If you’re planning to build a business around courses and/or community, you might have come across the platform Skool.

Maybe you were invited by a friend wanting to earn from Skool’s affiliate program, or maybe you saw a social media ad. Or maybe you’ve already tried Skool and hit some limits compared to other community platforms.

Skool has a few really cool features. People can discover a community from the dashboard. There’s some simple gamification that can boost engagement.

But most Skool users hit the limits. The fact that it’s missing features many competitors have. That the UX is intentionally basic and you can’t really add your own brand.

In this article, we’ll share 9 great Skool alternatives, and help you figure out which is the best for you.

Skool is a community forum that was started by the internet figure Sam Ovens.

Skool includes discoverable communities, forum conversations, gamification, member payments, live calls, and a course platform. It also added a broadcast livestream feature. For content options, Skool lets you post, add videos, links, polls, or GIFs. It has both "likes" and "watch" features to upvote or follow interesting posts.

Skool has some community gamification features to encourage members to engage–by climbing them up levels as they do. It also has an affiliate program, so users earn from signing up new potential community hosts.

• "Hobby Plan" - $7.50/mo + 10% fee (billed annually)

• Pro - $82/mo + 2.9% transaction fee

There's not much of a difference between them, except the Hobby Plan is missing custom URLs and the affiliate program.

The $9/mo plan ($7.50 on yearly billing) is among the lowest of any community platform, but the transaction fees add up. They take 10% of your revenue on top of the plan. For example, if you make $1,000 on this plan, you would pay Skool $109/mo ($100 transaction fee + $9 platform fee).

• Skool is intentionally simple, which can be useful for testing a community quickly. But it may feel limiting if you need deeper branding, more flexible content organization, advanced course tools, native events, or more control over the member experience.

• You can't subdivide conversations or organize content, which makes it hard to grow large communities. Even the biggest groups on Skool just show a running post list.

• The course UX is really simple, it doesn't have features like dripping, evaluation, or quiz options that other platforms have.

• You can't grow your own brand, and members are being shown other competitor communities.

• The app is glitchy, with users reporting problems accessing courses and content.

• Essential community features like advanced discussion tools, better member profiles, more content options (e.g. livestreaming, audio), search and discovery.

• A better course engine with support for live and async courses (as needed), plus progress tracking, assignments, quizzes, content drops, and live teaching tools.

• More monetization options with bundles, flexible pricing, better offer-building (events, livestreams, coaching), and more ways to profit from affiliates and referrals.

• Built-in AI engagement tools like AI matching, conversation starters, new member journeys, improved gamification, automations, and unlocks.

• More branding options to own your community and build with a look and feel you love (and maybe a branded app).

Best community and course business platform

Mighty Networks is G2's top-ranked community platform, bringing together communities, courses, and live events in a way that lets you earn. Here's how this works in practice.

Communities:

• A community feature set with a customized activity feed, every kind of short and long-form content you could want, member profiles, chat, forums, messaging, polls, and more.

• AI community platform built for engagement–it automates without killing your creativity: think auto profiles, connecting you to similar members, helping you know what to say, and generating questions.

• Collaborative gamification built with recognitions, streaks, leader boards, and automations.

• Sell memberships, packages, coaching, masterminds, and courses and build bundles, choosing from 135 different currencies, or even monetizing with token-gating.

Courses:

• An intuitive and powerful LMS with UX that makes building a course simple–add in all kinds of content, discussions on each module, and customize the feel.

• Teach live with native livestreaming, including discussion and multi-speaker view.

• Flexible course spaces that can hold discussions, member profiles, live events w/ RSVP, assignments, and more

Add in awesome native apps for every device or even branded apps with Mighty Pro AND a built-in Kit integration and you've got a community platform like no other.

When we compare Mighty and Skool, the main difference is what each is built for:

• Skool is intentionally simple. And it starts at a lower cost, from $9/mo + 10% fees. This can work for testing a community idea quickly.

• On the other hand, Mighty Networks has a lot of features Skool doesn't. Mighty uses AI that's designed to boost engagement and connect members, and its gamification is more advanced. And it has a full course platform, full virtual events, as well as the option to build under your own brand with branded apps.

Mighty Networks is strongest for creators who want to build a paid community with courses, events, livestreaming, and more control under your own brand.

Best free community builder

If you're looking for a free alternative to Skool for building a free community, Discord is a great option. It has a forum engine that's way more powerful and better-developed than Skool's, with a simpler UI.

Discord is good for organizing large discussions with a feature set that includes hashtags and channels (including voice channels), GIFs, stickers, and a bunch of other short and long-form content options.

Discord also has video streaming and events in a way that Skool doesn't. It was built for gamers, so it comes with a solid integration set for screen-sharing for shared watching or gaming.

If you're monetizing a community, Discord gets a bit tricky–it's not really built for memberships–and definitely doesn't do courses. You can apply for a partner program and–if accepted–you can sell memberships (from which Discord takes a 10% cut).

Discord isn't the right choice for a paid community. But it's fantastic as a free place to chat and game.

Comparing Discord vs. Skool, Discord is a much more powerful forum engine. It's quicker for threading, better at organizing complex material, and has slicker UX. The integration with game play is great too, making it one of the best options for streaming games.

Discord is free, with the exception of optional Nitro Boosts. It's a stronger alternative to Skool for free communities.

Best course marketing platform

We mentioned Skool's weaknesses with courses above, and Kajabi is another good alternative for course-specific needs. Kajabi also has the best marketing funnels for selling courses.

Course platform: Kajabi has a really good course platform (LMS) for pre-recorded courses. It comes with lots of tools for building an engaging course, including content options and templates, assignments and quizzes, and dripping content.

Marketing funnels: This is where Kajabi really excels. Users can create and customize landing pages, choose from different funnels and opt-in templates and presets. With integrated email and customizable landing pages, Kajabi has a lot to offer for building out marketing sequences.

Community: Kajabi isn't as strong on community. For a long time Kajabi simply had a basic discussion forum. It added a platform called Community 2.0, which gives chat rooms, video calling, and some other community features. However, the community software was added after the fact to the platform. Because of this, the UX is awkward and it's not integrated well into the course platform.

Creators focused primarily on community often find Kajabi's community features fall short of dedicated platforms. Kajabi also requires 2 different apps: one to access a community and one to manage it.

When it comes to Kajabi vs. Skool, here's how they break down:

• Skool prides itself on marketing, but is intentionally basic. It's missing any real landing pages, funnels, or marketing tools. Kajabi excels at these.

• Kajabi's course platform is much better than Skool's, with lots of options for building content, quizzes, dripping lessons, etc.

Best for simple, space-based communities with website and email

Circle is another community platform that can be used to monetize memberships. It can add discussion forums, courses, and events. Circle has livestreaming built-in, as well as a basic website builder and an optional email add-in. This makes Circle a strong alternative to Skool.

Circle has a suite of gamification tools for adding rewards and hosting leaderboards, and you can also add automations. And it has member profiles for browsing who's in the community. Circle has also been adding AI community features. So far these are focused on content creation and moderation. It has an AI agent that can be used to answer members' questions–but note, it's only available on Circle's most expensive plan.

Circle has payment infrastructure built-in, so you can sell memberships, courses, and events, or bundle any of these. And Circle can be heavily customized or deployed on a branded app with Circle Plus.

A few limitations to note. Circle doesn't let you add multiple features to a Space. And Circle has extra costs associated with adding admin, Spaces, email, etc.

All in all, Circle is a good community platform alternative to Skool.

When it comes to Skool vs. Circle, Circle is a full community platform with better features than Skool and the option to build under your own brand. Circle has AI agents, AI Copilot, and workflows, plus an email hub and basic website builder. It's a much more robust platform than Skool.

However, it costs considerably more than Skool, especially since the best features are only available on the more expensive plans.

Rising AI community platform

Heartbeat is a relatively new contender, an all-in-one community platform that brings courses, events, discussions, payments, and workflows. It's built for coaches, and works well for most creator communities. It has a much more developed feature set than Skool, with AI built around member connections.

Heartbeat's AI tools are the standout feature. With an AI community co-builder, onboarding flows, discussion prompts, instant event setup and member matching, it brings a lot of functionality to community building. Heartbeat is one of the stronger AI-forward Skool alternatives, especially for onboarding, discussion prompts, event setup, and member matching.

Heartbeat has apps for every device, and you can opt for a branded app option on higher tiers.

A few downsides to note. Heartbeat has a lot of negative reviews on their apps, with customers noting streaming issues, and limited text formatting, and admin tools. All this points to a new platform that's got some great ideas but also some bugs in the software that still need to be ironed out.

When we compare Heartbeat vs. Skool, Heartbeat is a genuinely better community platform–even as a new software. It has comprehensive AI matching and better events tools. It's also competitively priced compared to Skool, making it a serious contender as an alternative.

Best for forums on corporate websites

Bettermode is a white-label community platform built for businesses that want to add customer or brand communities to their websites. It creates a discussion module that can be organized into relevant spaces and members can post content. There's also a useful "explore" option to help find interesting content.

Bettermode can be white-labeled and deployed completely under a company's brand, with a custom domain and website builder. And it has useful membership management features that help connect users by common interests, locations, etc.

Bettermode is a great option for a customer community on a corporate website.

Bettermode is designed specifically for customer communities embedded on your website. It's genuinely enterprise-grade and used by Lenovo, Mercedes-Benz, IBM, HubSpot, and Samsung, with SOC 2/GDPR/CCPA compliance.

However, it's not built for monetizing community or creator businesses. There are very few monetization options and no apps. By contrast, Skool is designed for monetizing hobby communities.

Great workplace-focused discussions

Slack is technically a workplace platform, but some people are choosing to retool it as a community platform–and it has some of the features that make it work. Like Skool, it can host conversations and community activities, but it's way more powerful–with built-in threads, DMs, mentions, etc. plus integrated file sharing and uploads.

While it doesn't really have events, Slack does have huddles which work for small groups and 1:1 video and audio conversations.

Slack is familiar, since a lot of people already use it for work. It's missing some of the complexity of a community platform. For example:

• It has simple member profiles–work colleagues don't need to get to know each other the same way community members do.

• It doesn't have monetization features at all since it's built for the office.

• Slack doesn't really do native video or long-form content.

• It gets very expensive if you grow beyond the free plan. It starts from $8.75/mo per user as you grow.

Slack has some really hard limits on the free plan, which catch up quickly for hobby users. Most people are better off opting for a community platform.

When we compare Slack vs. Skool, Slack is a workplace tool. It can be used for communities, and actually has much more powerful content and conversation features than Skool. But it has no real monetization or events, and member profiles aren't built for communities. Skool is purpose-built software for paid communities, but isn't as well designed.

Branded-app-first community platform

Disciple is a Skool alternative that's made for building mobile-first communities. It's built with activity feeds, Q&As, discussion forums, and the capacity for video, text, and image-based content. And the member-management features are good too, much better than Skool's–manage subscriptions, host and plan events, and deal with member communications. You can gate content behind a paywall and bundle different benefits too, allowing you to scale a community business.

Like Mighty, Circle, and Kajabi, it also comes with branded mobile apps so that your community can be deployed on your own brand. However, unlike these platforms, branded apps come on all plans. This means higher costs across the board for the platform. And even with these high costs, the lowest tier still say "Powered by Disciple." The other platforms have options for both self-serve and branded software.

Disciple also isn't strong for web access. Mobile first is a great option, but there are still members using the web who want to access it.

When we compare Disciple vs. Skool, Disciple's core offer is fully branded native mobile apps in the App Store and Google Play, with your company listed as the developer. This is something Skool doesn't do at all. It only has the Skool app. Disciple also has good community features, but rather limited compared to the other community platforms on this list.

Free discussion forums

Finally, Reddit is an option for a Skool alternative. Reddit's features are closer to Skool's than any community platform. It creates a running conversation around one topic. Reddit has the benefit of being much more widely used–communities on reddit can access millions of users. And it has a way to discover communities much like Skool. And if you're running a free community, it's probably easier to get people there than on Skool.

The content options are better, with up- and down- voting, and it has more structure for reading text-based content.

The downsides of Reddit are that, as a social media platform, monetization is trickier than a dedicated community platform.

When it comes to Reddit vs. Skool, Reddit offers much better discussion forums with better threading, up- and down-voting, and more intuitive UX. There are millions of users already, and it's a fantastic place to host conversations. However, Reddit is difficult to monetize and doesn't have the built-in payment and digital gating tools that Skool has.

If you need to get your course and/or community off Skool, here are the steps to take.

Step 1: Audit your existing community and/or courses. What's working? Is your Ideal Member still right? Identify what you want to take forward to a better platform.

Step 2: Check out the Skool alternatives. What do they give you that Skool doesn't? How can you level up your offers?

Step 3: Export your members' emails from a list or CSV. Skool lets you do this. If you're also active on social media, work to move your members onto your email list (instead of into your Skool community).

Step 4: Set up your new plans and populate your Skool alternative with your own branding and any content, courses, etc. that you want to bring over.

Step 5: Announce the move in your Skool community, by email, and on social media (if applicable). Point members toward your new community with a clear offer or invite link.

Step 6: Plan a welcome event on your new platform. It could be a mini conference, livestream, live chat, or something else. Give people a reason to make the jump! You could even offer bonuses or freebies to the early adopters.

Step 7: Adjust all your existing socials and your Skool community to point to the new platform. Create your content there, and keep emailing members to remind them to join.

Step 8: Stop posting and creating on Skool. Focus entirely on your new space. Cross posting will hurt the engagement on your new platform and reduce the chances of members moving.

Note that some platforms offer free migration support. You can apply for a migration to Mighty Networks.

The best Skool alternative depends on what you want to build. If you need a paid community platform with courses, events, livestreaming, member engagement tools, and branded app options, Mighty Networks is worth considering.

Here are some of the incredible results we've seen:

• An entrepreneur community that made over $30,000 in a 2-week launch.

• An author & speaker's 4-week promotion led to an extra $30,000 in revenue.

• A high-ticket launch added $40,000 in ARR.

• A podcaster and author sold 5,000 seats to a $997 course in 10 days to existing members.

• A community added $100k in revenue with a 13-week add-on course.

Mighty gives you the tools to build a powerful community business. Try it free for 14 days!

Mighty Networks offers a full suite of gamification features that are more comprehensive than Skool's. With things like new member journeys, challenges and unlocks, points and recognitions, streaks and habit trackers, you can gamify more of your members' experience. This leads to better engagement and less churn.

We gave a guide above, but here are a few nuts and bolts for what to export:

• Manually download any content and posts you want to carry over into a new community.

• Export your member email list (that's really all you can do).

• Rebuild any content or courses you want to carry over. Since Skool doesn't have native video hosting, you can probably reuse links to YouTube, Wistia, or Vimeo if you choose.

• Both have a similar basic principle of organizing communities around forum discussions, but Mighty has a lot more power under the hood. Mighty runs on Spaces, customizable content containers that can hold 9 types of content (including forums and courses). You can start from templates or customize a Space.

• Mighty admin is made easier by the AI cohost that will prompt you through key community setup. You can also use AI for your Big Purpose, community branding, profiles, conversation starters, and course outlines.

• Members typically adapt well to better content organization (Spaces), and more control over what they see and notifications.

• There are lots of onboarding resources, as well as the option to set up a new member welcome checklist (which you absolutely should do!). This gets members up to speed.

Of the options above, several have native mobile apps. For example:

• Mighty Networks has a beautiful, responsive app for every device. It can be customized and deployed under your own brand, with in-app purchasing of plans.

• Discord has a native app for every device, but it's not customizable and has very limited monetization.

• Kajabi has a mobile app and offers branded apps.

Mighty Networks offers a premium, white-label app under your own brand. Mighty Pro has built apps for some of the world's top creators, people like Tony Robbins, Gary Vaynerchuk, Marie Forleo, and Matthew Hussey. More info here!