Custom vs white-label
Your own community app, built around your members, paid monthly
Feeds, groups, events, live video, courses and paid memberships, in an app with your name on the store listing. Built around your members by a team you can message any day, started for a deposit, paid monthly, and yours when it is paid.
Flexible payment on every project: a low entrance fee, then monthly payments that suit a growing business, delivered in phases. We agree the terms around your budget.
Where your app is published
- Published under your Apple account
- Published under your Google account
- Bots, notifications and enquiries
- Cards and wallets worldwide
Store accounts are opened in your name and stay yours. Names and marks belong to their owners. We build with these tools; no partnership, endorsement or certification is implied.
Everything your members expect, in an app with your name on it
This is what the leading community platforms sell, feature for feature. We build all of it for you, and then the part no platform can offer: whatever else your community needs.
Member profiles and directory
Rich profiles, custom fields, search and connections, so members find each other.
Activity feed and posts
Text, photos, video, polls and links in a feed your members return to every day.
Groups and spaces
Public, private and paid groups, each with its own feed, files and members.
Direct and group messaging
One-to-one chat, group chat and read receipts, inside your app rather than on WhatsApp.
Events and calendar
Online and in-person events with RSVPs, reminders, tickets and recordings afterwards.
Live streaming and video
Go live to the whole community or one group, with chat alongside and the replay saved.
Courses and content library
Structured courses, drip content, downloads and progress tracking.
Paid memberships and tiers
Subscriptions, one-off payments and gated content through your own payment gateway, with no platform fee.
Push notifications
Mentions, replies, new posts and events reach members on the home screen, with controls they can set.
Moderation and safety
Reporting, blocking, approval queues, roles and permissions, and an audit trail for your team.
Gamification
Badges, points, streaks and leaderboards that reward the members who show up.
Analytics and insights
Who joined, who is active, what content works and where members drop off.
And anything else you want: a marketplace between members, a booking flow, an AI assistant trained on your content, an integration with the tools you already run. It is built for you, so the answer is yes.
What your members see
An illustration of the kind of app we build: your brand, your groups, your events, your paid tiers. Every screen is designed with you, not picked from a template.
Beginners group
240 members
We opened a new early-morning run option today. Who is in?
- Your name and icon on the App Store and Google Play, under your own developer accounts.
- A home feed, groups, chat and events that look and behave the way your community works.
- Paid tiers and one-off purchases through your own payment gateway, with no platform fee.
- Push notifications, moderation tools and analytics built in from the first release.
Want an app like these?
Pick a well-known app and we will build the version your business needs.
Social & communityBe My Eyes
Connects blind and low-vision people with sighted volunteers over live video.
Build now
Lifestyle & habitsFabulous
A habit coach that walks you through morning and evening routines step by step.
Build now
Travel & mapsKomoot
Plans hiking and cycling routes and guides you along them, with offline maps.
Build now
Finance & paymentsSplitwise
Tracks shared expenses with friends and works out who owes whom.
Build now
Travel & mapsGeocaching
A real-world treasure hunt: find hidden containers using GPS coordinates.
Build now
Learning & educationHeadway
Bite-size book summaries, daily insights and challenges to keep you reading.
Build now
How you pay for it
The same monthly rhythm a platform would put you on, spent on something you own and can change. Ask for the terms; we set them around your budget.
A deposit to begin
A modest deposit and work starts. You are not asked for the full fee before anything exists.
Released in stages
The core goes live first and each stage adds what you asked for. Working software in the first weeks, not a reveal at the end.
The balance monthly
The rest is paid monthly as the stages land, on terms agreed in writing. When it is paid, it is yours. Nothing renews, nothing rises by contract.
Why buy it from Baal instead of renting it
The platforms are good. These are the things they cannot say.
Pay as you grow, not before
A modest deposit starts the build. The balance is paid monthly as each stage goes live, in the same rhythm a platform subscription would take, except that it stops one day, because the app is yours.
Talk to the people building it, any day
WhatsApp and Telegram reach the team directly. A question is answered when you ask it. A change you want is a conversation, not a ticket, and it lands in days.
Built for your community, changed when you ask
Your onboarding, your groups, your rules, your look. Nothing is "not on the roadmap". If your members need it, we build it.
Your code, your data, your store listing. We keep none of it.
Published under your own Apple and Google developer accounts. Code handed over on full payment. Data in accounts in your name. Several platforms keep the Android listing or delete your data when you leave; we cannot, because none of it is ours.
Custom community and membership apps
The professional community platforms all land in similar monthly territory once the branded app and the add-ons are counted. That money buys a good product with a wall in it: the feature that is not on the roadmap, the import that is not offered, the API on the plan above yours, the Android listing that belongs to someone else.
Put the same monthly amount towards a build and the wall is gone. The app is designed for your community, and owned by it.
Member app for iPhone and Android, the web version and the admin console, built as one product and published under your own Apple and Google accounts. We move your existing members, groups and content across. Payments run through your gateway, so nobody takes a percentage of what your members pay you.
A deposit starts the work. The core goes live first. The balance is paid monthly as each stage lands.
How the white-label community platforms compare, in their own words
The proof behind the pitch: one fact per platform, taken from its own pricing page, FAQ, terms or app-store listing on the date shown. These are the things buyers usually discover after signing.
| Platform | Who owns the app listing | What their own material says | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Disciple | Your own store accounts, on every plan. | Its FAQ says Disciple maintains the core mobile architecture and fundamental UX patterns, with the customer controlling branding, layout, menus and fields within them. The same FAQ says it offers no content or member import, cannot help with a move from Facebook Groups or WhatsApp, and provides its API on the top plan only. |
|
| Mighty Networks | iPhone: yours. Android: published under Mighty Networks' developer account. | Customer apps such as Whole30 and Tony Robbins' Arena list Mighty Networks as the developer on Google Play. Branded apps are a Mighty Pro feature, and the pricing table shows a transaction fee on member payments on every plan, Mighty Pro included. |
|
| Circle | Branded apps offered on the custom-priced Circle Plus plan only. | The pricing page lists branded apps as an option on Circle Plus, not on the Professional or Business plans, and a transaction fee on every tier. Its terms make any feedback or suggestion you send Circle's sole and exclusive property. |
|
| Kajabi | Branded app sold as an add-on to a plan. | Between archived copies of its pricing page from June 2025 and February 2026, the Basic plan's monthly price rose by about a fifth while its contact allowance fell from 10,000 to 2,500. |
|
| BuddyBoss | Your own store accounts; you publish the builds. | Its licence page says that when you cancel the subscription your mobile app will stop working, and that pausing a subscription does the same to an app that is already published. |
|
| Bettermode | No mobile app listed. | Its pricing page lists no iOS or Android app of its own among the features of any plan. |
|
| Baal | Your own Apple and Google accounts, both platforms. | Built to your brief and changed when you ask. Existing members and content migrated in. A deposit to start, the balance monthly as stages go live. Code, accounts and data handed over on full payment, and the app keeps working if you stop paying us. | Our terms, and every quote we send. |
Every statement about another company is taken from that company's own published material on the date shown, and is written in our own words. Platforms change their plans and terms often; if you find a row that is out of date, tell us and we will correct it. No prices appear here: every job is quoted individually.
Why trust us with it
No borrowed logos. A team you can reach in a minute, decades of understanding how systems fit together, and everything agreed in writing before we start.
A team with decades between us
Baal is a growing team of around ten, in one office and expanding, with decades of collective experience across the internet, advertising, code and connecting systems. Generating code is easy now. Knowing what to build, and what breaks when it is wrong, is not.
We connect the whole thing
Apple and Google developer accounts, payment gateways, hosting, APIs and the platform you already run, set up in your name and joined together properly.
Everything in writing
Scope, fee, timescale and payment terms before work starts. Stages you can see and test. Code, accounts and data handed over on full payment.
Instant contact, fast changes
WhatsApp and Telegram go straight to the team. A question is answered when you ask it, and a change you want lands in days: not a ticket answered in three days and an upgrade scheduled seven weeks out.
Where the platforms are genuinely good
A comparison that marks everything red is not believed. These are strengths, from the same sources, that a fair buyer should weigh.
Disciple
Its FAQ says every plan includes your own iOS and Android apps with you listed as the developer, and its pricing lists no transaction fee. It is a serious product; the issue is what you cannot change, not what it does.
Mighty Networks
Its pricing table shows SOC 2 Type II compliance on every plan, and its iPhone apps sit in the customer's own account.
Circle
Its Business plan lists standard migration services and a branding-removal option, and it publishes its plan limits plainly.
BuddyBoss
It runs on your own WordPress site, so your content and member data sit in a database you already control.
How we work
- 01
Talk
You tell us what you need, on WhatsApp, Telegram or the form, and you are talking to the team from the first message. We ask questions until we understand the problem properly — usually the same day.
- 02
Quote
We put the scope, the fee and the timescale in writing before any work begins, with payment terms that fit your budget: staged, monthly or spread over time. No surprises later.
- 03
Build
We build in stages and show you working software as it progresses, not only at the end.
- 04
Support
After release we stay on for updates, fixes and changes as the business moves. Ask for a change and it lands in days, not a ticket answered next week and scheduled for next quarter.
Frequently asked questions
The professional platforms publish monthly plans, and once the branded app and the add-ons are counted they land in similar territory to each other. You pay that for as long as the app exists. With Baal a deposit starts the build and the balance is paid monthly as the stages go live, so the monthly outlay is comparable while it lasts — and then it stops, because the app is yours. We quote in writing so you can put the two side by side over three years.
Yes. Members, groups, posts, files and payment records are migrated as part of the project, from a platform export or its API. This is the step most platforms do not offer, and it is where many switches stall.
Yes, on both stores. The app is published under your own Apple and Google developer accounts, the code is yours on full payment, and hosting and domains sit in accounts in your name, as set out in our terms.
The app keeps running. You hold the code, the store listings, the hosting and the data, and any developer can take it on. Support after release is optional and quoted separately.
The timescale goes in writing with the quote. A first version of a community app is usually weeks rather than months, released in stages so the core is live early and the rest follows.
That is the point of building. A marketplace between members, a custom onboarding flow, an integration with your CRM or accounting, an AI assistant trained on your own content: if it can be built, we build it, and it is quoted like anything else.
Other comparisons
Ready to build something?
Tell us what you need. WhatsApp and Telegram reach the team directly, we reply with questions, then a written quote — no obligation, nothing to buy here. Good work is priced properly, and paying for it is flexible: a low entrance fee, then monthly payments that suit a growing business.