Skool’s pricing looks simple on the surface: two plans, two prices, take your pick. Then you read the fine print, see a 10% transaction fee on the cheaper plan, and the simple decision turns into a quiet maths problem. This guide breaks down Skool’s 2026 pricing in full, with the real cost of each plan, where the break-even sits, and how Skool compares once you factor in everything else creators usually want from a community platform.
By the end you’ll know exactly which Skool plan saves you money (it isn’t always the $9 one), what each plan actually includes in 2026, and how the pricing stacks up against alternatives like Kourses, Mighty Networks, Kajabi, and Circle. No spin, just the numbers.
Skool pricing 2026 at a glance
Skool runs on two plans in 2026: Hobby and Pro. Both bill monthly by default, with a yearly option that takes two months off the annual cost. Both include unlimited members, unlimited courses, unlimited videos, and a custom URL. The headline difference is the platform fee on transactions, and that’s the number you should be looking at, not the sticker price.
| Plan | Monthly Cost | Transaction Fee | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hobby | $9/month | 10% per transaction | New creators with <$1,300/month in community revenue |
| Pro | $99/month | 2.9% per transaction | Established creators charging members and running paid courses |
Source: skool.com/pricing (verified 2026).
The annual toggle on either plan applies “2 months free”, which works out to roughly a 16.7% saving against monthly billing. The free trial is 14 days on both plans, with no card required upfront for the trial itself.
The official Skool pricing plans in 2026
There are only two official Skool plans in 2026: Hobby at $9/month and Pro at $99/month. Skool has resisted the temptation to splinter into five tiers with feature gating, which is genuinely refreshing if you’ve ever priced a Kajabi or Teachable plan grid. The trade-off is that the pricing decision happens almost entirely at the transaction-fee layer, not the feature layer.
This matters because most reviews focus on the monthly cost and breeze past the fee. In Skool’s case, the fee is the whole story.
Skool Hobby plan: $9/month with a 10% transaction fee
The Hobby plan is Skool’s entry point. $9 per month, billed monthly or annually, gives you everything Pro gives you in terms of features. Same community, same course builder, same custom URL, same video hosting, same affiliate program. There’s no member limit, no course limit, no video limit.
The catch sits in the fees. Skool takes 10% on every payment your community processes. Skool processes payments themselves, so the 10% is all-in, there is no separate Stripe fee on top. On a $99 community membership, Skool takes $9.90 and you keep $89.10 before any other costs.
When the Hobby plan actually makes sense
The Hobby plan is the right pick in two narrow situations:
- You’re under $1,300/month in community revenue. At that level, the 10% fee costs you less than $130/month, which is well under the $90/month gap between Hobby ($9) and Pro ($99). Hobby wins on raw cost.
- You’re testing whether Skool is the right home for your community. $9 buys you a real, working community on the platform. If it doesn’t fit, you’ve lost less than a Pro month’s worth of cash.
If neither of those is true, you’re probably overpaying with Hobby and don’t realise it yet.
When the Hobby plan quietly costs you more
The 10% fee compounds quickly. At $1,000/month in community revenue you pay $109 total ($9 plan plus $100 fee), which is already $10 more than Pro at the same revenue. At $5,000/month you pay $509 with Hobby versus $244 with Pro. At $10,000/month the gap is $1,009 vs $389, and the difference goes straight to Skool every month.
A useful rule: once your community revenue clears about $1,300/month consistently, you’re losing money by staying on Hobby. Promote yourself to Pro before that math turns ugly.
Skool Pro plan: $99/month with a 2.9% transaction fee
The Pro plan is Skool’s only “professional” tier. $99 per month or about $82.50/month if you pay annually. Features are identical to Hobby. The transaction fee drops from 10% to 2.9%.
Pro is built for creators who are genuinely running their community or course business as a business. The maths is straightforward: once you’re processing more than about $1,300 of member payments a month, the lower fee on Pro saves you more than the extra $90/month costs. From there the savings compound steeply.
Pro also tends to be the right plan for anyone running paid coaching, a recurring membership, or a course they expect to sell more than a handful of seats per month. The 7.1-percentage-point difference between Hobby’s 10% and Pro’s 2.9% is the single largest hidden cost in Skool’s pricing structure, and Pro is where you stop paying it.
Skool transaction fees 2026: the part most reviews miss
Skool’s two transaction-fee rates, 10% and 2.9%, are the real centre of gravity in this pricing. They’re not the kind of fee you can avoid by being clever with your checkout. They apply to every paid transaction your community runs through Skool, including member subscriptions, one-off course sales, and any other paid offer.
A 2.9% platform fee on the Pro plan is broadly comparable to Kajabi’s Basic plan surcharge of 2% when using your own Stripe account. Kajabi’s higher tiers reduce that to 1% and 0.5%. A 10% platform fee on the Hobby plan is unusually high for the creator-platform category in 2026. Most paid community platforms have moved toward either flat plan pricing with no platform fee, or a much smaller fee in the 1-3% range.
The reason this matters: if you’re choosing between Skool Hobby and an equivalent $9-15/month plan elsewhere that charges 0% platform fees, the alternative could save you hundreds per month at modest revenue. A creator doing $3,000/month in Skool community subscriptions pays $300/month in Skool fees on Hobby, plus the $9 plan cost, $309 total. On a 0%-fee platform at the same revenue, you pay only the plan price. The same revenue on a 0%-fee platform costs whatever the plan does and not a cent more.
This is the line of thinking the existing reviews tend to skip. Don’t.
Hobby vs Pro break-even: when does paying more save you money
Here’s the break-even table in 2026, monthly billing, so you can pick the right Skool plan without doing the maths yourself.
| Monthly community revenue | Hobby total cost | Pro total cost | Cheaper plan |
|---|---|---|---|
| $500 | $59 ($9 + $50 fee) | $113.50 ($99 + $14.50 fee) | Hobby |
| $1000 | $109 | $128 | Hobby |
| $1,300 | $139 | $136.70 | Pro (just barely) |
| $2,000 | $209 | $157 | Pro |
| $5000 | $509 | $244 | Pro |
| $10,000 | $1,009 | $389 | Pro |
The exact break-even is about $1,267/month in community revenue. Below that, Hobby wins on cost. Above it, you’re feeding Skool more than you need to by staying on Hobby.
Two practical notes. First, if your revenue is bouncy (a launch month here, a quiet month there), use your 3-month rolling average, not last month’s number. Second, yearly billing on Pro effectively drops your monthly cost to roughly $82.50, which moves the break-even down to closer to $1,050/month and makes Pro the right pick earlier than the monthly-billing maths would suggest.
What’s included on every Skool plan in 2026
Skool’s feature list is genuinely identical across Hobby and Pro. Here’s what you get on either plan:
- Unlimited members with no per-member fee
- Unlimited courses with built-in lesson structure
- Unlimited videos uploaded directly to Skool’s hosting
- Unlimited live calls (Skool’s native group video calls)
- Custom URL on the skool.com subdomain or your own domain
- Affiliate program built in for member referrals
- Mobile apps for iOS and Android (Skool’s strongest practical advantage over many alternatives)
- Discovery placement in the Skool community directory
What you don’t get on Skool, on either plan, is the kind of granular landing-page builder, multi-tier membership structure, drip content scheduling, or sales funnel tooling you’d find in a fuller course-and-membership platform. Skool keeps its surface area small on purpose. If you want a single tab for live calls, posts, members, and a course, Skool delivers it. If you want a marketing stack as well, you’ll be reaching for other tools.
Skool’s free trial and yearly billing
Skool offers a 14-day free trial on both plans. You can start without entering a card, which is unusual in the category in 2026 and a genuine point in Skool’s favour for cautious creators.
Yearly billing applies “2 months free” against monthly billing, equivalent to roughly a 16.7% discount. On Pro that takes the effective monthly cost from $99 to about $82.50. On Hobby it takes $9 to about $7.50, which is a smaller absolute saving but the same percentage discount.
There is no refund policy publicly documented beyond the trial period, so cancelling after the trial means you stop being billed at the next cycle but don’t recover the current month’s payment. Plan changes (Hobby to Pro, or back) can be made at any time from the billing settings.
How Skool’s 2026 pricing compares to alternatives
Skool is rarely the only platform a creator considers. Here’s how the 2026 pricing stacks up against the most common alternatives.
| Platform | Entry plan | Transaction fee | Notable |
|---|---|---|---|
| Skool Hobby | $9/month | 10% | Identical features to Pro |
| Skool Pro | $99/month | 2.9% | Best for established creators |
| Kourses Starter | $9/month (annual) | 0% (Stripe only) | All-in-one with courses + community + checkout |
| Mighty Networks Launch | $95/month | 2% | Stronger network features, less course depth |
| Kajabi Basic | $179/month | 2% surcharge (own Stripe) | Course-heavy, less community-centric |
| Circle Professional | $89/month | 0% (4% on lowest tier) | Strong community, courses are an add-on |
| Patreon | Free to start | 10% | Best for one-off creator subscriptions, weaker for structured courses |
Two patterns to notice. First, Skool’s Hobby plan is unique in this category for charging a 10% platform fee on a $9 plan. Most competitors at this price point either charge a smaller fee or no fee at all. Second, Skool Pro’s $99 sits in the same band as Kajabi, Circle, and Kourses Pro-tier alternatives, but those competitors typically charge 0% platform fees, meaning Skool Pro’s 2.9% adds a real cost at scale.
The right comparison isn’t sticker-to-sticker. It’s what you pay for the same revenue on each platform.
When Skool’s pricing works (and when it doesn’t)
Skool’s pricing model rewards two creator types: people who are very early (under $1,300/month revenue) and don’t want to think about feature tiers, and people running a community-first business at scale where the 2.9% Pro fee is acceptable in exchange for Skool’s strong mobile experience and discovery placement.
It works less well in three situations. If you want a tightly branded, all-in-one experience where the platform is invisible to your members, Skool’s discovery directory and skool.com URLs cut against that. If you sell primarily courses (not community access), the course builder is functional but light compared to course-led platforms like Teachable, Thinkific, or Kourses. And if your community revenue sits in the $1,300-$10,000/month range, the Pro plan’s 2.9% fee adds up to real money over a year that competitors charging 0% simply don’t take.
That last point is worth saying clearly. At $5,000/month in community revenue, Skool Pro takes about $145/month in platform fees on top of the $99 plan. Over a year that’s $2,928. A platform with the same feature footprint and 0% transaction fees costs you only its plan price. The savings can quietly buy you a course refresh, a new mic and lighting setup, or a year of email tooling.
A Skool alternative worth considering
If you’ve made it this far and the Skool fee maths is starting to bother you, Kourses is worth a serious look. Kourses Starter is $9/month (billed annually), the same entry price as Skool Hobby, with 0% transaction fees. You pay only standard Stripe processing on transactions. On Skool, the platform fee is all-in and replaces Stripe, on Kourses, you use your own Stripe account directly with no platform fee added on top.
Kourses is built around the things creators usually combine three or four tools to achieve: online courses with proper drip scheduling, a private community platform, and digital downloads in one branded portal under your domain. No “Powered by” watermarks, no platform fee at any scale, no mid-tier upsell to remove a fee that the competitor already doesn’t charge.
The honest trade-off: Kourses doesn’t yet have a native mobile app the way Skool does, and Skool’s discovery directory is a real source of inbound members for some creators. If those two things are critical to your model, Skool may still be the right pick. If neither is the deciding factor, the fee savings on Kourses tend to pay for the migration by month two.
For a direct feature-and-pricing breakdown, see our Kourses vs Skool comparison.
Skool pricing FAQ
How much does Skool cost per month in 2026?
Skool costs $9 per month on the Hobby plan or $99 per month on the Pro plan in 2026. Both plans bill monthly by default, with annual billing taking two months off the yearly cost. The Hobby plan adds a 10% platform fee on transactions; the Pro plan adds 2.9%.
What are Skool’s transaction fees in 2026?
Skool processes payments themselves, so these fees are all-in, there is no separate Stripe fee on top. You pay 10% on Hobby or 2.9% on Pro and that is the total platform cost per transaction.
What is Skool’s official pricing in 2026?
Skool’s official 2026 pricing is published at skool.com/pricing: $9/month for Hobby and $99/month for Pro. Both plans include unlimited members, courses, videos, and live calls. The only practical difference is the transaction fee rate.
Is Skool’s $9 Hobby plan a good deal?
The $9 Hobby plan is a good deal if your community revenue stays under $1,300/month. Above that, the 10% transaction fee costs you more than the $90/month gap to the Pro plan. New creators and people testing the platform usually find Hobby is the right starting point, with a planned upgrade to Pro as revenue grows.
What’s the difference between Skool’s Hobby and Pro plans?
The only meaningful difference between Skool Hobby ($9/month) and Pro ($99/month) is the transaction fee: 10% on Hobby and 2.9% on Pro. Features are identical: unlimited members, courses, videos, live calls, custom URL, affiliate program, and mobile apps.
Does Skool have a free plan?
Skool does not have a free plan. The Hobby plan at $9/month is the entry point. A 14-day free trial is available on both plans, with no card required to start.
How does Skool’s pricing compare to Kajabi or Mighty Networks?
Skool’s Pro plan ($99/month + 2.9% fee) lines up roughly with Kajabi Basic ($179/month, 2% surcharge on own Stripe) and Mighty Networks Launch ($79/month annual, 2% transaction fee). The right comparison depends on your business mix: course-heavy creators tend to prefer Kajabi, community-first creators often look at Mighty or Circle, and creators wanting both in one place increasingly look at Kourses.
Can I get a refund from Skool?
Skool’s published refund policy covers the 14-day free trial period. Outside the trial, cancellation stops billing at the next cycle but doesn’t refund the current month. Plan changes can be made at any time from the billing settings.
How does Skool’s video hosting work?
Skool includes unlimited video hosting on both plans, with no separate Vimeo or Wistia subscription required. Videos can be uploaded directly into courses or posted into the community feed. There’s no per-video minute cap and no separate bandwidth charge.
Final thoughts on Skool’s 2026 pricing
Skool’s pricing in 2026 is structurally simple and financially complicated. The two plans look identical on paper, but the fee gap (10% versus 2.9%) makes the Hobby plan a near-permanent loss for any community doing more than about $1,300/month in revenue. Pro is the right pick for almost any creator running this seriously, but its 2.9% platform fee is still real money compared to competitors charging 0%.
If Skool’s mobile app and discovery directory are decisive for your model, the platform fee is the cost of admission. If they aren’t, look hard at alternatives that price the same plan tier with 0% transaction fees. A creator doing $5,000/month in community revenue pays around $1,700 more per year on Skool Pro than on a comparable 0%-fee platform. That number tends to make the choice for itself once you see it on paper.
Whatever you pick, run your own 3-month revenue projection through the fee structure before committing. The right Skool plan, or the right alternative entirely, becomes obvious once the numbers are in front of you.
Ready to compare directly? Start a Kourses free trial and see the same community and course feature set with 0% transaction fees built in.
