These three words get mixed up. They are three different ways to tell an AI assistant how to do a job. The right one depends on how often you do the job and which tool you use.
A prompt
A prompt is text you paste into a chat. You paste it, add your own material, and send. It works in any chatbot, needs no setup and costs nothing to try. The price is that you paste it every time, and a plain prompt cannot fetch a web page or run a script. If a job needs a page, you paste the page text yourself.
Our free prompts are of this kind. Each one comes from a skill and has a real example and its limits on the page.
A skill
A skill is a folder with a SKILL.md file: instructions, and sometimes helper scripts, for one job. It is an open format (agentskills.io), so the same folder can work in more than one tool. The tool does not read the whole thing up front. The docs for Gemini CLI and for OpenAI's skills both describe the same pattern: the assistant starts with each skill's name and description, and loads the full instructions when it decides the skill fits your request.
That is why a skill suits a job you repeat. You install it once and ask in plain words. Where the tool allows it, a skill can also run its helper scripts. Which tools read skills is in which assistants our skills work with, with install steps in the install hub.
OpenAI's docs say standalone skills are available in the ChatGPT desktop app, Codex CLI and the IDE extension, and that skills bundled in plugins are available in ChatGPT on the web, desktop and mobile (Build skills).
A custom GPT
A custom GPT is a version of ChatGPT set up with your own instructions and knowledge. OpenAI's migration guide describes them that way and says custom GPTs in ChatGPT Enterprise are being retired in favour of plugins. A plugin is a package that can include skills, apps or both (Moving your custom GPT workflows to plugins). We could not verify from OpenAI's public docs what is changing for other plans, so check OpenAI's own help pages before you build on a custom GPT.
Which one do you need?
| You want | Use |
|---|---|
| To try a job once, in any chatbot, with no setup | A prompt |
| To use ChatGPT on the web or a phone | A prompt, or a plugin that contains skills |
| The same job again and again without pasting | A skill, in a tool that reads skills |
| A job that needs to read a web page or run a script | A skill, where your tool allows scripts and web access |
| A workflow shared across a ChatGPT Enterprise team | A plugin, per OpenAI's docs |
| A tool you cannot install anything in | A prompt |
How we use this ourselves
Every skill we make has a prompt.md for people who do not install anything, and the free ones have a page under prompts. If you only need the job once, take the prompt. If you will do it weekly, install the skill so you stop pasting.
Limits
- Tools change fast. This was checked on 4 October 2026 against the linked pages, and some vendors' help pages block automated reading, so we left out anything we could not read.
- We have not tested our skills inside the ChatGPT desktop app. We tested on Claude models. See how we test.
- A skill is only as good as its instructions, and so is a prompt. Neither one checks facts for you, so read the output before you use it.
Follow for new free skills
New free skills and guides appear in all of these as we publish them. Pick whichever you already use.
- RSS feed for any feed reader
- Watch the free skills repo on GitHub
- Follow on Gumroad