Growing an audience
Running the business
Both cover community platforms and memberships & subscriptions. Here is what separates them on price, billing, what you can take with you, and coverage.
| LaunchPass | Skool | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | From $29 | From $9 |
| Pricing model | Free plan, paid tiers | Paid subscription |
| Free tier | Yes | No |
| Billing | Monthly or annual | Monthly or annual |
| Free trial | 14 days | Not stated |
| API | Not stated | Not stated |
| Data export | Not stated | Not stated |
| Their cut | 3.5% of what you earn | 10% of what you earn |
| Runs on | Not stated | Not stated |
| Covers | Community Platforms, Memberships & Subscriptions, Monetization & Payments | Community Platforms, Courses & Coaching, Memberships & Subscriptions |
| Works with | Discord | Nothing in particular |
| Founded | Not listed | Not listed |
| Reader rating | No reviews yet | No reviews yet |
| Live deals | None right now | None right now |
Charge for access to a Discord or Slack group
LaunchPass puts a paywall in front of a chat community you already run, and hands out and removes the roles as people pay and lapse. It connects to Discord, Slack and Telegram, and the money arrives through your own Stripe account. It manages access rather than hosting anything, so the community stays where your members already are.
Our note
Sensible if your community is already somewhere and already wanted. Compare it against DoorFee if the community is on Discord, since DoorFee sells the membership as well as gating it, and against Circle or Skool if you were half thinking of moving anyway.
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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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