7 Best Online Community Platforms

As online engagement and monetization platforms continue to evolve, community leaders must stay ahead of trends to ensure their online infrastructure is up-to-date with the latest technology. 

There are now numerous competitive softwares available on the market. So how do you know which one is right for your business?Let’s take a look at the seven best platforms to build an online community that will meet your needs in 2024.

For a quick peruse, here are the 7 community monetization softwares and their market focus:

  1. Linka: all-in-one Monetization software for entrepreneurs, small businesses, bloggers, and organization leaders 
  2. Hivebrite: Great for corporate alumni, professional networks, and nonprofit organizations.
  3. Kajabi: Best for coaches, known for their marketing automation tools.
  4. Whop: A marketplace platform servicing the internet economy.
  5. Circle: providing online community platforms for creators, professionals, and businesses 
  6. Patreon: Great alternative for content creators, gamers, and musicians. 
  7. Higher Logic: known for its comprehensive suite of engagement and collaboration tools for associations, non-profits, and other membership-based organizations.

Now, let’s take you on a thrilling journey of discovery!

#1. Linka

With Linka, you can create a branded engagement and monetization platform that transforms your audience, email contacts, and network into paying clients- own and monetize your audience, network, and contacts! 

Linka lets “business owners’ build full-featured digital homes for communities of any size or type. Linka members can engage in conversation around various topics of interest.

As well as fostering community conversations, Linka provides valuable insights about user behavior and engagement through analytics tools built into the platform.

What Makes Linka Stand Out?

The platform offers a powerful solution to create a personalized digital member experience. It combines features like private messaging, live stream, and monetization options, including subscriptions, ads, and sponsorships. 

The instant launch platform can be activated in minutes and YOU own your data. Capture emails from your website or social media and seamlessly convert leads to paying customers. 

Linka enables you to send email campaigns, process payments, send invoices, create landing pages, and capture and convert your website and social media traffic. 

It also has 1000s of integrations, so you can connect it to your existing tools without disruption.

Businesses can activate any or all of these modular features:

  • Engagement, such as messaging and content sharing.
  • Monetization, such as payment processing and invoicing for services, events, subscriptions, digital products,
  • Automation, that includes pre-configured emails, campaigns, and push notifications,
  • Integrations that include Mailchimp, Hubspot, Gmail, LinkedIn, Facebook, Google, SendGrid, Instantly, and Zapier, with 1000s of integrations including Salesforce, Zoho, Microsoft, Slack and
  • Marketplace capabilities including a Centralized Marketplace for business development entities that empower their businesses to inherit similar features for customer acquisition, engagement, and monetization.

Pricing: Linka community monetization software starts at $19/month

There are other great software solutions with similar features. 

Each platform has a unique emphasis and possible drawbacks based on your business’s needs, so knowing your requirements before selecting which path is critical. 

Let us compare other community monetization softwares: 

#2. Hivebrite

Hivebrite is a comprehensive engagement and online community platform that enables groups, and organizations to create online communities effortlessly. 

This cloud-based software offers membership solutions geared to various sorts of clubs or groups, ranging from alumni networks to professional organization membership.

It has numerous features intended exclusively for content management, such as discussion boards/forums and an automated private messaging service.

Hivebrite: Hivebrite pricing doesn’t openly share their pricing on their website, but word has it that it kicks off at around $500 a month.

#3. Kajabi 

Kajabi is a comprehensive platform for selling courses, coaching services, and digital items. It enables businesses to create their own membership site where clients may purchase access to material such as videos, audio recordings, and text documents connected to the product or service being supplied. 

Kajabi also maintains client data so that it is organized in one place, making administrative work easier and providing consumers with a more optimal shopping experience.

Kajabi Pricing Starts at $119 for it’s basic plan

#4. Whop

  • Whop is a platform for the internet economy. Individuals are creating new items to sell guerrilla-style on social media and forums throughout the internet. 
  • Whop provides these vendors with a stylish storefront that can process payments, effortlessly distribute digital items, and attract new consumers to their marketplace.
  • Whop Pricing starts at Free + 3% of transactions

#5. Circle

Circle offers online community tools for creators, experts, and enterprises. 

Its advantages include a user-friendly design, significant interfaces with various tools and platforms, and comprehensive moderation and privacy restrictions. 

Circle provides a seamless experience for creating and managing online communities, including forums, direct messaging, and user profiles.

Circle Pricing starts at $39 per month

#6. Patreon

Patreon is a crowdfunding website that allows content producers to directly collect periodic contributions from their supporters, or “patrons”. 

Patreon enables established and emerging creative artists (e.g., authors, singers, YouTubers) to securely charge supporters for access to unique content. 

Patrons may pick how much they wish to give each month in return for exclusive perks like early access and downloads of new work before it is released to the public.

It includes incredible capabilities, such as bespoke rates and membership tiers, that allow them to create strong relationships with their audiences. 

Furthermore, the analytics are robust, providing detailed information on how well a certain piece of content is performing. 

Patreon readily interacts with other platforms, allowing material to be shared everywhere at once.

Patreon Pricing Starts for free + 8% on the income you earn from Patreon

#7. Higher Logic

Higher Logic is well-known for providing a full suite of collaboration and engagement solutions to organizations, non-profits, and various other membership-based organizations. 

Its advantages include powerful member administration tools, organizing events capabilities, and extensive automation and customizing choices. 

Higher Logic’s platform enables users to communicate, network, and share information, which increases engagement and retention.

Higher Logic Pricing starts at $250 per month for their lowest package

So which software should you pick?

Like we mentioned earlier, the software you choose depends on your individual business needs. All of these softwares allow for community engagement and monetization, it just depends how you’d like to position yourself in the market, and what features are important for your community.

Linka provides an easy-to-launch branded platform that turns website and social media traffic into paying customers. The barrier to entry is low with multiple plans for all price points, allowing you to get started seamlessly. 

With Linka, you have the option to upgrade, which would enable you to view analytics, track conversions, send emails, and convert traffic into customers. 

Overall, Linka enables you to start a simple community but you can expand as your business grows. The modular software has multiple monetization options along with a connected CRM that has 1000s of integrations. 

Linka is also easy to use and enables you to launch without disruption. The best part? You can even connect Linka to your existing website or social media. 

Sign up with Linka to unlock a world of possibilities to engage with your community and seamlessly generate new revenue! Create your own branded engagement and monetization platform: TRY FOR FREE.