# Skool

> Community platform with courses, events and paid memberships

Skool is a community-first platform where creators run a group with a discussion feed, a classroom of courses, a calendar of events and live calls. Members can be charged a subscription or a one-time course price, with payments, EU VAT and weekly payouts handled by Skool. Groups can also be found by members browsing Skool's own discovery pages.

- **Category:** Courses & Communities
- **Made by:** Skool.com, Inc. (since 2019)
- **Website:** https://www.skool.com
- **Runs on:** Web, iOS, Android
- **Facts last checked:** Oct 17, 2026

## Pricing

Skool is a paid product with a free trial, starting at $9 per month, billed monthly.

- **Pricing model:** Free trial
- **Free plan:** None.
- **Free trial:** 14-day free trial of either plan.

| Plan | Price | What you get |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Hobby | $9 per month, billed monthly | Unlimited members, courses, videos and live calls. Skool keeps 10% plus 30 cents of each sale. No custom URL, affiliates or Zapier. |
| Pro | $99 per month, billed monthly | Adds a custom URL, affiliates and Zapier. Fees fall to 2.9% plus 30 cents a sale up to $899, and 3.9% plus 30 cents above $900. |

Read from https://www.skool.com/pricing on Oct 17, 2026. Prices change, so confirm with Skool before buying.

## Ways to pay less

- **2 months free with yearly billing** (Annual discount): Skool's pricing page has a monthly and yearly switch and says yearly billing gives 2 months free. Source: https://www.skool.com/pricing

## Key features

- **Community feed and chat:** A discussion feed organized by categories, with group rules, moderation tools, membership questions and member chat.
- **Classroom:** Courses inside the group, which can be included in a membership, sold as one-time purchases, or unlocked as members reach a level.
- **Calendar and live calls:** A group calendar of events and unlimited live calls hosted on Skool itself, from the browser or the mobile app.
- **Points, levels and leaderboards:** Members earn a point for each like their posts and comments get, and climb levels and leaderboards; owners can lock courses until a level.
- **Payments and payouts:** Monthly, annual, freemium or one-time pricing. Skool processes cards, adds and remits EU VAT, and pays out weekly in local currency.
- **Discovery and Growth Boost:** Groups can appear in Skool's discovery search. Growth Boost promotes a group and runs ads for it in exchange for a cut of members it brings.

## Good for

- Creators building a paid community around a topic, with courses inside
- Coaches running group programs with live calls
- Owners who want members to find them through Skool's own directory

## Worth knowing

- Hobby keeps 10% plus 30 cents of every sale. Payments go through Skool only; your own Stripe account cannot be connected.
- Growth Boost is on by default and takes 30% of recurring charges from members Skool brings in; it can be turned off.
- A custom URL, the affiliate program and the Zapier integration need the Pro plan.
- Skool's payment policy gives no refunds on its subscription fees.

## ToolGPA grades

**GPA: 2.4 out of 4**, graded Oct 17, 2026. Skool is a community first: a discussion feed, a classroom of courses, a calendar and live calls, with points and levels to keep people posting. Once you're selling, Pro is cheap next to other community platforms. But it's deliberately simple, with no email, landing pages or quizzes, and payments only go through Skool.

- **Value for money: B.** Graded against its alternatives, community platforms. Pro is $99 a month, $82.50 with yearly billing's 2 months free, and its 2.9% + 30 cents is card processing; Hobby's 10% would add $200 on $2,000 of sales. $82.50 beats Mighty ($119), Circle ($129) and Heartbeat ($140).
- **Free plan and trial: C.** No free plan. There's a 14-day trial of either plan, and the listing doesn't say it needs a card. Skool's payment policy gives no refunds on its fees after that.
- **Features: C.** A feed, chat, a classroom of courses, a calendar, unlimited live calls on Skool itself, points and levels, payments with EU VAT and a discovery directory. It does the community job fully, but it's a smaller kit: no email, landing pages or quizzes in the listing.
- **Ease of use: C.** 3.84 from 782 App Store ratings, just inside the C band. Starting a group looks simple, with a feed, a classroom and a calendar and nothing to wire up.
- **Platforms and integrations: B.** Web, iPhone and Android, so members can join from anywhere. Integrations are thin, though: Zapier only, and only on Pro. No desktop app, which an A needs.

These are ToolGPA's own grades. Graded from this listing, whose facts were read from Skool's own pages on 17 October 2026, and its App Store rating. Not based on using the product, and shorter than our full reviews.

## Where it stands among course and community platforms

- Skool's GPA of 2.4 is higher than 8 of the 18 other course and community platforms we grade, and level with 6.
- It stands best on value for money (B, above 17 of 18) and worst on features (C, above 0).
- Its paid plans start at $9 a month, against a middle price of $41 for the category: 0 of the 17 others that charge start lower.
- On features, ease of use and platforms it scores 2.3 out of 4. Nothing scores higher for less, though at least one tool matches that score at a lower price.

The category's chart of price against score: https://toolgpa.com/charts/courses-communities

## Keep it, or make your own?

**Your call.** You could make the core of Skool for yourself: online courses. What you would give up is listed below. Whether that is worth the price is your call. It costs $108 a year.

- You could make: Online courses: an app builder makes this well.
- You could not: A members' space with posts, chat and events that people keep coming back to.
- You could not: A real app for iOS and Android. Something home-made would be a web page.

A judgement by ToolGPA from this listing, by rules that are the same for every tool. Nothing was built to test it.

## What people say

- **App Store rating of the iPhone and iPad app:** 3.8 out of 5 from 782 ratings in the United States, read Oct 17, 2026. This is the store's rating of the app, not a score from ToolGPA. Source: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id6447270545

## Works with

Zapier

**Tags:** Online courses, Community

## Alternatives

- [Circle](https://toolgpa.com/tools/circle): Community platform with courses, events, payments and branded apps. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/circle-vs-skool)
- [Mighty Networks](https://toolgpa.com/tools/mighty-networks): Community platform with courses, livestreams and paid memberships. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/mighty-networks-vs-skool)
- [Heartbeat](https://toolgpa.com/tools/heartbeat): Paid community platform with courses, events and member payments. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/heartbeat-vs-skool)
- [Kajabi](https://toolgpa.com/tools/kajabi): All-in-one platform for selling courses, coaching and communities. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/kajabi-vs-skool)
- [Disco](https://toolgpa.com/tools/disco): Branded learning academy for cohort courses, community and AI help. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/disco-vs-skool)

## Sources

The prices, plans, platforms and features above were read from these pages on Oct 17, 2026:

- https://www.skool.com/pricing
- https://www.skool.com/about
- https://help.skool.com/article/86-subscriptions-faq
- https://help.skool.com/article/227-payment-terms-and-policy
- https://help.skool.com/article/56-zapier-integration
- https://help.skool.com/category/52-billing
- https://apps.apple.com/us/app/skool-communities/id6447270545
- https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.skool.skoolcommunities&gl=US&hl=en
- https://help.skool.com/article/183-how-do-points-and-level-work
- https://help.skool.com/article/101-how-to-unlock-a-locked-course-or-an-event
- https://help.skool.com/article/193-how-to-change-plans

Page: https://toolgpa.com/tools/skool
Listed by ToolGPA (toolgpa.com).