Looking for a Skool alternative?

What to export from Skool first

Skool's help centre (checked in October 2026) is thin on exports, so be careful here and verify on your own group before you plan around anything.

What is confirmed: the Members tab has an Export button. Skool's help article says it exports members' answers to your membership questions. A post in a Skool community from June 2024 says the same export includes members' email addresses for paid groups. That is a community post, not official documentation, so open the file and see what you actually get.

What is not confirmed is any built-in export of your posts, comments or classroom lessons. Assume they do not come out until you have proved otherwise on your own group.

• Export the members list now and check the columns. If emails are missing, you cannot invite those people, so find out today, not on launch day.
• Export the membership question answers. They tell you who each person is and why they joined, which you will want when you rebuild profiles.
• Download your own source files for every classroom lesson. Keep the original videos, documents and images you uploaded, not links to them on Skool.
• Copy the posts you cannot lose into a document: pinned posts, rules, the best answers and any announcement people still link to.
• Write down your gamification settings: what earns points, the level names and the rewards you attach to them, so you can rebuild the same ladder.
• Note any leaderboard prizes or perks you have promised, so the new site honours them.

If emails are not in your export, ask members for one in a post on Skool before you do anything else. An email you hold yourself is the only contact route that survives the move.

What BuddyNext can bring in, and what it cannot

The free BuddyNext Importer plugin moves a BuddyPress or BuddyBoss community. It has nothing for Skool. Members are invited to new accounts, and you rebuild the content.

• Bulk invites by CSV in the free plugin: an email and an optional first name per row, up to 500 rows per upload, with resend and revoke. It is on the Invites tab under Members.
• Space invite links that expire after a day, a week, a month or never, with an optional use cap, which suit a post in your Skool group.
• Auto-join at signup, so each new member is already in your welcome space and, if you choose, the spaces for their member type.
• A member export on your own site, with ID, login, email, display name, registration date and suspension status.

The fixed structure problem, and how to organise it instead

On Skool, one group has one community feed with categories, one classroom and one members tab. If you want a beginners room, an advanced room and a paid inner circle, you are shaping one feed rather than building separate places.

BuddyNext gives you rooms as a first-class thing. They are called spaces, and each one has its own feed, members, rules and moderators. Here is how the pieces map across.

• Categories become spaces. A category that has become its own conversation deserves its own space with its own members and notification settings. Keep a category as a hashtag or a space category when it is only a label.
• Visibility is a choice per space: open to everyone, private, or secret. A secret space stays out of search and answers as not found to people who are not in it.
• Levels of access become Pro membership plans. A plan can open one or several spaces, and a space can be opened by several plans, so a free community, a paid cohort and a top tier can sit in one site.
• Structure within a space: sub-spaces go two levels deep, spaces can be archived, and a space owner can remove a member from that one space only without banning them from the site.
• Discussions. Jetonomy is the forum plugin from the same team, and a space can have its own Discussions tab linked to a forum. It is a free bridge in BuddyNext and needs the Jetonomy plugin. Use it where you want answers that stay findable. The feed stays for quick posts.
• Courses. Skool's classroom becomes Learnomy, the LMS plugin from the same team. The bridge between Learnomy and BuddyNext is in BuddyNext Pro. It posts course completions and certificates to the feed, can link a course to a space so learners are added when they enrol, and can enrol a member in a course when they buy a plan. You need Learnomy and BuddyNext Pro both active.
• Members. Member types label cohorts, the directory can be sorted by newest, alphabetical, most active or online, and Pro adds member labels such as founder or VIP.

The trade is honest: more structure means more decisions. A group that is happy with one feed and one classroom may be better off on Skool. If you are moving because you keep bumping into the walls, spaces are what you are after.

Gamification: what carries over and what does not

Skool's points, levels and leaderboard are central to how it feels. BuddyNext does not award points itself. Points, badges, levels and streaks come from WB Gamification, a separate plugin from the same team that has its own BuddyNext rules. When it is active, BuddyNext shows the results: a profile Achievements tab, a leaderboard page, level and badge notifications, and cards in the feed for credential badges.

So the honest answer is that you can rebuild a points and levels loop, but you configure it in WB Gamification, and you decide the rules again. Do not expect an automatic copy of your current levels.

The move, step by step

1. 1Run the exports above and fix gaps first. If you have no emails, collect them inside Skool.
2. 2Sketch the new structure on paper: which categories become spaces, which stay hashtags, which classroom modules become courses.
3. 3Build it on a staging site with the free BuddyNext plugin and create the spaces. Set each space's visibility.
4. 4Set up payment. Pro membership plans, Stripe and PayPal checkout and coupons. Attach each plan to the spaces it opens.
5. 5Install Learnomy if you sell courses. Upload your own lesson files and link each course to a space.
6. 6Install WB Gamification and set the rules, if points matter to your community.
7. 7Test as a stranger on a phone: sign up from an invite, post, react, open a gated space and buy a plan with a test coupon.
8. 8Invite a first small group by CSV. Fix what they find.
9. 9Announce the move on Skool with a date. Invite the rest in batches.
10. 10Archive the Skool group only after your regulars are posting on the new site.

Keeping Skool running during the move

• Leave the group fully open until launch week is over. Check what a plan change does to your group and your exports before you make one.
• Pin a post that says where the new home is and when Skool will stop being the place. Repeat it in your emails.
• Run overlap for a few weeks and answer questions only in the new place.
• Paying members move last. BuddyNext cannot take over a subscription started on Skool, so each payer subscribes again on the new site. If someone has already paid for a stretch on Skool, the Pro Billing screen has an Add order form to record a payment that arrived elsewhere. Agree with each person when the old billing ends so nobody pays twice.

Fees: compute them yourself

Skool's charges depend on the plan you are on and they change, so treat any Skool figure on this page as a snapshot from 26 Oct 2026. Add up what you paid Skool in a year, including any share it takes from member payments. Then add your hosting, the BuddyNext Pro licence if you charge members, and the fee your payment processor takes, which applies on any platform. Compare the totals and count your own time on the BuddyNext side.