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Skool Is One Platform For Courses, Community, And Payments
Skool is an all-in-one platform that combines paid courses, community discussion, and live calls under a single membership — instead of stitching together a website, a Facebook group, and a separate course tool. I set up my own Skool community on camera; here is exactly what the platform is and how it works.
What’s included on Skool
- ✅ Unlimited courses & videos
- ✅ Community discussion feed
- ✅ Unlimited live calls
- ✅ Built-in payments & membership tiers
- ✅ Custom URL & affiliate program
What Is Skool, Exactly?
Skool is a community and course platform where you host paid membership groups: your courses, your community feed, your live calls, and your payments all live under one login instead of three or four separate tools. It launched in 2020 and was created by entrepreneur Sam Ovens; investor Alex Hormozi is a well-known early backer. Think of it as the middle ground between a Facebook group and a full learning management system: simpler than most course platforms, but far more structured than a social media feed.
What Is the Skool App?
Skool works as a mobile-friendly web app in your phone’s browser and through dedicated iOS and Android apps, so members can post, chat, and watch course content from their phone.
How Does Skool Work?
You create a group, set a monthly or yearly price, and members pay to join. Once inside, they see your community feed, your courses, an events calendar, and a leaderboard that rewards active members.
What Is Skool Used For?
Coaches, course creators, and membership businesses use it to replace a Facebook group plus a course platform plus a payment processor with one paid community.
How The Skool Community Feed Works
Once someone joins your group, this is what they actually see and do every day. It’s the part of Skool that decides whether a membership feels like a lively room full of people or a ghost town nobody visits after the first week.
The main feed
Skool’s community feed reads like a cross between a Facebook group and a forum. Members post text, images, videos, and polls, and everyone else can comment and react. Your feed is not open to the public unless you choose to make it that way, so it feels more like a clubhouse than an open timeline.
Categories keep it organized
You can split the feed into categories, like Introductions, Wins, and Questions, so the group doesn’t turn into one long scroll of unrelated posts the way most Facebook groups do after a few months.
A built-in events calendar
Skool includes a calendar for live calls, workshops, and office hours. Members can see what’s coming up and get reminded, and you can launch a Zoom call straight from the calendar without leaving the platform.
Notifications keep people coming back
Members get notified when someone replies to their post or mentions them. That single feature is a big part of why an active Skool community feels alive, while a Facebook group most people check once a week feels dead.
The Skool Classroom: How Courses Are Structured
You do not need a separate course platform. Skool’s classroom feature lives inside the same group as your community, so members never have to log into a second tool to watch a lesson. That matters more than it sounds like it should, because every extra login is a place someone can drop off and never come back.
Modules and lessons
Inside the classroom tab you build out modules, and each module holds individual video lessons. It’s a simple, linear structure, closer to a straightforward course platform than a complicated LMS.
Video hosting included
You upload video directly to Skool or link out to YouTube or Vimeo. There’s no need to pay for a separate video hosting service just to deliver your course content.
Progress tracking
Members can mark lessons complete as they move through a course, so both you and they can see how far along they are at any point.
Gamification And The Skool Leaderboard
Skool’s point system is one of the most talked-about parts of the platform, and it’s a real reason engagement tends to run higher than a typical Facebook group. It turns showing up into a small game, and games get people to do things they’d otherwise put off.
Skool Points
Members earn points for posting, commenting, and getting engagement on what they share. The more active someone is inside the group, the more points they collect.
The Leaderboard
Points show up on a public leaderboard ranked by activity over the last seven days, the last 30 days, and all time. Watching your name climb is a small thing, but it nudges quieter members to start participating.
Levels unlock perks
As members earn points they level up, and you decide what happens at each level, like access to a bonus module or a badge next to their name. It’s optional, but most active communities use it because it works.
The Kinds Of Businesses Running On Skool
Skool was built for one thing: paid membership communities. Here’s who I see using it most, and it’s a wider mix than most people expect the first time they hear about the platform.
Coaches and consultants
One-on-one coaches move clients into a group setting, deliver frameworks through the classroom, and host weekly calls, all inside one paid membership instead of juggling call links and a separate portal.
Course creators
Instead of selling a one-time course with no community, creators wrap the course in an ongoing membership, which tends to reduce refunds because people have somewhere to ask questions and stay engaged.
Local and niche groups
Real estate agents, franchise owners, and local business owners use Skool to run paid masterminds or referral networks where members pay monthly to stay plugged in.
Software and SaaS companies
Some software companies run their customer community on Skool instead of a help-desk forum, using it to onboard users, share updates, and build a sense of belonging around the product.
How People Discover Skool Communities
Skool is not just a private tool you use behind the scenes. It also works a little like a directory, which is something most people don’t realize until after they’ve already joined.
The Discovery page
Skool has a public discovery page where anyone can browse active communities by category, see member counts, and request to join. If your group is set to public, this becomes a small but real source of new members you didn’t have to market for yourself.
Free groups build an audience
Many people run a free public Skool group to build an audience first, then invite the most engaged members into a separate paid group. It’s a common two-tier structure I see work well.
You control visibility
You can also make your group fully private and invite-only, with no listing on the discovery page at all, if you’d rather grow it entirely through your own marketing.
Skool vs Discord vs Facebook Groups vs A Course Platform
Here’s how Skool actually stacks up against the tools people usually compare it to when they’re deciding where to run a paid community. Each one is built around a different priority, so the right answer depends on what you actually need it to do.
| Platform | Community | Courses | Payments | Price | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Skool | Feed plus a leaderboard, built for daily engagement | Built-in classroom | Built-in, handles billing for you | $9/mo Hobby, $99/mo Pro | Paid membership businesses that want everything in one login |
| Discord | Real-time chat and voice channels | None built in | None built in, needs a third-party tool | Free, paid tiers for extras | Communities built around live chat, not structured content |
| Facebook Groups | Feed-based, familiar to almost everyone | None | None, Meta doesn’t support billing your own members directly | Free | Casual, free communities where existing reach matters most |
| Dedicated course platform | Limited or bolted on | Full-featured, built for content-heavy programs | Built-in, often with more payment flexibility | Roughly $39–$399/mo depending on the platform | Course-first businesses that don’t need a highly social layer |
Skool Pricing: Hobby vs Pro At A Glance
Skool keeps pricing simple. There are two plans, and the real difference comes down to the transaction fee, not the feature list. For the full breakdown, including how the fees actually add up, see my Skool pricing page.
| Plan | Price | Transaction Fee | Members | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hobby | $9/month | 10% per sale | Unlimited | Testing an idea before you’re charging much |
| Pro | $99/month | 2.9% per sale | Unlimited | A real, revenue-generating paid community |
Both plans include unlimited courses, unlimited videos, unlimited live calls, a custom URL, and Skool’s affiliate program. Once your monthly sales pass a certain point, the Pro plan’s lower transaction fee usually pays for the higher subscription price on its own.
Who Owns Skool, And Is It Legit?
Who created Skool?
Skool was founded by Sam Ovens, an entrepreneur who previously built a consulting-education business. It is a real, funded software company, not a side project.
Who owns Skool?
Sam Ovens remains the founder and CEO. Business investor Alex Hormozi is a notable early investor and public advocate of the platform, which is part of why it is popular with coaches and course creators.
Is Skool legit?
Yes. It is an active, actively developed platform with paying communities, real support, and a 14-day free trial. I signed up and started charging members through it myself. For the full breakdown of pros, cons, and whether it’s worth it, see my Skool review.
Is Skool Worth It?
Short answer: for a paid membership business, yes. Longer answer, here’s what I’d actually weigh before you commit.
One login, less friction
You’re not asking members to join a Facebook group, log into a course platform, and check a separate calendar. Fewer places to be means fewer people who quietly disappear.
Engagement that’s easier to sustain
The feed, notifications, and leaderboard genuinely do more of the work of keeping members active than a static course library ever will on its own.
You give up some customization
Skool looks like Skool. If you want a fully branded, white-labeled experience with your own design, a platform like Kajabi or a custom site will get you closer.
The transaction fee matters at scale
On the Hobby plan, that 10% fee adds up fast once you’re doing real revenue. Most people running an actual business end up on Pro for the lower 2.9% rate.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Skool free?
Not entirely, but it’s close. The Hobby plan is $9 a month with unlimited members and features, though it carries a 10% transaction fee on anything you sell. There’s also a 14-day free trial so you can test the platform before you pay anything.
Does Skool have a mobile app?
Yes. There are dedicated iOS and Android apps, plus a mobile-friendly version you can use straight from your phone’s browser, so members can post and watch lessons without a laptop.
Can you actually sell courses on Skool?
Yes. The built-in classroom holds unlimited courses and videos, and Skool’s built-in payment system handles the checkout, so you don’t need to connect Stripe or PayPal separately to charge for access.
How is Skool different from Circle?
Circle gives you more design control and more customization, especially at its higher-priced tiers. Skool trades that flexibility for simplicity and its built-in gamification and leaderboard, which Circle doesn’t offer natively. Most people pick Skool because it’s faster to set up, not because it’s more customizable.
Do you need a separate website if you use Skool?
No. Your Skool group works as its own landing page you can send people to directly. That said, I still keep a website and blog for SEO, so people searching for what I teach can find me before they ever hear about my Skool community.
What happens to your community if you cancel?
Your group and its posts stay in place, but you lose access to your plan’s features and Skool stops processing payments for your membership until you resubscribe. As with any hosted platform, it’s smart to export anything critical, like your member list, before you cancel.
“You don’t need four tools to run a community. You need one platform and a reason for people to show up.“— Lori Ballen
Keep Researching Skool
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