Member Testimonials and Reviews

As of September 2026, Skool has native member reviews and they are on by default for every paid community. Skool's help article, updated 3 September 2026, says reviews are visible only to members of the group, with a public rollout planned, so do not plan around a public view yet. Private testimonials remain a separate kind of evidence that you collect and reuse only with permission.

What it is

A native Skool review is feedback a paying member leaves through the platform. It can help someone understand the experience of joining your group without relying only on the owner's sales copy.

A testimonial is different. It is a member story that you may want to use on a landing page, in an email, or in a comparison. Public visibility on Skool does not automatically give you permission to reuse a member's words, name, photo, or results elsewhere.

How native reviews work

Reviews are live for all paid communities. Only recurring paying members can leave one (not one-time buyers, free members, people who pay off-platform, or admins), and the prompt appears after 30 days of membership. Reviews are on by default for subscription, freemium, and tiers groups, and a free group cannot be reviewed. A group with no reviews simply shows nothing rather than a "no reviews yet" label.

Where reviews show is still settling. Skool's announcement says they appear publicly on About pages, while the help article, updated in early September 2026, says reviews are visible only to members of the group with a public rollout planned. The help article is the later and more specific source, so write your About page as if reviews stay inside the group, and check the current behaviour before you plan around a public view.

Moderation is built in. Anyone can report a review from its three-dot menu, Skool flags suspicious reviews automatically, and a team looks at them. Support will not remove a review on request, and asking for removal can penalize your group. Skool also adds a red warning on the About page when reviews appear incentivized, so do not offer gifts, discounts, access, upgrades, or status in exchange for them.

Two smaller details. Skool removed the review prompt from membership settings because it produced low-quality one-star reviews from people looking for the cancel button, so prompts now live on the About page and in the feed. The "paying member since" label on a review turns green once someone has paid for three months.

Let the platform ask naturally. Your role is to create an experience worth reviewing, respond calmly to patterns in the feedback, and avoid steering members toward a particular rating.

A mixed or critical review can be useful. It may show that your promise is unclear, onboarding is weak, a course is hard to navigate, or the community is attracting the wrong people.

How to gather testimonials

Ask for permissioned feedback at moments when a member has enough experience to be specific:

After a useful onboarding win.
After completing a meaningful course step.
After attending a call or receiving helpful support.
After remaining active for a reasonable period.
When a member volunteers a clear story about what changed.

Ask open questions:

What were you trying to solve when you joined?
What helped you most?
What was confusing or disappointing?
What changed for you, in practical terms?
What would you tell someone considering the community?
May we quote your answer, and where may we use it?

Use Member Onboarding and Retention And Churn to choose good feedback moments. Post Format And Engagement, Points And Levels, and Leaderboards And Gems can help you notice active participation, but activity is not proof that someone is satisfied.

Using reviews well

Keep the member's language intact. Add enough context to make the claim honest, including the community, offer, timeframe, and kind of result.

Store explicit consent separately from the public quote. If a story includes money, health, career, or another sensitive outcome, ask for precise permission and avoid implying that everyone will get the same result.

Use reviews to improve the offer as well as promote it. Repeated praise can show what members value. Repeated criticism can show what needs repair.

When comparing platforms, turn reviews into questions rather than universal claims. Skool Versus Circle and Skool Versus SchoolMaker should reflect the needs members describe, not a handful of flattering quotes.

Best practice

Ask for honest feedback, not a positive rating.
Keep native reviews separate from testimonials licensed for external use.
Record the date, context, consent, approved wording, and approved channels for each testimonial.
Remove private payment details and unnecessary personal information.
Use member feedback to improve onboarding, delivery, and retention.
Treat points and activity as prompts for a conversation, not proof of an outcome.
Let negative patterns inform product decisions.
Use Competitor Landscape Overview to turn recurring feedback into fair comparison questions.
If you have no member's permission to quote a result, leave the comparison out.
Keep praise separate from official facts in Skool Feature Map, Skool Pricing, and Transaction Fees.
Connect member voice to the long-term habits in Community Led Growth.

Pitfalls

Rewarding or pressuring members for favorable native reviews.
Asking support to remove a critical review, which can penalize your group.
Copying a native review into external marketing without separate permission.
Treating membership-question answers as public testimonials.
Using points, likes, or level status as proof of satisfaction.
Publishing names, emails, payment details, or private screenshots.
Removing repeated criticism simply because it is uncomfortable.
Presenting one member's result as a typical or guaranteed outcome.
Leading an interview with comparison language that suggests the desired answer.
Automating follow-up before consent and opt-out handling are clear.
Using a social post as if it were official Skool product information.