Skool is a community-focused course platform that was designed to be a simplified version of hosted learning management systems.
They offer community as an alternative to Facebook groups so that you can offer your course and foster community in one place. A tool to create events is also one of their main features.
Features like chat, messaging, a calendar, email, profiles, and gamification are all built in to encourage engagement, boost course completion rates, and give your audience a fun user experience.
It’s easy to get started with Skool as they offer a 14-day free trial. You’ll need to enter your billing or credit card information so that you’ll be automatically billed once the trial is over.
Skool only has one price plan for everyone which costs $99/month. Many other course platforms have a plan that you can subscribe to at this price point.
Below, I’m going to show you how easy it is to sign up for Skool and some other important things you need to know about the platform if you’re considering hosting your course there.
Get Started With Your Skool Free Trial
You’ll need your credit card in order to get started with Skool’s 14-day free trial. This is so that your service isn’t interrupted in any way after the trial period is over. They will automatically bill you the monthly cost.
To get started, just click on the “Start 14-day free trial” button on the homepage. You will be sent right to the signup form.
1. Add your name, email address, and password
The first step is to add your first name, last name, and email address to the signup form and create a password for logging in.
Check the box to agree to the terms and privacy policy then click on the signup button to submit the form.
2. Check email for verification code
You’ll be asked to verify a code sent to your email address. Check your inbox for the code and submit it to verify your email address.
3. Choose your group name and enter billing info
After verifying your email address, it’s time to create your group name and add your billing info.
The details of your billing are here so that you can see the cost before you add your credit card info. This way, you wouldn’t be surprised when you’re billed after the free trial ends.
In this step, you will choose your group name which is what your community is going to be called.
You will also have to choose whether you want a private community or a public community.
Finally, you’ll add your credit card information and submit it. I did not see any options for PayPal so it’s going to have to be either a debit or credit card.
4. Go to your dashboard to begin
Once your credit card information is successfully authorized, you will be forwarded to your dashboard so that you can immediately start building your community and courses.
How Much Does Skool Cost?
Unlike other course and community platforms, Skool does not have multiple plans to choose from.
You get everything that Skool has to offer for one monthly price of $99.
There is no annual billing option which would have been great to prepay and get a discount.
For $99/month, you get 1 group and you can add unlimited courses and unlimited members.
One great thing about Skool is that you automatically become an affiliate and can refer others to the platform. The payout is 40% on $99/month.
After three sales, you’re essentially just being paid to be a Skool creator as they will apply any commission to your account first before paying you.
What You Get On The Skool Free Trial
Since there is only one pricing plan, everything Skool offers is available with your 14-day free trial.
Certain things like having a custom domain can be unlocked only with a paid account.
On Skool, creators can have:
- community – one group with posts, comments, categories, likes, mentions and more of what you would expect from something like Facebook groups.
- courses – create unlimited courses with modules, embedded video, resources, searchable transcripts and progress tracking
- calendar – schedule group events like live streams with a visual calendar
- gamification – customize engagement by giving your group members points and unlocking courses when they reach certain levels.
- email broadcasts – send email to all your members with one click.
- profiles – members have one profile for all the groups they’re in. You can add websites and social links, bio and photo.
- chats & notifications – chat with other members, follow posts and get notifications via email.
Skool lacks some features that you would expect from community and course platforms like native video which are essential for hosting course material and doing live streams.
Maybe they’ll have more features available in the future but their focus right now is being a simplified version of course platforms that isn’t too overwhelming for creators.
Should You Use Skool?
The community-first concept of creating and selling courses is great but is being done in a much better way with platforms like Mighty Networks and Circle or even Thinkific.
Simplified shouldn’t mean that you shouldn’t have necessary features like native video or a landing page to sell your courses. Coupons, upsells, bundling, and more aren’t available and maybe that is the point but I’d rather have the options available and not use them.
Still, Skool can work for creators who want to put community and courses in one place to build engagement, gamify their students’ experience and not be too overwhelmed with what you can do with feature-rich platforms like Kajabi and Thinkific.
If you want to try Skool, they offer a 14-day free trial to try out all the features they offer. You can try out the course features and see if this is the platform you’d like to use.