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AGENT SKILLS ECONOMY

Claude Skills Marketplace: Where Skills Actually Live in 2026

Three different things get called "the Claude skills marketplace" — Anthropic's official channels, the plugin marketplaces built into Claude Code, and a pile of third-party directories that disagree on everything, including how many skills exist. Here is the map, plus where creators actually get paid — including the VibeFuse marketplace, which pays an 80% revenue share on widgets, skills, and styling packs from day one.

Browse the VibeFuse marketplace How selling works

Why the term is a mess (and what each thing actually is)

Anthropic shipped the SKILL.md open standard in December 2025, and the ecosystem started building on it in early 2026. "Claude skills marketplace" gets applied to three overlapping things, and mixing them up is how people end up publishing to a scraper index thinking they've shipped a product.

What people mean What it actually is Who runs it
"The official marketplace" There is no App Store-style skills storefront. Anthropic maintains first-party skills (the anthropics/skills repo, built-ins in the Claude apps) and the Claude Marketplace — which sells business software, not skills Anthropic
Plugin marketplaces Git repos with a .claude-plugin/marketplace.json — any repo can become one; skills ship inside plugins. This is the official, supported distribution path, and Anthropic now runs two of its own: the curated claude-plugins-official directory (auto-registered in Claude Code, catalog at claude.com/plugins) and the community claude-plugins-community marketplace (automated safety screening, every listing pinned to a commit SHA) Anyone (Anthropic maintains two managed directories)
Third-party directories Web catalogs that index SKILL.md files from public GitHub — mostly free, no payment rails SkillsMP, claudemarketplaces.com, SkillHub, LobeHub, community lists

As of September 2026 the official answer to "where do I browse and install Claude skills" is the plugin marketplace system — now anchored by Anthropic's two managed directories — plus the first-party repo. Not a consumer storefront with ratings and a checkout. The "official paid-skills store" claim circulating since May 1 2026 (a 500k.io post reporting ~600 skills and a 15% creator cut) has never been confirmed in Anthropic's own docs — and a May 2026 six-month audit of the marketplace ecosystem concluded the opposite: "Anthropic shipped format only," leaving payments to third parties like Agensi and Agent37. Until a paid-skills flow appears in Anthropic's docs, treat launch posts as prediction, not fact.

The official channels: what Anthropic actually runs

Five first-party surfaces matter, and none of them is a store:

The Agent Skills standard underneath all of it is open: a skill is a folder with a SKILL.md (YAML frontmatter plus Markdown instructions, optional bundled scripts), and OpenAI's Codex CLI adopted the same format — so a skill you publish travels across agents that read SKILL.md.

Plugin marketplaces: the real distribution primitive

Claude Code's plugin system is how skills actually move at scale. Any Git repository with a .claude-plugin/marketplace.json file becomes a marketplace: users add it with /plugin marketplace add, browse the discover list, and install plugins — which bundle skills, agents, hooks, MCP servers, or LSP servers. Skills inside an installed plugin load automatically from the plugin's skills/ directory, no extra step.

Two mechanics worth knowing from the official docs. Versioning is manifest-driven: users only receive updates when you bump the version field in the plugin manifest (or, if you omit it, every commit pushes updates). And the manual route never stops working — copying a skill folder into ~/.claude/skills/ (global) or your project's .claude/skills/ (repo-scoped) installs it with no marketplace at all. That's why the ecosystem fragmented so fast: the install bar is a file copy, and thousands of skills live in personal GitHub repos whose README says exactly that.

For sellers, the takeaway: distribution and payment are different problems. A GitHub repo plus directory listings gets you installs; it does not get you income. The full registry-by-registry comparison with install commands and safety checks lives in our agent skills directory guide.

The third-party directory landscape

Directory Scale claim Curation Payouts
SkillsMP 1.3M+ indexed skills (launched May 2026; scraped from public GitHub) Automated scraper + quality filter, not review None — free index
claudemarketplaces.com Thousands of skills plus a directory-of-directories (~2,500 sub-marketplaces) Human-browsable, ranked by installs and stars None
SkillHub ~7,000 skills Human-picked collections (e.g. "TDD starter pack") Team plan ~$12/seat/mo — for teams, not seller payouts
skills.sh (Vercel) Open directory launched Jan 2026 with an install-count leaderboard (its own API reported 342 catalogued skills / 87 owners in Mar 2026; top skill, find-skills, passed 3.1M installs) SKILL.md packages via npx skills add; Snyk/Socket install-time scanning None — discovery only
awesome-claude-skills lists A few hundred curated links Community-maintained GitHub lists None

The count claims disagree wildly — 1.3 million vs 7,000 vs 4,200 — because nobody owns the definition. Scraper indexes count every GitHub repo containing a SKILL.md somewhere; curated catalogs count listings a human accepted. When you see a headline number, ask what was counted.

Directory figures compiled September 2026 from the platforms' own published counts; they move month to month.

Where Claude skill creators actually get paid

Here is the part most guides skip: the official channels don't pay creators. Anthropic's first-party repo and the plugin marketplace system are free distribution — your reward is installs and reputation. The GPT Store taught this generation of builders the lesson the hard way: a promised revenue program is not a payout (WIRED reported in 2024 that most GPT builders, including creators with millions of conversations, had earned nothing). Income requires a marketplace with a published, structural revenue share:

Where you sell Creator keeps Format
VibeFuse Marketplace 80% flat — every sale, no tiers Canvas widgets, SKILL.md skills, styling packs
Skill Exchange 95% on paid one-time skills (launched Aug 2026; every listing human-reviewed with a proof-of-work project) SKILL.md files, cross-assistant (Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Cursor, Copilot)
AgentPowers 85% (fees absorbed) Markdown skills for .claude/skills/
RuleSell 85/15 creator split with KYC + Stripe payouts Skills, MCP servers, cursor rules, AGENTS.md templates — one listing, multi-agent install
Agensi 80/20 (published; 8-point security scan on every listing) SKILL.md bundles, security-scanned, cross-agent
MCP marketplaces (MCPize, Apify) 80–85% typical, per-call pricing MCP servers — the adjacent category to skills

Two structural notes. First, SKILL.md is cross-agent: the same file ships to Claude's ecosystem and loads in OpenAI Codex CLI and other adopters, so a listing on a cross-agent marketplace follows your work wherever agents go. Second, a SKILL.md file is invisible until an agent loads it — a widget is demonstrable, because buyers see the live component on a canvas before they buy.

That second point is why the VibeFuse marketplace exists at all: VibeFuse is the first ever free widget-based AI harness, an open-source marketplace where creators make money selling widgets, skills, and styling packs with revenue share for creators — 80% flat, published, buyers installing in one click inside the free harness. Local/offline processing, works in any app, and your buyers never pay just to try your work.

How to install a Claude skill today

  1. From a plugin marketplace: /plugin marketplace add <repo> in Claude Code, then install from the plugin menu
  2. From the first-party repo: register anthropics/skills as a marketplace and install its bundles — or copy folders straight out of it
  3. Manually: copy the skill folder into ~/.claude/skills/ (global) or .claude/skills/ (project) — no command needed

All three routes end in the same place: Claude resolves the skill from your skills directories and loads it when a request matches. Read a skill before installing it regardless of source — a SKILL.md can carry scripts, and the scraper indexes do not review what they list.

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Claude skills marketplace FAQ

Is there an official Claude skills marketplace?

Not an App Store-style storefront. Anthropic maintains first-party skills in the anthropics/skills GitHub repo, ships built-in skills with the Claude apps, and now runs two managed plugin directories: claude-plugins-official (curated, auto-registered in Claude Code, catalog at claude.com/plugins) and claude-plugins-community (third-party submissions after automated safety screening, each pinned to a commit SHA). The Claude Marketplace — despite the name — sells enterprise software built on Claude, not skills.

Where do I find and install Claude skills?

Four routes. Browse the auto-registered official directory via /plugin → Discover in Claude Code (or claude.com/plugins). Add any community marketplace with /plugin marketplace add <repo>. Register the anthropics/skills repo for Anthropic's first-party bundles. Or copy a skill folder into ~/.claude/skills/ (global) or .claude/skills/ (project) — no command needed. All routes end with the skill loading when a request matches.

What is SkillsMP and are its numbers real?

SkillsMP is a third-party directory that launched in May 2026 claiming 1.3M+ skills indexed from public GitHub. It is a scraper index with a quality filter, not a review process — the count reflects how many repos contain a SKILL.md, not how many useful skills exist. Curated catalogs like SkillHub (~7,000) or claudemarketplaces.com are smaller but human-browsable. None of the directories pay creators.

Can I make money selling Claude skills?

Not through Anthropic's own channels — the first-party repo and plugin directories are free distribution (the "official paid-skills store" remains unconfirmed in Anthropic's docs). Income requires a paid marketplace with a published revenue share: the VibeFuse marketplace pays a flat 80% on widgets, skills, and styling packs, Skill Exchange pays 95% on one-time skills, AgentPowers pays 85%, RuleSell pays 85/15, Agensi pays 80/20. Remember the GPT Store lesson: a promised revenue program is not a payout — only a published percentage is.

What is a SKILL.md file?

The open Agent Skills standard Anthropic published in December 2025. A skill is a folder containing a SKILL.md with YAML frontmatter (name, description, optional fields like allowed-tools) followed by Markdown instructions, plus optional bundled scripts. OpenAI's Codex CLI adopted the same format, so skills are portable across agents that read SKILL.md.

Do I need a plugin marketplace to share a skill?

No. The manual route is a folder copy into the skills directory, and thousands of skills are shared exactly that way via GitHub READMEs. A plugin marketplace adds discovery, version tracking, and automatic updates for users — worth it once you maintain multiple skills or ship updates regularly.

Did Anthropic launch a paid skills store?

Not verifiably. A widely-shared May 1 2026 post reported a Skills Marketplace with ~600 skills and a 15% creator cut, but that flow has never appeared in Anthropic's own docs. A May 2026 six-month ecosystem audit concluded "Anthropic shipped format only" — SKILL.md plus the official plugin directories, with payments left to third parties (Agensi 80/20, RuleSell 85/15, AgentPowers 85%, Skill Exchange 95%). The verified official surfaces are the anthropics/skills repo, claude-plugins-official (auto-registered, catalog at claude.com/plugins), and claude-plugins-community (SHA-pinned, safety-screened).

What are the official Anthropic plugin directories?

Two, both verified in Anthropic's own docs and repos as of September 2026. claude-plugins-official is the curated directory — Claude Code auto-registers it on first interactive launch, you browse it via /plugin → Discover or the public catalog at claude.com/plugins, and inclusion is at Anthropic's discretion with no application process. claude-plugins-community is where third-party submissions land after automated validation and safety screening; every listing is pinned to a specific commit SHA and the public catalog syncs nightly. Third-party partners submit via clau.de/plugin-directory-submission.