The Cheapest Plan Is Certain. Second Place Is Not.
Pricing last verified .
Comparison sites like rank-order tables. A first-place plan, followed by a second, third, and fourth, gives a reader an easy conclusion to carry away.
The data here supports only the first part of that table.
The cheapest plan is certain. Second place is not.
That is not a small caveat. It changes what a price comparison is allowed to say. A complete ranking looks precise, but precision is not the same as evidence. If two plans can exchange places when an unresolved surcharge turns out to apply, placing one above the other is an unsupported decision disguised as a table.
The result across all seven revenue bands
The comparison below evaluates the directly verifiable public plan set on one consistent basis: annual billing, the standard member-price assumption of $50/member/month, and one transaction per member per month. Each inferred surcharge is allowed to be either absent or present, with the vendor-level correlation preserved.
The cheapest plan is stable; the full order is not
Each row checks the same eight allowed surcharge scenarios. The guaranteed cheapest plan is the one that remains lowest in every scenario. The pattern count is the number of distinct complete low-to-high orders; the final column lists only pairings whose relative order changes. It does not select a second-place plan.
| Monthly revenue | Guaranteed cheapest | Distinct complete-rank patterns | Pairings that can change order |
|---|---|---|---|
| $500 | Skool Hobby | 2 |
|
| $1,000 | Skool Hobby | 5 |
|
| $2,000 | Skool Pro | 4 |
|
| $3,000 | Skool Pro | 7 |
|
| $5,000 | Skool Pro | 4 |
|
| $10,000 | Skool Pro | 2 |
|
| $20,000 | Skool Pro | 6 |
|
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); Mighty Networks pricing — plan price and platform fee (checked 2026-08-20) (directly verified); Mighty Networks Stripe connection — who holds the Stripe account (checked 2026-08-21) (directly verified); Podia pricing — plan price and platform fee (checked 2026-08-20) (directly verified); Podia transaction fees — fees are additional to the processor (checked 2026-08-26) (directly verified; operator manual verification); Podia Stripe account changes — subscriptions live in the creator's Stripe account (checked 2026-08-21) (directly verified); Heartbeat pricing — plan price and platform fee (checked 2026-08-20) (directly verified); Heartbeat payment processing fees — fees are added on top of Stripe (checked 2026-08-21) (directly verified)
The first two columns answer the question a reader usually asks: which plan is cheapest at this revenue level? The third and fourth columns answer the question a ranking table usually hides: how much of the rest of the order is actually settled?
The answer is consistent across the entire table. The cheapest plan is guaranteed in every row. The pair list is never empty. At the band where the pattern count reaches all eight allowed outcomes, every scenario produces a different complete order. There is no evidence-based second place to report there.
Why the cheapest plan can be settled
An inferred surcharge is one-directional uncertainty. It creates a lower cost when the additional charge is absent and a higher cost when it is present. It does not create a third outcome in which the affected plan becomes cheaper than its own lower edge.
The surcharge uncertainty also does not apply to the two Skool plans in this model. Their published fee treatment is handled as all-in, so the unresolved subscription-surcharge question does not move their costs. At the lowest tested bands, the Hobby plan is the guaranteed winner; at the remaining bands, the Pro plan is the guaranteed winner. In every row, that winner stays below every competing plan in every allowed surcharge state.
This is the important asymmetry:
- To establish first place, we need one plan to remain below all the others. The scenario check does that.
- To establish second place, we need the same two candidates to keep their order while every other candidate is also considered. The inferred additions can move those candidates relative to one another.
The fact that the uncertainty is small for an individual plan does not make it irrelevant to rank order. A narrow cost range can still cross another narrow cost range. Once two plans are close enough, the correct result is a conditional order, not a forced one.
What the moving pairs mean
The final column is deliberately narrower than a full ranking. It names the pairings whose order changes across the allowed scenarios, without declaring which side belongs above the other. That is the useful detail: it shows where the unresolved evidence matters while leaving the unresolved conclusion unresolved.
Several kinds of movement appear in the table. A pair can switch because one inferred plan moves while the other does not. Two plans from different vendors can move in opposite directions when their surcharge groups are toggled. A pair can also land on the same cent-rounded amount in one scenario and separate in another. These are all reasons not to convert the scenario table into a single universal rank order.
This is a different question from whether an individual pair has a break-even point. The pair-level comparison map asks which two-plan decisions stay in the same order and which pairs depend on revenue. This article asks whether all plans can be placed in one defensible line at the same revenue. A set of pairwise facts does not automatically produce a complete ranking when some pairwise facts are conditional.
What to do when second place is not available
Start with the part the data can settle: identify your revenue band and note the guaranteed cheapest plan. Then stop treating the remaining plans as a price-ranked shortlist. If the cheapest plan is not your choice, the reason should come from a criterion outside this cost model, not from an invented second-place label.
Use a requirement you can verify for your own situation. That may be a constraint in your workflow, a contractual or support condition, a migration consideration, or another non-price requirement that matters more to you than a small difference in modeled cost. This site does not have evidence to score those criteria, so it does not turn them into a product-quality ranking.
That may feel less satisfying than a neat list from first to last. It is more useful. A reader who knows the cheapest price and knows why they are choosing something else has a decision they can explain. A reader who chooses “second cheapest” from an unresolved order has only a false sense of precision.
Scope and limits
This result covers the recorded annual-billing plans, the tested revenue bands, the standard member-price assumption, and the allowed surcharge scenarios. It excludes entries whose processing rates are not directly verified. It also does not assign numbers to quote-only plans, missing monthly prices, add-ons whose billing axis cannot be derived from revenue, taxes, refunds, chargebacks, foreign-exchange costs, or other unsupported inputs.
The article does not compare features, usability, product quality, engagement, or support performance. Those may matter to a real decision, but the current pricing records cannot rank them. The practical conclusion is therefore limited and clear: price can establish the minimum in each tested band, but it cannot establish the complete order below it.
Methodology
- The comparison uses the directly verifiable public plan set and checks every tested revenue band.
- Each band is evaluated under all eight allowed states of the three correlated inferred-surcharge groups.
- The guaranteed cheapest plan must remain the lowest-cost plan in every allowed state.
- A complete-ranking pattern is one distinct low-to-high order after cent-level rounding; ties remain ties rather than being broken by hand.
- The table reports the number of distinct patterns and the pairings that change order. It does not publish one selected complete ranking.
- Missing or unverified inputs are excluded rather than filled with estimates.
Pricing changes without notice. Re-check the underlying terms before committing to a plan.