Heartbeat vs Skool Comparison 2026
Heartbeat runs channels, threads, courses and events for $49 a month plus a 5 percent fee that falls to 1.25 percent at the top. Skool strips the design choices out entirely, plain by intention, and prices two identical plans differently: Hobby at $9 a month with a 10 percent cut, or Pro at $99 with 2.9 percent, which wins once member payments pass roughly $1,300 a month. Pick Heartbeat for events and courses with more room to grow into. Pick Skool to ship this week with nothing to design.
A community with courses and events built in
Community, courses and a calendar in one paid space
At a glance
- Skool starts cheaper, at $9.
- Neither has a free tier.
- Heartbeat takes 5% of what you earn against Skool's 10%.
Side by side
Heartbeat | Skool | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price (they differ) | From $49 | From $9 |
| Pricing model (they differ) | Free trial, then paid | Paid subscription |
| Free tier | No | No |
| Billing | Monthly or annual | Monthly or annual |
| Free trial | 14 days | Not stated |
| API | Yes |
Heartbeat
A community with courses and events built in
Heartbeat runs channels, threads, events, courses and a member directory in one place, which is the shape most creator communities end up wanting after outgrowing a Discord server. Payments run through it and it takes a cut that falls as the plan rises. There is no free plan, and a community that stops paying is deactivated rather than frozen.
Our note
Work out the transaction fee at your own revenue before comparing headline prices: at $5,000 a month collected, Grow costs less in total than Build. Against Circle and Mighty Networks this is the one with courses and events genuinely built in rather than bolted on.
Only on this side
- Works with Discord
Skool
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.
Why people weigh these two
- Skool instead of Heartbeat
- Skool packs community, courses and a calendar into one paid space from $9 a month, a cheaper entry than Heartbeat with no free tier on either.
- Heartbeat instead of Skool
- Heartbeat bundles the same community, courses and events behind one membership, starting at $49 with no free tier at all.
Which one should you pick
Pick Heartbeat if the community needs a real event calendar and course player built in, and you would rather set the transaction fee by choosing a tier deliberately. Build is $49 a month plus 5 percent, and the fee falls to 2.5 percent on Grow and 1.25 percent on Scale, after a 14-day trial with no card.
Pick Skool if you want to launch this week with nothing to design, since the plain interface is the product rather than a gap in it. Hobby is $9 a month at a 10 percent cut, and Pro is $99 at 2.9 percent, with identical features on both, so the choice is one sum: Pro wins above roughly $1,300 a month in member payments and loses below it. Look at Circle instead if the space needs to look like your own brand.
Common questions
- Is Skool cheaper than Heartbeat?
- At low revenue, yes: Hobby is $9 a month against Heartbeat's $49. But Skool's 10 percent cut on Hobby is steeper than Heartbeat's 5 percent on Build, so the gap narrows and can flip once real money is moving through the community.
- Can I customize how the community looks on either one?
- Skool deliberately offers very little: no theme, no layout, no page builder, by design. Heartbeat's own materials do not make the same claim either way, so check the current interface if brand customization matters to the decision.
- Do Skool's two plans differ in anything besides price?
- No, that is the point its own pricing makes: Hobby and Pro have identical features, unlimited members and courses on both, and the only difference is the transaction fee, 10 percent against 2.9 percent.
- Which one has more tiers to grow into?
- Heartbeat, with three: Build, Grow and Scale, each lowering the transaction fee as the price rises to $849 a month. Skool has just two plans, Hobby and Pro, with nothing in between them.
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.