Introducing the Circle Developer Platform with Headless, API updates, and more

Circle exists to help builders bring their unique vision of community to life.

In service of this goal, we aim to make our platform as powerful and flexible as we can. But as a single platform which serves 12,000+ communities, it’s not always possible to give every customer the flexibility they desire while balancing scalability and ease of use.

To give you the ability to better integrate your websites & apps with your Circle community, we’ve added powerful features like custom SSO and iFrame embeds.

Yet, many of you have asked for even greater power and flexibility — particularly those of you who work with (or are) developers.

This month, we’re excited to unveil three major enhancements to the Circle Developer Platform to give you just that:

1. Headless: A new suite of APIs for integrating community features with your own website or app.
2. Admin API v2: A new version of our admin API for building your own tooling for bulk automations, migrations, and administrative integrations.
3. Data API: A new API for integrating your community’s data to your own data warehouse to gain deeper insights and build custom reports.

Customers on the Business Plan and above can access the Headless and Admin APIs today by visiting the Developers tab to create an API token, and by following the instructions in ourAPI documentation.

The Data API is available on our new Plus Platform Plan — see more details below.

Introducing Circle Headless

We’re thrilled to announce Circle Headless: a new suite of APIs designed to help you integrate your community with your own website or app — with features like discussions, feed, notifications, events, and more.

Headless is now available in beta for customers on the Business Plan and above, and introduces three new platform components:

• Headless Member API: A server-side API with endpoints for building your own member-side experiences in your app or website.
• Headless Auth API: A server-side API to authenticate your website or app’s signed in members with the Member API using a JWT token.
• Headless UI Kit (Alpha): A React-based UI kit which makes it easy for your developers to use off-the-shelf front-end components to build on top of our Member API.

Let’s dig into the main one:

Headless Member API

If you have your own website or app outside Circle, your members' experience between your own website or app and your Circle community can feel disjointed.

With our new Headless Member API, your engineers now have the ability to build community features — like the ability to access the Feed, RSVP to events, or view notifications — into your own website or mobile app. For your members, this means one holistic experience which makes your website, app, and community feel fully integrated so it’s easier to connect and engage.

Customers on the Business Plan and above can begin using the Headless Member API today by checking out the docs and creating an API token from the Developers tab in your admin area.

With the Member API, your engineers now have access to building front-end experiences on your website or app with Circle’s backend endpoints for:

• Posts & comments
• Feed
• Events
• Courses
• Notifications
• Direct messages
• Rich profiles
• and more

Use cases

• A leading parenting platform added Circle events into their dedicated app so members can RSVP and join workshops without the need to leave the main product.
• An educational startup added Circle courses, events, and the news feed into their brand new app to get their MVP into market even faster.
• A legacy men’s digital media company was able to add new community engagement features into their existing mobile app in just weeks, rather than spending quarters building them from scratch.

💡 The Headless Member API provides only the API endpoints and UI kits — engineers on your team will need to design the front-end experience and integrate it into your product. We built Headless so that teams with engineering resources can create a seamless, custom front-end experience while leveraging the power of Circle on the back-end.

Ready to get started? Send this documentation to your developer.

Admin API v2

We’ve revamped our old admin API (fka. Public API) with the Admin API v2, making it even easier to build developer automations for your community at scale — whether you're performing bulk actions, moving posts, or adjusting members’ access permissions.

Like the v1 API, the Admin API v2 is available on the Business Plan and above. Visit the Developers tab in the admin area to create your API token, or click here to read the documentation.

Use cases

Your developers can use the admin API to:

• Automate bulk administrative tasks like updating profiles or removing inactive members.
• Invite members to Circle when they sign up through your software or make a purchase on another platform.
• Sync data between systems like your CRM or marketing automation tool.
• Migrate posts, comments, and user data from other platforms into Circle.

💡 As part of this rollout, we’re freezing and renaming the Public API to Admin API v1. The v1 API will continue to work as expected and receive critical bug fixes, but we’ll no longer add new endpoints to it. We recommend updating your scripts and apps to v2 as soon as your preferred endpoints become available.

Data API

Finally, we’re thrilled to launch the Data API.

Our Data API provides real-time, automated access to a data stream of every event or action in your Circle community, which you can integrate with the rest of your data stack.

The Data API connects directly to your data warehouse via an ETL tool like Airbyte or Fivetran, or can be ingested into a product analytics platform like Mixpanel.

Once the data is flowing from Circle to your data warehouse, your Data team can create custom reports, integrate your Circle data with other data sources to build more holistic reports, and unlock valuable insights you won’t find anywhere else.

The Data API is exclusively available on our new Plus Platform Plan — reach out if you’re interested, or click here to learn more.

Use cases

• Measure your community’s business impact by correlating engagement metrics — like posts, event participation, and member interactions — with revenue data from your CRM or sales platforms.
• Set engagement benchmarks by calculating average and median activity across posts, courses, events, and more to define and measure community success.
• Compare performance across cohorts by breaking down engagement and revenue by different groups or time periods.
• Measure member acquisition, churn, and retention alongside third-party data to evaluate the effectiveness and ROI of your marketing campaigns.
• Analyze the engagement patterns of members who have churned, so you can spot trends and develop targeted intervention strategies to keep at-risk members engaged.

💡 Circle’s in-product analytics are great for day-to-day monitoring, but they’re built for broad use and standard reports. If you’re after deeper, specific insights, the Data API lets you access your raw community data so you can create custom metrics, perform complex analysis, and uncover findings that truly drive your business forward.

FAQ

1. What plans are the new APIs available on?

The Admin API v2 and Headless Member API are available today on the Business Plan and above; while the Data API is available on our new Plus Platform plan (reach out if you’re interested).

2. How much does it cost to use the Admin API?

Each eligible plan has an allotted number of Admin API requests, with higher-tier plans offering increased request limits. This gives you more flexibility as your needs grow.

The Business Plan includes 5,000 Admin API requests per month, while the Enterprise and Circle Plus Branded Apps plans each include 30,000 requests per month. The new Circle Plus Platform Plan includes 250,000 requests per month. Note that Zapier usage does not count towards these limits.

You can monitor your usage by going to the Developers tab in your admin area.

If you exceed your limits over the next few months, don’t worry: we won’t be enforcing our API limits until January 1, 2025 so you have time to establish a baseline and upgrade your plan if needed.

3. How many API requests do I need?

To track your API requests, go to the Developers tab in the admin area.

If you’re unsure about what an API request is: think of an API as a doorway connecting two pieces of software — a 'request' is a count of every knock on the door. When it opens each time, information flows seamlessly between the systems.

4. I’m using the Public API today. How will API request limits impact my usage?

Using the Public API (now referred to as our Admin API v1) – counts towards your plan’s monthly admin API request limits, as does using the Admin API v2.

5. How much does it cost to use the Headless Member API?

The Headless Member API is currently in beta, so we’re still in the process of finalizing usage limits and pricing, which we hope to announce by January 2025.

In the meantime, all customers on the Business Plan and above can begin working with their developers to integrate their favorite Circle features into their external app or web experience.

6. How much does it cost to use the Data API?

The Data API is available on our new Plus Platform Plan, which starts at $1,000/month. Check out the Data API hub to learn more about how it works, what endpoints are currently available, and schedule some time to chat with a member of our team.

If you’re interested in upgrading to the Plus Platform plan, click here to book a call with our team.

Beyond its availability on the Plus Platform plan, the Data API doesn’t have any specific limits on its own.

7. How does the Data API compare to my community analytics that I can access today?

Other updates we shipped in August

Edit workflows

Instead of having to cancel and create new workflows when you need to make a change, you can now edit automations and bulk actions after they’ve been activated or run.

To edit a workflow, simply open the workflow and click the Edit button, which will allow you to adjust the rules or action settings.

Learn more about workflows →

New video preview settings on live streams and rooms

When joining a live stream or room, you’ll now have more options to customize your video and microphone settings on the preview screen.

You can turn on Blur background and preview how it affects your video before entering the room or stream.

You’ll also be able to test your microphone. When speaking, you’ll see a border appear on your video to indicate that your microphone is picking up sound.

We’ve also added a connection quality indicator to the corner of your video, so you can check the quality of your internet connection before joining.

Learn more about live rooms and live streams →

Paywall improvements

Updated 3D Secure paywall checkout experience

We’ve made updates to our paywall checkout flow to ensure a seamless experience for members who need to confirm their payment using 3D Secure (3DS).

When members are prompted to confirm their payment details, they will now see the full transaction amount in the 3DS confirmation modal.

Members will also have their payment details saved to make it easier for future purchases.

Add a paywall to any space lockscreen

Boost your conversion rates by presenting the option to purchase a paywall directly on  your space lockscreens. You can choose to display multiple paywalls with varying pricing options and feature your most popular option with a Featured flag.

When members click Join on any paywall card, they'll be redirected to the checkout page with their chosen price point already selected, creating a smoother purchase experience.

Learn more about payments →

Other improvements

Enhanced post experience: Our post modals have been redesigned to offer more vertical space for viewing content. We’ve collapsed the comment box to allow for more post content, and made it easier to navigate between posts directly within the modal.

Filter posts using Topics: Admins can now easily filter their community’s posts by topic under Posts on their community’s admin menu.

Set default non-space level notifications: Admins can set default notifications (in app or email) for all net new members under Settings > General in their community’s main drop down menu.

iOS improvements

We also shipped a few improvements to Circle’s iOS app:

• Chat threads relocated to notifications tab

• Chat threads enabled in lesson comments and live streams

• Support for gamification

• Added “Posted in…” in post details linking to corresponding space

• Double-tap to like on image posts

• Support for tap-to-view image posts in lightbox

• Performance, reliability, and UI/UX improvements

Android improvements

Plus, here are some improvements on Circle’s Android and Circle Plus branded apps:

• Chat threads relocated to notifications tab

• Support for custom Terms of Service/Privacy Policy for Circle Plus branded apps

• Ability to show when members can be messaged

• Support for leaderboards

• Support for pinned messages

• Performance, reliability, and UI/UX improvements

💬 Tell us which feature you’re most excited about this month in the comments below!