Maker School Review

A $184/Month Community Where the Creator Says His Own Skills Are Becoming Obsolete

Nick Saraev built one of the most commercially successful AI automation communities on Skool. Maker School has roughly 2,800 paying members, won the Skool Games competition with approximately $290,000 in monthly recurring revenue, and offers a structured 90-day program teaching people how to start AI automation agencies using Make.com and n8n. At $184 per month with no annual discount, it’s also the most expensive community in its niche by a significant margin.

But here’s what caught our attention during research: in November 2025, Nick published a journal entry on his personal website comparing the skills he teaches to “polishing brass on the Titanic.” He wrote that building automations would soon be “as quaint as hand-stitching dresses in the 1850s.” He simultaneously announced he was reducing his daily involvement to roughly 15 minutes and delegating the personal Loom video responses that are still advertised as a key selling point on the Skool page.

That contradiction — a premium-priced community where the founder publicly questions the longevity of what he’s teaching while stepping back from the hands-on support he advertises — frames everything about this review.

Who Is Nick Saraev?

Nickolas Saraev is a roughly 29-year-old Bulgarian-Canadian entrepreneur who splits his time between Calgary and San Francisco. His background is more eclectic than most Skool creators: he studied neuroscience at a Vancouver university and co-authored a peer-reviewed paper on the vesicular nucleotide transporter published in the American Journal of Physiology — Heart and Circulatory Physiology, which we verified at journals.physiology.org. He holds no formal computer science degree — he taught himself programming over five months using open-source curricula.

Before Maker School, Nick ran a string of ventures spanning nightclub promotions, Udemy courses on body language, a door-to-door marketing agency, a wedding videography business, and an AI art project called 1SecondPainting that hit number one on Hacker News. His most relevant prior business is 1SecondCopy, a GPT-3 content writing agency that reached $90,000 per month — a figure independently corroborated by an Apify partner case study, making it one of the few externally verified revenue claims among Skool creators. He also founded LeftClick Inc., an AI consulting firm he says peaked at $72,000 per month, though that figure is self-reported only.

His YouTube channel has grown to over 313,000 subscribers with nearly 12 million total views, gaining roughly 1,720 new subscribers per day as of March 2026. He ranks in the top 1% in Canada for AI Research & Innovation on Favikon with a 97.5 authenticity score. A secondary YouTube channel under the handle @callmesaraev has around 37,000 subscribers and 47 million views — more total views than his primary channel, suggesting a broader content history. On LinkedIn, he has over 24,500 followers with 500-plus connections.

His self-description on his own biography page is notably candid: he calls himself “an opportunist” whose “successes involve stumbling on, and then taking advantage of, short term opportunities.” He also claims speaking appearances alongside Tai Lopez, Dan Martell, and “a royal prince” as well as appearing next to Alex Hormozi and Sam Ovens — though these claims are self-reported and we could not independently verify any of them. His Bloomberg feature claim could not be independently located despite targeted searches. His Amazon Kindle book, “Sales for Entrepreneurs,” exists on Amazon but his “best-seller” claim lacks verifiable category or ranking data.

Inside the 90-Day Roadmap

Maker School structures its content around a day-by-day progression rather than letting members browse freely. The first 30 days cover introductory material about the AI automation agency model. Days 30 through 60 introduce client acquisition through cold email and Upwork. Days 60 to 90 tackle agency scaling. The community lists 218 exclusive videos and 40-plus copy-paste templates for content creation, lead generation, and sales.

The drip-feed approach is deliberate — and divisive. Nick’s logic is that structured progression prevents overwhelm and ensures members build foundations before advancing. The counterargument, raised by ScamRisk and CoursesBetter reviewers, is that students pay $184 per month for three months ($552 minimum) before reaching the advanced material that actually teaches client acquisition. As ScamRisk puts it: “The drip-feed model releases content slowly, meaning students might pay for several months before reaching advanced, actionable material.”

There’s also meaningful content overlap with Nick’s free YouTube library. He offers 57 hours of free Make.com tutorials and 16 hours of agency-building content on YouTube. Multiple independent reviewers flagged this: CoursesBetter notes “some participants report that much of the content is similar to what’s already free.” The incremental value of the paid community over the free YouTube content is the central question any prospective member should investigate.

Live Components and Community Features

Weekly coaching calls happen Wednesdays at 9 AM Mountain Time and are recorded for members who can’t attend live. The community also runs weekly office hours, agency hotseats where Nick critiques members’ agencies, “Upwork roasts” reviewing members’ freelancing profiles, and “copy roasts” giving feedback on cold email campaigns. These interactive elements — particularly the roasts — are unique among competitors and represent genuine added value beyond pre-recorded content.

The Community Experience

Nick’s Skool profile shows 25,900 contributions and 10,200 followers, which signals substantial historical engagement. Maker School won the Skool Games with an estimated $290,000 in monthly recurring revenue, placing it among the highest-grossing communities on the platform.

However, the external discussion footprint is strikingly thin for a community of this size. Our research found zero Reddit threads, zero Quora questions, and zero Trustpilot reviews about Maker School or Nick Saraev. Multiple targeted searches across subreddits including r/automation, r/nocode, r/entrepreneur, and r/Skool returned nothing. The only Reddit-adjacent content was a planted press release from YourHappyClients.com — not organic discussion. IsThisCourseLegit explicitly flagged this: “We found minimal discussion about Maker School on Reddit or Quora, which raised some questions for our team.”

Nick himself reported a roughly 20 percent monthly churn rate in late 2024, with a goal to reduce it to 15 percent. At current member counts, that implies the community must continuously acquire approximately 560 new members every month just to maintain its size.

The published member testimonials on the now-sunset Make Money With Make.com marketing page describe specific wins: members landing first clients in 15 days to two months with deal sizes ranging from $1,000 to $10,000. Names cited include Christopher H., Ben G., John R., Mo I., Alex H., Kole R., Dylan W., and Saad B. — all dated June 2024. However, these testimonials are from the creator’s own marketing page and are not independently verified. No member has published an interior walkthrough video of the community, and the internal discussion feed, Loom QA quality, and actual live session attendance are not observable without purchasing access.

On the flip side, an 87-page thread on BestBlackHatForum distributes pirated Maker School content, and multiple piracy sites including PikaCourses, CoursesFast, and BombaCourses sell unauthorized access for around $30. The scale of piracy is unusual for a Skool community and paradoxically signals both high perceived value and significant price resistance in the market.

Is $184 Per Month Worth It?

At $184 per month, Maker School charges roughly double the next most expensive Skool competitor in the AI automation space. Nate Herk’s AI Automation Society Plus costs $99 per month with n8n-focused courses and over 100 templates. AI Architects by Stephen G. Pope costs $97 per month covering n8n, Make.com, and vibe coding. Both are less than half of Maker School’s price.

The comparison gets starker when you factor in hidden costs. Make.com subscriptions run $9 to $29 per month. n8n hosting adds roughly $20 per month. Outreach tools like Apollo.io, Instantly, and Smartlead.ai add $50 to $200 per month. ScamRisk calculates that these tools “can add hundreds of dollars in recurring monthly expenses before the student earns their first client.” A realistic 90-day total cost including tools ranges from $800 to $1,500 or more.

There are also free alternatives that cover significant ground. Liam Ottley’s AI Automation Agency Hub has 300,000 free members with GoHighLevel-focused training. Nate Herk’s free AI Automation Society has 275,000 members. Nick’s own YouTube library offers 73 hours of free content.

Nick also operated a second, higher-tier community called Make Money With Make.com at $368 per month, limited to around 500 vetted members. In November 2025, he sunset MMWM, refunding annual subscribers at a cost he disclosed as approximately $40,000, and merged all members into Maker School with lifetime access. His reasoning was revealing: MMWM consumed 17 hours per month but earned roughly one-twelfth of Maker School’s revenue. This is a rare window into the operational economics of a premium Skool community — and it suggests Nick’s attention is increasingly concentrated on the higher-volume, lower-touch Maker School tier.

A separate community called Maker School Lite was discovered at skool.com/maker-school-lite-3685/about during our research. Its pricing and content scope are not yet documented publicly, but it may represent a lower-cost entry point that addresses the affordability concerns flagged by multiple reviewers.

The 90-day money-back guarantee provides some risk reduction, but its specific terms are not publicly disclosed. ScamRisk notes “no option for prorated refunds” and a “rigid refund policy.” CoursesBetter reports “some community reports suggest the guarantee is not honored in all cases.” IsThisCourseLegit notes the “specific terms aren’t clearly outlined.”

The Price Escalation Pattern

Maker School launched at $28 per month, originally described on Gumroad as “capped at 400 members, price increases every 40 people that join.” The price has since risen through at least seven documented steps — $28, $99, $144, $164, $174, $184 — and is announced to increase to $204 per month. That represents a 557 percent increase over approximately 18 months, with the community now at roughly 2,800 members, far beyond the original 400-member cap. Existing members appear grandfathered at their original rates.

Who Should Join — and Who Shouldn’t

Maker School makes the most sense for someone who wants a structured, hand-held introduction to selling AI automation services and is willing to pay a premium for that structure. If you’ve consumed Nick’s free YouTube content and want accountability, community support, and the specific templates and scripts that aren’t available for free, the 90-day roadmap provides a clear path.

You should not join if you’re primarily interested in learning Make.com or n8n as tools — the free official academies from both platforms, combined with Nick’s 73 hours of free YouTube tutorials, cover the technical skills without a monthly fee. You should also reconsider if you’re uncomfortable with a $184 per month commitment where the refund terms are opaque, the content is drip-fed over 90 days, and the creator has publicly acknowledged that the specific skills being taught may have a limited shelf life.

The creator involvement question also matters. If the advertised “Daily QA w Nick” — where he personally records custom Loom video answers to your questions — is a significant factor in your decision, verify whether this is still happening. Nick’s November 2025 journal announced he would “have other people do Looms, and only record them occasionally” and reduce his direct management to “~15 minutes/day.” As of March 2026, the Skool page still advertises the original daily personal QA.

The Bottom Line

Maker School earns a 3.2 out of 5 in our assessment — a mixed review that reflects genuine strengths alongside significant concerns. The content library is solid (3.8 for content), the community has real scale and engagement signals (3.5 for community), but the value proposition is hard to justify at double the price of comparable competitors (2.5 for value) and the support picture is muddied by the gap between what’s advertised and what was announced (2.8 for support).

The strongest argument for Maker School is the structured 90-day roadmap with dual Make.com and n8n coverage — a combination no competitor currently matches. The strongest argument against it is the price: $184 per month is a steep entry point when cheaper alternatives exist, 73 hours of the creator’s own content is free on YouTube, and the creator himself has publicly questioned the longevity of the skills being taught.

For aspiring automation agency builders who value structure over savings and want a proven community with nearly 2,800 members, Maker School delivers a clear path to a first client. For everyone else, the free alternatives and lower-cost competitors deserve serious consideration first.