I've run my own community on Circle for five years. I've had two agencies on HighLevel for seven. I've implemented Skool for clients. I had early access to ThriveAcademy before its launch. This comparison is written from all four of those positions simultaneously.
ThriveAcademy launched from ThriveCart — a platform I've been using since 2017 and was one of the original 15 Certified Experts on. The combination of that history with ThriveCart and my early access to ThriveAcademy gives me a perspective on this comparison that most people writing about it don't have.
What I'm going to give you here is not a feature table with checkmarks. It's a real answer to the question: given what I know about all four of these platforms from actual use, who should be on each one?
That single question determines which of these platforms is right for you. Let me be direct about where each one stands.
The community exists to support the course. Students land in a community feed, but the reason ThriveAcademy exists — it's in the name — is the Academy. The course is the product. The community wraps around it. Their own documentation says they put "community first," but the architecture, the toolset, the gamification engine, and the entire student experience are designed around course completion and course engagement. I'd call this community-as-accountability-layer rather than community-as-product.
The community is the product. Courses are a feature inside the community, not the other way around. You don't build a course and add a community — you build a community that can include courses. Convology+ is built on Circle. The community experience is what people are paying for. The courses exist within that, not above it.
Community first, course as a component. Skool is organized like a social feed with course access available on the side. The Skool discovery network, the cultural identity, the leaderboards and engagement loops are all community-facing. Courses on Skool are functional but not the star.
Neither is primary. Both are features of a business operating system. HighLevel's community and course features exist because the market demanded them from an all-in-one platform — they weren't built to be the main event.
I've run Convology+ on Circle since 2020. I had early access to ThriveAcademy. These two platforms are not direct competitors in the sense that they're going after the same buyer — but they overlap enough that most people in this space will consider both.
ThriveAcademy's course builder is more sophisticated right now than Circle's. Multiple navigation layouts, mixed content blocks per lesson (video, audio, text, PDF, quiz all in one lesson), lesson-level discussions, course collections and categories, and a cleaner visual course experience for students. Circle's course platform works — I use it — but it's not where Circle invests most of its development energy. Circle has a 2026 course platform update coming that may change this comparison.
ThriveAcademy has text-based quizzes, multiple choice, multi-select, true/false, short answer with keyword matching, pass marks, time limits, attempt limits, immediate feedback, quiz-gated lesson progression, and certificates tied to quiz passes. Four question types. These are purpose-built for learning outcomes. Circle has basic quiz functionality. This gap is real.
ThriveAcademy's gamification engine is the most sophisticated of any platform in this comparison — XP points, customizable point names, five badge rarity levels, three preset configurations, streak rescue mechanics, Q&A reputation scoring, leaderboard with four time views. It's genuinely well-built. I personally don't use gamification in Convology+ — I find it gimmicky in most community contexts — but if gamification matters to your community design, ThriveAcademy has the best implementation. One caveat: this gamification is primarily course-driven. Course-driven gamification is less sticky than community-native gamification.
ThriveAcademy Scale includes unlimited video storage. Circle has native video hosting but with storage limits — I currently host my videos on Vimeo because Circle's storage caps mean I can't host everything on-platform. Skool also has unlimited video hosting. On video storage, Circle is actually the weakest of the four platforms in this comparison. Unlimited storage at $97/month eliminates that problem entirely for ThriveAcademy Scale users.
Circle's Spaces system gives you dedicated areas — each with their own discussion feeds, access controls, content types, and purposes — that feel like a designed environment rather than a single feed. ThriveAcademy's Spaces exist but are more course-centric in their design philosophy. Circle's organizational depth is better for communities where the discussion and community structure itself is the primary value.
Circle's Access Groups are still best-in-class. The concept of a bucket that you add people to — via manual assignment, workflow, paywall, invite link, or form — and everything inside the bucket is automatically provisioned and retroactively updated, is the most flexible access control system in any community platform. ThriveAcademy has Space Unlock Rules that are genuinely sophisticated (XP level, course completion, quiz score, purchase, time after joining, engagement, tags) but they operate within a community rather than at the community access level. Circle's system is more architecturally powerful.
Circle has native live rooms (interactive, camera-on) and live streams (broadcast) — both excellent. ThriveAcademy currently has no live event infrastructure. This is a real gap for community operators who run regular live programming. Skool also has native live rooms and streaming. HighLevel has live event capabilities but they're more basic.
Circle is the most visually polished community platform available. The interface is clean, considered, and modern in a way that your members will notice. ThriveAcademy's interface is functional but it doesn't have Circle's elegance. For community-first businesses where the member experience is the product, this matters.
If your business is course-first — if people are primarily paying for structured learning and the community exists to keep them accountable and engaged — ThriveAcademy. If your business is community-first — if people are primarily paying for access to the people, the discussions, the events, and the community experience — Circle.
At annual pricing, Circle Professional ($89/mo) and ThriveAcademy Scale ($97/mo) are separated by $8/month. These are the two closest competitors in this comparison on price.
See the full Circle hub →At the top tier, ThriveAcademy Scale and Skool Pro are separated by two dollars per month. The platforms couldn't be more different in what those dollars buy you.
Skool's course experience is intentionally simple — modules and lessons, basic content, minimal customization. That simplicity is a feature for some use cases. ThriveAcademy's course builder is substantially more capable: mixed content blocks per lesson, multiple navigation layouts, four quiz question types, drip scheduling options, tag-based tiered access within a course, and course-specific discussion boards. If courses are central to your business, ThriveAcademy is the better course platform.
ThriveAcademy processes payments through ThriveCart and Stripe. Your subscribers are in your Stripe account. If you ever want to leave ThriveAcademy, your billing relationships come with you. Skool uses its own payment processing — your subscribers are in Skool's system, not Stripe. If you ever want to leave Skool, your active subscriptions don't transfer. Your members would have to manually re-subscribe on your new platform. Most Skool comparisons underemphasize this.
ThriveAcademy Scale includes white-label branding and custom domain. Your community feels like your platform, not ThriveAcademy's. Skool communities live at skool.com/your-community. You are a tenant in Skool's building. There's nothing wrong with that — it's a deliberate product decision — but it means your brand always exists within Skool's brand.
Skool has built something no other platform in this comparison has: an internal discovery network. Potential members can search for and find communities within Skool's ecosystem. Skool is actively becoming a community search engine. If you want organic discovery — people finding your community through a platform rather than through your own marketing — Skool has a mechanism for that. ThriveAcademy doesn't.
The Skool network — shaped significantly by Alex Hormozi's involvement and the community that's built around it — has a cultural identity that carries real weight for certain types of creators and audiences. Being a "Skooler" is a choice that says something about the kind of operator you are. That identity has network effects. If you want to be visible in and associated with that ecosystem, Skool is where that happens. ThriveAcademy has no equivalent cultural ecosystem.
If you want to be discoverable on a platform's network and the Skool ecosystem appeals to you or your audience — Skool. If you care about course quality, owning your billing relationships, and having your own branded community domain — ThriveAcademy Scale.
At $97/month annual for Scale vs $99/month for Skool Pro, price is not a meaningful differentiator between these two.
HighLevel is the only platform in this comparison that comes anywhere close to competing with ThriveCart on the e-commerce and funnel side. But comparing ThriveAcademy to HighLevel isn't really about features — it's about architecture.
HighLevel's community and course features work. You can build a course, create a community, and run events inside HighLevel. But those features were built to connect to HighLevel's other features — not to work natively with them. The checkout sits in one part of the platform. The community sits in another. The course in another. The automation in another. You build a workflow to bridge them, and that workflow is one more thing to maintain. It's powerful. It also requires you to know what you're doing.
ThriveAcademy's experience is different. The checkout, the community, the course, the gamification, and the student access are all reading from the same database, built as one product. When someone buys, they're in the community with the right access before you finish reading the confirmation email. You don't configure that — it's just how it works. There is no workflow to build.
ThriveAcademy's native ThriveCart integration means purchase-to-access is fully automatic. No Zapier, no webhook, no custom workflow. The checkout and the community are one product. This is ThriveAcademy's most meaningful advantage over every platform in this comparison — not just HighLevel.
Everything in ThriveAcademy was built for courses and community. HighLevel's course and community features were built because the market demanded them. Purpose-built tools designed for a specific job almost always outperform features added to a broader platform.
HighLevel has a full CRM, email marketing (usage-billed), SMS, phone system, reputation management, pipeline management, appointment scheduling, two-way communication, and a dozen other features ThriveAcademy doesn't touch. If you need those things — and most serious service businesses do — HighLevel handles them in a way ThriveAcademy simply doesn't attempt.
HighLevel's workflow engine operates across your entire business — not just your course and community. It triggers on CRM events, pipeline changes, appointment bookings, payment status, form submissions, and hundreds of other conditions. ThriveAcademy's Sequences are course-scoped but they do that job cleanly. HighLevel can do more; for course-specific automation it requires more configuration to get there.
HighLevel does have assessments and a solid certificate program. The quiz functionality is basic but the certificate system is genuinely good — automated certificate issuance tied to course completion is a feature worth knowing about. If certifications are part of your course business model, HighLevel handles this well.
If courses and community are the primary product of your business and you want the simplest, most integrated implementation — ThriveAcademy. If you need a full business operating system with courses and community as components within a larger CRM and marketing infrastructure — HighLevel.
Many serious operators use both: ThriveCart and ThriveAcademy for the course and community layer, HighLevel for the CRM and marketing layer.
See the full HighLevel hub →All comparisons are at each platform's top consumer tier — ThriveAcademy Scale ($97/mo annual), Circle Business ($199/mo annual), Skool Pro ($99/mo), HighLevel Starter ($97/mo).
| Feature | ThriveAcademy Scale $97/mo annual | Circle Business $199/mo annual | Skool Pro $99/mo | HighLevel $97/mo |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing & Billing | ||||
| Billing model | Monthly or annual | Annual only | Monthly | Monthly |
| Payments process through | Your Stripe | Your Stripe | Skool's system | Your Stripe |
| You own subscriber data | ✓ | ✓ | ✕ | ✓ |
| Branding & Domain | ||||
| Custom domain | ✓ | ✓ | ✕ Skool URL | ✓ |
| White-label branding | ✓ | ✓ Business | ✕ | ✓ |
| Native mobile app | ✕ Web only | ✓ Circle app | ✓ Skool app | ✓ Kollab (limited) |
| Courses & Video | ||||
| Course platform | ✓ Strong | ✓ Capable | ✓ Basic | ✓ Capable |
| Video hosting | ✓ Unlimited | ✓ Limited storage | ✓ Unlimited | ✓ Unlimited |
| Assessments / Quizzes | ✓ Sophisticated | ✓ Basic | ✕ | ✓ Basic + certs |
| Community & Engagement | ||||
| Gamification | ✓ Most sophisticated | ✓ Basic | ✓ Community-native | ✕ |
| Live events | ✕ | ✓ Rooms + streams | ✓ Rooms + streams | ✓ Basic |
| Community spaces | ✓ Course-focused | ✓ Best-in-class | ✕ Single feed | ✕ Basic |
| Access control | ✓ Tag + XP-based | ✓ Access Groups (best) | ✕ Group-level only | ✕ Weakest |
| Platform discoverability | ✕ | ✕ | ✓ Built-in | ✕ |
| Automation & Business Tools | ||||
| Native automation | ✓ Course-scoped | ✓ Community-wide | ✕ | ✓ Platform-wide |
| Native email | ✕ | ✓ Add-on ($19+/mo) | ✕ | ✓ Included (usage billed) |
| CRM | ✕ | ✕ Extremely limited | ✕ | ✓ Full CRM |
| Funnels / upsells | ✓ Via ThriveCart | ✕ Basic | ✕ | ✓ |
| Purchase-to-access | ✓ Native (no Zapier) | ✓ Native | ✓ Native | Requires workflow |
You're already using ThriveCart for checkout. Your business leads with courses. You want the tightest possible integration between what someone buys and what they access. You don't have courses yet? There's very little reason to be here — the platform was built for course creators first. The community is there to support the learning, not the other way around.
Try ThriveCart → Community is your product. People are paying for access to the people, the discussions, the events, and the community experience. Courses are a component, not the centerpiece. You care about how the platform looks and how your members feel inside it. You want best-in-class access control, native live events, and you're building for the long term.
Try Circle → You want to be discoverable in Skool's network. You want to be associated with the Skool ecosystem and the kind of creator community that's built around it. Simplicity matters more than depth. You're willing to accept that your subscribers are in Skool's system rather than Stripe — meaning if you ever leave, they don't come with you.
Try Skool → You're already using HighLevel for the rest of your business — CRM, email, funnels, SMS, pipelines — and you want courses and community inside the same platform rather than adding another subscription. Courses and community as standalone reasons to choose HighLevel don't hold up. But if you're already in the ecosystem and your course and community needs are not your primary differentiator, keeping it consolidated makes sense.
Try HighLevel Free →I use Circle for Convology+ and have clients on HighLevel, ThriveCart, and Skool. If you want to talk through which of these is right for your specific situation, that's what Tech Help Calls are for.
Book a Tech Help Call →If you've decided on Circle and want help with setup, access groups, or migration — I do Circle implementations.
See Circle Services →If you've decided on HighLevel — I've run two agencies on it for seven years.
See HighLevel Services →Want to see ThriveAcademy, Circle, and HighLevel in action from the inside? Convology+ is built on Circle and the full tutorial library covers all of these tools.
Join Convology+ →