Skool Review: Is It Worth It for Creators?

Skool is one of the most popular platforms for building an online community today.

I spent months inside Skool, both as a creator launching my SaaS SEO community and as a paying member of several others. I went through every feature, studied how the top earners run their groups, and tested the parts the marketing pages skip past.

Below, I break down what Skool gets right, where it falls short, and whether it's the right fit for what you're trying to build.

What Is Skool?

Skool is a platform for building paid or free online communities, with built-in course hosting and gamification. It provides one place for your content, your community, and the engagement mechanics that keep your members coming back.

Skool's bet is that courses and communities belong together and that adding points, leaderboards, and levels to the mix helps transform passive subscribers into active members.

Skool was founded in 2019 by Sam Ovens, a famous coach in the services space who sold his consulting empire to go all-in on Skool. It gained serious traction in 2023 after Alex Hormozi invested in it and began publicly using it for his own community. That brought a wave of new-age creators, coaches, and agency owners to the platform, along with many opinions about whether it actually delivers.

So what is Skool really like? And is it the right fit for what you’re trying to build? Let’s dive in.

Skool Review: Quick Overview

Skool Pros and Cons

Skool Key Features

User Experience ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Skool's design mantra is simplicity. The same way Substack stripped newsletters down to writing emails and a subscribe button, Skool strips the whole UX down to the three Cs:

• Community: A central discussion feed where members can post updates, ask questions, share wins, and interact with each other.
• Classroom: A simple course area where creators can organize lessons, videos, and learning materials.
• Calendar: A built-in events section for scheduling live calls, webinars, community meetups, and other activities.

The simple layout means new members don't need a tour, and creators don’t have to spend an afternoon configuring spaces before launching.

The Skool Community feed is where most of the activity lives. Everything goes into one stream, filtered by categories like Wins, Questions, or Announcements rather than separated into isolated sub-groups. For smaller and mid-sized communities, this creates a sense of activity because every post is visible to everyone. The downside is that large communities can feel chaotic without the ability to route conversations into separate spaces.

Posts appear chronologically. In Skool, no algorithm decides what gets surfaced. If someone posts, people see it. That alone sets Skool apart from Facebook Groups and subreddits, where posts regularly disappear into a black hole, regardless of quality. This could also be a drawback for large communities. Fortunately, you can sort activities by engagement and time period to stay on top of the most popular threads. Admins can also pin threads to the top of the feed.

Writing posts in Skool is fast and easy. You can attach polls, files, native videos, or add a YouTube link. That said, as someone who likes to format their content, I found the lack of formatting a huge drawback. Forget nice-looking headlines or tables. This forces me to keep my posts short and to outsource content to the attachment section, which I believe was their goal.

Searching in Skool is fast and covers everything: posts, comments, course lessons, and members. Over time, your community becomes a searchable archive, which is more useful than it sounds. But some users say they struggle to find old posts or specific content. Also, there's no reliable way to surface archived discussions.

One of the more underrated aspects of Skool is how it unifies the experiences of creators and community members. You switch between running your community and participating in others without friction. There are no separate accounts or jumping between inboxes, and all notifications land in one place.

Community Experience ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Skool boasts 60,000 communities, and Skool claims that their owners collectively earn $1 billion per year. There's real money moving through the platform.

Part of what makes that possible is community discovery. Skool has a public community directory where anyone can browse and join both paid and free communities. For creators, this is a free distribution channel. A well-positioned community with good member numbers will get organic signups just from being in the directory.

There’s also the Suggested communities section in the sidebar. Your community shows up alongside others in the same niche, and anyone on Skool can stumble onto it without you running a single ad. Unfortunately, I didn’t find these very relevant to my topic. To hide this from your own community, you will need to upgrade to the Pro plan.

On Skool, the platform itself becomes a social network. Once inside a Skool community, members get a profile that shows their bio, links, activity across the community, and their position on the leaderboard. It's closer to a lightweight social profile. And it gives them a reason to show up as a person rather than a username.

The best part is you can chat with any community member. But you won't find advanced features here: there are no attachments, images, or chat search. If you want to have deep conversations, you’ll need to take them off Skool.

As a community owner, you can also welcome new members automatically by activating the Auto DM plugin (available only on Pro). And you can email new posts to your community members (no more than once every 72 hours). But there are no other email automation features like lead nurturing sequences or one-time blasts, so you have to export members’ emails and use a separate tool like Mailchimp.

Last but not least, Skool has a neat little community feature, a world map with pins for all members. It’s great for helping your memers find others like them. These kinds of featurs can help keep people using the platform.

Overall, Skool's community tools are solid. The directory gives you built-in distribution, profiles give members an identity, and you own your audience's data from day one.

Course Functionality ⭐⭐

Skool calls its course section the Classroom, and it does the job—but only just.

On the positive side, you can build out modules and lessons, and upload videos, PDFs, and text content. The interface is clean and easy to navigate.

You can also host unlimited courses in the Classroom:

And when it comes to making money from your courses, Skool is quite flexible. It allows you to lock specific courses only if a member pays or subscribes to a recurring paid tier plan.

But when you get beyond the basics, Skool courses start to show their limits. There are no quizzes or assessments, no certificates, and no way to keep specific lessons locked until a previous one is completed. If you're running a structured program where the sequence matters, that's a problem.

Most course and funnel platforms, like Kajabi and Systeme, treat program access features as standard. On Skool, you're either giving members everything up front or manually managing access, neither of which is really a workflow.

I was also surprised to find out that completing courses doesn't earn members any points. Points are only earned when someone likes your posts or comments, so there's no built-in gamification mechanism in the Skool classroom.

If your course is the main product and you need assessment tools, completion certificates, or advanced drip scheduling, Skool won't meet your needs. Platforms like Teachable or Kajabi are built for that. But if teaching is secondary to the community, and you just want to create and sell courses online, Skool handles it well enough. And keeping everything in one place is worth the trade-off.

Events and Calls ⭐⭐⭐⭐

The third pillar of Skool's functionality is events and calls. There are two ways to run a live event: a spontaneous live event and scheduled calendar events.

You can start an impromptu live call session by clicking on the “Go Live” button at the top of your screen. This call will show as a subtle live event on your community feed, and everyone can join.

To schedule an event in advance, you have to add it to your Skool Calendar and select a time slot. You can also schedule recurring events.

Skool has a built-in calendar and native live calling, so you can run group sessions without sending members to Zoom or Meet (though you can use those options, too). Events automatically appear in each member's local time zone, which removes one of the more tedious admin tasks for community owners running international groups.

The live call feature covers the basics and looks like a Google Meet clone (in a good way). Screen sharing and recording are both available, as is the option to allow attendees to join the conversation with voice, video, and chat. Recordings are stored for 14 days, so members who miss a session can catch up, though you'll want to download and host them elsewhere if you need them long-term.

For larger broadcasts, the Pro plan includes a webinar feature. It’s basically a one-to-many call with a higher attendee capacity of up to 10,000 people. Unlike regular calls, in webinars, attendees aren't allowed to turn on their cameras and mics unless you explicitly allow them to.

The back end is where Skool events fall short. There's no automated post-event flow, replay email, follow-up sequence, or anything that fires after a call ends. That all has to be done manually or handled through a separate email tool. For a single weekly call, it's manageable. But if events are a core part of how you deliver value, the lack of automation becomes a time cost. (For other options, see our list of the best webinar software.)

Engagement and Retention Potential ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Gamification is where Skool earns its reputation. The gamification system is based on points, levels, and leaderboards, and it’s built into every community by default. Members earn points when other people like their posts or comments. The more points you earn, the higher levels you unlock. 1 like = 1 point.

The leaderboard creates low-stakes competition that keeps communities active. It's not complex, but it doesn't need to be; it just needs to make people open the app more often than they otherwise would. By that measure, it delivers.

As members accumulate points, they progress through levels that unlock access to courses, events, or certain activities (for instance, you can unlock posting at levels 2 or 3). It gives members a reason to stay active beyond the initial purchase.

But the catch is that that's the only mechanism for motivating your members, and you can't change it. There are no points for completing courses or attending events. You also don't control the point thresholds for each level, as those are set by Skool. The only thing you can change is the names of the levels.

The broader weakness is that Skool has no real tools to pull inactive members back. There are no email drip sequences, automated re-engagement emails, or segmentation. Once someone stops showing up, there's no built-in way to reach them, or even find out who they are. That's on you as the community owner. Compared to platforms with CRM or email automation, Skool relies almost entirely on the community doing the retention work itself.

If your members are self-motivated and your content is strong, the gamification layer adds stickiness. If you're working with a passive audience that needs nudging, Skool's toolset will feel thin. Also, if your business model relies heavily on people completing courses or attending events, you might want to consider other platforms with stronger incentives for this.

Customization and Branding ⭐

The ability to brand your course in Skool is limited to a custom community icon and a cover photo. That’s it. Depending on what you need, that's either fine or a dealbreaker.

There's no way to rearrange sections, adjust the structure, or make the space feel meaningfully different from any other Skool community. Every group on the platform looks more or less the same. In that repect, Skool is more of a social network than a SaaS platform.

Plus, when your members download the mobile app, they're downloading the generic Skool app, not one with your logo.

As a community member, I find this limitation appealing. Everything is consistent, and I know I’m entering a Skool community. If you're running a tight-knit community where the content and vibe matter more than the wrapper, this probably won’t bother you either.

But if you're trying to build a premium product, something that feels like your brand rather than a Skool subdomain, the limitations add up fast. Platforms like Circle or Kajabi give you far more control here, including white-label options that Skool doesn't offer at any price point.

Integrations and Ecosystem ⭐⭐

Skool's ecosystem is intentionally thin, and you'll feel it within your first week. Apart from the adoption-focused native plugins like the Onboarding and Cancellation videos, Skool integrates with Google and Meta Ads for retargeting, Hyros for ad attribution, and Zapier and webhooks for everything else.

Zapier has a limited number of triggers and actions. You can fire on new members, new posts, and a few activity events. Compared to the 50+ triggers Kajabi exposes through Zapier, this feels skeletal.

Skool also offers iOS and Android apps. While this isn’t an integration in the strict sense, many members primarily use the platform through mobile. As a result, engagement tends to behave more like a social app than a traditional membership site.

The Skool API launched in late 2025 and is still in beta. Read access is decent for member and activity data. Write access is locked down. If you want to push members in from an external funnel, you'll have to do it via Zapier or a custom webhook handler.

That's most of it.

But there are two things that school doesn’t have that really stand out. First, there's no native autoresponder built into Skool, and no clean integration with MailerLite, Mailchimp, or any of the major tools in that category. You can broadcast your posts (once every three days), but you can't tag, segment, or trigger automated sequences, or even send basic email blasts.

The second major thing Skool is missing is a CRM (or integration with an external one). For a platform built around community, I expected more tools for segmenting and managing members. Skool provides very little on that front. You can see who joined and when, as well as what paid plan they belong to and which courses they attended. But anything richer (engagement levels, post activity, lifetime value, custom tags) is missing.

If you're a solo creator running a single community with a simple offer, Skool's thin ecosystem is barely a problem. If you're running a layered business (lead magnets, email nurture, a paid community, an upsell to a higher-tier mastermind), the lack of native plumbing quickly becomes a challenge. You'll either accept the manual work or build a Make or Zapier system that needs maintenance.

Analytics and Insights ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Skool’s analytics include a built-in dashboard that shows everything you need to run the business day-to-day:

• Visitors and traffic sources.
• Signups, trials, and conversion rates.
• Monthly recurring revenue (MRR) and lifetime customer value (LTV).
• Downgrades and churn.
• And even retention cohorts - how many users stay over time.

Member profiles show individual activity (posts, comments, daily contribution charts), and you can see daily active members and course completion across the community.

Yes, there are some important metrics missing. These include attribution (which traffic sources actually convert?), segmentation beyond active/inactive, and funnel analytics inside the classroom. There's no way to slice members by engagement tier, no native export of raw event data, and no public analytics API. But for most creators, the analytics Skool delivers are more than enough to understand the fundamental economics of your business.

Skool's Ideal Users

The strongest evidence for who Skool works for is the people already winning on it. Here are three communities I dug into to see the playbook in action.

Hamza Ahmed - Adonis Gang and Adonis School

Youtuber and influencer Hamza Ahmed built one of the best-known growth funnels on Skool. His free community, Adonis Gang, grew to roughly 183,000 members. It served as a top-of-funnel for his self-development and "make money online" content before he eventually closed it to focus on his other programs. From Adonis Gang, he upsold members into Adonis School, a paid community reportedly priced at $129/month with around 1,800 members.

If you do the math and assume that 50% of the 1,800 members are on the paid plan, that’s well over $100,000 in monthly recurring revenue from a single community. And it’s all built on top of a massive free audience.

What made the Adonis Gang model work on Skool specifically is:

• The free community benefited from exposure through Skool’s Discovery feed.
• The classroom feature hosted the Adonis Protocol course alongside the community itself.
• Gamification features like levels and leaderboards helped keep members engaged in a niche where motivation tends to drop over time.

Liam Ottley - AI Automation Agency Hub

Liam Ottley's AI Automation Agency Hub is the textbook example of using a free Skool community to feed a high-ticket paid offer. The community is free, has ranked #1 on Skool's Discovery page, and has 300,000+ registered members.

The revenue comes from Liam’s AAA Accelerator, which sells for $5,000 to $7,150 per seat. Liam has publicly stated that his AI businesses generate $18M+ in revenue, with the free Skool community acting as the top of the funnel.

This is the "free community as lead magnet" model in its purest form.

Sam Ovens - Skoolers

Skoolers is run by Skool co-founder Sam Ovens and has roughly 180,000 members. It's the platform's official community for community builders.

Yes, this one is meta. The Skool founder's own community is using the product he built. But the case study is useful precisely because of that: Skoolers shows what Skool looks like when it's run at full intensity. Daily posts, an active leaderboard, classroom modules teaching the community-building playbook, and a clear path from free engagement into Sam's paid programs (Skool Games, premium memberships).

If you want to study the Skool format before you launch your own, Skoolers is the most polished example of the playbook running end-to-end.

Skool Monetization and Pricing

Skool has two plans. Both include unlimited members, unlimited courses, and live calls. The biggest difference is the transaction fee.

• Hobby ($9/month): Skool takes 10% per sale
• Pro ($99/month): Skool takes 2.9% per sale

If your community generates more than roughly $1,250/month in sales, Pro saves you money. Below that, Hobby is cheaper. Here's a more detailed breakdown of what you'll get under each plan:

Unless you're testing your first community, Pro is the no-brainer. 2.9% is a fair cut because Skool absorbs the Stripe fees inside that number. There's no separate platform fee stacked on top of payment processing.

You can read more about the Skool plans on the Skool Payment FAQs page

How Skool's Pricing Compares to Competitors

Skool’s pricing is the cheapest in the category by a wide margin.

The difference between platforms:

• Circle runs tiered plans from $89/month to $199/month. Higher tiers unlock lower transaction fees and more features.
• Mighty Networks runs three tiers from $95/month to $215+ per month. Transaction fees are lower on higher tiers.
• Kajabi starts at $179/month and runs to $499/month. Transaction fees are 2.7-2.9% via Kajabi Payments, plus a 0.7% surcharge on subscriptions, landing memberships around 3.6%.
• Discord doesn't sell community plans. Its 16% is the cut on server subscriptions, with Discord keeping 10% and payment processing eating the rest.
• Patreon is free to start, but the 8-12% platform fee plus processing puts most creators at 13-15% all-in.
• Whop has no monthly fee, just a 3% cut on paper. Payout fees, FX, and processing push the real cost to ~5.7-7%.

Alternatives to Skool

Skool vs. Circle

Circle is the premium pick if branding matters. You get a fully white-labeled space, custom domains, multiple sub-groups, and far more control over how the community looks and feels.

The tradeoff is price: Circle starts at $89/month and stacks higher transaction fees on top, so you're paying for the polish.

Skool vs. Mighty Networks

Mighty Networks is the better choice if courses and structured programs sit at the center of your business. It supports cohorts, multiple spaces, native events, and AI tooling for course creation that Skool doesn't even come close to matching.

The downside is a busier UX and steeper learning curve, both for you and your members.

Skool vs. Kajabi

Kajabi is the right pick if you want to run your entire business from one place. It’s a full creator stack, not just a community platform. You get courses, email marketing, sales funnels, and a CRM in a single tool.

Community on Kajabi is more of a bolt-on, though, and at $179+/month, it's roughly twice the cost of Skool Pro.

Discover more top funnel builders like Kajabi in our list of the best sales funnel builders.

Skool Review: The Verdict

Skool isn't built for everyone. After spending some time inside the platform, I've seen a clear pattern of who thrives here and who walks away frustrated.

Skool works best for:

• Creators with an existing audience (YouTube, podcast, newsletter), ready to convert followers into paid members.
• Coaches, course creators, and educators who want community and courses in one product.
• Founders running high-touch group programs with weekly live calls and accountability.
• Anyone willing to lean into gamification (leaderboards, levels, points) as their engagement engine.

Look elsewhere if you're:

• Running a SaaS or B2B product with complex onboarding.
• Selling into an audience that won't tolerate a casual, gamified UI.
• A creator who needs deep CRM segmentation or native email automation.
• Building a paid newsletter (Substack, Beehiiv, and Kit do this better).