- Duration: 7 / 30 days
- Free Plan: No
- Credit Card: Yes
- Availability: Worldwide
- Price After Trial: From $29.88/year
- Website: www.skillshare.com
Skillshare is a learning platform where users can choose from thousands of available classes and complete courses that will help them to gain a skill.
With categories such as web development, graphic design, photography, film and video as well as creative writing and music, there are lots of expert classes to learn from on Skillshare.
You can join the platform with either a 7 day or a 30 day free trial, to begin learning. By default, the 7 day free trial is available to everyone but I’ll show you how to get the longer free trial below.
Skillshare offers thousands of hours of high quality video training from experts on each topic and you can learn on the go via the Skillshare mobile app.
In the sections below, I will show you how to join Skillshare and get a 30 day free trial and walk you through the sign up process. I’ll also include some other info you may need to know about Skillshare.
Starting With a Skillshare 7 Day Free Trial
By default, Skillshare offers a 7 day free trial to try their premium classes. You can access the site, join classes and complete courses for 7 days without paying anything.
If you need a longer trial of 30 days, see the next section for details on how to get one.
You will need to enter your credit card info in order to start the free trial. They would not bill you until your free trial expires and you can cancel before your trial expires to avoid getting charged.
To begin, you can sign up for free by connecting your Facebook, Google, or Apple accounts or you can just sign up with your email address.
I prefer connecting one of my accounts so I don’t need to remember a password or store one in my password manager. Usually, I’ll connect with Facebook because it is faster. If you sign up via email, you’ll need to complete a reCAPTCHA thing so they can make sure you’re not a bot.
Finally, you’ll need to either enter your credit card info here or checkout with PayPal if you prefer that method. The page allows you to enter a gift card or discount code if you have one.
You’ll see details on how much Skillshare costs. This recurring amount is charged to your card after your free trial ends. The fine print also has the date when your free trial ends.
Optionally, you can answer the question to let Skillshare know how you first heard about them. Complete the checkout process by clicking the green ‘Start Your 7 Day Free Trial” button.
How To Get a 30 Day Skillshare Free Trial
When you go to the Skillshare website, you will either see a 7 day free trial being offered or a 30 day free trial. Skillshare offers the 7 day free trial to all visitors by default.
If you’re seeing a 7 day free trial then you need to read this section to see how to get a 30 day Skillshare free trial.
One of the perks of being a Skillshare member is that all students have access to a referral program. You can invite your friends, classmates, family members and colleagues to join Skillshare and do courses with you.
The reward is that anyone who signs up through your referral link and completes their first payment will get a free month of Skillshare and you will also get a free month.
If you want to get a 30 day free trial of Skillshare, you can sign up using my referral link and we’ll both get a month free.
The process for signing up is the same as the other trial above except you’ll see clear indications that you’re signing up for a 30 day free trial instead.
Just connect with either your Facebook, Google or Apple accounts or sign up using an email address. You’ll need your credit card or PayPal account to complete the process. The checkout page lets you know when your free trial expires and how much you’re going to be charged when your trial expires.
How Much Does Skillshare Cost?
According to the checkout page that I just used when signing up for the Skillshare free trial, the learning platform’s membership costs $29.88/year and is billed annually.
Months ago, I attempted to take the same trial and the cost was $167.88/year billed annually.
I’m pretty sure that I had checked out Skillshare before when I had just started this website and the price was somewhere in the range of what it is now (about $30/year). It’s not clear what is going on but if you ask me, I’ll go with the current price and say Skillshare costs around $30/year.
I’ve checked a lot of other websites and blogs online and most of them have the old pricing of $167.88/year. PC Mag’s review which was last updated in July 2021 quotes the price of $29.88/year.
There is only one pricing option for premium membership at Skillshare and it’s billed annually. Whether it’s $167.88 or $29.88 is a bit unclear but just hope that when you hit the checkout page, it’s the cheaper option.
What Courses Are Inside Skillshare?
The first thing you’ll encounter when you first join Skillshare is a popup asking you to choose the course categories you’re interested in. You can choose as many as you like.
After you’ve made your choices, Skillshare shows you some recommendations based on what you liked.
You can use these recommendations, browse courses using the category list or use the search bar to find courses you may be interested in.
Skillshare has three different course types:
- Create – creative type courses such as graphic design, music and animation.
- Build – courses where you learn to build business skills – marketing, analytics etc
- Thrive – courses that help you improve and don’t fit into the other types – lifestyle and productivity courses.
There are also collections of courses that follow a sequence where you can learn a particular skill from beginners to more advanced levels. These progressive collections are called Learning Paths and you can access this from the top navigation.
While the majority of the courses on Skillshare are readily accessible and you can start anytime, there are also some courses that are more live in nature and run for multiple weeks. These are called Chroma courses.
With Chroma courses, you have to reserve a seat by paying a one-time fee. These courses usually have a limited number of participants, live Q&A and you can get personalized feedback on assignments.
On completion of Chroma courses, you earn a Chroma Course certificate of achievement.
How To Cancel Skillshare
While you’re on your Skillshare free trial, you may decide that you don’t want to continue with a membership. To avoid getting billed, you’ll need to cancel before your free trial period expires.
Cancelling is straight-forward and you can do this at any time. Here’s how to cancel your Skillshare free trial if you need to.
1. Go to account settings
To find where to cancel, the first thing you need to do is to go to your account settings.
Click on your profile icon in the top right hand corner of the screen. In the drop-down menu, you’ll find a link to your account settings.
Click on the link to visit your account settings which is where you’ll find the link to cancel.
2. Go to payment settings
When you click on Account Settings, the page that opens contains different settings and opens on a tab labelled “account”.
To cancel, you need to access the “payments” tab which is where you’ll find payment settings.
Click on the payment tab to go to your “payment” settings. In here you’ll find the “cancellation” link.
3. Click on cancel membership
On this page you’ll find information on your billing method. If you used a credit card to start your free trial, you’ll see the info here. PayPal users can manage their membership inside their PayPal account.
To cancel, click on the “Cancel membership” link.
4. Continue with cancellation
When you click the cancellation button, Skillshare will remind you of the time you have before you’re billed and try to get you to continue doing courses.
Skillshare is not a “cancel at any time” type of deal. Once you cancel, you will lose access, so if you’re on a free trial, it is best to keep track of when your trial expires and cancel at least 48 hours before the trial ends.
Click on the “continue with cancellation” link to continue with the process.
5. Important to know before cancelling
As I’m cancelling, I have 5 days left in my free trial and have used up 25 days. Now is a great time to cancel because I’ve done some courses and do not wish to continue with a membership.
If you decide to cancel during your free trial, your Skillshare membership will end immediately and you will not be able to continue doing courses.
This notice displays some of these important things you should know before you decide to cancel.
You have two options at this point:
- Don’t cancel – if you still have a lot of days left in your free trial and want to continue doing courses.
- Continue cancellation – if you have a few days left and want to avoid getting billed.
In this case, I’ll choose to continue cancellation.
6. A free month (for 60 day free trial)
Here’s an offer you can only get by deciding to cancel your account. Skillshare imagines that you need more time to decide if the platform is for you. So they’re offering a free month in order to keep you from cancelling your membership.
This is totally up to you and you can always add the free month and cancel later. This is totally up to you. You still have the option to cancel now.
If you add the free month, the same process you went through when you started your initial free trial will be repeated.
7. Get 65% off your next year
If you chose to continue cancelling your account instead of taking the free month, you’re cancelled at this point.
You’ll get this notice which is a great perk of cancelling. Had you continued without cancelled, you would have paid full price but here you can rejoin and pay 65% off the annual price.
The catch is that the offer is only available for 24 hours.
8. Complete the exit survey
Like most companies, Skillshare provides an exit survey to find out how they can improve their service. They’re asking for the reason why you cancelled.
Your account is already cancelled so doing the survey is optional but it doesn’t hurt to complete the survey as it is short and wouldn’t take up much of your time. Choose one of the options and fill in the boxes, then hit the submit button.
Get Your Skillshare Free Trial
If you’re interested in learning a new skill then Skillshare is one option where you can get a free trial to do high quality video courses.
The default free trial is 7 days but you can get 30 days by joining through a referral link. Here’s mine. You can even get up to 2 months of free Skillshare. If you read this entire article, you’ll know how.
Start learning something new today with a Skillshare free trial.
