We build Prolaud, so we're not a neutral referee. The figures below can be checked against Skool's own pricing page, and the section on where Skool wins is not a throwaway: for a large share of creators it is the honest answer.
Skool is the one competitor we will not hand-wave. The group feed is sticky, the gamification works, and live calls are unlimited on both plans. If your product is a community, Skool is a fair answer and we say so below. Teachers come to us when the class is the product. Then they want a whiteboard in the room, quizzes built for test prep, attendance that feeds a progress score, certificates at the end, and a storefront that sells more than one thing. They also want buyers to pay into their own account: on Skool, payments run through Skool, with a 10% transaction fee on Hobby and 2.9% on Pro (as of October 2026).
Skool
Today
Prolaud
From day one
The honest verdict
Prolaud is the stronger Skool alternative if your product is a class and not a community. Skool is very good at what it does: one simple group, a gamified feed that keeps people coming back, and unlimited live calls on both plans. On community it is the harder product to beat. The differences are money and teaching depth. Skool's pricing page lists a 10% transaction fee on the $9 Hobby plan and 2.9% on the $99 Pro plan (as of October 2026), and payments run through Skool, not through your own account. On Pro that rate is in the range of an ordinary card-processing fee, so the fee matters most on Hobby. Prolaud takes 0% of your sales on every plan including the free Starter plan; buyers pay into your own Stripe or Razorpay account and you pay only your processor's standard fee. It also adds what a community tool does not carry: a multiplayer whiteboard, test-prep quizzes, certificates, and attendance that feeds a score showing who is slipping. Skool remains the better choice when the community is the product.
Why teachers and creators move on
We've onboarded teachers from every category of platform. These are the same complaints, again and again.
Skool's pricing page lists a 10% transaction fee on the $9 Hobby plan and 2.9% on the $99 Pro plan (as of October 2026). On Pro that is in the range of an ordinary card-processing fee; on Hobby it is a real share of every sale. Neither plan reaches zero.
You do not connect your own payment account. Skool collects from the buyer and pays you out, so the money passes through the platform before it reaches you.
Skool's model is a single community with courses inside it. Selling a 1:1 coaching slot, a webinar seat, a digital download or a bundle, each priced and found separately, is not the shape of the product.
Skool handles the live call well. What is not there is the teaching surface around it: a multiplayer whiteboard with grade-band templates, test-prep quiz templates, or attendance that feeds a score and shows who is about to drop out.
There is no certificate designer and no public verification page an employer can check. For skills teaching, where the credential is part of what the student is buying, that is a gap they will feel at the end of the cohort, not the start.
What you get instead
Skool is deliberately one thing done simply: a group with courses and calls in it. Prolaud is the teaching business around the class: a storefront with several product types, a live room with a whiteboard, quizzes, certificates with a public verification page, engagement analytics, a CRM and marketing automation, all against one student record.
On Skool, payments run through Skool and reach you as a payout. On Prolaud you connect your own Stripe or Razorpay account and the buyer pays you directly. We never hold the money, and your processor's dashboard shows every sale.
Your students, courses, orders and certificates export to CSV or JSON on every plan, free Starter included. There is no upgrade-to-export gate.
Skool lists a transaction fee on both plans: 10% on Hobby at $9 a month and 2.9% on Pro at $99 a month (skool.com/pricing, as of October 2026). Prolaud takes 0% on every plan, including the free Starter plan; you pay your payment processor's standard fee and nothing to us beyond the plan. Against Skool Pro the difference per sale is small. Against Hobby it is most of the fee.
Free Starter plan, no time limit · No credit card
Side by side
Each cell reflects the rival's public pricing and feature pages when this page was last reviewed; dated figures say when. Hover any “partial” row for the caveat.
| Feature | Skool | Prolaud |
|---|---|---|
0% of your sales taken by the platform No per-sale cut by the platform, on any plan. | ||
Paid into your own payment account Your own Stripe or Razorpay account; the platform never holds the money. | ||
Native live room Host the session in the platform, with no third-party seat. | ||
Community feed + gamification Posts, leaderboard, member directory. | ||
Multiplayer teaching whiteboard Grade-band templates, multi-cursor, saved per class. | ||
Quizzes built for test prep SAT, AP and GMAT practice templates, code review and essay rubrics. | ||
Attendance → score → at-risk list Live attendance feeds an overall score that shows who is slipping. | ||
Certificates with a public verifier A QR code that opens a verification page an employer can check. | ||
Storefront with several product types Courses, cohorts, 1:1 slots, webinars, downloads, bundles. | ||
Free plan Launch and sell before paying anything. | ||
Simplicity How little you must configure before it works. |
Free Starter plan, no time limit · No credit card
Straight talk
Pick Skool if the community is the product: a paid group where the daily feed, the leaderboard and the sense of belonging are what people renew for, and the calls are a bonus more than a curriculum. Skool's simplicity is a real feature: one group, one feed, one price, almost nothing to configure, and members who show up. On its Pro plan the transaction fee is in the range of an ordinary card-processing fee, so money alone is not a reason to leave. We are built for the opposite shape: a teaching business where the class is the product and the student record matters.
Other options worth a look
We compare honestly against each of these too — so you can hold Skool up against the whole field, not just against us.
How to switch
Most teams are fully migrated inside a weekend. You don't lose your roster, your courses, or your branding.
Step 1
Export your student roster from Skool (most platforms offer a CSV under "Students" or "Members"). Map the columns to name, email and phone.
Step 2
Bulk-import the CSV into /dashboard/students. The import matches on email, so running it again is safe.
Step 3
Recreate your courses. The curriculum builder lets you drag modules and lessons, paste video embed URLs and upload PDFs without a wizard. Most teachers move five courses in an afternoon.
Step 4
Apply your brand: logo, primary color, and a custom domain on any paid plan. The portal-template picker has 7 starting points if you want to refresh the look while you are at it.
Step 5
Tell your students you have moved, with the new portal URL. One announcement goes out in-app and by email, and reminders can be scheduled after it.
Stuck mid-migration? Email us — we'll walk through the CSV mapping or migration scripts with you on a call. No upsell.
The switching framework
Score each tool yourself, Skool and us included — these are the questions that actually decide it.
Questions to ask before you switch
Does it ship live cohort tooling that respects classroom dynamics?
Is my data exportable on every plan, including the free tier?
Will my bill stay flat as my sales grow, with no per-sale cut?
Am I paid into my own payment account, or does the platform hold the money?
Can I migrate over a weekend without losing my roster?
Start free — keep 100% of what you earn.
Launch your academy freeCommon questions
Skool genuinely runs the class: it lists unlimited live calls on both plans, so this is not the usual story of being sent to another tool. The dividing line is who holds the money and what surrounds the call. On Skool, payments run through Skool, which lists a transaction fee on each sale (10% on the $9 Hobby plan and 2.9% on the $99 Pro plan, per skool.com/pricing as of October 2026) and pays you out. On Prolaud the buyer pays into your own Stripe or Razorpay account and we take 0%. And Skool's room is a call, not a classroom: no multiplayer whiteboard, no test-prep quizzes, no attendance feeding a score that shows who is slipping. See the whole loop at prolaud.com/loop. This page also spells out where Skool is genuinely the better buy.
Skool's pricing page lists a 2.9% transaction fee on the $99 Pro plan and 10% on the $9 Hobby plan (as of October 2026). The page does not say what the fee covers. If it includes card processing, the Pro rate is close to what you would pay a processor anyway, and the real gap is on Hobby. Check skool.com/pricing for the current rates.
Not as far as we can tell: payments run through Skool, which pays you out. On Prolaud you paste in your own Stripe API keys and buyers pay you directly, by card, in US dollars.
For a community call, honestly yes. Skool lists unlimited live calls on both plans, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. The difference is what surrounds the call. We add a multiplayer whiteboard with teaching templates, in-session polls and a raised-hand queue, chaptered recordings, and attendance that flows into a score and an at-risk list. If you run a community, Skool's call is enough. If you run a class, the surrounding tooling is the point.
When the community is the product. If people pay for the group, the feed and the leaderboard, and the calls are a perk more than a curriculum, Skool does that better and more simply than we do, and switching would cost you the thing that is working. Move when the class becomes the product, when you need to sell more than one thing, or when you want buyers to pay into your own account.
Less than you might hope if you are on Skool Pro, and we would rather say so. Pro's 2.9% is in the range of an ordinary card-processing fee, which you also pay on Prolaud through your own processor. The saving is real on Hobby, where 10% of each sale goes to Skool. The stronger reasons to move are the classroom and the storefront, not the fee.
Members export as a CSV and bulk-import here; the import matches on email. Posts do not migrate, because no community tool exports a portable feed, so most teachers treat the move as a fresh start for the feed and carry the roster, the courses and the calendar. Run both in parallel for a month: there is a free plan, so the overlap costs nothing.
Compare other alternatives
Each comparison is built the same way, so you can hold Skool up against the rest.
Live classes, a cohort community and your courses in one workspace, with 0% of your sales taken and payouts into your own account.
See comparisonThe all-in-one promise with a live classroom inside it, a free plan to start on, and payouts into your own account.
See comparisonA course builder with the live classroom, whiteboard and community in the same product, and 0% of your sales taken.
See comparisonPodia's simplicity with a real classroom behind it: live cohorts, a whiteboard and test-prep quizzes, at 0% of your sales.
See comparisonFor when you outgrow the checkout link and need courses, live classes, a community and a real student record.
See comparisonFor teachers who want the live cohort at the center: a built-in classroom and whiteboard, with 0% of your sales taken.
See comparisonSame creator-mobile-first focus — with the deeper teaching surface and zero-commission commitment Indian educators ask for.
See comparisonBoth India-built. Skolasti is course-hosting with strong content-DRM and a per-coach price; we add live teaching, community, a free tier, broader product types and flat 0%-commission pricing.
See comparisonClassWalla gives coaching institutes a branded Android/iOS app from ₹4,999/mo or revenue-share. We're the open-web alternative: a free tier, flat 0%-commission pricing, a cohort community and 8 product types — no app install to browse or buy.
See comparisonCircle is the best-designed community tool here, with live metered at 10 hours a month and a 15-person room on its $89 plan. Prolaud is built for teaching live, with 0% of your sales taken.
See comparisonMaven is built for live cohorts and keeps 10% of sales, with a marketplace attached. Prolaud runs the same cohort at 0%, on your own domain, for teachers who already have an audience.
See comparisonFree Starter forever. No credit card. Cancel any day. The export button still works.