How to Build a Skool Community From Scratch (Step-by-Step Guide)

If you’re looking to build your own community on Skool, understanding the platform’s features and setup process is essential for creating an engaging space for your members. In my video, I walk through the entire process of building my community from scratch, showing you exactly what I’m doing and why I’m making each decision.

This detailed walkthrough covers everything from initial setup and pricing plans to customizing your community layout and adding essential features.

In my video, I document my real-time process of setting up a Skool community step by step.

Setting Up Your Community Graphics and Basic Information

The first thing I focus on in my video is creating all the graphics and designs for the community. This includes creating a custom icon that appears next to your community name and serves as your brand identifier. I explain how you need to upload this icon, which will display prominently throughout your community space.

Next comes adding the cover image for your page, which is the large banner that visitors see when they first arrive. This visual element is crucial for making a strong first impression and communicating what your community is about at a glance.

After the visual elements, I move on to setting up the group name and description. One important detail I mention is that the description must be under 150 characters, so you need to be concise and clear about what your community offers.

Choosing Your Community Settings: Public vs Private

In my setup, I chose to make my community public so more people can join. This is an important decision point because it affects your community’s discoverability and growth potential. A public community allows anyone to find and join, while a private community requires approval or invitation.

For pricing, I explain that I’m keeping my community free to start. However, Skool offers several pricing options if you want to monetize your community. You can set up monthly payments, annual-only payments, or even one-time payment options. There’s also the ability to offer a 7-day free trial if you want to let people experience your community before committing financially.

Understanding the Hobby Plan vs Pro Plan

I’m using the Hobby Plan which costs $9.99 per month, and I explain exactly why this makes sense for my situation. Since I’m going to take time to build everything and gradually get members inside, starting with the lower-tier plan is the smart financial choice.

The Hobby Plan gives you everything except unlimited admins, which means there can only be one admin. For me, this is perfectly fine because I’m the only one building and managing this community. If you’re running a solo operation or just starting out, this limitation won’t affect you.

One trade-off I mention is that the transaction fee is slightly higher on the Hobby Plan compared to the Pro Plan. However, when you’re paying $9.99 per month versus $99 per month for the Pro Plan, that’s a significant cost difference, especially when you’re just getting started.

Other differences I point out include not having a custom URL on the Hobby Plan. The affiliate functionality also works differently—if someone is in your community and they decide to create their own community directly from within your space, it won’t automatically include your affiliate link. However, if you share your affiliate link directly with someone, that will track properly.

Another limitation is that you can’t hide the suggested communities section that appears on your community page. Honestly, as I mention in my video, I don’t really care about this feature since the core functionality is what matters most for building an engaged community.

Creating Categories and Organizing Your Community Structure

Once the basic settings are configured, I move into creating different sections and categories. This organizational structure is crucial for helping members navigate your community and find relevant content easily. You can add categories in the settings area, and you have complete flexibility to organize them however makes sense for your community’s purpose.

I also talk about adding rows and keeping the community rules that were already there as a starting template. Having clear rules from the beginning helps set expectations and maintain a positive community culture.

Setting Up Essential Plugins and Member Questions

One of the most important sections I cover is the plugins feature. I added specific questions that appear whenever somebody joins the community. These questions help me understand new members and gather important information.

The questions I set up include asking what they would like from the community, capturing their email address, and finding out where they heard about us. I emphasize that the email address is the most important one because you can use this data to send newsletters or communicate with your members outside the platform.

Configuring Tabs: Classroom, Calendar, and Map

For the tabs section, I explain that you can add different features like classroom, calendar, and map. In my setup, I decided to turn off the map feature because I think it’s better for privacy reasons. Not every community needs location-based features, so consider what actually serves your members.

The classroom tab is where the educational content lives. This is perfect if you’re building a community around teaching, sharing resources, or providing value through structured content.

Building Out Your Classroom Content

In the classroom section, I created four main courses to organize my content. The first is an Introduction section where I plan to talk about the community, explain the objective, and outline the rules. I’m also going to create content showing members how to navigate the community effectively.

Since my community focuses on showing the best tools I’ve used to save time for business owners and entrepreneurs, I created a Tools section. I haven’t edited everything yet in the video, but I demonstrate how you can create folders using the black lettered headers, and then create individual pages inside those folders. This hierarchical structure makes it easy to organize large amounts of content.

I also added another section called Quick Wins and Templates, which will provide immediate value to members looking for actionable resources they can implement right away.

Finalizing the About Section and Preview Page

The Members and About sections still need editing in my video, but I explain their importance. The About section is particularly crucial because this is what people see when you share your community link. It’s essentially your landing page that convinces people to join.

I mention that I’m going to wait until I finish building out the classroom content before finalizing this section. My plan is to record a quick video showing potential members exactly what they’ll receive by joining my community. This video preview can be a powerful conversion tool because it gives people a clear picture of the value they’ll get.

Throughout my video, I emphasize that building a community takes time and intentional planning. You don’t need to have everything perfect before launching, but having a solid structure and clear value proposition will help you attract and retain members as you grow.