GoHighLevel vs Skool: What We Found Building a Course and Community Inside GHL

The GoHighLevel vs Skool choice depends on whether the community is your whole business or one part of it. Skool is a community and classroom platform priced at $9 or $99 a month for each community, with a 10% or 2.9% transaction fee on member payments. GoHighLevel is a CRM and marketing platform at $97 a month that also hosts courses and community groups, and one Starter plan holds more than one group. We opened a GoHighLevel Starter trial on Nov 2, 2026. On Nov 4 we built a sample course and a community group inside it, so the GoHighLevel screens below are ours.

Bottom line: Skool is the better community. Reviewers and GoHighLevel users themselves say members post more there, and Skool’s directory can send you new members. GoHighLevel is the better business system. The $97 that runs one group also runs a second and a third, next to funnels, email, SMS follow-up and a CRM that knows who each member is. Pick Skool for one paid community with no sales process behind it. Pick GoHighLevel for several communities, or for a community that feeds coaching calls and client work.

We built the course and the group, set the branding and opened the member portal. We did not invite members, post, run the points system or take a payment. Engagement claims on this page come from the users and reviewers we link to.

Last updated: November 2026

Skool prices come from skool.com/pricing and Skool’s help center. GoHighLevel prices come from gohighlevel.com/pricing and the plan comparison inside our trial account. All were checked on 4 November 2026. We earn a commission if you start a GoHighLevel trial through our links. The Skool links on this page are plain links and earn us nothing.

GoHighLevel vs Skool in one table

The GoHighLevel annual prices come from HighLevel’s in-app plan comparison, checked Nov 4, 2026: $970, $2,970 and $4,970 a year. Our capture of Skool’s page showed the yearly toggle but not a yearly figure, so this page compares monthly prices only.

What we built inside GoHighLevel on Nov 4

GoHighLevel Memberships is the module that holds courses and communities. It gives each sub-account a course builder, community groups and a member portal under one menu. The Memberships menu in our Starter account has 5 tabs: Client Portal, Courses, Communities, Credentials and Gokollab Marketplace, the last one marked New.

The community group

A new group asks for three things: a name, a URL slug and a description. A Branding step follows, with a 1:1 favicon and a 16:9 cover image.

Our “Sample Coaching Group” then appeared in the Groups list, and the Create Group button stayed on the screen for the next one. We saw no group cap on Starter. HighLevel’s Communities help article describes what goes inside a group: channels such as Announcements or VIP, scheduled events with Zoom links, a Learning tab that attaches courses, and three member roles (Admin, Contributor and Member).

On Skool, each extra group needs its own plan, so this screen is where the price gap starts.

The course builder

Create New opens three options: Start from scratch, Import from Kajabi, and Create using Ask AI. Skool creators who also sell a Kajabi course get a migration path here.

The wizard takes a title of up to 255 characters, a description of up to 2,500 and a thumbnail (1280x720 recommended). Pricing offers Free, Recurring or One Time, and the Pricing tab generates a checkout link once you set a price. GoHighLevel then scaffolds the course for you.

The 5 starter lessons run Welcome Aboard!, The What, The Why, The How, and What’s Next?. Each lesson editor accepts video up to 5 GB and audio up to 2 GB, plus a thumbnail and downloadable files. A course carries 9 tabs: Outline, Live Sessions, Settings, Customize, Pricing, Offers, Comments, Credentials and Community Groups. HL Growth Partner, a HighLevel consultancy, adds that courses can drip by day or date and grant access by category. We did not test drip.

What members see

Members log in through the Client Portal. Until you connect your own domain, that portal runs on a clientclub.net address. The Client Portal tab carries a banner for a white-label app with your courses and communities inside.

Building the course and group was our first action in the account, and the wallet credit checklist paid out for it. Our balance went from $2.00 to $17.00.

Start the 30-day free trial and build your own group. Our link adds a free live Zoom bootcamp every weekday at 11am CT. A card is required and billing starts at the end unless you cancel. Our free trial guide covers the steps.

Where Skool is the better community

Skool is a community platform that puts a discussion feed, a course classroom and live calls inside one group. It charges a flat plan fee for each group and a transaction fee on what members pay. The price of Skool Pro is $99 a month, and Hobby is $9.

The people who use both platforms are blunt about engagement. Course Platforms Review says Skool’s community does “a much better job than HighLevel” and compares HighLevel’s to a forum. In a thread on r/gohighlevel, a poster who runs everything in GoHighLevel asked about building a community there, and replies said GHL communities are not the best option. A thread in the GoHighLevel Agency Owners Facebook group landed in the same place: Skool for engagement and gamification, GoHighLevel when you want one system.

Three things on Skool’s side are verifiable today:

• Discovery. Skool’s payments FAQ says Growth Boost shows your group at the top of Skool’s search results and lets Skool run off-site ads for it. Skool fronts the cost and takes 30% of payments from members it brings in. Growth Boost is on by default. GoHighLevel has no audience to send you.
• Simple money. Skool is the merchant of record, adds and remits EU VAT, and pays out every Wednesday. On Pro, Skool says its 2.9% beats Stripe, which adds 1.5% for international cards and 0.5% for subscriptions.
• Fewer decisions. Skool has two plans, and both include unlimited members, courses, videos and live calls. You can run a group without touching DNS, a processor or a sending domain.

What GoHighLevel adds around the community

GoHighLevel is an all-in-one CRM and marketing platform for agencies and service businesses. It stores every member as a contact, so pipelines, workflows, email and text follow-up act on the same record. The in-app comparison lists 28 features on Starter, including Workflow Builder, Campaign Builder, two-way SMS and two-way email.

What that changes for a community owner:

• Follow-up Skool cannot do. A member who stops logging in can get an email and a text. A member who finishes a course can be moved into a sales pipeline or sent a booking link. HighLevel’s help docs say workflows can also award community points and rewards.
• Funnels and checkout. Sales pages, forms and calendars sit in the same account. The funnel library offers more than 1,000 templates.
• More than one community. Multiple groups per sub-account, and 3 sub-accounts on Starter for separate brands or clients.
• Your brand on it. Custom domains, a Branded Client Portal App at $49 a month, a white-label desktop app on Unlimited ($297), and SaaS mode on Founder ($497). The white-label mobile app is a $497 a month add-on. Our white-label guide prices each layer.

If you also sell courses on Kajabi, our GoHighLevel vs Kajabi comparison covers the course side in more depth.

The money math: one community, then three

Skool bills per group. Its payment terms tie the plan to the group owner, and canceling archives that group. Each group’s subscription is managed from its own Billing tab. GoHighLevel bills per account, and the groups sit inside it.

Platform fees only

With member payments counted

Take a paid group of 20 members at $50 a month, or $1,000 a month per community. Skool fees come from its payments FAQ. For GoHighLevel we assumed a processor charging the same 2.9% plus 30 cents as Skool Pro. Check your own Stripe or PayPal rate, and remember Skool’s point about international and subscription surcharges.

What the numbers say:

• One small community: Skool Hobby is cheapest. Hobby beats Pro until about $1,268 a month in revenue, where Pro’s $90 higher fee equals its 7.1-point lower cut.
• Three communities: GoHighLevel saves $200 a month against Skool Pro and $143 against Hobby. On annual billing the GoHighLevel figure drops to $186.
• What the table leaves out: GoHighLevel usage. Community emails bill at $0.675 per 1,000, and SMS at $0.0083 per segment plus carrier fees. It also leaves out Skool’s 30% cut, which applies only to members Skool’s directory or ads bring in.

Our GoHighLevel pricing guide lists every usage fee.

The weak spots of GoHighLevel communities

GoHighLevel communities have seven weak spots worth pricing in:

• Engagement is your job. The users and reviewers above all say members post less than on Skool. HighLevel offers a leaderboard and levels, but you design the prompts, events and workflow nudges.
• Nobody finds you there. GoHighLevel has no directory like Skool’s and no Growth Boost. A Gokollab Marketplace tab sits in Memberships, marked New, and we did not test what reach it gives. Plan on every member coming from your own ads, list or funnel.
• A borrowed address at first. The portal runs on clientclub.net until you connect a domain and update DNS.
• Shared sending limits. HighLevel sends community notifications from the sub-account’s default email. Our new account sent from a shared domain capped at 500 emails a day, and a dedicated domain lifts that cap.
• More screens. Five Memberships tabs, nine tabs per course, and a whole CRM around them. Skool has two plans and one group page.
• Payments and tax are on you. You connect Stripe, PayPal, NMI, Square or another processor. Skool handles EU VAT as merchant of record.
• The member side is untested by us. We never invited a member, so we cannot speak to the app or feed from a member’s seat.

Our full GoHighLevel review covers the learning curve and support reports in more depth.

Which one fits your business

Pick Skool if

• The community is the product and you run one group.
• You want Skool’s directory to bring members, and a 30% cut on those members is acceptable.
• You want members posting without building your own nudges.
• You would rather not set up a processor, a sending domain or DNS.
• Revenue sits under about $1,268 a month and Hobby’s 10% fee costs less than Pro’s $99.

Pick GoHighLevel if

• You run, or plan to run, two or more communities.
• The community feeds coaching calls, client work or a higher-ticket offer.
• You need email and SMS follow-up and funnels in the same account as the group.
• You are an agency building client communities under your own brand.
• You already pay for GoHighLevel, so the community costs nothing extra.

Our GoHighLevel alternatives list covers other platforms. If you plan more than one group, or a group that sells calls, start the 30-day GoHighLevel trial and build the second group before you pay Skool for a second plan.