Circle vs Teachable for Coaches: 2026 Comparison

Circle vs Teachable comes down to what your clients do most: talk to each other, or work through lessons. Circle is a community platform that also hosts courses, live events and paid memberships. Teachable is a course and digital-product store with student apps and built-in checkout. Neither one books 1:1 sessions, tracks client habits or runs per-client coaching plans, so a coach who sells sessions or programs will need extra tools beside either of them.

We make Coachful, a coaching platform, so we have a stake in this comparison. We will still give you a straight head-to-head first, using what Circle and Teachable list on their own pricing pages in October 2026 and what public reviewers report. Then we cover Coachful as a third option, including the cases where it is the wrong pick.

What is the short answer, by use case?

Pick Circle if community is the product; pick Teachable if a self-paced course is the product. If your income comes from coaching clients one to one or through structured programs, both leave gaps you will fill with other software.

• You run a paid membership or mastermind where members post, comment and meet live: Circle. Its spaces, events, member directory and gamification are the core of the product.
• You sell a signature course or a few digital products to many buyers: Teachable. Checkout, upsells, cart recovery and student apps are included from Starter.
• You run a cohort course with weekly calls and a busy discussion group: Circle fits better, because courses live inside the community and live events are built in.
• You want the lowest entry price to start selling a course: Teachable Starter, at $29 per month billed annually, but note its 7.5% transaction fee.
• You coach clients one to one, run multi-week programs with check-ins, or need booking, contracts and invoices: neither tool covers this alone. That is where an all-in-one coaching platform such as Coachful fits.

How do Circle and Teachable compare side by side?

On paper they overlap on courses, payments and apps, but they are built around different centres: Circle around members, Teachable around products. Our ranking criteria for this table, stated plainly: one login for the whole client journey, delivery between sessions, total stack cost, and setup effort. On those criteria Coachful leads, and the table shows where Circle and Teachable each win on their own ground.

Two things stand out. First, Circle's fee is lower than Teachable Starter's but never reaches zero on self-serve plans. Second, the "Habits and check-ins" column is empty for both. Circle's and Teachable's own materials describe communities and courses, not per-client coaching plans.

What does Circle actually include for coaches?

Circle is a community platform with courses, live events, live streams and paid memberships, all on one site with Circle-branded iOS, Android and desktop apps. As listed in October 2026, every plan includes community spaces, courses, live events, a website, a member directory, analytics, payments, gamification and a custom domain.

Higher plans add more admin seats and automation. Business adds workflows (20 automations, 20 scheduled and 20 bulk actions per month), custom profile fields, APIs and MCP, activity scores, branded email notifications and the option to remove Circle branding. Scale adds AI agents, AI workflows, unlimited workflows, webhooks, custom SSO and, on annual billing, 60 days of concierge onboarding. Your own branded mobile apps are only on Circle Plus, which is custom priced.

What Circle does not do for coaches matters as much. It has no 1:1 scheduling and no client management back office: no session booking, no per-client notes tied to sessions, no contracts, no habits or check-ins. If your members also book private calls, you will run a separate scheduler and a separate payment or invoicing flow for those. Our guide on Circle alternatives with 1:1 coaching covers this gap in detail.

What does Teachable actually include for coaches?

Teachable is a course and digital-product platform. You build courses, sell them with built-in checkout, and students learn on the web or in Teachable's iOS and Android student apps. As listed in October 2026, Starter includes AI creation tools, the student apps, global payments and taxes, upsells and cart recovery, with up to 5 products and students listed as "Unlimited".

Builder lifts the cap to 10 products, removes the transaction fee and adds an affiliate program and real-time support. Growth allows 50 products and 5 admins, and adds certificates, removal of Teachable branding, imported students, custom admin permissions and free subtitles and translations. Custom adds a success manager, bulk sales, a sandbox school and migration assistance.

For coaching, our September 2026 profile notes that Teachable has no native scheduling or calendar sync, so coaching calls rely on an outside scheduler and Zoom. There are no client habits, daily check-ins or per-client plans. Our full Teachable review goes deeper on the course side.

How does Circle vs Teachable pricing compare?

Teachable is cheaper to start, and Circle is cheaper on fees until you move to Teachable Builder. Circle only shows annual-billing prices on its page in October 2026; Teachable shows both monthly and annual.

Prices are in USD as listed in October 2026, excluding taxes. Circle's monthly-billed figures come from our older September 2026 profile; Circle's current page shows annual billing only.

Circle's add-ons

Circle publishes a list of add-ons that can raise the bill. As listed in October 2026: Email Hub at $99 per month for 10,000 contacts (first 30 days free, included in Plus), AI credits at $10 per 1,000, extra admins at $10 per month each, extra moderators at $20 per month per 10, extra spaces at $20 per month per 10, live attendees at $20 per month per 100 and live hours at $50 per month per 10 hours. On Professional, branded email notifications cost $40 per month and custom profile fields $49 per month. For the full breakdown, see our Circle pricing guide.

Teachable's payment costs

Teachable Payments processing, as listed in October 2026, is 2.9% + 30¢ for US cards and 3.9% + 30¢ for international cards. PayPal costs 3.49% + 49¢ in the US and 4.99% + 49¢ internationally. Chargebacks cost $15 each, and the optional BackOffice service adds 2% to 2.8% of sales. Annual billing saves $120, $240 or $600 a year depending on the plan. Our Teachable pricing guide walks through each plan.

What do the fees cost on real sales?

On meaningful revenue, the platform fee usually costs more than the plan. The example below uses illustrative numbers, not data from any coach.

Example: a coach sells a $300-per-month group program to 20 members, which is $6,000 a month in sales.

Card processing comes on top in every row. The lesson: Teachable Starter only makes sense while sales are small. Once you sell more than about $530 a month, Builder's extra $40 is cheaper than the 7.5% fee. On Circle, Professional stays cheaper than Business until sales reach about $11,000 a month.

The other cost is everything neither platform does. If you also need a scheduler, an e-signature tool, an email platform and a habit or check-in app, each adds a subscription and a login. Count those before you compare headline prices.

How do they compare on courses?

Teachable is the stronger pure course tool; Circle's courses work best when the discussion around them matters more than the lesson player. Teachable's whole product is built around selling and delivering courses: product limits, upsells, cart recovery, certificates on Growth, subtitles and translations on Growth, and student apps on every plan.

Circle treats a course as one more space in your community. That suits cohort programs where members comment on lessons, share wins and join a weekly live call in the same place. It suits a large evergreen catalogue less well, because the Circle plan features we recorded in October 2026 do not mention store tools like upsells or cart recovery.

Data portability differs too. Per our older profiles, Teachable exports students and sales reports to CSV but has no bulk course export, so video must be downloaded manually. Circle exports members and subscriptions to CSV, but posts and content have no bulk export. If you may move later, read our guides on migrating from Teachable and migrating from Circle first.

How do they compare on community and live events?

Circle wins clearly. Community is its core: spaces, a member directory, gamification, live events and live streams, with activity scores and workflows on Business. Live attendees and live hours can be extended with paid add-ons.

Teachable is not built around community. The plan features we recorded in October 2026 centre on courses, digital products, apps and payments, not discussion spaces or live rooms. Coaches on Teachable usually add a separate group tool for discussion, which means a second login for students. Our comparison of Skool vs Teachable covers that pairing.

How do they handle 1:1 coaching and client management?

Neither handles it natively. Circle's materials and our profile show no 1:1 scheduling and no client management back office. Teachable, per our September 2026 profile, has no native scheduling or calendar sync, with coaching calls relying on an external scheduler and Zoom.

In practice, a coach using either one for private clients ends up running:

• a scheduler for booking, reminders and calendar sync;
• a video tool for the calls;
• an e-signature tool for coaching agreements;
• somewhere to keep session notes, goals and intake answers;
• a habit or check-in app, or a spreadsheet, for between-session accountability.

Each piece works. The cost is that the client's experience is split across several apps and you reconcile it by hand. For more on this setup, see our guide to coaching scheduling software.

What is the client experience like on each?

On Circle, clients get one community with apps, which is pleasant for group work but Circle-branded unless you pay for Circle Plus. On Teachable, students get a clean course player and student apps, but anything beyond the course happens somewhere else.

For a coaching client, the gap shows between sessions. Neither platform gives the client a place to log a daily habit, answer a morning check-in or see their own goals with progress. Those touchpoints are what keep many program clients engaged from one call to the next, and on Circle or Teachable they live in another app or in email.

Public reviews give a rough signal on satisfaction. On Trustpilot, as seen on 25 October 2026, Circle scores 4.1 from 129 reviews and Teachable scores 3.3 from 1,110 reviews. Ratings like these mix very different users, so treat them as one input, not a verdict.

Which should you pick: Circle or Teachable?

Match the tool to the thing clients pay you for. Here is how we would decide.

If you are leaning toward Teachable mainly for courses, our Teachable alternatives for coaches list and the Teachable alternative page compare more options. If community is the draw, our Circle vs Mighty Networks and Circle vs Podia comparisons may help.

Is there a third option that covers both?

Yes, if you coach clients rather than only sell content. Coachful is a coaching platform that covers what Circle and Teachable split between them, plus the 1:1 side neither one has. It is built for coaches who deliver programs, not just sessions; solo coaches growing into a small team; and coaches replacing four to six tools.

What Coachful is

One subscription covers booking, payments, contracts, program delivery with habits and check-ins, courses, a community, a website with funnels and email, and an AI assistant. The coach has one login; the client has one app with the coach's branding. Coachful is based in Tallinn, Estonia, and has a Trustpilot score of 4.5 from 21 reviews.

Sessions and booking

Booking pages include availability rules, buffers, minimum notice and time-zone detection, with two-way Google, Apple/iCloud and Outlook calendar sync. Sessions run on built-in video or auto-created Zoom, Meet or Teams links. Email reminders are included, with SMS (24 hours before) and WhatsApp (1 hour before) once messaging is enabled. Paid sessions, session credits and intake questions on booking are all supported, and multi-coach session types can use round-robin or least-busy assignment.

This short walkthrough shows how scheduling works inside Coachful:

Programs with habits and check-ins

This is the part neither Circle nor Teachable offers. Coachful runs multi-week programs with weekly goals, daily tasks, habits, morning and evening check-ins, goals with progress bars and streaks. Each client record holds goals, check-ins, habits, notes, intake answers, tags, payments and sessions, with an AI briefing per client and a status of thriving, active, quiet or at risk.

Courses and community

Courses include modules, lessons, drip and completion tracking, alongside downloads, videos, books, AI tools, events and bundles, all delivered into the client's branded home and app. The community has a feed, group chat, direct messages and video events, and cohort groups are created automatically when someone enrolls in a program. Group calls and webinars are included. There are 48 course templates with quizzes and more than 40 program templates to start from. See courses for coaches and group coaching software for more.

Payments, contracts and the client hub

Payments run through the coach's own Stripe Connect or Razorpay account: one-time, subscriptions, payment plans, order bumps, coupons, refunds, Apple Pay and Google Pay, and Stripe Tax. There is an invoice per transaction plus manual invoices. Since August 2026, Coachful charges a 0% platform fee; only Stripe or Razorpay processing applies. Coaching agreements with e-signature go out before the first call and are stored on the client record.

Website, funnels, email and AI

A section-based website builder includes a blog, custom domain, SEO settings and 30 designed homepage templates, plus booking, application, lead-magnet and checkout funnels with pixels and UTM tracking. Email covers lists, broadcasts and multi-step sequences with triggers, delays, branching and A/B splits. Michelle, the built-in AI assistant, works from your live practice data: it builds programs, drafts emails, summarizes recorded sessions and briefs you before sessions. Questions and planning are included in your Coachful membership; confirmed builds and changes use AI credits.

Why Coachful stands out: a free white-glove service. On every plan, you can describe what you want built from Create > We'll build it for you: a website, funnel, sales page, program, course outline and written material, email sequence, form, event and more. You can attach up to 8 reference links and up to 10 files, and the Coachful team builds it inside your own account, usually within about 24 hours. Nothing is invented: no fake credentials, testimonials or prices, and gaps are left for you to fill. For example, a somatic coach leaving Kajabi had the homepage and About page rebuilt and the contact form connected, and a real-estate and money coach got a year-long cohort program with an application form, an eight-page site and a free nine-day bootcamp funnel. Read more about the free white-glove build service.

When Coachful beats both

• You coach clients one to one or through programs and want booking, contracts, payments and delivery in one place.
• You want clients to log habits and answer check-ins between sessions, in an app with your branding.
• You want courses and community too, without paying a platform fee on sales.
• You are tracking ICF credential hours: Coachful counts coaching hours and distinct clients against ACC, PCC and MCC thresholds and exports an ICF client coaching log.
• You would rather have the setup built for you than spend weekends on it.

When Coachful is not the right pick

• Pick Circle over Coachful if you run a large, community-first membership and need workflows, APIs, SSO or fully branded native apps under your own store listing (Circle Plus). Coachful's client app ships under the Coachful listing with your branding, not your own App Store account.
• Pick Teachable over Coachful if you sell a big course catalogue to a broad audience and want a dedicated course store with upsells and cart recovery. Coachful is not a course marketplace.
• You need PayPal: Coachful does not support it.
• You need HIPAA compliance: Coachful is not HIPAA-certified and offers no BAA, so clinical records and insurance billing belong in a clinical system.
• You need a permanent free plan: Coachful has none, though a free trial exists.
• You need wearable sync (Garmin, Fitbit, Whoop or Oura), a sales deal board for a large team, or Salesforce or HubSpot integration.

How to start

Start a free trial, then request your website, program or funnel through the free white-glove build. During onboarding, your clients, programs and content are imported for you. Monthly plans cancel in one click. Current plans: Lite: $29/month for up to 5 clients; Solo: $49/month for up to 20 clients; Pro: $99/month with unlimited clients; Studio: $199/month with unlimited clients. For a direct look at the community side, see Coachful vs Circle.

How hard is it to switch later?

Switching from either is manageable for people and payments, harder for content. Circle exports members and subscriptions to CSV; Teachable exports students and sales reports to CSV. Per our older profiles, neither offers a bulk export of community posts or full courses, so lesson video and written content usually move by hand.

Plan the move in three steps: export your member or student list, rebuild your course or program structure in the new platform, and invite people with a clear date for the old site to close. Re-create active subscriptions carefully so nobody is double-billed. Coachful imports clients, programs and content for you during onboarding and exports full client data as a ZIP if you ever leave.

Frequently asked questions

Is Circle or Teachable better for coaches?

It depends on what you sell. Circle is better for membership communities and cohort programs with lots of discussion; Teachable is better for selling self-paced courses and digital products. For 1:1 or program coaching with booking, check-ins and contracts, neither covers the whole job, and a coaching platform like Coachful fits better.

Which is cheaper, Circle or Teachable?

Teachable has the lower entry price at $29 per month billed annually, against Circle's $89 per month billed annually, as listed in October 2026. But Teachable Starter takes a 7.5% transaction fee, so on steady sales Teachable Builder ($69 per month annually, 0% fee) or Circle Professional often costs less overall.

Does Circle or Teachable take a cut of my sales?

Circle charges 2% on Professional, 1% on Business and Scale and 0.5% on Circle Plus, plus Stripe processing. Teachable charges 7.5% on Starter and 0% on Builder, Growth and Custom, plus processing. Coachful charges a 0% platform fee; only Stripe or Razorpay processing applies.

Can I book 1:1 coaching sessions in Circle or Teachable?

Not natively. Circle has no 1:1 scheduling, and our September 2026 profile notes Teachable has no native scheduling or calendar sync, so coaches pair either with an outside scheduler and video tool. Coachful includes booking pages, calendar sync, reminders and built-in video.

Can I have my own branded app?

On Circle, branded iOS and Android apps are only on custom-priced Circle Plus; other plans use Circle-branded apps. Teachable lists iOS and Android student apps on every plan. Coachful gives clients your branding inside the Coachful app, which ships under the Coachful listing rather than your own App Store account.

Do Circle and Teachable offer free trials?

Circle offers a 14-day free trial on Professional, Business and Scale with no credit card required. Teachable's plan cards show a 7-day free trial plus a 30-day money-back guarantee, and a pop-up offers a 30-day trial on Builder monthly. Coachful offers a free trial too.

Can I use Circle and Teachable together?

You can, with Teachable for the course and Circle for the community, but students then have two logins and you pay two subscriptions and two sets of fees. You would still need separate tools for booking and contracts. Many coaches find one platform simpler to run and easier for clients.

What is Coachful's free white-glove build service?

On every plan, you describe what you want built, such as a website, funnel, program or email sequence, and attach up to 8 links and 10 files. The Coachful team builds it inside your account, usually within about 24 hours, without inventing credentials, testimonials or prices. It does not include recording videos, logo design or ad management.

Is Coachful suitable for health or therapy-adjacent coaches?

Coachful suits health coaches who deliver programs, habits and check-ins, but coaching is not medical treatment, and clients with medical or mental health concerns should be referred to a qualified professional. Coachful is not HIPAA-certified, so clinical records belong in a clinical system. See Coachful for health coaches.