Anyone use Circle?
I'm currently using Circle but it's a bit pricey with my low engagement at the moment, just curious if anyone has come from Circle to Fluent and if you find the features comparable. One important feature for me is to be able to programmatically add and remove people who purchase a membership -- which I believe can be done with Flurent. One thing I see is missing that I really like about Circle is the mass private messaging. I find this helpful since emails can be lost but if people login they can see messages. Hoping that is something that can be added to Fluent.
I was considering Circle little bit too, but decided for Fluent (came from BuddyBoss). Reason was that I love to have 100% control over my projects. Tbh, I love FluentCommunity.
I'm currently in the process of migrating my community off Circle to Fluent Community. There are a couple of features that Circle have that I'll miss - the direct livestreaming feature is fantastic. I'll also miss the direct management of PayWalls, etc.
While adding payment options to FC is relatively slick, it still requires additional software at this time (Fluent Forms, Paymattic or FluentCart). So, it does take a little mind shift to set those things up.
I don't use Circle's messaging features much, but they are a bit more sophisticated.
That being said, the majority of the features are very similar, and once you get used to the FC way of doing things, you'll enjoy the savings over Circle.
With the tight integration with Fluent CRM, you can configure all the marketing and automations, and you'll be happy with the cost savings over Circle's increased costs for marketing options.
However, it is also worth bearing in mind that Circle is a fully managed platform, so they handle updates and security. There is a lot to be said for avoiding the WordPress element. ;)