Growing an audience
Running the business
Both cover community platforms. Here is what separates them on price, billing, what you can take with you, and coverage.
| Discourse | Skool | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | From $100 | From $9 |
| Pricing model | Free plan, paid tiers | Paid subscription |
| Free tier | Yes | No |
| Billing | Monthly or annual | Monthly or annual |
| Free trial | Not stated | Not stated |
| API | Yes | Not stated |
| Data export | Everything, in an open format | Not stated |
| Their cut | Not stated | 10% of what you earn |
| Runs on | Web, Linux | Not stated |
| Covers | Community Platforms, Website Builders | Community Platforms, Courses & Coaching, Memberships & Subscriptions |
| Works with | Nothing in particular | Nothing in particular |
| Founded | Not listed | Not listed |
| Reader rating | No reviews yet | No reviews yet |
| Live deals | None right now | None right now |
Forum software, hosted or run yourself
Discourse is the forum the internet settled on: threaded, searchable, indexed by Google, and open source, so a community that outgrows the hosted plans can take the database and run it on its own server. That escape hatch is the argument for it over anything closed. The hosted pricing starts where a hobby project stops, and self-hosting swaps the bill for a sysadmin.
Our note
The reason to choose this over Circle or Mighty Networks is that the conversation is public and indexed, which makes the forum an asset rather than a cost. The reason not to is that it is a forum, and an audience raised on Discord will find it slow.
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Community, courses and a calendar in one paid space
Skool puts a forum, a course player and events behind one membership. The interface is deliberately plain, which keeps people posting, and there is very little customization by design. Both plans take a percentage of what members pay, which is the part of the pricing that has changed most since Skool launched.
Our note
Skool was worth recommending when it was one flat fee, and the two-tier pricing has made it a calculation instead. Run the $1,300 sum against your own numbers before picking a plan, and look at Circle instead if the community needs to look like yours.
Ratings are the average of reviews readers left. The facts are stated by each tool’s own listing and are not verified by CloutStack. How we make money.
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