Skool Review 2024 – Community Platform for Creators?

Key Features in Skool review:

• All-in-One Solution for Creators
• Course and Community Platform
• Simplify Learning and Interaction
• Explore Skool's Offerings
• Ideal for Creators and Entrepreneurs

Skool Pros & Cons

What is Skool? An Overview

Skool is an all-in-one course and community-hosting platform that merges community and content in one place. You can provide a seamless learning experience while engaging with your community on the same platform. Skool was launched in 2019 by Sam Ovens, and after three years of beta testing, it officially went public in 2022.

It has a clean and easy-to-use interface and some interesting features. It is a perfect fit for creators, information entrepreneurs like coaches, consultants, course sellers, and subscription-based businesses. It’s not the right platform for physical product businesses.

Skool has a gamified learning system to keep users motivated and make their learning fun. You can create your content, manage your subscriptions, process payments, create landing pages, and more. It also offers analytics to help you track your progress and optimize accordingly.

In short, by joining Skool, you can build and grow your online community and boost your business without going anywhere. It's more than just a platform; it's a vibrant environment where creators and learners can connect, collaborate, and thrive.

Who Should Use Skool?

Skool platform is not the right choice for everyone. The following people can take maximum advantage of this one-stop shop:

• Course creators: build and sell online courses, and build active communities around your expertise.
• Coaches and consultants: Deliver coaching programs, conduct group sessions, and provide personalized support within a dedicated space.
• Membership site owners: create exclusive content, host interactive activities, and cultivate a loyal community of paying members.
• Online communities: Manage private groups, organize events, and facilitate meaningful connections among like-minded individuals.

Skool Products & Features

Skool offers a robust set of features designed to enhance your community building, content delivery, and member engagement. Here's a closer look at some key features of Skool:

1. Community

Skool's community feature is designed to help you connect with your learners, boost engagement, and create a space where they can learn and grow together. Some of its key features include categories, posts, likes, comments, mentions, polls, photos, videos, and GIFs to keep your community more active.

The Skool community is just like a Facebook group where both the admin and members can post, read others’ posts, and engage with them. Additionally, Skool offers an option for creators to email community posts to their followers. You can set your community to public or private as well.

Each person has a Skool profile, and others can see their past activity and basic details and follow them. Besides, you can also send a private message to other community members to build more meaningful connections.

Moreover, gamification is a very interesting feature to reward the active members of your community.

2. Classroom

This is the second most important feature of this course platform Here, you can upload your course, and other members can follow it. Its user-friendly interface helps you create a high-quality course with ease. You can add unlimited courses as you want in the classroom section.

You can upload various content formats, like videos, text documents, transcripts, links, and action items, to keep your learners more engaged.

You can also use its “drip release” option to control the release of your content. You can schedule the content release gradually over time to ensure learners grasp each concept before moving on to the next module.

However, Skool does not offer native video hosting, and you’ll have to use third-party resources like YouTube, Loom, Vista, or Vimeo.

3. Calendar and Events

Skool’s calendar feature is a great way for admins to directly engage with their members via web-hosted video calls (Google Meet, Zoom, etc.), in-person meetings, or organizing anything that has a set time, date, and duration. Users can view their events either in a calendar month view or a simplified events list.

It allows you to create different types of events, add details, and make some more settings. You can share events publicly within your community or with specific groups and members. You can also set reminders for upcoming events and send automated notifications to members.

By offering a robust calendar feature, Skool streamlines event scheduling, communication, and organization, encouraging a more active and engaged community experience.

4. Gamification

Skool's gamification features make learning and participation more fun! A points and badge system encourages users to interact with the community and produce quality content. The post author gets one point when someone likes or comments on the post.

Members are leveled up after obtaining a certain number of points, and this level can be seen on their profile. In addition, you can view leaderboards for your current group, so you can see how your level compares to other members.

It will also show you which courses are unlocked at which levels, as well as the names of the custom levels. Admins can unlock set courses at certain levels to boost participation in their communities. Leaderboards promote healthy competition through a visual representation of the learning journey.

5. Subscription Membership

With the recent update, Skool allows you to charge your members a monthly subscription fee to access your content and membership. So, you can make money from your membership and content. Community builders can create multi-tiered membership plans with a single click.

6. Skool Mobile App

Skool also offers an Android and iOS mobile app with a lot of features to improve user engagement. It is simple and easy to use, just like the Skool website. You can keep members connected at all times, and they can receive notifications, which can increase your daily active users (DAUs).

7. Integration Options

Skool also offers integration with various platforms to get the most out of the platform. You can integrate your blog or website with Skool through a WordPress plugin. Skool can also be integrated with Zapier, which allows creators to automate workflows and connect Skool with other platforms and apps. For payments, Skool integrates with Stripe, so creators can easily monetize their courses and communities.

8. Single Search Box

On Skool.com, you can use a single search box for all searches, such as member profiles, course content, posts, comments, etc. It works well and is pretty simple. You can switch between search result types by clicking on the tabs.

Best Communities in Skool

The vibrant Skool ecosystem pulsates with diverse communities catering to various interests and goals. Here's a peek at some of the top communities attracting large user bases, along with their key features and accessibility:

1. The Skool Games

It is a free community with more than 6.8k members. This gamified community is the heart of Skool's "The Skool Games" initiative. Members compete monthly to drive traffic and grow their paid Skool groups, with top performers winning exclusive mentorship from industry leaders.

2. Adonis Gang

Adonis Gang is a free community with more than 54.3k members and was founded by Hamza Ahmed. He aims to bring the Adonis Protocol to as many young men as possible! This community empowers men to achieve their physique and lifestyle goals through proven fitness routines, nutritional guidance, and a supportive brotherhood.

3. Digital Growth Community

It is a paid community with approximately 8.1k members and is led by digital marketing experts. This community equips members with actionable strategies and tactics to scale their online businesses and brands.

In the Digital Growth community, you will learn how to build an impactful email list, build a well-known brand, and create proven 6-figure businesses digitally. This community also offers a 6-month formula that includes monthly Zoom meetup events to help you grow your customer base.

Skool Pricing Plans

Skool offers a straightforward pricing structure with only one paid plan, making it easy to understand your costs. However, there's also a free trial to explore the platform before committing. Here's a breakdown of their pricing:

• 14-day free trial
• 1 plan with everything included: $99/month

Note: This pricing is for one group. If you want to make more than one group, you need to pay another $99 per month.

Skool Reviews & Ratings

User feedback about Skool has been positive, with users appreciating its unique features and ease of use. Many users praise Skool for enabling creators to build their communities.

One user wrote: "Skool has been a game-changer for my online community. The combination of community features and course creation tools is fantastic, and the gamification elements keep members engaged. Their customer support is also top-notch, always quick and helpful when I have questions."

According to some users, there are still some features that Skool is lacking, such as video hosting. Despite these drawbacks, many users still consider Skool to be the best private community-building tool.

Skool Customer Support

Skool receives generally positive feedback on its customer support, with users praising its promptness, helpfulness, and knowledge base. They offer several support channels.

• Email: It is the primary channel for support inquiries.
• Skool Community: A place where you can ask questions and get responses from other members or the Skool team within a couple of hours.
• Knowledge base: A comprehensive collection of articles and guides on using Skool.

Skool's customer support team goes above and beyond to help users and resolve their concerns. In addition, they provide updates and documentation, ensuring that users can find the information they require.

Some users report occasional delays in response times during peak hours. However, Skool continuously seeks feedback to improve its support services and user experience.

Skool Alternatives

While Skool is a powerful platform for community building and knowledge sharing, it's not the only game in town. Here are a few highly related alternatives worth considering, along with their strengths and weaknesses compared to Skool.

1. Circle

Circle is a simple community platform with a clean and intuitive interface. It is incredibly user-friendly, even for non-technical users, so you can easily set up and manage a community. It offers basic discussion forums, live chat, file sharing, and more. However, it lacks the advanced features of Skool, such as gamification, course creation, and drip-feed content. Its analytics are also limited.

2. Kajabi

Kajabi is an all-in-one course creation and online marketing platform. It offers powerful tools for building and selling sources, managing subscriptions, and automating marketing campaigns. Kajabi has a learning curve due to its feature-rich nature. However, it offers extensive resources and user support. While Kajabi allows for community building within courses, it lacks the dedicated community features of Skool, such as forums and groups. Its focus on course creation might not be ideal for everyone.

3. Mighty Networks

Mighty Networks focuses on creating exclusive membership sites and encouraging private communities. It has a user-friendly interface, but its feature set can feel overwhelming at first. It offers robust social features, content scheduling, and live-streaming capabilities. Compared to Skool, Mighty Networks' course creation tools are less flexible, and its pricing can be steeper for solopreneurs.

4. Patreon

Patreon is also a community platform, and it primarily focuses on creator-patron relationships and financial support. Creators offer exclusive content, early access, or other perks in exchange for recurring monthly payments from patrons. Both platforms offer subscription models, but Skool provides additional options like selling courses and digital products. Patreon charges platform fees, while Skool has a flat monthly fee.

Verdict: Is Skool Good for Solopreneurs?

Skool is an excellent choice for solopreneurs, coaches, and course creators looking to build a dedicated and engaged community. Its course creation tools and LMS allow you to share your knowledge and build paid or free courses easily.

With its built-in tools for selling memberships, courses, and digital products, solopreneurs can generate income from their expertise. Through Skool, you can also network with other creators and like-minded people, opening a door for more opportunities.

Overall, Skool is a great all-in-one platform for creating online courses and building a community, and it is worth considering. Grab a free 14-day trial and give Skool a try.