How Much Does Skillshare Cost? Skillshare Pricing Guide

If you have considered using Skillshare, chances are you are somewhat frustrated to say the very least. They are not exactly upfront about how much they cost to use.

If you look around their website, it is pretty tough to find anything indicating a price range. 

What you need to do is actually go to the button that reads “Get Started For Free”, here you sign up for Skillshare classes for free. But now you’ve signed up, how much will Skillshare cost you? 

As we said, this can be very frustrating. But do not worry. We have taken the time to get in-depth and undercover to dig out the facts you need to know when it comes to paying for Skillshare. 

However, before you start throwing numbers and prices your way, let’s refresh you on what Skillshare is, and if you really want to be spending your hard-earned cash on this service.

Skillshare Overview

So, what is Skillshare? It is an online learning community platform for students to attend online video-recorded classes in their own time and at their own speed. The online learning platform can offer a very vast range of specific skills. 

In comparison to some other online learning platforms, the Skillshare classes are actually cost-effective (or at least that is what most people seem to think), and they are an excellent starting point for those who want to gain new skills for their career, or just want to learn more. 

They offer a whopping 35,000 courses to their members and these Skillshare courses are all taught by a wide range of teachers with different talents and different experiences.

There are even some very well-known people teaching Skillshare classes on some topics. 

The courses are structured in a standard online setup with some additional functionality that is built in.

Video lessons will be organized and displayed on the right-hand side of video playback screens on your web browser. 

This just helps make it extra easy for you to move between lessons, or to look over the organization of a course.

Underneath the playback video screen, you will have five other options which can enhance your learning experience. These include Reviews, Projects and Resources, About, Discussion, and Transcripts.

You will also find another tool next to these menus, which will allow you to schedule your learning time as you want. 

This button can then send out an invitation to whatever calendar application you use, i.e. Google Calendar. 

This means you can actually schedule easy reminders for yourself to take your classes, which is a dream for the old butter-brained busy bee.

There is also a fairly new feature that Skillshare has launched, this is known as Chroma Courses which are a multiple-week, small group, immersive course that has limited ‘seating’ and special exclusive studying from experts.

This includes personalized feedback on assignments and live Q&A sessions as well.  

These courses also open up so you can collaborate with fellow learners in private Slack channels.

How Much Does Skillshare Cost?

In 2023 a Skillshare annual membership costs $168 per year (billed annually), averaging $14 per month.

So, now that we know more about Skillshare and how it works, it is time to think about those numbers. 

Skillshare does not disclose its prices to anyone just looking.

Hence, the easiest way to find out what Skillshare will cost you is to talk to someone who has signed up and is already paying for Skillshare. 

To save you the hassle, we did that for you. 

Subscription Plans For Skillshare Membership

There used to be free courses with Skillshare, which fell under an option for free membership.

Sadly though, this Skillshare membership is not offered anymore, and now, in place of that, you can get a month of free unlimited access, after you have signed up for Skillshare Premium Membership. 

Of course, you need to put in PayPal for card information for this. Then, after you have completed the month, you have 2 options that you can choose from. Honestly, we prefer the Skillshare annual membership plan. 

You could choose: 

• A Monthly Subscription Plan at $32 per month. 
• An Annual Subscription Plan for $168 per year
• Teams Business Plan for $159 per person per year

You save a good 50% if you take the annual plan instead of the monthly plan, as it works out as about $14 a month instead. Of course, it is one big payment in one, but it is also much less. 

When you have a Skillshare premium membership, you also get access unlimited to all 35,000 or more online classes.

As a premium member of Skillshare, you are also able to download different classes onto your Android or iOS devices for viewing offline. 

So, if you have a long journey ahead via train or bus, why not just watch over your classes instead of being bored? (Check out our ‘Skillshare Student Discount‘.)

However, there is a catch, this pricing is for the people who want to pay full price for their plan, and honestly? Who does? We found this nifty little coupon that whacks a great 30% off of the price.

With this plan, you would only be paying $22.40 per month for this plan, or you would be paying $117.60 per annum. 

How Much Is Skillshare Classes – Is It Free?

Technically the Skillshare platform is not free, but it is for the first month’s trial. This is something we see with many things, you get a month free but after that, you need to start paying. 

Realistically, you would sign up for a whole month free of Skillshare, have full access to all their online courses and such, and then just cancel Skillshare before the Skillshare free trial ends, and you won’t be charged. 

It does seem a bit dodgy to do this, but it is a way around the costs if the thought of paying long-term, full-price for Skillshare just is not something that you or your bank account are very happy about. 

Even Skillshare admits that you can do this, just cancel the trial before it ends to avoid getting charged for it.

Skillshare does also offer a month free for new students that you refer to, so, if you have 12 very loyal friends, and ask each of them to sign up for Skillshare’s monthly membership, you basically just get a full-year Skillshare membership for free. 

So, if you were looking for ways to get access to Skillshare but avoid the pesky costs, you can do it all this way. You can either cancel your trial before it ends or gather a load of your friends and get them to sign up. 

Skillshare Perks – Skillshare Premium Membership

Who of us does not like a good deal or a juicy bargain? Skillshare knows this and has incorporated some to ensure the deal obsessed with us gets sucked in, but we aren’t complaining. 

When you sign up to subscribe to Skillshare, you automatically get access to the perks which are given to Skillshare users.

These perks can range from a brilliant variety of products and services for you from Freshbooks to Adobe Premiere Pro, Todoist, Canva, and so on. 

Perks can range in savings too, but they do accumulate in a great way, so you can just visit the ‘perks’ section of their site after you have signed up to reap your rewards.

➡️ How much is Skillshare Premium?

Gift Cards For Skillshare

Skillshare did offer gift cards once upon a time, but sadly they do not offer you the ability to purchase any gift cards anymore. You can still buy corporate gift cards, however, with an absolute minimum of 25 seats. 

However, never say never! If you really want to get a Skillshare gift card for a loved one, you can do this still. 

Just sign up to Skillshare with their email address, and use your credit or debit card to pay for it, just make sure to make note of the password so that they can log in! 

Heard Of Skillshare Teams?

If you are an employer and the idea of Skillshare is totally awesome, you could be looking at Skillshare and you might be thinking that it would be a great idea if you could offer Skillshare to your employees to assist with training, or as an employee benefit. 

You can do this. This can be easily done through Skillshare teams. 

This is a part of Skillshare that lets you purchase Skillshare subscriptions in bulk for your business.

It comes in tow with a super easy-use admin portal that helps you to better manage your team all in one place when it comes to training at least. 

At the moment Skillshare teams have three tiers of plans available, they are available depending on how big your organization is.

Plans For Skillshare Teams

There are several different plans available for Skillshare teams, and which plan you choose will depend on the size of your company/ organization, or how many people you plan on offering this to. 

• Starter Skillshare Teams: This is available for teams between 2 and 19 people. It costs $159 per user per year. 
• Enterprise Skillshare Teams: This is available for teams of more than 20 people. You will need to contact the sales team for Skillshare pricing. 
• Revive Skillshare Teams: This is available for teams of more than 51 people. Like Enterprise, you will need to contact the sales team for pricing. 

If you are already a member of Skillshare, you may have the option to add Skillshare teams to your already active Skillshare account.

We did a sample checkout on this, just to get an idea of the cost. The price per user seems to remain fixed. 

This means that you would likely be paying $159 per year per user whether your team is 2 people, 50 people, or 250 people. 

➡️ How much is Skillshare?

What Classes Are Available On Skillshare?

Skillshare is different from the other online course platforms that are available, such as Udemy, or even Masterclass.

This is because it has a very extensive treasure trove of different courses which cover lifestyle, creativity, productivity, and business. 

All of their courses are easily accessible and practical in action. One thing people tend to like about Skillshare is how straightforward and to the point, it is as well. 

Let’s take a look at the different concepts behind the courses Skillshare offers. 

Skillshare Classes

Note, they divide their courses into several different categories. These are as follows:

• Writing/ Publishing.
• Technology.
• Social Medias.
• Photography.
• Music.
• Gaming. 
• Food & Drink (Catering/Cooking).
• Film & Video. 
• Style and Fashion. 
• Entrepreneurship.
• Design.
• Business.
• Advertising.

➡️ How Many Courses In Skillshare?

How Do You Use Skillshare?

When we really consider it, how easy Skillshare is, is quite strange, actually. All you need to do is just click on the ‘play’ button and just learn, or at least that it is at the surface level. 

It is not exactly that easy, but we promise you, it is much easier than you will remember school or college to be. 

For a starter, Skillshare is mainly targeted toward the creative types who are looking to get a tutorial from a qualified teacher.

You could find a course on anything, even on how to organize your fridge, Skillshare is also worthwhile for those who want to build up their creative abilities. 

If you are not very creative, there are plenty of other courses that are covered in Skillshare annual premium membership that will keep you occupied. 

Thanks to easily usable video lessons, you could watch a video during a lunch break, on a bus, or a train, or even just late at night when you would rather learn something new than binge-watch Netflix. 

However, if you prefer learning in a more hands-on way, then Skillshare is more than worth it as a majority of courses will be accompanied by a project that you will need to do. 

That being said, if you end up not liking the course that you signed up to, you do have many other options you can choose from.

Okay, you may not find a famous-author level writing class, however, you will still find plenty of writing classes available by established writers. 

If you are still a bit skeptical, then this is exactly why the free trial is a good shout to give it a try.

How Do You Gain Access To Skillshare?

Skillshare is available online, but you can also download and sign up on their mobile application as well. That’s right you can use it on a PC or on a mobile device. 

The Skillshare app can be easily found on iOS and on Android stores, and it gives users the ability to access and download courses to view online. 

Yet, to be able to access the application, you will need to sign up for the month-free trial, or you will need to already have an account. 

The app is pretty easy to use, and simple enough to navigate, whether you are just browsing for courses or looking for something specific. 

Staging up to date with new courses and classes on Skillshare is also made easier by the application as well.

You can simply turn on your push notification to make it possible for you to get alerts through to your phone or tablet. 

Alternatives To Skillshare

Wondering how Skillshare fares against other greats in the online learning area? Let’s take a look at Skillshare versus alternative options. (See also our article ‘Skillshare Alternatives‘.)

Head To Head: Skillshare Versus Udemy

When you are learning with Udemy, you will get the bargain aspect of online learning. Skillshare offers over 27,000 online courses from high-end tutors, but Udemy offers thousands of cheap classes from unknown tutors. 

With Udemy, you pay per class, and they always have a sale, but its quality can be up for debate.

Skillshare vs Udemy

Head To Head: Skillshare Versus Masterclass

Masterclass has courses that are taught by world-renowned celebrities and experts. It is similar in cost to Skillshare but it only offers 100 courses at the moment, but they do add around 2 to 3 new courses each month. 

Their courses are very high level, and they are more targeted towards beginners who are seeking to learn a wider set of skills, rather than niche topics. 

It is a brilliant online platform, but it is a bit different in comparison to Skillshare in its niche specifications and its diversity.

Skillshare Vs Masterclass

Head To Head: Skillshare Versus Coursera

Coursera provides courses from universities around the world, not just a specific instructor. 

Their user experience is a lot more traditional in the educational sense than Skillshare is. However, it is more tailored toward professional users who want to adapt their skills with a certification or a degree.

Skillshare Vs Coursera

Head To Head: Skillshare Versus LinkedIn Learning

LinkedIn is not for everyone, but they eventually decided to jump on the education train. 

It costs $39.99 per month, or you can pay $323.88 per annum. It is much more expensive than MasterClass for much less value.

It can be a useful tool for employers to provide employees with training to enhance their career development. 

That being said, it is probably not so useful for the individual, and Masterclass, Coursera, or Skillshare is better for that purpose.

Canceling Skillshare

Nothing is made for everyone, and maybe you tried Skillshare and found it is not for you, or perhaps you do not think that it is worth the hefty fees it comes with. The positive here is that it is super easy to cancel. 

Just head over to the website on your mobile or desktop, log in, click on account settings, then select ‘payments’ and click on ‘Cancel membership’ then follow the on-screen steps to cancellation. See also, (Skillshare refund) 

Once you have canceled your subscription you will have full access to all the content Skillshare has to offer until the pay period finishes. So, you can still update projects and take part in discussions until the paid period is up. 

Is It Worth The Cost?

Looking at if it is worth it is kind of a personal thing. For some people Skillshare may not be ideal, so no. But, for so many, it is worth it. 

But, we will let you make your own mind up, and take a look at the pros and cons. 

Skillshare Pros

• Affordable (especially with deals).
• Discounts and perks. 
• Free 1-month trial period.
• 27,000-course selection. 
• Live sessions.
• Referring a friend gets you a month free. 
• Project learning.
• Topics and length of courses vary.

Skillshare Cons

• Course quality is not consistent.
• No accreditation/ certification.
• Instructors are not of high-class caliber. 

Overall

Anything in education takes patience and time, luckily Skillshare is pretty affordable, so even if it does take you a while to get your head around a certain topic, it won’t be costing you an arm and a leg. 

In comparison to many other options, Skillshare is actually very affordable.