Best places to buy Claude Skills in 2026: marketplaces compared

"Claude Skill" means different things to different buyers. For a developer, it's a Python helper that automates GitHub PRs. For a marketing team, it's a thinking framework that makes Claude evaluate campaigns like David Ogilvy. For a researcher, it's a PDF extraction tool. These are wildly different products sold through different marketplaces.

This guide is a buyer's map of the Claude Skills ecosystem as it stands in September 2026, rechecked from the April version. We're going to be honest about where authority.md fits, and just as importantly, where it doesn't. If you're looking for a coding skill, we're not your answer. If you're looking for a thinking framework, we probably are.

Marketplace catalogues change weekly, so every number below carries the date we checked it. Two marketplaces from the April version of this guide are gone: one has quietly shut down, one has lapsed and its domain now sits on a domain-resale site. Both are noted plainly where they used to be recommended.

Before you pick a marketplace: know what you're buying

The word "skill" gets used loosely. Five distinct things sit under it now:

1. Coding and development skills. Automations for Git, testing, deployment, documentation. Best for engineers inside Claude Code.
2. Document and data skills. PDF extraction, spreadsheet manipulation, web scraping, format conversion. Best for operational work.
3. Thinking frameworks. Structured mental models from named thinkers (Buffett, Feynman, Kobe). Best for decision-making, strategy, creative work.
4. Business-function skill packs. Templated skills for a specific department (content, marketing, sales, legal, finance, HR, operations) rather than a specific thinker. Best for teams wanting a fast, task-shaped answer.
5. MCP servers. Extensions that let Claude talk to external services (GitHub, Linear, Gmail, databases). Best for connecting Claude to your tools.

The marketplace you pick depends on which bucket you need. Most marketplaces specialise in one or two buckets; very few cover all five well.

The shortlist

For coding and development skills

1. Claude Marketplaces (claudemarketplaces.com) The broadest directory of coding-focused Claude Code plugins, skills, and MCP servers. 2,700+ marketplaces aggregated and 12,800+ servers catalogued, as of 22 September 2026. Free to browse, most skills are open-source GitHub repos.

Good for: developers who want the widest selection and are comfortable inspecting open-source code before installing.

Downside: quality is variable. Many skills are single-developer side projects. You do the curation work yourself.

2. SkillsMP (skillsmp.com) Searchable index of open-source agent skills pulled from GitHub, spanning 12 domains and 50-plus categories in 9 languages, as of 22 September 2026. Compatible across Claude Code, Codex CLI, and ChatGPT via the open SKILL.md standard. Free, with a daily request limit for anonymous use.

Good for: teams wanting smart search and filtering rather than raw browsing.

Downside: it's an index of public repos. If you want vetted or commercial-grade skills, this isn't that.

3. Claude Skills Hub (claudeskills.info) A third-party directory aggregating skills from Anthropic, Microsoft, GitHub, PostHog, and the community, organised into 50-plus use-case categories. It listed 42,820+ skills as of 22 September 2026, so treat "official" labelling on this site loosely; it's aggregating vendor-published skills, not just Anthropic's own bundled set.

Good for: casting a wide net across vendor and community skills in one place.

4. AI Skill Market (aiskill.market) A free, developer-first catalogue of 4,912 skills, workflows, and loops as of 22 September 2026, built for Claude Code and agent-first workflows. No account required to browse or install.

Good for: developers who want a large free catalogue without an account or payment step.

5. KissMySkills (kissmyskills.com) A paid, broadly-scoped marketplace stocking 1,700+ skills, 50-plus prompt packs, and 55 agents, as of 22 September 2026 (the site's own guide was last updated 14 September 2026). Most individual skills are $29, agents run around $32, and prompt packs range $9 to $29.

Good for: buyers who want a curated, paid catalogue spanning automations, agents, and prompt packs rather than a raw GitHub index.

Downside: at $29 a skill, this is priced closer to a commercial product than a community index, so check the specific skill's scope before buying.

For document and data skills

For PDF extraction, spreadsheet work, and document processing, Anthropic's own built-in skills (bundled with Claude.ai and Claude Code, including pdf and xlsx) are almost always the right starting point. They're maintained by Anthropic, free, and handle the common cases well. Anthropic doesn't publish a fixed public count of these, so we're not going to invent one.

If you need something more specific, LobeHub (lobehub.com/skills) hosts a catalogue of document and creative skills, with install paths for Claude Code, Codex, and Cursor as of 22 September 2026. claudeskillsmarket.com is a smaller, entirely free community catalogue (37+ skills as of 22 September 2026) worth a look if LobeHub doesn't have what you need.

Good for: users who've tried Anthropic's built-in skills and need something more specialised.

For business-function skill packs

Claude Protocol (claudeprotocol.com) built a catalogue of 501 templated skills across roughly 20 business-function categories, content, marketing, sales, legal, finance, HR, and operations, sold individually from $3.99 or as a $99 one-time Ultimate Bundle covering all 501. That's what the site advertised and what search engines still have indexed.

We checked the site directly on 22 September 2026 and it's currently returning a dead deployment (a Vercel "DEPLOYMENT_NOT_FOUND" error on every page, including the homepage and pricing page), even though it's still showing up in search results with cached content. We can't verify it's actually possible to buy anything there right now. If you're considering it, check it's back up before you pay; we're leaving this listing in specifically because a guide like this should tell you when something has gone quiet, not quietly drop it and pretend it was never there.

Good for (when it's live): teams wanting a ready-made skill for a specific business function rather than a persona-based thinking framework.

For thinking frameworks and mental models

This is where authority.md sits.

1. authority.md (authority.md), that's us 548 structured thinking frameworks distilled from documented thinkers, across 36 categories. Each one delivered as a native Claude Skill (.zip) plus a plain .md file for any LLM. $4.99 per framework, 4 for $14.99, 10 for $29.99.

Good for: buyers who want engineered frameworks (named mental models, decision heuristics, anti-patterns, activation prompts) rather than persona prompts. Works in Claude Code, Claude.ai, ChatGPT, Gemini, and any LLM.

Downside: paid. If you just want to test the idea of AI personas, there are free options.

2. Think Like Them (thinklikethem.net) 107+ free persona prompts inspired by named entrepreneurs and thinkers, unchanged since we last checked in April and confirmed live as of 22 September 2026. Copy the prompt, paste into ChatGPT or Claude.

Good for: first-timers who want to test the concept without paying, and for light conversational use.

Downside: prompts, not frameworks. The AI adopts a voice but doesn't reason with structured models. No Claude Skill format, no activation prompts, no worked examples.

For the full breakdown of how these two compare, see our authority.md vs Think Like Them guide.

3. Mental Models AI, gone This used to be an AI coaching tool with 50+ mental models on a monthly or annual subscription. As of 22 September 2026, mentalmodels.ai no longer resolves to a product; it now redirects to a domain-resale marketplace, which means the domain has lapsed and the service is no longer running. We're removing our previous recommendation. If you were paying for this, it's worth checking your card statement.

Worth watching: ClaudeSkills.ai As of 22 September 2026, claudeskills.ai is a waitlist, not a live marketplace. It's positioning itself as a creator marketplace with Stripe Connect payouts and creators keeping 90% of sales. Nothing to buy there yet, but worth a look if you're specifically hunting for a new venue once it launches.

For MCP servers (connecting Claude to external services)

MCP Market (mcpmarket.com), listing 49,810 servers as of 22 September 2026, and the MCP section of Claude Marketplaces are the main directories. Most MCP servers are free and open-source. The best ones (GitHub, Linear, Notion) are published by the companies themselves.

Good for: developers connecting Claude to their existing tools.

The comparison table

Why you'd use authority.md specifically

We cover one bucket, thinking frameworks, and we try to do it well. The pitch in a sentence: install a better thinker, once, and Claude reasons like them every time.

A few things we care about that other marketplaces in our bucket don't:

• Engineered frameworks, not prompts. Each framework has five named mental models, decision heuristics, signature questions, anti-patterns, and an activation prompt. The AI executes against structure, not a persona voice.
• Dual format delivery. You get a native Claude Skill .zip AND a plain .md file. Works in Claude Code, Claude.ai, ChatGPT, Gemini, and any LLM, without reformatting.
• Named, documented thinkers. 548 frameworks across 36 categories, drawn from people with real bodies of work: investors like Buffett and Munger, scientists like Feynman and Curie, athletes like Kobe and Serena, creators like Rubin and Morrison, historical leaders like Marcus Aurelius, and legal minds like Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
• One-off purchase. $4.99 each. No subscription. You own the file forever.
• 24-hour refund. If a framework doesn't match the quality we claim, reply to the delivery email and we refund. No hoops.
• Updated regularly. New personas and new categories added monthly. Existing frameworks versioned when source material changes.

Who we're NOT for: developers looking for coding automations, teams needing MCP server integrations, buyers who want a conversational coaching product, people exploring whether persona prompts work at all (start with Think Like Them for that, it's free).

authority.md also runs a second line worth knowing about: Tools, twelve task-specific procedures ($39 to $199) for recurring work like negotiation prep, hiring decisions, and investor updates. Where the frameworks give Claude a point of view, the Tools give it a job to do. See the Tools section or the which-Tool guide.

How to decide: four questions

1. What bucket is my need in? Coding, try Claude Marketplaces, SkillsMP, or AI Skill Market. Documents, start with Anthropic's built-in skills, then LobeHub. Thinking, authority.md (or Think Like Them if testing). Business-function packs, Claude Protocol if it's back online, otherwise wait. MCP, MCP Market.

2. Do I want to own a file or rent access? Files give you durability, portability, and version control. Subscriptions and hosted products give you ongoing content but disappear if the provider folds, which is exactly what happened to Mental Models AI between our April and September checks. authority.md, Think Like Them, and the coding marketplaces all give you files.

3. Is the marketplace actually live right now? Worth asking more than it used to be. This is a fast-moving, low-barrier-to-entry category, and we found one dead deployment and one lapsed domain in this single refresh. Check the site loads and takes payment before you commit.

4. What's the quality floor I can accept? Free community marketplaces need you to curate; paid products like authority.md do the curation for you. For a $4.99 framework you expect engineering; for a free prompt you accept a starting point.

The honest summary

If you're here because you searched "Claude Skills marketplace" and don't yet know which bucket you need, that's normal. Skills is a young category and the language hasn't settled. Start by identifying the use case (decision work, coding, documents, business tasks, integrations) and match to the marketplace above.

If your use case is specifically about installing better thinking into your AI, evaluating investments like Buffett, debugging like Feynman, coaching like Kobe, we think authority.md is worth the $4.99. If it's not, one of the free options above will serve you better, and we'd rather you start there than feel burnt on a purchase.

Start here

• Browse our 548 frameworks, see the catalogue.
• Read the comparison with Think Like Them if you're deciding between us and free prompts.
• What is a Claude Skill? if you need the concept explained first.

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This guide is updated when marketplaces add, remove, or significantly change their offerings. Last reviewed: 22 September 2026.