Nathan Field"Skool free trial" means two different things: the 14-day trial you get when you start a Skool community, and the 7-day free trial a group owner can give their own members. This guide covers both: how long each lasts, what happens when it ends, how to cancel a Skool free trial, and what Skool changed about member trials in 2025 and 2026. Every Skool fact here was checked against Skool's help centre and skool.com on 29 September 2026.
The Skool free trial works two ways. Owners get 14 days free on either plan, Hobby ($9/month) or Pro ($99/month), then the paid plan starts unless you cancel under Settings, Billing. Owners of paid groups can also give members a 7-day free trial, and a member can skip it and pay early.
The two Skool free trials at a glance
| Owner trial | Member trial | |
|---|---|---|
| Who gets it | Anyone starting a Skool group | People joining a paid group, if the owner turns it on |
| Length | 14 days | 7 days |
| When it ends | Your Skool plan starts billing | The group's price starts billing |
| How to cancel | Group SETTINGS, Billing, Manage subscription | Your Settings, Communities, the group's SETTINGS, Manage membership |
The owner's free trial: 14 days on Hobby or Pro
Skool's pricing page shows a TRY FOR FREE button on both plans, and its page description says you can get started "with a 14-day free trial." Skool's help centre says the same: both plans are recurring subscriptions after a 14-day free trial. So when the 14 days end, the plan you picked starts billing unless you cancel first.
The two plans, from the pricing page:
- Hobby, $9 a month, with a 10% + 30c fee on each sale.
- Pro, $99 a month, with a 2.9% + 30c fee on sales up to $899, plus a custom URL and affiliates.
- Yearly billing gives 2 months free on either plan.
Our Skool pricing guide covers what else sits on Pro only. If you are still deciding, you can start a Skool community here (affiliate link) and use the 14 days to find out.
What to do with your 14 days
- Build the About page. Skool calls it the landing and checkout page for your group, and it must be complete before your group can appear in Skool Discovery.
- Set your price. Choose free, subscription, freemium, tiers or one-time payment.
- Connect payouts early. Skool pays you through a Stripe Express connection that needs identity verification, so start it before your first sale.
- Get your first members in. You will know more from ten real members than from any amount of setup.
How to cancel a Skool free trial
The steps depend on which trial you are in. Our full guide on how to cancel a Skool subscription covers every case.
If you are the owner (Skool's 14-day trial)
These are Skool's steps, from How to cancel my Skool group subscription or free trial:
- Click SETTINGS for the group.
- Open the Billing tab and click Manage subscription. In the app, scroll the top settings menu sideways to reach Billing.
- Click Cancel subscription.
Skool says everything is saved as it is, and you can come back and reactivate the group later. If you cannot see the Billing tab, Skool says to zoom out: Command and minus on a Mac, Ctrl and minus on Windows.
If you are a member (a group's 7-day trial)
Skool has no separate article for cancelling a member trial, so use its steps for cancelling a membership: click your profile picture, then Settings, open the Communities tab, click SETTINGS next to the group, then Manage membership, and cancel. Do it at least a day before the trial ends. Skool recommends cancelling at least 24 hours before any rebilling.
Free trials you can offer your members
Skool's pricing setup article says a subscription group can "offer a 7-day free trial" to members. In Skool News #60 (9 June 2026), Skool's team showed where: in your group settings, open Pricing, and if you use subscription or tiers pricing, click the 7-day free trial button. The help centre does not give these steps, so check the screen yourself.
How Skool counts trial members, from its analytics definitions:
- Your Members count includes people on a free trial.
- Your MRR leaves them out.
- The Monthly Free Trials chart shows how many trials started and what share became paid. It only counts trials that ran their full 7 days.
- A trial whose card fails counts as converted until Skool's payment retries are finished.
Skool's traffic sources article adds that sign-ups on free trials count as sign-ups even if they leave before the trial ends. Members can also end a trial early and pay now: Skool's article on changing plans gives the path as profile settings, the group's SETTINGS, skip trial/upgrade now, then UPGRADE NOW.
What Skool changed about member trials
Skool has reworked member trials twice on its Skool News show.
In Skool News #5 (1 April 2025), Skool's team announced three changes. Members got the skip trial/upgrade now option, which is now in the help centre. A trial member whose card declines would get about four more attempts over 5 days before removal, down from 14 days. And the members list began to label trial declines and trial cancels apart from paying customers. The help centre does not state the 5-day window today, so treat it as what Skool said then.
In Skool News #66 (21 July 2026), Skool's team showed two more:
- Lock content from trial members. You can set a course, or a single module or page, so trial members cannot open it. They see a button to end the trial and pay, charged in one click to the card already on file.
- No member-to-member DMs during a trial. Trial members can message admins, and admins can message them, but they cannot DM other members. Skool's team said spammers had been using trials to DM members and then cancel.
We could not find a help article for either feature on 29 September 2026. They are shown in the video only.
Do member free trials work?
Skool's team is openly split. In #60 they said 40% to 50% of trials convert to paid across the platform. In Skool News #73 (8 September 2026), they put the average at about 40%, and said they had seen groups at 80% and groups at 8%. Their advice was to check your own trial conversion rate, and if it is poor, think about turning the trial off.
That number now matters beyond the trial. In #73 and #74, Skool's team said Growth Boost now reads each group's own trial conversion rate when it decides how hard to promote you, so a weak rate can cost you ads.
A free trial lowers the price of saying yes. It also lowers the price of leaving before you ever get paid.
The real downsides are simple. Some people join only for the free week. Some cards fail on the first charge. And a trial member who never pays still costs you setup and attention. Check the Monthly Free Trials chart after a month and decide on your own numbers.
When a trial member's card fails
The end of a trial is the first time a member's card is charged. In #5, Skool's team said many cards decline at that point for innocent reasons, such as a bank blocking the charge. Skool handles part of this: it retries a declined card and prompts the member to update it, and you can see the retries and retry by hand. By Skool's 2025 numbers, a trial member has about five days before removal. Skool does not send them a note from you.
Backpack does. It is a Chrome extension plus our servers for Skool owners, and its Payment Recovery messages a member when their card fails, trial members included. You write the messages; Backpack sends them from your own Skool account, even with your computer off. It is $9 a month for every Skool community you admin, with every feature, and it is not made by or affiliated with Skool. Try Backpack free for 7 days, or read our guide to Skool failed payments.
Whichever side you are on, the Skool free trial is the cheapest way to find out if Skool fits. If it does, you can start a Skool community here (affiliate link).
FAQ
How long is the Skool free trial?
Fourteen days for owners, on either the Hobby or the Pro plan. Skool's pricing page and help centre both say so. Separately, an owner of a paid group can give their own members a 7-day free trial. So if a group's join page says "free trial", that is the owner's 7-day member trial, not Skool's 14 days.
Does Skool charge you after the free trial ends?
Yes. Skool's help centre says both plans are recurring subscriptions after the 14-day free trial, so your plan starts billing when the trial ends. Hobby is $9 a month and Pro is $99 a month, or less with yearly billing. Cancel before the trial ends if you do not want to be charged.
How do I cancel my Skool free trial?
As an owner, click SETTINGS for your group, open the Billing tab, click Manage subscription, then Cancel subscription. Skool saves everything so you can reactivate later. As a member on a group's trial, go to Settings, the Communities tab, the group's SETTINGS, then Manage membership, and cancel at least a day before it ends.
Can I offer my members a free trial on Skool?
Yes, if your group is paid. Skool's help centre says subscription groups can offer members a 7-day free trial. In Skool News #60, Skool's team showed the switch under Pricing in your group settings for subscription or tiers pricing. Trial members count in your member total but not in your MRR.
Can a member skip a Skool free trial and pay now?
Yes. Skool's help centre gives the steps: go to profile settings, click SETTINGS for the group, choose skip trial/upgrade now, then UPGRADE NOW. The trial ends and the member is charged straight away. Skool added this option in April 2025 after owners asked for it, according to Skool News #5.
What happens when a trial member's card fails on Skool?
Skool retries the card and prompts the member to update it. In April 2025, Skool said a trial member gets about four more attempts over 5 days before removal; the help centre does not state the window today. Until the retries finish, Skool's analytics count that trial as converted, so check your members list for declines.
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