Circle is a fine community platform, and the community is where its product ends. ColibriOS gives you the community feed, member-only spaces, courses, live events and memberships that renew themselves, on your own domain, with no percentage taken from anything you sell, and then keeps going: booking from your calendar, email to your whole list without an add-on, and income that books itself.
Circle (circle.so) is a community platform where creators run discussions, courses, events, live streams and paid memberships inside one branded space, with a percentage fee on every sale.
| Feature | ColibriOS | Circle |
|---|---|---|
| 1:1 booking and scheduling | Yes. Booking with intake forms, waivers and payments | No. 1:1 booking or scheduling is not listed |
| Group sessions, workshops and events | Yes. Group sessions, workshops, retreats and events with ticketing and check-in | Partly. Events with RSVPs, recurring series and paid tickets inside the community; in-person ticketing with door check-in is not listed |
| Capacity and waitlists | Yes. Capacity, automatic waitlists and door check-in | Partly. RSVP limits per event, per their knowledge base; a waitlist is not described |
| Memberships and class packs | Yes. Recurring memberships, class packs and member pricing | Yes. Paid memberships and member subscriptions on every plan |
| Online courses | Yes. Courses with enrollment, student payments and portals | Yes. Courses on every plan |
| Website on your own domain | Yes. Editable website on your own custom domain | Partly. A website builder and a custom domain for the community; a general business website with its own pages is not the product |
| CRM and email marketing | Yes. Full CRM, email campaigns, funnels and texting | Partly. Member profiles, a weekly community digest and branded notifications; email broadcasts and marketing workflows are the separate Email Hub add-on from $99 a month for 10,000 contacts |
| Bookkeeping, organized by Schedule C category | Yes. Income tracked as it happens, expenses sorted into Schedule C categories, year-end report | No. Not listed on their pricing page |
| Bank connection, transactions imported | Yes. Live bank feed through Plaid, or import statements | No. A bank feed or bank import is not listed |
| Receipt capture, read into an expense | Yes. Snap or upload a receipt and Colibri reads the vendor, date and total | No. No expense or receipt features are listed; pricing covers community, courses, events and payments |
| Profit per event, class or offer | Yes. Profit by gathering and by offer: paid invoices in, expenses, staff fees and mileage out | No. Reporting and analytics are listed for the community; profit with expenses against an event is not |
| Personal finances alongside the business | Yes. A personal set of books only the owner can open: budgets, net worth, subscriptions and goals | No. No expense or personal finance features are listed; the product is a community platform |
| Published pricing | Yes. Free plan, then ColibriOS Pro at $129 a month, on the pricing page | Yes. Professional and Business are priced on the page; Circle Plus is custom |
| Contract required | No. Month to month | No. Monthly billing, with a 30-day money-back guarantee |
| Cancel yourself, online | Yes. Settings, then Billing | Yes. End your subscription from the billing page, per their knowledge base |
| Badges, points and a leaderboard for members | Yes. Journey: badges, points and levels members earn for showing up, with a reward per badge and an opt-in leaderboard | Yes. Gamification is listed as a core feature on Professional and Business, not on the Free or Basic plans |
Circle details checked October 2026 on Circle's own pages. Their plans change; if you see something out of date, tell us at hello@colibrios.com. Everything in the ColibriOS column is part of ColibriOS Pro.
Colibri helps you organize your income and expenses. It is not a tax preparer, accountant, or a substitute for professional tax advice.
Published on the pricing page. Free until Cyber Monday, November 30, no card. Month to month, cancel yourself in Settings.
Three published plans at $89, $199 and $419 a month, billed annually, plus a custom-priced Circle Plus tier; a transaction fee of 2%, 1%, 1% or 0.5% by plan on top of payment processing; unlimited members on every plan; a 14-day free trial with no card; and no free plan. Email broadcasts are the Email Hub add-on at $99 a month for 10,000 contacts, charged on top of the plan.
Source: Circle's pricing page, checked October 2026A comparison that says we win every row is not one you should trust. Here is where Circle genuinely does more.
Discussions, spaces, gamification, activity scores and rich member profiles; Circle is one of the best-regarded places on the internet to host a large, active community. ColibriOS community is a feed, channels and member-only spaces built for a practice, not a network of thousands.
Source, checked October 2026Live streams to 100 attendees with 10 monthly hours on Professional, with higher limits on larger plans, hosted inside the community. ColibriOS attaches a Zoom, Meet or other video link to a session or event; it does not host the stream.
Source, checked October 2026Business adds workflows and APIs; Scale adds AI agents, webhooks and custom SSO; Circle Plus adds custom branded mobile apps. ColibriOS has none of these, and its member portal is the web.
Source, checked October 2026ColibriOS Pro includes a community: one shared feed, member profiles, announcements that land in members' inboxes, sign-in by email link with no password, topic channels, spaces locked to paying members or to the students of a course, and a weekly digest of what people missed. Recurring memberships, class packs and member pricing renew themselves, and payment runs through your own Stripe at the processor's rate. Circle lists a 2%, 1% or 0.5% transaction fee by plan on top of processing; ColibriOS adds nothing per sale.
Circle publishes three plans, all priced on annual billing: Professional at $89 a month with a 2% fee on every sale, Business at $199 with 1%, and Scale at $419 with 1%. Circle Plus is custom priced at 0.5%. Every plan has a 14-day free trial and there is no free plan. Email broadcasts are the Email Hub add-on at $99 a month for 10,000 contacts, on top of the plan. On Professional, $3,000 a month in memberships pays $60 in fees, so the month runs about $89 plus $60 plus $99 with email, before booking or bookkeeping. ColibriOS Pro is $129 a month flat, with email, booking and the books included and nothing taken per sale.
On Circle, email broadcasts and marketing workflows are the Email Hub add-on, from $99 a month for 10,000 contacts, on top of the plan. In ColibriOS, newsletters, campaigns, funnels and automated sequences are part of ColibriOS Pro, sent from your own domain to a list with no cap, with opens and clicks reported, and a CRM underneath where a member, a client and an attendee are one record.
Circle events take RSVPs, run in series and can charge for a ticket, and they live inside the community. A retreat or workshop in ColibriOS is a real room: capacity with an automatic waitlist, deposits with the balance due on arrival, intake forms and waivers answered at registration, rooming lists, door check-in, and a portal for attendees. The livestream itself is the one thing to bring: attach a Zoom, Meet or YouTube link, because ColibriOS does not host video and Circle does.
Discovery calls and 1:1 sessions book from your real availability. Courses sell with student portals, quizzes, drip release by enrollment clock or calendar date, and certificates. Your website is an editable site on your own domain, not a community page with a landing page bolted on.
Every membership renewal, course sale and ticket is income the day it lands. Connect your bank and expenses arrive categorized, receipts are read for you, and profit per gathering is a page you open. Circle's pricing covers community, courses, events and payments; bookkeeping is not listed. Colibri helps you organize your income and expenses. It is not a tax preparer, accountant, or a substitute for professional tax advice.
If the community itself is the business, a large network with live streams, gamification, activity scores and thousands of members talking to each other, Circle is excellent at exactly that, hosts the video natively, and offers APIs, automation workflows and branded apps at the top end. ColibriOS community is built for a practice: the people who book you, study with you and gather with you, in one place with everything else the practice runs on.
Colibri helps you organize your income and expenses. It is not a tax preparer, accountant, or a substitute for professional tax advice.
No, on any plan. Payment runs through your own Stripe at the processor's standard rate and ColibriOS adds nothing on top. Circle lists a 2% transaction fee on Professional, 1% on Business and Scale, and 0.5% on Circle Plus.
Circle Professional is $89 a month billed annually and ColibriOS Pro is $129, so Circle is cheaper on the sticker. The gap turns the other way once you count what each covers. On $3,000 a month of memberships, Circle's 2% takes another $60; email broadcasts are their Email Hub add-on from $99 a month; and booking, a business website and bookkeeping are not in the product at any price. Compare the whole stack, not the sticker.
ColibriOS Pro, at $129 a month, includes the community feed, courses, your website, booking, CRM, email and the books, plus recurring memberships, member-only spaces, topic channels, the weekly digest, and events with capacity, waitlists and deposits.
Not natively, and this is Circle's honest win. Circle hosts live streams and live rooms inside the community on every plan. A ColibriOS event or session carries a Zoom, Meet or YouTube link instead; members join from the event page or portal.
No native app. Members use a web portal that works in any phone browser, signing in with an email link. Circle Plus includes custom branded mobile apps; if an app icon on the home screen matters to your members, that is a point for Circle.
Yes. Courses sell with student portals and payment plans, events sell tickets with deposits and member pricing, and class packs and bundles exist alongside subscriptions. Every sale lands in the books with the person attached.
Export your member list as a CSV and import it with tags and consent; members sign in to the new community by email link, no passwords to reset. Rebuild membership tiers, upload course lessons, connect your Stripe, and point your domain when the site is ready. Announce the move inside Circle with a date, and run both for a few weeks.
For income and expense tracking, yes: sales land as income, bank transactions are sorted into Schedule C categories, mileage is logged, and the year-end report goes to whoever prepares your taxes. If you need a general ledger, a balance sheet, bills or payroll, keep QuickBooks. Colibri helps you organize your income and expenses. It is not a tax preparer, accountant, or a substitute for professional tax advice.
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