Disciplevs
Circle
Circle: Cheaper to start and quicker to launch, but your community lives inside a shared platform app unless you pay for the branded tier
Disciple
White-label community apps published under your own brand on iOS, Android and web
As of 31 August 2026, Disciple starts at £599/month. Builds branded community apps that ship in the App Store and Play Store under your name rather than a shared platform app, priced in sterling from £599 a month. Softwr lists it under Communication. Disciple is made by Disciple Media Ltd, available on Web, iOS, Android.
Overview
What Disciple does
Disciple, formerly Disciple Media, builds white-label community platforms: a native iOS app, a native Android app and a web version, each published under the customer's own brand and developer account rather than as a channel inside a shared platform app. The feature set covers feeds, groups, live streaming and video, courses, events, member directories, subscriptions and one-off payments, push notifications and analytics. The company is UK-based and has been trading in this space for over a decade. The commercial distinction is the fee structure. Community platforms commonly take a percentage of member subscriptions or course sales on top of the monthly licence, and for a community turning over meaningful revenue that percentage becomes the largest line in the bill. Disciple charges a flat monthly fee with zero transaction fees, so the break-even against a percentage-based competitor arrives at a predictable revenue point, above which Disciple is cheaper and below which it is not. That, rather than any feature, is what should decide the comparison. Buyers are creators, membership organisations, sports clubs, faith groups, professional bodies and brands that want their community off Facebook and under their own name. The trade-offs are the price floor, the App Store review burden that comes with owning your own app listing, and the fact that video is metered in minutes per plan rather than unlimited.
What people use it for
- A membership body moving several thousand paying members off Facebook Groups into an app that carries its own name in the App Store
- A fitness or coaching business selling subscriptions where a percentage-based platform fee would cost more each month than a flat licence
- A sports club or faith organisation that wants push notifications to reach members directly rather than competing with a social feed algorithm
- A brand running a customer community that must live on its own domain and its own app listing for reasons of ownership or sponsorship
Related searches
The honest half
Where it falls short
Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about Disciple.
- The entry plan starts at £599 a month, so a community with a few hundred members pays more per head than almost any percentage-fee alternative, and the flat fee only wins above a revenue threshold you should calculate before signing.
- Video is metered at 10,000 minutes on the entry plan and 20,000 on Pro, so a community that leans on live streaming will hit overage or a plan upgrade rather than the unlimited storage the marketing implies.
- Owning your own App Store listing means owning App Store review, rejections and the annual developer account, and a policy change at Apple becomes your problem rather than the platform vendor's.
- Apple and Google still take their cut of in-app purchases regardless of Disciple charging no transaction fee, so the zero percent claim applies to Disciple's share only and not to the total cost of collecting money in-app.
- Pricing is in sterling, which introduces exchange rate exposure and, for some buyers, VAT handling that a US-billed competitor would not create.
Cross-shopped
What people choose instead of Disciple
Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.
- DisciplevsMighty Networks
Mighty Networks: Comparable community and course platform at a lower entry price, with branded apps sold as a higher tier
- DisciplevsKajabi
Kajabi: If selling courses is the primary business and community is secondary
Pricing
What Disciple costs
Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.
Branded App
£599 /mo
- Branded iOS, Android and web apps
- 5 admin seats
- 10 groups
- 1 monetisable course
- 10,000 video minutes
- 0% transaction fees
Branded App Pro
£999 /mo
- Unlimited admin seats and groups under fair use
- Unlimited monetised courses
- 20,000 video minutes
- Multi-tier membership pricing
- Zapier integration
- Advanced analytics
Organisation
£3,400 /mo
- From £3,400 per month
- Custom feature development
- API access and custom integrations
- Migration assistance
- Dedicated account support
Capabilities
Features
Native branded apps
iOS and Android apps published under your own brand and developer account
Web community
Browser version on a custom domain alongside the apps
Groups and feeds
Public and private groups with moderation tools and member roles
Courses
Monetisable course modules with tiered access, one included on the entry plan
Live streaming and video
In-app live and on-demand video, metered in minutes per plan
Subscriptions and payments
Member subscriptions and one-off purchases with no transaction fee taken by Disciple
Multi-tier membership
Several priced membership levels within one community on higher plans
Push notifications and analytics
Segmented push messaging with engagement reporting
Answered, with sources
Questions people ask
Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.
How much does Disciple cost?
Branded App is £599 a month, Branded App Pro is £999 a month, and the Organisation tier starts at £3,400 a month. Annual billing gives two months free.
Does Disciple take a cut of member payments?
No. All plans are 0% transaction fees on Disciple's side. Apple and Google still take their standard in-app purchase commission, which is separate.
Is the app published under my brand?
Yes. iOS and Android apps go into the stores under your own name and branding, not as a section within a shared platform app.
Is there a member limit?
Plans advertise unlimited members subject to fair use. The real limits are admin seats, groups, courses and video minutes, which differ by plan.
Keep looking
Where to go from Disciple
- Disciple alternativesEvery product people weigh against it
- Disciple pricingPlans, floors and what the tiers exclude
- Disciple badgesWhich rules it meets, and the figure behind each
- All Communication softwareThe full category
- Best Communication softwareThe shortlist, and how it was cut
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Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for Disciple, because a rating we did not collect is not ours to publish. What is here is the pricing and platform detail from the vendor’s own pages, limitations we could state concretely, and alternatives a reviewer confirmed people weigh against it. Tell us if any of it is wrong.
More on Disciple
Disciple alternatives
What people switch to, and what they give up
Disciple pricing
Every tier, and where the cost actually lands
Compare Disciple
Put it head to head with anything we hold
Disciple badge
Its rating, and an embed for your own site
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