3-6 weeks for typical 500-2000 member community
Migrate from Circle.so to Reign.
Circle migrations are driven by the cost ($49-$399/mo recurring), the desire to own the URL + SEO equity, and integration with WordPress stack you already use.
Reign is the design layer at $99/year or $249 lifetime, and it is the only thing you have to buy. The plugins that rebuild your community here are ours: BuddyNext for members and groups, Learnomy for courses, Jetonomy for forums and Q&A, MediaVerse for member media. 11 of them install free, each with its own Pro plan for when one part of the community starts earning. No monthly platform fee replaces the one you are leaving.
Set expectations before you start.
- Member list + email addresses (CSV export).
- Member profile fields (Circle API export).
- Post archive (manual export or API scrape).
- Subscription billing via Stripe + MemberPress.
- Space structure (recreate as BuddyNext groups).
- Course content (manual recreate in Learnomy, or your third-party LMS).
- Custom fields (BuddyNext profile fields, or BuddyPress xProfile).
The migration walkthrough.
Export members from Circle admin
Circle admin > Members > Export CSV. Includes email, name, profile fields.
Set up Reign on staging
The theme plus BuddyNext, our community engine, which installs free. Add Learnomy free for course-driven Circle migrations. The BuddyPress Community Bundle and LearnMate kits are the third-party routes.
Recreate Circle spaces as groups
Each Circle space becomes a BuddyNext group. Match names and privacy levels.
Set up Stripe + MemberPress
Create membership tiers matching Circle plans. Connect Stripe.
Migrate or announce billing change
If you can migrate Stripe customers, do so. Otherwise announce billing reset 30 days out.
Run 2-week dual-platform period
Announce migration. Existing members get invitation. Circle stays live as fallback.
DNS cutover + Circle archive
Cutover day: members migrate. Circle becomes read-only. Cancel after grace period.
Before you start.
Export your members as CSV first, because that is the part Circle gives you cleanly and the part you cannot rebuild. Then audit the spaces honestly: most Circle communities have two or three that carry real content and a long tail that is mostly greetings. Decide which spaces you are actually recreating before you start, because rebuilding everything by hand is how a migration stalls halfway and leaves you running two platforms.
What to check once it is live.
Check that the content you moved is indexable, since being invisible to search is one of the main reasons people leave Circle. Confirm members can register and post with a second account. Then look at your Stripe subscriptions if you were charging through Circle, because payment continuity is the part that actually costs money when it goes wrong.
Where this one usually goes wrong.
Losing paying members at the payment switch. Subscriptions do not transfer between platforms, so every paying member has to re-subscribe on your site, and each one is a chance to cancel. Migrate the community first while keeping payments where they are, then move billing separately once people are settled, rather than doing both in the same week.
Migration questions.
Will I lose Circle SEO?
You will lose any inbound links to Circle URLs. Set up 301 redirects from Circle subdomain to Reign URLs where possible (Circle Pro allows custom domain that you can redirect).
How long do members get to migrate?
30-60 days. Send 3 reminder emails: 30 days, 14 days, 3 days before Circle shutdown.
Will my Circle courses transfer?
Content can be copied across; structure and progress generally cannot, because the export is not designed to populate another platform. Rebuild the course in Learnomy and decide early whether you are carrying student progress, since the honest answer is usually no.
What happens to my paying members?
They re-subscribe on your site, because subscriptions do not move between platforms. Migrate the community first and keep billing where it is, then move payments separately once people have settled, rather than doing both in one week.
Have us migrate you from Circle.so. $699 flat.
Wbcom team handles every step. You wake up to a live community on Reign with members migrated + billing on Stripe + welcome emails firing.