Great breakdown and review for each. I tried skool out and it was just too simple for me. This video hit it out of the park for me and I'm all in on circle now. Thank you!
Epic overview !! Thank you Josh!! I was leaning towards Circle, but I still couldn't make a solid final decision between it and Skool! I've been so indecisive and you just sold me on Circle!
I like Skool for his simplicity, I think it's could be more convenient for some clients... But, Circle is closest to my needs. Thanks for your sharing! 🙏🏾
But some of these features, like custom profile fields, only come with the business plan ($219/month). It's not so cool that you don't mention which features come with which plan...
Is there a way to charge for certain courses or if you’re a member you get access in circle? Also with circle is there a way for someone to not be a member (yet) but just get a direct link and access to purchase a course? Thank you for your time! This video was so helpful!!
@BrianaNoyes yeah you can make certain courses linked to a certain paywall or one-off lifetime purchases. And yeah you can make a course sales page visible so someone can sign up via that link. It's basic right now but does the job.
For Native Payment options, I don't believe Skool has multiple tiers. Many users pay for multiple groups because of that. I would like to know more about paywalls in Circle. In what ways can you separate people who pay different monthly fees?
Excellent comparison Josh. The one thing holding me back is the professional plan gives us 20 spaces. One course = 1 circle as with each Forum topic hence that would soon be eaten up - making it very expensive!
Thanks Andy. As long as you're generating recurring or one time revenue from a course or community, I've found it actually to be less expense than having to piece a bunch of other subscriptions together. And the saving of time (and financial resources) to do or hire development help is a massive savings in itself. For years I never trusted any all-in-one solutions but I've been with Circle since 2020 and I've never looked back. All that to say, it may "seem" expensive but when you factor in all the add-ons and extra expenses and mental and emotional toll of piecing tools together...it's so worth it!
@@JoshHallco Hi Josh - I do agree with what you're saying and plan to create my own Circle account later. I was hoping to host all my courses (15 at the moment) but with one course taking 1 circle I may stay with my own website and LearnDash! I will limit and think about the most important courses Circle could host for me! Appreciate your reply.
@@JoshHallco Hi - this is my confusion! If I get the 'Professional Plan' that's only 10 spaces! If a course, forum, etc is 1 space each then it doesn't leave much especially as I already have 15 courses. Please correct me but 1 course = 1 space?
Can you bundle forums into groups? For example, I teach programming. So, I want to have several forums on the different aspects of Python and several forums on aspects of C++. So, I want to have a Python group of forums and a C++ group of forums. Can you do that with Circle?
I think you missed an important difference. With Circle, since you use your own Stripe account, the customer is your customer on your Stripe. With Skool, your customer is actually their customer.
@adampreiser that's a great point and important distinction. As you know, this video could've been 2hrs long as I could go really deep but I'm sure more and more important differences will be noted here in the comments. Maybe I'll eventually do a followup video or post for those who want to go even deeper... Appreciate you mentioning that one though as it is an important one for the long term.
Yes. But on circle, you have to manage taxes, vat and invoices. With skool they take care o everything. You only have 4 monthly invoices, not 1000. Plus you get your clients emails si you still own them in that regard.
If you wanted to move customers' payment processor, that wouldn't be possible with Skool though, right? For example, my OG members were originally on Woo Subscriptions. We just migrated them over from Woo to Stripe without them having to all re-sign up with a new processor. Doesn't sound like you can do that with Skool if you don't have direct access to their payment processing. Rare situation but nice to be able to do it when the time comes for any reason.
@@AdrianCiupleaif you’re in the EU you need to do extra steps to make it compliant and no matter how many posts I read, it’s still not clear. The number of invoices is the same, you always need to issue one when someone buys from you in all instances. Whether that’s done through the Stripe setup or Skool that’s still valid.
@@lexyh-p8r that is not correct. Skool is a Merchant of Record. A merchant of record (MoR) is a legal entity responsible for selling goods or services to an end customer. SKOOL is responsible for invoices. They handle all payments and take on the associated liabilities, such as collecting sales tax, ensuring Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliance, and honoring refunds and chargebacks So Skool acts as a middleman between me and my clients. Skool handles VAT/sales tax compliance for you. You don’t need to register for VAT or do anything. All VAT/sales tax liability is on Skool, not you. Payouts from Skool to you are VAT/sales tax exempt because Skool is a US company. When a customer is in the EU, Skool will automatically add VAT to the purchase price, capture it, and remit it to the government. Does that makes sense?
Fair thought - but I can't compare a robust, premium Skool plan to what I have with Circle because they don't even have that option. This is more about showing how far you can go with Circle if you want to. It truly does grow with you, your revenue and your needs.
With Basic, you don't even get courses -- none at all!!! And if you want to email your members, even Professional won't let you do that until you pay another $49/month.
![[REPLAY] Live AMA with Josh (November 2024)](/img/n.gif)
Great breakdown and review for each. I tried skool out and it was just too simple for me. This video hit it out of the park for me and I'm all in on circle now. Thank you!
Heck yeah @danielsun444 pumped to hear it and glad it helped!
Circle is so great!! I am signing up with them. Thank you for the awesome video
Mind. Blown. 🤯
Epic overview !! Thank you Josh!! I was leaning towards Circle, but I still couldn't make a solid final decision between it and Skool! I've been so indecisive and you just sold me on Circle!
@shereethomson6776 aw great to hear! Glad it helped. See you on the Circle side!
This was super helpful thank you!
I like Skool for his simplicity, I think it's could be more convenient for some clients... But, Circle is closest to my needs. Thanks for your sharing! 🙏🏾
That's well said!
In Circle, can you have a roadmap with your courses (e.g. a mini-program)?
But some of these features, like custom profile fields, only come with the business plan ($219/month). It's not so cool that you don't mention which features come with which plan...
Great video bro
Is there a way to charge for certain courses or if you’re a member you get access in circle?
Also with circle is there a way for someone to not be a member (yet) but just get a direct link and access to purchase a course?
Thank you for your time! This video was so helpful!!
@BrianaNoyes yeah you can make certain courses linked to a certain paywall or one-off lifetime purchases.
And yeah you can make a course sales page visible so someone can sign up via that link. It's basic right now but does the job.
For Native Payment options, I don't believe Skool has multiple tiers. Many users pay for multiple groups because of that. I would like to know more about paywalls in Circle. In what ways can you separate people who pay different monthly fees?
For teaching programming, even Udemy has an IDE and auto-graded coding assignments. Circle doesn't.
Can you make custom profile fields required?
Can you have nested modules in a course in Circle?
Excellent comparison Josh. The one thing holding me back is the professional plan gives us 20 spaces. One course = 1 circle as with each Forum topic hence that would soon be eaten up - making it very expensive!
Thanks Andy. As long as you're generating recurring or one time revenue from a course or community, I've found it actually to be less expense than having to piece a bunch of other subscriptions together. And the saving of time (and financial resources) to do or hire development help is a massive savings in itself. For years I never trusted any all-in-one solutions but I've been with Circle since 2020 and I've never looked back.
All that to say, it may "seem" expensive but when you factor in all the add-ons and extra expenses and mental and emotional toll of piecing tools together...it's so worth it!
@@JoshHallco Hi Josh - I do agree with what you're saying and plan to create my own Circle account later. I was hoping to host all my courses (15 at the moment) but with one course taking 1 circle I may stay with my own website and LearnDash! I will limit and think about the most important courses Circle could host for me! Appreciate your reply.
You can do unlimited courses in Circle so don't let that hold ya back!
@@JoshHallco Hi - this is my confusion! If I get the 'Professional Plan' that's only 10 spaces! If a course, forum, etc is 1 space each then it doesn't leave much especially as I already have 15 courses. Please correct me but 1 course = 1 space?
You can actually add courses without them being a dedicated space. Circle just gives you the option to add them as spaces if you want to!
For Native Video Hosting, I see you have a limit of 150 hours. Is that what you get by default or you pay for these?
Can you bundle forums into groups? For example, I teach programming. So, I want to have several forums on the different aspects of Python and several forums on aspects of C++. So, I want to have a Python group of forums and a C++ group of forums. Can you do that with Circle?
Yes, the spaces are very flexible and you can group them together and give rights to see/interact free/paid in any bundle you like.
Skool does not seem to be committed to publishing a roadmap...
I think you missed an important difference. With Circle, since you use your own Stripe account, the customer is your customer on your Stripe. With Skool, your customer is actually their customer.
@adampreiser that's a great point and important distinction. As you know, this video could've been 2hrs long as I could go really deep but I'm sure more and more important differences will be noted here in the comments. Maybe I'll eventually do a followup video or post for those who want to go even deeper...
Appreciate you mentioning that one though as it is an important one for the long term.
Yes. But on circle, you have to manage taxes, vat and invoices.
With skool they take care o everything. You only have 4 monthly invoices, not 1000.
Plus you get your clients emails si you still own them in that regard.
If you wanted to move customers' payment processor, that wouldn't be possible with Skool though, right?
For example, my OG members were originally on Woo Subscriptions. We just migrated them over from Woo to Stripe without them having to all re-sign up with a new processor. Doesn't sound like you can do that with Skool if you don't have direct access to their payment processing.
Rare situation but nice to be able to do it when the time comes for any reason.
@@AdrianCiupleaif you’re in the EU you need to do extra steps to make it compliant and no matter how many posts I read, it’s still not clear. The number of invoices is the same, you always need to issue one when someone buys from you in all instances. Whether that’s done through the Stripe setup or Skool that’s still valid.
@@lexyh-p8r that is not correct.
Skool is a Merchant of Record.
A merchant of record (MoR) is a legal entity responsible for selling goods or services to an end customer.
SKOOL is responsible for invoices.
They handle all payments and take on the associated liabilities, such as collecting sales tax, ensuring Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliance, and honoring refunds and chargebacks
So Skool acts as a middleman between me and my clients.
Skool handles VAT/sales tax compliance for you. You don’t need to register for VAT or do anything.
All VAT/sales tax liability is on Skool, not you. Payouts from Skool to you are VAT/sales tax exempt because Skool is a US company. When a customer is in the EU, Skool will automatically add VAT to the purchase price, capture it, and remit it to the government.
Does that makes sense?
When you put the slash, I suddenly began to suspect Circle is somehow based on Notion...
Stripe does not operate in my country (Israel), so Circle is off the map for me?
Do you know about the sound quality for circle for singing and instruments?
That would have to do with your audio mic, mixer and setup quality.
@@JoshHallco I’ll have to test it sounds like
You are comparing a $399/month product with a $99/month one and this is a very unfair comparison.
Fair thought - but I can't compare a robust, premium Skool plan to what I have with Circle because they don't even have that option. This is more about showing how far you can go with Circle if you want to. It truly does grow with you, your revenue and your needs.
With Basic, you don't even get courses -- none at all!!! And if you want to email your members, even Professional won't let you do that until you pay another $49/month.
Marketing hub is free for 100 contacts, after that it starts at 39$ per month if you want to use it.
Wow, that's a lot, mate. Thanks for the heads up.
skool is so behind , and the platform is trash, no options
But I'll have to thank Hormozi for convincing me to tryout starting my own community
@edgarlangwald2932 absolutely! I'm a fan of Hormozi, I just prefer Circle over Skool in most every use case.