Circle.so alternative
Keep the community. Drop the monthly bill.
Jetonomy runs forums, Q&A and member spaces inside the WordPress site you own. The plugin is free, and Pro is $199 once for one site.
Three-year budget
Three years of community software, side by side
Circle list prices from circle.so/pricing, retrieved 2026-09-17, billed annually. Circle charges the same for 500 or 50,000 members. WordPress hosting is not included.
- Circle Professional $3,204 $89 a month billed annually. 3 admins and 10 moderators, extra admins $10 a month each. 2% transaction fee on top.
- Circle Business $7,164 $199 a month billed annually. 5 admins and 15 moderators. Adds workflows. 1% transaction fee on top.
- Jetonomy Pro Personal (lifetime) $199 One payment for one site, with every Pro extension. No transaction fee. Hosting is yours to choose.
- Jetonomy Free $0 Forums, Q&A, ideas, feeds, trust levels and membership gating. Unlimited sites.
| Plan | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Circle Professional | $1,068 | $2,136 | $3,204 |
| Circle Business | $2,388 | $4,776 | $7,164 |
| Jetonomy Pro Personal (lifetime) | $199 | $199 | $199 |
| Jetonomy Free | $0 | $0 | $0 |
A community selling $2,000 a month in memberships pays Circle Professional another $1,440 over three years in 2% fees. Jetonomy takes no share. Put that budget toward good WordPress hosting instead.
What you own
Everything the community is made of stays on your server
There is no vendor account holding your members. The community is part of your WordPress site, in its database and under its domain.
Your WordPress server
- Members
wp_users- Every member is a normal WordPress account, with the roles and login you already manage.
- Spaces, topics and replies
jt_spaces, jt_posts, jt_replies- Stored in 22 tables in your own MySQL database, covered by your usual backups.
- Addresses
yoursite.com/community/s/…/t/…- Every space and topic lives under your domain, not a platform subdomain.
- Privacy requests
Tools › Export / Erase Personal Data- Jetonomy registers with the WordPress export and erase tools, so one request covers the community too.
- Getting data out
REST API, 86 routes- Read spaces, topics, replies and members back out over the API, or query the tables directly.
Deleting Jetonomy from the Plugins screen drops its tables and settings. Export anything you want to keep first.
Paid and private spaces
Charge for access with the membership plugin you choose
Gate any space on a plan or a course. Jetonomy takes no percentage; your checkout plugin and payment processor set their own fees.
- Pick who gets inAdd an access rule to a space: a membership plan, a course, or a role.
- Paying members join the rosterMembers on the plan are added to the space, so they show in Members and can post.
- Everyone else sees the way inA visitor without access is pointed at the plan that opens the space.
In the free plugin
- MemberPress
- Paid Memberships Pro
Membership adapters in Pro
- WooCommerce Memberships or Subscriptions
- Restrict Content Pro
- SureMembers
- WP Fusion
- BuddyNext Pro
Course adapters in Pro
- LearnDash
- Tutor LMS
- LifterLMS
- Sensei
- MasterStudy
- Learnomy
Publishing a course creates its discussion space, with the course author as a space admin.
Switch, or stay on Circle?
Circle includes courses, events, live streams and paid memberships in its plans. Jetonomy is a community plugin, so be sure the trade fits.
Switch to Jetonomy if
- Your site already runs on WordPress and you want one domain and one member login.
- You sell memberships and want no platform percentage on what members pay.
- You run communities for clients. Pro Agency covers unlimited sites.
Stay on Circle if
- Weekly live streams or events are the heart of the community. Jetonomy has neither.
- Nobody on your team wants to own hosting, backups and updates.
- You need courses in the same product today. With Jetonomy you add an LMS such as Learnomy.
Start free. Add Pro once, and keep it.
Pay once and own it forever, or pick the annual plan. All features included in every plan, no hidden add-ons.
- Unlimited sites, no licence key
- Forum, Q&A, Ideas and Feed spaces
- Six trust levels and a moderation queue
- Voting, reputation and a leaderboard
- Search across posts, spaces and tags
- REST API, WP-CLI, 8 blocks and 8 shortcodes
- bbPress, wpForo and Asgaros importers
- MemberPress and Paid Memberships Pro gating
- Everything in Free, plus all 17 Pro extensions
- 1 site
- Private messaging, 1:1 and group
- Emoji reactions and polls
- Community analytics
- Email digest, web push and reply by email
- AI spam detection and advanced moderation
- Webhooks for Slack, Zapier or a CRM
- Updates and support, annual or lifetime
- Everything in Pro Personal
- 5 sites
- Priority support
- Updates and priority support, annual or lifetime
- Everything in Pro Developer
- Unlimited sites
- Priority email support
- Updates and priority support, annual or lifetime
The plugin keeps working. Updates and support stop until you renew.
Free forever. Annual licenses include a year of updates and support and renew at 30% off. Lifetime licenses are a one-time payment and never expire.