Whop

Whop is the pick if you've got zero revenue and don't want a bill until you do. It's the wrong pick if you want a feed that keeps members coming back, or an email list, or both.

Pricing, checked on docs.whop.com/fees, 16 October 2026. There's no monthly fee. Domestic card payments cost 2.7% plus 30 cents. International cards add 1.5%. Currency conversion adds 1%. That 2.7% is the whole thing: Whop is the processor, so there's no Stripe fee underneath it.

So here's the deal. On a $100 sale, Whop costs you $3. Skool Hobby costs $10.30. Circle Professional costs about $5.20. Kajabi Payments costs $3.20. Whop's the cheapest per sale of anything we've checked, and it's free to sit on.

The fee that isn't on the sales page

Getting paid. Whop's fee page lists a payout charge on every withdrawal: $2.50 for next-day ACH, 4% plus $2.50 for instant deposit, 5% plus $1 for crypto, $23 for a bank wire. Pull your money weekly and that's $130 a year on the cheapest option. Pull it daily and you've bought yourself a Skool subscription in payout fees.

Keep in mind, you can also switch on optional "revenue optimization" layers: orchestration at 0.8%, billing at 0.5%, tax collection at 2%. Turn them all on and Whop's own page says a domestic card sale costs 6% plus 30 cents. They're off by default. Leave them off until you know what they do.

About that 30% marketplace fee

You'll read in some 2026 reviews that Whop takes 30% on sales that come through its Discover marketplace. Whop's current fee page doesn't list it, and we found no mention of a marketplace, Discover, or referral fee anywhere on it. Third-party coverage says Whop dropped the 30% commission in May 2025 (Group.app's review is one example). We're treating it as gone, but it's the kind of thing to confirm in your own dashboard before you count on it.

What the community actually is

Apps. You start with a storefront, then add tabs: Chat, Forums, Courses, Events, and hundreds more from the app store (Add apps). Chat is a live room with controls over who can post and whether links are allowed. Forums is threaded. Courses takes video uploads, file attachments, and quizzes. Events is a list of upcoming things with links.

That's a different shape from Skool or Circle. There's no feed with posts and comments that members scroll through. There's a chat room, and there's a forum, and they're separate tabs. If your community lives on the energy of a feed, Whop doesn't have one.

Honestly, the best way to think about Whop is as a checkout with a Discord bolted on. That's not a knock. For a lot of creators, that's the whole product.

What's not here

No email marketing. Zapier gets buyers into your email tool, and there are native HubSpot and GoHighLevel integrations, but nothing sends from Whop.

No gamification. No points, no levels, no leaderboard, no streaks. If you want Skool's loop, this isn't it.

No feed. See above.

Pricing your products

Free, one-time, or recurring, weekly, monthly, or yearly (Paid groups). You can add multiple pricing options for tiers, and the free-plus-premium model is built in: a free product to join, a separate paid product that unlocks the Chat and Courses tabs. That's the Skool freemium setup, with no monthly fee attached.

Can you leave?

Here's where it gets thin. Whop publishes a beta export API (Exports), which means the data can come out if you or a developer wire it up. We couldn't find a documented export button in the dashboard. If you find one, tell us and we'll update the listing. Posts, chat history, and course content: nothing documented.

Coming in: no CSV import that we could find. Whop's model is that members buy or join through your storefront link. Zapier and the API can create memberships from an external checkout.

Does Whop have a free plan?

Yes. There's no monthly plan at all. You pay 2.7% plus 30 cents when you sell something and nothing when you don't.

Is Whop cheaper than Skool?

Per sale, yes, by a lot. $3 on a $100 sale versus $10.30 on Skool Hobby. But Skool's $9 a month buys a feed, levels, unlocks, and a digest that brings people back. Whop's $0 a month buys a storefront and a chat room. If you're selling access and the community is a perk, Whop wins. If the community is the thing people are paying for, Skool's $9 earns it back.

Whop or Nas.io?

Both are free to start and fee-based. We'll have Nas.io verified soon. The short version for now: Nas.io has a feed and gamification, Whop has the bigger app store and the marketplace.

Whop or Circle?

Whop if you have no revenue yet and want the checkout to be the product. Circle if you've got members and want Spaces, a feed, and your own Stripe.

Sources, all checked 16 October 2026: Whop fees, add apps, paid groups, export API. Secondary, on the marketplace fee change: Group.app Whop review.