Circle vs Zulip Pricing (2026)
How do these two stack up on price? Here's what each one costs, what you get, and where the value sits.
Professional
- Circle AI
- Unlimited members
- Courses
- Discussions
- Events
- Website Builder
- Live streams
- Live rooms
- Custom branding
- Reporting & analytics
- Searchable member directory
- Rich member profiles
- Paid memberships
- Gamification
- Custom domain
- Weekly community digest
- Migration services for payments
Business
Popular- Workflows
- Custom profile fields
- Circle MCP
- Headless Member API
- Admin API
- Branded email notifications
- Content co-pilot
- Automated transcriptions
- Activity scores
- Standard migration services
- Remove Circle branding
Circle Plus
- AI Agents & AI workflows
- Custom single sign-on (SSO)
- Highest limits (Live, Storage, Workflows)
- 10k Email Hub contacts included
- Lower transaction fees
- Sandbox community
Free
- 10,000 messages of search history
- File storage up to 5 GB total
- Complete team chat solution
- Hundreds of integrations
- Advanced roles and permissions
- Guest accounts
- Many organizations are eligible for a free Standard plan
Standard
- Unlimited search history
- File storage up to 5 GB per user
- Flexible permissions with custom groups
- Message retention policies
- Brand Zulip with your logo
- Priority commercial support
- Public access option
Plus
- All Standard plan features
- File storage up to 25 GB per user
- SSO with SAML (Okta, OneLogin, etc.)
- SCIM user and group sync
- Custom domain
- Limit user list access for guests
- Priority commercial support
Circle vs Zulip FAQ
- Which one is cheaper?
- Zulip is the cheaper option, starting at $8/mo vs $89/mo for Circle.
- Can I use either one for free?
- Zulip has a free plan. Circle doesn't — though they do offer a free trial.
- How do they charge?
- Different approach here. Circle uses hybrid pricing, while Zulip goes with per-seat. That changes the math depending on your team size and usage.
- Which one is a better deal?
- Depends on what you need. Circle: At $89-199/mo before the custom enterprise tier, Circle sits mid-to-upper market compared to scrappier community tools but undercuts full-blown LMS or membership platforms bundled with marketing suites. They're chasing serious creators and businesses who've outgrown Discord/Slack hacks but aren't ready for a bloated enterprise stack. Zulip: They're deliberately undercutting Slack (which runs $7.25–$12.50/seat) and positioning as the scrappy, async-first alternative for technical teams who find Slack too noisy and too expensive. This isn't a premium play — it's a value wedge targeting developer-heavy orgs and mission-driven organizations who are price-sensitive.
Still deciding? See the best Circle alternatives or the best Zulip alternatives, ranked with verified pricing.
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