Skool Review 2025 | What Nobody Tells You About Starting a Skool Community!

Summary

This video by Romney Nelson discusses the pros and cons of starting a community on the "School" platform. Romney shares his personal experience using the platform for 3 months, detailing how it works both for community creators and members. He highlights the costs involved, the potential for revenue, and the effort required to maintain an engaging community. With a flat monthly fee of $99, School offers flexibility but demands active involvement for success. Romney also explores various successful communities on the platform, sharing insights on how to make the most out of it.

Highlights

• Romney discusses his 3-month experience using School and the factors to consider before starting a community. 🎥
• He emphasizes the importance of creating engaging content and being actively involved in the community. 🔑
• Examples of successful communities illustrate the revenue potential, with some earning over $100,000 per month. 💰
• The flat $99 monthly fee is highlighted as an advantage over tiered pricing models of other platforms. 💸
• Despite its benefits, success on School requires significant time and marketing effort. ⌛

Key Takeaways

• School is a platform for creating and managing online communities and courses for a flat monthly fee of $99. 💻
• Creators can build both free and paid communities, and the fee remains the same regardless of member count. 🤑
• Consistent engagement and fresh content are crucial to maintain a thriving community on School. 🕒
• Effective marketing is essential since School does not promote communities like other platforms (e.g., Udemy). 📢
• School could be a lucrative avenue for those with niche expertise willing to invest time and effort. 🚀

Overview

Romney Nelson gives viewers an insightful look into the world of School, a platform designed for creating and managing online communities. With a flat monthly fee of $99, it's accessible for both beginners and seasoned community builders. Viewers learn about the platform's dual benefit of accommodating both free and paid communities, making it an ideal choice for those looking to establish a presence without worrying about escalating costs as they grow. However, the journey to building a successful community isn't without its challenges.

Romney shares personal anecdotes from his 3-month stint on the platform, giving viewers a peek behind the curtain. He stresses the importance of regular updates and engagement, noting that a stagnant community can quickly lead to disinterested members and dwindling revenues. Romney underscores the crucial role of effective marketing, pointing out that School doesn't automatically advertise its communities—a stark contrast to platforms like Udemy that have extensive student databases.

To top it off, the video showcases some high-earning communities, inspiring potential creators to leverage their unique skills and knowledge. While the potential for substantial income is evident, Romney candidly acknowledges the effort and patience needed to reach such heights. Ultimately, for those with a keen interest in community-building and the dedication to see it through, School could be a game-changer.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction and Overview The introduction and overview chapter discusses key considerations for determining if an online school platform is suitable for you. It reflects on a three-month experience with an online school, covering its effectiveness, workload management, and community building aspects. The chapter also delves into pricing and affordability, strategies for covering the costs via subscriptions, and offers insights into decision-making before choosing an online school platform.
• 00:30 - 01:30: Setting Up and Managing the Community The chapter discusses the process of setting up and managing a community, highlighting the perspectives of both course creators/community managers and community members. It mentions the availability of both paid and free communities and implies a focus on user choices in selecting a community. The text ends abruptly, probably continuing to explain further details on community management and engagement.
• 01:30 - 03:00: Monetization and Pricing The chapter 'Monetization and Pricing' discusses the concept of creating and monetizing online communities related to specific interests or skills. For instance, a community with 5,000 members might be free, while another centered on learning calligraphy could charge each of its 1.2 thousand members $10 per month. The speaker shares their experience with their own community, which they ran for three months, explaining the reasons behind starting it and then deciding to pause it. Additionally, the concept of structuring community access with different membership levels is introduced.
• 03:00 - 05:00: Benefits of Using Skool The chapter discusses various features of using Skool. Users can set up multiple levels within their Skool group, such as level one, two, and three, which can be unlocked based on specific settings. The platform supports inclusion of resources, downloads, and courses that can be uploaded through user settings. Additionally, there is a calendar feature that users can configure as part of their Skool setup.
• 05:00 - 07:30: Challenges and Additional Considerations This chapter discusses the various challenges and additional considerations involved in setting up schedules and meetings for community groups. It mentions the existence of features such as meeting times and member lists, which facilitate the management of these groups. The author shares a personal experience of closing a self-publishing academy, which was priced at $999 per month and had 30 members at the time, providing an opportunity to evaluate the dynamics and challenges of managing such a community.
• 07:30 - 10:30: Real Life Examples and Testimonials In this chapter, the focus is on setting up a community effectively, particularly for community facilitators. The chapter discusses creating an engaging and dynamic environment for members, especially in the context of ongoing paid memberships. It emphasizes the importance of providing fresh content, fostering engagement, and cultivating a sense of belonging among community members. The goal is to keep the members involved and feeling like a part of the community.
• 10:30 - 12:00: Conclusion and Affiliate Program This chapter discusses the aspects to consider when starting an online community using the School platform. It highlights the fixed monthly cost of $99 USD for hosting, which remains constant irrespective of the number of community members or whether the community is free or paid.

Skool Review 2025 | What Nobody Tells You About Starting a Skool Community! Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 I'd suggest that if you've clicked on this video you're trying to determine whether School is right for you so I use school for three months I've got a good background of how effective it can be the workload that goes into it and manage your community what things you need to consider what's the pricing of school and is it affordable how do you build up your subscriptions so that you can actually cover the cost of having an online school uh community so in this video let's go through a lot of those things before you maybe decide to choose
• 00:30 - 01:00 it remember if you do end up after all this information deciding if School is right for you then I've got a link down below to sign up so let's get into the video right now so as we get started let's look at this as both a course creator or a community manager and a student or a member of your community so as a member of the community they can look through and choose and discover different communities both paid and free so this one right here brother of sent
• 01:00 - 01:30 can be a free community you can join 5 half thousand members but if you're learing to uh write calligraphy then you can join this group here there's 1.2 th000 members they're all paying $10 a month and you can look at all the details there so I've got um my community here which is no longer effective as I said I was on there for about 3 months and that's what I'm going to be talking about further about why I chose to start but maybe why I pause my community group so there's a classroom room and you can create different levels
• 01:30 - 02:00 within your uh group uh you can have level one level two level three they can be all unlocked and it depends on how you set all this up so you can include resources you include different downloads you can include uh courses all of that can be actually uploaded through your your settings and that's how you create your school so you can also have a calendar and the calendar set up so
• 02:00 - 02:30 that you can set up different schedules you can have meeting times you might have a a once a week catch up with your community members you've got a group there sorry you got a tab that lists all the members in your group and you've also got about which talks about it so as I said I was closing my self-publishing Academy and I've just set it at $999 per month but at the time of closing I did have about 30 members so that was a good opportunity to sort of test the waters to see what it's like
• 02:30 - 03:00 so let's go back to the classroom there's different ways you can set up your community if you are a community facilitator so you can have multiple different things on there that people can work through but the way you should set it up is if you've got an ongoing paid membership people want to see fresh content they want to see engagement and they want to feel part of that community so what are the things
• 03:00 - 03:30 that you need to consider if you are uh wanting to start school are there pros and cons and what do they look like let me cover some Basics initially about school so the monthly cost to actually host your community is $99 us per month now that's regardless of whether you've got one member or you know 100,000 members the pricing structure doesn't change so that's also regardless of if you offer a free community or a PID community
• 03:30 - 04:00 why would you run a free community then well it might be to build more brand awareness you might be able to direct people to a certain paid course so there's no limitations on what you can do you can also add links for Affiliates and things like that so you do host your own Community you've got control over it of course there's Community guidelines you need to adhere to but the great thing is it's a flat $99 fee so what would I consider to be the pros of school well it's an excellent way to develop a reoccurring monthly Revenue
• 04:00 - 04:30 stream there are some people doing exceptionally well earning well over $100,000 per month with these big communities and it's taking them time and patience to build these they just happen overnight and you don't need a big following to get going you might have a community which you can charge whatever you want to for them to be part of that it could be a $10 per month fee it might be $100 per month it might be $500 per month for people to be part of your community so you can well and truly
• 04:30 - 05:00 cover that $99 flat fee if you need to uh it's a great way to build your brand uh and community of like-minded people so you can bring collectively those people that want to share ideas uh and and work with you and get taught your skill set and help people out that's what that Community is a for the flat monthly fee uh of $99 is unlike a lot of other platforms that might actually start to tear up the pricing structure as you have more community members so
• 05:00 - 05:30 with say kit or convert kit the email platform if you have up to 1,000 member or 1,000 subscribers it's free but then once it goes to a,1 to 2,000 it might go up to $300 per year and it keeps tearing up the more people you have but we School you just have that flat fee uh the last one is it's the dashboard's just very easy to navigate you can work through the different elements of school just
• 05:30 - 06:00 seamlessly uh it's just so easy to actually move through things create your classrooms add your content add resources talk to community members set up different calendar invitations um weekly meetings you can do private events uh it is actually very very easy but what about some of the cons well the cons it does require that monthly sorry monthly involvement ongoing involvement so it's not a set andig kind of platform
• 06:00 - 06:30 you do need to maintain uh some involvement because people are paying a monthly fee they don't want to see you just set something up and walk away and never come back again so it does involve that uh it could take 2 to three months to build your community to actually cover the $99 monthly fee if you have a community where the monthly fee or joining the community might be $5 or1 US dollars but that's if it's low if you have a $100 um monthly fee for a Community
• 06:30 - 07:00 member you'll cover it with one person uh you still need to Market your community so School aren't going to Market your community out there for you they're not doing that unlike a platform like udemy where if you put your course on udemy they might send it out to their $55 million sorry 55 55 million students on the database but it also depends on what little niche and area that those students are looking to uh so that's one thing you really need to drive the
• 07:00 - 07:30 marketing and advertising of your your community to get people to sign up and then once you start and members do join it's very actually hard to to stop um and if your circumstances uh do change then to actually stop that because people have paid a monthly membership 30 days uh that covers that membership fee so you might be in April and go not really sure about this but someone might join that day and they've got 30 days
• 07:30 - 08:00 access to your your platform so you need to give heads up if you're looking at closing your school community so people don't continue to pay that monthly fee um and you don't want to do the wrong thing by people they've signed up in good faith that you're going to providing information and and skills and things like that that they want to learn and be part of that community so there are a couple of considerations for you and so finally who School suitable for well do some research jump on school
• 08:00 - 08:30 check out the paid and free communities see if there's any skill sets and communities in there that you actually have uh some Advanced knowledge with you don't need to know a heap more than everybody else just enough that they want to join your community uh and that could be an opportunity to to really make a huge difference um and so there there could be opportunities to to do that uh and and also if you have the time the skill set the patience the motivation then you should really
• 08:30 - 09:00 consider giving School a go I'm the perfect example I tried it for or I was on the platform for 3 months altogether I well and truly covered my $300 fee for being on there for 3 months I think it ended up coming out to around about 15 or maybe $1,800 but again it was a lot of time that I was investing so the $1,800 compared to the time I was investing wasn't weighing up enough I could probably invest that time to do
• 09:00 - 09:30 other things but I'm actually considering going back to school and maybe looking at a community I can restart and it may not be in self-publishing it might be a different area uh but if you were interested in joining school then I've got the link below in the description and you can check it out yourself sign up and you can actually give it a go yourself but before we finish up let's have a look and and discover some of the communities that might actually be doing okay so you've got the different uh categories up the top top here so if we went to
• 09:30 - 10:00 health then you can go down and this lady right here the lady change number one Community for menopausal women to come together lose weight so 13,000 members at $49 equals over $63,000 per month that is insane if we go down a little bit further let's have a look at another one you might have magical trans Transformations Alpha School you can see all these ones you
• 10:00 - 10:30 can keep flicking through and having a look if we go to say Hobbies there might be some hobbies that you know that you could teach other people and see whether you could do that so even the pains Hub it's 41,000 members for free there's quite a few free members here how about Camp nursing house planning enthusiasts fuse dance Korean photo photographic eye have a look and let's see one here so oh
• 10:30 - 11:00 I'm just having a look wonderful word English so if you're an English teacher or if you want to teach English just go 309 members by $27 that equals 8,343 a reoccurring income each month take away $99 for hosting that platform and the community you're doing exceptionally well so you've got drawing just have a good look around good uh and and check out all the different
• 11:00 - 11:30 categories and see if there's any that align with what you're doing so there's some information to help guide you through school some of the pros some of the cons the experience that I've had and remember if you are keen on signing up I do have a link below in the description and that will take you st straight through and I will be the one that's recommended you to school and they they do have an affiliate program so if you recommend people then you get a percentage uh there's no extra cost to
• 11:30 - 12:00 you but you do get a percentage of the signups and then you can actually do the same for anyone else that joins School via your link and the link of becoming an affiliate is in within your settings of your dashboard so take a look at that as well so thank you so much for watching I hope you've enjoyed this video make sure you give me a thumbs up provide a comment if you want to and I look forward to seeing you soon goodbye