Skool Alternatives: 8 Community Platforms Compared for Coaches

1What are the best Skool alternatives for coaches?

1. Circle. A branded community on your own domain with many spaces. Skool vs Circle.
2. Kajabi. Courses first, with website, funnels and email in one bill. Skool vs Kajabi.
3. Whop. Lowest fees, no monthly plan, many currencies and product types. Skool vs Whop.
4. Mighty Networks. Closest to Skool in features, at a higher price.
5. Teachable. A cheaper course platform. Community needs the $89 Builder plan.
6. Patreon. Fan memberships for creators. 10% plus processing.
7. Discord. Free for chat-first groups. Paid subscriptions are for US owners only.
8. Stan Store. A link-in-bio store with a community, from $29 a month and 0% Stan fee.

$1.14M all timeOne community business$630,088 net revenueAll time, one offer$208.68K in 30 daysOne month of payments

Real screenshots from our clients and our stories. Not typical.

2How do the 8 alternatives compare side by side?

Sources, all checked 22 October 2026: Skool, Circle, Kajabi, Whop, Mighty Networks, Teachable, Patreon, Discord, Stan Store plans, Stan and Stripe fees. Discord's and Patreon's pages blocked a direct check that day, so their figures come from their help articles as found in search. Confirm them before you move.

3What does each platform cost at your numbers?

At most sizes Whop, Stan Store and Teachable cost less than Skool, with Skool Pro close behind. Circle, Kajabi and Mighty Networks cost more. Patreon and Discord cost the most, because they take 10% of every sale.

4When to pick each alternative

Circle

Pick it if the group must look like your brand on your domain, with many spaces. Skip it if you want the lowest fees. Circle's 2% sits on top of Stripe's fee. Plans are $89, $199 and $419 a month, billed yearly.

Kajabi

Pick it if you sell courses from your own site and want email and funnels included. Skip it if the community is the product. Plans: $179, $249, $499 a month, with contact caps of 2,500, 25,000 and 100,000.

Whop

Pick it if you sell many product types or to buyers in many currencies. Skip it if you want one calm feed where members show up daily. No monthly plan, 2.7% + 30¢ per US sale.

Mighty Networks

Pick it if you want a Skool-style group with courses, livestreams, points and leaderboards, plus your logo and colors. Skip it if price matters. It costs $79 a month plus 2% and card fees. Branded apps need Mighty Pro.

Teachable

Pick it if courses come first on a budget. Builder is $89 a month ($69 yearly) with 0% Teachable fee and community included. Skip it if you only need a group. Starter at $39 has no community and a 7.5% fee.

Patreon

Pick it if you are a creator whose fans pay for posts, videos or podcasts. Skip it if you are a coach. 10% plus processing is the highest cut here. Free to start.

Discord

Pick it if your crowd already lives on Discord and you want free live chat. Owners keep 90% of server subscriptions. Skip it if you are outside the US. Paid subscriptions need a US-based owner. There is no real course area.

Stan Store

Pick it if you sell from a link in bio and want a small community with your products. Stan takes 0%, you pay Stripe. Skip it if the community is your main product. You get one community per store, and email needs Creator Pro at $99.

5Is there a free alternative to Skool?

Yes. Discord, Whop and Patreon have no monthly plan. Discord is free to run and keeps 10% of paid subscriptions. Whop charges only per sale. Patreon keeps 10% plus processing. Skool has no free plan for owners. After 14 days free it costs $9 or $99 a month. A free group on Skool is free for members, and you pay the plan.

6Which platform fits you?

7Worked example: Owen compares all nine

Made-up example. Owen is a language coach. He has 150 members at $39 a month, sells in US dollars, and gets most members from short videos.

Whop would save him about $100 a month. He still picks Skool, and the check scores it first. His members come for daily practice in one feed, and Discovery brings over a quarter of all Skool memberships. At $39, three extra members a month cover the gap.

8What we see across our Skool builds

• Members who stay are worth more than any fee. Paid Skool groups keep about 80% of members a month on average, and the best keep 90% or more.
• The About page does the selling. Free groups commonly convert about 20% of About page visitors, and paid groups about 4%.
• For coaches, the group feeds the calls. Cost per booked call can fall from about $250 to about $40. Check yours in the client acquisition cost calculator.

Two client results. Not typical. One built $143K a year in recurring memberships from zero. Another, John Duda, reached 23,403 free and 659 paying Skool members.

9How do you move a paid community to Skool without losing members?

Expect to lose some members in any move. These six steps keep it small.

1. Build the Skool group first. Set up the Classroom with only the lessons members actually finish. Add the weekly call to the calendar. Turn on membership questions.
2. Set the price at or below what members pay now. Nobody should pay more for the move. Add a yearly price at about 17% off as a thank you for moving early.
3. Announce it 14 days ahead. Give the date, the reason in one line, and what gets better for them. Use the message below.
4. Send paying members the paid join link. Skool lists no way to move subscriptions from another platform, so paying members join and pay again on Skool. Skool's CSV import in the Invite tab gives free access, so use it for free members and anyone you want to keep in free.
5. Run both places for one billing cycle. Cancel each member's old billing only after they have joined on Skool. Post a reminder on the old platform every few days.
6. Make day one in Skool busy. Hold a live welcome call in the first week and open a wins thread. An empty feed is the fastest way to lose movers.

Subject: We're moving on [date], and your price stays the same

Hey [name],

On [date] the group moves to Skool.

Why: everything lives in one place now. The feed, the lessons, the calendar and the call recordings, in one app on your phone.

Your price stays at [price]. Here is your link to join: [link]

Join before [date] and you keep your price for as long as you stay. Your old billing stops once you're in. I'll cancel it for you.

See you inside,
[your name]

Invite and import options from Skool's help center, checked 24 October 2026. Check how your old platform cancels subscriptions before you send the email.

Get the Skool community launch plan Claude skill to write the new About page, the welcome posts and the first 30 days with Claude. If you would rather have the move and the funnel behind it built for you, see if you qualify.

10What to do this week

1. Write your members, price and monthly tool bill on one line. If the real problem is that members do not buy, no platform fixes it. Find the exact bottleneck in your business first.
2. Run the ranking above. Note the cheapest three.
3. Take the check. If the winner is not in your cheapest three, ask what the extra cost buys you.
4. Read the head-to-head for your top pick: Circle, Kajabi or Whop.
5. If Skool stays on top, use Skool pricing to pick Hobby or Pro and the Skool community guide to launch. Moving an existing group? Follow the six steps above.

About the authorAnshjeet Singh

Founder of Cashflow Coaches. His team has scaled 350+ Skool communities and builds the funnels that turn free members into paying members and high-ticket clients. More about Anshjeet.

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Keep reading: Skool vs CircleSkool vs KajabiSkool vs WhopSkool pricingSkool reviewSkool communities guideDone-for-you Skool growthScale a coaching businessFind your bottleneck (quiz)

Owen is a made-up example. His numbers show how the maths works and are not a client result. All platform prices and fees were checked on the official sites and help pages on 22 October 2026 and can change. Card fees use standard US rates; other countries, international cards and currency conversion cost more. Benchmarks on this page are what other operators and Skool owners report. They are not Cashflow Coaches results and not a promise. Every real result on this page is a past result from a specific client. None of them is typical. Cashflow Coaches is not part of, or endorsed by, any platform named on this page.