Skool vs Teachable: Where the 10% and the 7.5% Actually Bite
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Both charge a percentage of your sales on their entry plan. Which one costs less depends on how much you sell. Teachable read 9 September 2026; Skool read 30 August 2026.
By Jack Gandolfo · Reviewed
Last updated
Pricing verified Sep 9, 2026 — Teachable Starter $39/month with 7.5% transaction fee and Builder $89/month read from teachable.com/pricing on 9 September 2026. Skool's $9/$99 plans and 10%/2.9% fees read from skool.com/pricing on 30 August 2026. Reported figures, not collector captures.
Direct answer: Teachable is a course platform with a community bolted on. Skool is a community platform with a classroom bolted on. If your product is the lessons, Teachable. If your product is the group, Skool.
Price, side by side
| Skool | Teachable | |
|---|---|---|
| Entry plan | $9/mo (Hobby) | $39/mo (Starter) |
| Next tier | $99/mo (Pro) | $89/mo (Builder) |
| Cut of sales on entry plan | 10% | 7.5% transaction fee |
| Cut on the higher tier | 2.9% on Pro | Not stated as a transaction fee on Builder |
| Price read | 30 Aug 2026 | 9 Sep 2026 |
Teachable publishes further tiers above Builder; we priced the two plans most people actually compare against Skool.
The fee arithmetic
On $1,000 a month of sales:
- Skool Hobby: $9 + 10% = $109
- Skool Pro: $99 + 2.9% = $128
- Teachable Starter: $39 + 7.5% = $114
- Teachable Builder: $89 + no stated transaction fee = $89
On $3,000 a month:
- Skool Hobby: $9 + $300 = $309
- Skool Pro: $99 + $87 = $186
- Teachable Starter: $39 + $225 = $264
- Teachable Builder: $89
The pattern is the same on both platforms: the percentage plan is a trap once you sell anything meaningful, and the flat plan wins earlier than most people upgrade. Teachable Builder at $89 is the cheapest of the four above roughly $670 a month in sales, purely on the printed numbers. The break-even between Skool's own two plans is worked through on our Skool pricing page.
What the money does not tell you
- Teachable is built around course delivery: curriculum, drip, quizzes, certificates, coupons, upsells. Its community features are secondary to that.
- Skool is built around a single feed with a classroom next to it. There is no drip-heavy curriculum builder, no marketing email, no funnels. That constraint is deliberate and is the reason people either stay for years or leave in a month.
If your buyers finish a course and go quiet, Teachable is fine. If the reason they pay is that other members are there, Skool is the product that reflects it.
Who should pick which
- Selling a self-paced course — Teachable, and go to Builder rather than Starter as soon as you clear a few hundred dollars a month.
- Running a paid group where discussion is the value — Skool.
- Both — pick the one matching the thing people actually pay for; running two platforms doubles the admin and splits the audience.
What we could not verify
We did not find a stated transaction fee on Teachable's Builder plan and are not assuming zero beyond what the pricing page prints. Plans change; each vendor's pricing page is authoritative over this one.
Read next
- Skool alternatives — six platforms priced against Skool
- Skool vs Discord
- Skool vs Kajabi
- Is Skool worth it?
Questions
Is Teachable cheaper than Skool?
It depends on sales volume. On $1,000 a month, Skool Hobby costs $109 all-in, Teachable Starter $114, Skool Pro $128 and Teachable Builder $89. On $3,000 a month Teachable Builder is $89 against Skool Pro at $186. Prices read from Teachable on 9 September 2026 and Skool on 30 August 2026.
What is Teachable's transaction fee?
Teachable's pricing page prints a 7.5 percent transaction fee on the Starter plan at $39 a month. Builder at $89 a month does not print a transaction fee. Read 9 September 2026.
Does Skool have courses like Teachable?
Skool includes a classroom area next to the community feed, but it does not offer the course-delivery depth Teachable is built around, such as extensive drip scheduling, quizzes and certificates.
Should I use Skool or Teachable for a paid community?
Skool, if discussion between members is the reason people pay. Teachable is organised around course delivery, with community features secondary.
What real users are saying — updated Aug 31, 2026
Source: Trustpilot · observed external data
51 of 51 reviews on the Trustpilot profile, pulled Aug 31, 2026, covering Feb 2, 2024 to Aug 25, 2026. This is a small sample, so treat the percentages as indicative rather than precise.
Trustpilot rating: 1.7 / 5 (mean of the retrieved reviews: 1.59)
- 5★ — 6 reviews (12%)
- 3★ — 1 review (2%)
- 2★ — 4 reviews (8%)
- 1★ — 40 reviews (78%)
Most-mentioned themes, counted across the 51 retrieved reviews
- Support slow, unhelpful or silent — 16 reviews (31%)
- Hard to cancel or unsubscribe — 12 reviews (24%)
- Refund refused or unresolved — 11 reviews (22%)
- Dispute with the community owner, not the platform itself — 10 reviews (20%)
- Charges the reviewer says they did not authorise — 9 reviews (18%)
Themes are matched by keyword against the stored review text. Each count is a count of specific reviews, not a summary of them, and the matched reviews are stored so every figure here can be checked.
I paid $19.00 for a membership in a community hosted on Skool ("%1 YouTube Kulübü") on August 6, 2026. After finding the course quality unsatisfactory, I requested a refund directly from the community owner. Instead of responding, the owner cancelled my membership and removed me from the group — without issuing any ref
— 1★ on Trustpilot, Aug 25, 2026
Cult-ish. Poor customer service. Public humiliation. A Black Hole. The CEO does not acknowledge Skool community owners as paying customers = so they don't have any quality customer service skills either. Skool does not allow us to leave reviews, but they recently forced a review feature onto our communities. Althoug
— 1★ on Trustpilot, Aug 13, 2026
Excelente oportunidad, tengo una comunidad llamada Skool David Mentoría y esta espectacilar su plataforma de skool, buenas herramientas muy sencillas.
— 5★ on Trustpilot, Apr 5, 2026
Important context: many of these reviews appear to come from members of paid communities rather than community owners, so the reviewer population may not represent Skool's primary customer base. That selection effect could influence the rating, but it does not invalidate the complaints themselves. Trustpilot's own profile count for www.skool.com was also 51 at the time of the pull.