Paid communities and courses

The research was done by AI agents that open web pages. Some sites refuse them; where that happened we say so. The small numbers point to the source list at the end. Where a figure is our own sum or guess, it is marked “our estimate” and the basis is given.

The claim

These are examples of the claim, copied from our collection of 12 tweets on this scheme¹. View counts are as collected on 6 October 2026. Dates are worked out from each tweet’s ID number. The page judges the scheme, not the people who tweeted.

“it’s pretty crazy seeing how whop groups on legit anything printing six figures per month

for example these dudes pulling six figures telling grown men when to buy charizard packs”

@maxxmalist, 8 December 2025, 8,836 views¹. (“Charizard packs” are packs of Pokémon trading cards.)

“Your next big opportunity is here!🧵

Whop processes $700M+, and top businesses earn $1M+ per month!

✅ Free marketing ✅ Sell & earn effortlessly ✅ Track top earners with Whop Discover ✅ Open to everyone—start today!

💰 Start now!⤵️

🔗 Join Whop →”

@shamimai1, 10 February 2025, 2,080 views¹

“you don’t need to trade to make money from trading

people are making 6-figs a day selling access to trading bots on whop

you can literally:

• find quality white-labeled bot
• create a whop
• run traffic to it

and make thousands of dollars per month

it all comes down to” (truncated in our collection)

@fromzerotomill, 30 September 2025, 1,232 views¹

The collection is small: 12 tweets, against 146 for some other schemes¹. Several come from accounts too small to name under our rules, so we describe them instead of quoting them. The most-viewed tweet (22,834 views, from @X_FINALBOSS, 31 May 2026) says a seller ranked highly on Whop makes $2 million a month “in info”, meaning information products such as courses and paid groups¹. Another, from a small account, says the owner of a Skool community about AI earns over $280,000 a month, every month, and adds a link to open a Skool account with a 14-day free trial¹. A third says its author’s Skool community took $62,568 in one month and offers a free case study to people who like, comment and follow¹.

Eight of the 12 tweets state a monthly or daily income. Two more give a price or a member count from which one could be worked out¹. None of the 12 states how large an audience the owner had before launching, how many members cancel each month, what the platform takes, or shows proof of the income¹. We read the tweets’ text as collected. We did not view their images, videos or the rest of their threads, and several texts are cut off at a link, so some of this may appear there.

Because the collection is small, the page also rests on how the method is promoted in general, on the platforms’ own pages and on public data about the communities.

What the scheme is

You open a group on a platform built for paid memberships and charge people a monthly fee to be in it. Members get some mix of lessons, a discussion board, live calls, and access to the owner. The two platforms named in the tweets are Skool and Whop.

There are three common versions:

• A community or course that teaches something. A trade (running adverts, insurance sales, data engineering), a hobby, or a way to make money.
• Paid access to information. Trading or betting “signals” (messages that say what to buy or bet on, and when), or tips on what collectables to buy.
• A “white-labelled” product. This means software made by someone else that you sell under your own name, such as a trading bot (a program that places trades automatically).

The income is “recurring” because members are charged every month until they cancel. That word matters, and we come back to it: the income only repeats if new members arrive as fast as old ones leave.

The mechanism is real. Skool’s sign-up page says “Join 200k communities earning $1 billion per year”¹⁹. Whop’s home page says “$4.6B+ paid to businesses on Whop”¹⁵. The question is how that money is spread.

The arithmetic

Step 1: what the platform takes

Skool has two plans. The plan called Hobby costs $9 a month and Skool keeps 10% of each payment. The plan called Pro costs $99 a month and Skool keeps 2.9%². Skool’s help pages add 30 cents per payment on both plans, and a higher 3.9% rate on Pro for payments above $900³. Skool’s own example: a $9 membership pays the owner $7.80 on Hobby³. The owner’s trial is 14 days².

Whop charges no monthly fee. It takes 2.7% plus 30 cents of each card payment from a customer in the seller’s own country, more for foreign cards and currency conversion, and up to “6% + $0.30” with every optional extra switched on⁵. Taking the money out costs $2.50 for a next-day bank transfer, or 4% plus $2.50 for an instant one⁵.

So the money at risk is small, and the fees do not decide the outcome.

One Skool fee is easy to miss. Skool can find members for a community through its own search listing and adverts, a feature it calls Growth Boost. Its help page says: “Skool does all the work and fronts the cost. You only pay a 30% commission if Skool gets you a customer.”³ The cut lasts as long as that member stays. The feature is on by default, can be switched off, and the page refers to a percentage the owner can change⁴. Skool credits itself when its listing or advert was the member’s last click in the 14 days before joining, so an owner’s own follower can count too⁴. Skool publishes no figure for how many members this brings.

At the default rate, an owner keeps about $19.16 of a $29 membership that Skool brought (our estimate: $29, less 30%, less 2.9%, less 30 cents)³⁴.

Step 2: how many paying members the income needs

The sum is price times paying members, less fees. This table shows how many paying members are needed after fees. It assumes the owner brings every member, all cards are domestic and nobody is refunded. It is our estimate, worked from the fee pages²³⁵.

Worked example for Skool Pro at $29: each member pays out $29 x 0.971 - $0.30 = $27.86. To clear $10,000 after the $99 plan fee you need $10,099 / $27.86 = 363 members (our estimate)²³.

The Whop columns use the base card rate only. Whop’s optional billing automation (0.5%), its 7-cent card-screening charge and the $2.50 payout fee would add a few members to each cell⁵.

The $280,000 a month in one of the tweets would need about 2,900 members paying $99, or about 10,000 paying $29 (our estimate from the same fees)³.

Step 3: what communities actually charge, and how big they are

Skool publishes a “Discovery” list. Our agents pulled the English-language list in Skool’s default “Trending” order on 10 October 2026: 1,000 communities, Skool’s top 1,000 by its own ranking and not a random sample⁸. Skool blocked a second pull, so the figures were re-counted from our saved copy. We counted two ways⁸:

• Communities whose listing shows one monthly price (782). The median price is $30 a month and the median size is 230 members. “Median” means the middle one: half are bigger, half smaller. 216 of the 782 show fewer than 100 members.
• Every community with a recurring price anywhere in Skool’s data (910), which adds annual prices and groups whose price is not on the listing card. The median price is $33 and the median size is 235 members.

RevenueGeeks counted the same list a month earlier. It found a median of 200 members, a median monthly price of $39 across 868 communities, and the ten largest communities holding 46.8% of all memberships on the list¹⁰.

Three cautions:

• This is Skool’s shop window: 1,000 communities out of the 200,000 Skool says exist⁸¹⁹.
• A listed member is not always paying the listed price. When an owner raises the price, Skool’s help page says “Existing members will be grandfathered on the price they’re currently paying; this could be free.”³
• Some groups sell several tiers, and the listing then shows one tier’s price beside a member count covering all tiers. Skool’s data marks 450 of the 782 as one type and 320 as another; in the three pages we sampled, the first was a single subscription and the second had tiers (our inference)⁸. The largest member counts belong to the tiered kind.

Step 4: how many reach the claimed income

Nobody outside Skool can see what a community is paid. What can be seen is the listed price and the listed member count. Multiplying them gives a ceiling: the most the community could take if every listed member paid today’s price every month.

On the Discovery list, the median ceiling is about $7,800 a month on the first count and about $8,100 on the second⁸. For the 450 groups we read as single-subscription, where the ceiling is most reliable, it is about $6,400 a month from a median of 182 members⁸. Between 41 and 51 communities have a ceiling of $100,000 or more, depending on the count, and between 7 and 11 have $280,000 or more⁸. These are our estimates from Skool’s listed figures.

A wider view comes from profitable.app, a third-party site that tracks 48,100 Skool communities⁹. It reports:

The median paid community on that tracker charges $29 a month and has a ceiling of $1,202 a month⁹. The site says plainly that this overstates: “MRR is modeled, not reported: Skool does not publish revenue, so we estimate it as monthly price times current members - an upper bound that assumes every member pays monthly.”⁹ (MRR means monthly recurring revenue.)

So on the generous measure, about one paid community in six could reach $10,000 a month, and about one in 55 could reach $100,000 (our estimate: 2,600 and 287 out of 15,900)⁹. Two things make those shares too generous.

The ceilings add up to far more than Skool says is paid. They total $196.5 million a month, about $2.4 billion a year, for the 15,900 paid communities the tracker sees⁹. Skool says all its communities together earn $1 billion a year¹⁹. So in total the ceilings are at least about 2.4 times real takings (our estimate; Skool’s figure is undated and unaudited). The tracker’s top list shows how: a group described as “offering free courses” is modelled at $2.3 million a month²¹. The counts over $10,000 and $100,000 are therefore overstated by an amount we cannot measure.

The tracker sees only communities that got as far as being listed. Its 48,100 is about a quarter of the 200,000 Skool states⁹¹⁹. Skool lists a group only after it has a cover image, a description, an about page, a first post and invited members¹⁶. Groups abandoned before that are not counted.

Skool’s own totals give an average: $1 billion a year across 200,000 communities is about $417 a month each, before fees (our estimate)¹⁹. Most communities are free, so the typical one is lower.

Step 5: the two numbers the tweets leave out

Audience. The community in the $280,000 tweet is Maker School, run by Nick Saraev. Its Skool page shows “2.5k Members” at “$184/month”; Skool’s data showed 2,571 to 2,573 on the day we read it¹¹. His YouTube channel showed 538,000 subscribers the same day¹². Today’s members are about 0.5% of today’s subscribers (our estimate: 2,573 / 538,000)¹¹¹².

That figure needs care. It counts current members of a $184 group, not everyone who ever paid, and says nothing about a $29 group. The audience was also far smaller when the group opened. In September 2024, the week Maker School was created, he wrote that he was earning about $100,000 a month, that “My ‘average revenue per subscriber’ … is only ~$5”, and that his earlier group had a waiting list: “I capped it at 400”⁶⁰. The $280,000 figure is the tweet author’s, not the owner’s¹.

We found no measured rate for Skool or Whop. Substack, a paid-newsletter platform, says 5 to 10% of its writers’ free email subscribers tend to become paying ones, which is a different product and a warmer audience⁶³.

Cancellations. “Churn” is the share of paying members who cancel each month. We found no measured figure for paid communities. Skool’s help article on churn is a video we did not watch; its chapter list includes “What does good churn look like?” but the page text gives no number¹⁸. One site publishes 5.8% a month and labels it an “editorial estimate”²⁹. A Skool community owner’s post attributes to Skool’s founder a scale on which 20% a month is “Average” and 2 to 9% is “Amazing”; we could not see the original⁶².

As an illustration only: at 10% a month, a 360-member community must sign 36 new paying members every month just to stay level (our estimate).

What people who tried it report

Neither platform publishes how its sellers do: no official median, no survival rate. What follows is third-party data and self-reports.

Skool. Income follows member count closely. On profitable.app’s chart, paid communities with fewer than 100 members have a median ceiling of $485 a month. Those with 100 to 499 members sit at about $5,900, those with 500 to 999 at about $18,900, and those with 1,000 to 5,000 at about $37,200⁹. The page’s text gives different, higher figures for each band ($500, $6,200, $22,000 and over $40,000)⁹. Most communities are small: 23,700 of the 48,100 tracked have under 50 members⁹. The site’s own summary is “Audience comes before income.”⁹

Whop. Whoptrends, a third-party site that sells a tracking tool, estimated earnings for 191,654 Whop products in February 2026²⁰. It found:

• 168,368 products (87.8%) showed no revenue the tracker could see²⁰.
• Among the 21,524 that earned, the median was $74 a month²⁰.
• About 3,800 to 3,900 products (2%) earned over $1,000 a month²⁰.
• 105 products (0.05%) earned over $100,000 a month²⁰.
• The top 1% of earning products, about 215, took 56.5% of an estimated $64.2 million a month²⁰.
• Trading was the largest category, at 31.0% of revenue. The median earning trading product made $333 a month²⁰.

The site says of its own numbers: “these are estimates, not verified financial data.”²⁰ Its rows do not sum exactly: its tiers over $1,000 add to 3,941 where its text says 3,841, and its zero and earning products add to 189,892 of the 191,654²⁰. One seller can also list several products.

These figures probably understate what sellers earn. The tracker’s total, $64.2 million a month, is about a quarter of the roughly $250 million a month implied by a statement from Whop’s investor the same month, that participants were “earning approximately $3 billion annually”²⁰⁶¹. Some of that gap is one-off sales and affiliates’ commissions. And 87% of the tracked products were created in 2025 or early 2026; the site says “The barrier to creating a Whop product is low”²⁰. So the zero share is an upper limit and the $74 median is likely too low. The finding that the top 1% take more than half does not depend on the level.

Sacra, a research firm, reports that Whop had 183,628 sellers and that 258 of them had earned over $1 million in total by June 2025⁶. That is about one seller in 700 (our estimate). Sacra also gives “an average of $8,413 per month” per creator⁶. That average cannot describe all sellers: $3 billion a year over 183,628 sellers would be about $1,360 a month each (our estimate)⁶⁶¹. The inputs are shaky too: Sacra’s page gives lifetime sales of $2.67 billion beside annual payouts of about $3 billion, which do not fit together⁶.

Surveys of people already doing it. MemberSpace, which sells membership software, surveyed its customers in 2023. By its own summary of the report, more than half said the membership was a side income, under a quarter of their business income, and nearly 30% said it was most of their income. The average membership had 156 members. The median recurring price was $49, and the average $226²³. GetResponse, an email-software company, surveyed 1,000 course creators: nearly 20% reported $1,001 to $5,000 a month and 8% over $10,000²⁴. Both surveys leave out everyone who stopped.

Founder interviews. Starter Story lists about 29 founder accounts of community businesses, from $2.5 million a year down to $1,200 a year. The middle one reports $120,000 a year²⁵. Several small ones report $1,500 to $4,000 a month. A photography community reports $10,000 a month, from a premium membership launched after more than a decade as a free project²⁵. All are the founders’ own statements. The list is a showcase of businesses that lasted, and some entries are conferences or software, not memberships.

One course launch with full numbers. A developer with 20,000 email subscribers wrote up the launch of a $30 to $59 course in 2021. “In total the course earned $13,371 between May and July”, after “a whopping 355 hours” of work¹⁷. It is one self-reported case, five years old, and a one-off course, not a subscription.

What we did not find. A first-person account from an ordinary Skool or Whop owner with payment proof, whether of success or of giving up. Three differently worded searches returned only material from tool sellers, and Reddit refused our agents.

What the rules allow now

Running a paid community that teaches a real skill is allowed on both platforms. The risk sits in three places.

Platform rules

Skool’s acceptable use policy lists business types that may not take payments through it. They include: “‘get rich quick’ schemes, business opportunities, investment opportunities”, along with sports forecasting, multi-level marketing and resold ready-made courses³⁰. Many groups about making money plainly operate on Skool today; we did not test how the rule is enforced. Skool’s terms let it end an account “FOR ANY REASON, WITH OR WITHOUT NOTICE”³¹.

Whop’s list bans “Unregistered Financial Services”, selling crypto assets, prop firms (companies that sell access to a funded trading account), recruiting-led multi-level marketing, and any “lifetime access” offer³⁷. It expressly allows betting picks and analysis³⁷. Neither platform’s policy names trading signals or white-labelled bots either way³⁰³⁷.

Whop’s rules on income claims bear directly on the style of the tweets. Sellers must “Ensure that any Earnings Claims are not false, deceptive, or misleading in any respect, including by implying that atypical results are typical”³⁸. Its terms list “making deceptive earnings claims” among prohibited conduct³⁴.

Refunds, disputes and held money

On Whop the seller carries every refund and chargeback (a payment reversed by the buyer’s bank). The seller terms say: “You must maintain a dispute rate below 1% on a rolling basis” and “Negative balances accrue interest at 1.5% per month”³⁵. Whop “may place reserves on your account (up to 100% of funds)”³⁵. Each dispute costs $15⁵. If an account is suspended, the balance is held 90 days by default, and “Whop doesn’t guarantee their release afterward.”³⁶ So a Whop seller can end up owing money, if refunds and disputes arrive after the earnings were withdrawn³⁵.

On Skool, payouts are weekly and the first takes 8 to 14 days³². Refunds are the owner’s choice: “Skool’s policy is to not provide refunds. Skool lets Creators offer refunds to Members at their discretion.”³³ We did not find Skool’s dispute fee or any reserve policy.

A “no refunds” policy does not bind everywhere: in the EU a consumer buying an online service can usually cancel within 14 days⁴⁴.

Tax

Skool says it handles sales tax and VAT itself: “It’s Skool’s responsibility, not yours. This is because Skool is a ‘merchant of record.’”³ (A merchant of record is the legal seller, the party that collects the tax.) On Whop the seller is responsible unless they pay 2% per transaction for a managed option³⁹. Income tax is the seller’s own matter on both; the US tax office says income must be reported whether or not the platform sends a tax form⁴⁰.

The law on income claims and on selling signals

The cases below concern only the companies and people named in them. None involves Skool or Whop, and we found no regulator action naming either platform.

• Publishing.com, April 2026. A seller of a course priced up to $1,995 agreed to pay $1.5 million. The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) alleged that most buyers “never achieved the income the company promised in its advertising”⁴¹. A proposed settlement of allegations, not a court finding.
• IM Mastery Academy, May 2026. Trading training sold together with a multi-level-marketing venture. Under a proposed order the lead defendants agreed to a $795.8 million judgment, most of it to be suspended once they hand over assets worth nearly $90 million. The FTC alleged they “used false or baseless earning claims to entice consumers to purchase training”⁵⁶. Settled, not tried.
• Warrior Trading, April 2022. A paid day-trading programme and chat room paid $3 million. The FTC alleged that “the vast majority of customer accounts actually lost money”⁵⁷. Settled, not tried.

The FTC has also reached settlements over alleged unfounded income claims with two sellers of business coaching: Growth Cave (proposed orders, January 2026) and Lurn (agreed orders, 2023; the FTC’s case page still lists the case as pending)²⁸⁵⁵. In January 2025 it proposed extending its Business Opportunity Rule, which requires a disclosure document seven days before a buyer pays, “to cover money-making opportunities, such as business coaching”⁴²⁵⁸. We found no final rule.

Selling trading signals can itself be a regulated activity. In 2022 the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission ordered a seller of signals and courses for binary options (bets on whether a price will rise or fall) and his company to pay about $2.6 million. The order cites “engaging in fraud while acting as a commodity trading advisor”, a role that normally requires registration⁴⁶. That case involved fraud findings, so it marks the outer edge, not the usual result. The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority reported three arrests in June 2025 over unauthorised promotion of financial products by influencers⁴⁷.

Card processors apply their own limits. Skool’s transaction terms name Stripe as a payment provider³³. Stripe lists as prohibited: “‘Get rich quick’ schemes, including investment opportunities or other services that promise high rewards to mislead consumers”⁴⁵.

US rules on cancelling subscriptions are unsettled: the FTC’s 2024 “click-to-cancel” rule (cancelling must be as easy as signing up) is not in force, and a new rulemaking opened in March 2026⁴³.

In short: a community that teaches a skill, with honest access terms and no unproven income promises, is the permitted version. A group sold on income figures, or one that gives investment direction, carries platform risk and legal risk.

Who makes money from it

The platforms, first. Skool is paid $9 or $99 a month by every owner, whether or not the community has a single paying member, plus its cut of each payment². Its club for people who have opened a community shows 152,700 members²². Whop earns on every payment and every payout⁵. A trade outlet reported in February 2026, from a post on X by Whop’s chief executive, that Tether (a company that issues a dollar-linked cryptocurrency) had invested $200 million, valuing Whop at $1.6 billion⁵⁴. Tether’s own announcement confirms the investment without those amounts⁶¹.

People who refer new owners, second. Skool’s affiliate page says: “Refer people to Skool and earn 40% of monthly recurring revenue for life.”¹⁴ Its help page spells it out: $39 a month for each referred owner on Pro and $3.60 for each on Hobby⁴⁹. The referrer is paid when the reader opens a group, whether or not the group ever gains a member.

Whop does something similar for products: once one is listed, “any affiliate in Whop’s network can promote it for a default 30% commission without extra setup.”⁵¹ Skool also lets Pro owners pay their own members a commission for bringing in new members⁵⁰.

In our 12 tweets, the collection’s notes record that three carry a platform sign-up link: two to Skool from one account, and one “Join Whop” link¹. Two more promote the author’s own paid community or masterclass. Two are from accounts whose profile is noted as pointing to a training product. One asks for a like, comment and follow in exchange for a free case study. Four show nothing for sale¹. These labels come from our collection file; our agents did not re-open the profiles or confirm what each link pays.

Owners with an audience or a trade, third. Some earn a great deal, as the next section shows. The biggest numbers sit with money topics. On Skool’s list, 365 of the 782 paid groups with a monthly price are in Skool’s Money category, and so are 23 of the 41 with a ceiling over $100,000 (our count; five of Skool’s nine category lists would not load)⁸. On profitable.app’s top 25 by modelled revenue, more than half teach a way to earn, by our count; the rest include exam preparation, health and sport²¹. One of the 25 is about Skool itself: “Skool Course” lists 36,800 members at $29 a month, with the member count down 48.3% in 30 days²¹.

Vendors of numbers. Nearly every web page with figures on this subject is published by a tool seller, a competing platform or a newsletter carrying a referral link. That includes two of the trackers we rely on⁹²⁰. We say so because it is the best data available, not because it is neutral.

The upside

Success here is real and visible. It is also concentrated.

The best documented outcomes

• Maker School (Skool). 2,571 to 2,573 members at a listed $184 a month, in a group created on 5 September 2024¹¹. The ceiling is about $473,000 a month (our estimate: 2,573 x $184). The real figure is lower, for reasons shown on the group’s own page. It sells an annual plan at $1,546, about $129 a month. It says “Price increasing to $194/mo soon!” and promises a full refund to members who do not win a client in 90 days¹¹. Skool keeps existing members on the price they joined at³, and a newsletter write-up from August 2025 says the group launched at $28 a month and puts its revenue at $300,000 a month, without showing a payment record¹³. The $280,000 in the tweet would mean about $109 per member, which is consistent with all that¹¹¹. So the figure is plausible. It is not verified.
• The same owner’s own account. His blog reports about $25,000 in January 2024, “over $100,000 USD” in August 2024, and “Almost $400,000 profit in the month of June 2025” across all his products⁶⁰. These are his own statements with no proof shown.
• Advise.so, verified. A community for marketers at $169 a month, founded December 2022. TrustMRR, a site that reads revenue from the payment processor, shows “All-time revenue $1,021,926” and “MRR $21,112 209 active subscriptions”, and says “Revenue is verified with Stripe API key.”²⁷ The listing’s title shows $16,397 actually received in the last 30 days, and the business is marked for sale²⁶²⁷. The all-time total works out to about $22,000 a month since founding, so it has been steady, not growing (our estimate)²⁷. Its address is its own website, not a Skool or Whop page²⁷. This is the strongest single piece of evidence on the page.
• DataExpert / TechCreator, verified. A data-engineering course business listed at $56,294 a month ($44,000 received in the last 30 days) and $4.7 million in total on the same site²⁶. Most other community entries we saw there showed a few thousand dollars a month or less; we saw only the top 30 in each category²⁶.

The Advise.so listing is also a check on the ceilings used above. 209 subscribers at $169 would be $35,321. The verified figures are between 46% of that (the last 30 days) and 60% (MRR) (our estimate)²⁷. Skool’s own total points the same way: the ceilings add up to about 2.4 times what Skool says is paid⁹¹⁹. So price-times-members figures should be cut by half or more.

How many reach the high figures. On Skool, about one paid community in six has a ceiling over $10,000 a month and about one in 55 over $100,000; real takings are lower, so the true shares are smaller⁹. On Whop, about 2% of products are estimated over $1,000 a month and 105 over $100,000, and 258 of 183,628 sellers had passed $1 million in lifetime earnings by June 2025⁶²⁰. The six-figure months in the tweets exist. They describe a few hundred businesses out of several hundred thousand.

Outside the money topics the ceiling is lower. Hobby and music groups also charge. The 69 paid groups on the list in Skool’s Hobbies category have a median ceiling of about $4,600 a month, and the largest is about $74,000. The eight in Music have a median of about $10,100⁸. None approaches six figures.

Fast starts happen. On Skool’s Discovery list, 166 paid communities were created since 1 July 2026. Their median ceiling is $1,926 a month, from a median of 66 members at $29. 29 of the 166 already have a ceiling of $10,000 or more, and 62 are under $1,000 (our estimate)⁸. These are the young ones that made Skool’s top 1,000; we cannot see how many started and did not, or whether their founders brought an audience.

A realistic good result (our estimate). No data follows a group of new owners over time, so this is a judgment from the figures above:

• Someone with an engaged following of a few thousand, or a real professional niche: 30 to 100 paying members at $29 to $49. At 42% to 60% of list price times members, that is roughly $350 to $2,900 a month⁹¹⁹²⁷.
• $5,000 to $10,000 a month means 200 to 400 paying members at those prices³. We found no data on how long that takes.
• Someone with no audience and a generic or white-labelled product: most likely under 50 members, which is where about half of all tracked Skool communities sit⁹.

What it takes to compete

People who already listen, or a trade that earns them quickly. The largest example shows both. The owner’s YouTube channel was created in March 2020 and holds 339 videos¹². By his own account he began posting regularly in early 2024: a post of 2 March 2024 speaks of “my first month of posting” and of “my 7-figure businesses”⁶⁴. His first Skool group opened in May 2024 and Maker School in September 2024¹¹⁶⁵. That month he listed an automation agency among his income streams and wrote “My consistency on YouTube has resulted in a wealth of opportunities”⁶⁰. So he had a trade to show, and about seven months of steady video before the main group opened. The course launch above began with 20,000 email subscribers¹⁷. Advise.so’s founder has 62,300 followers on X today; we did not find the count at launch²⁷.

Something specific to teach. The median price on Skool’s list is $30 to $33⁸. The higher prices attach to narrow working skills sold to people already in the trade: a Meta adverts coaching group at $249 a month with 668 members, an adverts group for insurance agents at $149 with 270⁸. A white-labelled bot or a general “make money” group has nothing comparable that a competitor cannot also sell.

A steady supply of new members. Members leave. Whatever the true cancellation rate, holding a community level means replacing leavers every month, through new content, adverts or affiliates¹⁸⁶². The Maker School page shows member reviews marked as still paying after 18 months, so good retention is possible¹¹.

Time more than money. The platform costs $9 to $99 a month². The course launch that earned $13,371 took 355 hours¹⁷.

Care with claims. A community sold on income promises, or one that gives trading direction, risks losing its account and its unpaid balance, and in some cases regulator action^3035384146.

How to tell early which side you are on

• Before opening anything: do you already reach people who ask you for this, or do you have paid work in the subject to show? If you would rely on Skool to find members, it keeps 30% of what they pay by default³⁴.
• The first hundred paying members is the hard part: communities under 100 members have a median ceiling of $485 a month⁹. If you cannot find a few dozen people willing to pay from among those who already follow you, the platform is unlikely to supply them. That threshold is our judgment, not a measured figure.
• Once it is running: are more joining each month than leaving? If the count is flat while you are promoting it, the income will not “recur” by itself.
• At any point: could you show proof for every number in your sales page? Whop’s own rules ask for that³⁸.

What we did not verify

• Any income figure in the tweets. The $2 million a month, $62,568 in a month, “six figures per month”, “6-figs a day” from trading bots, the member counts given for named trading groups on Whop, and the $10,000 a month for a founders’ community were not checked against any listing or record.
• Maker School’s revenue. Only the listed prices and member count were read. No payout record was found. The $28 launch price comes from a newsletter, not from Skool¹³. How many members pay monthly, annually or at an older price is not shown.
• Paying members versus listed members. Skool’s counts may include free-tier, trial and older-price members, and our reading of the field that separates single-price from tiered groups rests on three sampled pages. Every price-times-members figure is a ceiling. The Discovery counts come from one saved pull of the English-language Trending list; category counts cover only Money, Hobbies, Music and part of Spirituality.
• The trackers. profitable.app and whoptrends.com publish their own models. We did not see their raw data or method, and both pages contradict themselves on some figures⁹²⁰.
• Skool’s “$1 billion per year”. A marketing statement, undated and unaudited. Skool’s owners’ club words it as users “spending over $1b /year”²², so it may mean money spent by users, not money paid to communities. Whether the 200,000 includes free groups is not stated. The 2.4-times comparison depends on it.
• Whop’s figures. The seller count, the 258 over $1 million and the $8,413 average come from Sacra, which names no source and whose totals conflict⁶. The $3 billion a year is a statement by Whop’s investor⁶¹. whop.com/pricing was blocked both directly and through a reader service. Sacra says an earlier 30% fee on sales brought by Whop’s marketplace was cut to 0%; Whop’s fee page lists neither⁵⁶.
• Cancellation, conversion, time and survival. No measured cancellation rate, no rate of turning followers into paying members, no time to reach any income level, and no count of communities opened and abandoned. The 0.5% is one case and our own division. The 20% “average” is a retelling of a post inside a private group⁶².
• Costs beyond platform fees. Adverts, tools, staff, affiliates’ commissions and tax were not priced. All income figures here are before those costs.
• Enforcement. We found no numbers on how many communities either platform has suspended. Reviews on Trustpilot dated June to July 2026 include complaints from people saying they are Whop sellers about suspended accounts and held balances⁴⁸. These are unverified individual reports. Whop’s published terms say it may hold reserves and, after a suspension, hold a balance for 90 days³⁵³⁶. We could not confirm Trustpilot’s review count or star split.
• The legal tests. When a signals seller must register in the US was not read at source. The court ruling that set aside the click-to-cancel rule is known to us only from law-firm summaries. Rules outside the US, UK and EU were not checked.
• Quotes relayed by a summarising tool. The IRS and EU quotes reached us through a tool that summarises pages and were not re-opened. The FTC, CFTC, FCA, Stripe and RevenueGeeks quotes were re-opened as raw text and matched.
• The tweets themselves. Read from our collection file, not on X. Images, videos and threads were not viewed. Whether each link is a commission link is the collector’s label.
• Pages that failed. Reddit, Recurly’s benchmark page and Trustpilot refused a direct fetch; stealwhatworks.com and communipass.com did not load. FTC pages loaded only through the reader service r.jina.ai.

Sources

1. Does It Pay collection of 12 tweets on this scheme, collected 2026-10-06. Read from the project’s collection file on 2026-10-10.
2. Skool, “Pricing”. https://www.skool.com/pricing. Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
3. Skool help, “Skool Payments FAQs”. https://help.skool.com/article/86-subscriptions-faq. Last updated 2026-09-29 per the page. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
4. Skool help, “Traffic sources” (Growth Boost). https://help.skool.com/article/226-traffic-sources. Last updated 2026-09-09 per the page. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
5. Whop docs, “Fees”. https://docs.whop.com/fees. Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-10 (directly and through r.jina.ai).
6. Sacra, company profile of Whop. https://sacra.com/c/whop/. Undated; figures to February 2026. Secondary, read on 2026-10-10.
7. Whop docs, “In-app iOS purchases”. https://docs.whop.com/payments-and-billing/fees/in-app-ios-purchases.md. Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-10. (Not cited in the text; kept for the record: Apple’s 30% applies to one-time purchases in the iPhone app, not to subscriptions.)
8. Skool, “Discovery” list of 1,000 communities (English language, Trending order), 34 pages, and its category lists for Money, Hobbies, Music and Spirituality. https://www.skool.com/discovery. 2026-10-10. Listed figures read at source on 2026-10-10 and re-counted from the saved copy; medians, ceilings and counts are our estimates from them.
9. profitable.app, “Skool statistics”. https://profitable.app/skool/stats. Updated 2026-10-07. Read at source on 2026-10-10; the figures are the site’s modelled estimates.
10. RevenueGeeks, “Skool statistics”. https://revenuegeeks.com/software/skool/statistics. 2026-09-05. Read at source on 2026-10-10; the site’s own count of Skool’s list.
11. Skool, “Maker School: AI Automation” about page. https://www.skool.com/makerschool/about. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
12. YouTube, channel page of Nick Saraev. https://www.youtube.com/@nicksaraev/about. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
13. Lucas James newsletter, “How This One-Man Skool Community Makes $300K/Month”. https://lucas-james.beehiiv.com/p/nick-saraev-skool-growth-hacks. 2025-08-06. Read on 2026-10-10; a secondary account of the owner’s revenue.
14. Skool, “Affiliate program”. https://www.skool.com/affiliate-program. Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
15. Whop, home page. https://whop.com/. Read at source on 2026-10-10 (through r.jina.ai).
16. Skool help, “Why isn’t my group visible on Discovery?”. https://help.skool.com/article/151-why-isnt-my-group-visible-in-discovery. Last updated 2026-04-15 per the page. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
17. Code With Andrea, “Flutter animations course retrospective”. https://codewithandrea.com/meta/flutter-animations-course-retro/. 2021-08-13. Read at source on 2026-10-10; self-reported.
18. Skool help, “How to reduce churn”. https://help.skool.com/article/217-8-how-to-reduce-churn. Last updated 2025-12-15 per the page. Read at source on 2026-10-10 (page text only; the video was not watched).
19. Skool, sign-up page. https://www.skool.com/signup (reached from https://www.skool.com/games). Read at source on 2026-10-10 (through r.jina.ai); the per-community average is our estimate.
20. Whoptrends, “Whop creator earnings data 2026”. https://whoptrends.com/blog/whop-creator-earnings-data-2026. 2026-02-15. Read at source on 2026-10-10; the figures are the site’s estimates.
21. profitable.app, list of Skool communities by modelled revenue. https://profitable.app/skool. Updated 2026-10-07. Read at source on 2026-10-10; modelled estimates.
22. Skool, “Skoolers” about page. https://www.skool.com/skoolers/about. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
23. MemberSpace, “State of Membership 2023” (the company’s blog summary of its report). https://www.memberspace.com/?p=3995. 2023-10-19. Read at source on 2026-10-10; vendor survey.
24. GetResponse, e-learning research. https://www.getresponse.com/blog/e-learning-research. Updated 2025-10-10. Read at source on 2026-10-10; vendor survey.
25. Starter Story, online community success stories. https://www.starterstory.com/ideas/online-community/success-stories. Undated. Read on 2026-10-10; secondary and self-reported.
26. TrustMRR, education and community categories. https://trustmrr.com/category/education and https://trustmrr.com/category/community. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
27. TrustMRR, Advise.so listing. https://trustmrr.com/startup/advise-so. Last updated 2026-10-10. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
28. FTC, Lurn case page. https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/cases-proceedings/lurn. Last update 2024-06-06. Read at source on 2026-10-10 (through r.jina.ai; direct fetch returned an error).
29. RetentionCheck, churn benchmarks for membership communities. https://retentioncheck.com/churn-benchmarks/membership-communities. Updated 2026-05-06. Read at source on 2026-10-10; the figure is the publisher’s estimate.
30. Skool, acceptable use policy. https://www.skool.com/legal?t=acceptable-use. Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-10 (through r.jina.ai).
31. Skool, terms. https://www.skool.com/legal?t=terms. Effective 2023-07-01. Read at source on 2026-10-10 (through r.jina.ai).
32. Skool help, “How to check the Skool subscriptions payout”. https://help.skool.com/article/85-how-to-check-the-skool-subscriptions-payout. Updated 2026-09-21. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
33. Skool, transaction terms. https://www.skool.com/legal?t=transaction. Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
34. Whop, terms of service. https://whop.com/tos/. Last updated 2026-10-09. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
35. Whop, seller terms. https://whop.com/seller-terms/. Last updated 2026-07-14. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
36. Whop docs, “Account suspensions”. https://docs.whop.com/trust-and-safety/suspensions/account-suspensions.md. Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
37. Whop, prohibited products and services. https://whop.com/prohibited-products-and-services/. Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
38. Whop, guidelines. https://whop.com/guidelines/. Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
39. Whop docs, “Taxes”. https://docs.whop.com/payments-and-billing/fees/taxes.md. Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
40. IRS, “Understanding your Form 1099-K”. https://www.irs.gov/businesses/understanding-your-form-1099-k. Last reviewed 2026-06-28. Read at source on 2026-10-10 (quote relayed by a summarising tool).
41. FTC, press release on Publishing.com. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2026/04/publishingcom-pay-15-million-misleading-consumers-about-how-much-income-they-could-earn-using. 2026-04-13. Read at source on 2026-10-10 (through r.jina.ai; direct fetch returned an error).
42. FTC, business guidance on the Business Opportunity Rule. https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/selling-work-home-or-other-business-opportunity-revised-rule-may-apply-you. November 2011. Read at source on 2026-10-10 (through r.jina.ai; direct fetch returned an error).
43. FTC, Negative Option Rule page. https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/rules/negative-option-rule. Latest entries: Federal Register notices of 2026-02-12 and 2026-03-13, press release of 2026-03-11. Read at source on 2026-10-10 (through r.jina.ai; direct fetch returned an error).
44. European Union, Your Europe, “Returns”. https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/shopping/returns/index_en.htm. Last checked 2026-04-28. Read at source on 2026-10-10 (quote relayed by a summarising tool).
45. Stripe, prohibited and restricted businesses. https://stripe.com/legal/restricted-businesses. Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
46. CFTC, press release 8496-22. https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/8496-22. 2022-02-23. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
47. FCA, press release on finfluencers. https://www.fca.org.uk/news/press-releases/fca-leads-international-crackdown-illegal-finfluencers. 2025-06-06, updated 2026-02-20. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
48. Trustpilot, reviews of whop.com. https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/whop.com?page=7. Reviews dated June to July 2026. Secondary, read on 2026-10-10 (through r.jina.ai, review texts only; direct fetch refused).
49. Skool help, “How to refer others to Skool”. https://help.skool.com/article/33-how-to-refer-others-to-skool. Last updated 2025-12-10 per the page. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
50. Skool help, “How to set up member referrals for your community”. https://help.skool.com/article/192-how-to-set-up-member-referrals-for-your-community. Last updated 2025-07-12 per the page. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
51. Whop docs, affiliates. https://docs.whop.com/affiliates/setup-global.md and https://docs.whop.com/affiliates/be-an-affiliate.md. Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
52. Whop docs, community guidelines. https://docs.whop.com/trust-and-safety/trust-safety-overview/community-guidelines.md. Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-10. (Not cited in the text; same rule as source 38.)
53. Whop docs, account health controls. https://docs.whop.com/trust-and-safety/account-health/controls.md. Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-10. (Not cited in the text.)
54. PYMNTS, “Tether investment values Whop at $1.6 billion”. https://pymnts.com/news/investment-tracker/2026/tether-investment-values-whop-at-1-6-billion-as-stablecoins-go-mainstream. 2026-02-25. Secondary, read on 2026-10-10.
55. FTC, press release on Growth Cave. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2026/01/ftc-secures-settlement-banning-growth-cave-defendants-marketing-selling-business-opportunities. 2026-01-27. Read at source on 2026-10-10 (through r.jina.ai; direct fetch returned an error).
56. FTC, press release on IM Mastery Academy. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2026/05/lead-defendants-im-mastery-academy-mlm-scheme-turn-over-tens-millions-dollars-assets-settle-ftc. 2026-05-13. Read at source on 2026-10-10 (through r.jina.ai; direct fetch returned an error).
57. FTC, press release on Warrior Trading. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2022/04/federal-trade-commission-cracks-down-warrior-trading-misleading-consumers-false-investment-promises. 2022-04-19. Read at source on 2026-10-10 (through r.jina.ai; direct fetch returned an error).
58. FTC, press release on proposed rule changes for earnings claims. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2025/01/ftc-proposes-rule-changes-new-rule-deter-deceptive-earnings-claims-multilevel-marketers-money-making. 2025-01-13. Read at source on 2026-10-10 (through r.jina.ai; direct fetch returned an error).
59. FTC, press release of 2025-06-18 on refunds in a coaching case. Read at source on 2026-10-10. (Not used on this page.)
60. Nick Saraev, blog posts. https://nicksaraev.com/the-next-few-months-of-my-life/ (2025-07-29) and https://nicksaraev.com/the-next-few-months-of-my-career/ (2024-09-03). Read at source on 2026-10-10; self-reported.
61. Tether, press release on its investment in Whop. https://tether.io/news/tether-invests-in-whop-one-of-the-fastest-growing-internet-markets-to-power-stablecoin-payments-for-the-next-generation-of-the-internet-economy/. 2026-02-25. Read at source on 2026-10-10; company statement.
62. Skool classifieds, a community owner’s post on retention. https://www.skool.com/classifieds/why-sam-ovens-called-my-retention-rate-exceptional?p=dbe17b44. 2026-07-09. Secondary.
63. Substack, “Going paid guide”. https://substack.com/going-paid-guide. Undated. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
64. Nick Saraev, blog post “$38.41 in my first monetized day on YouTube”. https://nicksaraev.com/38-41/. 2024-03-02. Read at source on 2026-10-10; self-reported.
65. Skool, “Make Money With Make.com” about page (group created 2024-05-15 per the page data). https://www.skool.com/makemoneywithmake/about. Read at source on 2026-10-10.

Corrections

If you are quoted or named on this page and think something is wrong, want your reply shown beside it, or want to be removed, write to [email protected]. We aim to reply within 14 days, and always within one month. Factual errors are corrected with a dated note here. A sentence that is seriously disputed comes down while we check it.

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