4 Best Mighty Networks Alternatives to Scale Your Service Business Faster (and Smarter) in 2022

1. Pros of Mighty Networks
2. Cons of Mighty Networks
3. 4 Best Alternatives to Mighty Networks
4. WordPress - the Most Flexible Mighty Networks Alternative
5. Podia - the Most Niche Alternative
6. WebinarGeek - the Most Course-Focused Alternative
7. Profi - the Most Holistic Mighty Networks Alternative
8. Bottom Line

Building an online community is one of the "next big things" for service providers including coaches, consultants and trainers. A chance to scale content marketing through user-generated content, offer peer-to-peer support, collect feedback from fans, and enable community members to forge valuable relationships: all under your brand.

To run an online community, though, you need a membership-enabled online community platform. And in the past, that often meant Mighty Networks was your only option.

But other, more flexible and feature-rich, alternative software solutions have emerged over the last two years, leveling up the community platform game for content creators, course creators, modern teams and their community members.

The latest group of community platforms we'll cover here offers creators and teams more features and benefits than a mighty network-hosted online community. We took a look across four indicators of platform quality, including:

1. The richness of the platform's features.
2. The flexibility of the platform across service delivery use cases.
3. Ability to customize.
4. Ease of integration into a service delivery workflow.

Here we'll highlight four of the most popular Mighty Networks competitors and alternatives that meet these quality indicators, right after detailing the pros and cons of using the platform in a quick Mighty Networks review.

Pros of Mighty Networks

Founded in 2017, Mighty Networks set out to connect businesses with their audiences in more branded, personal online communities. And for many users, the platform still handles these functions very well.

Israel Gaudette, founder of Link Tracker Pro, describes the community platform as his go-to resource for creating a private space for his members to discuss things under his brand domain.

1. Take space from social media distractions: Mighty Networks lets you create an exclusive online community with minimal-to-no ad distractions. Your community members are no longer tempted to browse unrelated social media feeds, wasting hours on, say, Facebook. Instead, you'll have a community of people more focused and interested in what you're sharing. And a membership who'll feel safer expressing themselves; consequently, boosting community engagement.
2. Mobile app: Mighty Networks is also praised for being mobile-friendly, which helps facilitate peer-to-peer conversations across platforms. CEO of Software Pundit Bruce Hogan particularly values its " fantastic in-platform discussion that drives significant student engagement, including having one of the best mobile app [experiences] for students. "
3. Personalization: Its content post structure allows community members to personalize their experiences. They can configure their notifications, and organize interactions and relationships. For professional service providers hosting the community, you can leverage features like community-wide announcements, new member welcomes and group creation tools to drive more engagement.
4. Mighty Networks pricing: What's more? Mighty Networks offers flexible pricing, including low-cost options for solopreneurs just starting to build a community.

Cons of Mighty Networks

Despite its past popularity, Mighty Networks features have substantial shortcomings.

For one, the platform is not an all-in-one solution for professionals, so it requires considerable effort to integrate it with other tools you already use in your service delivery workflow. Only a limited number of integrations are possible with Mighty Networks, and even so: they are not developer-friendly.

As Len Markidan, CMO of Podia, explains: "... Mighty Networks requires a creator to manage and pay for multiple other tools to run their business, including email marketing tools, website hosting tools and more. As creators move toward all-in-one platforms, they're leaving behind the need to use Zapier and "digital duct tape," as many refer to it, to make several different tools work together, streamlining their business and lowering their expenses in the process."

Second, Mighty Networks doesn't allow display ads, which robs professional service providers of a chance to monetize their communities. According to Founder and CEO of Travel For All, Dale Reardon, "Mighty Networks doesn't like ads in forums, but it should not be their decision or concern as to how you monetize your community. We want to include ads to our other services and parts of our own business, but it's just not possible with Mighty Networks. "

Then there's the issue of limited customization. International Speaker and founder of Business Tech Ninjas Melodie Moore notes that " Mighty Networks is a platform-based solution which means you have to follow their way of doing things. My clients moved off of it because they wanted to create a customized experience for their members and not be beholden to Mighty Networks' limitations. "

• In particular, users have criticized Mighty Networks for limitations and inflexibility in supporting course development for their membership.
• They're also disappointed with the limited colors and subdomains for branding one's page. Oh, and the lack of custom badges and emoticons.
• To make it worse: community members are also limited in what they can upload. Think native videos and live streams. In these cases, users can only embed links from YouTube, Vimeo, etc. This is an unfriendly arrangement for casual posters who just want to share, say, a mobile video from their spin class directly from their smartphone.

Overall: Mighty Networks may not be right for you if you're looking to build course platform experiences, easily integrate your community members into your service delivery, customize branding or want a more flexible feature set to grow your business. Or, if paid memberships are not the core focus of your online community.

Now that you're clear on the pros and cons of the platform, let's look at the four of the most popular Mighty Networks alternatives to take your community beyond the traditional walls of the social network and into the flow of your business.

The 4 Very Best Alternatives to Mighty Networks

"Best" generally depends on personal perceptions. We could focus on Mighty Networks vs Teachable, for example, and have a range of opinions and findings. Ultimately, we think the best Mighty Networks alternative should have clear benefits in terms of the four indicators of platform quality we summarized in the intro. To recap, these quality indicators are:

1. Richness of the platform features.
2. Fexibility of the platform (across service delivery use cases).
3. Customization.
4. Ease of integration (instead of relying on complicated, time-consuming, and unreliable integrations).

That said, here are four exciting alternatives to Mighty Networks that are gaining significant traction in the marketplace.

4. WordPress: The most flexible Mighty Networks alternative.

WordPress is popular, in part, due to its extensive developer community supporting numerous mobile app plugins. Many plugins can be combined to create an online community experience that functions as an alternative to Mighty Networks.

Ravi Jayagopal, cofounder of Digital Access Pass, highlights some of WordPress's benefits: "thousands of incredible plugins to choose from; having your own platform on your own domain, powered by WordPress, gives you maximum flexibility and control. There's a plugin for everything. You are in charge. "

In other words, WordPress offers the flexibility and the long-term benefits of not being locked into an inflexible community platform that's subject to the whims of its developers.

3. Podia: The most niche alternative to Mighty Networks.

Podia is another strong all-in-one software alternative. Features that Podia users particularly value include its:

• E-course functionality.
• Video hosting.
• 24/7 customer support.

Head of Marketing for WellPCB, Abby, also values that it "allows affiliate marketing campaigns and charges zero transaction fees."

2. WebinarGeek: The most course-focused alternative to Mighty Networks

WebinarGeek is, as one might expect from the name, very focused on the webinar and e-course aspects of online communities. It's well known for making course creation easy and providing insightful user engagement data for webinars and course creators.

In other words, the online course platform has it all:

• Landing pages.
• Recording and pre-recording.
• Engagement analytics.

It's also user-friendly: guiding users step-by-step through the onboarding process so you can use the software effectively.

Sanne de Groot, WebinarGeek marketer, explains that the " webinar software allows you to add multiple content types to your courses, including the option to invite experts via the co-presenter feature. The best part, though, is that it's browser-based, so it requires no downloads for both attendees and organizers. "

On the downside, WebinarGeek does not yet offer a standalone community space outside of the webinars themselves.

While the alternatives to Mighty Networks we highlighted here were the most commonly mentioned, platforms like Udemy, Skillshare, and Kajabi are also options to consider when choosing the right community platform for your coaching needs.

So first, assess the objectives of creating an online community membership. Then, choose a Mighty Network alternative that best aligns with those objectives.

1. Profi - the most holistic Mighty Networks alternative

What's an all-around better alternative to Mighty Networks across every quality indicator?

Well, Seth Davis, an Adult Sleep Coach, votes for Profi for the win.

He shares, "As a coach, I have been looking for a platform that can help me keep all or most of my coaching process in one place. And Profi is the closest tool I've found by far. It helps me with everything from scheduling sessions to managing client information, from providing clients with intake forms to hosting video calls."

Unlike Mighty Networks, Profi provides an all-in-one solution for professional service providers (coaches, consultants, and trainers).

You get all the tools you need to organize and provide your services:

• Scheduling and booking.
• Multiple service types including individual sessions, group sessions, packages and course creation (it's an online course platform integrated into your services and community).
• Forms and journaling.
• Client management (CRM).
• Secure video calls and messaging.
• Branded client portals and more.

The platform is flexible enough to scale as you grow from a solopreneur into a team or a corporation.

What's more? Profi has a highly-configurable ERP system, making it easy to tailor it to different professional service delivery use cases. For example, the platform is flexible enough to cover:

• Your business plan to provide scalable services, products, and customer support.
• Your community plan using built-in subscriptions and discussion groups to drive your own membership site.
• Your professional training plan for creating course material for your community all from the same interface.

And you can create multiple online communities based on the services you provide or programs you create, so you don't have to turn to disconnected and distracting social networking sites.

Leverage Profi's free trial to see all the magic for yourself.

It's certainly the most holistic, integrated platform for solopreneurs to grow on and modern teams to scale with. As Alina Trigubenko, Profi's founder and a coach herself, highlights "Besides offering great community-building and membership features, Profi shines in helping you organize all your bookings end-to-end, easily impress clients with engaging experiences, and increase revenue."

The Bottom Line: Finding an alternative that helps you help others

There's no doubt that Mighty Networks can help you set up a community platform for your professional services - all thanks to community-focused features that drive engagement and its low-cost offerings. The software, however, has some significant drawbacks: relying on user-driven integrations and setup, having limited or inflexible features that don't cover the service delivery spectrum, and restrictions on users' ability to brand and monetize their client interactions.

Fortunately, many popular alternatives to Mighty Networks, such as WordPress apps, Profi, Podia and WebinarGeek, resolve some or all of these challenges.‍

What we find is that users are better off doing their due diligence when it comes to choosing a software platform for the long term. Look closely for a secure software that can grow and scale flexibly with your business. Better yet if that company has a business model that aligns well with your own so you can follow the old carpenter's advice: measure twice, cut once.

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