Empyria vs. Skool
A Skool alternative with your brand, your website and payments in your currency.
Skool is very good for building a community. Empyria is the complete academy: your domain, your website, the campus, payments with Mercado Pago with no commission, attendance and certificates, in Spanish and set up by us.
The difference in a nutshell
Skool is a community with courses: a posts feed, a classroom, a calendar and an engagement leaderboard. It costs USD 9 per month with a 10% commission on each sale, or USD 99 with 2.9%, and charges by card.
Empyria is your academy: your domain, your website with 15 designs, your campus and your app, all with your brand. You charge with Mercado Pago, PayPal or the gateway you use, the money goes to your account and you pay no commission per sale.
Besides the community (forum with stars and ranking, chat per course), you get what an institution does: attendance, assessments, live classes with Zoom and certificates with QR. And if you are already on Skool, we bring your academy over.
Empyria and Skool, point by point
| What you need | Empyria | Skool |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | Subscription from USD 99 per month, with hosting, maintenance and support. No commission per sale. | USD 9 per month with a 10% commission per sale, or USD 99 with 2.9%. |
| Your brand | Your domain, your logo and your colors in the campus, the emails and the certificates. Empyria does not appear. | It offers a custom URL. It does not publish a custom domain or the option to remove its brand. |
| Your website | Included: 15 designs, block editor, blog and sales pages. | It is not a site builder: you get your community page. |
| Payments | Mercado Pago in each country's currency, PayPal or the gateway you use. The student chooses how to pay. | By card. It does not publish Mercado Pago or payments in local currency. |
| Community | Forum per course with stars and ranking, group chat and private messages. | It is its strength: feed, levels, points and a 30-day leaderboard. |
| Courses | Unlimited, live or recorded, with an unlock date per unit. | Unlimited, with unlocking by level. |
| Assessments and attendance | Assessments with automatic grading, graded activities and attendance, also automatic. | It does not publish assessments or attendance. |
| Certificates | With a QR that anyone scans to verify it is authentic. | It does not publish certificates. |
| Live classes | Zoom inside the campus, with a notice to the student and attendance. | Its own live calls, from the calendar. |
| Memberships | Month by month, with a library and editions that release on their own on their date. | Payment to join the community. |
| Marketing | CRM, automations, emails with opens and clicks, and private replies to Instagram comments. | It does not publish marketing tools. |
| App with your brand | On the Full plan: your app on the App Store and Play Store. | It does not publish an app with your brand. |
| Migration | We bring your whole academy over: courses, videos, students and their access. | It does not publish migrations. |
Skool details taken from its public website and documentation, reviewed in October 2026. They may change: if something is out of date, let us know and we will fix it.
Which one is right for you?
It depends on how you work. We will tell you straight, even when the answer is not Empyria.
Choose Empyria if…
- You want your academy to have your brand and your domain, not an account inside another platform.
- You charge in pesos or in your country's currency with Mercado Pago.
- You teach live classes and need to take attendance, assess and certify.
- You do not want to pay a commission on every sale.
- You want it set up for you, with what you already have brought over.
Choose Skool if…
- Your business is the community more than the course.
- You want to start with USD 9 per month and paying a commission works for you.
- Charging by card in dollars is enough for you.
- You want people to find you in Skool's community search.
Frequently asked questions
Ready to have your own academy?
Create your account in two minutes and your campus is live in 72 hours, under your brand.