Skool payouts — how the money actually flows

How Skool payments actually flow

Skool uses Stripe Connect to process member payments. The flow:

1. A member subscribes to your community (e.g., $49/mo). 2. The charge hits the member's card. 3. Stripe collects the gross amount ($49). 4. Stripe deducts its processing fee (2.9% + $0.30 = $1.72 on a $49 charge). 5. Skool's platform fee is deducted (commonly around 2.9% on modern accounts, varies). 6. The remaining net (~$46) lands in your Stripe balance. 7. Stripe pays out from your balance to your linked bank account on its standard schedule.

Key point: Skool doesn't hold your money. The money sits in your Stripe account, on Stripe's terms. You manage payouts, refunds, and disputes through Stripe's dashboard, not Skool's.

Start your own Skool community in 60 seconds.

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

Start Skool free trial →

Stripe's payout schedule

Standard Stripe payout schedule for verified accounts in the US:

• Trailing 2 business days. A charge that hits today pays out 2 business days later, assuming no holds.
• Daily payouts by default, but you can configure weekly or monthly in Stripe's dashboard.
• Bank transfer to your linked account. ACH in the US, equivalent in other countries.

Other countries vary slightly. UK, EU, Canada, Australia — most are 2–3 business days. Some emerging markets have longer initial holds.

Weekends and bank holidays don't count as business days. A charge on Friday afternoon typically pays out Tuesday or Wednesday.

Fees deducted at charge time

Two fee layers come out before money hits your Stripe balance:

• Stripe processing: 2.9% + $0.30 per successful card charge. Standard, applies regardless of platform.
• Skool platform fee: a small percentage on top of Stripe — publicly described as 'small' rather than a fixed number. Modern accounts are commonly cited at around 2.9%, though it has varied.

Net: about 5–6% of gross goes to fees on a typical card transaction. So a $49 charge nets you ~$45–$46.

These fees are visible in Stripe's dashboard as separate line items. You can pull a CSV of all transactions with fees broken out for accounting.

First-time payout delays

If you've just set up Stripe Connect through Skool, expect:

• 7-day rolling reserve initially. Stripe holds your first payout while verifying your account, business documents, and risk profile.
• Identity verification — Stripe will ask for ID, business documents, sometimes a personal address.
• First payout typically lands 7–10 days after your first charge for new accounts, not 2 days.

After the first 30–60 days of clean activity, Stripe usually moves you to standard 2-day rolling payouts.

If you're seeing unusual delays beyond this, check Stripe's dashboard for any 'documents required' or 'verification needed' notices — that's the most common cause. Skool support can't fix Stripe verification issues; you have to handle them in Stripe directly.

Refunds, chargebacks, and disputes

All refund processing goes through Stripe, not Skool:

• Refunds: initiated from Stripe's dashboard or through Skool's billing UI (which calls the Stripe API). The full charge minus already-paid fees is reversed; the platform fee Skool took is also typically reversed (depending on circumstance).

• Chargebacks: when a member disputes a charge with their bank. Stripe holds the disputed amount + a $15 dispute fee from your balance until resolution. You have to provide evidence in Stripe's dashboard within 7 days.

• Failed payments: Stripe automatically retries failed cards a few times. If they keep failing, Skool downgrades the member to inactive after the standard dunning period.

• Negative balance: if refunds or chargebacks exceed your incoming payments, Stripe will pull from your linked bank account to cover the deficit. Watch for this if you're doing big refund batches.

For anything related to the money flow itself, the Stripe dashboard is your source of truth, not Skool's. Skool surfaces top-line numbers (MRR, member count, churn rate) but the financial detail lives in Stripe.

For recovering revenue from cancellations specifically, tools4skool's Churn Saver fires a recovery DM within ~60 seconds of a cancel event — capturing some of the revenue that would otherwise leak through the refund/cancellation flow.