Nathan FieldSkool vs Stan Store comes down to what you sell. Skool is built for a paid community: a group with a feed, courses, events and leaderboards that members pay to join. Stan Store is a link-in-bio shop: one page where you sell downloads, courses, coaching calls and memberships to your social media audience, and it now has a community feature too. Below we compare what each is for, what each costs, who holds the money, and when you need both. Every fact comes from each company's own pages, checked on 29 September 2026.
Pick Skool if the community is the product: members pay to join a group with courses, events and leaderboards, and Skool handles sales tax, for $9 or $99 a month. Pick Stan Store if you sell downloads, coaching calls and courses from your link in bio, for $29 or $99 a month plus Stripe or PayPal fees.
We run our own Skool community, so we know Skool from the owner's side. We have not run a Stan store, so every Stan fact below comes from Stan's help centre and Stan's own pricing article. Backpack's founder also builds Stakk, a store that competes with Stan, which is one more reason we stuck to Stan's own words.
Skool vs Stan Store at a glance
| Skool | Stan Store | |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | A paid community with courses and events | A link-in-bio store for products, calls and courses |
| Price, monthly billing | Hobby $9, Pro $99 | Creator $29, Creator Pro $99 |
| Price, yearly billing | "2 months free" | $300 a year, $948 a year |
| Free trial | 14 days | 14 days |
| Platform fee per sale | Hobby 10% + 30c. Pro 2.9% + 30c (3.9% + 30c above $900) | 0% |
| Card processing | Included in Skool's fee | Stripe or PayPal fees on top (US Stripe: 2.9% + 30c) |
| Payment account | Skool's, as merchant of record | A Stripe account Stan creates and manages, or PayPal |
| Getting paid | Automatic, every Wednesday | You press Cash Out. $10 minimum, full balance only |
| Sales tax and EU VAT | Skool collects, files and pays | Automatic tax calculation you switch on, in some countries |
| Community | The whole product: feed, Classroom, Calendar | One community per store, included on both plans |
| Points, levels, leaderboards | Yes | Not mentioned in Stan's community articles |
| One-off products and bookings | One-time course purchases inside a group | Yes: downloads, courses, coaching calls, lead magnets |
| Order bumps, upsells, email | No email marketing tool listed | Creator Pro only |
| Your address | skool.com/your-group | stan.store/yourname. No custom domain |
What each one is built for
Skool is a place members live. Every group has a Community feed for posts, a Classroom for courses, a Calendar for events and live calls, and a leaderboard. Members earn points when others like their posts, climb levels, and can open courses locked to a set level. Your About page is your sales page. Our guide to what Skool is covers it in more detail.
Stan Store is a place buyers check out. Stan's pricing article calls it "an all-in-one Creator store designed for maximum conversions right from your social profile". On the Creator plan you get a mobile storefront, a calendar and booking tools, an unlimited course builder, recurring subscriptions, lead magnets, community features, and Stan AutoDM for automatic Instagram replies. Creator Pro adds the selling tools: discount codes, limited-quantity offers, upsells and order bumps, payment plans with Afterpay and Klarna, funnels, affiliate management, contact import, email broadcasts and email flows, and pixel tracking for Meta, Google, Pinterest and TikTok.
Skool is where members stay. Stan is where buyers check out.
Price per month
Skool's pricing page shows Hobby at $9 a month and Pro at $99 a month. Both list unlimited members, courses, videos and live calls. The page marks Custom URL and Affiliates as Pro only, and Skool's help centre reserves plugins such as Zapier, AutoDM and the cancellation video for Pro too. Yearly billing gets "2 months free". Both plans start with a 14-day free trial. Our Skool pricing guide has the details.
Stan's plan page shows Creator at $29 a month or $300 a year, and Creator Pro at $99 a month or $948 a year. Stan's pricing article says there is a 14-day free trial, and Stan's help centre says there is no free plan "at the moment". Email, order bumps and upsells all sit on Creator Pro, so a creator who wants to email their list pays $99 a month. Removing Stan's branding from your store also needs Creator Pro.
If the community is what you want to sell, Skool is the cheaper way in. You can try Skool free for 14 days (affiliate link).
Fees per sale
Skool's fee includes card processing. Skool's payments FAQ lists Hobby at "10% + 30c /transaction for all transactions". Pro is "2.9% + 30c /transaction for transactions up to $899 USD" and "3.9% + 30c /transaction for transactions above $900 USD". Skool processes the card itself, so there is no separate Stripe fee on top.
Stan takes 0%, and the processor charges the rest. Stan's fee article says "Stan earns 0% from transactions made on the platform". You pay Stripe or PayPal. For a US creator using Stripe, Stan lists:
- 2.9% + $0.30 per standard purchase.
- An extra 1.5% if your customer is in a different country.
- 0.25% + $0.25 per payout, with a $1 minimum, plus 1% if you sell in a currency different from your Stripe account's.
- 6.0% + $0.30 for Afterpay and 5.99% + $0.30 for Klarna, which are Creator Pro features.
Stan lists different rates for creators outside the US.
A worked example
Say you charge $50 a month for a community. We worked out the monthly cost from each company's listed rates. This assumes US cards, monthly billing, no refunds, no sales tax, no Skool Growth Boost members, and one Stan cash-out a month. Stan's fee list does not include a separate charge for subscriptions, so we added none.
| Plan | 100 members ($5,000 a month) | 500 members ($25,000 a month) |
|---|---|---|
| Skool Hobby | $539 | $2,659 |
| Skool Pro | $274 | $974 |
| Stan Creator | $216 | $965 |
| Stan Creator Pro | $286 | $1,035 |
On these numbers, Stan's Creator plan is the cheapest, and Skool Pro is close behind. The gap is small next to one difference the table does not show: Skool also collects, files and pays sales tax for you. On Stan, that job stays with you. Skool Hobby only makes sense while you are small, because its 10% fee soon costs more than Pro's extra $90 a month.
Skool has one cost Stan does not. If Skool finds you a paying member through Discovery or its own ads, Growth Boost takes 30% of that member's payments for as long as they stay. It is on by default, and you can switch it off in Settings, then Discovery.
Who holds the money, and when you get it
On Skool, payments run through Skool's own merchant account. Skool creates a Stripe Express account only to send your payouts, and you cannot use your own Stripe account. The available balance is paid to your bank every Wednesday, in your local currency. Skool says the first payout "might take up to 14 days", then it is weekly.
On Stan, you connect Stripe or PayPal. Stan's Stripe article says you "will be prompted to create a new Custom Stripe account that is managed by Stan" and "will not be able to connect an existing Stripe account". Money waits in your Stan balance until you cash it out. Stan's cash-out article says:
- You press Cash Out in the Income tab, and money should reach your bank within 24 to 48 hours.
- Your available balance must be at least $10, and you can only cash out the whole balance, not part of it.
- Before a sale is ready to cash out, Stripe takes 2 to 7 business days for US creators, and up to 7 for international creators.
- A first-ever sale on a new account can take 3 to 7 business days.
Sales tax, refunds and disputes
Skool is the merchant of record. Its payments FAQ says "Skool is responsible for all sales tax collection, filing, and payments", and "Skool handles EU VAT for you. We add the VAT rate on top of the price."
Stan has an automatic tax setting you switch on. Stan's tax article says it needs Stripe connected, and works if you are in the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Norway or the EU. Stripe then calculates tax at checkout, but only for customers in your registered tax region, and Stan recommends "consulting a tax professional" if you sell elsewhere. The article does not say Stan files or pays the tax for you.
Refunds are the creator's call on both. Skool's policy is "to let Creators offer refunds to Members at their discretion". On Stan, you refund from the Income tab, partial refunds are not possible, and Stan says you still cover Stripe's processing fee on a refunded sale. If a buyer files a chargeback, Stan's disputes article says a US business also has a $15 dispute fee taken from its balance.
Community features
This is Skool's home ground. Skool's Classroom holds courses with video lessons, files and transcripts, grouped into folders, and you can release pages a set number of days after someone joins, or lock them until a member reaches a level. The Calendar holds repeating events, with live calls in the app or browser. Points, nine levels and a leaderboard are built into every group. Skool's group pricing covers free, subscription, freemium, tiers and one-time payment.
Stan Community is included on both Stan plans. Members can post with files and videos, sort posts into categories, comment, react, find resources and helpful links, and open everything they have bought from you in a Purchases tab. You can schedule posts, email members about a post, and make members moderators or admins. The limits: Stan allows one community per store, its community articles do not mention points, levels or leaderboards, and Stan's help centre says pricing tiers under one product are not available yet. You make a separate product for each tier.
One difference matters for your income. When a member's card fails, Skool retries the charge, marks the member "Declined", asks them to update their card, and lets you retry by hand. Stan's community article says that when a card fails for a paid community, the membership "will expire and be cancelled", and the member loses access until they start a new subscription.
Selling products, courses and calls
This is Stan's home ground. Stan is built to sell many things from one page: downloads, courses, coaching calls with booking, lead magnets that collect emails, and recurring memberships. On Creator Pro you can add an order bump or upsell at checkout, run discount codes, offer payment plans, and send email broadcasts and automated flows.
Skool can sell more than group access, but only inside the group. Skool's one-time course purchase puts a Buy Now price on a course in your Classroom, and members of your group buy it there. Skool's pricing page lists no email marketing tool, no booking tool for paid one-to-one calls and no checkout order bumps.
Branding and your own domain
Neither lets you run the whole thing on your own domain. Skool groups live on skool.com. Changing your group URL is a Pro feature, and each change after the first costs $100. Stan's help centre says "you cannot create or embed a custom domain into your Stan Store". Your address is stan.store/yourname, and you can forward a domain you own to it.
Pick Skool if, pick Stan Store if
Pick Skool if
- The community is what people pay for, month after month.
- You want Skool to handle payments, sales tax and EU VAT.
- You want points, levels and leaderboards to keep members active.
- You want people to find you through Skool's Discovery, and accept the 30% Growth Boost cut on those members.
Pick Stan Store if
- You sell several things from your Instagram or TikTok bio: guides, templates, courses, coaching calls.
- You want bookings, lead magnets and Instagram auto-replies in one tool.
- You want order bumps, upsells and email, and will pay $99 a month for them.
- You would rather pay a flat monthly price than a percentage of each sale.
Use both if
- Your bio link sells lower-priced products, and your best buyers move on to a paid community.
- You want Stan for the shop and bookings, and Skool for the member experience.
If you are comparing more tools, see our Skool alternatives guide.
For most creators weighing Skool vs Stan Store, the question is simple. If people pay you to belong to something, use Skool. If people pay you for things, use a store. When the community is the product, start a Skool community here (affiliate link) on the 14-day free trial.
FAQ
Does Stan Store take a percentage of sales?
No. Stan's help centre says Stan earns 0% from transactions. You pay a flat $29 or $99 a month, plus your payment processor's fees. For a US creator on Stripe, Stan lists 2.9% + $0.30 per purchase, 1.5% more for customers in another country, and 0.25% + $0.25 per payout.
Is Stan Store cheaper than Skool?
It can be, by a little. In our example of 100 members paying $50 a month, Stan Creator costs about $216 and Skool Pro $274, using each company's listed US rates. But Skool's fee includes card processing and sales tax handling, and Stan leaves tax to you. Stan's email and order bumps also need the $99 Creator Pro plan.
Can you build a community on Stan Store?
Yes. Stan Community is included on both plans. Members can post, comment, react, and find resources and their purchases in one place, and you can make it free or paid. Stan allows one community per store, and its community articles do not mention points, levels or leaderboards like Skool's.
Can I use my own Stripe account on Stan or Skool?
No, on both. Stan creates a new Custom Stripe account that Stan manages, and says you cannot connect an existing one. Stan also supports PayPal. Skool processes payments on its own merchant account and uses a Stripe Express account only to send payouts to your bank every Wednesday.
Does Stan Store have a free plan?
No. Stan's help centre says it does not have a free plan "at the moment", and its pricing article offers a 14-day free trial. Skool has no free plan for owners either. Both of Skool's plans start with a 14-day free trial, and its Hobby plan costs $9 a month.
What happens when a member's card fails on Skool vs Stan?
Skool retries the charge, marks the member "Declined", prompts them to update their card, and lets you retry by hand. On Stan, if a card fails for a paid community, the membership expires and is cancelled, and the member loses access until they start a new subscription.
We may earn a commission if you start a Skool community through a link on this page. It costs you nothing extra, and it does not change what we write.