Skool Review (2026): Pricing, Features, Pros & Cons – Is It Actually Worth It?

Skool has become the default platform for online communities in 2026. Every guru, course creator, and coach seems to be migrating there. Alex Hormozi invested. Sam Ovens built it. And if you’ve spent any time in the make-money-online space recently, you’ve probably been invited to join at least three or four Skool communities this month alone.

The hype is real. But is the platform actually good? And more importantly — is it worth paying for, either as a community member or as a community owner?

Those are two very different questions, and most Skool reviews blur them together. A creator who charges $97/month for their community and uses Skool to host it has very different needs than someone trying to decide whether to join a paid Skool group about dropshipping or AI automation.

I’ve used Skool both as a member of multiple communities and as someone who’s studied the platform extensively. This review covers both sides — what it’s like to be a member, what it’s like (and costs) to be an owner, how it compares to alternatives, and whether the Hormozi hype machine has inflated expectations beyond what the platform actually delivers.

First — A Quick Recommendation…

Hey, my name is Mark.

I’ve reviewed dozens of community platforms, course hosting tools, and online business systems over 15+ years. Skool is a solid platform, but what matters more than which platform you use is which business model you build on top of it. Most people spend months agonizing over tools while ignoring the fundamentals of what actually generates income.

The best method I’ve found for building recurring income doesn’t require a community platform, a personal brand, or course hosting software. I build simple 2-page websites that show up in Google and generate leads for local businesses. Each site pays $500–$1,200 monthly, recurring, with 92–97% margins. No Skool subscription needed. No audience required. Just proven assets that pay month after month.

Go here to see the exact system I use to do this

Now, let’s get into Skool.

What Is Skool, Exactly?

Skool is an online community and course hosting platform built by Sam Ovens (founder of Consulting.com) and Daniel Kang. It launched in 2019 but exploded in popularity after Alex Hormozi (author of $100M Offers) made a significant investment and began publicly endorsing it.

At its core, Skool combines five things into one platform:

1. Community feed — Similar to a Facebook Group but cleaner and ad-free
2. Course hosting — Upload lessons, organize into modules, track progress
3. Event calendar — Schedule live calls, webinars, and workshops
4. Gamification — Points, levels, and leaderboards to drive engagement
5. Payment processing — Accept subscriptions, one-time payments, and tiered pricing

The pitch is simplicity. Instead of stitching together a Facebook Group + Teachable + Zoom + Stripe + an email platform, you get everything in one place. Sam Ovens deliberately kept the feature set minimal — there’s no email marketing, no funnel builder, no advanced automation. It’s a focused tool that does community + courses + payments.

Skool Pricing in 2026

Skool’s pricing has evolved. Here’s the current structure:

Plan	Monthly Cost	Key Features	Transaction Fee
Hobby	$9/month	Unlimited members, unlimited courses, basic features	10%
Pro	$99/month	Everything in Hobby + custom URL, plugins, analytics, native webinars	2.9%
14-Day Free Trial	$0	Full access to test the platform	—

The $9/month Hobby plan is relatively new and significantly lowered the barrier to entry. However, the 10% transaction fee on the Hobby plan is steep — if you sell $1,000/month in memberships, you’re paying $100 in fees on top of your $9 subscription. At that point, the Pro plan at $99/month with 2.9% fees becomes more cost-effective.

The math: If you’re generating more than ~$1,150/month in community revenue, Pro becomes cheaper than Hobby. Below that, Hobby saves you money.

Each subscription covers one community. If you want to run multiple communities, you need multiple subscriptions. Some creators work around this by running everything under a single community with tiered access levels.

What Skool Does Well

I’ll start with the genuine strengths because they’re real and meaningful.

Simplicity That Actually Works

Skool’s greatest strength is that it’s genuinely easy to use. I’ve tested Kajabi, Circle, Mighty Networks, Discord, Facebook Groups, and various other community platforms. Most of them require hours of setup, configuration, and troubleshooting. Skool doesn’t.

You can create an account, set up a community, upload course content, and start accepting members in under an hour. The learning curve is almost nonexistent. If you’ve ever used Facebook, you can use Skool. This matters enormously for non-technical creators who want to focus on their content rather than fighting with software.

The Community-Course Integration

This is Skool’s genuine differentiator. On most platforms, courses and communities are separate products awkwardly bolted together. On Skool, they’re one experience. Members can watch a lesson and immediately discuss it in the community feed. Course progress is visible to other members, creating social accountability. Lessons have built-in comment threads.

This integration drives higher engagement and completion rates than standalone course platforms. When learning is social, people stick with it longer.

Gamification That Drives Engagement

Skool’s leaderboard and points system is surprisingly effective. Members earn points for posting, commenting, and engaging. They level up as they accumulate points. Community owners can gate content behind specific levels — “reach Level 3 to unlock the advanced module.”

This creates a positive feedback loop: engagement earns points → points unlock content → unlocking content drives more engagement. For community owners, this translates to lower churn and higher member satisfaction.

Clean, Distraction-Free Interface

No ads. No algorithmic timeline. No notifications from unrelated groups. Skool creates a focused environment where members interact with your community and nothing else. Compare this to Facebook Groups, where members are constantly pulled away by the main feed, ads, notifications, and Marketplace spam.

Built-In Payments and Flexible Pricing

Skool now supports free communities, subscription pricing, tiered membership levels, one-time purchases, and freemium models. You can run a free community that upsells to a paid tier — a common and effective strategy. Payment processing is built-in, so there’s no need to connect Stripe separately.

Native Video Hosting and Webinars (Pro)

Skool has moved beyond requiring external tools. You can now host videos natively (with chapters and auto-captions) and run webinars directly on the platform. Skool Call supports interactive sessions with up to 10,000 participants. This alone eliminates the need for Zoom or Google Meet for many creators.

Where Skool Falls Short

Now the honest critique.

No Email Marketing

This is the biggest limitation for serious community builders. Skool has zero email marketing functionality. No automated welcome sequences, no broadcast emails, no segmentation, no drip campaigns.

If you want to communicate with your community outside of the Skool platform, you need a separate email tool — ConvertKit, ActiveCampaign, Mailchimp, or similar. And connecting them requires Zapier or webhooks (available on Pro), adding both cost and complexity.

For creators who rely on email to drive engagement, launch products, or re-engage lapsed members, this is a significant gap.

No Funnel Builder or Sales Pages

Skool doesn’t build your sales funnel. There are no landing pages, sales pages, upsell pages, or checkout customization. You need to drive traffic to your Skool community through external means — your own website, social media, paid ads, or other platforms.

This is fine if you already have a marketing system in place. But for creators who want an all-in-one solution (like Kajabi or ClickFunnels), Skool only handles the post-purchase experience. Everything before the member clicks “Join” is on you.

Limited Customization and Branding

Skool’s design is intentionally minimal, which is a double-edged sword. You can’t deeply customize your community’s look and feel. Colors are limited. There’s no custom CSS. Your community will look like a Skool community — clean and functional, but not uniquely branded.

For premium communities charging $200+/month, the generic interface can undermine the perceived value. Members paying premium prices expect a premium experience, and Skool’s one-size-fits-all design doesn’t always deliver that.

No Advanced LMS Features

If “course” means a complex educational experience with quizzes, assignments, certificates, peer reviews, or cohort-based progression, Skool is too basic. The classroom feature works well for video-based content with discussion threads, but it lacks the sophisticated learning management tools that platforms like Teachable Pro or Thinkific offer.

Basic Analytics

Skool provides some engagement metrics, but reporting is limited compared to dedicated analytics tools. You can see who’s active, who’s leveling up, and basic community health metrics. But if you want detailed funnel analytics, churn analysis, or cohort reporting, you’ll need external tools.

The 10% Transaction Fee (Hobby Plan)

The Hobby plan’s 10% fee is aggressive. For context, Stripe’s standard processing fee is 2.9% + 30¢. Skool’s Pro plan passes that through. But the Hobby plan takes an additional 7%+ on top of processing fees. For communities generating meaningful revenue, this adds up fast and essentially forces an upgrade to Pro.

Skool for Community Members: What to Expect

If you’re not building a community but joining one, here’s what the experience looks like.

Most paid Skool communities you’ll encounter in the make-money-online space charge between $27–$297/month. They typically include:

• A community feed where members post questions, wins, and discussions
• Course content (video lessons organized into modules)
• Scheduled events (weekly calls, Q&As, workshops)
• A leaderboard showing who’s most active

The experience is generally positive. The platform is smooth, the mobile app works well, and the lack of distractions means you actually engage with the content rather than getting sucked into a Facebook feed.

The caveat: The quality of a Skool community depends entirely on the community owner, not the platform. Skool is just the container — what goes inside varies wildly. Some Skool communities are outstanding (Dan Koe’s Modern Mastery, Hormozi’s Skool Games). Others are overpriced Facebook Groups with a prettier interface and the same recycled content you’d find in a free YouTube video.

Before joining any paid Skool community, ask:

1. Is the content unique, or is it repackaged free material?
2. Is the community owner actively present, or is it automated/delegated?
3. What do existing members say outside the community (Reddit, Trustpilot)?
4. Is there a free tier or trial so you can evaluate before committing?

I’ve reviewed numerous programs hosted on Skool, including the Mastery Institute, AI Marketers Club, and various digital marketing communities. The platform is consistent — the content quality is what varies.

Skool Games: The Hormozi Effect

You can’t review Skool without discussing the Skool Games — Alex Hormozi’s community-building competition that has driven enormous attention (and revenue) to the platform.

The Skool Games is a quarterly competition where community owners compete based on revenue generated within Skool. Winners get a day with Hormozi and bragging rights. The games have created a massive incentive for creators to launch Skool communities and grow them aggressively.

The positive side: The Skool Games created a thriving ecosystem of community builders who share strategies, support each other, and push each other to create better communities. The competitive element drives innovation.

The negative side: The games incentivize revenue above everything else. Some creators have launched low-quality communities focused purely on maximizing sign-ups rather than delivering value. The gamification of community building can lead to questionable tactics — artificial urgency, aggressive upselling, and inflated income claims to attract members.

If someone pitches you their Skool community by mentioning they’re “competing in the Skool Games” or “ranked in the top 10,” that tells you about their marketing ambition, not their content quality. Evaluate the community on its own merits, not its Skool Games ranking.

Skool vs. The Competition

Here’s how Skool stacks up against the alternatives community owners typically consider:

Feature	Skool ($99/mo)	Kajabi ($149-$399/mo)	Circle ($89-$219/mo)	Mighty Networks ($41-$360/mo)	Facebook Groups (Free)
Community	Excellent	Basic	Excellent	Good	Good (with ads)
Course Hosting	Good	Excellent	Basic	Good	None
Email Marketing	None	Excellent	None	Basic	None
Funnel Builder	None	Excellent	None	None	None
Gamification	Excellent	None	Basic	Good	None
Customization	Limited	Extensive	Good	Good	None
Ease of Use	Excellent	Moderate	Good	Moderate	Excellent
Video Hosting	Native	Native	Limited	Native	External
Transaction Fees	2.9% (Pro)	0% (higher plans)	Varies	Varies	N/A
Mobile App	Good	Good	Good	Good	Excellent

Choose Skool if: Community engagement is your priority, you want simplicity, and you’re okay handling email and funnels externally.

Choose Kajabi if: You need an all-in-one platform with email, funnels, and course hosting, and you’re willing to pay more for it.

Choose Circle if: You want more customization and design control for a premium community experience.

Choose Facebook Groups if: You’re starting out, have no budget, and just need to test your community concept.

Frequently Asked Questions About Skool

Is Skool free?

There’s a 14-day free trial. After that, the Hobby plan is $9/month and the Pro plan is $99/month per community. There is no permanent free plan for community owners, though you can join other people’s free communities without paying.

Is Skool a scam?

No. Skool is a legitimate software platform used by thousands of community builders. The platform itself is well-built and functional. However, some communities hosted on Skool may overpromise and underdeliver — that’s the community owner’s responsibility, not Skool’s.

Can you make money with Skool?

Yes, if you have something valuable to offer and the ability to attract members. Successful Skool community owners include coaches, course creators, hobbyist teachers, and industry experts. But launching a community on Skool doesn’t automatically generate income — you still need content, marketing, and an audience.

What happened to the $99/month only pricing?

Skool introduced the $9/month Hobby plan to lower the barrier to entry. The $99/month Pro plan remains for creators who need advanced features and lower transaction fees.

Is Skool better than Facebook Groups?

For paid communities, yes. Skool offers built-in payments, no ads, better engagement tools, and course hosting. For free communities, Facebook Groups still have the advantage of built-in distribution (Facebook’s algorithm can help surface your group to potential members).

Does Skool have an affiliate program?

Yes. Skool pays 40% recurring commissions to affiliates who refer new community owners. This is why you see so many “Skool reviews” that are overwhelmingly positive — many reviewers earn affiliate commissions for recommending it. Something to keep in mind when evaluating other Skool reviews online.

Can I export my data if I leave Skool?

You can export basic member data, but course content and community posts cannot be exported in a structured format. If long-term data portability matters to you, keep backups of your course content externally.

The Real Cost of Running a Skool Community

The $99/month headline price is just the beginning. Here’s what running a serious Skool community actually costs:

Platform costs:

• Skool Pro: $99/month ($1,188/year)
• Transaction fees: 2.9% on all revenue

Essential add-on tools (since Skool doesn’t include them):

• Email marketing (ConvertKit/ActiveCampaign): $29–$99/month
• Landing page/funnel builder (ClickFunnels, Leadpages): $37–$97/month
• Zapier (to connect Skool with email/CRM): $20–$50/month
• Video recording/editing tools: $0–$30/month
• Zoom (if running calls outside Skool): $13–$20/month

Total realistic monthly cost: $200–$400/month before you’ve earned a single dollar from your community.

This doesn’t include your time, which for most community owners amounts to 10–20+ hours per week on content creation, community moderation, event hosting, and member support. At even a modest hourly rate, that’s significant.

For a community charging $47/month, you need approximately 6-9 paying members just to break even on tool costs. To replace a modest income, you need 50-100+ members. Building to that level typically takes 6-12 months of consistent effort, assuming you already have an audience to draw from.

Compare this to business models where revenue starts faster and operating costs are minimal. Local lead generation, for example, requires a domain ($12/year), hosting ($10/month), and your time — with revenue starting as soon as a site ranks and a business agrees to pay for leads.

Why Most Skool Communities Fail

Here’s something the Skool hype machine doesn’t advertise: most Skool communities that launch don’t survive their first year. Based on patterns I’ve observed across the platform:

Reason 1: No audience to bring in. Skool has no discovery mechanism. Unlike YouTube (which recommends your content) or even Facebook Groups (which suggests groups to join), Skool relies entirely on you driving traffic from external sources. If you don’t already have a following — through social media, email, or paid ads — your Skool community will be a ghost town.

Reason 2: Community fatigue. Running a community is a service business. Members expect fresh content, regular events, prompt responses to questions, and continuous value. Many creators launch communities with excitement, then burn out within months when they realize the ongoing commitment required.

Reason 3: Price sensitivity. Most consumers already pay for Netflix, Spotify, gym memberships, and various other subscriptions. Adding a $47-$97/month community fee requires the community to deliver clearly superior value. Many don’t, and members churn after 1-3 months.

Reason 4: The content treadmill. Unlike a course (which you create once and sell repeatedly), a community requires continuous new content to justify ongoing membership. Weekly calls, fresh lessons, updated resources — the content demands never stop. This is sustainable for full-time creators but exhausting for anyone running a community as a side project.

I’ve reviewed numerous community-based programs — from Kameron George’s Mastery Program to AI Marketers Club to various coaching academies. The ones that thrive share two characteristics: the owner has a pre-existing audience, and the community solves a specific, urgent problem. Everything else is noise.

A Warning About Skool Review Bias

Before you make any decisions based on online Skool reviews, you need to understand something: Skool pays 40% recurring affiliate commissions.

That means if a blogger or YouTuber convinces you to sign up for the $99/month Pro plan through their link, they earn $39.60 every single month for as long as you remain a subscriber. That’s nearly $475/year per referral.

This creates an enormous financial incentive for reviewers to be overwhelmingly positive. And if you search “Skool review” on Bing, Google, or YouTube, you’ll notice that the vast majority of results are glowing recommendations that happen to include affiliate links.

I’m not saying these reviews are dishonest. Many of them are written by people who genuinely use and enjoy Skool. But the financial incentive is real, and it’s worth factoring into how you evaluate the reviews you read.

Questions to ask when reading any Skool review:

• Does the review include affiliate links? (Check the URLs)
• Does the reviewer mention the 40% commission? (Most don’t)
• Does the review discuss genuine alternatives fairly, or dismiss them?
• Does the review mention Skool’s limitations honestly, or gloss over them?

My recommendation: weigh reviews that are critical (or at least balanced) more heavily than those that are entirely positive. The balanced reviewers are less likely to be driven by affiliate income.

Who Actually Profits Most From the Skool Ecosystem?

Follow the money. The people making the most money in the Skool ecosystem are:

1. Skool itself — $99/month per community owner, plus 2.9% transaction fees on all revenue flowing through the platform.
2. Affiliates — 40% recurring commissions create a cottage industry of Skool promoters writing reviews, creating YouTube tutorials, and running ads to drive sign-ups.
3. Established creators who migrated from other platforms — People like Dan Koe, Alex Hormozi, and other large-audience creators who moved existing communities to Skool. They already had the audience; Skool just gave them a better tool.
4. Skool Games winners — Creators who build quickly and aggressively, often through paid ads and aggressive marketing.

Notice who’s not on that list? First-time community builders without an existing audience. They’re the primary target of Skool’s marketing (and affiliate marketing), yet they’re the least likely to succeed on the platform.

This isn’t Skool’s fault — it’s the reality of community-based business. The platform is excellent at what it does. But what it does is host communities, not build them. If you don’t have members to bring to Skool, the platform can’t help you find them.

The Honest Truth About Skool

Skool is a good platform. It’s well-built, genuinely easy to use, and solves a real problem for community-based businesses. The integration of community, courses, events, and payments in one simple package is its real strength.

But it’s not magic. A Skool community is only as good as the person running it and the content inside it. The platform doesn’t create value — it hosts it. And the Hormozi-fueled hype has created unrealistic expectations about what launching a Skool community can do for your income.

I’ve seen this pattern before. New platform emerges → gurus rush to it → everyone starts selling courses about how to use the platform → the platform itself becomes a trend rather than a tool. The same thing happened with ClickFunnels, Kajabi, and various other platforms before Skool.

The people making the most money from Skool are the people who already had audiences, expertise, and business skills before Skool existed. They just moved their operations to a better platform. For someone starting from scratch, Skool is a hosting tool — not a business model.

Who Should Use Skool (And Who Shouldn’t)

Skool makes sense if you:

• Already have an audience or client base to bring to a community
• Want a simple, distraction-free platform for paid membership content
• Value community engagement over advanced marketing features
• Are comfortable using external tools for email and funnels
• Run coaching, consulting, or course-based programs

Skool doesn’t make sense if you:

• Don’t have an audience yet (Skool won’t help you build one)
• Need all-in-one marketing (email, funnels, automations)
• Want deep customization for a premium brand experience
• Need advanced LMS features for structured education
• Are looking for a business model, not just a tool

If you’re in the latter group — looking for a way to actually build online income rather than a platform to host a community you don’t have yet — you might be better served by a business model that doesn’t require an audience at all.

After 15+ years of building online businesses, the approach that’s generated the most reliable recurring income for me doesn’t involve communities, courses, personal brands, or any of the tools that course creators love to argue about. It’s local lead generation — building simple digital assets that generate leads for local businesses and get paid monthly. No audience required. No Skool subscription needed. Just real income from real assets.

Before you leave

If you’ve made it this far, you’re either evaluating Skool for your business or trying to decide whether a Skool community is worth joining. Either way, you’re thinking seriously about making money online — and I respect that.

After 15+ years testing online business models, the best method I’ve found for building recurring income is local lead generation. I build simple 2-page websites that show up in Google and generate leads for local businesses. Each site pays $500–$1,200 monthly, recurring, with 92–97% margins. No platform fees eating into your margins. No community to constantly feed with content. Just assets that pay.

Go here to see the exact system I use to do this