Community · stack vs room · USD

Discord + Teachable vs Skool — the “Skool is overpriced” fork

Updated August 29, 2026 · Official Skool, Teachable, and Discord pages fetched this evening. If a number is missing below, we could not cite it.

The objection is that Skool costs $99 while Discord is free and Teachable already hosts a school. They are not the same machine. Discord has no public SaaS price. The stack is a chat room plus a school. Skool is a paid community with checkout inside the group.

Who this page is for

Experts who already have a method, who looked at Skool Pro, and who are about to “just use Discord and put the course on Teachable.” It is host-choice. It is not how to run a Discord, how to teach, or how to get members.

If the offer is a branded community with your Stripe, that is Circle — Circle pricing and Skool vs Circle vs Mighty Networks. If the offer is a coaching OS with a community attached, Kajabi is the cash register in this directory. This page is the cheap-stack fork only.

The short version

Two logins vs one store

The stack. Discord is the room. Official support: servers are free to create and can run from a small group to thousands of members. Teachable is the school: you sell a course, a coaching product, a download, or a membership; Teachable takes the payment. After checkout, you point the student at a Discord invite. There is no official Teachable↔Discord paywall on the public pages we fetched. Access to the room is a process you run, not a cited product.

Skool. Official about page: community, courses, and events; subscriptions or one-time course purchases; all-in-one, no integrations required (vendor copy). Payments FAQ: Skool is merchant of record, handles EU VAT, you cannot use your existing Stripe, payouts weekly on Wednesday. The group is the store. Buy and you are in.

That is the honest fork. The stack can be cheaper on the subscription line. It is two products, two member lists, and no cited native gate between the invoice and the room. Skool is one product. Do not call Discord “free Skool.” Do not call Teachable “the community.”

Teachable’s own community row is listed on Builder, Growth, and Custom in tonight’s public comparison. Starter’s current grid does not list it. If you wanted Teachable as the room too, you are not on Starter, and you are not stacking Discord to save the room — you are buying a school that also has a community on those plans.

Cited numbers, August 29, 2026

USD. Monthly is month-to-month. Annual is the advertised per-month rate when you pay yearly, except Skool yearly dollars (omitted). Discord has no public SaaS price — that cell is the official fact, not a $0 we invented as a plan card. Platform fee is the vendor’s cut, not card processing.

Sources: Discord Server Setup Guide, teachable.com/pricing, Teachable Pay, skool.com/pricing, Skool Payments FAQ. Full list at the bottom. Dollar tables for Teachable’s 7.5% are on Teachable transaction fees.

What the fees do to the same sale

On the stack, Discord adds no cited host fee. Teachable’s cut and card fee are the sale. On Skool the published cut is the processing — Skool is merchant of record. Arithmetic on listed price, no tax. Refunds, Teachable tax-inclusive bases, Teachable reserves, Skool VAT, and Skool Growth Boost change the dollar. We are not publishing a break-even month.

• $97. Teachable Starter: 7.5% = $7.28 plus US card 2.9%+$0.30 = $3.11; total $10.39. Teachable Builder: 0% + $3.11 = $3.11. Skool Hobby: 10%+$0.30 = $10.00. Skool Pro: 2.9%+$0.30 = $3.11 (under $900). Starter’s cut and Hobby’s cut land in the same neighborhood on this price. Builder and Pro land on the same $3.11 card-shaped number — different merchants.
• $497. Starter 7.5% = $37.28 + card $14.71 = $51.99. Builder: $14.71. Hobby: $50.00. Pro: $14.71. One $497 sale on Starter already exceeds the $50/mo Starter-vs-Builder gap. Same sale on Hobby is $50.00 — already more than a month of Skool Hobby’s $9, and in the same neighborhood as a month of the Starter/Builder gap.
• $2,000. Starter 7.5% = $150.00 + card $58.30 = $208.30. Builder: $58.30. Hobby: $200.30. Pro: 3.9%+$0.30 = $78.30 because the charge is above $900. Pro’s public “2.9%” card is not the rate on a $2,000 invoice. One $2,000 on Starter has already paid for more than three months of the $50 Starter-vs-Builder gap.

Subscription line, stack vs Skool, before any sale: Discord (no public SaaS price) + Teachable Starter $39 vs Skool Hobby $9. Discord + Teachable Builder $89 vs Skool Pro $99. Those gaps are real and small. They do not make the stack Skool. The stack still has two logins and no cited native gate. Hobby’s 10% and Starter’s 7.5% are the products once money moves.

Kajabi, if the stack was actually an OS: public Basic $179/mo. Kajabi Payments, US card, 2.9%+$0.30 = $3.11 on $97, no extra platform percentage. Community cap 1 on Basic. That is not this fork. Trial box above.

When to pick which

Pick the Discord + Teachable stack if

The school is the offer and the room is leftover: a place for questions, not the thing people pay to stay in. You will sell on Teachable (Builder once money moves — do not sit on 7.5%) and invite buyers to Discord. You accept two member lists and a manual (or uncited-bot) gate. You wanted Teachable’s tax remittance and student apps, not Skool as merchant of record.

Pick Skool if

The offer is a feed people pay to stay in. Courses and live calls live in the group. You want buy-and-you’re-in. You accept merchant-of-record checkout, USD prices, and Wednesday payouts. Hobby is a trial of the shape. Pro is the plan once $97–$497 products actually sell — and not the plan for a $2,000 charge if you thought 2.9% was the rate above $900. Turn Growth Boost off if you did not ask for a 30% discovery cut (payments FAQ: 30%, default ON).

Pick neither — pick Kajabi — if

The method is a library or a coaching business you sell: landing page, email, funnel, checkout, player, maybe one community. Public Basic is $179/mo. That is the cash register in this directory.

Pick Circle instead of this stack if

You wanted a branded community with your Stripe, not a Discord invite after a Teachable receipt. Professional is the public floor; the $89 card is annual. Circle pricing.

Who should not pick which

Skip the stack if

The room is the product. Discord will not take the payment, issue the VAT invoice, or drip the course. Also skip stacking Starter “until it sells” — the 7.5% is the same class of problem as Skool Hobby’s 10%. Skip if you needed a cited native paywall from school to room; we did not find one on the public pages tonight.

Skip Skool if

You need your own Stripe, a high-ticket checkout above $900 on Pro’s 2.9% card, a branded app, or a course business with email and funnels. Also skip Hobby once $97–$497 products are actually selling.

Skip Teachable Starter as the cheap half of the stack if

The offer is real. Builder is $89/mo and drops the platform cut to 0% on teachable:pay. Full dollar tables: Teachable transaction fees and Teachable.

Visit the hosts

Teachable affiliate slot — not live

Teachable and Discord buttons are official product URLs only. Visit Skool uses the Skool signup affiliate. Official skool.com/pricing remains the source for Skool numbers. Kajabi’s trial box and visit button use the 30-day trial affiliate, justinwise.net/kajabi. The Kajabi pricing button is a pricing-page affiliate. Official Kajabi pricing remains the source for Kajabi numbers. No invented Teachable or Discord affiliates.

Omitted on purpose

• Discord Nitro ($2.99 / $9.99 on discord.com/nitro this fetch) and Server Boost as community-host costs. They are consumer perks, not a SaaS plan for running a paid expert community. Inventing a “Discord server bill” from them would be the thing this page refuses.
• A Discord public SaaS price. discord.com/pricing returned 404 tonight. We cite “free to create” from the official setup guide, not a $0 plan card we designed.
• Discord Server Subscriptions / Server Shop as the stack. Official Monetization Terms (effective June 6, 2024) list a 10% platform fee plus payment-processing fees (desktop/browser 6%; iOS 30% or 15% on retained auto-renewing subscriptions; Google Play 15% auto-renewing / 30% other). That is Discord as checkout for qualifying users, not “free room + Teachable school.” Using it would be a third machine. We do not mix it into the stack arithmetic. First payout minimum $100, later $25, payout within 45 days after month-end — same terms; still not this fork.
• Gating bots, LaunchPass, Patreon, Memberful, or any uncited Discord-role-after-purchase tool. If we cannot cite it as an official Teachable or Skool number, it is omitted.
• Skool yearly dollar amounts. Official page: “2 months free.” No yearly dollar extracted this fetch.
• Teachable Custom Payment Gateway extra percentage. Not on teachable.com/pricing this fetch. Starter community as a listed feature — unverified on tonight’s grid.
• A break-even month presented as advice. The $39 vs $9 and $89 vs $99 gaps are subscription arithmetic. The $97 / $497 / $2,000 lines are official percents applied to those prices.
• Keyword volumes, “Skool is overpriced” threads as pricing sources, and anything that documents your method for you.

Sources

1. Discord Server Setup Guide — “Discord servers are free to create and can accommodate anywhere from a small group of friends to massive communities with thousands of members.” Text, voice, and forum channels; Community servers. Fetched August 29, 2026.
2. Discord: How do I create a server? — create-server flow; no host-plan price. Fetched August 29, 2026.
3. Discord download — client download page; no SaaS plan cards. discord.com/pricing returned 404 this fetch. Fetched August 29, 2026.
4. Discord Nitro — Nitro Basic $2.99/month, Nitro $9.99/month. Cited only to name the consumer product we refused to treat as a host cost. Fetched August 29, 2026.
5. Discord Monetization Terms (effective / last updated June 6, 2024) — Server Subscriptions Schedule 1: 10% platform fee; desktop/browser processing 6%; iOS 30% (15% retained auto-renewing); Google Play 15%/30%; first payout minimum $100, subsequent $25; payouts within 45 days after month-end. Cited only to separate native Discord checkout from this stack. Fetched August 29, 2026.
6. Teachable pricing — Starter $39 / $29, Builder $89 / $69, Growth $189 / $139, Custom contact sales; 7.5% vs 0%*; 5 / 10 / 50 products; 100 / 1,000 / 5,000 active students; 5 / 50 / 1,000 imported students; 22% annual; 7-day trial; 30-day money-back; USD; $10k/year cap lift; product definition; FAQ: 0% on Builder, Growth, and Custom for teachable:pay or Monthly Payment Gateway; 7.5% on Starter. Community listed on Builder / Growth / Custom comparison columns this fetch. Fetched August 29, 2026.
7. Teachable Pay (updated June 22, 2026) — Starter 7.5% of total transaction value (product price including taxes); Builder/Growth/Advanced/Business 0% on Teachable Payments; US card 2.9%+$0.30; reserves 10%/45 days standard. Fetched August 29, 2026.
8. Teachable online courses — self-paced by default; live via YouTube / Vimeo / Zoom embeds. Fetched August 29, 2026 (reused from the Teachable vendor-page fetch this evening).
9. Skool pricing — Hobby $9/mo, Pro $99/mo, 10% vs 2.9% on the cards, unlimited members/courses/videos/live calls, “2 months free” yearly toggle. Meta this fetch: 14-day free trial. Fetched August 29, 2026.
10. Skool about — community platform; community, courses, and events; subscriptions or one-time course purchases.
11. Skool Payments FAQ (updated August 18, 2026) — Hobby 10%+30¢; Pro 2.9%+30¢ to $899 / 3.9%+30¢ above $900; cannot use existing Stripe; merchant of record; EU VAT; USD prices; Wednesday payouts; Growth Boost 30% default ON.
12. Skool payment terms and policy (updated February 19, 2026) — 14-day free trial, then Hobby or Pro; monthly or annual billing.
13. Kajabi pricing — public Basic $179 / $143; Kajabi Payments US grid 2.9%+$0.30 Basic; 30-day trial. Cited as the OS alternative, not this stack. Fetched August 29, 2026.