How Aquarel Natuurlijk Rebuilt Its Community With FluentCommunity

For Gee Adriaansz, building a community was never the problem. Keeping it stable was. Aquarel Natuurlijk had already been through a lot before landing on FluentCommunity. The community started in 2021, first on BuddyBoss + LearnDash, then later on Huddle + Plug&Pay. Each platform solved part of the problem, but none gave Gee the balance she needed between performance, flexibility, and peace of mind. By the time she switched to FluentCommunity in November 2024, she was done with slow software, broken plugin conflicts, rising costs, and the feeling that she might have to rebuild everything again. 

Today, Aquarel Natuurlijk runs its community, courses, email automations, and sales flow inside one connected WordPress ecosystem. The result is simpler, faster, and far more affordable.

About Aquarel Natuurlijk

Aquarel Natuurlijk is the online home of Gee Adriaansz, who runs a growing learning community for around 400 members. Her business combines courses, student engagement, and community support, with a strong focus on creating a smooth experience for members. The community lives here: https://aquarelnatuurlijk.nl/community

Gee has also been using FluentForms Pro since 2019, so she already knew and trusted the WP Manage Ninja ecosystem before she switched. That familiarity mattered. When she started looking for a better platform, she was not just buying software. She was looking for stability after a long stretch of platform changes.

The Problem: Great Features, Bad Fit

Gee’s first setup was BuddyBoss + LearnDash. On paper, it had everything she needed. It looked great. It offered the right feature set. It seemed like the obvious choice. In practice, it was a pain. BuddyBoss became heavy and slow, especially when combined with other plugins. The ecosystem did not play nicely together. Support could not solve the issues. And eventually, the whole setup became unworkable for both her and her students. That is the kind of problem that hurts twice. 

First, you lose time trying to fix it. Then you lose confidence in the platform itself. BuddyBoss also came with sunk cost baggage. Gee had bought a lifetime deal for $568 USD, plus a LearnDash license from a friend for 50 EUR per year. Even though the purchase was already made, the platform still felt expensive because of the hidden cost of friction.

After BuddyBoss, she moved to Huddle + Plug&Pay. That solved some things, but created new ones. Huddle was powerful, but expensive. 

For Gee, the package costs roughly 2,500 EUR per year. And because her community included a large number of courses, she needed the highest pricing tier. Then came the update that changed everything. Huddle released a major redesign that altered the look and feel of the whole community. Gee lost the connection she had with the platform. 

Features were removed or reshaped. The interface felt different in a way that no longer matched her way of working. On top of that, the price went up again. That was the last straw.

What the Platform Changes Really Cost

A lot of platform stories talk about features. Gee’s story is more about what those features cost her in practice. She lost members. She lost time. She lost posts and data. She lost continuity. Moving courses manually took a tremendous amount of work. Some data could not be imported at all. Posts with member photos could not be moved cleanly, so those were lost, too. That kind of migration damage is not just technical. It affects trust. Her members saw her move from BuddyBoss to Huddle, then watched her prepare to switch back, and then saw her move again to FluentCommunity. 

That is a lot of change in a short period of time. It did not feel stable, and Gee says she was not happy either. She even questioned whether she wanted to continue. That matters because platforms do not just store content. They shape the energy of the business behind them.

Why FluentCommunity Felt Different?

Gee first heard about FluentCommunity through a conversation with a business friend. By then, she was already familiar with WP Manage Ninja products because she had been using FluentForms Pro for years. Once she looked into FluentCommunity, the timing was right. Her Huddle license was about to expire. She had already started considering a return to BuddyBoss, even with all its flaws. But FluentCommunity offered a different answer. The lifetime deal felt like a no-brainer. She spent three days in full hyperfocus researching everything, and the decision clicked into place.

It felt like relief. Not because FluentCommunity was perfect. Gee is clear that the platform was still in development and that some features were missing at launch. But compared to the mess she had been dealing with, FluentCommunity felt like a fresh start with a team that actually listened.

The Migration Process

The switch was smoother than expected. At the time, there was no migration option yet, so Gee rebuilt all her courses manually. That could have been a disaster, but in her case, it turned into a positive reset. She actually enjoyed the rebuild. It gave her a chance to start fresh with renewed energy instead of patching over old problems. Because she works as both a web designer and artist, she was comfortable finding her way around the setup. Her ADD hyperfocus also helped her move fast. What might take most people weeks, she could compress into a few intense days. 

She also helped translate the official plugin into Dutch, which says a lot about her level of trust and investment in the product. The community support was another big factor. Gee found the WP Manage Ninja community incredibly helpful, and support tickets were handled quickly. Even now, as the team has grown and response times are sometimes a little longer, the experience still feels personal and human.

That matters more than people admit. When you are rebuilding a business platform, you want to feel like a person, not a ticket number.

What Changed After Switching?

The biggest change was not just technical. It was emotional. Gee says FluentCommunity helped her find her footing again. That is the kind of thing a platform review never fully captures, but it is the real story underneath the numbers. She is still rebuilding, but her students can see the difference. She has rediscovered her love for the business. The community is growing again. Members who stayed through the platform changes can now see the improvement. The momentum is back. And that momentum shows up in a few concrete ways.

More engagement

Members are logging in more frequently, engaging in conversations, and sharing posts more consistently. The community feels noticeably more vibrant and active because the platform naturally encourages a smoother, more engaging rhythm of interaction that keeps everyone involved and coming back regularly.

More stability

Instead of constantly worrying about whether the next update might break her workflow or disrupt the user experience, Gee now relies on a system she fully trusts, giving her confidence, stability, and peace of mind to focus on growing her business.

More integration

Everything is finally under one roof:

• FluentCommunity
• FluentCRM
• FluentBoards
• FluentCart

That connection reduces friction and makes the whole experience smoother for both Gee and her members.

The Money She Saves

This part is easy to understand. Gee says she saves at least 2,500 EUR per year compared to her old setup. That is not a vague efficiency claim. That is direct cost savings from removing expensive platform subscriptions and simplifying the tech stack. Because she uses FluentCommunity and FluentCart lifetime deals, and because her site already runs on WordPress, her only ongoing costs now are:

• Domain
• Hosting
• An external service for video and audio hosting

That is a very different financial picture from paying yearly for a premium community stack. And it gets better, because the savings are not just in subscription fees. 

She also dropped several tools she no longer needs, including WooCommerce, LearnDash for the community side, Plug&Pay, LaPosta, and Zapier. With fewer tools in the stack, there are fewer integrations to manage, fewer moving parts overall, and far less that can potentially break.

The Time She Saves

Time is where a lot of community tools quietly drain you. Gee says she saves a significant amount of time because she can schedule posts. That one feature changed how she works. Instead of being present all the time just to create new content manually, she can spend a focused day preparing a course or challenge and schedule the posts in advance. The content goes out automatically, and she stays present for the part that matters most: real interaction. That is the difference between running a community and babysitting one. 

Her favorite feature is still scheduling posts, because it gives her freedom and peace of mind. She can work in deep focus, then let the system do the repetitive part. That is smart community management, not busywork.

What does FluentCommunity make possible that was hard before?

Gee is clear about this, too. FluentCommunity enables her to do things she simply couldn’t before, with the biggest difference being how seamlessly everything works together. A student can buy a course through FluentCart, get automatically added to the right list and automation in FluentCRM, receive onboarding emails and reminders, access both the course and community in FluentCommunity, and even become an affiliate through FluentAffiliate if they choose to promote her work. This creates far less tech stress and delivers a much smoother experience for everyone involved.

She also uses FluentForms for registrations, applications, and feedback, FluentBoards for internal tasks and course development, FluentSMTP to ensure reliable email delivery, FluentAffiliate for tracking and commissions, and WP Social Ninja, along with Ninja Tables in her broader workflow. It all comes together as a complete ecosystem, which truly makes a difference. Instead of juggling multiple disconnected tools, Gee now has one unified stack that actually works like a single, cohesive platform.

Why This Community Feels Better?

The difference shows up in the community itself. Because Gee has regained her confidence in creating courses, that energy flows back into the community. Members feel it. They respond to it. They participate more. She also runs a public roadmap where members can submit ideas for new courses and see what is being worked on. That is a smart move because it gives members visibility and ownership without needing a complicated system.

It turns the community from a static content library into an active feedback loop. That is the kind of thing that makes people stay.

Who FluentCommunity is Best For?

According to Gee, Gee says she would recommend FluentCommunity to almost anyone, from small creators to larger businesses. Her perspective is practical. if you want to build a real community around your work, offer courses, create a connected member experience, keep things simple, stay flexible, and have everything under one roof, it’s a solution worth considering.

Then FluentCommunity makes sense. She especially recommends it to people who want less tech stress and more control over their community experience.

What She Would Like to See Next?

Gee is happy with the platform, but she also shares thoughtful suggestions for improvement. Feedback that comes from real usage, not criticism for its own sake. She would love to see features like categories with modules and lessons for better course structuring, more flexible drag-and-drop ordering for courses and groups, and the ability to select multiple FluentCRM lists or tags directly within course settings. 

These ideas reflect hands-on experience and show that she’s not just a customer, but someone actively building and growing with the tool.

Final Word

Aquarel Natuurlijk’s story is not just about switching software. It is about breaking out of a cycle of heavy plugin use, expensive subscriptions, broken workflows, and constant rebuilding. It is about finding a setup that finally feels stable enough to grow with. 

For Gee Adriaansz, FluentCommunity brought back confidence, reduced costs, saved time, and made the whole business feel connected again. And that might be the real win here. Not just a better platform. A better way to run the business.