Mighty Networks is a comprehensive, community-building platform with lots of features to help you engage and monetize your membership base.
We’ve given the platform a thorough run for its money so that you can understand if Mighty Networks is the right choice for you.
Key Takeaways:
- Mighty Networks is a solid choice for building and monetizing a community
- The platform is reliable, feature-rich, and beginner-friendly
- Transaction fees on all sales and lack of marketing tools let the platform down
Mighty Networks Review at a Glance
- Choose Mighty Networks if you want to grow a community without having to use social media platforms.
- Do not choose Mighty Networks if you are purely interested in a platform for creating and selling courses.
Mighty Networks Pros and Cons
Pros
- Try the platform free for 14 days.
- Have unlimited members and community spaces.
- Excellent and comprehensive platform features.
- Beginner friendly.
- Each community space is fully customizable and can be branded.
- Go live whenever you want.
- Set the rules and run the community on your terms.
- You get plenty of monetization opportunities within your community network.
Cons
- Customer service is somewhat limited, especially if you’re based outside the US.
- If you want to build courses, you must upgrade your plan and pay a lot more.
- The platform lacks tools for marketing outside of the Mighty Networks platform.
- Transaction fees applied to all sales.
What Is Mighty Networks?
Mighty Networks is a platform that lets you grow, nurture, and monetize a dedicated community.
You have all the features that you will typically find within a Facebook group, but the difference is that you get to set the rules and run it however you like.
Whether you want to chat, host live events, run courses, or set up challenges, Mighty Networks has everything you need to do all of that, and more.
Mighty Networks Features Review
Now let’s jump into the details and see how the platform and its features perform.
Customizable Community and Spaces
Once you get your head around the fact that you have one community and you can create separate spaces within that single community, the platform is quite easy to figure out.
It’s kind of like being in a big central room (where everyone is gathered), and there are lots of doors leading off the room.
Some of those doors open and are accessible to everyone, and some doors are locked, and only a few people have the key to access them.
This is how Mighty Networks works.
You have your big central community where everyone can chat, post, discuss, and communicate.
Then, you create additional spaces for different purposes.
For example, you can have a space for a course, a live event, or for chatting about a particular subject.
Spaces can be paid or free to enter, and as the host, you get to control who can or can’t access them.
Each space is customizable, and you choose which features are available.
So, you can have a chat space that includes a chat feed along with an event series, a member list, and maybe a newsfeed.
Each space lets you have up to eight different features, which is more than enough to create the kind of space you want.
Community Feed and Content
Community feeds are just as feature-rich as social media, if not more.
You have a main community feed in your central area, plus you can add community feeds to any of your created spaces.
You can create text posts, polls, live events, and articles.
And you can even go live any time you choose from any community space or feed.
Make your posts interesting by uploading images, videos, and files; spice up your text with emojis and even hashtags.
Many community platforms are not as detailed as this and lack essential features that social media platforms like Facebook support, such as adding emojis or uploading videos.
With Mighty Networks, you get a social media-like experience without actually having to use social media.
Events and Native Live Streaming
This feature is really neat. It lets you go live from the community feed or any community space at the literal touch of a button.
All you do is hit the “Go Live” button and give the settings a quick check over before confirming you want to go live.
Sessions can be recorded, and you can send out a notification to your members beforehand.
This gives you great flexibility for communicating with your members, and you can surprise them with exclusive live sessions whenever you feel like it.
Ultimately, this is a great tool for adding extra value to your community.
If you prefer to go live on a more scheduled basis, you can set up live events to run whenever you want.
All you do is set up a space for your live event, set the time and date, and let your members know.
This method is excellent if you want to monetize any of your live sessions since you can make them paid or free to access.
Course-Building Tools
The course-building tool within Mighty Networks is different to almost all course-creation platforms out there.
This is because it allows you to blend community features with traditional online course material.
To add a course, you must create a space, and as we mentioned previously, it’s up to you which features you decide to add.
Therefore, you can build lessons and modules and upload course content such as videos, audio files, and documents.
But you can also have a chat or community feed and live event.
Our key gripe with the course-building tool is that you have to upgrade your plan to get access to it.
We also feel that it’s not as sophisticated as other platforms such as Kajabi.
However, if you want the mix of community and courses, it’s likely to satisfy your needs perfectly adequately.
Chat and Messaging
Like most social media platforms, you have flexible chat options on Mighty Networks. You can either chat on the community feeds or set up private chats among members.
To chat with a single member privately, all you do is locate their profile and select to message them.
Or, you can set up small groups of members to enable private discussion.
This is useful, especially if you need to provide feedback to members on coursework or other matters.
iOS and Android Apps
According to Mighty Networks, 65% of all engagement takes place on the platform’s iOs and Android apps.
As a host, you can download the app and use it to engage with and manage your community while community members can download the app to access and use the community content you have available.
The community feed with the ability to post and chat publicly or privately is also available via these apps.
Those that upgrade to the Mighty Pro plan can enjoy fully white-labeled and self-branded apps so that community members won’t even know that they are using Mighty Networks.
Flexible Monetization Options
You have a ton of monetization opportunities within your community.
Create paid community spaces, courses, events, and more.
You can sell access to a single space or a bundle of spaces for a one-off payment or on a subscription basis. And you can sell access to the entire community network.
The platform integrates with Stripe, but oddly, not with PayPal, and here’s the real letdown.
Mighty Networks takes a transaction fee from any sales you make.
This is 3% for Community plan subscribers and 2% for Business plan subscribers (the fee is also on top of what Stripe charges).
While the ways to monetize your actual community network are comprehensive, we feel that Mighty Networks could do better here by expanding the number of payment providers it works with and doing away with transaction fees – particularly to the higher-tier plan subscribers.
Platform Management Tools
To allow for the successful running of your community, the platform provides a wide range of platform management tools.
From branding your community network to setting up community rules, admins, and moderators, you can build and cultivate the right culture.
Analytics
Finally, you get access to what we feel are quite detailed analytics to see how your community is performing.
This includes member activity and engagement, which allows you to understand when and how members are most active and when they’re not.
By understanding the activity patterns of your members, you can learn when is best to release new content and go live.
Plus, you can look at which areas don’t drive much engagement and improve them accordingly.
How Is the Mighty Networks User Experience?
Having played extensively with the platform, we are pleased to report that this is one easy platform to get to grips with.
And we feel beginners won’t have any issues learning the ropes either.
Everything is well laid out and organized, and the user interface runs smoothly. We didn’t experience any bugs or issues when using it.
New users get a checklist to go through to ensure they complete all the steps for successfully setting up their community, and if you want further assistance, the platform’s help articles are straightforward to follow.
Mighty Networks Customer Support
If you need to get in touch with Mighty Networks, you can use the live chat box in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen (once you have logged into your account). Here’s the thing, though: it’s only available 6 AM – 6 PM PT (Pacific time).
While this is probably perfectly fine for anyone based in the US, it’s less appealing for folks based elsewhere in the world or for those that need to work in the evenings.
That said, it is available seven days a week, and when you can’t get hold of a live agent, you can try your luck with the AI chatbot to see if it can find an answer to your query.
Or, you can look to the Mighty Community (free to join), as there are often staff members online that can help you.
We tested out the live chat and found that during office hours, we were able to get a human response within five minutes, and they were very helpful and accommodating. When we messaged them out of hours, it was less good, and we often had to wait around a day for a response.
How Affordable Is Mighty Networks?
Mighty Networks has two set price plans to choose from, with bespoke pricing also available for enterprise-level businesses that require branded apps:
- Community Plan: $39/month or $33/month paid annually
- Business Plan: $119/month or $99/month paid annually
Paying annually gives you the equivalent of two months’ worth for free, plus you can try out the platform with a 14-day free trial.
| Plan | Monthly Price | Monthly Price Paid Annually | Annual Paid Discount |
|---|---|---|---|
| Community | $39 | $33 | $66/year or 17% |
| Business | $119 | $99 | $140/year or 17% |
The Community plan is very affordable, especially if you’re just starting out; however, the key difference between the two plans is that you cannot create courses on the Community plan.
Since the Business plan is quite a jump in price, this platform probably isn’t your best option if your primary objective is to build and sell courses.
However, if you want Mighty Networks purely for the community-building aspect, then we think it is a well-priced choice.
Mighty Networks Customer Reviews
Trustpilot
G2
Capterra
For both G2 and Capterra, the platform has been receiving great reviews, meaning it’s a top performer/leader so far for 2023.
What Customers Like Best
- Easy to set up with great features.
- Its community-building tools are second-to-none.
- The platform consistently upgrades or improves existing features.
- Perfect to use as an online network for remote workers.
- Good resource center with onboarding training.
What Customers Like the Least
- The customer service can be hit and miss.
- It’s not the best platform for course creation, as you don’t get as much control.
- The platform lacks a cloning tool.
- The higher-tier plan is expensive compared with the basic plan.
Summary
Overall, we feel that Mighty Networks is a fantastic choice if you’re looking for a way to build a dedicated community without resorting to a social media platform. It’s reliable, feature-rich, and provides plenty of monetization opportunities.
However, if community building isn’t your key aim, we feel there are better platforms out there, particularly for course-building, and the transaction fees applied to all sales are a little unfair.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Mighty Networks Beginner Friendly?
Mighty Networks is very beginner friendly and easy to use. The platform provides checklists to help you get started, along with help articles and guides allowing novices to easily set up and start running their first community.
Is Mighty Networks Affordable?
While Mighty Networks sadly has no free plan available, its basic plan costs an affordable $33/month. However, the upgraded plan costs from $99/month, which is a massive jump in price and could be considered unaffordable.
Who Is Mighty Networks for?
Mighty Networks is for anyone that wants to have a space to create, grow, and monetize a dedicated community without having to use social media platforms.
Is Mighty Networks Worth it?
Mighty Networks is a reliable platform with great features. It’s definitely worth it if building a community is your primary objective. However, if your main aim is to build courses, there are better options out there, such as Kajabi.
