SkillzBench Pricing in 2026: Free Tier, Pro and Teams Explained
SkillzBench is free — every part of the platform, including the AI agent skills directory, the MCP connector, benchmarks and change alerts, costs $0 with no paid tiers in 2026. There is no Pro or Teams plan to buy: revenue comes from advertising around blog articles, and ad money never influences scores or listings. Small businesses can join the waitlist now while the product is being built ahead of launch.
TL;DR
- SkillzBench is free in 2026: the skills directory, the MCP connector, benchmarks and alerts all cost $0.
- There is no Pro or Teams tier — SkillzBench monetizes through advertising around its blog articles, never by charging users.
- Ad revenue never influences trust scores or listings; Lift is always shown separately from ratings.
- Every skill is pinned to a commit SHA, license-checked and security-scanned — published research found ~26% of agent skills carry at least one vulnerability.
- Benchmarks test each skill in a sandbox with the same model, with and without the skill, and publish the Lift in percentage points.
- Users get one free MCP server plus per-agent loadouts — the agent only sees the skills and tools you toggle on.
- SkillzBench is pre-launch: the waitlist and newsletter are live, the product itself is not yet public.
Head to head
| Dimension | SkillzBench |
|---|---|
| Pricing | $0 — everything free 🏆 |
| Free tier | The entire platform is the free tier 🏆 |
| Ease of use | Toggle skills and tools per agent via loadouts 🏆 |
| Features | Discover, Verify, Benchmark, Equip, Stay current 🏆 |
| Trust & transparency | 0-100 trust score; Lift shown separately; money never touches scores 🏆 |
| Setup | Connect one free MCP server, then toggle skills per agent 🏆 |
| Availability | Pre-launch — waitlist and newsletter live 🏆 |
The contenders
SkillzBench is AIQ Labs' free, independent directory of AI agent skills plus a free MCP tool that connects any agent to the skills you choose. Agent skills — SKILL.md instruction packages for Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI and chat-app agents — are spreading fast, but there has been no reliable way to tell which ones actually help and which are risky; published research found roughly 26% of skills carry at least one vulnerability. SkillzBench tackles this with five pillars: Discover (continuously crawling and deduping skills from GitHub), Verify (pinning every version to a commit SHA, validating, license-checking, security-scanning and quality-judging), Benchmark (testing every skill in a sandbox with the same model, with and without the skill, and publishing the Lift in percentage points), Equip (one free MCP server plus per-agent loadouts you toggle) and Stay current (tracking upstream changes, re-scanning, re-benchmarking and notifying you). A 0-100 trust score combines security, quality, license, maintenance and community signals, and money never touches scores.
pricing 0
- + Completely free — directory, MCP connector, benchmarks and alerts all cost $0
- + Ad-funded model means ad money never influences scores or listings
- + Security-first: version pinning to commit SHAs, license checks and security scans address the ~26% vulnerability rate found in published research
- + Lift is measured and shown separately from ratings, so performance data stays honest
- + Per-agent loadouts give precise control — agents only see the skills you chose
- + Works across Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI and chat-app agents
- − Pre-launch: the product is not yet public; only the waitlist and newsletter are live
- − No live skill counts or published benchmark results yet
- − Advertising around blog articles is the revenue model, so readers will see ads
- − New and unproven in the market compared with established software vendors
Verdict
Winner: SkillzBench
SkillzBench has no pricing to compare because everything on the platform is free — the directory, the MCP tool, benchmarks and alerts. For small businesses adopting AI agents, that makes it the lowest-cost way to find and vet agent skills safely.
| Option | Overall | Breakdown |
|---|---|---|
| SkillzBench | 9 | : 10: 8: 9: 10: 5: 7 |
SkillzBench pricing in 2026: one plan, zero dollars
Why 'free' matters for agent-skill safety
Which should you pick?
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FAQ
Is SkillzBench really free in 2026?
Yes. Everything on SkillzBench is free — the AI agent skills directory, the MCP connector, the sandbox benchmarks and the change alerts. There are no paid tiers, no per-user fees and no feature gates. SkillzBench earns revenue from advertising shown in and around its blog articles, and that ad money never influences trust scores or listings.
Does SkillzBench have a Pro or Teams plan?
No. Unlike typical SaaS pricing pages with Free, Pro and Teams tiers, SkillzBench has a single offering: the entire platform is free for everyone. There is no upgrade path to purchase because the business model is advertising around blog content, not user subscriptions.
How does SkillzBench make money if it's free?
Through advertising displayed in and around its blog articles. The platform is explicit that money never touches scores: the 0-100 trust score is built from security, quality, license, maintenance and community signals, and Lift is always shown separately from ratings, so ad revenue cannot buy a better score or listing.
What is the Lift metric on SkillzBench?
Lift is the measured performance gain a skill provides. SkillzBench tests every skill in a sandbox using the same model, once with the skill and once without, and publishes the difference in percentage points. It's shown separately from ratings so you can judge raw performance independently of quality opinions.
Why should I vet agent skills at all?
Because published research found that roughly 26% of agent skills carry at least one vulnerability. Skills are just instruction packages — anyone can publish one — so installing an unvetted skill can expose your agents and your business to risk. SkillzBench addresses this by pinning every version to a commit SHA, validating, license-checking, security-scanning and quality-judging each skill.
Can I use SkillzBench today?
Not quite — SkillzBench is pre-launch and actively being built. The waitlist and newsletter are live now, so you can sign up to be notified, but the directory, benchmarking, scanning and the free MCP connector are what the platform is building and will offer at launch.
Which agents work with SkillzBench?
SkillzBench covers agent skills (SKILL.md instruction packages) for Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI and chat-app agents. Through the free MCP server and per-agent loadouts, you connect any supported agent and toggle exactly which skills and tools it can see.