Can I run a free tier and a paid tier at the same time?

Yes, with two groups. A free Skool group acts as the top of funnel; a paid Skool group sits behind a Stripe checkout. You promote the paid group inside the free one. This is the most common ‘tier’ structure on Skool today and works cleanly because the platform fee is flat — running two groups costs the owner $198/mo total, not double the per-member cost.

What does Skool charge per member?

Nothing. Skool’s fee is a flat $99/mo per group regardless of member count. The only per-transaction cost is Stripe’s standard 2.9% + 30¢ when a member pays you. There are no booking fees, message fees or storage fees on top. This is why high-volume communities tend to land on Skool — the marginal cost of member 5,001 is zero.

Is there a Skool annual plan or discount?

Skool’s public pricing page lists $99/mo as the only plan. There is no annual discount advertised. Promotions appear occasionally for new owners (typically a longer trial), but the standard price has been stable. Members can be billed annually if you, the owner, configure that on your group — but Skool itself bills you monthly.

How do refunds and cancellations work for members?

Cancellations are handled inside Skool — the member clicks Cancel and Stripe stops the next charge. Access usually continues until the end of the current billing cycle. Refunds are issued by you via Stripe, not by Skool support. There is no native ‘pause’ button, so if a member asks to pause for a month, the practical workaround is to cancel and re-add them later, or comp them with a coupon.

How does tools4skool fit on top of Skool’s tiers?

It does not change your tier prices — it works the manual layer. When a member joins your paid tier, a tools4skool DM sequence delivers welcome content and the first-week roadmap. When Stripe flags a failed payment, the Churn Saver fires a 60-second recovery DM. When a member goes silent for two weeks, a re-engagement message goes out. Free plan handles light volume; paid plans ($29/$59/$149) scale with your community.

Skool Membership Tiers: How Pricing Actually Works (2025)

On this page

TL;DR
The owner-side fee
What member tiers look like
Real pricing examples
Limits worth knowing
Tools that fit on top

TL;DR

Skool has two layers of pricing that people mix up. Layer 1 is what Skool charges the community owner: a flat $99 per month per group, with a 14-day free trial, no per-seat charges, no transaction fees beyond Stripe’s standard 2.9% + 30¢. Layer 2 is what the owner charges members: that part is fully your call — free, $19/month, $97/month, $497 lifetime, whatever you decide. The thing Skool does not have natively is built-in multi-tier memberships inside one group. If you want a Bronze/Silver/Gold structure, you either run multiple separate Skool groups or you gate access using your own page/Stripe and use Skool as the delivery layer.

Feature	Skool	Circle	Mighty Networks
Base owner fee	$99/mo flat	$49–$399/mo	$41–$360/mo
Per-member fees	None	None on most plans	None on most plans
Native multi-tier memberships	No	Yes (paywalls)	Yes (paid spaces)
Built-in courses	Yes	Yes (paid plans)	Yes (paid plans)
Gamification	Yes (levels)	Add-on	Yes
Mobile apps	Native iOS + Android	iOS + Android	iOS + Android
Payment processor	Stripe only	Stripe only	Stripe only
Trial length	14 days	14 days	14 days

See the pricing inside Skool itself.

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

Start Skool free trial →

Layer 1 — the platform fee Skool charges you

Skool keeps its own pricing famously simple. One plan: $99 per month, billed monthly. There is no annual discount visible on the public pricing page, no enterprise tier, and crucially no per-member fee — you can have 5 members or 50,000 on the same $99. Trials are 14 days and do not require a card. The $99 covers: hosting for community feed, classroom (course videos), calendar, gamification, member directory, native iOS and Android apps, Stripe payment processing for your members, and email notifications. Skool does not take a cut of your member revenue beyond standard Stripe fees. For comparison, Mighty Networks and Circle charge per-member or per-feature on top of base, and Kajabi’s entry tier is $149 with member caps. The simplicity is the pitch.

Skool platform fee (owner)

$99/mo flat

Unlimited members
14-day free trial
Hosted community + classroom
Native iOS + Android apps
Stripe payments built in

Free member tier (you set)

Top-of-funnel access
Limited content
Optional paid upgrade path

Low monthly (you set)

$19–$29/mo

Niche / study / newsletter feel
Light owner support
High volume, lower margin

Mid monthly (you set)

$47–$97/mo

Most coaching communities live here
Live calls + courses
Annual usually 10x monthly

High-ticket (you set)

$197–$497/mo

Mastermind / done-with-you
Direct owner access
Strict cohort caps

Layer 2 — the tiers you set for members

When people search ‘skool membership tiers’, this is usually what they actually mean. As an owner, you control whether your group is free or paid. If paid, you pick: monthly recurring, annual recurring, one-time payment, or a combination (monthly and annual at different prices). You can also run a free group and put a paid offer behind a Stripe link inside the group. What Skool does not do natively is multi-tier inside one community — there is no Bronze/Silver/Gold dropdown at checkout. To create that effect, owners typically run one free hub plus one or two paid ‘inner’ groups, sometimes called the Skool stack. The free group acts as a top-of-funnel; the paid group(s) deliver the actual product. Members move between groups as they upgrade.

Real pricing examples we see

Looking across active Skool communities, paid tiers cluster around a handful of price points. The cheap end sits at $19–$29 per month — usually for niche communities, study groups, or low-touch newsletters. The middle range, $47–$97 per month, is where most coaching and creator communities live. The high end, $197–$497 per month, is reserved for done-with-you programs, mastermind groups and high-ticket coaching where the value of community access is meaningful on its own. Annual is often priced at 10x monthly (so $97/mo → $970/yr), which gives a roughly 17% discount and dramatically better cash flow. One-time lifetime deals appear in the launch phase, usually $297–$997, and disappear once the community gets traction. The Kate Capelli case is a useful sanity check: paying $59/mo for tools4skool (and Skool’s base $99) returned an extra $4,000/mo in two weeks, mostly through faster onboarding and churn recovery.

Things to know before you set tiers

A few quirks. Stripe is the only payment processor — there is no PayPal, no manual invoicing, and no cryptocurrency. Refunds are issued through Stripe, not Skool. Failed payments retry on Stripe’s default schedule (usually 3 attempts over 7 days), and Skool will email the member but does not send a custom recovery message — that gap is exactly where churn-saver tooling helps. There is no native ‘pause membership’ button; if a member wants to pause, you cancel them and re-add later, or run a manual coupon. Trials on the member side can be set as ‘free for X days then $Y/mo’ via Stripe, but you have to configure that on the Skool side too. None of these are deal-breakers, but they shape how you design tiers — keep things simple, lean on annual for retention, and instrument the failed-payment moment carefully.

Tools that ride on top of your tiers

Once your tier structure is set, the work shifts to onboarding new members fast and keeping existing ones happy. tools4skool plugs into your existing skool.com session as a Chrome extension and runs the muscle work: a welcome DM sequence triggered the moment someone joins, a Churn Saver that fires a 60-second recovery DM when Stripe flags a failed payment, a comment miner to surface unanswered questions, scheduled posts so the feed never goes dead, and analytics that tie revenue back to specific posts and DM sequences. Free plan covers 1 sequence and 20 DMs a day. Paid starts at $29/mo (Starter), $59/mo (Pro) and $149/mo (Agency). The point is not to add complexity — your tiers stay clean — but to remove the manual messaging that makes higher tiers viable in the first place.

Stop leaving DMs, churn, and revenue on the table.

tools4skool plugs the holes Skool ships with. Free plan forever, paid tiers from $29/mo.

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"$59/mo into tools4skool turned into $4,000/mo more in two weeks."
— Kate Capelli· 7,000% ROI in the first 14 days

Frequently asked

Not natively. Skool gives you one price per group — free, monthly or annual. To run Bronze/Silver/Gold, owners typically create separate groups (a free hub + one or two paid ones) and route members between them. Some owners use external Stripe links inside a free group to sell add-ons, but the actual ‘tier’ unlock has to happen by moving the member into the paid group.