Short answer: $99 a month buys the whole platform, and it pays off once your members pay you
Skool charges a flat monthly price: $99 a month for Pro, or $9 a month for Hobby, and both start with a 14-day free trial. Either way you get unlimited members, unlimited courses, unlimited videos, and unlimited live calls. The difference is the transaction fee — 2.9% on Pro, 10% on Hobby — and that fee, not the monthly price, decides which plan keeps more money in your pocket. Worked out below, Pro starts winning once your community takes in about $1,268 a month.
How we wrote this: we have not hands-on tested Skool with a paid account. The prices and features below come from Skool's official pricing page, about page, and help center, as checked on October 30, 2026, and we say so wherever a claim is the maker's rather than our own finding. This is general information only, not business advice, and no platform can guarantee you will make money from a community.
Try Skool free for 14 days and see the current pricing for yourself
What the $99 — and the $9 — actually buys
Short answer: both plans include everything Skool makes, with no caps on members or content. The only difference on the pricing page is the fee Skool takes from each member payment.
| Hobby | Pro | |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly price | $9/month | $99/month |
| Members, courses, videos, live calls | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Transaction fee | 10% | 2.9% |
| Custom URL | Yes | Yes |
| Affiliates | Yes | Yes |
Pay yearly and Skool gives 2 months free, according to the pricing page — that works out to $990 a year for Pro instead of $1,188, or $90 a year for Hobby instead of $108. Both plans start with a 14-day free trial, and Skool says you can cancel anytime. There is no free plan once the trial ends, so the trial is the only free look you get — use it to build the group properly before the first charge.
The cost-per-member math, step by step
Short answer: at $99 a month flat, Skool costs $9.90 per member with 10 members, $1.98 with 50, and $0.99 with 100 — the platform gets cheaper per member as the group grows, because the price does not grow with it.
The examples below assume a $29-a-month member price, which is our worked example, not Skool's price — your members pay whatever you set. The arithmetic uses the transaction fees from Skool's pricing page.
- 10 paying members: $290 a month coming in. Pro takes 2.9% ($8.41) plus the $99 plan, leaving about $182.59 before any other costs. On Hobby the same 10 members leave about $252 ($290 minus 10% fee minus $9) — Hobby keeps more at this size.
- 50 paying members: $1,450 a month coming in. Pro leaves about $1,308.95 ($1,450 minus 2.9% minus $99). Hobby leaves about $1,296. The two plans are nearly tied here.
- 100 paying members: $2,900 a month coming in. Pro leaves about $2,716.90. Hobby leaves about $2,601. Pro is clearly ahead now.
The break-even point is where the fee gap equals the $90 plan gap: 7.1% of your monthly revenue. That is about $1,268 a month — roughly 44 members at $29 each. Below that revenue, Hobby keeps more of each sale. Above it, Pro does. If you charge members more or less than $29, the member count changes, but the revenue break-even stays about $1,268 a month.
What the $99 replaces
Short answer: one subscription replaces a course host, a separate community tool, and an event scheduler — and the time spent stitching them together.
Before Skool, the usual setup was a Facebook group for discussion, a course platform for lessons, and a calendar tool for live calls, each with its own login, its own bill, and its own place where members get lost. Skool puts the community feed, the Classroom, and the calendar in one group, and its about page says you can set it up in under 30 minutes with no integrations needed because it is an all-in-one platform. That is the maker's claim, and it is the real thing $99 buys: not just features, but one place instead of three. If you already run a community across several tools, add up what those cost and how many hours a month you spend moving between them — that is the honest comparison, not $99 against zero.
When the math works — and when it does not
Short answer: it works when members pay you every month. It does not work when the community itself is free, or when you have no paid offer yet.
The math works if: you charge a monthly membership, you run live calls or drip out lessons every week, and members stay because the group itself is the product. At 50 paying members the platform costs under $2 per member a month, which is a small share of what each member pays you.
The math does not work if: your community is free, you are still figuring out what to sell, or your members pay once and never again. Then $99 a month is $99 out of your pocket with nothing coming back, and the $9 Hobby plan — or the 14-day trial — is the honest place to start. Start on Hobby, prove people will pay, and move to Pro when your monthly revenue passes about $1,268 and the lower fee starts paying for the upgrade by itself.
Start with the 14-day free trial and test Skool with your own group
The honest limits
Short answer: there is no free plan after the trial, the fee applies to every sale, and downgrading is not refundable.
- No free plan. After the 14-day trial you pay $9 or $99 a month. If you stop paying, you lose the paid platform — so do not build a community you cannot afford to keep.
- The transaction fee never goes away. Pro's 2.9% is lower than Hobby's 10%, but Skool takes its cut from every member payment on either plan. Check the pricing page for the exact fee breakdown at checkout, because fee details can change.
- Downgrading costs you the remaining time. Skool's own billing notice says downgrading to Hobby is instant, you lose the remaining time on your plan, and it is not refundable — so downgrade close to your renewal date, not the day after it.
- No income is guaranteed. Skool's about page says creators earn full-time incomes from communities on the platform. That is the maker's description of what some creators do, not a promise about what your community will earn.
Frequently asked questions
How much does Skool cost per month?
Pro is $99 a month and Hobby is $9 a month, both with a 14-day free trial, according to Skool's pricing page. Pay yearly and you get 2 months free. Both plans include unlimited members, courses, videos, and live calls.
What is the difference between Hobby and Pro?
The features are the same. The difference is the transaction fee: 10% on Hobby, 2.9% on Pro. Pro keeps more money once your community takes in about $1,268 a month; below that, Hobby is cheaper overall.
Is there a free trial?
Yes. Both plans start with a 14-day free trial, and Skool says you can cancel anytime. There is no permanent free plan after the trial ends.
Does Skool take a cut of what my members pay?
Yes. Skool charges a transaction fee on member payments — 2.9% on Pro, 10% on Hobby, as listed on the pricing page. Check the pricing page for the exact fee breakdown before you set your member price.
Action: should you pay $99 a month?
If you already charge members, or you are about to, Pro pays for itself once your revenue passes about $1,268 a month — and even before that, the flat price means every new member makes Skool cheaper per head. If you have no paid offer yet, start on the 14-day trial, then Hobby at $9, and upgrade when the fee saving covers the $90 difference by itself.
If your community is a side project with no revenue planned, $99 a month is the wrong spend. Run the numbers with your own member price first — the break-even is about $1,268 a month in revenue, whatever your price per member is.
Try Skool free for 14 days and run the numbers on your own group
Disclosure: links in this article are affiliate links. If you sign up through them, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. For the admin side of running a community, see our Make review — and if your community helps people find work, our JobCopilot review covers the AI job-search tool your members may also use.
