Nathan FieldSkool tiers let one community sell two or three paid plans, each with its own price and benefits. Skool launched membership tiers in October 2025, along with Freemium, which is a free plan plus paid upgrades. This guide covers how Skool tiers work, how to set them up, what members see, and how Skool itself suggests pricing them. Everything was checked against Skool's help centre on 29 September 2026.
Skool tiers let one group sell up to three paid plans, called Standard, Premium and VIP, each with its own price and benefits. You set them in Settings, then Pricing. Freemium is the version with a free plan plus one or two paid upgrades. You can lock courses and calendar events to a tier.
The five ways to price a Skool group
Skool's help article on setting up pricing lists five models. The middle column is the text Skool shows under each option in its settings.
| Model | What Skool's settings say | In plain words |
|---|---|---|
| Free | Free to join | No price. |
| Subscription | Charge monthly, annual, or both | One paid plan. You can add a 7-day free trial. |
| Freemium | Free to join with 1-2 paid upgrade tiers | A free plan, with paid upgrades inside the group. |
| Tiers | 2-3 paid tiers | Every plan is paid. Members pick one when they join. |
| 1-time | 1-time payment | Pay once. Skool suggests it for lifetime courses, pop-up groups and seminars. |
The paid tiers are named Standard, Premium and VIP in Skool's screenshots. In Skool News #34 (4 November 2025), Skool's team said you cannot rename them.
Which Skool plan do you need?
In Skool News #33 (28 October 2025), Skool's team said tiers went live on both the Hobby and Pro plans, and the help article does not limit them to one plan. What changes is the fee on every sale. Skool's subscriptions FAQ lists 10% + 30c per transaction on Hobby, and 2.9% + 30c on Pro for transactions up to $899 (3.9% + 30c above that). Our guide to Skool pricing has the full comparison.
Freemium or Tiers: the sign-up is the real difference
Inside the group, Freemium and Tiers work the same way. Skool News #33 showed that the difference is the moment someone joins:
- Freemium looks like a free group from outside. People join free and find the paid upgrades inside, on locked courses and events. Skool's team said Freemium has no free trial, since the free plan does that job.
- Tiers shows the plans as soon as someone clicks to join, and the group shows your lowest price as its price. It can offer a 7-day free trial, and the toggle is in the settings screenshots.
Skool's team said moving a paid group to Tiers could change its sign-up rate either way, since the plans now appear up front.
How to set up tiers on Skool
From Skool's pricing help article and its screenshots:
- Click the SETTINGS button in your community.
- Click Pricing on the left.
- Under Model, choose Tiers (2-3 paid tiers) or Freemium (free plus 1-2 paid tiers).
- Set a price for each tier. Each card takes a monthly price, a yearly price, or both.
- Click + Add benefit on each card and list what that tier gets.
- Switch on the VIP card if you want a third tier.
- Choose which tier your previous paid members get, and which tier your previous free members get.
- Click Preview to see the plans page the way members will, then click SAVE.
Step 7 decides what existing members can see after the switch. In Skool News #33, Skool's team showed existing paid members mapped to Standard, and said you can change this whenever you want.
Lock a course to a tier
From Skool's article on course permissions:
- In the Classroom, click the three-dot menu on the course, then Edit course.
- Set the course to Private. Tier access then appears.
- Pick the tier and click Save.
You can also combine tier access with another unlock: Level Lock OR Tier, Buy Now OR Tier, or Time Unlock OR Tier. So a course could unlock at level 5, or straight away for Premium.
Lock a calendar event to a tier
Open the event and use the Access dropdown to choose members on or above a tier. Skool's event permissions article is clear that higher tiers include the lower ones: an event set to Premium is open to Premium and VIP, but not Standard. More on the calls in our guide to Skool live.
Anything else is a text benefit
Benefits are plain text lines on the tier card, and in Skool News #33 Skool's team said they can be anything: coaching, reviews, in-person events, merch. Skool locks courses and events for you. A benefit you type, like a monthly review call, you deliver yourself.
What members see when they upgrade or downgrade
Members see a "Change your plan" page with each tier, its price, its benefits and a JOIN button. Skool's help article on making a paid member free calls this your group's plans page. In Skool News #33, Skool's team showed that locked courses and events send members to this page, and that it lives at your group's address plus /plans, so you can link it in a post or a DM.
Money moves the way Skool's article on proration describes:
- Upgrades are charged straight away, with credit for the unused time on the old plan. Skool's own example: a member on $9 a month who moves to $99 a month halfway through is charged $94.82, not $99.
- Downgrades on the same billing cycle (monthly to monthly, or annual to annual) charge nothing now. The lower price starts at the next renewal.
- Switching between monthly and annual charges the new plan straight away, with no credit for the old one.
- Tier downgrades take effect at once. Moving from VIP to Premium, or Premium to Standard, removes that tier's access immediately. Skool recommends members change plans at or near the end of their billing cycle.
Skool News #33 also showed cancelling members being offered a plan change instead, and said members on an old price keep it when you change prices. We could not find either in the help centre.
How Skool suggests pricing your tiers
The week after launch, Skool News #34 walked through real groups using the new models. This is Skool's advice from its own videos, not ours, and not a promise that tiers earn more.
The patterns Skool saw
- Freemium: the free plan is the community, sometimes with a little content. The paid plans add courses and calls.
- More of the same: each tier adds more courses and more calls than the one below it.
- A human touch at the top: the higher tier adds something personal, like reviews of the member's work, coaching, or a small group call.
- An annual tier: one tier is monthly, and the next is annual only, with a discount plus a few bonuses.
Skool's team said a personal extra is often the easiest thing to sell on a higher tier early on. Skool News #33 also said the old "annual unlock" option for courses was removed to make way for tiers, and members who already had access kept it.
Skool's cautions
- If a paid group is working, you may not need to change anything. Skool's team said any change risks making things worse, and the risk is highest when things are going well.
- Be careful in the settings. In Skool News #33, Skool's team warned that switching a paid group to Free and saving lets members drop to free.
- Free to Freemium is the low-risk move. The sign-up stays the same as a free group, so Skool saw little downside.
- Start with one tier. With a small group, Skool suggested getting one paid tier working before adding a second. Skool said its own product ran at $99 a month for five years before it added the $9 plan.
"Just because there's a new feature doesn't mean you have to use it." Skool's team, Skool News #33.
Limits and gaps to know about
- No tier-only feed. In Skool News #34, Skool's team said you cannot hide a feed category from lower tiers, and suggested a second group if you want a fully separate space. The help centre documents tier access for courses and events only.
- Moving one member by hand. Skool News #34 said a way to give one member a tier by hand was coming. We could not find it in the help centre, whose article on making a paid member free (updated August 2026) still has you remove and re-invite the member on Tiers or Subscription groups. Their points, levels and progress return when they rejoin.
For owners: when a VIP member's card fails
Tiers put more money on fewer members. When a VIP member's card fails, Skool retries the charge itself, marks the member "Declined" and prompts them to update their card, as its declines article describes. What Skool does not send is a note from you. For someone paying for your top tier, that personal note is worth sending fast. Our guide to Skool failed payments covers how to do it by hand.
Backpack does it for you. It is a Chrome extension plus our servers, and its Payment Recovery sends a short sequence of DMs you write, from your own Skool account, when a member's card fails. It stops once they pay, and it runs with your computer off. It is $9 a month for every Skool community you admin, every feature included. Backpack is not made by or affiliated with Skool. Try Backpack free for 7 days.
Skool tiers are worth a look if members keep asking for more, or a free group has members ready to pay. If you are still choosing a platform, you can start a Skool community here (affiliate link).
FAQ
How many tiers can you have on Skool?
Up to three paid tiers. The Tiers model allows 2-3 paid plans, named Standard, Premium and VIP. The Freemium model allows one free plan plus 1-2 paid upgrades. Each paid tier can have a monthly price, a yearly price, or both.
Do higher Skool tiers get access to lower tier content?
Yes. Skool's event permissions article says an event set to Standard is open to Premium and VIP too, and an event set to Premium is open to VIP but not Standard. In Skool News #34, Skool's team said courses follow the same rule, so VIP gets everything the lower tiers get.
Can I rename Skool tiers?
No. In Skool News #34, Skool's team said the names Standard, Premium and VIP are fixed so everyone uses the same words when they talk about tiers. What you can change is each tier's price and the benefits you list on its card. The help centre's screenshots show only those three names.
Are Skool tiers available on the Hobby plan?
Yes, according to Skool News #33, which said tiers went live on both Hobby and Pro. The help article does not limit them to one plan. The fee is the difference: Hobby charges 10% + 30c per transaction and Pro charges 2.9% + 30c on transactions up to $899. Member affiliates remain Pro only.
What happens when a member changes tiers on Skool?
Upgrades are charged straight away, with credit for the unused part of the old plan. Downgrades on the same billing cycle start at the next renewal, but tier access drops at once. Moving between monthly and annual charges the new plan immediately. Skool suggests members change plans near the end of a billing cycle.
What is the difference between Freemium and Tiers on Skool?
Freemium has a free plan and one or two paid upgrades, and joining looks exactly like a free group. Tiers has only paid plans, shows them the moment someone clicks to join, and can offer a 7-day free trial. Inside the group, both lock courses and events by tier the same way.
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