Kannect

What it is

Kannect is a community engagement platform for organizations. The company's site describes it as a single operating system for events, messaging, members, payments and discovery, aimed at nonprofits, chambers, schools, support groups, churches and civic groups. It is for the person who runs an organization's membership and events, not for a solo creator selling a course. The pitch is independence: the site says Kannect is founder-run and privately held, and contrasts that with Meetup and Eventbrite, which it says are now both owned by Bending Spoons.

What you build and how

You don't build an app here. You configure an organization, and Kannect gives you a community website, a member app and the tools behind them. The homepage describes the problem as "Running a community on borrowed tools": Facebook for discussion, Eventbrite for tickets, Mailchimp for email, a website builder and a spreadsheet for members. Kannect puts those in one place.

People. The People CRM keeps one member record for everything, with the full history. It carries statuses for member, alumni, donor, staff, parent and student, and members maintain their own information from the app, so the list doesn't go stale.

Memberships. You can run a membership with multiple pricing tiers on every plan, or multiple membership types on higher plans. The site lists types, tiers, dues and applications, along with custom application forms, approval flows and branded onboarding.

Events. Events cover RSVPs, ticketing, reminders and check-in. The site says thousands of people discover organizations through public events, programs and Discover pages, so discovery is part of the product and not only a mailing list.

Groups and programs. You can organize people into chapters, committees, cohorts and programs. Each gets its own conversation, members and analytics.

Directory. A member and business directory with unlimited listings sits on every plan. Higher plans support multiple directories side by side, for sponsors, alumni, partners or your team.

Messaging and website. Announcements reach every member, and broadcast email is drag-and-drop. A branded community website "builds itself". Scale adds automated email journeys, according to the company's Hivebrite comparison.

Fundraising and payments. Fundraising covers campaigns, sustainer giving, manual gifts and tax notices. Money settles directly to your Stripe account, and the company's comparison page says Kannect never holds your money.

Member app. Members don't have to download anything: they can join and take part from your community website in any browser. The free Kannect mobile app for iOS and Android adds push notifications, direct messages, ticket check-in and task assignments, but it is never required. The Enterprise tier gives each sub-community its own branded iOS and Android app, per the company's comparison with Hivebrite.

The homepage says every plan is "the same community engagement platform underneath". The plans differ by headcount, admin seats, email volume and fee, not by feature list, though some capabilities such as multiple membership types and multiple directories sit on higher plans.

What the pages state about plans and cost

The homepage describes four plans, billed monthly or yearly, each with a 7-day free trial. A card is required for the trial, which the site says keeps the platform spam-free. You can cancel anytime. Yearly billing saves 20%.

| Plan | Monthly | Yearly | People | Admins | Emails a month | Platform fee | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | Starter | $29 | $276 | 500 | 3 | 5,000 | 2% | | Launch | $69 | $660 | 2,000 | 5 | 20,000 | 2% | | Growth | $149 | $1,428 | 5,000 | 10 | 50,000 | 1.5% | | Scale | $299 | $2,868 | 15,000 | 25 | 150,000 | 1% |

The platform fee is 0% on nonprofit donations. Admin seats are included, not charged per seat. Onboarding is self-service with no required setup fee, and optional setup starts at a one-time $150. The company says there are no long-term contracts.

Above the self-serve plans, the Hivebrite comparison page says Kannect Enterprise starts at $3,500 a month, with published pricing, for 50,000 or more people across multiple communities. It says 5 sub-communities are included at that starting price, with more in packs of 5. The same page says Hivebrite Connect starts at $799 a month, and that Kannect Scale at $299 is 63% cheaper. Those comparisons are Kannect's own claims about a competitor.

Kannect's blog also prices other tools on the same terms. It reports Mighty Networks Launch at $79 a month, Circle Professional at $89 and Bettermode Starter at $399 a month, and it adds that Circle sells email as a separate product. The blog concludes that Mighty suits a paid content community, Bettermode a software company embedding a community in its product, and Kannect an organization with members, dues and events. It says Skool and Heartbeat are cheaper creator options. As with any vendor's comparison page, check the figures against each tool's own site before you budget.

The pages publish no security or compliance certifications. The homepage says nonprofits, chambers, schools and civic groups run on Kannect and that new organizations join every week, but gives no customer count.

Who it suits and who it does not

Kannect suits a chamber, a nonprofit, a PTA, a school group or a membership association that needs dues, applications, events, a directory and email in one tool. The 0% platform fee on nonprofit donations helps charities, and the published self-serve prices let a volunteer board look up the cost without a sales call. The people limits on each plan make budgeting simple: you pick the tier by headcount. The sub-community structure suits organizations with chapters or committees that each need their own conversation and numbers.

There are limits. This is an organization tool. The Starter plan at $29 a month is the cheapest entry, but the product assumes an events calendar, a member list and several roles, so a coach or creator selling courses will find the feature set built for something else, and the company itself points creators to other products. Payments carry a 2% platform fee on the lower tiers, on top of whatever Stripe charges, and email volume is capped by plan, so a large list needs a higher tier. The people count is a hard ceiling per tier, with 15,000 on Scale. Past that, the next step is Enterprise at $3,500 a month. The pages describe no no-code app builder, custom data model or open API, so teams that need bespoke workflows will be working inside what the platform provides.