What you get on Skool
From Skool's own pages, checked on October 22, 2026:
- Two plans: Hobby at $9 a month with a 10% transaction fee, Pro at $99 a month with 2.9%. Yearly billing shows $7.50 and $82 a month. 14-day free trial.
- Unlimited members, courses, videos and live calls on both plans.
- Community, courses and events, with subscription memberships or one-time course purchases.
- Quick setup: Skool says you can set it up "in less than 30-minutes".
- A custom URL and affiliates on Pro only.
- A public directory: Skool's home page is a directory where people discover communities, free and paid.
Skool was founded in 2019, is based in Los Angeles and, per its About page, has 30 employees. Alex Hormozi partnered with Skool in 2024 to create The Skool Games.
Is Skool worth it at your stage?
Each stage below compares the monthly total on Skool's two plans with Learnea's two plans. Skool: subscription plus the percentage on its pricing page, nothing else. Learnea: subscription, commission, and Stripe's 2.9% + 30¢ per payment at a $50 average payment. Monthly billing everywhere.
$0 a month: you are still building
With no sales, you only pay the subscription: $9 a month on Skool Hobby ($108 over a year, or $90 on yearly billing by our math), $29 on Learnea Starter ($290 on its yearly plan). Verdict: Skool Hobby is an inexpensive place to wait for your first sale. If even $9 is too much, Systeme.io lists a free plan with no end date; see free Skool alternatives.
$500 a month: your first paying members
| Skool Hobby | Skool Pro | Learnea Starter | Learnea Pro |
|---|---|---|---|
| $59.00 | $113.50 | $71.50 | $106.50 |
Verdict: Skool Hobby. You keep $441 of $500. One exception: if you need a custom URL or an affiliate program now, Skool requires Pro ($113.50), and Learnea Pro does the same job for $106.50.
$3,000 a month: a real side income
| Skool Hobby | Skool Pro | Learnea Starter | Learnea Pro |
|---|---|---|---|
| $309.00 | $186.00 | $284.00 | $244.00 |
Verdict: Skool Pro, clearly. If you are still on Hobby at this level, you are paying $123 a month more than you need to. The switch point is $1,267.61 a month (full calculation).
$10,000 a month: a business
| Skool Hobby | Skool Pro | Learnea Starter | Learnea Pro |
|---|---|---|---|
| $1,009.00 | $389.00 | $879.00 | $629.00 |
Verdict: on fees as Skool lists them, Skool Pro costs less than Learnea Pro, by $240 a month. Its effective rate is 3.89%. If your Skool statements show card processing on top of the 2.9%, add it before comparing.
The verdict at a glance
| Monthly sales | Lowest of the four plans compared | Runner-up | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| $0 | Skool Hobby, $9 | Learnea Starter, $29 | $20 |
| $500 | Skool Hobby, $59 | Learnea Starter, $71.50 | $12.50 |
| $3,000 | Skool Pro, $186 | Learnea Pro, $244 | $58 |
| $10,000 | Skool Pro, $389 | Learnea Pro, $629 | $240 |
So, on cost alone, Skool is worth it at every stage, provided you move from Hobby to Pro at about $1,268 a month. The real question is whether the product fits how you want to run your community.
Four questions to ask before you pay
- Will you run live calls every week? Skool includes them on both plans. That is worth real money if you would otherwise pay for a video tool.
- Do you need your own address or an affiliate program soon? On Skool, both mean Pro at $99 a month.
- Where will your next 100 members come from? Your own audience, or discovery inside a platform directory?
- What will you sell in 12 months? Pick the plan for your expected average month, not your launch month.
What Skool does well
- Live calls included. Unlimited live calls on both plans, with no separate video tool to pay for.
- Low entry price. $9 a month is less than the first paid plan of every other platform in our October 2026 check: Systeme.io Startup is $17, Heartbeat Build $49, Mighty Networks Launch $95, Kajabi Basic $179.
- Low fee at scale. 2.9% with a $99 subscription is hard to beat above a few thousand dollars a month.
- Simplicity. Two plans, everything unlimited, a setup Skool says takes under 30 minutes.
- Discovery. A public directory of communities can help people who do not follow you yet find your community.
Limits to know before you commit
- 10% on Hobby, at any volume. Hobby's effective rate never falls below 10%. Between $500 and $1,267 a month it is the right plan, but it is still a tenth of your income.
- Custom URL and affiliates require Pro. If your brand needs its own address, or you want members to refer others for a commission, you pay $99 a month from day one.
- Some details are not on the pricing page. As of October 22, 2026, the page does not state yearly totals, whether a card is needed for the trial, or whether card processing is included in the percentage.
When an alternative like Learnea makes more sense
Skool is a sound choice for many creators, and if none of the cases below apply to you, you do not need to switch. Learnea is worth trying when:
- You need a custom URL or affiliates while selling under about $769 a month. Learnea Pro is $79 plus 2% (and Stripe fees), against $99 for Skool Pro.
- You are on Skool Hobby above about $1,333 a month and do not want a $99 subscription. Learnea Starter's total is lower than Hobby's from there (Skool Pro is lower still, as the tables show).
- You prefer how Learnea is built after trying it: monthly, yearly or one-time payments with a second offer, points, levels and a leaderboard, private messaging, an About page, video up to 1080p, and unlimited members, courses and videos from Starter. Pro adds a custom URL, affiliates, removal of the Learnea banner and advanced statistics.
And when neither Skool nor Learnea is the right tool: if you need email marketing or sales funnels in the same product, look at all-in-one tools such as Systeme.io or Kajabi; if you need a mobile app under your own brand, Kajabi lists one on its Pro plan. Learnea includes none of those, and it does not include built-in video calls, so weekly calls would run on a separate tool.
Both Skool and Learnea offer 14 days free, so a simple test is to build the same welcome page and first lesson on each. See Skool vs Learnea or start your Learnea trial.