Ajivikas did maintain an organized renunciant community that can meaningfully be described as monastic in character. Their ascetics, known as śramaṇas, left household life and lived as wandering renouncers, structurally comparable to the early Buddhist and Jain saṅghas. These communities followed shared rules of conduct, moved and practiced together, and were recognized by distinctive external marks, including nudity or very minimal clothing in many cases. Such features indicate not a loose collection of individuals, but a coherent religious order with its own internal discipline.

The existence of leadership and lineage further underscores this organized character. Ajivikas traced their tradition through teachers such as Makkhali Gosāla, and they had designated leaders who guided both practice and doctrine. There were established procedures for admission into the order, suggesting that entry into the community was a formal, regulated process rather than an informal association. The community encompassed both male and female ascetics, who renounced worldly life, practiced celibacy, and lived in groups or wandered together under this shared discipline.

Patterns of patronage and dwelling also reveal a stable institutional presence. Ajivika ascetics received support from lay followers and rulers, and there is evidence of caves and similar dwellings being donated to them, indicating that their communities were expected to endure over time. Textual and archaeological testimony together portray these groups as well-structured institutions that persisted across various regions for centuries. Although their doctrine centered on a radical determinism and the principle of fate, in social and organizational terms their renunciant communities closely paralleled the monastic formations of Buddhists and Jains.