Skool vs Discord + Teachable + Kajabi: Cost & Complexity Showdown

When I first started building online programs, I did what everyone else did: I stacked platforms.

Discord for community
Teachable for courses
Kajabi for funnels (or vice versa)
Zoom for calls
Stripe/PayPal for payments

On paper, it looked smart. In reality? It was a mess.

Members were confused. I was exhausted. And every month, my card got hit by 4–6 different subscriptions just to keep everything glued together.

Then I discovered Skool — and I honestly didn’t get it at first.

How could one platform replace what I’d been doing with Discord, Teachable, and Kajabi combined?

So I did what I always do when I don’t understand something: I tested it for myself.

This post is exactly what I wish I had when I was trying to decide between staying with my old stack (Discord + Teachable + Kajabi) or going all–in on Skool.

I’m going to walk you through:

The real cost (not just the sticker price)
The complexity and tech overhead
The member experience
Where Discord/Teachable/Kajabi still make sense
And when it’s just smarter (and cheaper) to move to Skool

If by the end you feel what I felt — “Why am I still duct-taping tools together?” — you can test it yourself here:
Start your Skool community here

Skool vs Discord + Teachable + Kajabi: Cost & Complexity Showdown

The Two Paths: Multi-Tool Stack vs All-in-One

Let’s be honest for a moment.

Most of us didn’t choose Discord + Teachable + Kajabi because we love chaos. We did it because:

That’s what other creators were doing
Each tool specialized in “one thing”
We thought specialization = better

But over time, this is what happens with the multi-tool stack:

Your community is in Discord
Your course content is in Teachable
Your website, funnels, email are in Kajabi (or something similar)
Your calendar + Zoom links are somewhere else
Your members constantly ask: “Where do I find X again?”

And you live in “tool hell.”

Skool takes a different approach.

Instead of splitting everything apart, it combines community + courses + calendar + payments into one clean, simple platform.

Before choosing a side, I wanted to compare them properly — especially in what matters most:

Cost
Complexity
Member experience
Scalability

Let’s break it all down.

Quick Overview of Each Platform

What Skool Is

Skool is an online community and course platform designed specifically for creators, coaches, and educators who want to run:

Memberships
Masterminds
Group coaching programs
Paid communities

It gives you:

A community feed (like a clean, ad-free social network)
A classroom for lessons and courses
A calendar for live calls, events, and challenges
A gamification system (points, levels, unlockable content)
Built-in Stripe payments and subscriptions

Everything runs inside one login.

You can test it yourself here:
Create your Skool community

What Discord Is

Discord is a real-time chat app originally built for gamers. It’s great for:

Fast feedback
Casual conversations
Micro-communities

But:

It’s chaotic for structured learning
It has no built-in course system
It has no native billing for memberships (you need Stripe/Patreon/etc.)

Discord is amazing as a chat layer, but not as a complete education or membership platform.

What Teachable Is

Teachable is a course hosting platform.

It’s great for:

Structuring lessons
Delivering digital courses
Selling one-off programs

But:

Community is weak or non-existent compared to Skool/Discord
Engagement is low because it’s “course-only”
You often need another tool (Discord, FB Group, Circle, etc.) for community

What Kajabi Is

Kajabi is an all-in-one marketing and course platform.

It’s strong at:

Funnels
Landing pages
Email campaigns
Hosting courses

But:

Community features are basic
The interface can be overwhelming
It’s expensive, especially at scale
You often bolt on Slack/Discord anyway for better engagement

Cost Showdown: Skool vs Discord + Teachable + Kajabi

Let’s talk money, because it matters.

I’m not going to quote exact current pricing tiers (those change), but I will walk through how the cost structure actually feels in real life.

Skool – Simple, Flat Pricing

Skool uses a very simple model:

One flat monthly price per community
Unlimited members
All features included

No:

“Pay more for more students”
“Upgrade to access X feature”
“Per-user fees”

If you’ve got 30 members paying you $50/month, the community already covers its cost and then some.

Everything else is profit.

You can create your Skool community here:

Discord + Teachable + Kajabi – Hidden Stack Costs

On paper:

Discord: “Free”
Teachable: Course hosting subscription
Kajabi: Full-stack marketing and course platform

But here’s what the real-world stack often looks like:

Discord
Teachable
Kajabi (or another funnel tool)
Zoom
Email tool (if not using Kajabi)
Stripe/PayPal fees
Maybe Zapier to glue it all together

Each tool might not look expensive by itself, but:

They stack
They grow as you scale
You lose time managing and troubleshooting

That extra time cost is rarely talked about, but it hits hard:

How to Make Money Online Using ChatGPT Book

Updating links in multiple places
Manually onboarding people
Answering “where is X?” messages daily

When I switched to Skool, my subscription count instantly dropped and my mental load went down with it.

Complexity: How Hard Is It To Run Everything?

Skool: One Platform, One Brain Space

With Skool, I log into one dashboard and I can:

Post in the community
Upload lessons in the classroom
Schedule live calls in the calendar
Collect payments
Track member progress and engagement

My members log into one place and see:

“Start Here”
Courses
Community posts
Events

No bouncing around links. No “check your email for the Zoom link.” No “course is here but chat is over there.”

Everything is stacked in one structure.

Discord + Teachable + Kajabi: The Juggle

Now let’s be real for a second:

Discord is where the chat lives
Teachable is where the content lives
Kajabi is where the funnels/emails live

Which means:

Members get scattered
Content feels fragmented
You are constantly context switching as the host

The complexity looks like this:

Someone buys via Kajabi
Kajabi triggers access to Teachable
You send them a Discord invite link
You hope they:
- Open the email
- Join Discord
- Find the right channels
- Don’t get overwhelmed and ghost

Every extra step in that chain is a drop-off point.

Member Experience: Where Do People Actually Engage?

This is the part nobody talks about enough.

It’s not just “what works for you” as the creator — it’s what feels easy and natural for members.

Skool: One Hub, No Distractions

When my members log into Skool, they land inside a focused environment:

No ads
No endless sidebars
No random DMs from strangers
No notifications from 500 servers

They see:

Community posts from people on the same journey
Lessons they can binge or follow step-by-step
Upcoming calls on the calendar

The design is calm, clear, and built around learning + community — not noise.

That’s why Skool communities have ridiculously high engagement and retention.

You can experience this flow yourself:
Start a Skool community here

Discord: Great Chat, Weak Structure

Discord is addictive — but for chat.

For structured transformation, it’s a nightmare:

Channels blow up and bury important posts
Content gets lost in the scroll
New members ask the same questions over and over
It feels like chaos for people new to the platform

I still like Discord for certain things (e.g., live co-working rooms or casual hangouts), but as the main home of a paid educational community? It’s exhausting.

Teachable: Great Courses, Weak Community

Teachable delivers courses well:

Modules
Chapters
Progress bars

But members:

Log in
Watch a video
Close it
Leave

There’s little emotional attachment.

Without community, it’s harder to keep people engaged month after month.

That’s why so many Teachable creators end up layering Discord or Facebook Groups on top of it — which brings us right back to complexity.

Kajabi: Powerful Marketing, “Meh” Community

Kajabi’s strength is:

Funnels
Landing pages
Emails
Product structuring

But its community features feel like an afterthought.

It’s not designed to be a thriving, sticky community hub. It’s more like a marketing machine with some community sprinkled in.

If your main focus is community + coaching, that can quickly feel limiting, especially compared to Skool’s gamified, community-first design.

Skool’s Secret Weapon: Gamification and Simplicity

The first time I saw Skool’s levels and points system, I shrugged.

“Cool gimmick,” I thought.

Then I watched what happened inside actual communities.

People posted more
They commented more
They checked back in more often
They were motivated to participate

Why? Because Skool turns engagement into a game:

You earn points for participating
You unlock higher levels
You can access secret content, bonuses, or private calls at higher levels

It taps into something simple but powerful:
People like progress.

And it does it without feeling spammy or childish.

This is something Discord, Teachable, and Kajabi simply do not do in the same integrated way.

How It Feels to Run Programs on Each Setup

Let me share what it actually feels like to run a live cohort or membership on these systems.

Running a Program on Skool

I create a classroom with modules
Pin a “Start Here” post in the community
Set the weekly calls in the calendar
Set up Stripe billing inside Skool
Invite people with one link

Members:

Join
See exactly where to start
Introduce themselves in the community
See upcoming events
Get hooked by the simplicity

Everything moves in one clear direction.

Running a Program on Discord + Teachable + Kajabi

Here’s the common workflow:

Someone lands on a Kajabi page
They buy the course / membership
Kajabi adds them to a Teachable product
They get another email to join Discord
You manually pin instructions for where to go, what to click, what channel to read

Members:

Get confused about where the “real action” is
Miss emails
Don’t connect the course and the community in their mind
Drop off silently

You, as the host:

Answer the same onboarding questions repeatedly
Keep updating links across tools whenever something changes
Spend energy on operations instead of impact

At some point I had to ask myself:

“Am I building a business or babysitting software?”

Skool removed that feeling.

Where Discord + Teachable + Kajabi Still Make Sense

I don’t believe in “Skool or nothing.” There are cases where Discord/Teachable/Kajabi still work well.

Discord still makes sense if:

You run a free, casual community
You want real-time voice chat, gaming, or co-working rooms
Your audience is already heavily active there

But for a paid, structured transformation program, I prefer Skool.

Teachable still makes sense if:

You only want to sell one-off courses
You have zero interest in running a real-time community
You don’t mind adding community later with something else

But if you want memberships, coaching, or recurring revenue, Skool fits better.

Kajabi still makes sense if:

You’re obsessed with complex funnels
You want deep email automation in one tool
You don’t mind bolting on a community elsewhere

But if your main product is a community + program, not a funnel farm, Skool is much more focused.

Where Skool Clearly Wins

From my experience, Skool beats the Discord + Teachable + Kajabi stack in these specific areas:

Simplicity – One login, one system, fewer headaches.
Engagement – Gamification + clear feed = more participation.
Member clarity – People know where to go and what to do.
Onboarding – One link, one environment, no tool-hopping.
Cost-to-value – One flat price instead of stacked subscriptions.
Creator sanity – Less tech, fewer integrations, more time for content and coaching.

If your main product is:

A membership
A group coaching program
A mastermind
A community-first educational experience

Then in my honest opinion, Skool is purpose-built for that.

You can see it yourself here:
Create your Skool community

“But I’m Not Tech-Savvy… Can I Really Do This?”

This was my own fear.

I’d already spent years learning how to glue tools together. The idea of switching platforms felt exhausting.

But Skool did something I wasn’t expecting:

It simplified my life instead of adding complexity.

The setup took less time than connecting Discord + Teachable + Kajabi
I didn’t need Zapier
I didn’t need a dev or VA to help people log in
I didn’t need to “maintain” a stack

If you can:

Upload a video
Write a post
Copy-paste a Zoom link

You can run a successful Skool community.

What I Wish Someone Had Told Me Sooner

If I could go back and talk to my past self — the one trying to duct tape Discord, Teachable, and Kajabi together — I’d say this:

“You don’t get paid to manage software.
You get paid to deliver transformation.”

The more tools I stacked, the more I drifted away from the actual work that mattered:

Coaching
Creating content
Improving my frameworks
Serving my members

Skool pulled me back to that.

By bringing everything into a single, community-centered system, it made my business feel cleaner, lighter, and more scalable.

So… Should You Switch to Skool?

Here’s my honest conclusion after living on both sides:

You should strongly consider switching to Skool if:

You run or want to run a paid community, mastermind, or membership
You’re tired of tool chaos
Your members keep asking, “Where’s the link again?”
You want recurring revenue built around transformation, not just courses
You want a platform that is growing with the creator economy, not behind it

You might stay with Discord + Teachable + Kajabi if:

You’re deeply invested in your current complex funnel setup
Your offer is primarily a course without community
You love tinkering with tools and don’t mind the overhead

But if your gut is telling you:

“I want one place where everything lives, and I want it to be simple,”
then I’d say: Skool is absolutely worth testing.

You can start here (this is the link I use myself):

Set up your classroom.
Open your community.
Add your first live call to the calendar.

And feel how it changes not just your business — but your energy.

Skool vs Discord + Teachable + Kajabi: Cost & Complexity Showdown