The best-known Skool alternatives are Circle, Kajabi, Mighty Networks, Whop, Discord, Patreon, and Teachable. We put each one side by side with Skool, with today's prices and fees. The bottom line, if you're in a hurry: if you want a community with courses and live calls, Skool is still the simplest option, the cheapest one to start with, and the one whose own community search can also bring you new members. The others win in specific cases, and we'll tell you which.
Before we go any further, a heads-up: we're SkoolRank, a ranking of Skool communities. We're not neutral, and we're not going to pretend to be. We think Skool is the best option for most communities, and in this article we explain why with data, not with nice-sounding phrases. We also don't have affiliate links for any platform: we don't earn anything whichever one you pick.
Prices and fees were checked on each platform's website on October 23, 2026, and they're all in US dollars. Every platform changes them now and then. If that happens, we'll update this comparison.
The 8 platforms at a glance
| Platform | Starting at | Fee per sale | Best fit for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Skool | $9/month | 10% + 30¢ (Pro: 2.9% + 30¢), all included | Communities with courses and calls, free or paid |
| Circle | $89/month (billed annually) | 2%, plus Stripe's fee | Branded communities with lots of automation |
| Kajabi | $143/month (billed annually) | 0%, plus payment processing | Course businesses with a website, email, and sales funnels |
| Mighty Networks | $79/month | 2% | Communities with lots of live sessions and, at scale, their own app |
| Whop | Free | 2.7% + 30¢ | Selling digital products and one-off access |
| Discord | Free | 10% of server subscriptions | Free communities, gaming, or casual chat |
| Patreon | Free | 10%, plus payment processing | Creators who publish content for their patrons |
| Teachable | $29/month (billed annually) | 7.5% on Starter (0% from Builder up), plus processing | Selling recorded courses to lots of students |
The first row already tells you a lot. Skool is the only platform on the list that gives you a complete community, with courses, a calendar, and payments, for $9/month, with a percentage that already covers card processing. The ones that are free to start (Whop, Discord, Patreon) make their money by keeping a percentage of every sale, and each of them is missing some piece of a community: courses, a calendar, or conversation. The ones with a monthly fee (Circle, Kajabi, Mighty Networks) start at $79 or more before you've sold anything. Teachable starts lower, at $29/month billed annually, but on that plan it also takes 7.5% of every sale, and it's built around courses, not conversation.
Why some people look for Skool alternatives
It's worth starting here, because this is where the fine print of any comparison lives. These are the reasons you hear most often, and what's behind each one:
- “All Skool communities look the same.” True: you can't change the design or the colors the way you can on Circle or Mighty Networks. But that's a choice Skool made, not an oversight. Your members walk into a platform they already know, with everything in the same place, and they don't have to learn anything.
- “I can't have an app with my own branding.” Also true: the app is Skool's, not yours. The platforms that offer a branded app save it for their most expensive plans (Circle Plus, Mighty Pro, or Kajabi's Pro plan, which costs $399/month billed annually).
- “10% on the Hobby plan is a lot.” It is if you're already bringing in a fair amount. That's what the Pro plan is for, at 2.9%, and past a certain point it pays for itself. The exact math is in our guide to Skool pricing.
- “I want automated email sequences.” Skool lets you email all your members with one click, but it doesn't have email funnels like Kajabi does. If your business depends on them, that's a real reason to look elsewhere.
- “Prices are in dollars.” That's how Skool works. Your members pay with their own card and their bank handles the conversion, but if you mostly sell to people who'd rather pay in their own currency or with local payment methods, Whop handles that better.
Notice that almost none of these reasons have anything to do with the community working badly. They're about branding, marketing, and payments. On what matters for getting people to participate and stick around, Skool is very hard to beat.
How we compared them
For each platform, we looked at the same things:
- Price and fees: what you pay before you sell anything, and how much the platform keeps from each sale.
- Community: whether there's a lively space where members talk to each other.
- Courses and live sessions: whether you can teach and run calls without other tools.
- Payments: whether you can charge subscriptions and one-time payments inside the platform.
- Getting members: whether the platform itself helps people find you.
- Ease of use: how much work it takes to set up, and how much effort it takes for your members to use it.
Circle
What it is: a community platform built for brands and creators who want their own space, with their own domain, their own design, and, on the top plan, their own app.
Pricing: the Professional plan costs $89/month billed annually, Business costs $199, and Scale costs $419. Circle Plus, which comes with a branded app, has custom pricing. Every plan comes with a 14-day free trial. Circle keeps 2% of every sale on Professional and 1% on Business and Scale, and its help center makes it clear that Stripe's fee comes on top of that for every payment (in the US, 2.9% plus 30¢ with domestic cards).
What it does best: lots of control over design and branding, a custom domain on every plan, apps for iPhone, Android, and desktop, automations, and an email tool that's paid separately ($99/month extra for 10,000 contacts).
Where it falls short: it's a lot more expensive, its fee stacks on top of Stripe's, and setting it up well takes more work. And you bring in every member yourself: there's no storefront inside Circle where people go looking for communities.
Compared with Skool: Circle is for people who put their brand ahead of everything else. For a community that wants to grow and charge without the hassle, Skool does the same job for much less money. Here's an example: with 20 members paying $19/month, Skool Hobby costs you $53/month in total, and Circle Professional costs about $114 ($89 for the plan, $7.60 for Circle's fee, and about $17 for Stripe).
Kajabi
What it is: a platform for selling courses and training programs, with its own website, email, sales funnels, and checkout. It has a community feature, but it's just one more piece of the business, not the center of it.
Pricing: the Basic plan costs $143/month billed annually ($179 if you pay month to month), Growth costs $199, and Pro costs $399. As a platform, Kajabi doesn't take a percentage of your sales, but card processing is charged, and it varies by country. There's a 14-day trial and a 30-day money-back guarantee.
What it does best: all your marketing in one place: website, sales pages, unlimited emails, funnels, and payments. Your customers get a Kajabi app for iPhone and Android, and on the Pro plan, an app with your branding.
Where it falls short: the entry price, about 16 times what Skool Hobby costs, and the fact that community isn't its strong suit. It's designed to sell courses, not for people to spend time together every day.
Compared with Skool: if your business is an email funnel that ends in an expensive course, Kajabi makes sense. If what you want is a community where people participate, learn, and stick around, Skool is built for exactly that, and it costs a fraction of the price.
Mighty Networks
What it is: a community platform with courses, events, and live sessions, aimed at people who want to customize their space and, on the top tier, have their own app.
Pricing: the Launch plan costs $79/month ($950 if you pay for the year), Scale costs $179, and Growth costs $354. Mighty Pro, with branded apps, has custom pricing. Mighty Networks keeps 2% of every sale on Launch, 1% on Scale, and 0.5% on the higher plans.
What it does best: lots of features: cohort-based courses, live sessions inside the platform (20 hours a month on the Launch plan), points and leaderboards, a custom domain, and payments in many currencies.
Where it falls short: with so many options, it takes more work to set up and to use. Branded apps only come with Mighty Pro, and the entry price is almost nine times what Skool Hobby costs.
Compared with Skool: Mighty Networks appeals to people who want lots of pieces and don't mind configuring them. Skool takes the opposite approach, fewer pieces done better, and that's why its members find it so easy to start participating.
Whop
What it is: a platform for selling digital products: access to communities, courses, downloads, software, or private groups. It's less a community than a store with a cash register.
Pricing: there's no monthly fee. Whop keeps 2.7% plus 30¢ of every payment made with a domestic card, plus 1.5% with international cards and 1% when there's a currency conversion. Some extra features, like automated billing, add their own percentage.
What it does best: it costs nothing to get started, and it takes payments in a huge number of countries and currencies, with lots of payment methods.
Where it falls short: its center is the store, not the community. It isn't designed for your members to spend time together, learn, and participate every day.
Compared with Skool: Whop is good for selling standalone products. For a community with courses, calls, and conversation, Skool puts it all in one place, and your members don't have to jump between platforms.
Discord
What it is: a chat app organized into servers, with text and voice channels, very popular with gamers and with communities built around conversation.
Pricing: free. If your server is eligible to charge for subscriptions, Discord keeps 10% and you keep 90%.
What it does best: it's free, its voice and video calls are very good, and lots of people already have it installed.
Where it falls short: it has no courses, important things get lost in the chat, and conversations from two weeks ago are hard to find. For people who aren't into gaming, the interface can be overwhelming.
Compared with Skool: Discord is perfect for a free community built on fast-moving chat. When you want to teach something, organize your content, and charge for it, Skool is in another league: a feed organized by topic, courses with progress tracking, a calendar, and built-in payments. Lots of communities use both: Skool for what needs to last and a chat app for what's urgent.
Patreon
What it is: a platform where creators charge their followers for exclusive content: videos, podcasts, writing, or art.
Pricing: it's free to start. According to its pricing page, Patreon keeps 10% of what you earn, plus payment processing, currency conversion, payout fees, and any applicable taxes.
What it does best: it's very well known among creators' audiences, and paying someone on Patreon is already a familiar habit.
Where it falls short: it's designed for publishing content for your patrons, not for your members to talk to each other, learn together, and help one another. And between its 10% and the other charges, it keeps more than Skool Pro does.
Compared with Skool: if your audience follows you for what you publish, Patreon works. If you want your members to get to know each other, participate, and make progress together, that's exactly what Skool does best.
Teachable
What it is: a platform for selling online courses, coaching, and memberships, used by creators in 180 countries.
Pricing: the Starter plan costs $39/month ($29/month if you pay for the year), with up to 5 products and a 7.5% fee on every sale. Builder costs $89/month ($69 billed annually), with 10 products and no transaction fee. Growth costs $189/month ($139 billed annually), with 50 products and no transaction fee either. Payment processing is charged separately on every payment: 2.9% plus 30¢ with US cards and 3.9% plus 30¢ with international cards. There's a 7-day free trial and a 30-day guarantee.
What it does best: it's tightly focused on recorded courses, with student apps for iOS and Android, payments and taxes handled in many countries, upsells, and abandoned cart recovery.
Where it falls short: its strength is courses, not a community that participates every day. And on Starter, payment processing comes on top of the 7.5%.
Compared with Skool: Teachable is built to sell courses; Skool is built to keep a community going. If you have a recorded course that can sell on its own, Teachable fits the job. If you want those students to stick around, participate, and pay you every month, the community works better on Skool. You can also use both: sell the course on Teachable and bring your students into a Skool community.
Why Skool is still the best
After going through all seven, these are the reasons Skool still comes out on top for most communities:
Truly all-in-one
Community, courses, a calendar, live calls (with its own video calling, Skool Call), emails to all your members, and payments. All in one place, with no tools to connect. According to Skool, you can set up a community in under 30 minutes. None of the alternatives that offer the same things make it this simple.
The lowest starting price, with everything included
For $9/month, you get unlimited members, courses, videos, and calls. The alternatives with a full community start at $79 (Mighty Networks), $89 (Circle), or $143 (Kajabi), before you've sold anything. And on Skool, the percentage already covers card processing, while on Circle, for example, Stripe's fee is extra.
As you grow, the Pro plan comes out ahead too. With 100 members paying $49/month, Skool Pro costs you about $271/month in total ($99 for the plan, $142.10 in fees, and $30 from the flat 30¢). Circle Professional, with the same revenue, costs about $359: $89 for the plan, $98 for its own fee, $142.10 for Stripe, and the same $30 in flat fees.
Members who find you on their own: Skool Discovery
Skool has its own community search, Discovery, where people go to find communities to join. If yours grows, stays active, and keeps its members coming back, it shows up higher and higher in its category. Circle, Kajabi, and Mighty Networks have no storefront like that: you bring in every member yourself. We explain how Discovery works in how to grow your Skool community.
Gamification that keeps members around
Points for every like, nine levels, leaderboards, and courses that unlock as you level up. Other platforms have points or leaderboards, but on Skool they're at the heart of the experience, and that shows up in something worth a lot of money: members who keep coming back month after month.
A network, not an island
With Skool, your members use the same account and the same app for all their communities. Many of them already have it installed (the Android app has passed a million downloads), so they don't have to learn anything new to join yours. That network is also what makes Discovery work: people who are in one Skool community discover others.
The platform everyone's talking about
Skool is now the go-to platform for communities. According to Similarweb, in September 2026 skool.com was among the 1,100 most visited websites in the world. Its founder's community for community owners, Skoolers, has more than 150,000 members. And here at SkoolRank, we already rank more than 2,500 Skool communities in six languages, from baking to jiu-jitsu.
An ecosystem around it
There are the Skool Games, the competition between owners that Skool created with Alex Hormozi (we cover it in Alex Hormozi and Skool). There's its affiliate program, which pays you 40% of the subscription of any of your members who starts their own community. And there are independent showcases like SkoolRank, where your community can show up in its category and its language. Adding it is free.
When another platform makes more sense
We're on Skool's side, but we're not going to mislead you. There are cases where another platform is a better fit:
- You need an app with your own branding in the app stores: Circle Plus, Mighty Pro, or Kajabi Pro, if your budget allows.
- Your business is an email funnel that ends in an expensive course: Kajabi.
- You want a free community for chatting or gaming: Discord.
- You sell standalone digital products more than a community: Whop.
- Your audience pays you for what you publish, not for being part of a group: Patreon.
- You sell a recorded course to lots of students and want it to sell on its own: Teachable, and if you want a community too, alongside Skool.
If your situation isn't on this list, Skool is the answer.
Moving to Skool from another platform
If you already have a community somewhere else, moving it to Skool is easier than it looks. You rebuild your courses in the Classroom: you can upload your videos or embed the ones you already have on YouTube, Vimeo, Loom, or Wistia. You invite your members with your community's link. The only thing that doesn't move over on its own is payments. If you were charging on another platform, each member will have to sign up again through Skool's checkout, so give them plenty of notice and, if you like, offer something to the people who make the move first.
Before you open it up, take a look at how to create a Skool community: it walks you through every step, from the About page to membership questions.
Frequently asked questions
What's the best alternative to Skool?
It depends on what you're looking for. For a brand that wants its own space, Circle. For selling courses with email funnels, Kajabi. For a free community, Discord. But for a community with courses and calls that you want to grow and charge for, the best option is still Skool.
Is there a free alternative to Skool?
Discord, Whop, and Patreon have no monthly fee, but they keep a percentage of what you charge, and they're missing pieces: Discord has no courses, and Whop and Patreon aren't designed for a community that talks every day. Skool doesn't have a free plan for owners, but it starts at $9/month with a 14-day free trial.
Skool vs Circle: which is cheaper?
Skool. The Hobby plan costs $9/month, compared with $89 for Circle's cheapest plan (billed annually), and on Skool the fee already covers card processing, while on Circle, Stripe's fee is extra. With high revenue, Skool Pro also comes out cheaper than Circle Professional.
Skool vs Teachable: which should you choose?
Teachable is better for selling a recorded course to lots of students, thanks to its student apps, upsells, and abandoned cart recovery. Skool is better for a community with a monthly subscription where people participate and stick around. You can combine them: the course on Teachable and the community on Skool.
Skool vs Kajabi: which should you choose?
Kajabi, if your business runs on a website, emails, and sales funnels, and you can pay $143/month or more. Skool, if the community is the core: it starts at $9/month, and it's built for members to participate every day.
Can I use Discord instead of Skool?
For a free community built around chat, yes. For teaching, organizing content, and charging, no: Discord has no courses, important things get lost in the chat, and whether you can charge depends on your server meeting its requirements. Lots of communities use Skool for what matters and a chat app for what's urgent.
Why is Skool so popular?
Because it brings everything a community needs into one place, it costs very little to get started, and its Discovery search and its network of users help people find you. According to Similarweb, skool.com is among the 1,100 most visited websites in the world.
