Whop vs Skool (2026): Fees, Features and Which to Pick

Pricing and fees: what you actually pay

Skool vs Whop on cost comes down to two numbers: Skool's monthly plan fee and the percentage each platform takes per sale. Whop charges nothing per month and 3.2% + 30¢ per subscription charge. Skool charges $9 or $99 a month plus 10% or 2.9% + 30¢ per charge.

Prices as of October 2026, from each company's pricing and help pages. Sources at the end of this page.

Here's what that means for a $49 monthly membership. Fees = plan price + (percentage × sales) + (30¢ × sales ÷ $49), assuming US cards, monthly billing, no Growth Boost members and no payout fees.

What you keep each month, prices as of October 2026.

Whop keeps more than Hobby at every level. Against Pro, Whop keeps more until about $33,000 a month, where Pro's lower rate finally pays off its $99 fee. That crossover drops if many members pay with non-US cards, because Whop adds 1.5% on those and Skool doesn't. Our page on Skool's Hobby vs Pro break-even runs the sensitivity math, and you can plug your own numbers into the fee calculator.

Each platform has costs the headline rate hides:

• Skool's Growth Boost takes 30% of recurring charges from members Skool brings you, and it's on by default.
• Skool's plan fee isn't refundable, and you can only refund members up to your available Skool balance.
• Whop charges payout fees, such as $2.50 for a next-day ACH transfer, adds 1% when currency conversion applies, and lists $0.07 per transaction for Radar fraud screening, which our examples leave out.
• Whop Tax Service costs 2% per transaction if you want Whop to handle sales tax.

Whop's full fee schedule lists every line, including disputes and BNPL.

Community and engagement

Skool is built around engagement mechanics that Whop doesn't copy. Members earn one point for every like on their posts and comments, climb nine levels, and appear on a group leaderboard, and you can keep a course locked until a member reaches a certain level.

Skool puts everything in one feed with categories, next to a calendar, and both plans include unlimited live calls (webinars need Pro). That single layout is easy for members because there's only one place to look.

Whop splits community into apps that you attach to a product: Forums for threaded posts, Chat for real-time conversation, and Events for live or in-person sessions with optional paid tickets. If your members already live in Discord or Telegram, Whop can sell access to those instead (see Whop vs Discord). Whop's native apps include no points or levels system as of October 2026.

Bottom line: if leaderboards and level-locked content drive your retention, Skool wins this category.

Courses

Both platforms handle a standard video course well. They differ on hosting, access rules and how you package a course.

Skool's Classroom allows unlimited courses of up to 200 pages each, with native video hosting or embeds from YouTube, Vimeo, Loom and Wistia. You can lock a course by level or sell it on its own for a one-time price. There's no course export; you can only copy a course to another Skool group with a course key.

Whop's Courses app supports video lessons, quizzes and progress tracking, with drip scheduling and an option to require lessons in order. Because a course is an app attached to a product, the same course can sit inside several products or tiers.

Bottom line: a tie for most creators. Skool is simpler to run; Whop is more flexible to package and adds quizzes.

Payments, payouts and tax

Whop gives you more ways to get paid and faster access to your money. Skool gives you less to manage.

Skool is the merchant of record. It prices everything in USD, takes card payments through its own merchant account, and pays out every Wednesday, with money from your first sale available after about 8 to 14 days. You can't bring your own Stripe or PayPal, and refunds can't exceed your available Skool balance. In exchange, Skool collects and pays sales tax and EU VAT for you.

Whop runs payments through Whop Payments, where Whop says it is the merchant of record for the transaction. It supports cards, wallets, PayPal, crypto and ACH, buy-now-pay-later once you're approved, and more than 135 currencies. Standard payouts take up to 5 business days and instant payouts arrive in minutes for a fee. Tax on direct sales stays with you unless you pay 2% for Whop Tax Service.

New Whop accounts also face a few extra checks. You verify your identity before you can withdraw, Whop can hold part of your balance in a reserve while your account is new, and checkout links are capped at $2,500 per payment until Whop approves you for more.

Bottom line: Skool if you want no tax admin and simple USD pricing; Whop if you sell internationally, need PayPal or BNPL, or want your money sooner.

Growth and discovery

Both platforms run a marketplace that can send you members. They charge for it very differently.

Skool lists groups in Discovery once they pass thresholds for members, posts and activity and have a description, about page and cover image. With Growth Boost on, Skool also shows your group in its off-site ads and takes 30% of recurring charges from every member it brings, for as long as they stay.

Whop dropped its Discover marketplace commission from 30% to 0% in May 2025, so a marketplace sale costs the normal processing fee. You can also run an affiliate program and set what promoters earn, plus a 1.25% affiliate processing fee. One caveat: coverage of Whop's 2026 funding round describes its biggest marketplace categories as trading signals, sports-betting picks and crypto communities, so a coaching or hobby community may find fewer natural buyers browsing there.

Bottom line: Skool if Discovery reliably sends you paying members; Whop if you'd rather keep marketplace sales at processing cost and pay your own affiliates.

When Skool is the better choice

Skool is the better pick if any of these describe your group:

• Your members show up for the leaderboard. Points, levels and level-locked courses are core Skool features, and Whop has no native equivalent.
• You sell to EU members and never want to think about VAT. Skool adds, collects and remits it at no extra fee; Whop's managed tax service costs 2% per transaction.
• You run a large Pro group paid mostly with US cards. Above about $33,000 a month, Pro's 2.9% rate beats Whop's 3.2% even after the $99 plan fee.
• Skool's Discovery brings you paying members you wouldn't find otherwise, and 30% of their payments is a price you're happy to pay.
• You want the simplest possible setup, with one layout for members and one feed to moderate.

When Whop is the better choice

Whop is the better pick in these situations:

• You're on Skool Hobby. Whop costs less at any revenue level, because 3.2% + 30¢ is far below 10% + 30¢.
• You're on Skool Pro and sell under about $33,000 a month.
• You sell more than group access: one-time products, downloads, 1:1 bookings, bundles, or Discord and Telegram access.
• Your buyers want to pay in their own currency or with PayPal. Whop supports more than 135 currencies, though non-US cards cost 1.5% more.
• You want your money sooner than a weekly payout.

Whop has real limits too, and you should weigh them before you move. It has no native points or leaderboards, and you can't connect your own Stripe account, because every payment runs through Whop Payments. New accounts go through identity checks and can face reserves and a $2,500 checkout cap. Your Skool members will have to re-enter their cards, because there's no way to carry Skool subscriptions over, and course videos have to be re-uploaded or embedded from YouTube or Loom. For a fuller list of complaints and fixes, read our seller-side Whop review.

What creators say

Public threads show friction on both sides. These are individual reports, not a survey, so treat them as examples of what can go wrong.

• An r/SKOOL owner said they couldn't refund a member because their Skool balance was too low (August 2026). Skool's refund article confirms you can't refund more than your available balance.
• In another r/SKOOL thread, an owner with more than 400 members reported one new paying member in three months and concluded Skool works best for people who already have an audience (July 2026 comment).
• An r/whop seller reported a 90-day rolling reserve after about $20,000 in sales with no disputes, and slow answers from support (August 2026). Whop's reserves page says new accounts and accounts with little sales history can get reserves.
• Other r/whop posts in 2026 complain that support is hard to escalate to a human.

Switching from Skool to Whop

Skool has no public API and no billing export, so a move starts with the member CSV from your Members tab, which includes emails for paid groups. You rebuild Classroom in Whop Courses, recreate the community in Forums and Chat, and invite paying members to re-subscribe through a hidden plan whose free trial lines up their first Whop charge with their next Skool charge. Our step-by-step Skool to Whop plan covers the order of operations, and the guide to exporting your Skool member list shows what's in the file. When you're ready, the free migration wizard creates your products, course outline and community on Whop.

Still comparing other options? See the roundup of Skool alternatives, the three-way Kajabi, Skool and Whop comparison, or how Whop compares with Circle if you're weighing a deeper community platform.

How we compared

We compared Skool's and Whop's published pricing pages and help-center articles, checked October 2 and 3, 2026. We didn't run paid communities on either platform for this page, so feature notes come from official documentation, and the creator reports above come from public Reddit threads.

Fee examples are calculated, not measured. They use a $49 monthly membership, US cards, plans billed monthly, no add-ons, no payout fees and no currency conversion, and they're rounded to whole dollars. Whop's rate includes its 0.5% billing fee on recurring charges.

Spotted something out of date? Email hello@movetowhop.com and we'll fix verified errors within 7 days.