Skool vs Circle: Which One Costs Less at Your Revenue?

Pricing last verified 21 August 2026.

Skool Pro and Circle Professional show different headline prices. On the strength of those two numbers, Circle looks like the cheaper platform. It is not — and the comparison is not even like for like, because Circle’s displayed rate is an annual-billing rate.

Head to head on cost

Monthly platform cost at each revenue level. Each amount is the total you pay per month. Bold values are the lowest cost in each column when that result is guaranteed. Ranges show where a platform has not published whether Stripe's subscription surcharge applies: the surcharge component is inferred and not published. The low figure excludes it; the high figure includes Stripe's published rate. A single figure means this calculation does not use an inferred surcharge for that plan; it does not mean every input has been independently verified. See the linked source list for each source's direct verification status.
Platform plan	$500 revenue	$1,000 revenue	$2,000 revenue	$3,000 revenue	$5,000 revenue	$10,000 revenue
Skool Pro	$100Lowest cost	$118Lowest cost	$153Lowest cost	$188Lowest cost	$258Lowest cost	$433Lowest cost
Circle Professional	$120	$151	$213	$275	$399	$709

Pricing last verified 2026-08-26. Members billed $50/month. Every figure includes the subscription, the platform's transaction fee, and card processing, on annual billing throughout.

Sources checked through 2026-08-26; individual source dates and verification status: Skool pricing — plan price (checked 2026-08-20) (directly verified); Skool Payments FAQs — transaction fee rates and tiers (checked 2026-08-21) (directly verified); Skool analytics definitions — fee includes payment processing (checked 2026-08-21) (directly verified); Circle pricing monthly billing availability — three checks of the Professional, Circle Plus, and Business tabs found no billing-period toggle (checked 2026-08-26) (directly verified; operator manual verification); Circle paywall transaction fees — vendor-side verbatim itemization of Stripe Payments and Stripe Billing rates in a paywall subscription fee example (checked 2026-08-21) (directly verified); Stripe US pricing — card processing rate (checked 2026-08-21) (directly verified); Stripe Billing pricing — pay-as-you-go tier rate / charged on Billing volume / one-off invoices excluded (checked 2026-08-21) (directly verified)

How the fees are structured

Effective transaction fees by platform plan.
Platform plan	Quoted fee	Structure	Real cost per transaction
Skool Pro	2.9%	appears all-inSkool charges 3.9% + $0.30 when a single transaction is above $900. This threshold is per transaction, not monthly revenue. Every scenario on this site bills members $50/month, so the 2.9% tier applies at every revenue level shown.	2.9% + $0.30
Circle Professional	2.0%	stacked	5.6% + $0.30
Circle Business	1.0%	stacked	4.6% + $0.30

Pricing last verified 2026-08-26. "Stated" means the provider says so in writing on its own pricing page. Ranges show where the surcharge component is inferred and not published. The low figure excludes it; the high figure includes Stripe's published rate. A single figure means this calculation does not use an inferred surcharge for that plan; it does not mean every input has been independently verified. See the linked source list for each source's direct verification status. Stripe is modelled at 2.9% + $0.30 (Standard US online card rate.)

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