Leaving Circle? Know what comes with you first.
Circle is the most polished community platform there is, and the export gives you members, not courses, progress or messages. Here is what you actually own on Circle, what the fees and add-ons cost, what moves to WordPress, what gets rebuilt, and the version where you stay.
“I use Kajabi now but am not in love with the community feature... am considering Circle for that but not sure I want to have two systems to run my business.”
“I need someone who can build the Circle experience for me, not just advise on how to build it myself.”
“Just importing contacts already kicking in an additional 25$ per month.”
“Polite support, rigid product — email locks, fees, painful Stripe exit.”
Circle is the nicest room you can rent. The question is the lease.
Circle earns its reputation: the most polished interface in the category, frequent releases, deep AI. Owners start looking at the door when the plan tier blocks a feature they need, when the fees and add-ons stack up, or when they realise what the export leaves behind. Those are different problems, and only some of them are solved by moving.
First we test whether you should move at all.
A migration is the most expensive way to fix a problem that was never about the platform. Before anything moves, the Audit answers these, in writing.
If you move: build it beside Circle, switch on one day.
Nothing is turned off until the new site has let real members in. The order below is the one we use on every hosted-platform migration.
- 1Request the export and inventory the restThe four CSVs from Circle support, plus a list of every space, course and pinned post, and which ones are actually used. The unused ones do not move.
- 2Build the community and classroom on WordPressMemBuild Community for the feed, levels, leaderboard and chats; LearnDash if you need quizzes and certificates. Spaces that gate content become member groups tied to a WordPress role.
- 3Wire payments and access, then test the chainStripe or PayPal into the membership plugin, tags into the CRM, the access rule on every course and group. A test purchase, a failed card, a cancel, as a member on a phone.
- 4Import members and send one emailUsers created from the export with their plans attached. One “set your password” email, sent in batches, with a reply address a human reads that week.
- 5Run both for one billing cycle, then close CircleSubscriptions move at renewal so nobody is double-charged. The feed starts with a pinned welcome and the levels announced. Then the Circle plan, the fee and the Email Hub stop.
Will my members have to make new accounts?
No. Members come over as WordPress users from the Circle member export, and set a password through a “welcome to the new home” email on the day we switch. Their email address is the key; nothing else changes for them.
Do my posts, courses and progress come with me?
Members do. You can download the member list yourself; the fuller export is requested from Circle support and comes as four CSVs (members, spaces, posts, comments) with no uploaded media. Direct messages, courses and course progress are not part of that export as Circle documents it. Courses are rebuilt by hand (they are sections and lessons, so it is quick); the feed starts fresh. We tell you this before you commit, not after.
What about Circle’s email hub and automations?
Contacts and tags export; the sequences are rebuilt in FluentCRM, Keap or ActiveCampaign, which is also the moment to delete the ones nobody remembers writing. If you pay for the Email Hub, that $99 a month stops.
Circle’s interface is nicer than WordPress. Will my members notice?
Circle is the most polished community product on the market, and we say so. MemBuild Community is built for the same one-screen feel: feed, classroom, leaderboard, chats. It is not Circle; it is yours. The Audit shows you the demo next to your current site before any decision.
What if the answer is to stay on Circle?
Then that is what the Roadmap says: stay, and fix these three things. It happens often, and you keep the Roadmap either way.
The Audit runs the stay-or-move test on your Circle account, requests the export so you can see exactly what comes with you, and writes down the answer with the cost of each path.
Strategy Audit: $1,500, two weeks, a written Membership Operations Roadmap you own. Refundable in week one if we can’t help. The $1,500 counts toward a fix or Support Block started within 30 days.