Skool

Skool is the right call if you want members showing up without you chasing them. It's the wrong call if you need email marketing or your own payment processor.

Pricing first, because it's the simplest in the category. Checked on skool.com/pricing, 16 October 2026. Hobby is $9 a month plus 10% of every sale. Pro is $99 a month plus 2.9%. Features are identical.

That's it. That's the whole difference.

So it comes down to arithmetic. The extra $90 a month buys you 7.1 points of fee, and Pro only wins once you're pushing more than about $1,270 a month through Skool. Under that, Hobby is cheaper for the same product.

What Skool does better than anyone

Gamification isn't a feature here. It's the product.

Members earn one point per like on anything they post. Points move them through nine levels. You can lock courses behind a level, so the way to get the good stuff is to be useful in the feed. Levels reset per group, which means a level 6 in someone else's group starts at level 1 in yours. The leaderboard shows what unlocks where. Skool's own write-up is here.

Then there's the digest. Members pick daily, weekly, or off, and the email carries actual posts, not "you have 12 notifications." It's why a Skool group feels alive on a random Tuesday when a Circle group with the same people doesn't.

And tiers landed quietly, which matters more than it sounds. One group can now run a free plan and a paid plan side by side (Skool calls it freemium), or several paid plans with different perks. You don't need two groups anymore to have a free front door and a paid inner room. Details in How to set up pricing for the group.

What it can't do

No email marketing. None. No broadcasts, no sequences, no segments. Want to email your members about a launch? Second tool. Kajabi and Systeme.io include this. Circle sells it as an add-on.

No Stripe of your own. Every payment runs through Skool's merchant account, and Skool pays you out through a Stripe Express account it creates for you. Prices are USD only. Payouts land in your local currency, and Skool says it doesn't support USD deposits outside the US. All of it's in Skool's payments FAQ.

One feed. Categories filter it; they don't split it. Past a few hundred members, this is the complaint that sends people to Circle, which has real Spaces.

Courses are modules, lessons, video embeds, text. No quizzes, no certificates, no drip by date. If the credential is part of your pitch, look at LearnWorlds.

Can you leave?

Members, yes. There's a CSV button in the admin panel. Skool doesn't document it anywhere in the help centre, which is why our Export Documentation field below is blank. We confirmed it through a third-party tool that automates the same button.

Posts, comments, courses: no export of any kind. You rebuild them.

Coming in: bulk CSV invite works from the Invite tab, and Skool itself says to use an external CRM for big lists (How do I invite members). Zapier has an Invite Member action, which is how you let people in free when they bought through your own checkout.

Does Skool have a free plan?

No. 14-day trial, then $9 or $99 a month. If you need free forever, Systeme.io, Nas.io, and Mighty Networks have it.

Is the $9 Hobby plan worth it?

Yes, under roughly $1,270 a month in Skool-processed revenue. Above that, Pro's 2.9% costs less than Hobby's 10%.

Here's the thing though. If you sell through your own funnel and only use Skool for delivery, the 10% never fires. Hobby is $9 for everything.

Can you sell a course without a membership?

Yes. Any published course can carry a one-time Buy Now price, and buyers get instant access (one-time course purchases). It lives inside the group, so think of it as an upsell to members rather than a storefront.

Skool or Circle?

Skool if you want engagement and don't need separate spaces or email. Circle if you've outgrown one feed and want tiers, Spaces, and email on one bill, and you're fine paying $89 and up with no $9 runway.

Skool or Kajabi?

Skool if the community is the product. Kajabi if the course is the product, the community is support, and you'd rather pay more to get email and a proper course builder in one place.

Sources, all checked 16 October 2026: Skool pricing, payments FAQ, pricing setup and tiers, points and levels, inviting members, one-time course purchases.