Best Cohort-Based Course Platforms in 2026: Maven vs Reforge and More
Cohort-based courses have become one of the most effective ways to actually finish what you start. Instead of a self-paced video library you never open again, you learn live, alongside a group, on a fixed schedule, with real accountability. The trade-off is that the platform matters more than it does for an on-demand course, because a cohort lives or dies on its community tools, live sessions, and structure. This guide compares the ten best cohort-based course platforms in 2026, both for learners choosing where to enroll and for experts deciding where to run their own program.
Disclosure: SkillScouter’s founder, Dave Kline, teaches a cohort course on Maven. We still rank Maven first below because of its instructor-friendly economics and discovery reach, and to keep this fair we explain exactly who each platform suits and who should look elsewhere. None of the links in this article are affiliate links.
The platforms split into two camps. Some, like Maven, Reforge, and Section, are marketplaces or memberships where you go to take a course. Others, like Disco, Circle, and Kajabi, are tools you use to build and host your own cohort. A few, Maven especially, do both. Here is the shortlist, then the detail on each.
| # | Platform | Best For |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Maven | Best marketplace to take or teach cohorts |
| 2 | Reforge | Best for tech, product & growth pros |
| 3 | Section | Best for fast AI & business sprints |
| 4 | Disco | Best all-in-one to build an academy |
| 5 | Uplimit | Best AI-powered cohort delivery |
| 6 | Circle | Best community-first courses |
| 7 | Kajabi | Best for creator course businesses |
| 8 | Thinkific | Best budget entry point |
| 9 | Skool | Best for group-based learning |
| 10 | Mighty Networks | Best for a branded community |
1. Maven (Best Marketplace to Take or Teach Cohorts)
Best for: Taking or teaching expert-led cohorts | Pricing: Varies by course (roughly a few hundred to several thousand dollars per cohort) | Model: Marketplace + host your own | Format: Live cohorts
Maven is the clearest home for expert-led cohort courses. As a learner, you get a marketplace of programs taught by operators who actually did the work, on topics from product management to AI to writing. As an instructor, Maven handles payments, the course page, and much of the logistics, and keeps only a 10 percent platform fee, so you take home 90 percent of revenue. That split is unusually generous and is the main reason serious experts choose it.
The live, cohort format is the point. You are not buying a video you will abandon. You are committing to a schedule, a group, and a teacher who shows up. Prices vary widely by instructor, from a few hundred dollars to several thousand for a premium cohort, which reflects the seniority of who is teaching.
If you want a place to either find a high-quality cohort or launch your own without building infrastructure, Maven is the first place to look.
- Best for: Learners wanting expert-led cohorts, and experts who want to teach on generous terms.
2. Reforge (Best for Tech, Product & Growth Professionals)
Best for: Senior tech, product, and growth roles | Pricing: Individual membership around $2,000/year; team plans from roughly $10,000/year | Model: Annual membership | Format: Live + async programs
Reforge is the deep end for people already working in tech who want to level up in product, growth, engineering leadership, or marketing. An annual membership unlocks access to its library of cohort-based programs, each led by senior practitioners from well-known companies, typically running with a few hundred members per cohort. In March 2026 Miro acquired Reforge, and its learning division continues to operate independently.
This is not a beginner platform, and the pricing reflects that. Individual membership sits around $2,000 a year, with team plans starting near $10,000, which is why many members expense it through an employer. What you get for it is frameworks and playbooks straight from people who built the products you use.
If you are mid-to-senior in tech and your company will help fund it, Reforge is hard to beat. If you are earlier in your career, start somewhere lighter.
- Best for: Experienced tech, product, and growth professionals, often on a company budget.
3. Section (Best for Fast AI & Business Sprints)
Best for: Practical AI and business upskilling | Pricing: Sprint and subscription pricing, generally lower than Reforge | Model: Marketplace / subscription | Format: Short live sprints
Section, founded by NYU professor Scott Galloway, built its name on delivering business-school-quality material in fast, live sprints at a fraction of an MBA price. It has since leaned hard into practical AI training, positioning itself as the place knowledge workers go to become genuinely useful with AI tools rather than just curious about them. It has taught tens of thousands of students across nearly a hundred countries.
The format is short and intense: live cohorts measured in weeks, not months, aimed at busy professionals who want a specific skill fast. Pricing is more accessible than Reforge, which makes it a good on-ramp for individuals paying out of pocket.
Choose Section if you want a quick, structured hit of applied AI or business strategy without a long commitment.
- Best for: Professionals who want fast, applied AI and business skills without a big time commitment.
4. Disco (Best All-in-One to Build a Cohort Academy)
Best for: Building and running your own academy | Pricing: Paid subscription plans (custom by scale) | Model: Build your own | Format: Cohorts + community + live
Disco is purpose-built for people who want to run cohort-based programs rather than take them. It combines curriculum management, community, live event support, and a growing layer of AI automation in one platform, which means you are not stitching together a course tool, a Slack group, and a video call by hand. For training businesses and creator academies, that consolidation is the whole appeal.
The AI features help with the operational grind of running cohorts, from nudging learners to drafting content, so a small team can run a program that feels much larger. Pricing is subscription-based and scales with your needs, so it suits someone treating cohorts as a real business rather than a one-off experiment.
If your goal is to launch a branded academy with community baked in, Disco is one of the strongest dedicated options.
- Best for: Creators and training businesses building a branded cohort academy with community.
5. Uplimit (Best AI-Powered Cohort Delivery)
Best for: Scaling cohort learning inside organizations | Pricing: Enterprise and custom pricing | Model: Build your own (org-focused) | Format: AI-assisted cohorts
Uplimit is an AI-first cohort platform aimed largely at companies that need to train people at scale. Its pitch is that AI can handle a lot of the delivery, from answering learner questions to grading and feedback, so one instructor can support far more students without the experience collapsing into a passive video course. Large organizations use it to run internal and customer education programs.
For an individual creator this is likely more platform than you need, and the pricing is oriented toward organizations rather than solo instructors. But if you are inside a company trying to scale live learning without hiring an army of facilitators, the AI automation is genuinely differentiated.
Pick Uplimit when the challenge is scale and you have an organization behind you, not a single cohort you run yourself.
- Best for: Organizations scaling live, AI-assisted learning to large numbers of people.
6. Circle (Best Community-First Courses)
Best for: Community with courses attached | Pricing: Paid plans starting around $49/month | Model: Build your own | Format: Community + courses + live
Circle approaches the problem from the community side. It is first a modern community platform, with courses, live streams, events, and paid memberships layered on top. For a cohort where the ongoing discussion and relationships matter as much as the lessons, that community-first design is a real advantage over course tools that treat the forum as an afterthought.
It is a strong fit for creators who want a premium, branded space that does not look like a dusty learning management system. Plans start around $49 a month and rise as you add members and features. We cover it in more depth in our full Circle review.
Choose Circle if the beating heart of your program is the community, with cohorts running inside it.
- Best for: Creators whose program is community-led, with cohort courses running inside it.
7. Kajabi (Best for Creator Course Businesses)
Best for: All-in-one creator course business | Pricing: Paid plans (mid-range monthly pricing) | Model: Build your own | Format: Courses + community + marketing
Kajabi is the established all-in-one for creators who want courses, memberships, email marketing, and sales pages under one roof. It is less about the live cohort experience specifically and more about running the entire business around your content, which is why established creators with a real audience gravitate to it. If you are already selling and want everything in one place, it removes a lot of tool-juggling.
The trade-off is price. Kajabi sits at the higher end of monthly pricing, which is easy to justify once you are earning from it and harder when you are just starting out. Its community and live features have matured enough to support cohorts, even if that is not its original focus.
Go with Kajabi if you want a single platform to run a full course business, not just deliver one cohort.
- Best for: Established creators who want courses, community, and marketing in one platform.
8. Thinkific (Best Budget Entry Point)
Best for: Getting started affordably | Pricing: Free plan available; paid plans from roughly $36/month | Model: Build your own | Format: Courses + live cohort add-ons
Thinkific is one of the friendliest places to start, thanks to a genuine free plan and affordable paid tiers. It began as a self-paced course builder and has added the live and community features needed to run cohorts, so you can begin with an on-demand course and layer in live sessions as your audience grows. For a first-time instructor testing whether cohorts are worth the effort, that low-risk on-ramp is valuable.
It will not feel as community-native as Circle or as automated as Disco, but it covers the fundamentals well and the price is right. Paid plans start around $36 a month once you outgrow the free tier.
Choose Thinkific if you want to start cheaply and add cohort features only as you need them.
- Best for: First-time instructors who want to start cheaply and grow into live cohorts.
9. Skool (Best for Group-Based Learning)
Best for: Community-driven group programs | Pricing: Flat pricing around $99/month per community | Model: Build your own | Format: Community + gamified courses
Skool has built a devoted following with a deliberately simple model: one clean community feed, courses attached, and light gamification to keep people coming back. Its flat monthly price, around $99 for a community regardless of size, is refreshingly predictable and makes it a favorite for creators running group coaching and cohort-style programs. The simplicity is the selling point.
It is less feature-dense than Circle or Kajabi, and that is intentional. If you want fewer knobs to turn and a format that nudges members to engage daily, Skool delivers. We break it down further in our full Skool review.
Pick Skool if you want a simple, engagement-focused home for a group program at a flat price.
- Best for: Creators running group coaching or cohort programs who value simplicity and flat pricing.
10. Mighty Networks (Best for a Branded Community)
Best for: A fully branded community and courses | Pricing: Paid plans starting around $41/month | Model: Build your own | Format: Community + courses + events
Mighty Networks is built for creators who want a fully branded community that feels like their own product, not a page on someone else’s platform. It bundles community spaces, courses, live events, and paid memberships, with its own apps so members get a native experience. For a cohort that is meant to grow into a lasting membership, that sense of a dedicated home is a real draw.
Pricing starts around $41 a month and climbs with more advanced features and branding control. It sits close to Circle in purpose, and the right choice between them often comes down to which interface and community model you prefer after a trial.
Choose Mighty Networks if a distinct, branded community that outlives any single cohort is the goal.
- Best for: Creators who want a lasting, fully branded community with cohorts running inside it.
How to Choose a Cohort-Based Course Platform
Start by deciding which side of the table you are on. If you want to take a cohort, the platform barely matters compared to the teacher and the topic, so choose the program first and let it lead you to Maven, Reforge, or Section. Judge those on instructor credibility, cohort size, and whether the schedule fits your life.
If you want to build and run a cohort, the platform is a real decision. Weigh four things: how strong the community tools are, how much of the live and operational work is handled for you, what it costs at your expected scale, and how much the space feels like your own brand. Community-led programs point toward Circle, Skool, or Mighty Networks. Full course businesses point toward Kajabi. Dedicated academies point toward Disco, and organizations scaling internally point toward Uplimit. Thinkific is the low-risk place to test the idea before committing.
Whichever you pick, run a single small cohort before you invest in a bigger plan. The right platform is the one that disappears into the background so you can focus on teaching, and you only learn which one that is by actually running a group through it.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a cohort-based course?
A cohort-based course is a program a group of learners takes together on a fixed schedule, with live sessions, discussion, and deadlines. The shared timeline and accountability drive far higher completion rates than self-paced video courses, which is the main reason people choose the format.
Which cohort platform is best for beginners?
For taking a course, Section is a good starting point thanks to short, affordable sprints. For building your first cohort, Thinkific is the easiest low-cost on-ramp because it offers a free plan and lets you add live features as you grow.
How much do cohort-based courses cost?
For learners, prices range from under a hundred dollars for a short sprint to several thousand for a premium multi-week cohort led by a senior expert. For creators, platform costs range from free starter tiers up to a few hundred dollars a month, plus any revenue share, such as Maven’s 10 percent platform fee.
Is Maven or Reforge better?
They serve different people. Maven is a marketplace of individual expert-led cohorts on almost any topic, and it lets you teach your own. Reforge is a membership focused specifically on senior tech, product, and growth skills. Choose Maven for breadth and teaching, Reforge for deep tech-career development.
Can I make money teaching a cohort-based course?
Yes. Platforms like Maven let independent experts run paid cohorts while keeping most of the revenue, and many instructors earn meaningful income from a single well-run program. Success depends far more on your expertise, audience, and the quality of the live experience than on the platform you pick.