Introducing the Custom App Builder, AI summaries, and 10+ other updates
Back in August 2023, we launched Circle Plus: our highest tier plan for customers looking for their own branded mobile app.
Until today, a branded app meant a tailored version of Circle’s mobile app — scoped to your community, branded as your own, and maintained by us across both Apple and Google app stores.
We’ve now shipped hundreds of branded apps, and the results speak for themselves. Branded app customers see 7x higher engagement when their community lives in their own app.
But we kept hearing: “It still feels like Circle’s app — just with our logo on it.”
That changes today.
Introducing the Custom App Builder
Starting today, we’re rolling out the Custom App Builder for customers on the Circle Plus Custom plan.
With the Custom App Builder, you can now take full control of your branded mobile app.
You can design your own mobile experience, build custom screens, and craft onboarding flows.
1. Build your own app screens
You now have control over your app’s layout and the ability to customize your app screens using our powerful new visual app builder.
- Use our visual builder to create new custom app screens — no dev team needed.
- Make real-time updates to your app without waiting on App Store approvals.
- Preview your changes instantly before going live.
- Use pre-built blocks and templates, or start from scratch.
Custom app screens
Think of app screens like pages on a website, but built natively for your mobile app.
Whether it’s your own home screen, a product directory, a video directory, or a sales page, you can create something uniquely yours.
You can add text, images, video, call-to-action buttons, embed tools, link to different parts of your app, or even out to the web.
Use pre-built app screen templates
You’re not starting from a blank slate.
We’ve included proven templates for directories, sales pages, custom HTML, and more. You can use them out of the box, remix them, or build from scratch. It’s fast, flexible, and designed to reflect your brand.
New templates will be added every few weeks (if you have an idea for one, you can let us know!)
Add embeds from 1,900+ third-party providers
You can create app screens with your own embeds from 1,900+ third-party providers. From Typeform and Calendly to YouTube and Shopify — you can bring your favorite experiences into your app.
A few examples:
- Let members schedule coaching time with you via Calendly
- Collect an onboarding survey with Typeform
- Showcase your YouTube channel
- Sell your products with a Shopify embed
Use custom HTML to create fully unique experiences
For example:
- A sales page with embedded video, testimonials, and CTA buttons to upsell your members
- A resource library organized by topic or membership tier
- A video library of embeds with your own custom layout
- A launch page for a new product or time-sensitive campaign
These screens live natively inside your app and can link to any space, post, course, or even external URLs — giving you the power to design a truly custom mobile experience.
2. Customize your app onboarding
First impressions matter.
With the new onboarding customizer, you can welcome members into your app with a guided carousel that shows up the moment they open it.
It’s your chance to highlight what matters most — whether it’s your community spaces, key features, or a special offer.
Each step is yours to define, and you can update it anytime as your app evolves.
The Custom App Builder is already delivering results — fast. Within just 24 hours, customers are creating powerful, personalized app experiences that transform how their members engage. One early beta customer said it best:
Mila, who runs Glucose Guide, used the Custom App Builder to bring her nutrition tracker into her Circle branded app — and saw results in under a day.
“Before, our members had to juggle two separate apps — one for glucose tracking, another for community.
With the Custom App Builder, we were able to combine both our Circle app and our Nutrition Assistant into one seamless experience – and we did it in less than an hour!
Our members are thrilled to have everything in one place, and it’s been a huge win for their experience. Now they get our best tools, and their community in one place.”
— Mila, Glucose Guide
Available on Plus Custom
Early access for the Custom App Builder is available today for customers on our Plus Custom plan.
- If you’re on our Plus Custom plan, you can request early access today by navigating to Branded App → Custom App Builder → Request access.
- If you’re on our Plus Lite plan, you’ll need to upgrade your plan to Plus Custom by navigating to Branded App → Custom App Builder → Learn more.
Not a Circle Plus customer yet?
If you’re on our Professional, Business, or Enterprise plans, our team would be happy to help you determine if Plus Custom is right for you. Click here to request a custom demo.
We’ve already seen some incredible communities using the Custom App Builder —and the early results speak for themselves. Early beta communities are:
- Welcoming members with custom welcome flows and orientation screens
- Building hubs, directories, or course libraries — and helping members find what matters
- Embedding interactive content like quizzes, videos, or forms directly into the app
- Launching upsells and sales pages with support for in-app payments
- Sending targeted push notifications that point members to any custom screen
It’s been inspiring to watch what’s possible when customers can take full creative control.
If you have a vision for the mobile experience you want to provide your members, our goal is to make it possible.
Learn more about the Custom App Builder →
And that’s not all:
We’re also excited to announce the rollout of a new push notifications builder for branded apps, available to all Plus Custom and Plus Lite customers in the next few weeks.
Push notifications builder for branded apps
Push notifications are one of the most powerful ways to re-engage your members.
These notifications appear right on their lock screen, carry your brand, and bring members directly into your app with a single tap.
That said, we’ve heard from customers that while they love the impact of push notifications via workflows, they need more control — and better visibility into what’s working.
Starting soon, you’ll be able to:
- Draft, send, and schedule push notifications
- Preview your notifications before you send them
- Track performance with delivery and open rates
Rollout starts today, and will be available to all Circle Plus customers in the next few weeks from the Branded app → Push notifications tab.
While you can still use bulk action workflows to send push notifications, we recommend using the new push notifications builder for the ability to preview your notifications, and get performance metrics on how each one performs.
AI summaries
Keeping up with your community shouldn’t feel like a full-time job.
As your membership grows and more conversations happen every day, staying up to speed becomes harder.
That’s why we’re excited to introduce AI Summaries for customers on our Enterprise and Plus plans, designed to help you and your members keep up with your community with ease.
Post summaries
We’re adding two types of post summaries:
- Post content: A on-demand post content summary members can generate by clicking the Summarize button
- Conversation: An always-on conversation summary which automatically summarizes the comments section by pulling in key ideas and themes from replies
Together, they make it easy to quickly understand what a post is about and whether you need to dive deeper.
Feed & space summaries
You and your members can also click Summarize in the feed or a space to automatically generate a recap of all new posts from the past 7 days, 30 days, or to get a summary of all unread posts.
This is available for non-chat spaces starting today, with support for chat spaces coming in the next few weeks.
Available today on Enterprise and Plus
Given the immense cost of serving AI features to millions of Circle members, AI summaries are rolling out to customers on Enterprise and Plus only with no limits.
If you're not on one of these plans, now is the perfect time to upgrade to supercharge your community with AI Summaries, AI Agents, and our upcoming AI features.
As a reminder, the price of our Enterprise plan will increase from $360/month (paid annually) to $419/month for new upgrades after May 2.
To lock in the $360/month price and save up to $1,200 per year, upgrade to Enterprise before May 2 by going to Plans > Change plan.
By doing so, you’ll also ensure access to all of our upcoming AI features as they roll out.
Learn more about AI Summaries →
AI Agents Updates
In case you missed our March update, we launched AI Agents for communities — AI-powered agents that can guide, support, and coach your members.
This month, we’ve made a few updates to the feature:
Suggested questions
You can now add up to 5 suggested questions per AI Agent — like “Where do I start?”, “How do I join events?”, or “What’s new this month?” — giving your members a clear starting point and encouraging the right kind of engagement.
These suggested prompts appear:
- Before the first message in a new conversation
- In the agent’s profile sidebar during chats
You can customize them in the Customize tab of the AI Agent builder.
Pause AI notifications for admins (coming soon)
If an AI Agent’s responses get paused and the conversation is handed off to a human, selected admins can now receive an in-app notification — making sure someone from your team sees it and can follow up quickly.
⭐ Join us on April 29 at 12pm ET for an exclusive deep dive into AI Agents—and discover how you can harness the power of AI to scale your community quickly and effortlessly. Don’t miss it—click here to RSVP now.
Marketing Email Hub Updates
Marketing Hub is now called Email Hub
We’ve renamed Marketing Hub to Email Hub to better reflect its purpose. Don’t worry — you’ll still have access to all the powerful marketing tools you rely on, including email broadcasts, marketing automations, and your audience CRM.
And now, it’s getting even better with big improvements to contact importing, sending from your own branded domain, our new done-for-you migration service, and more coming soon. Here’s a few updates we’ve shipped this month:
Email Hub contact importer
Bringing your contacts into Circle is now faster, smarter, and more flexible. You can upload CSV or Excel files, map fields to your CRM, create and apply tags, and fix import issues instantly — all from one clean and intuitive flow. Whether you’re migrating from another platform or adding new contacts, this makes onboarding your audience easy.
Learn more about contact import →
Branded domain sending
You can now send marketing emails from your own branded domain—like hello@community.yoursite.com—giving you full brand control and a more consistent member experience. This is a great fit for communities sending emails regularly and at higher volumes. If you're just getting started or sending less frequently, you’ll still benefit from Circle’s high-reputation shared domain.
Available now on the Business plan and above.
Learn more about branded domain sending →
Introducing Circle’s Email Hub migration service
Our new Email Hub migration service makes it easy to bring your contacts into Circle—without lifting a finger. Just send us your email list, and we’ll handle the import for you. Whether you’re migrating from another platform or consolidating your tools, we’ll make sure everything’s set up and ready to go in Email Hub.
Other updates
Chat message search: We’ve added the ability to search through chat messages using your community’s global search bar. Whether you’re digging through a busy chat space or trying to find that one DM from last week, you can now search through messages in DMs, group chats, and chat spaces. Additionally, you can filter by keyword, author, chat space, or date using the global search feature.
Spotlight chat messages in live streams: Moderators and hosts can now spotlight chat messages in real time within Live Streams or Rooms. Whether you’re highlighting a great comment, responding to a member shoutout, or surfacing a helpful idea, it’s a great way to bring key moments to the forefront and keep the energy flowing. To spotlight a message, simply select it from the message options menu and choose to either spotlight it immediately or add it to the queue alongside any selected questions from Live Q&A.
Improved segment management: We’ve made it way simpler to create, view, and manage Segments. Now you can save Segments directly from Broadcasts and Workflows without switching tabs, preview filters with a quick hover, and instantly see where each Segment is being used. You can even tidy up by deleting any that are no longer in use. To manage your saved segments, navigate to Audience > Segments.
New APIs for Admin API v2: To help you better manage administrative tasks, we’ve added four new APIs related to Access Groups:
- Add member to an Access Group
- Remove member from an Access Group
- Get Access Group members: Returns the details of all members in an Access Group.
- Get specific member of an Access Group: Return the details of specific members in an Access Group.
Note: Admin API v2 is available on the Business Plan and above.
Terms and conditions checkbox on paywalls required on all purchases: To remain compliant with legislation, we’ve now made the Terms and conditions checkbox a requirement for all purchases from your existing members and new members.
iOS improvements
We also shipped a few improvements to Circle’s iOS app:
- Updates posts and events UI
- Support for copying chat message texts through long-press
- Added audio playback speed controls
- Support for updating email notification settings
- Support for post sorting
- Ability to open chat room links directly in the app
- Chat messages unfurl links automatically
- Support for post and comment moderation
- Introduced search to Messages tab
- Enabled deep-linking to specific chat rooms
- Support for searching and marking DMs and group chats as unread
- Performance, reliability, and UI/UX improvements
Android improvements
Plus, here are some improvements on Circle’s Android and Circle Plus branded apps:
- New moderation features for admins
- Support for custom app builder (Plus)
- Ability to change images and colors from settings (Plus)
- Welcome space for ne and existing members (Plus)
- Performance, reliability, and UI/UX improvements
Custom App Builder FAQ
What is the Custom App Builder?
The Custom App Builder is a no-code visual builder that lets you design custom screens inside your Circle mobile app. You can create unique member experiences that reflect your brand—without writing any code.
What can I build with it?
You can build custom home screens, onboarding flows, dashboards, landing pages, and more—each tailored to your programs, offerings, and member journeys.
Is this included in my plan?
The Custom App Builder is available at no additional cost on the Plus Custom plan.
Do I need to publish updates through the App Store?
No. Any changes you make go live instantly—no App Store or Google Play resubmissions required.
Do I need a developer to use it?
No. The Custom App Builder is fully no-code and designed to be easy for anyone to use—no technical skills required. You can create and customize screens visually using text, images, buttons, embeds, and community content blocks.
But if you want more control, you’ve got it. You can add custom HTML blocks to bring in advanced layouts, widgets, or integrations—giving you the flexibility to go beyond the basics when needed.
AI Summaries FAQ
What are AI Summaries?
AI Summaries automatically generate concise recaps of important conversations happening across your community. Whether it’s an active thread, private message, or post in a group space, AI surfaces the highlights so you can stay up to speed—fast.
Where do the summaries appear?
AI Summaries appear in context—right where you requested them. Whether you generate a summary in a post, thread, or space, you’ll see it directly above the original content, making it easy to review the key takeaways without leaving the conversation.
Do members see the summaries too?
Yes, members can use AI Summaries as well. Anyone in your community can prompt for a summary and see the results directly in the context of the post or space.
Which plan includes AI Summaries?
AI Summaries are available on the Business plan and above.
📆 April community challenge: Your signature event setup ⚒️
Every great community has that one event everyone looks forward to—whether it’s a weekly mastermind, a monthly AMA, or a standout member-led session.
This month, we’re challenging you to show us your most engaging, valuable, or repeatable event on Circle. Big or small, new or well-established—if it brings your community together, we want to see it!
🏆 Two winners will be chosen:
- Community Favorite (most likes by April 30th)
- Expert’s Choice (selected by live event design and facilitation expert Gwyn Wansbrough)
🎁 Prizes include:
- A Circle swag box
- An exclusive Community badge on their profile
- A shoutout in our May newsletter
- And the chance for your event to be featured in a future Circle guide or playbook!
Want to get in on the fun? Join the challenge here →