Your #1 Slack alternative

Circle is where real connections happen and meaningful communities shine

Slack’s never-ending chat leaves no room for people to breathe and get to know each other. Circle helps you build inspiring spaces where members feel part of the community.

Slack alternative

10,000+

Brands use Circle to power their online communities

2M+

Members across Circle communities

Slack is for work

Slack is for work

The frantic pace, the constant notifications, the urgency to reply in real-time… Slack is great at improving teams’ productivity but it can get suffocating.

Users say Slack adds to their stress

Sometimes there is a lot going on and things can get a little crazy!

Verified Slack

review on G2

The sense of fatigue and overwhelm is real, man.

Verified Slack

review on G2

It can make my phone go crazy after hours because of automated notifications from other systems

Verified Slack

review on G2

Your read count can get to stressful levels.

Verified Slack

review on G2

Different communities are in the same interface, and all the different kind of content is in the same place, and it’s arriving constantly…

Verified Slack

review on G2

Slack contributes to the stress people feel from the «always-on nature»

Verified Slack

review on G2

Build a community you’re proud of, where your people bond without fake news, drama, or distractions

Everything has a place in Circle

Everything has a place in Circle

Slack is a disjointed collection of channels. People have a hard time understanding what each channel is for and important team conversations are often lost.

Circle lets you organize your community in spaces — similar to Slack — but once you’re in a space, it’s really easy to follow the topic and tone for each one.

Everything has a place in Circle

People join your community to participate, not broadcast

The chat-like nature of Slack attracts self-promoters and one-liners. Interesting ideas get buried fast and serious topics can’t be discussed in depth.

Circle gives conversations room to develop. You can pin posts, pause feeds and use other features to bring people’s attention to important topics.

Circle opens your community to all

Circle opens your community to all

Non-techy people have a tough time with Slack. If they’re not using it at work, chances are they won’t use it in their personal life.

With Circle, there’s no app to download or install. People browse to your community and start engaging with you and each other, making everyone feel at home.

“Our members are so impressed. It’s intuitive. It’s clean. It’s distraction free. I’m so glad we made this decision.”

Cam Houser

Cam Houser

Instructor at Minimal Viable Video

Go from workspace to a stress-free space for you and your people

Slack adds to the stress

With its work-related vibe and the constant notifications to get to, Slack can get too overwhelming, too fast.

Circle is your feel-good place

You set the tone for your community. Build a place where members have valuable conversations without feeling like work.

Chat dumbs down conversations

Slack’s real-time chat nature lowers the barrier to communicate. When messaging is easy, people tend to lean towards “fast” instead of “thoughtful”.

Ideas bloom in Circle

Go deep with your content. Post long-form articles, walkthrough videos or live stream with experts. Help your ideas grow without the limitations of group chat.

Slack is hard to moderate

People roam free in Slack. Moderation means installing 3rd party apps and still combing through hundreds — or thousands — of chats a day.

Circle plays by your rules

Circle is built for community builders and moderation is a big part of it. With Circle, you set the rules and get to enforce them.

Slack is restricted to chat

With team chat, if you’re not “on” when something happens, you’ve already missed it. Some topics need room to breathe and other ways to engage with people.

Engage how you want, with Circle

Posts, comments, videos, courses, polls, live streams and more. Circle lets you discuss topics in different ways to maximize engagement.

Slack looks like Slack

Every Slack room looks like any other Slack room. Yours won’t look any different other than a small logo on top.

Circle matches your brand

Make your community look however you want. Set up a fully branded look on your custom domain.

Slack won’t do monetization

Need people to pay for content or memberships? You’re forced to use a different tool and disrupt what they’re doing.

Circle makes payments easy

Accept payments for memberships, one-time access to content or recurring subscriptions. Everything happens inside Circle for increased conversions.

Slack stays in the background

It’s easy to forget Slack is running in the background, risking your community to become one of those “always open, never visited” tabs.

Circle gives your people focus

Circle helps members immerse themselves in the experience. The brand, the familiar faces, the content… People get hooked and engage with purpose.

You need extra apps to run on Slack

Slack is pretty bare-bones. Want to add features or automate your workflow? You need to install 3rd party apps and — usually — pay for them as add-ons.

Circle is truly all-in-one

Everything community builders need to create, engage and monetize their audience is already built-in your Circle plan.

Circle brings a technical way to centralize and service a community. It’s offering growth by way of shrinking! A consolidation of tech & location in exchange for the potential of better connection and servability.
Melissa Tal
Founder at Liminal

Grow your community without growing your bills

Slack’s free plan can be limiting for successful online communities. When you move to a paid plan, you pay up to $15/mo per person. The more you grow your community, the more you pay.

With Circle you pay as low as $39/mo for up to 1,000 members, giving you room to grow without hitting your finances.

Slack vs Circle

Price comparison

Circle

Slack Pro

Slack Business

Pricing

$99/mo

for upto 10,000 members

$875/mo

$8.75 x 100 members

$1,500/mo

$15 x 100 members

Transaction fees

1%

Paywalls not supported

Paywalls not supported

Start your free 14-day trial

Rub shoulders with community building experts and +5K creators

See how others are using Circle to build their community. Share your wins, make new friends, and have fun!

Meet and greet with seasoned community builders like Pat Flynn (Smart Passive Income), Noele Flowers (Teachable), and Pedro Hernandes (Gumroad).

“I have been blown away by the generosity of my fellow course creators who have shared their setups and tips, and I instantly felt like I was a part of the group.”

Noele Flowers

Community Manager

Slack vs Circle

Circle is the right place to build your community

Circle

Slack

Communication ethos

Comment-based

Chat-based

Communication speed

Thoughtful conversations

Buried messages

Dedication

At your own pace

Real-time

Interface

Organized spaces

Infinite scrolling

Slack vs Circle

Circle gives you the tools to build a successful community

Circle

Slack

Content organization

Organize your content into relevant spaces

Channels

Private spaces

Create private spaces only selected members can join

Private channels

Courses

Available on all plans

Not available

Live streams

Yes, with multi co-hosts

Not available

Private messaging

One-on-one or private group chats

Available

Payments

Available on all plans for one-off payments, subscriptions, gated content and upsells

Not available

Custom Domain

Available on all plans

Not available

Member profiles

Searchable directories with rich profiles that help members discover each other

One-line Slack profile

Weekly email digest

Available on all plans

Via 3rd party apps

Zapier integration

Available on all plans

Available

White-labeled community

Available on Professional and Enterprise plans

Not available

Advanced reporting

Available on Professional and Enterprise plans

Not available

Migrating from Slack?

We know switching platforms can be stressful…

You don’t need to move your entire community all at once.

Get started with Circle for free, invite a few members and see how our friendly onboarding helps them feel at home in no time.

And if it doesn’t work out for you, you can still go back to what you’re using right now.

Start free trial
I considered using something else but Circle was the winner imo. It’s the perfect balance of functionality, design & price. Plus the founders are super helpful & responsive.
Headshot of Mackenzie Child
Mackenzie Child
Founder at Flowmingo

FAQs

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