Where to buy skills for Claude and Cursor: marketplaces compared
There are five kinds of place to get agent skills right now, and they're built for different people. This is an honest look at each: what it sells, how the skill reaches your app, what it costs, and who it fits. We run one of them, and I've tried to be as fair to the other four as I'd want them to be to us.
What are you buying when you buy a skill?
A skill is a text file. A SKILL.md with a description the model reads to decide when to use it, then the instructions, sometimes with a folder of references. Anyone who can trigger it can read it. So you're not paying for a secret. You're paying for someone else's judgment about how the job should be done, and for whether that judgment stays current as the model and the tools change. Keep that in mind as you read the options, because it's the thing that separates them. What is an agent skill has the longer version.
skills.sh: free skills for developers, installed from the terminal
skills.sh is a directory run by Vercel Labs. Every skill lives in a public GitHub repository, and you install one with a single command, npx skills add and the repo name. It's free, it's large, and the install path is clean if you live in a terminal.
Good for: developers who use Claude Code or Cursor on their own machine and want a coding skill in thirty seconds. Also good for seeing what a well-written SKILL.md looks like, since the source is right there.
Where it stops: there's no way to use it without a terminal, so it's not for the claims desk or the sales team. Updates mean running the command again. And it's a directory, so quality is whatever the repo owner shipped. Nobody reviewed it before you installed it.
Agensi: a paid skills directory with downloads and subscriptions
Agensi is the biggest paid directory, with thousands of skills from hundreds of creators. Buyers pay a monthly amount for credits or buy skills one at a time. One-off skills come as a download. Subscription skills are delivered through a connection to their server and update on the creator's schedule. Each listing carries a security scan and an install count, which helps when you're choosing between four skills that claim to do the same thing. Creators keep 70 percent.
Good for: browsing. If you don't know what you want yet and you'd like to see what exists, it's the widest catalog with prices on it. The scan and the install counts are real signals, and the subscription option means some skills there do get maintained.
Where it stops: it's a directory first. Skills are sold as individual files, and most creators don't have a practice behind the listing, so you're often buying a prompt someone wrote once. There's no seller storefront, so you can't tell much about who made it. And a downloaded skill is yours to keep current.
Zip stores: Gumroad, Whop, or a one-person Shopify site
A lot of skills are sold as zip files for $9 to $15 through Gumroad, Whop, or a one-person Shopify store. You pay, you download, you unpack it into your skills folder. Some sellers bundle twenty skills for the price of a lunch.
Good for: a one-time need. If you want a skill for a job you'll do a few times and you're comfortable with files, the price is hard to argue with. Some of these sellers are good at their craft and the zip is worth every dollar on the day you buy it.
Where it stops: the day after. The seller fixes a bug and your copy doesn't know. There's no connection, so nothing in a chat app can use it. You have to be in a coding tool with a skills folder. And there's no refund mechanism beyond the seller's goodwill.
GitHub awesome lists
Several people maintain long, curated lists of free skills on GitHub, sorted by category with a line of description each. VoltAgent and ComposioHQ run two of the larger ones. They're free, they're updated by pull request, and they're the first place a lot of developers look.
Good for: the same developers skills.sh serves, plus anyone who wants to survey a category before buying. If you're picking a marketing skill, reading the free ones first tells you what a paid one has to beat.
Where it stops: it's a list of links. Installing means cloning a repo and copying a folder. There's no delivery, no updates, and no support. A list can tell you a skill exists. It can't tell you it still works.
ProvenSkills: expert-written packs by subscription, delivered over a connector
ProvenSkills is ours, so read this part knowing that. It sells packs, which are sets of skills from one person or firm that does the work the skills describe. A public adjusting outfit sells its claims desk. A sales ops consultancy sells its pipeline reviews. Each seller has their own storefront and their own Stripe account, and prices are set per organization, per month, with tiers.
Delivery is a connector. You subscribe, follow one link that opens your AI app's add-connector dialog, sign in with an email code, and the skills are there from the next chat. No files, no terminal. That's what makes it work for a claims desk or a sales team and not only for developers. When the seller publishes an update, you're on it the next time you ask. When you cancel, access ends at the close of the paid period.
Sellers can publish free packs too, and the free packs go out through the same connector with the same updates. A platform admin reviews each seller's first releases before they go public. Refunds are between you and the seller, in the seller's own portal, and the refund rule is printed on every pack page.
Where it stops: the catalog is small, because sellers are people with a practice, not anyone with a prompt. If you want a hundred options for one job, this isn't the place. Skills that need scripts on your machine aren't served here either, by design. And you need a paid Claude plan or Cursor, since connectors are how it reaches you.
Which one should you use?
A developer with a terminal who wants free coding skills should start with skills.sh and the awesome lists. They're good and they cost nothing. Someone who wants to browse a wide paid catalog, and is fine keeping files current, has the most to look at on Agensi. For one skill, one job, and a $12 budget, a zip store is fine.
If you run a team that doesn't use a terminal, or you'd rather pay someone to keep the skill working than keep it working yourself, browse the packs here. Start with a free one, connect it, and see if the person behind it knows the job. That's the whole test. It takes a few minutes, and the how to add skills to Claude and Cursor pages walk you through the connect step.