70k+ reviews
Podia helped make your first sale. Circle turns your audience into a community that pays every month.
Recurring revenue doesn’t come from better sales pages. It comes from members who keep showing up. With Circle, you can build:
Real community where members connect and talk to each other — not just a forum add-on
One connected space for courses, events, email, payments, and more
AI and workflows that do the retention work you'd otherwise hire for
Trusted by more than 15 million members across 20,000 communities
Community business growth depends on member engagement and retention that Podia can’t deliver
VS
On Podia, community is an afterthought
On Circle, community is the foundation
Community creators are upgrading from Podia to Circle
“We’ve made over $3M on Circle over the last two years. It supported our live cohorts, self-paced courses, virtual summits, a subscription-based membership, and our first in-person summit in LA. This is the power of a true ‘all-in-one’ platform.”
Tiago Forte — Founder, Forte Labs
You're ready for Circle if any of these sound like you
You want a real community where members connect with each other — not just consume content and leave
You're still downloading Zoom recordings, re-uploading them, and sending follow-up emails by hand
You want members to never miss a post, with app and push notifications to reach them wherever they are
You want AI to handle member questions and moderation without you being the bottleneck
You want notifications and emails that trigger based on what members actually do, not just when they buy
Build a community that members keep coming back to
Drive real connection and ongoing engagement, not just content consumption.
Structured spaces & space groups
Activity feed with personalized, recent, and trending filters
DMs and real-time chat rooms
Member directory and profiles
Mobile app and desktop app, with notifications
Branded mobile app available as you scale
One member experience, not five disconnected tools
Create structured programs and member journeys where everything works together — no extra tools required.
Course builder with per-lesson discussion threads
Native live streaming, with auto-recording and gated replay
Event RSVP, ticketing, and calendar
Gamification with points, leaderboards, and badges
Email Hub with community-behavior triggers
Analytics for all member activity
Run a community that feels fully staffed, even if it's just you
Automations and AI agents deliver on day one, handling the member communication you’d otherwise hire to handle
Conditional and branching workflows
Community-behavior communication triggers
Activity scoring of members
AI agents with distinct roles and placement controls
AI inbox (visibility into AI interactions)
Feed summaries to catch members up
The complete community platform
Circle is the best platform to build, engage, and scale your business
A platform that moves as fast as your community
Circle consistently ranks higher than Podia for community depth, engagement tools, and overall platform momentum.
Upgrade from Podia to Circle in three steps
Let our migration team handle the heavy lifting—so you don’t have to.
Request your migration
Fill out a quick form to tell us about your setup. We'll take it from there. We’ll migrate your:
1. Courses
2. Email list
4. And more
Approve your custom plan
We’ll create a tailored migration plan based on your needs. You review and approve before we begin.
Sit back while we migrate
Our team moves everything over—content, members, settings—fully structured and ready to go live.
Leader on G2
Trusted by 20,000+ businesses to power their communities
Frequently asked questions
On Podia, my courses and community are already connected. What does Circle do differently?
On Podia, courses and community are separate product types — members navigate between them, but they don't share an experience. There are no discussion threads at the lesson level, no gamification tied to course progress, and no way to reward completion with community recognition.
On Circle, courses live inside the community. Each lesson has its own discussion thread so members ask questions and support each other in context. Points, leaderboards, and badges reward both course completion and community participation — which drives the kind of engagement that makes members feel the subscription is worth renewing. On top of this, course progress and completion can trigger access to new spaces, events, and more.
Podia has a mobile-friendly website. Isn't that enough for members?
It depends on your community business goals, but probably not.
A mobile-friendly website and a mobile app are fundamentally different.
Podia has no iOS or Android app — members access everything through a browser tab, which they have to remember to open.
Circle includes a free native mobile app and desktop app. Members get push notifications when there's new activity in their spaces, which means they come back without you having to prompt them.
For any community where daily engagement matters — and retention usually depends on it — the difference between a browser tab and an app notification is the difference between members who drift and members who stay.
Does Circle handle payments, or do I need a separate tool?
Circle has a full native payments system powered by Stripe — no separate tool required.
You can sell memberships, courses, and one-time products with subscriptions, installment plans, free trials, and one-time purchases. Paywalls are fully-branded with your logo and imagery.
Renewals, refunds, and reminders are all managed inside Circle.
You can learn more about Circle’s monetization capabilities here.
Does Circle have built-in email like Podia does?
Yes. Circle's Email Hub handles broadcasts and automated sequences natively.
The meaningful difference is what can trigger your emails. Circle can fire emails based on community joins, event attendance, course progress, and more — not just purchases and tags. If your email strategy is about keeping members engaged, not just converting them, that behavioral data is what makes it work.
Will migrating from Podia hurt my business’s performance?
We’ll work with you to migrate your content, email list, payments, and more to ensure minimal churn.
Because Circle delivers a meaningful upgrade in terms of user experience and your value proposition to members, you’ll soon see membership, engagement, and revenue growth.
During migration, can I run both Podia and Circle?
Yes. Many creators keep Podia live during the migration period to ensure a smooth transition.
Before sunsetting Podia, it’s best practice to:
- Clearly communicate with your members about the move
- Set a specific cutover date
- Offer existing members an easy path to join your Circle
Still can’t find the answer? Go to help center
