Community

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Bettermode vs Circle.so: In-Depth Analysis for Customer Communities

Explore a detailed comparison of Bettermode and Circle.so for customer community building. Learn about key features, pricing, and customization options to make an informed decision for your organization's community platform needs.

Written by

Emma Levin

Last updated

October 11, 2024

BettermodeHQ

Table of contents

Two popular choices for building online communities are Bettermode and Circle.so. These platforms offer a wide range of features and functionalities, enabling different types of businesses to build and manage their online communities. The key to selecting the right platform lies in understanding the how they are positioned in the borader spectrum of different community use cases and what the roadmap says about the specific problems they are trying to solve.

Bettermode provides a customizable experience with a block-based builder, premade templates, and an app ecosystem to enhance the user experience (Bettermode). On the other hand, Circle.so is known for its simple admin tools, allowing admins to quickly spin up communities and the monetization tools that helps community builders charge a subscription fee to give access to the community (source: Tom Ross).

While both platforms offer a range of features, their focus and specialization widely vary. In short, Bettermode is focused on building an all-in-one community platform for brands to build customer communities and Circle.so is suitable for creators looking to gather their audiences in a community and monetize the community through subscription fees.

In this article, we will delve deeper into the features and benefits of Bettermode and Circle.so, and compare them to help you decide which community platform is best suited for your needs. By considering factors such as pricing, customizability, and user experience, you can make a well-informed decision regarding the perfect community platform for you.

Core feature comparison

The core of any online community platform comprises of a set of essential tools and functionalities that facilitate communication, collaboration, and community-building.

Customization and structure

Both Bettermode and Circle.so differ in their approach to structure and organization. Bettermode offers premade Space templates for various content types like discussion, ideation, events, Q&A, job listings, or reviews, allowing for unique content experiences.

These Spaces can be further customized using Bettermode's Design Studio to any extent by arranging various Blocks. Bettermode's platform allows community admins to visually build their community without touching any code.

Dashboard mockup — *Block-based builder powering Bettermode Design Studio*

Circle, on the other hand, takes a more straightforward approach with a focus on simplicity. Circle is considered more "bare bones" in this aspect.

Apps and integrations

Bettermode integrates with your favorite tools and connects with your business workflow through the apps available in the App Store (Zapier, Intercom, Zendesk, Salesforce, etc.). It also offers a Developer Platform so businesses can build custom apps on top of the Bettermode platform to add new functionality to the community.

Circle has limited direct integrations and there is no concept of an App Store on Circle.

Embed tools

Bettermode offers powerful embed tools and a React SDK to integrate your community experience into your apps and website. You can select different layouts such as with header or without header and 1-column layout, 2-column layout, or 3-column layout for different components of the community (Spaces, posts, and entire community).

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Circle's embed tool allows you add the entire community as a widget on the site. There are options to embed the community Spaces, posts, and even entire community using IFrame.

Gamification

Bettermode's gamification tools include badges, reputation scores and leaderboard system. These tools promote healthy competition between community members and enables community builders to recognize the community members for their contributions.

Circle.so doesn't offer such gamification tools.

SSO

Bettermode's SSO capabilities are more robust because different types of sign up and log in methods can be combined. SSO options include OAuth, Okta, JWT, and custom SSO.

This is something not possible with Circle.so although it supports Auth0 SSO.

Notification and messaging tools

Both platforms have notification systems, making it easy for community members to stay engaged and informed. They offer notifications for different events and activities to keep users up-to-date. One key difference to note here is that while Bettermode offers private messaging between members, there is no real-time group messaging capability. However, Circle offers real-time group messaging.

Feature comparison summary

Here is a tabular comparison of the core features to learn more about how these two platforms differ:

Features	Bettermode	Circle.so
Customization	Offers various tools for customization, including Blocks, options to change colors, typography, profile fields, navigation, and white-labeling.	Limited customization options
Templates	Bettermode provides more than 10 pre-made templates for different types of content, including discussions, articles, questions, events, and more.	Templates are not available.
App Store	Integration with business tools such as HubSpot, Zendesk, Salesforce, Amplitude, Mixpanel, etc.	Integration with creator monetization tools such as Memberspace and Memberful.
Workflow automation	Primarily handled through Zapier.	Offers native workflow builder as well as Zapier integration.
Member profile	Bettermode provides custom fields to collect and present member information, facilitate communication among members, assign different roles, and filter and sort members based on their properties.	Pre-defined member fields.
Engagement tools	Bettermode facilitates member engagement with features like reactions, comments, an activity feed, leaderboards, private messaging, and badges.	No option add leaderboards. Badges are limited as well.
Content experience	The platform includes a post editor, translation services, SEO and social media optimization, and multilingual support to enhance the content experience.	No translation or multi-lingual support.
Search	Apart from built-in search functionality that helps members apply granular filters, Bettermode supports federated search.	Search does not support advanced filtering and no federated search.
Moderation tools	The platform includes a keyword blocklist, profanity filter, moderation rules, and a moderation panel to ensure community safety and moderation.	Limited moderation capabilities.
Embed tools	Bettermode offers powerful embed tools and a React SDK to integrate your community experience into your apps and website.	Community can be embedded using IFrame. No deep integration using SDK.
Developer Platform	Bettermode offers an API, webhooks, and a Developer Portal to create custom workflows and automation.	Circle.so only offers API.
Security and audit logs	The platform includes features to enforce password strength, provide custom SSL certificates, and maintain a clear audit log of member activities.	Security features requrired by enterprises are not available.

Pricing and plans

In this section, we will compare the pricing and plans of both Bettermode and Circle.so to help you understand the costs associated with each community platform.

Bettermode pricing

Bettermode offers a pricing plan at $599 per month for growing brands and companies. There are two plans - Advanced and Enterprise.

These plans give access to advanced apps, API and webhooks, single sign-on (SSO), a staging environment, a fully white-label platform, and a customer success manager based the needs of the businesses and the quote shared by the Bettermode team. The Enterprise plan is for large businesses or those in regulated industries who need enterprise-grade security, uptime SLA, and data residency. The cost and specific features of the Enterprise plan can be requested through a demo.

Circle.so pricing

Circle.so has three monthly plans to choose from: Basic, Professional, Business, and Enterprise. Each plan includes a 14-day free trial. Here is a summary of the plans:

- Basic: $49 /month

- Professional: $99 /month

- Business: $249 /month

- Enterprise: $399 /month

Customer support and resources

Bettermode support

Bettermode's customer community platform is focused on simplifying customer experience and enhancing customer engagement. With Bettermode platform, businesses can build meaningful relationships with their customers and strengthen their brand presence. Bettermode helps product teams collect ideas and feedback and assists customer support and success teams in building resource centers and a knowledge base.

Customers using the Bettermode platform are provided with tools to enhance their user engagement, leading to a 3x increase in user engagement, 50% fewer support tickets, and a 20% increase in NPS and CSAT scores.

Circle.so support

Circle.so is a community tool that mainly caters to creators. The platform is ideal for memberships, coaching, courses, and other community-oriented services. Circle.so allows for flexible subscriptions, one-time payments, and easy upsells and cross-selling opportunities for customers ready to make a purchase.

The platform provides various user access levels, enabling creators to create tailored experiences for different community members—this allows users to unlock different levels of access to their community depending on the type of community they run.

Support on both Bettermode and Circle.so platforms comes in the form of community resources, collaboration, and knowledge base elements to facilitate efficient and effective customer support experiences source: G2).

Pros and cons

Bettermode

Bettermode is an all-in-one community platform that is popular for its flexibility and customizability in creating an engaging user experience. Bettermode offers a block-based builder, premade templates, and an app ecosystem to enhance the community, direct third-party integrations, and tools to embed the community into products and websites.

Some of the pros of Bettermode include:

Design studio for customization
Premade templates
Easy-to-use and beautiful interface
Embedding capabilities to integrate community into web and mobile apps
Rich App Store
Supported in languages such as English, Spanish, French, German, andmore

However, Bettermode also has its downsides:

Lack of mobile app
Lack of native features to support course-building

Circle.so

Circle offers different features that help creators engage their audience, manage their customer interactions, and monetize the community.

Circle.so has some notable advantages:

User-friendly interface
Mobile app and monetization
Suitable for creators

However, Circle.so lacks some of the customizability options that Bettermode offers.

Less customizable than Bettermode (third-party review)

Conclusion

In comparing Bettermode and Circle.so, it becomes evident that both platforms offer distinct advantages to their users. Bettermode shines with its customizability due to its block-based builder, premade templates, and an extensive app ecosystem, allowing communities to embed the platform into their websites and products effectively.

On the other hand, Circle.so offers a clean and intuitive interface with monetization capability, making it easy for users to navigate and engage in the community.

Ultimately, the choice between Bettermode and Circle.so may depend on a community's specific needs and budget. Bettermode caters to community managers seeking an all-in-one community engagement platform, while Circle.so suits creators looking for a solution that allows monetization.