Skool is an online course creation and community building platform that has gained popularity due to its simple and user-friendly design. The platform prides itself on providing a seamless user experience with fast performance and sleek design that keeps students engaged.
However, Skool has some limitations that may not work for some creators' needs such as the lack of native video hosting, minimal customization options, lack of essential learning tools such as quizzes, assessments, and more. The flat $99 per month pricing is also quite expensive for smaller creators.
Whatever your reason for looking for Skool alternatives is, this article provides the top 7 alternatives to Skool in 2025 that address each of these Skool limitations to help you find the best platform for your needs.
1. SchoolMaker
SchoolMaker is an online course and coaching platform designed for creators who value simplicity, and want better student results. While Skool focuses on merging community and course content in one place, SchoolMaker focuses on an accountability-driven approach to drive better student outcomes.
Skool’s strength lies in creating community-first experiences and that works well for casual learning but falls short when it comes to structured learning and coaching. SchoolMaker, on the other hand, is intentionally designed for results-driven programs, where student progress and completion rates matter more than likes or comments.
Advantages Over Skool
- Lower Pricing: SchoolMaker’s pricing starts at $29 per month with zero transaction fees while Skool has a flat $99 per month price.
- Coaching & Accountability Tools: SchoolMaker comes ready for serious educators, offering tools for tracking student progress, automating check-ins, and managing one on one or group sessions.
- Distraction-Free Learning: Unlike Skool that prioritizes community feeds and discussion threads, SchoolMaker keeps the interface clean and focused which helps learners avoid the distraction of constant social interaction and helps them stay on track.
- Integrated Scheduling: Creators can schedule coaching calls or feedback sessions directly within SchoolMaker, which works excellently for hybrid learning models.
- Outcome-Driven: SchoolMaker helps creators deliver programs that drive real change in student’s lives. Every feature supports learning and implementation, not just participation.
Skool’s Advantages Over SchoolMaker
- Community-First Features: For those who prefer community learning, Skool outshines SchoolMaker with peer interaction, community engagement, and social learning tools such as its built-in forum, gamification, and group learning.
- Easier Setup: For creators who just want to set up a community and course with minimal tech setup, Skool is simpler to handle than SchoolMaker because it requires intentional design around structure and outcomes.
Best For
SchoolMaker is best for coaches, consultants, and educators who want to deliver training programs that better their students’ lives. If you want to offer a learning experience that prioritizes course completion, accountability, and coaching, not just community, SchoolMaker is the best choice.
2. Kajabi
Kajabi is a powerhouse for digital creators because it offers far more than basic course creation and community features. While Skool focuses on simplicity and community interaction, Kajabi is designed for creators who want an all-in-one tool for marketing, content delivery, website design, email automation, and monetization.
Skool is built with creators who prioritize community and learner engagement, making it easy to start a group and add course content but its simplicity can become an issue for creators who need sales tools, a branded website, or email marketing automation. Kajabi outshines Skool for creators who need an all-in-one platform.
Advantages Over Skool
Comprehensive Business Tools: Kajabi has website hosting, blogging, email marketing, sales funnels and more built-in, eliminating the need to pay subscriptions for other tools.
Branded User Experience: Kajabi allows you to fully customize your site and product pages for a fully branded experience based on your brand identity.
Advanced Automation: Kajabi provides useful automation features such as sending reminders, offering upsells, or segmenting users,
Built-In Monetization Features: Kajabi supports multiple product types, courses, memberships, coaching, and digital downloads, all with flexible pricing options like subscriptions, one-time payments, and payment plans.
Skool’s Advantages Over Kajabi
Ease of Use: Kajabi’s many features means that it takes some time to fully master the platform while Skool’s simplicity makes it quite easy to launch.
Community Engagement: Skool is built for social learning and its built-in forum, gamification, and community feed features make it more interactive than Kajabi.
Predictable Flat Pricing: Skool’s $99/month pricing is simple and all-inclusive. Kajabi’s multiple pricing plans can be difficult to understand and may get more expensive as your user base grows. Kajabi is also generally more expensive than Skool with its lowest pricing plan going for $71/month on the annual plan.
Best For
Kajabi is a good choice for digital entrepreneurs, coaches, and creators who want to build and grow a fully branded, revenue-generating online business with courses, marketing funnels, and automation.
3. Circle
Circle is a top learning platform for building online communities, it provides a highly customizable experience for creators who want to host discussions, deliver content, and build membership products. Like Skool, Circle is built around community engagement, but it provides more flexibility which make it a creator favorite.
Compared to Skool which offers an all-in-one structure with built-in courses and community feeds, Circle is more like a blank slate that gives creators the tools to build their communities exactly how they want it.
Advantages Over Skool
Customizable Communities: Circle allows you to create multiple “Spaces” and organize them by topic, access level, or membership tier. This makes it far more flexible than Skool’s single-feed format.
Branded Look & Feel: While Skool has a uniform design across all communities, Circle allows more branding freedom enabling users pick their own color scheme, add custom domains, and customize the design to fit their brand.
Easy Integrations: Circle integrates seamlessly with tools like Zapier, Stripe, Slack, and Notion while Skool is more limited in terms of third-party integrations.
Multiple Community Types: With Circle, users can run several communities under one account such as public spaces, private masterminds, alumni groups, or paid memberships while Skool supports only one community per workspace, which is a problem if you serve multiple audiences.
Skool’s Advantages Over Circle
Simpler User Experience: Skool’s product is easier to use as it was built with simplicity in mind.
Lower Pricing: While Circle offers a cheaper entry plan than Skool (starts at $89/month vs Skool’s $99/month), its higher plans are way more expensive and all incur varying transaction fees. With Skool’s flat pricing, it may be cheaper in the long term for users who need just one community.
Best For
Circle is perfect for community builders who want better customization options, those running membership programs or hosting multiple cohorts. If you are looking for a platform that gives you more control, flexibility, and room to grow, Circle stands out as a top Skool alternative in 2025.
4. Mighty Networks
Mighty Networks was built to empower creators, coaches, and brands to build thriving communities, host online courses, and offer membership programs, all within a single, customizable platform. While Skool promotes a clean, simple space for courses and community discussion, Mighty Networks offers more flexibility, better engagement features, and custom mobile apps that help improve the member experience.
Skool is well known for its minimalist design and limited customization while Mighty Networks lets you create an immersive, branded experience with multiple content types, member tiers and live events.
Advantages Over Skool
All-in-One Platform with Native Apps: Mighty Networks provides community, courses, events, and memberships in one place. It also provides iOS and Android apps that can be customized to your brand on higher tiers.
Advanced Community Structuring: While Skool offers only a single community, Mighty Networks allows you to create multiple spaces for different groups, programs, or course topics which makes it better for managing complex communities, tiers, or memberships.
Brand Customization & Design: Creators on Mighty can fully brand their community with custom logos, colors, and even domain names.
Flexible Monetization Options: Supports multiple payment models such as subscriptions, one-time purchases, bundles, and member access tiers, making it easy to scale revenue streams.
Skool’s Advantages Over Mighty Networks
Simplicity & Speed: Skool shines in its ease of use, just plug in your course, launch your community, and go. Mighty Networks, while powerful, comes with a steeper learning curve and more time required for setup.
Flat, Affordable Pricing: At $99/month, Skool includes all core features. Mighty Networks’ pricing starts lower at $41/month, but quickly becomes way more expensive on higher plans.
Best For
Mighty Networks is best for creators, educators, and community builders who want to offer an experience that goes beyond courses. It’s ideal for businesses looking to combine learning, networking, and paid memberships all in one sleek, mobile-friendly environment. On the other hand, if you just want simplicity and basic community features, Skool is a better option.
5. Teachable
Teachable is a well-established platform in the online course industry, trusted by thousands of creators to deliver high-quality, on-demand learning experiences. Unlike Skool, which blends course delivery with community engagement in a single interface, Teachable focuses on content creation, course monetization, and student experience, making it a top choice for educators who want a clean, professional setup without the need for community-first features.
While Skool is built to replicate the vibe of a social group with learning baked in, Teachable is the opposite: it’s all about the course. You get excellent tools for building your course end-to-end.
Advantages Over Skool
Built for Online Courses: Teachable was built with instructors in mind and so it offers powerful features like quizzes, course completion certificates, and lecture-based formatting that is more advanced than Skool’s basic course creation features.
Flexible Pricing and Monetization: Creators on Teachable can offer one-time payments, subscriptions, bundles, and even affiliate programs.
Advanced Student Management: Teachable includes tools for managing refunds, compliance, student progress reports, and email automation. It is ideal for those who want control over the entire course lifecycle.
Built-In Payment Processing: With Teachable Payments, you can easily accept payments globally, manage taxes, and even pay out affiliates.
Skool’s Advantages Over Teachable
Community Engagement: Skool is excellent at building a connected learning environment that places student interaction, group discussion, and peer accountability at the forefront.
Integrated Community & Course Experience: Skool combines forums, events, and courses in one place which makes it easier to build a community around learning.
Best For
Teachable is great for solo creators, teachers, and entrepreneurs who want to build and grow professional online courses without the stress of running a community while Skool is excellent for creators building community-led learning experiences.
6. Thinkific
Thinkific is a professional course platform built to help creators, educators, and businesses launch, market, and grow their courses. While Skool focuses on simplicity and community-first experiences, Thinkific takes a more enterprise-ready approach, offering powerful course customization, branded learning environments, and detailed student analytics.
If your goal is to deliver properly structured, high-quality learning content and you’re less concerned about having a built-in community, Thinkific is the better solution.
Advantages Over Skool
Cheaper Starting Price: Thinkific’s pricing starts at $36/month compared to Skool’s flat $99/month pricing plan.
Powerful Course Design Tools: Thinkific includes features like drip scheduling, quizzes, prerequisites, certificates, and multimedia support, far beyond Skool’s lightweight course system.
Complete Branding Control: With Thinkific, you can customize your course website with your own branding, domain name, and design layout, something not possible on Skool, where every community looks and feels the same.
Integrated Marketing Features: Thinkific supports advanced sales tools like coupons, upsells, order bumps, and affiliate marketing, perfect for creators focused on growth and revenue. Skool offers none of these built-in.
No Forced Community Model: Not every course needs a discussion feed or forum. Thinkific lets you offer a clean, distraction-free learning experience, while Skool is tightly centered around community interaction whether you need it or not.
Skool’s Advantages Over Thinkific
Built-In Community Experience: If your program relies heavily on peer engagement, discussion, or social learning, Skool’s forum-style interface makes community a natural part of the experience. With Thinkific, you’ll need to integrate a third-party tool for community features.
Simpler Setup: Skool makes it easy to launch quickly without making a lot of design or structural decisions. Thinkific is more flexible but requires more setup time and proper planning.
Flat Monthly Pricing: Skool’s $99/month plan includes everything while Thinkific has multiple pricing tiers and, depending on your plan, may lock certain features.
Best For
Thinkific is best for educators, coaches, and organizations that want to create polished, professional learning experiences such as those building a corporate training academy, an online school, or a complex course business while Skool is a great pick for those who value simplicity and built-in community.
7. Podia
Podia is an all-in-one creator monetization product designed for creators who want to sell online courses, digital products, memberships, and coaching, without the need for multiple software. While Skool focuses on the community + course model, Podia focuses on providing all the necessary tools for creators to maximize income from their audience.
With Podia, you can create courses, launch a website, send emails, and even host webinars, all from a single dashboard.
Advantages Over Skool
More value for money: Podia starts at a low priced $33/month Mover plan with 5% transaction fees and offers multiple product capabilities such as website, online store, email marketing, blogging and more while Skool has a flat $99/month price that offers only course creation and one community.
Sell More Than Just Courses: With Podia, you can sell digital downloads, webinars, coaching sessions, and memberships in addition to courses. Skool limits you to courses and community, with no built-in tools for other product types.
Built-In Email Marketing: Podia includes a full email marketing suite with broadcasts, sequences, and segmentation, perfect for launching products and nurturing students. Skool doesn’t offer email marketing at all.
Simple Website Builder: Podia includes a clean, beginner-friendly website builder to create landing pages, sales pages, and full storefronts, something Skool lacks entirely.
Integrated Payment Processing & Checkout: Podia handles payments, subscriptions, and even upsells directly through its platform, with no need for extra checkout tools or integrations.
Skool’s Advantages Over Podia
Stronger Community Features: Skool’s forum-style discussion and gamification are far more advanced than Podia’s basic commenting or community spaces. If your program thrives on peer to peer learning, Skool delivers a better experience.
More Cohort-Friendly: Skool works well for live group programs and coaching programs while Podia is better for evergreen content and self-paced learning.
Flat Pricing for All Features: Skool offers all its core features for $99/month while Podia has multiple price plans, and some key features (like affiliate marketing or custom code) are only available on higher plans.
Best For
Podia is best for creators who want a simple platform to sell courses and other digital products and don’t care much for community features while Skool is best for community-first course creators.
Conclusion
In conclusion, choosing the best alternative to Skool depends on your needs. Alternatives like SchoolMaker work best for course creators and coaches who want their students to achieve excellent results from their training while alternatives like Podia and Kajabi work well for creators who want an all-in-one creator monetization tool.
Most of these platforms offer a free trial, my advice is that you pick the ones that best suit your needs and use their free trial before you make a conclusion on which one to stick with.
(can change CTA here to "start free trial")
