro plan which costs $249/month.
Some Other Tools For Community Platforms
Therado – It is a platform for community builders to automate their community workflows, personalized interactions, actionable insights, and superfast support. You can integrate it with other tools & grow your community.
Discourse – It is an open-source platform for discussion & connections. It is customizable and comes with powerful moderation tools to build your community.
Commsor – It is a full-stack community platform with software, strategic services & community. Its main products are CommsorOS & Meetsy.
Disciplemedia – Build your own community or membership platform, sell courses, manage your members, monetize with subscriptions, etc.
Hawker.social – It is a community creator platform to create, manage, collaborate, interact & monetize your community.
PeerBoard – It is a plug & plays community platform that is safe, engaging, measurable, encouraging & integrated.
Momoboard – This is a community app with a powerful message board, chat & cloud storage in one place.
Buddyboss – It is a course & community platform for WordPress with all the necessary features to build & grow and monetize a community.
Convosight – If you have your community on Facebook, Whatsapp, or Reddit then Convosight helps you to manage & monetize your community on social media.
Daply – It is a web3 community platform with simple infrastructure, and digital identity features like rewards, badges & gamification. It is easy to share your content with Daply.
My Recommendation
You can pick your own from these online community platforms according to your requirements. I think Heartbeat is a great platform and Searchie is another one that gives you everything to create, manage & sell your content in one place.
But if you intend to sell courses or coaching using your community then Passion io is the best platform for that.
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