Is Cardel an alternative to Circle or Thinkific?

Cardel is a home for your craft: a site of your own with a blog, newsletter, shop, community, and one inbox. It can replace Circle or Thinkific when you want your work, audience, and sales in one place. The feature list on this page shows where Circle and Thinkific are marked.

Can I use Cardel with Circle or Thinkific?

Yes. Cardel pages can link out to other products, so you can keep Circle or Thinkific for what it does best and bring the rest of your work to Cardel.

How much does Cardel cost compared with Circle and Thinkific?

You don't pay for Cardel until you publish. Choose Starter, Pro, or Studio when your site goes live. Circle and Thinkific set their own prices, so check their pricing pages on this page for current plans.

How do I switch from Circle or Thinkific to Cardel?

Start with Build Your Site, set up your home, and bring your work over at your own pace. You do not have to move everything on day one.

Compare

CirclevsThinkific

Circle runs member communities with spaces, events, courses, and paywalls. Thinkific builds courses, communities, and memberships with a site around them.

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How Circle and Thinkific compare

Circle is where serious community hosts go when the community is the business. Spaces for discussion and chat, courses and events in the same place, paid memberships with branded checkout, gamification, workflows, Circle AI, and on Circle Plus your own branded iOS and Android apps. It has grown into an all-in-one for membership businesses, and the Website Builder and Email Hub mean many hosts no longer need a second tool for the front door. If your members log in every week to talk to each other, Circle is built for exactly that.

Thinkific is a reliable place to build and sell learning. Courses, assessments, certificates, communities, memberships, and a branded mobile app option let a training business grow without moving platforms, and the site builder is good enough that many creators never need another. It is steady, well documented, and built around the student.

Where they are different

Circle

Circle's pages are the front door to a members-only space.
Circle's Email Hub is an add-on priced per contact on top of the plan.
Circle's DMs live between members inside the community.
Circle has courses, live streams, paid tiers for users, and gamification.

Thinkific

Thinkific pages exist to sell courses.
Thinkific broadcasts to students and sends abandoned-cart email.
Thinkific books coaching calendars on Start and up.

Choose Circle when a paid, private community with courses and events is the product, and you want members in a branded app.

Choose Thinkific when courses, assessments, and student communities are the business.

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What's on Circle and Thinkific

A check means that capability is available. Circle and Thinkific are marked only when the offer is comparable, not the same product.

Site and brand

Workspace site
Circle: Included
Thinkific: Included
Custom domain
Circle: Included
Thinkific: Included
Theme and fonts
Circle: Included
Thinkific: Included

Public content

Showcase pages
Circle: Included
Thinkific: Included
Shop pages
Circle: Not included
Thinkific: Included

Reach and quality

SEO
Circle: Included
Thinkific: Included

Audience and email

Audience
Circle: Included
Thinkific: Included
Marketing emails
Circle: Included
Thinkific: Included
Campaign workflows
Circle: Included
Thinkific: Not included

Commerce

Shop payments
Circle: Included
Thinkific: Included
Scheduling and bookingsLink to external scheduling available on Starter.
Circle: Not included
Thinkific: Included

Team

Admin users
Circle: Included
Thinkific: Included
Per-admin permissions
Circle: Included
Thinkific: Included
AI Assistant
Circle: Included
Thinkific: Included

Feature comparison for Circle and Thinkific
Feature	Circle	Thinkific
Site and brand
Workspace site	Included	Included
Custom domain	Included	Included
Theme and fonts	Included	Included
Public content
Showcase pages	Included	Included
Shop pages	Not included	Included
Reach and quality
SEO	Included	Included
Audience and email
Audience	Included	Included
Marketing emails	Included	Included
Campaign workflows	Included	Not included
Commerce
Shop payments	Included	Included
Scheduling and bookingsLink to external scheduling available on Starter.	Not included	Included
Team
Admin users	Included	Included
Per-admin permissions	Included	Included
AI Assistant	Included	Included

* Note: This table does not capture every feature of Circle or Thinkific, and is not intended as a comprehensive list. We keep this page current, but Circle or Thinkific may add or remove features that are not shown here.