Skool vs Circle vs Discord: fees, payouts and who owns your members (2026)

The short answer

For a paid community, Skool Pro and Circle Professional cost about the same at small scale, and Skool gets cheaper as you grow. On our own arithmetic from each platform's printed fees, 100 members paying US$20 a month nets about US$1,813 on Skool Pro and US$1,769 on Circle Professional. Discord is free to run, but its monetisation pages wouldn't load for us, so we can't give you its cut.

The bigger differences aren't price. Skool is the merchant of record and handles sales tax for you. Circle gives you a CSV export of every member's email. Discord and Telegram are free, familiar and built for chat, not courses. Pick on those, then check the fees.

This guide uses only each platform's own pricing and help pages, all opened on 26 October 2026. Where a page wouldn't load, we left the figure out rather than borrow one from a comparison blog.

Why the fees you've seen don't match

Most comparisons quote a single Skool fee, but Skool prints its fees in two places, and they say different things. The pricing page shows Hobby at US$9 a month with a 10% transaction fee and Pro at US$99 a month with a 2.9% fee. The Skool Payments FAQs add 30 cents per transaction on both plans, and say Pro charges 3.9% plus 30 cents on transactions above US$900.

So "10%", "2.9%" and "2.9% plus 30 cents" are all partly right. For a US$20 monthly membership, the 30 cents matters: it adds 1.5 percentage points to every charge.

Circle has a similar gap. Its pricing page lists a 2% fee on Professional and never mentions Stripe, but its paywall fees article says your community pays both Stripe's processing fees and Circle's fee.

The platforms, from their own pages

Skool

Skool is the simplest paid-community setup: one price, one fee, and Skool handles the money. Both plans list unlimited members, courses, videos and live calls on the pricing page. The only differences are the plan price and the transaction fee.

From the Skool Payments FAQs:

• Fees. Hobby: 10% plus 30 cents per transaction. Pro: 2.9% plus 30 cents up to US$899, and 3.9% plus 30 cents above US$900. Transaction fees aren't refunded.
• Merchant of record. Skool says it's responsible for all sales tax collection, filing and payments. It adds EU VAT on top of your price, so a US$100 product with 19% German VAT costs the member US$119.
• Currency. All subscription prices are in US dollars. Payouts land in your local currency every Wednesday, and Skool doesn't support US dollar deposits outside the US.
• Payout countries. The FAQ carries a country list updated in September 2026, including the US, UK, Canada, Australia and Germany. Check it for your own country.

Skool also has a Discovery directory. Groups appear once they pass a minimum threshold of members, posts and activity, and are ranked by member growth, engagement and retention, with a human reviewing rankings. If you turn on Growth Boost, Skool takes a 30% commission only on members it brings you; members you bring yourself cost nothing extra.

Circle

Circle suits founders who want more control over branding, member data and structure, and who are happy to handle their own payments and tax. Its pricing page lists Professional from US$89 a month, Business from US$199 and Scale from US$419, all based on annual billing, with transaction fees of 2%, 1% and 1%. Circle Plus has custom pricing and a 0.5% fee. Every plan lists unlimited members, a 14-day free trial needs no card, and the iOS and Android apps are included on every plan. Custom branded apps are Circle Plus only.

Payments run through your own Stripe account. Circle supports only Standard Stripe Connect accounts, so you hold the account, and only countries Stripe supports can connect. If yours isn't one, Circle suggests a third-party processor through Zapier or a US company through Stripe Atlas.

On fees, Circle's help centre says Stripe's card fee typically starts at 2.9% plus US$0.30, and that subscriptions also use Stripe Billing, which its example puts at 0.7%. Stripe's own pricing page confirms 2.9% plus 30 cents for US domestic cards, adds 1.5% for international cards and 1% for currency conversion, and lists Billing at 0.7%.

Tax is on you. Circle's Stripe Tax article says you add your own tax registrations and you're responsible for filing and remitting. If merchant of record versus your own Stripe account is new to you, our guide to merchant of record vs Stripe explains the trade-off.

Circle also runs Circle Discover, a marketplace for communities and courses. Creators on a paid plan submit a request, and Circle's team reviews it before a listing goes live.

Discord

Discord is free to run and the most familiar chat app for many audiences, but we couldn't verify its paid features today. Discord's Terms of Service, effective 29 September 2025, say Discord won't charge a fee to use its basic functionality, and that its Monetization Terms apply to any sales you make through Discord.

Discord's support and creator-support pages for Server Subscriptions, Server Shop, the Monetization Terms and the Monetization Policy all returned "403 Forbidden" when we tried them on 26 October 2026. Because the brief for this guide is figures from official pages only, we haven't printed Discord's revenue share, payout thresholds or country eligibility. Open the Server Subscriptions settings in your own server, or Discord's creator support centre, before you build a paid plan around it.

Telegram

Telegram can charge for access, but the money moves through its own currency, not a card payout. Telegram's August 2024 announcement describes special invite links that let people join a channel for a monthly payment in Telegram Stars, set up under Channel Settings, Channel Type, Manage Invite Links. Channel owners can convert Stars into Toncoin cryptocurrency rewards.

The post doesn't state a revenue split for subscriptions, so we haven't included Telegram in the worked example. If your members expect to pay by card into a normal bank account, Telegram's paid channels are a poor fit. As a free chat layer, it's hard to beat: Telegram's FAQ says messaging is free and will stay free, groups hold up to 200,000 members, and channels have no subscriber limit.

Mighty Networks

Mighty Networks sits between Skool and Circle: an all-in-one community and course platform that uses your own Stripe account. Its pricing page lists Launch at US$79 a month on monthly billing (two months free if you pay annually), Scale at US$179 and Growth at US$354, with transaction fees of 2%, 1% and 0.5%. All plans list unlimited members, and the free trial runs 14 days with no card.

Mighty's transaction fee article says Stripe's processing fee is typically 2.5% to 5% on top, and that iOS app purchases skip Stripe but carry Apple's 15% fee instead, with no Mighty fee. Its payouts article says payments run through your connected Stripe account, PayPal isn't supported, iOS proceeds take 8 to 12 weeks to arrive, and you're responsible for any applicable taxes on web sales.

Kajabi

Kajabi is a course and marketing platform with a community attached, priced well above the others. Its pricing page lists Basic at US$179 a month billed monthly or US$143 a month billed annually, with one community and 2,500 contacts. Kajabi says it takes no revenue share as a platform.

You still pay card processing. On the pricing page, Kajabi Payments for US entities on Basic is 2.9% plus US$0.30, and Kajabi's US fee schedule adds 0.7% for subscriptions and 1.5% for international cards. Kajabi Payments is available to businesses registered in the US, Canada, Australia, the UAE, the UK and some European countries. If you use a third-party payment provider other than PayPal where Kajabi Payments is offered, Basic adds a 2% fee.

Worked example: 100 members at US$20 a month

On our own arithmetic, the gap between the best and worst net for a 100-member, US$20-a-month community is about US$112 a month. That's 100 charges and US$2,000 gross. We included card processing only where the platform states it, and assumed US domestic cards with no currency conversion, no VAT and no refunds.

How we worked each one, all our own arithmetic:

• Skool Pro: 2.9% of US$20 is 58 cents, plus 30 cents, is 88 cents a member. Skool doesn't list a separate card fee.
• Skool Hobby: 10% of US$20 is US$2, plus 30 cents, is US$2.30 a member.
• Circle Professional: Circle's 2% is 40 cents. Stripe's 2.9% plus 30 cents is 88 cents, and Billing at 0.7% is 14 cents, so processing is US$1.02 a member. The US$89 is the annual-billing monthly rate.
• Mighty Launch: Mighty's 2% is 40 cents. Its stated 2.5% to 5% Stripe range gives 50 cents to US$1 a member.
• Kajabi Basic: 2.9% plus 0.7% is 3.6% of US$20, or 72 cents, plus 30 cents, is US$1.02 a member. Billed annually at US$143, the net rises to US$1,755.

International cards change the picture for the Stripe-based platforms. Stripe adds 1.5% for them, and Kajabi adds the same, which is another 30 cents per US$20 member.

When Skool Pro beats Hobby

Skool Pro becomes cheaper than Hobby at about US$1,268 a month in member revenue. Pro costs US$90 more a month but takes 7.1 percentage points less per charge, and 7.1% of US$1,268 is about US$90 (our arithmetic). Below that, stay on Hobby; above it, move to Pro.

At 1,000 members

At 1,000 members paying US$20 (US$20,000 a month), the order holds and the gaps widen. On the same assumptions, Skool Pro nets about US$19,021, Kajabi Basic billed monthly about US$18,801, Circle Professional about US$18,491 and Skool Hobby about US$17,691 (our arithmetic). Circle's 1% Business plan at US$199 nets about US$18,581, so it's worth moving up once you're this size.

Beyond price: data, tax, discovery and apps

Who owns the member list

Circle and Kajabi give you a file of your members; Skool documents a narrower path. Circle's CSV export includes first name, last name and email, plus join date, tags, activity and custom profile fields, and admins can run it. Kajabi's contact export sends a CSV to your account email, capped at your plan's contact limit, with a link that expires after three days.

We couldn't find a member export article in Skool's help centre. Skool's Zapier integration can send paid members' names and emails to your CRM, but only on Pro. For Discord and Telegram, we couldn't confirm from official pages what member data owners get, so plan to collect emails yourself with a form.

Merchant of record and tax

Skool is the only one of these that says it's the merchant of record. That means Skool collects and files sales tax and VAT, which removes a real job for a solo founder selling worldwide. Circle and Mighty Networks run through your own Stripe account and put tax on you. Kajabi's US fee schedule lists a Kajabi Sales Tax add-on at US$0.15 per transaction.

Discovery

Skool and Circle both have a marketplace, but neither replaces your own audience. Skool's Discovery needs a minimum level of activity before you appear, and Growth Boost costs 30% of each member it finds. Circle Discover is a reviewed listing for paid-plan creators. For a first community, most members will still come from people who already know you, so a small in-person event is often a better start; see our guide to starting a founder meetup.

Mobile apps and app store fees

Mobile apps matter for engagement, and app store purchases change the maths. Circle's pricing page includes iOS and Android apps on all plans, with branded apps on Circle Plus only. Mighty Networks routes iOS purchases through Apple at a 15% fee, with no Mighty fee and no Stripe fee on those sales.

Comparison table

All prices and fees checked on 26 October 2026 from the pages linked above.

Which one fits you

The right platform depends on what you're selling more than on the fee. A quick guide:

• Coaches and creators selling one membership with a course: Skool Pro, once you pass about US$1,268 a month. You get tax handled and some of the lowest fees in our example.
• Founders who want their own data and brand: Circle. You'll handle Stripe and tax, but you can export every member's email.
• Agency owners running a client or peer group: Circle or Skool for paid access; a free Telegram or Discord group for a casual peer circle. Our guide to communities for agency owners lists existing groups to join first.
• Free communities: Discord or Telegram. You pay nothing, and members already have the app.
• Course businesses with a big email list: Kajabi, if you'll use its marketing tools; otherwise it's the dearest option here.

Common mistakes

Most people pick a community platform on the headline fee and regret one of these:

• Quoting the fee without the fixed part. Skool's 30 cents is 1.5% on a US$20 charge. Low-priced memberships feel fixed fees the most.
• Forgetting Stripe on Circle, Mighty and Kajabi. The platform fee is only part of it. Add 2.9% plus 30 cents and 0.7% Billing, and 1.5% more on international cards.
• Comparing Circle's annual price to others' monthly prices. Circle's US$89 assumes you pay for a year up front.
• Staying on Skool Hobby too long. Above about US$1,268 a month, Hobby's 10% costs more than Pro's extra US$90.
• Ignoring tax. If you sell to members worldwide through your own Stripe account, registering for and filing VAT or sales tax is your job.
• Not owning the list. If you can't export emails, collect them from day one with a form or a membership question, so you can move if prices change.
• Planning on Discord payouts without checking eligibility. We couldn't verify Discord's rules today; check your own server's settings first.
• Relying on a marketplace to fill the room. Discovery helps once you're active, but your first members come from your own network.

How Remote Builders runs its own community

Remote Builders isn't selling any of these platforms. Its members' chat runs in the Bali Startup & Tech community group on Telegram, open to members anywhere, and members also get builder dinners in Bali and Australia, city chapters where a member hosts, a member directory and the guides. For Bali-specific events, see Bali Startup & Tech. For other groups worth joining, our guide to communities for remote founders compares the options.

To compare notes with other founders running communities, join Remote Builders (it's free).