How Much Does Skool Cost?

Skool has two pricing tiers: Hobby at $9 per month and Pro at $99 per month. Pay yearly instead of monthly and you get roughly two months free on either plan, which brings Pro down to about $82.50 a month on average. Both plans include unlimited members, unlimited courses and videos, unlimited live calls, a custom URL, and access to Skool’s built-in affiliate program. I want to say this clearly because it trips people up: the plans are not feature-gated the way most software is. You are not paying more for Pro to unlock a feature. You are paying more to keep more of your own sales. The only real difference between Hobby and Pro is the percentage Skool takes off anything you sell inside your community.

I run a paid community inside Skool myself, so I have watched both fee structures hit my own payout. When I was first testing the waters with a small group and low sales, Hobby made sense. Once my monthly sales climbed past a certain point, the math flipped hard in favor of Pro, and I’ll show you exactly where that line sits below.

One thing worth saying plainly: Skool’s pricing page has stayed almost identical for a couple of years now, which is rare in this industry. Most course and community platforms nudge prices up every year or add a new “plus” tier. Skool has kept it to two plans and two numbers, $9 and $99, which makes it one of the easier tools to budget for when you’re planning out a new offer. That stability is part of why I keep recommending it to coaching clients who are tired of guessing what a platform will cost them a year from now.

What You Get At Every Skool Price

This is the part most pricing pages skip. On almost every other platform in this space, the cheap plan strips out features until you upgrade. Skool does not do that. Hobby and Pro ship with the exact same toolset. Here is everything that is included no matter which plan you pick.

Because the feature list is identical, this decision comes down to pure math on your sales volume, not a features-versus-price trade-off. That is genuinely rare in this industry, and it’s one of the reasons I recommend Skool to coaching clients who are just starting a paid community and don’t want to guess which tier “unlocks” what they need.

Contrast this with most course platforms, where the entry tier caps your number of students, blocks you from custom domains, or hides the affiliate tools behind an upsell. I’ve used platforms like that, and it means every growth milestone comes with a forced upgrade conversation. Skool sidesteps that entirely. You could run a 5,000-person free community and a small paid mastermind side by side on the $9 Hobby plan without hitting a single feature wall. The only cost of staying on Hobby is the 10% fee, and only on money that actually changes hands.

Hobby Vs. Pro: When Does The Upgrade Pay For Itself?

Here’s the question that actually matters: at what point does paying $90 more a month for Pro start saving you money? The answer comes down to one number, your monthly sales volume through Skool.

The math is simple once you lay it out. Hobby charges 10% on your sales. Pro charges 2.9%. That’s a 7.1 percentage-point gap between the two fees. Pro costs $90 a month more than Hobby ($99 minus $9). So the question becomes: how much revenue do you need to be processing before that 7.1-point fee savings covers the extra $90? Divide $90 by 7.1%, and you get about $1,268 in monthly sales. That’s your break-even point.

Below roughly $1,268 a month in sales, Hobby is cheaper overall even with its higher fee, because you’re not paying the $90 premium for Pro. Above that number, Pro starts winning, and the gap widens fast as your sales grow. If you’re selling $5,000 a month through your community, Pro saves you well over $250 a month compared to staying on Hobby.

My practical advice: if you’re pre-revenue or just testing whether people will pay for access to your community at all, start on Hobby at $9 a month. There’s no reason to pay $99 before you have proof people will buy. The moment you can see you’re consistently clearing somewhere around $1,000 to $1,500 a month in sales, run your own numbers using the table above and switch to Pro. You can change plans anytime inside your Skool settings, so you’re never locked into the wrong tier.

To run your own number instead of relying on my table, use this formula: take $90 (the price gap between the two plans) and divide it by the difference between the two fees, which is always 7.1 percentage points (10% minus 2.9%). That gives you $1,267.60, which I round to $1,268. Any month you expect to clear more than that in sales through Skool, Pro is the cheaper plan. Any month you expect to clear less, Hobby is cheaper. If your revenue swings a lot month to month, like a lot of coaching and course businesses do, look at your trailing three-month average sales rather than one good or bad month, so you’re not flipping plans back and forth every few weeks.

Skool Vs. Kajabi Vs. Mighty Networks Vs. Circle

Skool is not the only place to run a paid community, so here’s how its pricing compares to the three platforms people ask me about most. Prices below are approximate starting points as of this update; every one of these companies changes pricing without much notice, so double-check the current numbers on each site before you commit.

A few honest notes on this table. Skool is the cheapest way to start by a wide margin, at $9 a month against $79 to $179 a month for the others. What Skool gives up compared to Kajabi is Kajabi’s built-in email marketing, funnels, and website builder; Skool is a community and course tool, not a full marketing suite. Compared to Mighty Networks and Circle, Skool’s transaction fee looks higher on the surface at 10% on Hobby, but neither of those platforms has a plan that starts anywhere near $9, and both still charge a transaction fee even on their priciest self-serve tiers. None of these four platforms, Skool included, offers a plan with a true 0% transaction fee. On every one of them, you’re also paying your payment processor (usually Stripe) roughly 2.9% plus $0.30 per transaction on top of the platform’s own cut, so factor that into your real margins regardless of which tool you pick.

If your priority is the lowest possible cost to simply get a paid community online this week, Skool’s $9 Hobby plan is hard to beat. If you need a full marketing and sales funnel wrapped around your courses, Kajabi does more, for a lot more money. Mighty Networks and Circle sit in between, aimed at people who want a more polished, brand-flexible community space and are willing to pay $79 to $89 a month starting out.

A closer look at each one, since the headline price rarely tells the whole story: Kajabi is really a course-and-marketing platform that happens to include a community area, not the other way around. You’re paying for landing pages, email automation, a checkout system, and a website builder alongside courses, which is why the starting price sits so much higher. If all you actually want is a place for members to talk, watch lessons, and join calls, you’re paying for a lot of Kajabi you’ll never open.

Mighty Networks leans hardest into “community feel,” with a more magazine-style layout and its own branded mobile app option on higher tiers. Its transaction fee starts around 2% on the entry Launch plan and steps down to roughly 0.5% on its priciest self-serve tier, so heavy sellers on Mighty Networks can eventually beat Skool Pro’s 2.9% rate, but only after paying for a much more expensive plan to get there.

Circle is the one most often pitched as a “premium” community tool, with a clean interface and workflow automation on its Business tier. Its Professional plan starts around $89 a month billed annually and still carries a 2% transaction fee, dropping to about 1% on Business. Unlike some older reviews still floating around online, Circle does charge a transaction fee on its standard plans, so don’t assume it’s fee-free just because you’ve heard that claim before; I’d trust the platform’s own current pricing page over an older blog post every time.

Bottom line from someone who has priced all four out for real client projects: Skool wins on affordability and simplicity, Kajabi wins if you need marketing infrastructure built in, and Mighty Networks or Circle win if brand polish and a more “app-like” feel matter more to you than saving money on the subscription.

Annual Billing And The Free Trial, Explained

My suggestion: use the full 14 days before you touch your credit card commitment. Import or invite your first 10 to 20 members, publish at least one course module, and schedule one live call. That’s enough real activity to tell you whether people actually show up, which is the only signal that matters before you decide between monthly and annual billing.

I’d also encourage you to resist the urge to pay annually just because the discount looks good on paper. A two-month discount on a $9 plan saves you about $18 a year, which is not worth locking in before you know your community will stick. On the $99 Pro plan, the annual savings are closer to $200 a year, which starts to matter more, but only once you’ve already proven out a few months of consistent sales and you’re confident you’ll still want Skool a year from now. Pricing decisions should follow proof, not the other way around.

Keep Researching Skool