I Almost Built a Skool Community With the Wrong Model. Here Is the One That Actually Converts.
I had a whole plan drafted — a free “101” community feeding people into Ballen Academy. I hated it the second I looked at it again. So I pulled the real numbers on what’s actually working on Skool right now, and the free-feeder model isn’t it. Here’s the structure the data says wins, and why I’m rebuilding around it instead.
Skool
The community platform behind nearly every 5-figure-a-month creator group right nowA free community by itself is not a business. A free community with a paid challenge running through it is.
I almost built the first one. A free “Building a Creator Business” group that just pointed at Ballen Academy. It’s the obvious move — free thing, paid thing, done. It’s also not what the biggest Skool communities are actually doing.
Hamza Ahmed built Adonis Gang to roughly 183,000 free members and used it to fund a $247/month paid community. Nate Herk’s AI community sits at 440,000+ free members. Neither of them is selling directly out of the free group. There’s a product in between, and that product is a paid challenge.
Affiliate link. If you sign up or buy through it I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Skool runs a 14-day free trial, then $99/month on the Pro plan (unlimited admins, 2.9% transaction fee) or $9/month on Hobby (one admin, 10% fee).
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The 3-layer stack, laid out
This is the shape of it. Free group brings people in. The challenge is what actually gets them to pay the first time. The membership is what keeps them paying after.
Four ways to structure it — only one is winning
I looked at all four. Here’s the honest verdict on each.
A free “101” group with no product inside it, just a link out to Ballen Academy at the bottom of every post. It grows engagement. It does not grow revenue, because there’s no reason for anyone to buy today instead of eventually.
This is the version I hated. It’s a nice community. It’s not a funnel.
Free group up top, one paid recurring membership underneath it, no challenge in between. This is the single-product setup most new Skool creators default to, and it “tops out fast,” per the platform’s own revenue data, because there’s no low-friction way to prove the paid tier is worth it before someone commits monthly.
Free community → a paid challenge every 6–8 weeks ($97–$297) → a recurring membership for challenge graduates ($47–$99/month). The challenge is a far better acquisition product than a course landing page, because it has a start date, a finish line, and immediate proof of the transformation — then the membership catches the people who want to keep going.
This is the version I’m rebuilding around.
Just sending cold traffic straight at Ballen Academy, no free layer at all. Direct-to-offer conversion from social runs roughly a third of what a free community layer produces first, because there’s no trust-building step before the ask.
Building the stack, start to finish
This is the order I’m doing it in. Nothing here needs a developer.
“The free community is the container. The challenge is the product doing the actual conversion work.”— Lori Ballen
Questions I actually get
How do I start a Skool community?
Sign up for Skool’s 14-day free trial, pick one specific outcome for your free group (not a broad topic), and build your first paid challenge before you promote the community publicly. The challenge is what makes the free group worth building in the first place.
What does Skool actually cost?
Hobby is $9/month with one admin and a 10% transaction fee. Pro is $99/month with unlimited admins and a 2.9% fee. Most creators running paid challenges or memberships land on Pro once volume justifies the lower fee.
What’s a realistic free-to-paid conversion rate?
Typically 2–5% of free members convert to a paid offer. Creators who already have an audience elsewhere — YouTube, a podcast, an email list — tend to land at 5–7%, and the strongest, most specific offers can hit 8–10%.
Do I need two separate Skool groups, free and paid?
The most common setup is exactly that — one free group as the public front door, one paid group (or a paid challenge inside the free group) for the people who’ve committed money. Running both under one roof works too; separating them just makes the upgrade moment more obvious.
How is this different from just building a Ballen Academy funnel?
Ballen Academy is the coaching destination — hands-on, higher-touch, for people who’ve already proven they’ll pay. A Skool community with a challenge inside it is the acquisition layer that finds and warms up those people before they ever hear an Academy pitch.
The 3-Bucket Business Field Notes
The simple way I run a one-person business in three buckets so it keeps working without me chasing every shiny thing. Enter your email and I will send the field notes.
If you’re building the offer behind the community
Side Hustle to Six Figures
The system for turning one skill into recurring income without hiring anyone. This is the thinking behind the membership layer.
Ebook Business: From Idea to Income
How to package what you know into a paid product fast — the exact skill you need to build your first challenge.
Related reading
My 5 Income Streams
How a solopreneur earns six figures without employees — the systems this community fits into.
The 6-Figure Solopreneur
Why I’ll never hire a team again, and what runs in place of staff.
The Content Multiplication Glitch
Turning one piece of content into many — the same engine that feeds a Skool challenge with content.
Stop building the free-only version. Build the one with a product inside it.
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I also use AI tools to help research and create content for you! While I love sharing strategies to help you succeed, please remember that everyone's journey is unique—individual results vary, and there are no guarantees. Thanks so much for stopping by!
