Competitive Landscape · G

Competitive Landscape

Two markets, two questions. What can we charge for people to belong, and how do we stack up as a product? This section grounds the platform in real competitors with real, cited numbers — what each one charges and what each one claims.

⚠ This section names real competitors and real prices — on purpose. The rest of this site is deliberately brand-free (capability language only). This is the one clearly-scoped exception: a competitive-intelligence area that must name Vistage, YPO, Skool, Circle, and the rest to be useful. It is not a break in the brand-free rule — it's a walled-off pricing-and-positioning benchmark. Every number carries a source link and a verified 2026-07 stamp; anything a network won't publish is flagged reported / est., never invented.

01The two sets — and why they're kept separate

SET 1 · WHAT YOU PAY TO BELONG

Premium Membership & Peer-Leadership Networks

Vistage · YPO · EO · TIGER 21 · Hampton · Chief · Pavilion · Long Angle · R360. The "country-club" comps for our E8 premium tier — priced on belonging, tenure, vetting, and status, not software. The band runs from EO ≈ $4.4k/yr up through Vistage/YPO ≈ $10–16k to TIGER 21 ≈ $34k and R360 ≈ $60k/yr.

Open Set 1 — the pricing-power read →

SET 2 · HOW WE STACK UP AS A PRODUCT

Platform & Tooling Players

Skool · Circle · Mighty Networks · Kajabi · Disco · Whop · Maven · Discourse · Teachable. The SaaS + creator-economy landscape — priced on software features at $9–$500/mo (plus transaction fees). Disco is our closest AI-native comp; Discourse anchors the own-your-data axis.

Open Set 2 — the product read →

They're kept separate because they answer different questions and price on different logic. Set 1 sells access to peers and charges four-to-five figures a year for it. Set 2 sells a place to host a community and charges two-to-three figures a month for it. Collapsing them into one table would average away the exact insight we need.

02The strategic read — what we sell & what that means for price

We are not selling tooling. We're selling belonging + certification + AI. A member isn't buying "a community platform" — they're buying a vetted room of peers, a real credential (Claude Certified Architect), and a frontier-AI-native learning environment. That bundle prices like the membership networks in Set 1, not the platforms in Set 2. The $9–$500/mo SaaS tools are our build-vs-buy substrate and our feature bar — they are not our price ceiling.

PRICING POWER · from Set 1

Price in the membership band

The peer-network band is well-established: EO ≈ $4.4k (entry) → Vistage ≈ $16.5k / YPO ≈ $10k+ (prestige) → TIGER 21 ≈ $34k → R360 ≈ $60k (ceiling). Our tiers should land inside this band — not at $50/mo. What we must earn to charge there: vetting, tenure signal, and status. See the read →

PRODUCT MOAT · from Set 2

Win on four axes the SaaS tools can't

Against the platforms, we win where all-in-one SaaS is structurally weak: AI-native (only Disco is close), own-the-record (a real credential + your own data, vs Skool's walled garden), dedicated iron (not a shared multi-tenant DB), and native certification (most have no certs at all). See the read →

THE SYNTHESIS

Membership pricing, platform-grade product

Charge like Set 1 because we sell belonging + a credential; build a product that beats Set 2 on AI + ownership + certification. That's the whole positioning in one line — and it's why the $100–400/mo platforms are the wrong anchor for what a Founding or Inner-Circle seat is worth.

How to read the numbers. Pricing on these networks is volatile and several deliberately don't publish dues. verified 2026-07 = confirmed against a source on the date shown. reported / est. = the network doesn't publish it; the figure is third-party reported and labelled as such — we never present an estimate as fact. Full source lists sit in a footer on each set's page.

← index · our Tiers · ADR-006 (premium/payments) · next: Set 1 — Membership Networks →