How much does Skool actually cost in 2026?

The headline price

Skool costs $99 per month per community. That's the entire price card. There's no Hobby plan, no Pro plan, no Enterprise plan, no per-seat pricing.

Key facts:

• Billed monthly in USD. There's no annual discount as of writing.
• 14-day free trial. No credit card required to start.
• The trial gives you the full product — you can launch a paid community during the trial and keep all revenue.
• Cancel anytime. Your community goes read-only at the end of the period and is deleted after a grace window.

If you run multiple communities, you pay $99 each. Three communities = $297/month. Skool does not offer a multi-community discount or an agency tier. This is the most-requested pricing change from larger creators.

Need a Skool community to begin with?

14-day free trial — no card required. Most community owners decide whether Skool fits within the first week.

Start Skool free trial →

Payment fees if you charge members

If your community is free, $99/month is the entire bill. If you charge members, there's a payments layer.

• Stripe processing: 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction. Skool runs payments through Stripe and passes the standard Stripe rate through. Skool does not add a markup on top.
• No platform percentage from Skool. Unlike Patreon (8–12%) or Whop (3%), Skool doesn't take a cut of your member revenue beyond the flat $99.
• Refunds, disputes, chargebacks: Stripe's normal rules apply — $15 per chargeback, refunds return the percentage but Stripe keeps the $0.30.

Quick math: a $50/month member nets you $50 - $1.45 - $0.30 = $48.25 after fees. Across 100 paying members, that's $4,825/month minus the $99 platform fee = $4,726 net to Skool.

If you're outside the US, you'll also see Stripe's currency conversion (1% on cross-border) and your payout schedule depends on Stripe's country rules.

1. 1
   Start the free trial

   Go to skool.com, click Start free trial, pick your community URL. No card required for 14 days.

2. 2
   Add a payment method

   Before day 14, add a credit card under Settings → Billing. Otherwise the community goes read-only.

3. 3
   Decide free vs paid

   If you charge members, connect Stripe. Skool charges no extra cut beyond Stripe's 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction.

4. 4
   Set member pricing

   Pick monthly or annual pricing for members. Most paid communities sit between $29–$149/month per member.

5. 5
   Watch the first invoice

   Day 15 you'll see the $99 charge. Confirm there are no surprise fees. Skool's billing is clean — no surprise overages.

6. 6
   Add tooling if you need automation

   If you start hitting manual-DM walls, layer in tools4skool ($29–$149/mo) for sequences, churn-saver, and analytics.

What you get for $99

Everything Skool ships, every member you add, every video you upload — included.

• Unlimited members.
• Unlimited posts, comments, and reactions.
• Unlimited courses, modules, and lessons.
• Video hosting and streaming (Skool transcodes and serves it).
• iOS and Android mobile apps for you and your members.
• A custom URL: yourname.skool.com.
• Email notifications to members for new posts, replies, and DMs.
• The leaderboard and gamification engine.
• Stripe payment connection.

What you do not get:

• Email broadcasts (no "send to all members" email tool — you'll use ConvertKit or similar).
• Native automation (no DM sequences, no churn flows, no lifecycle triggers).
• Real CRM (no tags, deal stages, notes).
• Advanced analytics (no cohort retention, no LTV, no funnel).
• A custom domain (you cannot use community.yourbrand.com — it's always yourname.skool.com).
• White-label (Skool branding stays).

For most creators, the missing pieces start to bite around 200–500 paying members. That's where tools like tools4skool come in — adding DM sequences, churn-saver, tagging, and deeper analytics on top of your existing Skool community for $29–$149/month.

Real cost examples

Example 1 — Free community, 500 members. You pay $99/month flat. No transaction fees because you don't charge members. Total: $99/month.

Example 2 — Paid community, $49/month, 100 members. Revenue: $4,900. Stripe fees: ~$172. Skool fee: $99. Net: $4,629/month. Effective platform cost: about 5.5% of revenue.

Example 3 — Paid community, $149/month, 250 members. Revenue: $37,250. Stripe fees: ~$1,155. Skool fee: $99. Net: $35,996/month. Effective platform cost: under 4% of revenue. This is where Skool's flat fee gets very cheap relative to Patreon (~$3,725 in cuts) or Whop (~$1,117 in transaction fees).

Example 4 — Three communities, $99 each. $297/month base. Painful if you're an agency running brands you don't own. Most agency operators consolidate into one community with categories instead.

Example 5 — Skool + tools4skool. $99 + $59 (Pro tier) = $158/month. You add full DM sequences, churn-saver, comment miner, scheduled posts, and analytics. Kate Capelli's case: $59/mo on tools4skool to $4,000/mo more in 2 weeks — about 7,000% ROI. Numbers vary; the math works once you have ~50+ paying members.

How to start (and how to stop) paying

Starting:

• Go to skool.com and click "Start free trial."
• Pick a community name and URL — that becomes yourname.skool.com.
• You get 14 days. No card required.
• Before day 14, add a card under Settings → Billing or your community goes read-only.

Stopping:

• Settings → Billing → Cancel subscription.
• Cancellation takes effect at the end of your current billing cycle.
• Export your member CSV before cancelling — Skool deletes the community after the grace period and the export window closes.
• If you charged members, cancel their subscriptions in Stripe separately or they'll keep getting billed.

If you're cancelling because manual DMs and churn are eating your time, that's exactly what tools4skool was built for. Worth a look before you give up the platform.