Leaving Skool for a community you own.
Skool is the easiest community to join and the hardest to leave: only names and emails come with you. Here is what you lose (Discovery), what you gain (ownership, no cut, Google traffic), and how we move a Skool community to WordPress with the free MemBuild Community plugin, including the version where you stay.
“I am building an investor community, and it just feels more high-level than the look SKOOL gives you.”
“I have course videos that I have placed inside of a Facebook group that I am wanting to migrate over into a Skool group.”
“I would love any these community platforms to come out with a daily tracker/checklist feature.”
“Designing the transition path to move the initial 50+ free members (and future incoming leads) onto paid recurring subscriptions.”
Skool is the best front door on the internet. It is a rented room behind it.
Skool wins because joining takes two clicks, the community and the classroom share one screen, and Discovery sends members to you. Owners start looking at the exit when the cut on every payment adds up, when their brand outgrows the Skool look, or when they want one thing Skool does not do: a quiz, a certificate, a members-only page on their own domain, an email sequence.
First we test whether you should move at all.
Some Skool communities should stay on Skool. The Audit looks at four numbers before recommending anything.
If you move: keep what members liked, own the rest.
The goal is a site that feels like Skool on the first login, with the parts Skool could not give you underneath. Here is the order.
- 1Export members, inventory the restThe CSV of names and emails. Then a list of every course, module and pinned post, and which ones are actually used. The unused ones do not move.
- 2Install MemBuild Community on your WordPressFeed with stories and reels, classroom, nine levels, leaderboard, private chats. Free. Set the level names and what each one unlocks; that is the gamification members came for.
- 3Rebuild the classroom, add what Skool could notModules and lessons recreated in the plugin or in LearnDash if you need quizzes and certificates. Courses locked behind a level or a membership tier so members earn the next thing.
- 4Payments on your own accountStripe or PayPal into a membership plugin, tags into your CRM, the access rule on every course. A test purchase, a failed card and a cancel, as a member, before anyone real pays.
- 5Import members, announce the reset, run both for a cycleUsers created from the CSV with their plans attached, one “your new home” email with a password link, and the leaderboard restarts at level one for everyone. Skool stays open until the last renewal has moved.
Can I export my Skool community?
Members, yes: names and email addresses as a CSV. Posts, comments, course content and progress do not export. Courses are rebuilt (they are modules and lessons, so it is quick); the feed starts fresh, which is usually fine because the live conversation is the last two weeks anyway.
Will I lose the leaderboard and levels my members like?
No. MemBuild Community has nine levels, points for posting, helping and finishing, and a leaderboard by week, month and all time. Members start at level one on the new site, and we announce it as a reset so the race restarts.
What about Discovery traffic?
That is the real trade. Skool’s Discovery page and Growth Boost send members to you from inside Skool; a WordPress site has no equivalent. What you get instead is pages Google can index and a list you own. If Discovery is a large share of your new members today, the Roadmap will say so and may say stay.
Is the WordPress version free?
The community plugin is free and stays free: feed, stories, reels, courses that unlock by level, levels, leaderboard, chats. You pay for hosting and, if you want it, our time to move you.
Can members keep paying the same way?
Payments move to Stripe or PayPal on your own account, through a membership plugin. Subscriptions are recreated at the member’s next renewal date so nobody pays twice. You keep 100% minus processing, instead of Skool’s cut.
The Audit runs the four numbers on your community and writes down stay or move, what each costs, and the order of work. If you just want the plugin, it is free and the demo is live.
Strategy Audit: $1,500, two weeks, a written Membership Operations Roadmap you own. Refundable in week one if we can’t help. The $1,500 counts toward a fix or Support Block started within 30 days.