9 Best Skool Alternatives of 2026

Circle is the closest thing to a direct upgrade from Skool for creators who have outgrown a simple group and classroom. Every plan includes community spaces, courses, live events, a website, a member directory, gamification, payments, a custom domain and apps for iOS, Android and desktop, with unlimited members. Professional costs $89 a month on annual billing and keeps a 2% transaction fee, which is below Skool Pro's 2.9% for a slightly lower subscription. The limits sit elsewhere: 20 spaces, 3 admins and 10 hours of live streaming on the entry plan, with add-ons for more. Workflows, custom profile fields, the Circle APIs and MCP and removal of Circle branding start on Business at $199, which also lowers the fee to 1%. Circle AI credits come with every plan. The trade-off against Skool is setup time: more options mean more decisions before launch, and there is no public discovery directory to bring members to you.

Heartbeat packs the most community features into the lowest subscription on this list. The Build plan costs $40 a month on annual billing, or $49 monthly, and includes unlimited channels, courses, events, documents and landing pages, paid waitlists and upsells, member badges, a directory, a custom domain and integrations with Zapier, Zoom and Google Calendar. Courses can be evergreen, dripped or cohort-based, and voice and video rooms hold up to 256 people with no hour limit, which suits coaches who run group calls. Two numbers matter for Skool users. Build stops at 350 members, counting admins, and Heartbeat keeps 5% of payments on top of Stripe, so a busy group pays more in fees than on Skool Pro. Grow at $124 a month raises the cap to 5,000, cuts the fee to 2.5% and adds API access, white-label emails and an affiliate program. Heartbeat also lists member data migration and imports from Slack and Circle.

Mighty Networks is the most course-heavy of the community-first platforms. Every plan includes unlimited members and spaces, private groups and cohorts, chat with threads, online and in-person events, and courses that can be on demand, cohort-based or live, with quizzes, dripped lessons, badges, certificates and SCORM content. Gamification goes further than Skool's leaderboard, with points, streaks and member referrals. Launch costs $79 a month on annual billing, or $950 a year, and keeps a 2% transaction fee; Scale at $179 cuts that to 1% and adds Zapier, Kit, Google Analytics, APIs and MCP access, and Growth at $354 drops it to 0.5%. The AI Cohost asks who you want to bring together and drafts a landing page, branding and a starter template, which shortens setup for first-time hosts. Free trials run on the Growth Plan, so check which features you lose if you then pick Launch.

Podia suits Skool users who sell more than access to a group. Every plan includes a community with topic spaces, group chats, DMs and free or paid tiers, plus online courses, digital downloads, coaching, live and in-person events, a website and blog, a custom domain, landing pages, built-in checkout and sales tax handling for 230 countries. Mover costs $42 a month billed annually but keeps 5% of each sale and caps you at 50 products, 25 spaces and 100 email subscribers. Shaker at $84 a month removes Podia's fee entirely and adds affiliates, upsells, PayPal and Zapier, so most coaches with steady sales will land there. Stripe or PayPal still charges about 2.9% plus 30 cents. The community lives on the web rather than in a dedicated app, and there is no public directory like Skool's. Podia's team migrates courses, downloads, customer emails and community subscribers, up to 150 products on Shaker.

Teachable is the budget pick for creators whose business is the course and whose community is a supporting feature. Starter costs $29 a month on annual billing, or $39 monthly, and includes AI course creation, iOS and Android student apps, global payments and taxes, upsells and cart recovery for up to 5 products, with a 7.5% transaction fee. Builder at $69 a month billed annually is the more realistic Skool replacement: it adds the Community feature, 10 products, an affiliate program, real-time support and a 0% transaction fee. Growth at $139 adds certificates, branding removal and imported students. Course tools are deeper than Skool's classroom, with drip schedules, lesson comments, auto-graded quizzes and short answer assessments. The community is a smaller part of the product than on Circle or Heartbeat, so groups that live on daily discussion may find it thin. The free trial lasts 7 days, backed by a 30-day guarantee.

Whop is the only option here without a published monthly plan, which makes it the closest match to Skool's low-commitment start. Its fee page lists 2.7% plus $0.30 per domestic card transaction, 1.5% more for international cards and 1% more when currency conversion applies. Optional tools stack on top: billing automation at 0.5%, orchestration at 0.8% and tax and remittance at 2% when tax is collected, so a fully enabled domestic sale costs 6% plus $0.30. To build a course business you add apps from the Whop App Store, such as Courses for modules and lessons, Content for a start-here guide, and Forums and Chat for the community. Paid groups can also grant Discord server access. The biggest draw is distribution: global affiliates promote products across the Whop marketplace at a default 30% commission. The cost is brand control, since members buy and log in through Whop rather than your own site.

Kajabi replaces more tools than any other platform here, which is why it costs the most. Basic is $143 a month billed annually, or $179 monthly, and covers courses, coaching, memberships, downloads and podcasts for up to 5 products, a website on your own domain, a private community with unlimited access groups, unlimited emails, landing pages and funnels, and built-in checkout for 2,500 contacts. Kajabi says it takes no revenue share; US card processing on Basic is 2.9% plus 30 cents, and an outside processor adds 2%. Growth at $199 adds live cohort courses, advanced automations, an affiliate program and comment to DM, and removes Kajabi branding. Pro at $399 adds a branded app in the App Store. Customers use the Kajabi mobile app on every plan. For a Skool owner who also pays for an email tool and a funnel builder, the bundle can cost less in total; for a group that only needs chat and a classroom, it is more than you need.

Thinkific is a course platform first, with communities sold alongside courses rather than the other way around. The Start plan includes unlimited courses, video lessons and student discussions, live cohorts and coaching with unlimited Zoom sessions, quizzes, assignments and certificates, bundles, upsells and payment plans, memberships and a custom domain. It also includes one community with up to 10 spaces, live events and paid memberships, which is enough for a single Skool-style group. Grow raises that to 3 communities, removes Thinkific branding and adds bulk enrollment, B2B invoicing, API access and webhooks; Expand allows 10 communities with 200 spaces. A branded iOS and Android app is a paid add-on. Thinkific Payments handles subscriptions in one place. Our fetch of the pricing page returned euro prices, so we have not listed a US dollar price. Thinkific suits creators who sell to companies or need graded assessments more than daily chat.

Disco is built for learning programs, which makes it a fit for a narrower group of Skool users: coaches and training businesses that run cohorts, accelerators or customer education. The Create plan costs $399 a month billed annually, or $499 monthly, and includes one branded learning academy, unlimited learning products, programs, pathways, events and community chat, rich member profiles and a directory, Disco AI and MCP, automations, and reporting. It covers 250 active members with 100 hours of video storage and 400 hours of streaming a month, and support includes a live onboarding workshop and weekly office hours. Scale starts at $999 a month and adds multiple academies, email white-labeling, API and webhooks, SSO, branded mobile apps and a dedicated success manager. Integrations cover Slack, Zoom, Stripe and Google Analytics. For an open, growing community the member cap and price are hard to justify; for a high-ticket cohort program they are easier to absorb.