Want to build an engaged online community that actually works?

Yeah, me too.

I’ve spent years testing community platforms as an instructional designer (since 2018).

Every single one of them. Circle, Skool, Mighty Networks… you name it.

But is Mighty Networks worth your money?

Let me break it down for you.

No fluff.

Just real talk about what works, what doesn’t, and how it compares to other platforms.

Overview

Mighty Networks isn’t just another community platform.

Gina Bianchini started Mighty Networks in 2017.

You might know her from Ning, a huge social platform that had over 100 million users.

Her goal was simple: create a platform where people could stay engaged without getting lost in social media chaos.

Here’s what’s interesting – Mighty Networks wasn’t always the full-featured platform

It started small – just a basic community tool

But they kept improving.

Want to know their biggest win?

Mobile.

They really got the mobile experience right.

During 2020-2021, if you wanted a branded community app that worked as smoothly as Facebook groups, Mighty Networks was your only real option.

But here’s the catch – the landscape has shifted.

Keep reading.

Quick decision

👍 What I like about Mighty Networks?

• Strong mobile apps: Their native mobile apps for iOS and Android are well-designed and reliable, which is crucial for community engagement. With Mighty Pro, you can even brand them as your own.
• Variety of space templates: You get lots of ready-to-use templates for different spaces. Want to create chat rooms, feeds, events, courses, or web pages? They’ve got templates for all of these.
• Good event management: Built-in features for hosting and managing events make it easy to run webinars and community gatherings.
• Native Calendar feature: There’s a calendar that shows all your events in one place. This makes it easier for members to see what’s coming up.
• Ambassador program: They have a built-in system to reward members who bring in new people. It’s not a full affiliate program, but you can give badges and manual rewards.

👎 What I don’t like about Mighty Networks?

• Poor user interface: It’s clunky and takes time to learn, especially compared to platforms with cleaner designs.
• Transaction fee: Mighty Networks charges transaction fees across their plans: 3% for Community Plan and 2% for both Courses and Business Plans. And, while iOS app purchases come with an additional 15% Apple fee.
• Limited course features: You won’t find things like completion certificates, quizzes, or surveys. If you need more advanced features, check out platforms like Kajabi or Thinkific.
• Lack of gamification features: There’s no built-in way to add points, leaderboards, or activity scores. You can work around this by creating different spaces for different achievement levels, but it’s not ideal.
• Only Stripe integration: Want to accept payments? You’re stuck with Stripe. No PayPal support. And since there’s no API, you’ll need Zapier to connect other payment systems.
• Limited integrations: The platform lacks built-in connections to other tools and has no API. You’ll need to use Zapier for most integrations. They don’t even support other automation tools like Make.com.

Upfront bottomline

Here’s my honest take on Mighty Networks:

The good stuff?

You’re getting decent bang for your buck.

Their combo of community + course features comes at a fair price point.

The mobile app?

It’s actually pretty solid.

If you’re big on mobile engagement (who isn’t these days?), this could be your deciding factor.

But hold up.

First, the platform feels clunky.

The UI/UX needs serious work, and the lack of integrations is a major headache for most users.

Users keep asking for essential features, but Mighty Networks seems more interested in appearing user-friendly than actually implementing what people need.

So here’s my bottom line:

Unless Mighty Networks has some specific feature that’s absolutely crucial for your needs, I’d suggest looking elsewhere.

My recommendation?

Check out Circle or Kajabi instead.

Both platforms have really stepped up their game lately, especially with community features and gamification.

Explore Mighty Networks

Also read:

• Mighty Networks vs. Circle
• Mighty Networks vs. Kajabi

Interface

Let me be direct – Mighty Networks’ interface needs work.

It’s clunky and outdated.

The UI feels bloated and confusing, especially for new members who are just getting started.

Here’s the real problem:

Members spend more time figuring out where things are rather than engaging with your content.

But here’s what bugs me the most:

The pop-up system is straight-up frustrating. When you click on certain sections, they open in these tiny pop-up windows.

Want to see it properly?

You’ll need to click another button to make it full-screen.

For instance:

Your students shouldn’t have to click twice just to view their lessons properly.

When students click on a course lesson, it opens in a distracting pop-up window.

This forces them to take an extra step just to view the content properly.

Mighty Networks has gone through many design updates to fix these problems, but some frustrations still remain.

Community

Understanding the organization

Instead of forums and groups (like what they had earlier), now you need a dedicated space for each course or product.

Inside these spaces, you can turn on different features like:

• Chat rooms
• Event hosting
• Course content (they call it “table of contents”)
• Custom pages

But here’s the thing – this wasn’t smooth at all.

Many users lost content during the transition.

Some even had their community structure completely messed up. Not great.

Today:

Mighty Networks uses two main organizing tools:

1. Spaces: Think of these as separate rooms. Each space can be a course, product, or community area with its own chat, events, and content.
2. Collections: These are like folders that help keep your spaces organized. For example, you could group all your beginner courses in one collection and advanced courses in another.

Each space is customizable.

When you go into the space settings, you’ll see a bunch of features you can turn on or off (I’ll show you a screenshot below).

For example, for every space, you can enable:

• Feed: Share updates, announcements, and content with your community.
• Events: Host and manage live events, such as webinars and workshops.
• Course: Offer courses with modules and lessons
• Discovery: Help members discover relevant content and engage with each other.
• Members: Provide information and profiles of community members.
• Chat: Facilitate conversations and discussions among community members.

🤔 Here’s what’s cool about Mighty Networks: you can have everything in one space – courses, events, and chat. Unlike Circle, where you need separate spaces for each thing, this makes it way easier to manage your content and keep things organized.

Next.

In the Space settings, you have the ability to change who can join, view, or send invites to your space.

Here are the 4 space visibility options in Mighty Networks:

1. Public Space: Anyone can see the content and join without approval. Great for growing communities, but watch out for spam!
2. Private Space: Content stays hidden from non-members. People need to request access first. Perfect for exclusive communities.
3. Secret Space: Ultra-private option – nobody can see it exists until they get a direct invite. Ideal for VIP groups.
4. Paid Space: Content is locked until members pay the fee. Best for premium courses and membership sites.

These options cover all your requirements.

Based on the community’s privacy settings, the text on the call to action button will be modified.

As shown in the screenshot below, the current text is “Join.”

This means that if a community is set as public, individuals who are not signed in or not part of the community will need to click on the join button.

🚧 I strongly recommend against making your space public on Mighty Networks – the platform lacks essential moderation features like profanity filters and spam rules, which makes managing public communities a real headache, as many users have reported in their reviews.

Enrollments and community access

When you go to community or network settings, you can create multiple pricing plans.

For each plan, you can select the products or the access to spaces that will be included.

Mighty Networks has a feature called “Gates” – basically a screening system.

Here’s what it does:

It lets you create qualification questions that potential members must answer before joining your network.

Think of it as a pre-screening process to ensure you’re getting the right people in your community.

This pre-qualification can be particularly important.

Because, based on the niche of your community and helps you avoid spam and focus on quality interactions.

One notable feature is the ability to toggle screening questions and approvals independently.

• Screening Questions only: The member would answer the questions and be able to make a purchase.
• Approval only: The member would require approval to make a purchase.
• Screening Questions and Approval: The member would need to answer the questions and receive approval in order to make a purchase.

👉 If you set your community as public, I strongly recommend implementing a rigorous prequalification process to prevent spam.

You can invite members/moderators/hosts to spaces by sending an invitation email that is customizable.

To ease the process, you can send bulk invites by uploading CSV and importing the contacts. Rather than sending individual emails this bulk process saves tons of time.

Onboarding new users

In Mighty Networks, you have the option to set custom landing spaces for your community members.

For example, you can have new members land on a page where they can introduce themselves or showcase their work, facilitating an icebreaker.

For returning members, you can set the default landing space to the chat area of your community.

Also, Mighty Networks comes with a feature called the welcome checklist.

This checklist is visible to users on the right panel and can be customized.

For example, you can ask members to fill out their profile, adjust their notifications, download the Mighty Networks app, and introduce themselves in the community.

👉 I highly recommend you to have the welcome checklist strategically set up because it’s not uncommon for users to find the Mighty Networks interface confusing.

Posting content

When people join your community, they will be able to navigate the relevant spaces or collections

But how good is the post creator?

You have the ability to create content various formats of content.

Members have the ability to create quick posts, articles, ask questions, or conduct polls.

For example, most people will create quick posts using the feature-rich post editor, which includes AI features to quickly enhance their text.

Users can fix grammatical mistakes, simplify their message, and make it more succinct.

On the other hand, if users are creating an entire article, the text editor provides various formatting options such as bold, italics, alignments, and heading options.

Overall, the text editor is minimal yet effective.

Member discovery

Mighty Networks offers some unique features for member matchmaking.

I was impressed with their prioritization of community engagement through member matching based on common interests.

Also, you have a member search engine that allows you to search members based on various filters as shown below.

• Top members: Recognizes active users and awards badges for engagement
• Members near you: Connects users based on location for local networking
• Member categories: Groups users by interests like marketing, blogging, etc.

Finding members who live nearby is a game-changer.

Here’s why:

• Build stronger connections with local community members
• Organize in-person meetups easily

This local connection feature sets Mighty Networks apart from other platforms where organizing local meetups can be quite challenging.

Online courses

Mighty Networks gives you two course options: regular content courses and cohort courses (for group learning).

To start a new course space, pick from their templates:

What’s a cohort course? It’s a course where students learn together as a group during specific time periods, rather than having constant access to all content.

Course organization is straightforward:

• Create sections to group related content
• Add lessons under each section
• Students can easily switch between course content and community features

The lesson editor is simple but functional:

• Basic text formatting options
• Upload videos directly or embed from Vimeo/Wistia
• But no bulk video upload feature

You get three lesson delivery options:

1. None: All content available instantly
2. Timed: Lessons release on schedule
3. Sequential: Must complete previous lesson first

For better course compliance you can:

• Track video completion rates
• Set required quiz passing scores

But there are some important limitations that we need to be aware of.

But here’s the thing.

The course interface needs improvement.

Here’s what I mean:

Videos appear too large without proper spacing, which can affect the learning experience.

Events and livestreaming

In Mighty Networks, you have the ability to host live streaming events for your community.

As a host, you can go live at any time using the “go live” feature, which is available not only on the web interface but also on the Mighty Networks mobile apps.

Additionally, you can schedule community events, which will be listed in your events space.

Mighty Networks offers several event types:

• Live videos
• Live streams
• Webinars
• Online meetings
• Text chat events

Here’s the problem: their terminology is quite confusing.

For example, what’s the real difference between a “live video”, “webinar”, and “live stream”?

They’re basically the same thing! This unclear naming leads to unnecessary confusion when trying to pick the right option for your event.

Another example: they use “online” vs “local” for event categories. Why not just say “in-person” instead of “local”?

It would be much clearer.

This is exactly what I mean when I say their UI/UX needs work. Simple changes in terminology would make the platform much more user-friendly.

Design and customization

As usual, Mighty Networks provides the option to customize your community name, visibility, logos, and brand colors.

You can change the colors of your headers, buttons, tabs, text links, and action items.

Additionally, community members have the ability to switch between dark and light mode in their account settings.

Here’s a powerful customization feature in Mighty Networks:

You can rename key terms throughout your community to match your brand voice.

For example, you can rename:

• Collections → Groups
• Spaces → Areas
• Events → Hangouts
• Members → Soldiers

This lets you create a more personalized and branded experience for your community members.

Reporting and Analytics

On the Community and Business plans, Mighty Networks gives detailed analytics on the content, courses, and groups.

The analytics dashboard gives you two key insights:

1. Member activity metrics: Track daily/monthly active users, view peak activity times via heatmap, and analyze platform usage patterns
2. Content engagement data: Monitor post engagement, member-generated content percentage, course performance, and export analytics for team review

Mobile app

Mighty Networks offers robust mobile apps for both iOS and Android platforms.

The apps provide full feature parity with the web version, meaning you won’t miss out on any functionality when using mobile.

The mobile app packs powerful features:

• Go live instantly and interact with webinar attendees
• Send custom brand notifications
• Push alerts for in-app purchases, group coaching calls, live events, and new product launches

A solid mobile app is crucial for community building since email engagement tends to be low. Mighty Networks delivers here.

For those wanting more, their Mighty Pro solution offers complete white-labeling.

Mighty Pro lets you create and launch custom-branded apps on both Google Play and Apple App Stores.

Here’s a real success story:

Kula by Yoga With Adriene switched from Facebook Groups to Mighty Pro and saw impressive results:

Marketing and checkout

Let’s talk about Mighty Networks’ landing page builder first.

You’ll find a basic template editor in your network access settings.

The landing page options are quite limited:

• Creator template (good for portfolio-style communities)
• Community template (standard option)

Here’s the big limitation: there’s no proper page builder.

You can only edit basic info – no testimonials, hero sections, or videos. Because of this, many users build their landing pages elsewhere (like WordPress with Elementor or ClickFunnels) and just link to the checkout.

Now, let’s dive into the checkout process.

When someone clicks “buy”, they need to:

1. Create an account (or sign in)
2. Enter billing details

This multi-step checkout creates unnecessary friction. It’s surprising they haven’t implemented a single-step checkout yet.

Payment options are very limited too. You get:

• Stripe only (no PayPal)
• No built-in alternatives for countries without Stripe

There’s a workaround though. You can use Thrivecart for payments and connect it to Mighty Networks through Zapier to automatically add members.

👎 While Mighty Networks focuses on trendy features like Web3 and token gating, they’re missing basic essentials like multiple payment gateways that most users actually need.

Integrations

Mighty Networks has limited integrations.

While it allows integration with Google Analytics and the addition of a Facebook Pixel tracking code, there are not many other options.

It does not have direct integrations with popular email marketing software like ConvertKit, ActiveCampaign, MailChimp, and others.

Additionally, it lacks API support.

Instead, you must rely on Zapier for automation.

Moreover, it does not integrate with other Zapier alternatives (like Make.com)

It’s almost like they have an exclusive deal with Zapier or something.

Despite multiple support requests, there have been no updates regarding the integration with other platforms like Zapier.

Referral program

Mighty Networks offers an ambassador program to help grow your community through member referrals.

Unlike traditional affiliate programs, it doesn’t pay cash commissions. Instead, you can set up a rewards system for members who bring in new people.

For example, you could offer:

When you enable the ambassador program, members get unique referral links to invite others.

Rewards are based on the number of successful referrals. Here are some example rewards you can offer:

• 10% store discount for referring 5 members
• Featured member of the month status
• Free ticket to upcoming masterclass

These are just examples – you can fully customize the rewards to match what your community values most.

Mighty Networks pricing

If you are already hosting your courses on a separate platform and do not need access to Zapier API, then the community plan at $39 per month may be suitable for you.

If you need courses and Zapier integration, go with the $119/month Business plan.

Most users end up choosing this plan because Zapier is essential for automation.

The $39/month plan is quite limiting for growth.

Without Zapier, you can’t use:

Conclusion

Mighty Networks is popular but has some issues. The interface isn’t great – they’ve had some bad updates that messed up communities’ content and structure.

Yes, they’ve improved lately with their revamp. But it’s still not user-friendly. They keep ignoring important requests like:

The big plus? They have the best mobile app in the market. If mobile experience matters most to you, Mighty Networks is worth considering.

For my business though, I’d pick Circle.so instead.

Your needs might be different. Check out my comparison of Mighty Networks vs. Circle.so to decide what’s best for you.

FAQs on Mighty Networks

What is Mighty Networks?

It’s an all-in-one platform for online communities and courses. Perfect for course creators, teachers, coaches, and marketers who want everything in one place.

What is Mighty Pro?

These are custom-branded mobile apps with your branding, available as a premium option.

Does Mighty have a free plan?

No, but you can try it free for 14 days using this link.

Can I try out the tool before going with premium?

Yes, just sign up for the 14-day trial to test it out.