Skool Fees in 2026: Plans, Per-Sale Fees and What Coaches Pay

Skool fees in October 2026 come in two parts: a monthly plan and a cut of every sale. The Hobby plan costs $9 a month and Skool keeps 10% + 30¢ of each transaction. The Pro plan costs $99 a month and Skool keeps 2.9% + 30¢ on transactions up to $899, rising to 3.9% + 30¢ above $900. Yearly billing gives you two months free. There is no free plan, and each community is billed as its own subscription.

That is the whole price list, and it is short on purpose. What it hides is how fast the per-sale cut grows once you have paying members, and how many tools a coach still pays for beside Skool. This guide works through real numbers at 20, 50 and 200 paying members, shows where Pro starts beating Hobby, and compares the total cost with five other platforms. We make Coachful, one of the alternatives in the comparison, so we keep Skool's facts to what Skool itself publishes and say plainly where it does well.

What are Skool's plans and prices in 2026?

Skool has two plans, Hobby and Pro, and both include unlimited members, courses, videos and live calls. The only differences are the monthly price and the transaction fee.

Prices are as listed on Skool's pricing page in October 2026. The yearly option is advertised as "2 months free!" but the yearly totals are not printed on the page, so the annual figures above are ten months of the monthly price spread over twelve, which matches the $90 and $990 yearly amounts Skool showed earlier. All prices are in US dollars.

Two small print points matter before you pick. First, there is no permanent free plan. Skool's buttons say "TRY FOR FREE", but neither the pricing page nor the subscriptions FAQ states the trial length or whether a card is needed, so check at sign-up. Second, each community you run is a separate subscription. A coach with a free lead community and a paid client community pays for two plans.

For a broader look at the plans themselves, our Skool pricing guide covers the same two tiers from the subscription side. This article stays on the fees.

What does each Skool plan add?

Hobby already includes the core product; Pro mainly buys you a lower transaction fee. Skool lists the same feature set on both plans, including a custom URL and affiliates.

Here is what every Skool community gets, as Skool describes it:

• Community feed. Posts, comments and discussions in one group, the part most people know Skool for.
• Classroom. Courses with modules and videos inside the same group, so members do not need a separate login.
• Calendar. Scheduled events and live calls shown to members of the group.
• Gamification. Leaderboards that reward members for posting and engaging.
• Discovery. Skool lists communities in a public directory where people can find and join groups.
• Payments. Paid memberships through Skool Payments, with weekly payouts on Wednesdays in local currency.

Pro has the same limits as Hobby: unlimited members, courses, videos and live calls. The case for Pro is almost entirely financial, which is why the rest of this guide is about the fee math.

What fees does Skool charge on each sale?

Skool takes a percentage plus 30¢ on every transaction, and the percentage depends on your plan. On Hobby it is 10% + 30¢ on all transactions; on Pro it is 2.9% + 30¢ for transactions up to $899 and 3.9% + 30¢ above $900.

Is the Skool fee on top of card processing?

Skool runs payments only through Skool Payments, and its pricing page lists one fee per transaction for each plan. You do not sign up for a separate processor, so there is no second processor bill to add in the way there is on platforms where you connect your own Stripe account. If you sell to members in other countries, check the help center for anything about currency conversion before you set prices, because the pricing page does not cover it.

Why does the 30¢ matter?

The fixed 30¢ hits cheap memberships hardest. On a $10 monthly membership, Hobby keeps $1.30 per payment (13%) and Pro keeps 59¢ (5.9%). On a $5 membership, Hobby keeps 80¢ (16%) and Pro keeps about 45¢ (8.9%). These are worked examples from Skool's published rates, not Skool figures.

Where does Pro beat Hobby?

Pro saves 7.1 cents on every dollar you sell (10% minus 2.9%), and it costs $90 more a month on monthly billing. So Pro pays for itself once your Skool sales pass about $1,268 a month (90 ÷ 0.071). On yearly billing the gap between plans is $75 a month, so the break-even drops to about $1,056 a month in sales. Below that, Hobby is cheaper even with its 10% cut. These break-even points assume transactions under $900; above that line Pro's rate rises to 3.9%, which still leaves Pro far cheaper than Hobby.

What does a coach actually pay on Skool at 20, 50 and 200 members?

At a $49 monthly membership, a coach with 20 paying members pays Skool about $113 a month on Hobby, a coach with 50 pays about $185 on Pro, and a coach with 200 pays about $443 on Pro. The table shows both plans at each size so you can see the crossover.

These are illustrative examples, built from Skool's October 2026 rates and an example price of $49 per member per month, with one payment per member per month and monthly billing for the plan.

On yearly Pro billing, the 200-member example drops to $344.20 + $82.50 = $426.70 a month. The per-member fee at $49 is $5.20 on Hobby and about $1.72 on Pro, so for a $49 membership the switch point is 26 paying members.

What about a high-ticket program?

Coaches who sell a premium program through Skool hit the above-$900 rate. Take an example of 10 clients paying $1,500 each, once. On Pro, each sale costs 3.9% + 30¢ = $58.80, so $588 in fees plus the $99 plan. On Hobby, each sale costs $150.30, so $1,503 in fees plus $9. A payment plan of smaller installments under $900 would fall under the 2.9% rate on Pro, but each installment also pays its own 30¢.

What does the "still needed" column cost?

That depends on which tools you pick, so we do not put a single number on it. The point is that Skool covers the group side of a coaching business, and a coach who also runs discovery calls, signs agreements, emails a list and has a public website pays for those separately. Our guide to Skool alternatives that cost less prices several of those stacks.

What hidden costs and gotchas come with Skool fees?

The fees themselves are easy to read; the surprises come from how they interact with the way coaches sell. These are the ones to plan for.

• Every renewal pays the fee again. A monthly membership is 12 transactions a year, so the 30¢ and the percentage apply 12 times. Yearly memberships pay the fixed part once.
• Refunds do not return the fee. Skool's help center says transaction fees are non-refundable. If you refund a $49 sale on Hobby, you are out the $5.20 fee.
• One processor, no choice. Payments run only through Skool Payments. You cannot route payments through your own processor account to negotiate rates or keep payment data with your other sales.
• A second community means a second bill. Each community is a separate subscription, so a free group plus a paid group is two plans.
• The high-ticket rate. Sales above $900 on Pro move to 3.9% + 30¢.
• Limited export. Based on an earlier profile of Skool, members export to CSV with name, email, join date and membership answers, while posts, DMs and course progress are not exportable. If you ever leave, plan the move in advance with a guide such as how to migrate from Skool.
• No tools for the rest of the business. Skool has no website on a custom domain, no funnels, no email automation and no public API, and no 1:1 client records, intake forms, habits or check-ins. Each gap is a separate tool and often a separate fee.
• Trial terms are not printed. The pricing page and help FAQ do not state the trial length or card rule, so read the sign-up screen closely.

Public sentiment is mixed. Skool held a Trustpilot score of 1.6 from 54 reviews when we looked on October 25, 2026, a small sample for a platform of its size, so treat it as one signal rather than a verdict. Our Skool review covers what reviewers praise and complain about.

What does Skool do well for coaches?

Skool is a strong choice when the product is the group itself. It keeps community, courses and a calendar in one place with almost no setup, and its pricing is two lines long.

• Simple pricing. Two plans, no member caps, no add-ons. You always know the formula.
• Community that stays active. Leaderboards give members a reason to post, which matters when your offer is a paid group.
• Classroom inside the group. Members watch lessons and discuss them in the same place.
• Discovery. A public directory can bring in people who have never heard of you.
• Cheap to start. At $9 a month, Hobby is one of the lowest entry prices for a paid community, as long as sales stay small.

Where do coaches outgrow Skool?

Coaches usually outgrow Skool when their work moves past the group: 1:1 clients, signed agreements, structured programs, their own website and email, and a client app with their own brand. Skool was not built for those, and the fee math does not change that.

• 1:1 booking. No booking pages for individual sessions with availability rules, so discovery and coaching calls need another tool.
• Agreements. No coaching agreements with e-signature.
• Programs with habits and check-ins. Courses, yes; per-client daily tasks, habits and morning or evening check-ins, no.
• Payment options. Only Skool Payments, with no option to bring your own processor.
• A branded website. No website builder on your own domain and no funnels.
• Email. No email automation, so lists and sequences live elsewhere.
• A client app with your brand. Members use Skool's own product and look.

If 1:1 work is the gap, our list of Skool alternatives with 1:1 coaching goes deeper. If payment choice is the issue, see Skool alternatives with more payment options.

Is Skool worth the fees for your kind of coaching?

Skool is worth its fees for coaches whose whole offer is a paid community with courses, and less so for coaches whose income comes from 1:1 work or structured programs. Here is how it plays out by coach type.

Community-first coaches

If you sell one membership, run group calls and want members talking to each other, Skool fits. Start on Hobby, and switch to Pro once monthly sales pass about $1,268 (or about $1,056 on yearly billing). The fees are predictable and the community features are the main product.

Course creators with a group

Skool's classroom handles video courses well enough, and the group keeps students engaged. If you need sales pages, upsells or email sequences, you will pair Skool with other tools, and that stack cost belongs in your comparison.

1:1 and program-based coaches

Life, health, business and executive coaches who run discovery calls, sign agreements and track each client's goals will use Skool, at most, for the group part. The rest needs a booking tool, contracts, a client record and a way to deliver habits and check-ins. At that point the question is whether one platform could replace Skool and the tools beside it. See our pages for life coaches and business coaches for what that looks like.

High-ticket coaches

Selling a $3,000 program through Skool Pro costs 3.9% + 30¢ per sale, or $117.30 per client in this example. Platforms that let you use your own processor and take no platform fee keep more of each sale, which adds up fast at this price point.

Coaches with a team

Skool lists no per-seat pricing, which keeps costs down, but it also has no per-coach availability, round-robin booking or staff permissions for 1:1 work. Teams that split clients between coaches usually need a separate system for that.

Why do we recommend Coachful for coaches who outgrow Skool?

Coachful is a coaching platform where one subscription covers booking, payments, contracts, programs with habits and check-ins, courses, a community, a website with funnels and email, and an AI assistant, with one login for the coach and one branded app for the client. It is built for coaches who deliver programs, not only sessions, for solo coaches growing into a small team, and for coaches replacing four to six tools. Current plans: Lite: $29/month for up to 5 clients; Solo: $49/month for up to 20 clients; Pro: $99/month with unlimited clients; Studio: $199/month with unlimited clients.

On fees, the difference is structural. Coachful takes a 0% platform fee on sales (since August 2026). You connect your own Stripe Connect or Razorpay account and pay only that processor's fees. Payments support one-time sales, subscriptions, payment plans, order bumps, coupons, refunds, Apple Pay and Google Pay, and Stripe Tax, with an invoice per transaction plus manual invoices.

Here is a short walkthrough of invoices and payments inside Coachful:

The tools a coach adds beside Skool are included in your Coachful membership:

• 1:1 booking. Booking pages with availability rules, buffers, minimum notice and time-zone detection; two-way Google, Apple/iCloud and Outlook calendar sync; built-in video or auto-created Zoom, Meet or Teams links; paid sessions and session credits; intake questions on booking. More on our scheduling software page.
• Agreements. Coaching agreements with e-signature, sent before the first call and stored on the client record.
• Programs. Multi-week programs with weekly goals, daily tasks, habits, morning and evening check-ins, goal progress bars and streaks.
• Community. A community feed, group chat, direct messages and video events, with cohort groups created automatically when a client enrolls in a program. See group coaching software.
• Website and email. A section-based website builder with a blog, custom domain and 30 designed homepage templates, plus booking, application, lead-magnet and checkout funnels, and email lists, broadcasts and multi-step sequences.
• Michelle, the AI assistant. Works from live practice data to build programs, draft emails, summarize recorded sessions and brief you before sessions.

Clients use one app with the coach's branding inside the Coachful app, where they see their sessions, programs, habits and community.

Why Coachful stands out: a free white-glove service. On every plan, you can open Create, choose "We'll build it for you", describe what you need (a website, funnel, sales page, program, course outline, email sequence and more), attach up to 8 reference links and 10 files, and the Coachful team builds it inside your account, usually within about 24 hours. Nothing is invented: no fake credentials, testimonials or prices. One business mentor for beauty professionals got a 12-week mentorship sales page, a free start-up-guide funnel and rewritten follow-up emails this way. Read more about the free white-glove service.

What Coachful does not do. It is not HIPAA-certified and is not for clinical records or insurance billing. It has no PayPal and no permanent free plan. The client app carries your branding inside the Coachful app, not your own App Store listing. It is not a public course marketplace, so there is no directory like Skool's discovery to bring you strangers.

How to start. Begin with a free trial, request a white-glove build of your website or first program, and import your clients and content during onboarding. For a side-by-side, see Coachful vs Skool.

How do Skool's fees compare with other platforms?

Skool has one of the lowest entry prices, but it is one of the few platforms here that takes a percentage on every plan. We ranked by what a coach running both a group and 1:1 clients pays in total: platform fees on sales, the tools still needed beside it, and whether 1:1 sessions and between-session delivery live in the same login.

Vendor prices and fees are as listed in October 2026. Circle shows yearly prices only on its plan cards in our data, so its monthly-billing price is not listed here.

A few notes on the alternatives:

• Circle is the closest community-first rival, with a lower percentage than Skool Hobby but a higher entry price. See Skool vs Circle.
• Mighty Networks charges a platform fee that falls from 2% to 0.5% as you move up, and keeps its own branded apps for the custom-priced Mighty Pro. See Skool vs Mighty Networks.
• Kajabi is a full course, website, funnel and email platform with a much higher entry price. See Kajabi vs Skool.
• Podia takes 5% on its entry plan and nothing on higher plans. See Podia vs Skool.
• Systeme.io takes no transaction fee even on its free plan, with basic community and course tools. See Skool vs Systeme.io.

How can you save money on Skool fees?

The biggest savings come from picking the right plan for your sales volume and reducing how many transactions you run. Here is what works with Skool's published rates.

1. Switch to Pro at the break-even point. Once monthly sales pass about $1,268 on monthly billing (about $1,056 on yearly), Pro costs less than Hobby. Check your last three months of sales.
2. Pay yearly. Yearly billing gives two months free, which saves $18 a year on Hobby and $198 a year on Pro.
3. Offer yearly memberships. One yearly payment pays the 30¢ once instead of 12 times. On Hobby the percentage is the same either way, so the saving is $3.30 per member per year; on Pro it is the same $3.30.
4. Avoid tiny prices. On a $5 membership the 30¢ is 6% of the price by itself. Bundling into a higher price lowers the fixed share.
5. Keep sales under $900 on Pro where it makes sense. A payment plan with installments below $900 stays on the 2.9% rate, though each installment pays its own 30¢.
6. Refund carefully. Fees are not refunded, so a clear refund policy and a good onboarding call reduce lost fees.
7. Run one community where you can. Each community is billed separately, so a free group and a paid group in separate communities doubles the plan cost.
8. Count the whole stack. The real saving may be outside Skool: if you pay for booking, e-signature, email and a website beside it, a platform that includes them and takes no cut on sales may cost less overall. Compare on our coaching payment software page.

What should you check before you commit to Skool?

Before you start charging members, confirm the details that the pricing page does not spell out. A few minutes here avoids a painful migration later.

• Trial terms. Length and card requirement, shown at sign-up.
• Currency. Payouts are weekly in local currency; check how foreign-currency sales are handled for your country.
• Tax. How sales tax or VAT applies to your memberships depends on where you and your members live. Check with an accountant.
• Export. Know what you can take with you: member CSV yes, posts, DMs and course progress no (earlier profile).
• Your 12-month plan. If you expect to add 1:1 clients, programs or your own website within a year, price that stack now, not after you have built your community.

FAQ about Skool fees

How much does Skool take from each sale?

On Hobby, Skool takes 10% + 30¢ on every transaction. On Pro, it takes 2.9% + 30¢ on transactions up to $899 and 3.9% + 30¢ above $900. These are the rates listed in October 2026.

Is Skool's transaction fee on top of Stripe fees?

Skool runs payments only through Skool Payments, and its pricing page lists one fee per transaction for each plan. You do not connect your own Stripe account, so there is no separate processor bill to add. Check the help center for currency conversion details if you sell internationally.

When should I upgrade from Hobby to Pro?

Pro becomes cheaper once your Skool sales pass about $1,268 a month on monthly billing, or about $1,056 a month on yearly billing. At a $49 membership, that is 26 paying members. Below that, Hobby costs less.

Does Skool refund fees when I refund a member?

No. Skool's help center states that transaction fees are non-refundable, so you lose the fee on any sale you refund.

Does Skool have a free plan or a free trial?

There is no permanent free plan. Skool shows "TRY FOR FREE" buttons, but the pricing page and subscriptions FAQ do not state the trial length or whether a card is required in October 2026.

Do I pay twice for two Skool communities?

Yes. Each community is a separate subscription, so two communities means two plans, each with its own monthly price.

Can I use PayPal or my own Stripe account on Skool?

Skool lists Skool Payments as its only payment option, so you cannot connect your own processor account. If payment choice matters, compare platforms that let you use your own Stripe account.

What is cheaper than Skool for a coach with 1:1 clients?

For a coach who also needs booking, agreements, programs and email, the cheaper option is usually a platform that includes those tools and takes no platform fee on sales, rather than Skool plus several separate tools. Coachful takes a 0% platform fee and includes those tools in the membership; current plans are on Lite: $29/month for up to 5 clients; Solo: $49/month for up to 20 clients; Pro: $99/month with unlimited clients; Studio: $199/month with unlimited clients.

What is Coachful's free white-glove service?

On every Coachful plan, you can request a build of your website, funnel, sales page, program, course outline, email sequence and more, and the Coachful team builds it inside your account, usually within about 24 hours. It does not include recording videos, logo design or ad management, and it never invents testimonials or credentials.

Can I move my members from Skool to another platform?

Yes, though only part of your data comes with you. Based on an earlier profile, Skool exports members to CSV with name, email, join date and membership answers, but not posts, DMs or course progress. Our Skool migration guide walks through the steps.