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TL;DR
Skool's payment system is Stripe with a 14% Skool override. You connect Stripe Connect once, set a monthly or annual price on your community, and Skool handles the checkout page, the recurring charge, and member access on success. Stripe charges its standard processing fee (2.9% + 30¢ in the US), then Skool takes its 14% transaction fee on the gross. Owners net roughly 83% of MRR after both. There's no PayPal, no crypto, no manual invoicing, and no ability to plug in your own processor. For most owners that's fine — Stripe just works. The hidden cost is on the retention side: when Stripe declines a card, you have ~7 days before that member gets removed, and most owners don't catch it in time.
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The payment stack, end to end
From a member's perspective they hit a Skool community URL, click "Join," pick a plan, and land on a Stripe-hosted checkout page. Card details are collected and tokenised by Stripe — Skool never sees raw card numbers. On success, Stripe creates a subscription on the connected Stripe account (yours), Skool's webhook listener flips the member to "paid" status, and access to gated classrooms or paid-only posts unlocks instantly. Skool also keeps a synced view of subscription status — active, past_due, cancelled — and reflects that in your community dashboard. None of this is exposed as raw API for owners; it's all UI. If you need richer payment flows (one-time upsells, multi-currency, manual invoices, multi-product carts), Skool isn't the layer — Stripe directly is.
What Skool actually takes from each payment
Two fees stack on every transaction. Stripe charges 2.9% + 30¢ per successful card charge in the US (rates differ slightly per country). Skool takes 14% of the gross subscription amount as its platform fee. On a $49/mo membership: Stripe takes ~$1.72, Skool takes $6.86, you net $40.42. Annualised at $49 × 12, that's $588 gross and ~$485 net to the owner per member per year. There is no separate Skool subscription fee for hosting — the 14% is the only Skool charge. Compare to Mighty Networks (~$119/mo flat plus 0% transaction fee on higher tiers) or Circle (~$99/mo plus 4% transaction fee on cheaper plans): Skool is more expensive per member but has zero monthly base, which makes it cheaper at lower volumes and pricier at scale.
The member checkout flow
A typical paid Skool community has both a free About page (visible to anyone) and a paid tier. Members can preview the About page, owner posts pinned to public, and a few classroom modules if the owner sets them as public-preview. Clicking "Join" takes them through Stripe checkout. Apple Pay and Google Pay are supported on supported devices because Stripe handles them natively. After payment, the member sees the full classroom, calendar, paid-only posts, and gets a Skool welcome — usually a DM if the owner has set up a sequence. Cancellation is one click from the member's billing portal, also Stripe-hosted. They keep access until the period ends, then they revert to free or are removed entirely depending on owner settings.
Failed payments and dunning — where money quietly leaks
When Stripe can't charge a card (expired, insufficient funds, fraud block) it enters Stripe's smart retry schedule — usually 4 attempts over ~7 days. During this window the member is in past_due state but still has access. If all retries fail, Stripe cancels the subscription and Skool removes paid access. Skool doesn't email the member with a polished recovery flow, doesn't auto-DM them, doesn't tag them as "at risk" inside your community feed. The default behaviour is silent. This is exactly where churn-saver DMs change the math: a 60-second automated DM the moment a payment fails — "Hey, your card got declined, here's the 1-click update link" — recovers a meaningful fraction of involuntary churn. tools4skool ships this as a built-in churn saver because it's the highest-ROI thing most Skool owners aren't doing.
What Skool's payment system doesn't do
No PayPal, no crypto, no bank-debit (ACH/SEPA on the member side), no Klarna or BNPL. Stripe-only, card-first. No multi-currency presentment — the price is set in your Stripe account currency and that's what every member sees, even if they're in another country. No native order bumps, upsells, or one-time add-ons inside the Skool flow; if you want "add a $99 strategy call to your subscription," that's a separate Stripe Checkout link or Buy Button you'd send by DM. No coupon engine inside Skool itself — discounts are managed via Stripe coupons applied to the subscription, which is fine for ops but invisible to most owners. No tax handling beyond what Stripe Tax provides if you've enabled it on Stripe directly. For richer commerce, owners run Skool alongside a Stripe-direct sales page or a tool like ThriveCart for the front end.
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