Strategic guidance to help you build your education business

TL;DR The best online learning platform depends on what you're trying to do. If you want to own your brand, pricing, and student list while selling your own courses, we're the strongest fit, with built-in payments that remit VAT and GST across 45+ countries. If you want a ready-made audience instead, marketplaces like Udemy give you reach but control your pricing and discounting. If you're after accredited, university-backed learning rather than a platform to sell your own course, academic providers like Coursera and edX cover that instead. This guide compares all 11 platforms, from course-selling tools to marketplaces to academic providers, so you can match one to how you actually want to teach, sell, or learn.

Picking a place to teach, sell, or learn online can feel harder than it should be, because "online learning platform" covers a lot of very different products. Some are built for course creators who want to sell under their own brand. Others are marketplaces that bring you students but keep control of pricing. Others are academic providers offering accredited, university-backed learning that has nothing to do with selling a course at all. That mismatch is why the wrong choice costs real time: months spent building on a platform that was never designed for what you're trying to do. If you want a deeper walkthrough of that decision, see our guide to choosing a course platform that includes pricing too.

Why choosing the right platform matters

Online learning has grown into a major market. The online education market generated $185.20 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach $279.30 billion by 2029. This growth underscores the increasing demand for flexible and accessible learning solutions. Whether you're a creator turning your expertise into courses, a coach building a paid program, or a learner picking up a new skill, choosing the best online learning platform for you can make or break your results.

The challenge is that not all platforms serve the same purpose. Some focus on hosting and selling courses, while others specialize in structured academic learning or creative skills development. This guide breaks down the best online learning platforms, helping you determine which one fits your needs best.

What to look for in the best online learning platforms

Before you start comparing platforms, it's important to understand the key factors that determine the right fit. Whether you're a course creator, or a lifelong learner, consider the following aspects:

1. Ownership & branding control

• Do you want full control over your courses, pricing, and student experience?
• We let you own your student list and create a branded experience, while marketplaces like Udemy control pricing and limit your access to learners.

2. Audience & discoverability

• Are you willing to market your own courses, or do you need built-in audience reach?
• Marketplaces like Udemy and LinkedIn Learning bring massive exposure but may require revenue sharing.

3. Monetization & pricing flexibility

• Can you set your own prices, offer payment plans, or bundle products?
• We allow custom pricing models, and our built-in payment tool, Teachable Payments, remits VAT and GST in 45+ countries for you, while some marketplaces cap course prices or take a significant revenue cut.

4. Course format & engagement features

• Does the platform support video, quizzes, downloads, certificates, or completion tracking?
• Platforms like Skillshare cater to creative, video-based learning, while others like EdX and Coursera focus on structured, academic courses with milestones and LinkedIn integrated certifications.

By keeping these factors in mind, let's explore the best platforms for different learning and teaching styles and needs.

The 11 best online learning platforms, compared

1. Teachable: Best for course creators and coaches

If you're looking to sell online courses, coaching, or digital products under your own brand, we're built for exactly this: you set pricing, own your student list, and keep 100% of revenue from the Builder plan up at $69/month on annual billing. Over 150,000 creators use us to build, sell, and run their online courses.

Why choose Teachable?

• Full ownership of content, pricing, and student relationships.
• Customizable course sites (with branding, domains, and page builders).
• Integrated payment processing with Teachable Payments, which remits VAT and GST across 45+ countries.
• Course engagement tools like quizzes, certificates, and student analytics.
• Native iOS and Android apps on every plan, so students learn on mobile.
• Transparent fee stack: $29/month Starter (annual) at 7.5% per sale, or $69/month Builder (annual) at 0% platform fees; US card processing runs 2.9% + $0.30, international cards 3.9% + $0.30, plus a 0.95% currency conversion fee where Stripe converts non-USD payments.

Best for: Creators, coaches, and educators who want full control over their online school.

Example: A fitness coach could launch a paid video course with us, bundle it with 1-on-1 coaching, and sell it directly to their audience.

2. Udemy: Best marketplace for broad exposure

Udemy is one of the largest online learning marketplaces, with hundreds of thousands of courses across dozens of languages.

Pros & cons

Pros:

• Built-in audience: millions of students searching for courses daily.
• Easy course setup: a simple upload process, no need to build a website.

Cons:

• Limited pricing control: Udemy often discounts courses without instructor input.
• High competition: thousands of similar courses in every niche.

Best for: Instructors who want to reach a massive audience but don't need full control over branding or pricing.

3. Coursera: Best for university-level education

Coursera offers university-level courses, degrees, and certifications in partnership with top institutions worldwide.

What makes Coursera unique?

• Courses from prestigious universities (e.g., Stanford, Yale) and industry leaders (e.g., Google, IBM).
• Options for free courses, paid certifications, and full degree programs.
• Structured, instructor-led learning with quizzes, peer grading, and final assessments.

Best for: Professionals seeking accredited certifications, university-backed courses, or corporate training programs.

For creators: Coursera's instructors are university faculty and industry partners invited onto the platform, not a self-serve place to publish and sell your own course. Worth recommending to students who want an accredited, university-backed credential alongside what you teach them.

4. EdX: Open access to high-quality education

EdX provides an extensive catalog of university and professional courses, including MicroMasters programs.

Why EdX stands out:

• Partnerships with Harvard, MIT, and other top universities.
• Offers verified certificates and even pathways to full master's degrees.
• Open-source learning with many free courses available.

Best for: Lifelong learners and professionals looking for structured, high-level education without committing to a full degree program.

For creators: Like Coursera, edX's courses come from university and industry partners rather than an open self-serve upload, so it is not built as a place to sell your own course. Worth recommending to students who want structured, university-partnered coursework beyond your own.

5. MIT OpenCourseWare: Free, high-quality learning

MIT OpenCourseWare (MIT OCW) provides free access to lecture notes, exams, and videos from MIT courses.

Why choose MIT OCW?

• Completely free and open-source learning.
• Covers a wide range of STEM, humanities, and business courses.
• Learn from MIT faculty at your own pace.

Best for: Independent learners who want high-quality, no-cost education from a top institution.

For creators: MIT publishes its own course materials here for free, there is no path for outside instructors, individual or institutional, to sell anything on it. Worth recommending to students who want deeper, no-cost study of a subject you teach.

6. BBC Maestro: Best for high-quality creative learning

BBC Maestro offers masterclasses by leading experts, similar to MasterClass but with a UK-centric focus.

What makes BBC Maestro unique?

• Courses from renowned UK-based experts in writing, music, and business.
• High-production value with in-depth, engaging lessons.
• Focuses on real-world storytelling and industry insights.

Best for: Creative professionals and learners looking for expert-led courses in storytelling, music, and business.

For creators: Instructors are selected and invited by BBC Maestro's curation team rather than applying to self-publish, so it is not a place to sell your own course. Worth mentioning if your students want a UK-centric masterclass experience from recognized experts.

7. MasterClass: Best for learning from industry leaders

MasterClass offers high-production video courses taught by celebrity experts across various fields.

Pros & cons

Pros:

• Lessons from world-renowned professionals (e.g., Gordon Ramsay, Serena Williams, Neil Gaiman).
• Cinematic-quality video production makes learning immersive and engaging.
• Wide range of topics, from business to creative arts.

Cons:

• No structured assessments or certifications.
• Subscription model only, no option to buy individual courses.

Best for: Those looking to gain insights and inspiration from top industry leaders rather than structured skill-building.

For creators: MasterClass invites its instructors directly with no public application or self-serve path, so it is not a place to sell your own course. Worth naming if your students want inspiration from celebrity experts rather than the structured skill-building your course provides.

8. Udacity: Best for tech & AI education

Udacity specializes in technology and AI-related courses, often in collaboration with major tech companies.

Pros & cons

Pros:

• Industry-specific courses in data science, AI, programming, and more.
• Recognized "Nanodegree" programs.

Cons:

• Expensive compared to other online platforms.
• Limited non-tech course selection.

Best for: Tech professionals looking to upskill in AI, programming, and data science.

For creators: Udacity instructors go through an interest-form and selection process and are compensated by contract rather than per-sale, so it is not a self-serve place to sell your own course. Still a reasonable recommendation if your students want deeper technical upskilling than your course covers.

9. Pluralsight: Best for IT & software development

Pluralsight offers cutting-edge courses in software development, IT, and cybersecurity.

Pros & cons

Pros:

• Advanced courses tailored to professionals.
• Skill assessments to measure progress.

Cons:

• Monthly subscription model can be expensive.
• Focused mostly on IT and coding fields.

Best for: IT professionals, developers, and cybersecurity experts.

For creators: Pluralsight's Author program lets individuals apply to create courses, but it is a competitive vetting process, and authors earn royalties on Pluralsight's pricing rather than owning their own pricing and student list the way you do with your own course. Worth pointing IT or developer students toward it for depth beyond your own curriculum.

10. Khan Academy: Best for free educational resources

Khan Academy provides high-quality, free educational courses in subjects like math, science, economics, and humanities.

Pros & cons

Pros:

• Completely free with no hidden costs.
• Well-structured courses for students of all levels.
• Interactive exercises and progress tracking.

Cons:

• Limited advanced courses for professionals.
• Not ideal for certification or career advancement.

Best for: Students, educators, and lifelong learners looking for accessible, high-quality education in core academic subjects.

For creators: Khan Academy is a nonprofit with no paid courses or creator payouts, so it is not a place to sell anything. Worth recommending as a free resource if your students need to shore up core academic fundamentals alongside your course.

11. YouTube "University": Best free learn anything hub

YouTube has become an informal learning powerhouse, with countless channels offering free educational content.

Why YouTube stands out:

• Completely free, with thousands of expert-led tutorials.
• Covers every imaginable topic, from tech skills to personal finance.
• Some channels offer structured course playlists for in-depth learning.

Best for: Self-motivated learners who prefer flexible, video-based education at no cost.

For creators: Anyone can upload to YouTube, but it has no built-in course structure, checkout, or student management, so it is not a course platform you would sell through the way you do with your own course. Worth acknowledging as the free discovery channel where many students already look first.

Which online learning platform is right for you?

With so many choices, picking the right platform depends on your goals. If you're a creator or educator looking to teach and sell your own courses, we're built for exactly this, with 0% platform fees on the Builder plan and up. We offer complete ownership, flexible pricing, built-in payments through Teachable Payments, and tools to grow a course business you own.

Do you have an existing audience through a Youtube channel, podcast, newsletter, social posts, or books? You can turn it into a paid course. With a free trial, you can be up and running in a few days.

Explore how we can help you build, sell, and grow your online courses. Start with a free trial today. Join the creators who use us to build and sell their courses.

FAQs

What is the best online learning platform?

It depends on your goal. To sell your own branded courses, we're the best fit because you own your pricing, content, and student list. For a ready-made audience, Udemy is the largest marketplace. For accredited academic learning, Coursera and edX partner with top universities.

What is the best platform to sell online courses?

We're built for selling your own courses: you set your own prices, keep your student list, and our Teachable Payments checkout remits VAT and GST across 45+ countries. Marketplaces like Udemy reach more people but control discounting and take a larger cut.

What is the best free online learning platform?

For free study, Khan Academy, MIT OpenCourseWare, and YouTube offer high-quality content at no cost. They are built for learning rather than for selling your own courses, so creators who want to earn from their content will still need a course platform.

What is the difference between an online learning platform and a course marketplace?

We're a course platform: you build and sell courses under your own brand, keeping ownership of pricing and students. A marketplace, like Udemy, lists your course alongside others and brings its own audience, but controls pricing and discounting.

How much does an online course platform cost?

It varies by platform and plan. Our paid plans start at $29 per month (billed annually), with higher tiers removing transaction fees and adding more products. Marketplaces are often free to publish on but take a share of each sale.

Key terms

Course platform: A tool built for creating, hosting, and selling your own branded online courses, where you set the price and keep ownership of your student list, unlike a marketplace.

Marketplace: A platform, like Udemy, that lists your course alongside thousands of others and brings its own built-in audience, in exchange for control over pricing and discounting.

Teachable Payments: Our integrated payment system that processes checkout and automatically calculates, collects, and remits VAT and GST across 45+ countries on your behalf.

Transaction fee: A percentage taken from every course sale on top of your monthly subscription. Ours starts at 7.5% on the Starter plan and drops to 0% from the Builder plan up.

Accredited certification: A credential issued in partnership with a recognized academic institution, as offered by platforms like Coursera and edX, distinct from the completion certificates course creators issue on their own.

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TL;DR: Most course creators use roughly a third of Kajabi's built-in tools. If your actual workflow is a course builder, a checkout page, and an email list you run elsewhere, you are paying for a marketing stack you do not open. Kajabi Basic sits at $143/month on annual billing. Our Builder plan at $69/month includes 0% platform fees, native mobile delivery, and automated VAT and GST remittance across 45+ countries. If Kajabi's email automation runs your business daily, switching adds external tool costs that close the gap. This guide runs the numbers.

Kajabi's entry tier costs $143 a month on annual billing, and many creators use less than a third of its built-in marketing features, effectively paying a large premium on course hosting alone. If you pay that monthly invoice while running your actual email marketing through a separate tool, you are carrying the "Unused Feature Tax," and it compounds every month you stay.

Leaving Kajabi to protect your margins is a financially sound move, but only if you audit your usage first. For creators who live inside Kajabi's email automation and CRM every week, switching platforms means rebuilding a marketing stack, and that cost can quickly erase your savings. This guide breaks down the real cost of ownership across the top Kajabi alternatives so you can choose based on your actual revenue model.

Identify your essential creator tools

Before looking at any alternative, answer one honest question: which Kajabi features do you open every week? Two clear paths follow, and which one describes you changes everything about the math.

1. Path 1: You use the funnels, email automation, and CRM actively. Kajabi's pipeline builder fires email steps automatically as contacts move through your funnel, and its native CRM tracks every student interaction in one place (though Kajabi's own users and reviewers consistently describe that CRM's pipeline management specifically as limited relative to standalone CRM platforms, worth confirming it actually covers your needs before counting it as a full replacement). If you manage nurture sequences, automated launch sequences, and a contact list through Kajabi's built-in tools, switching to a course-first platform means rebuilding each of those workflows with external software. At 5,000 subscribers, a MailerLite plan runs approximately $32/month on annual billing and a basic Zapier connection adds roughly $30/month on monthly billing or $20/month on annual billing. That replacement stack, on top of a new course platform subscription, closes much of the gap against Kajabi's $143/month entry price before you account for setup time.
2. Path 2: You use Kajabi mainly to host and sell courses. You record your course, upload it, send checkout links to an email list that lives in Kit or MailerLite, and that is the extent of it. If this sounds familiar, you are paying $143/month to host a product catalog that course platforms handle for $17 to $249/month across different feature tiers. Running $1,716 a year through a system you use at 30% capacity is an expensive habit.

Calculating your true cost of ownership

Platform pricing comparisons almost always mislead because they anchor on the subscription line and ignore the full fee stack. Think of it like a receipt with multiple line items: the headline subscription is the sticker price, but transaction fees and processing fees are the line items at the bottom that determine your actual take-home.

Kajabi's Basic plan charges 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction on top of its $143/month subscription. At $5,000 in monthly course revenue, that processing fee adds approximately $145/month to your cost. Our Builder plan has 0% platform fees, and US card processing via Teachable Payments (our native payment gateway) runs 2.9% + $0.30, so processing costs are equivalent. The difference is the $74/month gap between the two subscription fees, or $888 in fixed annual savings before a single transaction is processed. Check our full pricing breakdown for processing rates across all plans.

Focusing only on course delivery

Course-first platforms are built around one job: getting a student from checkout to course completion with as little friction as possible. That narrow focus produces tangible differences in the student experience, particularly on mobile. We include native iOS and Android apps on every paid plan, so students download the Teachable app, find your course, and consume it with offline playback and push notifications, starting at $29/month on the Starter plan.

Real cost breakdown of Kajabi alternatives

The verified cost and fee comparison below splits across two tables because the key decision factors span more than four columns. Table 1 covers subscription and fee structure. Table 2 covers business model fit and migration trade-offs.

Table 1: Subscription and fee structure

Table 2: Business model fit and what you lose vs. Kajabi

What replaces Kajabi's email and funnels

If you move to a course-first platform, you need a standalone email tool. At 5,000 subscribers, the most common options are:

• MailerLite: Approximately $32/month at 5,000 subscribers on the Growing Business plan on annual billing, which covers automation, landing pages, and website.
• Kit (ConvertKit): Starts at $39/month (monthly billing) for 1,000 subscribers on the Creator plan and scales with list size.
• ActiveCampaign: Pricing scales with contacts and feature tier. The entry-level Starter plan starts at $15/month for 1,000 contacts, while the Pro plan with comparable automation capabilities starts at $79/month on annual billing.

A MailerLite stack at $32/month plus Teachable Builder at $69/month totals $101/month, still $42 cheaper than Kajabi Basic at $143/month, and you carry 0% platform fees. Our business operations blog covers cost modeling for creators at different revenue stages.

Teachable: Lowering your monthly platform spend

Our Builder plan at $69/month (annual) is the most direct margin-saving alternative for course-first creators who already own an external email tool. The plan removes the 7.5% transaction fee that sits on the Starter plan and adds affiliate marketing tools. At $74/month less than Kajabi Basic, the annual saving is $888 before fees, and the 0% platform fee means every dollar of revenue stays with you rather than going back to the platform.

One reviewer's experience captures the core appeal:

"With Teachable, you can go from idea to execution fairly quickly, and get your course up and running and (potentially) making sales fast." - Verified user on G2

The Builder tier is the effective starting point for anyone earning more than $533/month in course revenue on annual billing. At $533/month, our Starter plan's 7.5% fee adds exactly $40/month, which equals the cost of upgrading. Above that threshold, upgrading costs less than staying on Starter. Our revenue and pricing blog covers this break-even math in more detail.

Ideal creator profiles for Teachable

Teachable works best for two specific creator types:

1. The creator with an existing email list on Kit or MailerLite. You already handle your own marketing outside of whatever course platform you use. You want a clean, reliable checkout with built-in affiliate tools and 0% transaction fees, not a second email system running in parallel.
2. The creator selling to international students. You have buyers in Germany, Australia, Canada, and Japan. Each purchase carries a potential VAT or GST obligation. Our native gateway handles filing automatically across 45+ countries, reducing the manual compliance work from your workflow. Our case studies section includes examples of creators at different revenue levels who moved from manual tax filing to automated remittance.

Where Teachable outperforms Kajabi

We built Teachable Payments to automatically calculate, collect, and remit VAT and GST across 45+ countries on every sale. When a student in Germany buys your course, we charge the correct VAT rate, collect it at checkout, and remit it through the EU's VAT One Stop Shop (OSS) system on your behalf each quarter. You do not register in Germany, file anything, or track the liability manually. Teachable Payments also accepts payments in 130+ currencies, so your German, Australian, and Japanese students pay in their own currency without you building separate pricing sheets for each market. Kajabi offers no equivalent, leaving creators responsible for registering and filing taxes in every country where they sell. Our product updates section explains how the gateway handles EU VAT through the OSS system on a quarterly basis.

We also include native iOS and Android apps on every paid plan starting at $29/month. Kajabi's branded mobile app is included on the Pro tier at $399/month on annual billing and available as a $199/month add-on for Basic and Growth tiers. Basic and Growth plan subscribers do not receive a branded app for their school.

Our course-specific tooling, gradebook, compliance settings, minimum watch-time enforcement, and per-student progress tracking, also goes deeper than Kajabi's at the same price point. Kajabi's strength is the marketing stack wrapped around the course, several third-party reviews of both platforms note our learning-management depth as more developed at comparable tiers, which matters for creators whose students need structured progress tracking, not just a purchase funnel.

What to model before you migrate

For non-USD transactions processed through Stripe where currency conversion is required, Stripe charges a 0.95% currency conversion fee shown separately from our processing rate. UK-based creators and those with high-volume EUR or AUD sales should model this fee against expected transaction volume before comparing net revenue across platforms. At $5,000/month in international sales, the conversion fee adds approximately $47.50/month.

We do not include a built-in email funnel builder or CRM. If Kajabi's automation is central to your business today, you need to rebuild those workflows in an external tool before migrating, and that is a real cost to model honestly.

Manual tax compliance

Thinkific's Basic plan at $40/month on annual billing includes 0% platform fees, undercutting Kajabi's $143/month entry tier by 72% on subscription. Thinkific helps you configure tax collection for US and Canadian sales, but remittance remains the creator's responsibility, and VAT collection for UK and EU sales requires additional manual configuration.

Thinkific's Trustpilot rating, 1.8 of 5 as of mid-2026, is worth checking directly before committing. For any creator with international buyers, the Builder plan at $69/month covers automated VAT and GST remittance across 45+ countries without manual configuration, at $29/month more than Thinkific's entry price.

Broad product catalog support, no mobile delivery

Podia's Shaker plan at approximately $84/month on annual billing (as of the June 2026 relaunch, confirm the current figure on Podia's pricing page before publishing) with 0% transaction fees caps you at 150 products (Earthquaker, at $150/month annual, is the only unlimited-product tier). Kajabi's Basic tier caps you at 5 products, which pushes many growing creators into the Growth plan at $199/month (annual) simply to expand their catalog. If you sell a large catalog of downloads, mini-courses, and webinars without needing deep educational infrastructure, Podia's product limits work in your favor. However, Podia does not offer a native mobile app, and students access content through their web browser on every plan.

There is also no automated international VAT remittance. The Builder plan at $69/month sits roughly $15/month below Podia's Shaker plan, and adds native iOS and Android delivery and automated international tax remittance, the two areas Podia leaves open at every tier.

Is LearnWorlds worth the subscription cost?

LearnWorlds' Starter plan at $24/month on annual billing carries the lowest subscription price in this comparison, but the $5-per-course-sale fee scales quickly. At 50 enrollments a month, you pay $24 plus $250 in enrollment fees before card processing, totaling $274/month. That far exceeds our Builder plan at $69/month with 0% platform fees at the same enrollment volume.

LearnWorlds' Learning Center plan at $249/month removes the per-sale fee entirely, but that subscription cost exceeds Kajabi's entry tier and undercuts the value proposition for a margin-conscious creator. SCORM compliance is a narrow requirement. For creators whose courses do not depend on it, the fee structure and subscription cost of LearnWorlds erases the value proposition quickly compared to 0% platform fees at $69/month on the Builder plan.

Built-in funnels, basic course delivery

Systeme.io's Startup plan at $17/month on annual billing includes built-in email marketing, sales funnels, and basic course hosting with 0% transaction fees. If you are leaving Kajabi primarily because of cost and need funnels built in, Systeme is the cheapest way to maintain that capability, at $126/month less than Kajabi Basic. However, the course player is basic, student management tools lack depth, and automated international tax handling requires manual VAT configuration.

Our course player, mobile delivery via native iOS and Android apps, and automated tax remittance through Teachable Payments are meaningfully more polished at $69/month. For any creator where student experience and completion rate affect refund rates and word-of-mouth, a basic course player is a real business cost that does not appear in Systeme's subscription comparison.

Migrating assets: A realistic checklist

A complete Kajabi-to-Teachable migration covers three phases and typically takes anywhere from a few days for a small catalog to several weeks for a large, multi-integration setup, your migration specialist will confirm a specific date range for your setup:

1. Export and import student data: Download your student list, contact records, and transaction history as CSV files from Kajabi's account settings, then import them into Teachable and your email tool.
2. Course content upload (time scales with your course count and complexity): Download video lessons individually from Kajabi (bulk export is not available), upload them to our drag-and-drop course builder, and rebuild quiz and drip settings manually since course structure does not port between platforms. You can apply for a migration consultation to get a specific estimate based on your catalog.
3. Email and checkout reconnection (time varies by integration count): Connect your email tool via Teachable's native integration in Settings, set up enrollment triggers so new students are added to your list automatically, and test a live checkout transaction before going live. Kajabi's custom website pages and landing pages do not port between platforms and require a full rebuild. Kit, MailerLite, and Mailchimp connect via Zapier, available from the Builder tier up.

Our launch strategy blog covers post-migration email sequence setup in practical detail. Weighed against $888/year in subscription savings and the elimination of international VAT filing, the migration time pays back in weeks for any creator earning above $2,000/month. Our success stories section includes creator accounts of the migration experience at different scales.

Decision criteria for leaving your stack

• If your course catalog is small, your email list runs through Kit or MailerLite, and Kajabi's pipeline builder goes largely unused, the Builder plan at $69/month saves you $888/year in subscription costs alone, before accounting for 0% platform fees on every sale. Your Unused Feature Tax is real and eliminating it returns those dollars to your business immediately. Teachable Payments calculates, collects, and remits VAT and GST across 45+ countries automatically.
• If you currently file international VAT manually or carry unresolved EU, Australian, or Canadian tax obligations, that compliance gap is a real financial liability. The Builder plan closes it at no additional cost beyond the $69/month subscription.
• Kajabi Basic's 5-product cap pushes growing creators toward the $199/month Growth plan. Our Builder plan supports 10 products with 0% platform fees at $69/month, $130/month less than the Kajabi tier the product limit forces you into.
• Model the external tool cost first if your marketing runs entirely inside Kajabi's pipeline builder and CRM. At 5,000 subscribers, a MailerLite replacement runs approximately $32/month on annual billing. A MailerLite plus Builder stack totals $101/month, still $42/month less than Kajabi Basic, but the 10-plus hours of sequence rebuild is a one-time cost to scope honestly before committing to a migration date.
• Factor in landing page rebuild time if Kajabi's native website builder and landing pages are your primary web presence. That content does not port between platforms and requires a full rebuild. Weigh that one-time setup cost against $888/year in subscription savings and 0% platform fees, for most creators earning above $2,000/month, the rebuild pays back within the first quarter.
• The math on leaving Kajabi is straightforward for course-first creators. The subscription saving is real, the tax compliance benefit is structural, and the migration cost is bounded and one-time. The only question worth settling before you move is which Kajabi features you actually open every week. If the honest answer is mostly the course builder and checkout, the numbers point clearly toward the switch.

Run the full fee comparison across our plans, including processing rates. The 7-day trial requires a credit card, and a 30-day money-back guarantee covers the first month if the platform does not fit your workflow.

FAQs

When does Kajabi pay for itself?

Kajabi pays for itself when you actively use its native email marketing, automated funnels, and CRM to manage a contact list that would otherwise cost $39 to $79/month on a standalone tool like MailerLite or ActiveCampaign. If you only use it to host courses, the $143/month entry price costs more than a course-first platform plus an external email tool combined.

What are the top Kajabi alternatives for low budgets?

Our Starter plan at $29/month on annual billing is the lowest-cost entry option that includes automated international VAT and GST remittance through Teachable Payments, which no other budget-tier platform in this comparison covers. For creators with any international sales volume, that remittance capability removes a compliance obligation that carries real cost and risk if ignored.

How do I export my Kajabi course content?

You can export student lists and transaction history as CSV files from Kajabi's account settings, but video lessons and text content must be downloaded and re-uploaded to your new platform manually. Our Custom plan includes migration support for high-volume creators moving from another platform.

Do I need a separate email provider?

Yes, if you leave Kajabi for a course-first platform like Teachable or Thinkific, you need a standalone email provider like MailerLite or Kit to run automated marketing campaigns. Zapier integrations with tools like Kit and MailerLite are available from the Builder tier up, so you can automate student list updates after each purchase.

How do platforms handle VAT and sales tax?

Most platforms, including Kajabi, Thinkific, and Podia, leave VAT and sales tax compliance entirely to the creator, requiring manual registration and filing in every country where you sell. We are the exception: our native gateway, Teachable Payments, automatically calculates, collects, and remits VAT and GST across 45+ countries on your behalf, removing you from the tax filing loop entirely.

Key terms

Platform fee: A percentage Teachable or another course platform charges on each sale, on top of payment processing. Our Builder plan charges 0%, our Starter plan charges 7.5%.

Transaction fee: Used interchangeably with platform fee in most course platform contexts. Always confirm whether a platform's stated fee is the platform's cut, the processor's cut, or both stacked together.

VAT (Value Added Tax): A consumption tax applied to digital product sales in the EU, UK, and several other jurisdictions. Rates and registration thresholds vary by country. Teachable Payments remits VAT automatically when you use the native gateway.

GST (Goods and Services Tax): The equivalent of VAT in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and other markets. Teachable Payments handles GST remittance in covered countries automatically.

VAT OSS (One Stop Shop): The EU system that lets a single quarterly VAT filing cover sales across all EU member states. Teachable files through OSS on your behalf each quarter so you do not register separately in Germany, France, or any other member state.

Annual billing: Paying a platform subscription in one upfront yearly payment rather than month to month. Annual billing typically reduces the effective monthly rate. All plan prices in this article use the annual billing rate unless stated otherwise.

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TL;DR: Teachable is the only platform in this comparison that automatically calculates and remits VAT, GST, and sales tax in 45+ countries through Teachable Payments, our native payment gateway. Thinkific handles US and Canada sales tax automatically and calculates VAT for UK and EU sales, but creators remain responsible for filing with foreign tax authorities. If you sell to students in Europe, Australia, or other international markets, that gap puts you personally responsible for registering and filing in jurisdictions beyond the US and Canada. We close that gap through Teachable Payments, removing you from the filing loop entirely.

International tax compliance is the most commonly overlooked operational risk when creators choose a course platform. Most platforms handle domestic payment processing reliably, but the gap between collecting payment from an international student and actually remitting the correct tax to that country's authority is where creators run into trouble. Teachable solves this through Teachable Payments, our native payment gateway that automatically calculates, collects, and remits taxes in 45+ countries, removing you from the filing loop entirely.

If you sell to students outside the US, international tax compliance should be your first filter on any platform you evaluate, not an afterthought. This comparison examines how Teachable stacks up against Thinkific, Kajabi, Podia, LearnWorlds, Skool, and Systeme.io on tax remittance, pricing structure, and the features that matter most to creators who sell globally.

What to look for when evaluating a Thinkific alternative

When evaluating alternatives to Thinkific, creators consistently prioritize three criteria. These are the same operational gaps that drive platform switches regardless of which platform a creator starts with.

1. Automated VAT remittance on cross-border sales: Many platforms calculate VAT for UK and EU sales, but creators remain responsible for remitting that VAT to foreign tax authorities. When you sell to a student in Germany, France, Australia, or the UK, you are personally responsible for registering in each jurisdiction, tracking your obligations, and filing on schedule. Teachable removes you from that loop entirely. Through Teachable Payments, we automatically calculate, collect, and remit taxes in 45+ countries, so you never pay collected VAT or GST amounts to tax authorities directly.
2. Support response time during a live launch: For a creator running a 48-hour live launch to a warm email list, support response time is a business continuity question, not a nice-to-have. As of mid-2026, Thinkific's Trustpilot rating is 1.8 out of 5, with billing, cancellation, and content-deletion issues among the most cited complaints in recent reviews. Support response speed is worth verifying for any platform you evaluate before a high-stakes launch window.
3. Tier limits that force premature upgrades: As revenue grows, creators bump into limits on administrative seats, community features, and advanced automation that force a tier jump before their earnings justify it. Teachable's Builder plan at $69/month (annual) includes 0% platform fees, affiliate tools, and unlimited courses, with no caps that force upgrades based on product count alone.

The compliance gap in your current platform

The practical risk of international VAT is this: digital services sold to buyers in EU countries, the UK, Australia, and many other markets create an obligation the moment you cross that country's registration threshold. As a Thinkific creator, you are personally responsible for tracking those thresholds, registering in each relevant jurisdiction, collecting the correct rate, and filing on schedule.

If you sell internationally

If students in Europe, Australia, Canada, or any non-US market make up a meaningful share of your revenue, the VAT filing burden is a real risk that compounds as you grow. Our payments documentation confirms that Teachable Payments handles this automatically in 45+ countries, removing you from the filing loop entirely on transactions processed through the native gateway.

If your buyers are all in the US

If you sell exclusively to US-based students, Thinkific's tax handling covers that compliance scope adequately. In that scenario, the decision comes down to builder preference, pricing math at your current revenue, and how much the support pattern matters to your tolerance for launch risk.

Thinkific alternatives at a glance

The table below uses entry-level annual pricing where available, as referenced on Teachable's pricing page. Platform fees are separate from credit card processing fees.

Teachable

For creators with international buyers, Teachable is the only platform in this comparison with automated VAT, GST, and UK VAT remittance built in across 45+ countries. Skool automates EU VAT remittance as Merchant of Record but does not collect UK VAT and has not confirmed GST handling in its documentation. Thinkific, Kajabi, Podia, and LearnWorlds all leave filing and remittance to the creator. Our no-code course builder handles video, audio, text, quizzes, and drip content, and the built-in checkout includes order bumps, one-click upsells, and abandoned cart recovery on every plan. The revenue and pricing resources on our blog cover the fee math in more depth.

• Who it fits: Individual creators and coaches who sell to an international audience and want payments, automated tax remittance, and student management in one plan without writing code or managing external tax tools. iOS and Android apps are included on every plan at no additional cost, giving your students a real mobile experience rather than a browser wrapper. Teachable is also SOC 2 Type II certified and GDPR compliant, worth mentioning alongside tax compliance if your students ask about data security before purchasing.
• How our tax handling works: Our native payment gateway, Teachable Payments, automatically calculates, collects, and remits sales tax, VAT, and GST in 45+ countries, and accepts student payments in 130+ currencies so international buyers pay in their own currency without you configuring separate pricing sheets. The Teachable Payments support documentation confirms that for transactions processed through the native gateway, you never pay collected VAT or GST amounts to tax authorities directly because we handle remittance on your behalf. This infrastructure is built into a $69/month course platform.
• Pricing math worth running: The Starter plan at $29/month (annual billing) carries a 7.5% transaction fee. Once your monthly revenue passes approximately $533, that fee costs more than the $40/month price gap between Starter and Builder. The Builder plan at $69/month (annual) removes the transaction fee entirely and adds affiliate tools, making it the tier where our economics are strongest for growing creators.
• The honest limitation: Email funnel building and CRM are not built in. Creators who need email automations and sales sequences alongside course delivery can connect a third-party email tool through our native integrations.

"Classes are easy to create and navigate." - Verified user on G2

Kajabi

Kajabi combines course delivery with a full email marketing stack, CRM, and pipeline builder in one subscription. The platform is positioned at a higher price tier than most standalone course platforms.

• Who it fits: Creators earning $5,000 to $10,000 or more per month who need email sequences, pipeline automation, and course delivery in one tool and can absorb the higher subscription cost.
• The honest trade-off: Our Builder plan at $69/month (annual) includes automatic VAT and GST remittance in 45+ countries, so you get tax compliance built in at our mid-tier price point. Kajabi includes a built-in email marketing stack, CRM, and pipeline builder, but tax remittance remains the creator's responsibility even at Kajabi's higher entry price. Where Kajabi's CRM focuses on funnel tracking and contact scoring, our course-specific tooling goes deeper on gradebook functionality, drip scheduling, and completion enforcement, which matters more to creators whose primary product is the course itself rather than the funnel around it.

Podia

Podia suits creators selling digital downloads alongside courses who want a clean, low-friction storefront.

• Who it fits: Solo creators with a primarily US-based audience who prioritize simplicity. Product listings are capped at 50 on Mover ($42/mo annual) and 150 on Shaker, unlimited listings require the Earthquaker plan at $150/mo annual.
• The honest trade-off: Podia's Help Center documents that it can calculate and collect tax in jurisdictions where you are registered, but explicitly states that Podia does not file taxes on behalf of users. Remittance to foreign tax authorities remains your responsibility, which is the same gap as Thinkific. If you sell to students in Europe, Australia, or other non-US markets, that obligation applies here too. Through Teachable Payments, we automatically remit taxes in 45+ countries, and our Builder plan at $69/month (annual) includes native iOS and Android apps at no additional cost.

LearnWorlds

LearnWorlds targets creators who want an academic-style course structure with advanced quiz engines, SCORM compatibility, and interactive video.

• Who it fits: Creators building courses that need formal assessment structures, branching content paths, or the ability to import and deliver existing SCORM packages.
• The honest trade-off: Where LearnWorlds falls short is international tax compliance. Remittance to foreign tax authorities remains the creator's responsibility, the same gap as Thinkific and Podia. Through Teachable Payments, we handle both calculation and remittance automatically in 45+ countries, which means you can sell internationally without managing tax filings across multiple jurisdictions.

Skool

Skool is a community-first platform built around gamification, group discussions, and live event hosting.

• Who it fits: Creators whose primary product is the community itself, with courses serving as supporting content rather than the core offer.
• The honest trade-off: Per Skool's help documentation, Skool acts as Merchant of Record for EU VAT and automatically collects, remits, and files it on your behalf. However, Skool does not collect UK VAT, it is registered as a virtual training business, which is exempt in the UK, and GST remittance is not confirmed in Skool's documentation. If you sell to students in the UK or Australia, those obligations would remain yours on Skool. The real distinction is product structure. Skool is built around community with courses as supporting content, while Teachable is built around course delivery with community as a supporting feature. If structured course delivery, drip content, and a dedicated checkout with order bumps are central to your product, our Builder plan at $69/month (annual) covers those alongside automated tax remittance in 45+ countries.

Systeme.io

Systeme.io offers a free entry tier and positions itself as a budget funnel builder for creators who need basic course delivery alongside email sequences and sales page tools.

• Who it fits: Creators at the very beginning of their journey who need funnel tools, basic course hosting, and a low or zero monthly fee while validating demand.
• The honest trade-off: As your revenue grows, our native mobile apps, built-in checkout, and automated tax remittance in 45+ countries provide a more stable foundation than Systeme.io's basic feature set.

Why international VAT remittance is the deciding factor

Thinkific remits US and Canada sales tax automatically and calculates VAT for UK and EU sales, which is genuine, functional tax handling for North American sellers. However, creators remain responsible for remitting that VAT to foreign tax authorities. When you sell a course to a student in Germany, you have a VAT obligation in Germany. When you sell to a student in Australia, you have a GST obligation in Australia. Thinkific calculates the correct rate at checkout but the remittance relationship with those tax authorities is yours to manage.

Our Teachable Payments changes that structure entirely. As documented in our payments documentation, we handle the filing relationship with tax authorities on your behalf in 45+ countries. You receive your payout and a clean record of what was collected, without ever touching a foreign tax form.

How to decide if Teachable is right for you

• Site builder customization: Thinkific's site builder offers more layout flexibility than our standard templates. Creators who want full control over homepage design, custom landing pages, and branded course storefronts without code will find Thinkific's builder more accommodating. Three responsive themes, each with multiple styles, give meaningful visual range. Our builder prioritizes speed to first sale over design depth, with clean templates that handle the most common creator needs without requiring you to invest time in layout decisions before your first student enrolls. For creators who sell internationally, that speed to first sale is paired with automated tax remittance in 45+ countries, which Thinkific does not offer.
• Zero platform fees from the entry tier: Thinkific charges 0% transaction fees on all paid plans, including the entry plan. Our Starter plan at $29/month carries a 7.5% fee. Above approximately $533/month in revenue, upgrading to our Builder plan eliminates the fee entirely, on top of the automated tax remittance available across all Teachable plans. The Builder plan at $69/month (annual) includes 0% platform fees and affiliate tools, making it the tier where our economics are strongest for growing creators.
• Structured course building experience: Thinkific's course builder is clean, well-documented, and suited to creators who prioritize content organization and layout control. Our course builder covers the core content types optimized for creators who want to go from signup to a live, purchasable course as quickly as possible. For creators whose audience is entirely US-based and whose course structure is the main product differentiator, Thinkific's builder may be a closer fit. For creators who sell internationally, our automated tax remittance through Teachable Payments removes the VAT filing burden that Thinkific creators carry themselves.

Is Teachable the right move for you?

Use this as a decision filter before comparing features in more depth.

Switch to Teachable if

1. You sell internationally and want VAT and GST remittance handled automatically, alongside structured course delivery and a built-in checkout, in one plan.
2. You want native iOS and Android apps included in your plan at no extra cost.
3. Your monthly revenue is above approximately $533 and you want 0% platform fees starting at $69/month on annual billing.
4. You want a live checkout with order bumps and upsells without a third-party page builder.

When Thinkific may be a closer fit

1. Your entire student base is in the US and Canada, and you have no plans to sell internationally.
2. You have built significant course content in Thinkific's builder and the migration effort outweighs the operational benefit of switching.

For most creators selling to an international audience, the VAT filing gap is the decision. If automated tax remittance in 45+ countries, 0% platform fees at $69/month, and a no-code checkout are the right fit for your current setup, start a 7-day trial and build your first course before committing to a plan.

FAQs

Does Thinkific handle VAT for international sales?

No, Thinkific does not remit VAT or GST to foreign tax authorities on your behalf. You are personally responsible for registering, tracking, and filing taxes for sales made to students outside the US and Canada, where Thinkific's automatic remittance coverage ends.

What is the cheapest Thinkific alternative?

Our Starter plan costs $29/month on annual billing. Model your transaction fees before deciding: the Starter plan's 7.5% fee makes upgrading to the Builder plan ($69/month, annual) the cheaper option once monthly revenue passes approximately $533. Systeme.io offers a free basic plan for creators at the very beginning of their journey.

How does Teachable handle international taxes compared to Thinkific?

Our native gateway, Teachable Payments, automatically calculates, collects, and remits VAT and GST in 45+ countries, as confirmed by our payments documentation. Thinkific automates sales tax remittance for the US and Canada and calculates VAT for UK and EU sales, but creators remain responsible for remitting that VAT to foreign tax authorities. Of the platforms in this comparison, Teachable is the only one with automated remittance covering 45+ countries, giving you the broadest international tax compliance coverage available at this price tier.

Can I migrate my course from Thinkific to Teachable without losing student data?

Yes, you can migrate your content and student data from Thinkific to Teachable. Our support team provides migration assistance on select plans, and our support documentation covers how creators have moved their content and student records across platforms.

Does Thinkific charge transaction fees on paid plans?

Thinkific charges 0% platform transaction fees on all paid plans. Standard credit card processing fees still apply on every transaction at rates set by your payment gateway.

Key terms glossary

Teachable Payments: Our native payment gateway that automatically handles global tax compliance including VAT, GST, and US sales tax in 45+ countries.

Tax remittance: The process of sending collected sales tax, VAT, or GST to the appropriate government tax authority, which teachable:pay handles on your behalf for transactions processed through the native gateway.

VAT (Value Added Tax): A consumption tax applied to digital products sold to buyers in the European Union and many other international markets, creating a filing obligation for creators who exceed the registration threshold in each country.

Platform fee: The percentage-based transaction fee a course host charges on each sale, separate from credit card processing fees, which stack on top of the platform fee for every transaction.

Break-even point: The monthly revenue threshold where transaction fees on a lower-tier plan equal the higher subscription cost of an upgraded plan. For Teachable, the Starter-to-Builder break-even is approximately $533/month on annual billing.

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TL;DR: Starting a YouTube channel is completely free, and setup takes under a minute: you only pay if you buy gear or editing software. All you need to begin is a computer, a camera (your smartphone works fine), reliable internet, and a microphone. This guide then walks you through 14 steps covering everything from defining your niche and planning content to filming, branding, uploading, and staying consistent, including newer features like YouTube Shorts. Most of these steps take under a day. Your real time investment goes into filming and editing your first video. Once you've built an audience, you can monetize through ads, channel memberships, sponsorships, or by turning your videos into a paid course.

If you love creating and sharing content with others, you might be curious about how to start a YouTube channel and make money. There has never been a better time to showcase your knowledge online with engaging video content. Over 80% of all internet traffic comes from video.

YouTube is one of the most popular video-sharing and social media platforms. According to global website rankings, YouTube is the second most visited website after Google Search. The platform also boasts an impressive following. There are currently over 2.5 billion monthly active users on YouTube, who together watch more than 1 billion hours of YouTube content on TV screens alone every day.

In this article, we walk through how to start a YouTube channel for beginners in 14 steps, what it costs, the gear you need, and how to set up your channel and monetize your knowledge.

How much does it cost to start a YouTube channel?

If you're interested in creating a YouTube channel, you're probably wondering how much it costs to get started. The short answer: it is completely free to start a YouTube channel. However, you may have some upfront costs if you decide to buy any video equipment or video editing software. Similarly, if you choose to film certain videos like "haul" or "review" videos, you may need to pay out of pocket for products if you're not gifted the products or sponsored by a brand.

To set up a YouTube channel, you'll need a few basics: a computer, a camera, reliable internet access, and a microphone.

How to start a YouTube channel for beginners

Starting a YouTube channel is easier than you might think. The channel setup process takes less than 60 seconds. But before you dive right in and start sharing, you'll want to create a plan for how you'll show up on the platform. Below are 14 beginner tips to help you get started.

1. Set up your YouTube account and channel

Before you can start sharing content on YouTube, you need to set up an account and channel. This is the fastest part of starting a YouTube channel: the whole setup takes under a minute. If you don't already have a YouTube account, simply go to YouTube and use your existing Google account to set one up.

Then, once you've signed into your account, you can create a YouTube channel:

• Click your user icon in the top right corner
• Select "Create a channel"
• Upload a picture and name for your channel
• Select "Create channel"

After you've created your channel, you'll get redirected to your channel dashboard. The dashboard is your channel's home base. Here you can customize your channel appearance, upload videos, monitor analytics, reply to viewer comments, and more.

2. Explore video ideas with keyword research

It's important to have inspiration and (at least some) clarity about the content you'll be creating for your channel. This makes the process move a lot smoother. And having a plan helps to quell any overwhelming feelings. One easy and strategic way you can do this is to explore video ideas and gauge what your audience is consuming by doing keyword research.

Keywords on YouTube are words or a phrase that users type into the search bar. The YouTube search engine is powerful and second only to Google (which makes sense, as Google owns YouTube!) Keyword research shows you the hot topics other creators in your field are discussing, and helps you boost your own views by using those keywords when you create content. Including these words in your title, video description, and thumbnail can dramatically increase the views of your content. It's an easy step that can get people to watch your YouTube videos, even if you're just starting out. There are a few different ways you can do this:

• Analyze the content of other creators in your field, especially the ones you view as successful! Take note of what keywords they are using in titles, descriptions, and thumbnails. Pay attention to different variations of keywords being used as well (For example, some variations of the keyword "wellness" could be "wellbeing" or "balance")
• Check out the autocomplete function in YouTube's search bar. When you type in a word, phrase, or topic, a dropdown will appear with suggested searches that are related and popular. This will give you a great idea of what your ideal audience is searching and what's getting the most hits. Use this information to shape your own titles and descriptions as you create!

Let's say you were making a video of a guided meditation. Type in the first few words related to your niche/what you're creating and check out the suggested searches that pop up to see what's most frequently being searched!

3. Define your niche

Before you start producing YouTube videos, you need to identify what your channel is all about. Your niche is the foundation of your YouTube channel and the focus of your channel's content. Knowing your channel purpose will also help streamline the content creation process later.

Some of the most successful YouTube channels have a well-defined niche. People like Graham Stephan (5M+ subscribers) educate on how to make money with real estate sales. Peter McKinnon (6M+ subscribers) shares entertaining, beginner-friendly photography tips.

Not sure how to choose a niche for your YouTube channel? Start by asking yourself a few questions.

• What are you passionate about?
• What knowledge or skills do you have to share?
• Is there a demand for the subject?
• What problems or needs does the audience have?

Once you've identified what you want to talk about, do some research. Figure out what your target audience wants to see. Look at what types of content other YouTubers in your niche are producing. Determine how you'll bring value or a new approach to that audience or market.

4. Plan your content

Now that you know your purpose and target audience, it's time to plan your content. An organized content plan keeps your channel consistent. Start by selecting the type of content you want to produce. Remember, you can have more than one type of content for your channel.

Popular content types include:

• How to videos
• Vlogs
• Product reviews
• Behind the scenes
• Live streams

Next, schedule how often you plan to create and upload content. Use your niche research to determine the best upload frequency. Consider picking a publishing day (e.g., every Thursday) to promote consistency and get subscribers excited about new content.

Then, sit down and brainstorm content ideas. Jot down 10 to 20 video ideas based on your audience research. If you've already built an online course on Teachable, you have a lot of this legwork done. YouTube is a great place to share small parts of teachings from your courses. You can encourage people to learn more at the end of your video by redirecting them to your Teachable course page or website.

5. Add your branding

If you're serious about starting your channel and making money from your content, you need to put your best foot forward. Like other social media platforms, YouTube is highly visual, and each channel has unique visual elements. To customize the look and feel of your channel's page, start by adding a few essential brand elements, including:

• Picture: your profile picture (your logo or headshot) will appear next to things like your videos and comments
• Banner image: the image that will appear across the top of your channel page
• Video watermark: a watermark will appear in the right-hand corner of the video player, a watermark can protect your videos against theft but also increase brand recognition

Add these items to your channel with three easy steps:

1. First, click "customize channel".
2. Navigate to the "Branding" tab.
3. Upload each item under the correct subheading.

In addition to your channel branding, consider adding a channel trailer or featured video to your homepage. A channel trailer is a preview of your channel shown to people who haven't subscribed yet. Your featured video is a highlight video for your subscribers to watch. Both will give current and potential subscribers a good impression of your channel and brand.

6. Share your story in the about section

Your YouTube channel description is like the "About" page on your website. It tells viewers about you and your channel. Use it to share your story and give visitors a reason to watch your videos and subscribe. Be specific and include your posting frequency, content style, purpose, etc.

Your channel description will appear in the About section of your channel and search results. The first 100 to 150 characters of your channel description are critical. YouTube only shows this snippet next to your channel in search results. It is the first thing people read when finding your channel, so you want to communicate your value and purpose right away.

Just like other search engines, YouTube also uses keywords to rank channels, so be sure to do your research and include target keywords in your description.

To update your description, click "customize channel" and navigate to the "Basic info" tab to add your channel name and description. On this tab, you can also edit your channel URL and add links to other pages you want to share with viewers (e.g., your website, Teachable homepage, social media pages, etc.)

7. Put together a script

A well-written script is essential to creating quality, watch-worthy YouTube videos. A good script captures the viewer's attention, keeps them engaged, and leaves them with a key takeaway. A script will also help you stay on track during production and reduce the time you spend making edits afterward.

Start by writing down your video goals and key takeaways. Keep the content short and straightforward. For best performance, keep videos between 7 to 15 minutes. Remember, YouTube ranks videos based on total watch time. Your goal is to get viewers to watch the video from start to finish.

Need help structuring your script? Follow this basic framework:

• Intro: state the promise of the video and explain how you intend to fulfill it
• Title: share the title of your channel, tagline (if applicable), and your name as the host
• Problem: clearly state the problem you're trying to solve, give examples of how this problem might affect the viewer
• Solution: present your answer or solution to the viewer's problem, use effects to add visual interest
• Call to action: end each video with a call to action (e.g., "subscribe to my channel" or "start a free trial today")

8. Start filming

Once you've drafted your script, it's time to start filming.

Here are some easy tips to improve your filming quality:

• Camera: you can use any high-resolution camera (including your smartphone) to film your videos. If you decide to use your phone, invest in a tripod to improve camera stability and make it easier to film yourself
• Lighting: use a combination of natural lighting and lighting equipment to give your videos a professional look and feel
• Audio: opt for a microphone attachment instead of your built-in microphone to improve sound quality and clarity
• Effects: add video effects like text overlay or a Google Slides voice-over recording to create visual interest and variety
• Editing: use video and audio editing software to increase your post-production efficiency and quality

Remember, you don't need to spend a fortune on cameras and recording equipment. You can inexpensively create a home recording studio setup.

If you want to invest in a few pieces of equipment, it's also possible to do it without breaking the bank. For example, you can easily learn how to record sound from your phone or computer. However, you can grab one of these best budget microphones for under $35.

To start, use what you already have and focus on getting the content out there rather than making it perfect.

As you practice and produce more content, you'll learn what filming techniques work best for you and your audience.

9. Upload your video

You've worked hard to create, film, and edit your video. Now it's time to upload your video and share it with the world. Here are eight easy steps to upload your first video:

• Login to your YouTube account
• Click the video icon
• Select "upload video" and find your video file
• Add video details (i.e., title, description, tags)
• Always include target keywords in your video title, description, and tags to improve visibility
• Add visual elements (i.e., subtitles, an end screen, and cards)
• Subtitles, end screens, and cards enhance the viewer experience by making the video more accessible, interactive, and clickable
• Screen your video for copyright issues and ad suitability
• Choose your visibility settings (i.e., private, public, or unlisted)
• Publish your video

10. Create thumbnails for each video

Your video thumbnail is the static image people see before clicking your video. This small but important detail can make or break your channel performance. A good thumbnail gives your video a professional look and entices viewers to watch it.

Although you can select an auto-generated thumbnail for your video, we encourage you to create a custom thumbnail for each video. A good thumbnail can help your videos stand out and increase the click-through rate.

Your custom thumbnail should always include the following:

• The video title
• Your business name or logo
• Brand colors and fonts
• An image relevant to the video content

11. Stay consistent

Consistency is critical to your success on YouTube. When people think of consistency, they often think of how often they post. But, on YouTube, consistency is important with both your schedule and your content.

Not only do viewers expect to see new content on your channel as promised (e.g., "new videos every Monday and Friday"), but they also expect the quality and style of your videos to remain consistent.

Here are a few tips to help you stay consistent:

• Choose content that's easy to produce regularly
• Set up a video production workflow
• Save a list of target keywords
• Create thumbnail templates
• Align your content with your audience's interests and needs
• Create a series by splitting longer videos (like your Teachable course videos)

Wondering how often you need to post? Posting consistently matters more than posting often. Research on YouTube channel growth shows a regular, predictable upload schedule tends to outperform an erratic one, even when the erratic channel posts more total videos. Pick a cadence you can sustain, whether that's once a week or several times, and stick to it.

12. Post shorts

In 2020, YouTube released a new feature called YouTube Shorts. Like Instagram Reels and TikTok videos, Shorts are vertical, short-form videos (60 seconds or less) created on smartphones. Creators can easily film, edit, and upload Shorts directly on the YouTube mobile app.

YouTube encourages creators to use this new feature to expand their reach, increase engagement, and drive more traffic to their long-form content. Viewers can easily share, comment, like, or subscribe to your channel while viewing your Short.

To create and upload YouTube Shorts, follow these easy steps:

• Download the YouTube mobile app
• Log in to your YouTube account
• Tap the (+) icon on the app homepage and select "Create a Short"

It's best to keep content for your Shorts specific, catchy, and valuable. You can use Shorts to give an update, share highlights from a recent event or launch, tease a new product, pull clips from long-form videos, and more.

13. Analyze performance

Finally, let's talk about data. YouTube provides extensive data about your channel performance, content, audience, and more. Measuring your channel performance will help you better understand your audience and promote your YouTube channel. Use the YouTube Analytics feature to review your channel performance and determine what's resonating with your audience the most.

It's easy to access your YouTube Analytics:

• Click your user icon in the top right corner
• Select "YouTube Studio"
• Click "Analytics" in the left menu

Inside the Analytics dashboard, you can review data in four different tabs:

• Overview: a summary of how your channel and videos are performing
• Content: a detailed overview of content performance, engagement, and reach
• Audience: a deep dive into who is watching your videos
• Research: insights about what people are searching on YouTube, including your audience

We recommend reviewing your content and engagement metrics at least once a month. That way, you can decide what's working vs. what's not. You can also analyze who is coming to your channel and why. Once you've done that, you can adjust your content strategy to fit your audience's interests and needs better.

14. Analyze your competitors' YouTube channels

Analyzing your competitors' YouTube channels is a great way to gather inspiration and see what your ideal audience is already consuming. If you're not sure who your competitors are, then start by searching keywords related to your topic or niche. Ask yourself where your ideal audience would hang out, and check out the channels that seem the most popular within this.

Once you identify who your competitors or fellow creators are, do a deep dive into their page. Notice what topics, keywords, and playlists they've curated. Check out views and comments on their top videos, and any other details of how their channel is set up. Do they have a welcome video? What do their top videos have in common? What is the common structure/style of their videos?

It's important to remember that everyone has their own unique way of doing things. The goal here is not to directly copy what your fellow creators are doing, but to get a better idea of what resonates with your ideal audience, and to let that inform your creative process.

How to make money on YouTube

Focus first on creating high-quality content people want to watch. Once you have an audience, there are several ways to make money on your YouTube channel.

Two of the most common YouTube partner program features are:

• Advertising: earn money by displaying ads on your videos, end screens, and more
• Channel memberships: enroll subscribers in a recurring membership fee and provide member-only perks

Another way people make money on YouTube is through YouTube sponsorships. Many brands use this powerful influencer marketing strategy to promote their products and services on YouTube. There are three primary types of YouTube sponsorships: product reviews, affiliate marketing, and paid brand sponsorships. Once you've grown an engaged audience on YouTube, you can learn how to get sponsored on YouTube and start making money off your video content.

There are other ways to monetize your knowledge, not just on YouTube. Many YouTubers use their video content to create paid courses on Teachable. As you grow your following on YouTube, consider taking your creative skills to the next level. With us, you can continue to teach people what you know and easily get paid for creating content you love.

Must-have tools to start a YouTube channel

The most important factors when creating quality content are lighting, clear video, and easy-to-hear sound. You can hit all these marks with a smartphone.

Invest in a tripod. You can get a decent one for under $30 on Amazon. Then find a well-lit spot (natural, indirect sunlight is usually best) and a quiet room to film in. You'll also need access to video editing software, such as iMovie or Premiere Pro. If learning how to use these tools feels overwhelming, don't worry! YouTube Studio has basic editing tools available that you can use before publishing a video, and there are plenty of free resources you can access to learn more about how to edit YouTube videos.

If you're in a space to do so, getting a ring light and wireless microphone can improve the quality of your videos, and having a membership to a site like Epidemicsound (or another royalty-free music site) can provide you with opportunities to make your videos more engaging.

Don't get too caught up in needing to get all the latest gear or feeling like you need to have all these things in order to get started. Your smartphone is more than enough. The most important part is showing up authentically in the video!

Start a 7 day free trial and join the more than 150,000 creators already using us to make a real impact and earn a real income.

FAQs

How much money do you need to start a YouTube channel?

You need no money to start a YouTube channel. Creating an account and channel is free, and the setup takes under a minute. Costs are optional and come only if you buy gear or editing software, many creators start with just a smartphone, natural light, and a basic microphone for under $35.

How do I start a YouTube channel and get paid?

Start by creating your channel and posting consistent, high-quality videos in a defined niche. You get paid once you join the YouTube Partner Program and earn from ads and channel memberships, or through sponsorships. Many creators also turn their audience into recurring income by selling a paid course based on their videos.

Do you need 1,000 subscribers to get paid on YouTube?

To earn ad revenue through the YouTube Partner Program you need to meet YouTube's eligibility thresholds, which include a subscriber minimum and a watch-time or Shorts-views requirement. You do not need to hit that threshold to earn from sponsorships or from selling your own course, both of which you can start with a smaller audience.

What is a brand account on YouTube?

A brand account allows you to have an account that is associated only with your brand instead of being linked to your personal Gmail account, as would usually be the case. It also means you can allow multiple people to access the account as you grow your team, while protecting the privacy of your personal account/email.

What type of content is popular on YouTube?

The majority of content falls into one of the following categories: comedy, music, entertainment/pop culture, and "how to". Overall, you can think about the purpose of the content is to entertain, to inform, and/or to inspire. The best YouTube channels will have a variety of content that serves a mixture of purposes. Do keyword research and analyze your fellow creator's content to get more specific ideas on videos that fit in your niche!

How can I change my YouTube channel name?

• Sign in to YouTube Studio.
• From the left menu, select Customization Basic info.
• Enter your new channel name.
• Enter your new channel description.
• Click PUBLISH.

Key terms

YouTube Partner Program (YPP): The program that lets eligible creators earn ad revenue and other monetization features on YouTube once they meet its eligibility thresholds.

Watch time: The total number of minutes viewers spend watching your videos, a factor YouTube uses to rank and recommend content.

Niche: The specific topic or audience your channel focuses on, which shapes your content, your branding, and who finds your channel.

Thumbnail: The clickable preview image for a video, custom-designed to stand out and encourage viewers to watch.

YouTube Shorts: Vertical, short-form videos of 60 seconds or less, uploaded directly from the YouTube mobile app to reach new viewers.

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TL;DR: Self-hosted online course prices run from around $50 to $1,000 or more, and a very low price can be harder to build a profitable business on than it looks. This guide covers pricing your own course in three steps: set a baseline of at least $100, work backwards from an income goal using price times number of buyers, then sweeten the offer with pricing tiers, payment plans, and small extras like live Q&As or coaching. Premium pricing tends to beat volume over time: fewer buyers at a higher price meets the same goal with less time spent chasing enrollments.

Knowing how to price your online course is a common and often difficult challenge for content creators. But understanding how to sell online courses and putting a price tag on your knowledge doesn't have to be intimidating. By valuing yourself, your course, and the work you put into course creation, you'll be able to come up with a fair price that your audience will be more than willing to pay for.

So exactly how much should you charge? We've created a three-step guide to online course pricing to help you figure it out. We'll also cover what online courses actually cost, so you can price yours against the market.

How much does an online course cost?

Before you set your own price, it helps to know the range buyers see. Online course prices run a wide range, from around $50 for short, introductory lessons up to $1,000 or more for comprehensive, certification-backed, or cohort-based programs. A very low price can be harder to build a profitable business on, since it leaves little room to cover your own time and marketing costs.

So what should you charge? Rather than copy a market number, work backwards from your own income goal and the value you deliver. The three steps below walk through exactly that.

How to price your online course in 3 steps

Step 1: Rethink your pricing strategy

Make your baseline price higher than you think. We're just going to lay it out: Consider pricing your online course at a minimum of $100. Because you've validated your idea, acquired an audience, and developed your course, you already know it's valuable. A good baseline price for a course is $100, if not more.

So, why have a baseline price of at least $100?

• All topics are worth it to someone. Don't discredit students' desire to learn anything. From hand lettering to drone flying to coding, there are courses for every taste. If an audience really wants to learn something, they'll be willing to pay.
• There's a problem, and you're the solution. Simply put: An online course provides a shortcut to an outcome. Without your course, your audience might spend ten times the amount of time sifting through information on their own.
• Perspective is your selling point. Even if someone else is teaching the same course topic, you can still be successful by highlighting what makes your course unique. Highlight your perspective and use it as a selling point. Most importantly, don't be afraid to price accordingly. If you've created an online course that's high quality, students will pay.
• Students have faith in you. Those who are a few steps ahead of their students tend to be more effective teachers as they can often more easily identify and relate to students' pain points. Traditional experts or professionals might not offer the most simplified solution to their students' problems like you can.
• The people will pay. If you're launching your product to your mailing list, warm up your audience for a few months prior with a pre-launch strategy. Those who already know the value of your knowledge will be far more likely to spend money with you. Plus, unlike blogs and social media, online courses provide valuable gated content. The exclusivity of what you're teaching inherently makes your course valuable.

Tips for pricing online courses

With premium pricing, more is absolutely more. Would you believe us if we said it's as simple as: Charging less means you make less money. It's normal to worry about scaring off potential clients with a higher priced course, but playing it safe can be dangerous in business as it may not accurately reflect the work content creators put into their offerings. Plus, if you price too low, students might not appreciate it as much or be as motivated to follow through with it.

In addition to the overhead needed to create the course, such as video production equipment, you can also factor in soft costs. Think about the time you put into creating your course, what you'd charge a client for that same time, and what you invested learning the material you're teaching. Your time and expertise are valuable.

While there is a ton of free information available, don't underestimate the value of the information you curate, organize, and package for your students. It will save them time and energy, and make their lives easier in the long run.

It can be difficult to measure the true value of your course, which gets easily entangled with financial gains. When considering what makes your idea or offering valuable to others, go beyond what you're selling and consider why you're selling it.

• What makes your approach unique?
• What are the immeasurable qualities your student or customer will walk away with?

For instance, you might be an art teacher, who beyond different painting techniques, empowers students to explore their creativity with confidence and playfulness. Or you may be a yoga teacher who doesn't just demo the fundamentals of poses but also offers tools for increasing mindfulness and building resilience, too. Set your prices bearing in mind all students get out of the course, rather than just the course itself.

Meanwhile, you can always reduce the price via course sales or promotions after your go-to-market strategy is finished, but unless you're prepared to enhance your original offering, it can be harder to raise the price of a course once you've announced it to your audience.

While online courses don't always have to have a high price tag, premium pricing will help you in the long run and has a number of benefits.

Go on and charge more

• Your revenue goals will be easier to meet. Selling a course at a low price point requires you to enroll more students to reach your income goal, meaning you're spending more time acquiring new clients. If you charge a higher price, you'll be able to meet your goals quicker and better use your time.
• A smaller group makes for a better learning experience. If you're only dealing with 15 students as opposed to 50, those students will get more of your focused attention. This is ideal for securing repeat customers as well as potential referrals for your business.
• Premium pricing increases engagement and communicates value. Pricing your course or coaching session at a premium ensures students see their purchase as an investment, and one they want a return on no less.
• Secure, and weed out, potential students. If your course is priced too low, you're likely to get a number of students who aren't quite your target audience and will likely drop off or not purchase again. Those who will succeed and get the most from your offerings will be more than happy to pay more and thus are more likely to make another purchase.

How much to charge for an online course

How much can you really charge for your online courses? It's up to you, but arming yourself with some pre-pricing knowledge can be indispensable.

The simplest method is to work backwards from an income goal:

• Price × number of buyers = your income goal
• $100 course × 50 buyers = $5,000
• $250 course × 20 buyers = $5,000
• $500 course × 10 buyers = $5,000

Before anything else, you should come up with income goals for your online course. Whatever you're hoping to accomplish with your business, come up with a goal number.

For example: Let's say you're hoping to make $5,000 with your online course. With that in mind, if you keep your price point at $100, you need 50 people to buy your course to reach your goal.

But, what if you decide to offer at a higher price point of $250? In that case, you only need 20 people to enroll. And if you price your online course at $500, you only need to sell to 10 people. See where we're going?

By putting these goals into place, you can establish a clearer picture of just how many people you need to be selling to in order to consider your launch successful.

Generally, you can assume that at least two percent of your email list will purchase it. That lines up with published course-launch email benchmarks of roughly 2% to 5%, so it's a solid starting point.

For example: If you have 1,000 people on your list, 20 people will likely purchase. If you want to make $4,000, you need to sell your course for at least $200 to meet your goal.

Step 2: Give them an offer they can't refuse

Now that you're armed with some basic knowledge on how to price your online course and more importantly, why you should be aiming for a premium price, close the deal for your students with an offer they really can't pass up.

Add pricing tiers

Pricing tiers make your course accessible to a larger number of students and to students who may not be interested in all of the bonuses you're offering. To create your pricing tiers, first decide on which pieces of bonus content you want to offer. Consider which ones make the most sense for your audience and which ones will have the largest ROI. Once you've decided on your bonus content, decide how much each piece is worth.

Offer payment plans

Although not every student may be able to shell out a lump sum upfront, it might be more manageable if your course offers smaller payments spaced out over a few months. What's more, you can typically have higher price tags on plans that are paid out over time.

Step 3: Sweeten the deal

Your knowledge inherently has value, but as your prices increase, so too should your offerings. Some of the best ways to enhance your course content and add value don't have to be overly complicated. Learning some basic tricks for how to market online courses can help.

Think beyond the basics and...

• Create a content upgrade. Consider creating an editable worksheet as a lead magnet that your students can refer to and fill out while they go through your curriculum.
• Host live Q&As. Schedule a few throughout the life of your course for different times of day so you can capture as many of your students as possible. You can increase the value of your course by several hundred dollars depending on how often you host your Q&As.
• Offer coaching. Offer one-on-one online coaching throughout the course to increase its value. Thanks to the ease of scheduling with our coaching feature, you can easily increase the value of your course by hundreds of dollars by offering personalized consulting.
• Improve the production quality of your course. Increase the value of your course by several hundred dollars just by improving the production quality of your course. Thankfully, you can create a great studio set-up at home without spending a ton, making this a great ROI for you.

Remember: Setting your rates is upholding a boundary. It teaches clients how to treat you and respect what you have to offer. So price accordingly.

Once you've settled on a price, start a 7-day trial and get your course live before committing to a plan.

How to price your online course FAQs

How much should I charge for an online course?

Charge at least $100 for an online course, and often more. Premium pricing will help you in the long run and has a number of benefits. Once you've validated your idea, acquired an audience, and developed your course, you already know it's valuable. A good baseline price for a course is $100, if not more.

How do you determine a course price?

Set an income goal, then divide it by the number of buyers you expect. Before anything else, you should come up with income goals for your online course. Whatever you're hoping to accomplish with your business, come up with a goal number. Then figure out how many people are likely to buy. Generally, you can assume that at least two percent of your email list will convert, which makes it a solid starting point.

How much do people sell courses for?

People sell courses from a wide range of price points. Some start around $50 (though, like we mentioned, we recommend keeping your price at a minimum of $100) while others go up to $1,000 or more.

How much does an average online course cost?

Self-hosted online courses typically range from around $50 for short, introductory lessons to $1,000 or more for comprehensive, cohort-based, or coaching-heavy programs. Price and perceived value tend to move together, so a higher price is not automatically a barrier.

Do payment plans change the total price of a course?

Yes. Courses sold on a payment plan often carry a higher total price than the same course paid in one lump sum, because you are spreading smaller payments over several months. Payment plans widen access without forcing you to lower your headline price.

Key terms

Baseline price: The minimum price you set for a course, recommended here at $100 or more, so the price reflects the value of your expertise rather than just the time it took to create the course.

Premium pricing: Setting a higher price on purpose. It increases perceived value and revenue per sale, and it takes fewer buyers to reach the same income goal.

Income goal: The specific revenue target for a course, used as the starting point for the price-times-buyers formula that determines what to charge.

Pricing tiers: Multiple price levels for the same course, usually built around bonus content, so the course stays accessible to more students without lowering the headline price.

Payment plan: An option to split a course's price into smaller payments over time instead of one lump sum, which can support a higher total price while widening access.

Sections of this post are adapted from previous content written by Morgan Timm and Katie Davidson.

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TL;DR: The fastest-converting lead magnets are specific and quick to use, a checklist, template, quiz, or short email course, not a long ebook nobody finishes. Match the format to your offer: a template removes a blank-page problem, a quiz gives a personalized result you can segment by, and a mini-course previews what you're selling next. Whichever format you pick, it only works as a lead magnet if it's a free preview of the paid product it's meant to sell.

A lead magnet is the single most reliable way to turn an anonymous visitor into a subscriber you can email. But most creators stall at the same point: they know they need one, they just do not know which format to build or who it should be for. This guide fixes that. Below are 52 lead magnet ideas and examples, grouped by format, each with a one-line note on why it works and who it suits, followed by how to turn any of them into email signups and, eventually, a paid course.

What is a lead magnet?

A lead magnet is a free resource you give away in exchange for an email address. Someone lands on your site, sees an offer worth more than the cost of their email, hands it over, and joins your list. That is the whole mechanic. A good lead magnet solves one specific problem quickly and gets used immediately, and a resource that gets used builds trust.

What makes a lead magnet convert

The lead magnets that convert share four traits. They are specific (they solve one named problem, not everything). They are fast to consume (a checklist beats a course for a first touch). They are genuinely useful on their own, not a teaser for something you have to buy. And they are aimed at a person you can actually sell to later. Keep those four in mind as you read the ideas below, and pick the one that matches where your audience is stuck right now.

52 lead magnet ideas and examples

Downloadable resources

1. Checklist. A short, tickable list that guarantees someone does not miss a step. Why it works: it is fast to make and fast to use, so it gets consumed and remembered. Who it suits: any creator whose topic has a repeatable process (a launch checklist, an onboarding checklist).
2. Cheat sheet. One page of the shortcuts, formulas, or commands your audience keeps forgetting. Why it works: high perceived value, tiny effort to deliver. Who it suits: technical and how-to educators.
3. Template. A fill-in-the-blank document, spreadsheet, or design a subscriber can copy and use today. Why it works: it removes the blank-page problem. Who it suits: consultants, coaches, and course creators who teach a repeatable output. Templates work well because the value is obvious on sight.
4. Swipe file. A curated collection of proven examples (subject lines, hooks, ad copy) to model. Why it works: it saves hours of research. Who it suits: marketing, copywriting, and creator-economy educators.
5. Workbook. A guided set of exercises a subscriber works through. Why it works: it creates a small win and gets them invested. Who it suits: coaches and course creators.
6. Planner or calendar. A dated or undated planning tool for your niche (a content calendar, a meal planner). Why it works: it earns a recurring place in their week. Who it suits: productivity, fitness, and content educators.
7. Printable. A poster, tracker, or reference sheet designed to be printed and pinned up. Why it works: physical presence keeps you top of mind. Who it suits: wellness, education, and hobby creators.
8. Resource library. A single page linking your best free tools, articles, and downloads. Why it works: it positions you as the hub for your topic. Who it suits: established educators with a back catalog.
9. Toolkit or resource list. The exact tools, apps, and gear you use, with links. Why it works: buyers trust a practitioner's real stack. Who it suits: any creator with a hands-on workflow.
10. Notion or Google Sheets dashboard. A ready-made system a subscriber can duplicate. Why it works: it is a template with extra utility and shareability. Who it suits: productivity and business creators.

Educational content

1. Ebook or guide. A focused PDF that goes deep on one topic. Why it works: it demonstrates expertise. Who it suits: educators whose topic genuinely needs length. Keep it tight: a shorter guide someone actually finishes builds more trust than a long one they abandon.
2. Mini-course. A short, free 3-to-5-lesson course delivered by email or on a course platform. Why it works: it is the closest free preview of your paid product, so it pre-sells. Who it suits: anyone planning to sell a full course later.
3. Email course. A multi-day lesson sequence delivered straight to the inbox. Why it works: it trains the subscriber to open your emails. Who it suits: educators building an email-first funnel. A lead magnet email sequence works especially well for coaches, who can layer in a soft call to action by the final email.
4. Video training or masterclass. A single recorded lesson or workshop. Why it works: seeing and hearing you builds trust. Who it suits: educators comfortable on camera.
5. Tutorial or how-to walkthrough. A step-by-step of one specific task. Why it works: it delivers a complete result, not a teaser. Who it suits: software, craft, and skills educators.
6. Case study. A written or video breakdown of a real result and how it was achieved. Why it works: proof sells. Who it suits: coaches and consultants.
7. Guide to a common mistake. A short breakdown of the top errors in your niche and the fix. Why it works: it names a pain the reader already feels. Who it suits: any educator.
8. Glossary or jargon-buster. Plain-language definitions for a field beginners find intimidating. Why it works: it lowers the barrier to entry. Who it suits: technical and professional educators.
9. Recorded webinar. An evergreen replay of a live session. Why it works: one recording keeps generating leads. Who it suits: educators who run live events.
10. Audio lesson or private podcast. A downloadable or feed-based audio series. Why it works: subscribers consume it on the move. Who it suits: creators whose audience commutes or trains.

Interactive tools

1. Quiz. A short assessment that ends with a personalized result and a segmented email. Why it works: results feel bespoke, and the answers let you segment your list. Who it suits: coaches and course creators who serve distinct audience types. A quiz lead magnet also gives you first-party data on who is joining.
2. Calculator. A tool that returns a number the reader cares about (savings, calories, ROI). Why it works: instant, personalized utility. Who it suits: finance, fitness, and business educators.
3. Assessment or scorecard. A self-graded audit against a benchmark. Why it works: it exposes a gap you can then help close. Who it suits: consultants and B2B coaches.
4. Interactive worksheet. A fillable tool that adapts to the user's input. Why it works: engagement plus a saved output. Who it suits: coaches.
5. Generator (name, headline, plan). A tool that produces a usable draft. Why it works: it does work for the reader. Who it suits: creative and marketing educators.
6. Free tool or app. A lightweight utility solving one recurring task. Why it works: repeated use builds a habit around your brand. Who it suits: software and productivity creators.

Access and belonging

1. Private group invite. Access to a space where your audience gathers, whether that's a chat group, a forum, or a members-only feed. Why it works: belonging is a strong pull. Who it suits: creators with an engaged following.
2. Free challenge. A time-boxed group push toward one goal (a 5-day challenge). Why it works: momentum and accountability drive high engagement. Who it suits: fitness, habit, and coaching creators.
3. Group coaching call or AMA. A live session subscribers can join. Why it works: direct access feels premium. Who it suits: coaches and consultants.
4. Waitlist or early access. First dibs on a product, cohort, or drop. Why it works: exclusivity and anticipation. Who it suits: creators launching something.
5. Free trial or sample lesson. A real slice of the paid product. Why it works: it lets the value speak for itself. Who it suits: course creators and membership owners.
6. Office hours. A recurring open slot to ask you anything. Why it works: consistency builds relationship. Who it suits: established educators.

Data and research

1. Original research or survey report. Data you collected, packaged as a report. Why it works: it is quotable and earns links and citations. Who it suits: creators with an audience to survey.
2. Industry benchmark. Where your reader stands versus the norm. Why it works: everyone wants to know if they are behind. Who it suits: B2B and professional educators.
3. Trends report. A forward look at your niche for the year. Why it works: it positions you as a thought leader. Who it suits: strategists and analysts.
4. Statistics roundup. The key numbers in your field in one place. Why it works: highly shareable and reference-worthy. Who it suits: any educator.

Curated and reference

1. Ultimate resource roundup. The best links, tools, and reads on a topic. Why it works: it saves the reader a research afternoon. Who it suits: curators and community leaders.
2. Swipe-and-deploy scripts. Ready-to-use email, DM, or sales scripts. Why it works: they are usable in minutes. Who it suits: sales and marketing coaches.
3. Prompt library. A set of tested AI prompts for a specific job. Why it works: timely and immediately useful. Who it suits: AI, marketing, and productivity creators.
4. Content calendar or plan. A month of done-for-you post ideas. Why it works: it removes decision fatigue. Who it suits: social and content educators.
5. Reading or watch list. Your curated best-of for going deeper. Why it works: low effort, high trust. Who it suits: any educator with taste worth borrowing.

Discounts and offers

1. Discount or coupon code. Money off a first purchase in exchange for an email. Why it works: direct incentive, high conversion. Who it suits: creators selling physical or digital products.
2. Free consultation or discovery call. A no-cost strategy session. Why it works: it moves a warm lead straight toward a sale. Who it suits: high-ticket coaches and consultants.
3. Free plus shipping offer. A physical item free except postage. Why it works: a low-friction first transaction. Who it suits: product creators.
4. Bundle sampler. A taster pack pulled from a paid bundle. Why it works: it previews the full offer. Who it suits: creators with a product suite.

Niche-specific examples

1. Lead magnet ideas for coaches: a readiness quiz, a first-session prep worksheet, or a 5-day mindset challenge. Why they work: they surface a coachable gap and start the relationship. Who they suit: life, business, and health coaches, including anyone building toward a life coach certification.
2. For fitness creators: a workout plan, a meal-prep template, or a form-check video. Why they work: quick, tangible results. Who they suit: trainers and nutrition coaches.
3. For consultants: an audit scorecard, a benchmark report, or a proposal template. Why they work: they demonstrate rigor. Who they suit: B2B service providers.
4. For creatives and designers: a Lightroom preset pack, a Canva template set, or a color-palette guide. Why they work: instantly usable assets. Who they suit: photographers, designers, artists.
5. For writers and marketers: a headline swipe file, an editorial calendar, or a self-edit checklist. Why they work: they shortcut a craft. Who they suit: copywriters and content creators.
6. For educators and course creators: a free sample lesson, a study plan, or a skills self-assessment. Why they work: they preview the teaching. Who they suit: anyone building a course.
7. For finance and business creators: a budget template, a pricing calculator, or a cash-flow checklist. Why they work: numbers-driven, high perceived value. Who they suit: finance educators and business coaches.

How to use a lead magnet to build your email list

Picking the idea is step one. Turning it into subscribers and, eventually, buyers, is where the funnel does the work. Here is the sequence:

1. Match the magnet to the sale. The best lead magnet is a free version of the first step of your paid offer, for example a digital download priced at $0. If you sell a course on launching a podcast, give away a launch checklist. The subscriber self-selects as someone who wants exactly what you sell next.
2. Put it behind a simple checkout. We let you price a digital download or a mini-course at $0, so it delivers automatically the moment someone completes checkout, no separate opt-in tool required.
3. Send a welcome sequence. The first three to five emails after signup should deliver on the magnet, tell your story, and set up the problem your paid product solves. This is where an email course lead magnet earns its keep.
4. Route to the paid offer. Once the subscriber has a first win from the magnet, invite them to the next step: a paid course, a coaching package, or a digital product you can sell directly. Not built one yet? Our guide on how to create an online course and our guide on pricing it right cover both.
5. Measure and iterate. Track opt-in rate (visitors who subscribe) and the conversion from subscriber to first sale. If opt-ins are low, the magnet is not specific enough. If sales are low, the magnet and the offer are not aligned. Ready to put one to work? Start a 7-day trial and build your first course before committing to a plan.

FAQs

What are some good lead magnet ideas?

The lead magnet ideas that tend to work best are a checklist, a template, a quiz, a mini-course, or an email course, because each solves one specific problem fast. Match the format to where your audience is stuck: a template removes a blank-page problem, a quiz gives a personalized result, and a mini-course previews a paid one. The 52 ideas above are grouped by format so you can pick the closest fit.

What makes a good lead magnet?

A good lead magnet is specific, fast to consume, genuinely useful on its own, and aimed at someone you can sell to later. A two-page checklist that gets used beats a 40-page ebook that gets abandoned. The value should be obvious the moment someone sees the offer.

What is an example of a lead magnet for coaches?

A strong lead magnet example for a coach is a short readiness quiz or a first-session prep worksheet. Both surface a gap the coach can help close and start the relationship on a concrete win.

How do I create a lead magnet?

To create a lead magnet, pick one specific problem your audience has, choose the fastest format that solves it (usually a checklist, template, or short guide), build it, then place it behind an email opt-in form so subscribers receive it automatically. Keep the first version small: you can expand it once you see which one converts.

Are lead magnets still effective?

Yes. An email list is an audience you own, unlike social followers, and a lead magnet is still the most reliable way to grow one. Fast, specific, interactive formats (checklists, quizzes, templates) are popular right now, but the mechanic of trading a useful free resource for an email is as effective as ever.

Key terms

Lead magnet: a free resource you give away in exchange for an email address, built to solve one specific problem fast enough that someone finishes it and trusts you for the next thing you sell.

Opt-in: the moment someone submits their email to receive a lead magnet or access a free offer, the action that turns an anonymous visitor into a subscriber on your list.

Lead magnet template: a fill-in-the-blank document, spreadsheet, or design a subscriber can copy and use immediately, one of the fastest formats to build because the value is obvious on sight.

Mini-course: a short, free 3-to-5-lesson course delivered by email or on a course platform, built to act as a free preview of a paid course so it pre-sells before the reader ever pays.

Email list: the subscribers you've collected through opt-ins, the one audience asset you fully own and control, unlike followers on a social platform.

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Stefan Kunz can fill a room. Before he recorded a single lesson, he was teaching hand lettering in person to sold-out workshops in New York, Los Angeles, London, and beyond.

Reaching the rest of his audience meant teaching online, and the first online setup he saw up close looked complicated. Stefan taught a guest course for a fellow lettering educator whose school ran on WordPress, Vimeo, and password protection, all wired together by hand. The arrangement delivered the course. Keeping it running took constant attention.

Stefan wanted the opposite of that. He went looking for one place to build, sell, and run his courses, even if a packaged platform meant giving up some custom control. A recommendation from his friend and podcast co-host Lauren Hom pointed him to Teachable, and he has stayed there ever since.

“It felt like a platform that would let me focus on creating and teaching rather than managing technology.” — Stefan Kunz, Founder of Stefan Kunz Studio

Related: How to make money selling courses right now

Stefan's Teachable story at a glance

The turning point

Stefan never set out to become a teacher. His path ran through filmmaking, then wedding photography, then hand lettering, each craft picked up on his own and turned into a living.

Lettering took off as a trend, and people kept asking him the same question about how he did it.

Answering that question in person became a business of its own. 

In 2019 he hired an assistant, cleaned out his studio, and ran his first lettering workshop off a big chalk wall in his own office, with pizza for about fourteen people. Demand kept showing up, so the rooms kept getting bigger.

By the time recording crossed his mind, he had taught hundreds of students face to face. He understood that whatever platform he picked would carry all of that online, which raised the stakes on choosing well.

How Stefan found Teachable

That first online teaching, the guest course for a fellow lettering educator, ran on a custom mix of WordPress, Vimeo, and password protection stitched together piece by piece. 

The setup delivered the lessons, and it also showed Stefan how much upkeep a hand-built system demands.

He wanted one place that handled the whole job, and he was willing to give up some custom control to get it. When Lauren Hom, his friend and Striving Artist podcast co-host, told him she was running her own courses on Teachable and loving it, the platform went straight to the top of his list.

A closer look confirmed the fit. The course builder, student management, comments, and online course tools all sat in one place, with a setup simple enough to learn in an afternoon. What stood out most was speed, since payments and delivery already worked together, so he could put his attention on the course instead of the connections between separate tools.

One detail settled it for him. Stefan could build his entire course before paying anything, which let him confirm everything worked before he committed. He created his first course, an online version of his lettering workshop, in a few days.

The feature he reaches for most today solves a problem that used to eat his evenings. Teaching a global audience, he once uploaded every video to separate services to make transcripts and subtitles by hand. Teachable now generates them for him, which feeds the kind of student experience that keeps international learners moving through a course.

“Being able to upload a video and have transcripts and translations generated automatically saves an incredible amount of time and helps me make my courses accessible to students around the world.” — Stefan Kunz, Founder of Stefan Kunz Studio

Stefan started with Teachable and has stayed. Switching platforms later, he points out, is no small task, which made getting the first choice right worth the care he gave it.

Payments and a global student base

When Stefan started, having payments built into the platform mattered. He could open enrollment without wiring up a separate processor, which kept his attention on the course itself.

His needs changed as the business grew, and the platform gave him room to adjust. Stefan now connects his own Stripe and PayPal accounts through Teachable while keeping the built-in option available for whenever he wants it.

“As my business expanded, I had more flexibility to customize parts of my setup, including connecting my own payment processors like Stripe and PayPal.” — Stefan Kunz, Founder of Stefan Kunz Studio

Those options matter more for someone teaching across borders. Stefan's students reach nearly every continent, and Teachable Payments, powered by Stripe, handles tax and local payment methods across dozens of countries. For a creator selling to that kind of audience, the platform manages each market so the creator does not have to.

What Stefan looks for in a platform

Stefan is the first to say there is no single right platform for everyone. Predicting how a business will grow is hard at the start, so he tells new creators to pick a tool that can grow with them.

“I would highly recommend choosing a platform that can grow with you.” — Stefan Kunz, Founder of Stefan Kunz Studio

The economics deserve early attention too. Giving up a small percentage feels minor in the beginning, and it adds up as the numbers get bigger.

“When you are just starting, giving up a small percentage may not seem significant. But as your business grows, every percentage point starts to matter.” — Stefan Kunz, Founder of Stefan Kunz Studio

The last thing he weighs is presentation. How a course looks and feels is part of a creator's brand, so Stefan wants a platform that lets him organize content, shape the student experience, and use tools like drip release to deliver a course the way he pictured it.

Take action

• Choose for where you are headed, not only where you are today. A platform that adds room as you grow saves you a painful move later.
• Read the fee and revenue-share terms before you commit. A percentage that feels small now grows with every sale you add.
• Treat the course experience as part of your brand. Pick tools that let you organize, customize, and pace the content the way you want students to see it.

Stefan's strategies for building a sold-out course business

Stefan has launched more than 25 courses since 2019, and along the way he built a way of working that any creator with an audience can follow. The core of it is simple. He proves that people want something before he spends weeks building it.

Strategy 1: Sell it before you build it

Stefan learned this the hard way. Early on he poured months into courses he felt sure would land, then watched some of them open to near silence.

“You should sell first and then build it later. If it sells really well, then you build it. If it does not sell, what is the point of building it?” — Stefan Kunz, Founder of Stefan Kunz Studio

His model came from outside the course world. A sportswear brand he follows released a limited shoe by inviting people to enter their payment details for a chance to buy a pair, which told the brand exactly how much demand existed before it produced anything.

Stefan runs his launches on the same logic. For his animation course, he set up a tool that sent a waitlist link to anyone who commented the word animate on his videos. Around 3,000 people signed up within a couple of weeks, and that list became his proof.

“I had to have around 3,000 people on the waitlist to get 250 students. That conversion is still really good.” — Stefan Kunz, Founder of Stefan Kunz Studio

Take action

• Build a waitlist before you build the course. A list of people asking for the thing is the clearest signal that making it is worth your time.
• Watch the ratio, not only the raw number. Stefan plans around roughly 3,000 sign-ups for 250 sales, and a higher price needs a longer list.

Strategy 2: Grow it in person before you take it online

Stefan began in the smallest way possible, with a chalk wall and a pizza order.

His first workshop ran in his own office, with room for about fourteen people, and he taught it across a weekend before running it again. From there he booked a thirty-seat space, then back-to-back weekends in New York and Los Angeles with 120 seats to fill, followed by London, the Philippines, and India.

By the time recording crossed his mind, he had taught more than 300 students in person. He knew the questions they asked, the parts that confused them, and the moments things clicked.

“Start small, understand how it works, build up, and you can grow it piece by piece.” — Stefan Kunz, Founder of Stefan Kunz Studio

Take action

• Test your material live before you film it. Each in-person round shows you what to cut, what to charge, and where students get stuck.
• Let real rooms refine the content. A version recorded after several live runs beats a first draft shot in isolation.

Strategy 3: Run the workshop, bootcamp, evergreen sequence

Stefan rarely changes his order of operations. He runs a live workshop first, turns it into a multi-week bootcamp next, and records the evergreen course last, once the material has proven itself several times.

The bootcamp stage is where Teachable's comment feature earns its place. In his weekly animation bootcamps, students post their homework and Stefan replies with video feedback, something a single-day workshop never had room for. The multi-week format makes space for that exchange, and the work students hand in gets noticeably better.

“Like a band performing the same show at different stadiums, I have refined it with every iteration.” — Stefan Kunz, Founder of Stefan Kunz Studio

By the time he records the evergreen version, real students have pressure-tested every lesson. The final course is the polished result of all those rounds.

Take action

• Treat your course as a live act before you treat it as a recording. Workshops and cohorts are rehearsals that make the evergreen version stronger.
• Use a comment or community feature to collect homework and reply with feedback. The back and forth turns a one-day lesson into real progress.

Strategy 4: Keep the launch simple enough to repeat

Stefan compares a good course to a football team with one play it runs perfectly. The other side knows exactly what is coming and still fails to stop it.

“They were so good at that one single play that nobody could beat them.” — Stefan Kunz, Founder of Stefan Kunz Studio

He has watched his own launches grow so elaborate that even his team lost track of the plan. The fix was always the same. He stripped the launch back until everyone understood it again.

Simple plans are the repeatable ones. A launch you can run cleanly the second and third time is worth more than a clever one you manage to pull off once.

Take action

• If your launch plan is too complicated for your team to follow, cut it back. The version you can repeat beats the version that works once.
• Write your launch sequence down in plain steps. Anything you struggle to explain quickly is a sign to simplify.

Strategy 5: Teach the method underneath

Plenty of creators teach students to copy one finished piece, step by step, which produces good imitations and little else. Stefan teaches the thinking underneath instead, the principles he uses to make any piece, and he gets students to a first win as fast as possible because an early result keeps them going.

He has a phrase for the balance.

“People want the quick win. So I try to hide the vegetables in the food.” — Stefan Kunz, Founder of Stefan Kunz Studio

The quick win is the food, and the principles are the vegetables. Students arrive for the result they saw on Instagram and leave able to make work of their own.

Take action

• Give students a fast, satisfying win, then teach the principles underneath it. They stay for the result and keep the method.
• Aim to make the first win quick. Stefan treats time to a student's first result as a number worth lowering with every version.

Expert corner: staying an artist while you teach

A common worry among creators is that teaching will pull them away from their craft. Stefan found the reverse to be true.

“You try to figure things out yourself, and then there comes the next level. Now you have to teach it to someone else, and that is when you learn whether you really understood it.” — Stefan Kunz, Founder of Stefan Kunz Studio

Explaining a technique forces him to understand why it works, which sharpens his own work. When he shares a method and watches other artists run with it, the pressure to find the next idea pushes him forward.

That loop is why he keeps taking client projects alongside teaching. His wife, a primary school teacher, pointed out that he learns the most when he solves real problems for paying clients. One recent brand project asked for a painterly texture effect he had never made before. He spent hours working it out, and now it is one more thing he can teach.

His path has run from lettering to Procreate to animation, and each new area started as a client challenge or a personal experiment. The teaching always follows the making.

What Stefan's reach says

Stefan prefers to let his reach tell the story rather than share revenue figures.

His brand animations have passed 400 million views, and his audience across social platforms sits above 2.1 million people. More than 8,000 students have come through his courses and workshops, with over 1,000 in his animation bootcamp alone. He has worked with brands including Coca-Cola, Apple, and Adobe, and he has taught students on nearly every continent.

For an artist who started by adding words to his Instagram photos, the pattern holds steady. He keeps making the work, and the teaching grows out of it.

Stefan is one of many creators using Teachable to reach students far beyond their home country. Elisa Azoum grew French Mornings to more than 2,850 language students across dozens of countries on the same platform, and Amie Tollefsrud built an eight-figure course business on it. The pattern repeats: real expertise, a clear program, and a platform that travels with the student.

Looking ahead

Stefan's focus right now is client work, which has kept him busier this year than ever. He treats every project as research.

The lessons stack up quietly. How to use AI as a real tool in animation rather than a shortcut, how to build a studio camera setup, how to edit a video that travels well. Each one is a future course waiting for the right moment.

When the season turns and he has room to teach again, the material will be ready. The order will stay the same as always. Prove the demand, run it live, then record it.

The wider market is moving in his direction. Goldman Sachs Research projects the creator economy could reach $480 billion by 2027, roughly double its 2023 size. Creators who prove demand before they build, the way Stefan does, are the ones ready to claim a share of it.

What to do next

See Stefan's work: Follow his animation on Instagram and YouTube, explore his Teachable school, or browse his full portfolio at stefankunz.com. You can also hear him on the Striving Artist podcast.

Read more creator stories: See how Youness School chose Teachable to train more than 2,000 engineering-prep students, and browse the full Success Stories collection.

Learn the sell-first approach: Stefan proves demand before he builds. For more on that, read how to make money selling courses right now.

Try Teachable yourself: Teachable gave Stefan one place to build, sell, and run his courses, with Teachable Payments handling tax and local methods for a global audience. Start your free Teachable trial and build the course your audience keeps asking you for.

Before Youness Es-Sebiy built Youness School into a course business that has trained more than 2,000 students, he did what most serious creators do first: he tried the other options. 

He taught on several platforms and compared what each one actually delivered for his school. 

The answer he reached was Teachable, and he is direct about the reasons.

"I have tested other platforms in the past, including Thinkific and Podia. While they are good platforms, I ultimately chose Teachable because of two factors that were very important for my business and my students … The first is security … The second is the mobile learning experience." — Youness Es-Sebiy, Founder of Youness School

That decision came from someone who knows the stakes from the inside. In Morocco, the road to a top engineering school runs through CPGE, the Classes Préparatoires aux Grandes Écoles: two intensive years after high school studying advanced math, physics, chemistry, and engineering sciences, then one national exam that decides which schools will take a student. Youness went through all of it. He reached the other side and graduated from École Hassania des Travaux Publics, one of the leading engineering schools in the country.

Then he started teaching the students coming up behind him. He launched Youness School in 2019 while he was still an engineering student himself, recording lessons for the exact exams he had just survived. By 2023 the school was his full-time work.

Today it has directly supported more than 2,000 students preparing for Morocco's national exam (the CNC) and the French Grandes Écoles exams, with more than 20,000 others reached through free lessons and his YouTube channels across Morocco, France, Tunisia, and Mauritania.

The two reasons he named for choosing Teachable, security and the mobile experience, run through every part of how that school works.

Youness's Teachable story at a glance

The turning point

Youness built Youness School around a problem he had felt directly. CPGE students carry an enormous load across many subjects, and a lot of them hit a wall in one or two of those subjects with little structured help to get past it. He wanted to give them that help in a format that fit how they actually live and study.

" I went through the same preparatory classes, and they were very difficult. My goal is to help students who are facing the same problems, to help them grow and reach the best engineering schools." — Youness Es-Sebiy, Founder of Youness School

He made one early decision that shaped everything after it. Youness School would be online only. He had looked at in-person tutoring and found it too limited for what he wanted to build.

"We chose e-learning because we find the platforms very efficient. Physical classes are limited, and for our students online learning is the best solution." — Youness Es-Sebiy, Founder of Youness School

That decision raised the stakes on the platform itself. If an entire school lives online, the platform has to protect the content, reach students on whatever device they own, and keep working when the connection drops. Those three requirements are what pointed Youness toward Teachable over the other tools he had tried.

Youness's strategies for running an online engineering-prep school

Youness runs the school with the same clarity he asks of his students. Five choices shape how Youness School finds, teaches, and keeps its students.

Strategy 1: Diagnose before you sell

Most enrollments at Youness School begin with a conversation, usually on WhatsApp, where his sales team finds out where a student is actually struggling before recommending anything.

"In the beginning, we try to understand the needs of the student. If a student has problems across many topics, we offer a bundle with the whole platform. If they only have difficulty in one subject, we give them one or two courses." — Youness Es-Sebiy, Founder of Youness School

The result is a recommendation matched to what the student actually needs. A student weak in one subject buys a single course. Someone starting the full two-year climb buys a bundle, which Teachable lets him package as one grouped program.

Take action

• Map your catalog to specific problems before you set pricing. When a buyer can see the one course that solves their exact issue, the decision gets easier for both of you.
• Use a short intake conversation or form to route students to the right product. Bundles let you group related courses into a single program for learners who need the full path.

Strategy 2: Blend recorded courses with live teaching and coaching

Youness School runs on three formats at once: recorded lessons students watch on their own time, live sessions with collaborating professors, and one-on-one coaching.

"We use both approaches. We have recorded classes on the platform with Teachable, and we have live courses with professors who teach in these preparatory classes. There is also coaching to answer questions and correct their work." — Youness Es-Sebiy, Founder of Youness School

The recorded library carries the core curriculum and reaches every enrolled student. Live sessions and coaching cover the moments where students need a person in the room with them: stuck on a problem set, preparing for a mock exam, or talking through method. Together they create the kind of student experience that keeps learners moving through the material.

Take action

• Treat recorded and live formats as partners. Recorded content delivers your teaching to every student who enrolls, and live sessions add the accountability and feedback that keep them on track.
• Decide which parts of your subject truly need real-time interaction, and reserve live time for those. Let the recorded library handle everything a student can absorb on their own.

Strategy 3: Protect the content so it stays worth paying for

For a school that sells exam-prep video, the content is the product. Youness named content protection as one of the two factors that decided his platform choice.

"As an online school, protecting our educational content is a top priority. I found Teachable's video hosting and content protection to be particularly strong, which gave me more confidence using the platform for premium courses." — Youness Es-Sebiy, Founder of Youness School

Secure video hosting keeps his lessons from leaking out, which matters when the same exam prep sells to a fresh cohort every year. Content that walks out the door loses the value he priced it on.

Take action

• If your courses are your main income, weigh content security when you choose a platform, not after you have already built on it.
• Price premium material with the assumption that it will keep selling for years. Protection is what keeps that assumption true.

Strategy 4: Make the school work on a phone, and offline

This is the choice most specific to where Youness teaches. His students are spread across Morocco and the wider Francophone world, and the connection they study on is uneven. The Teachable mobile app, and offline downloads in particular, became central to how the school reaches them.

"The mobile app lets students access their courses easily on their phones and tablets. The ability to download videos for offline viewing has been extremely valuable, especially for students who do not always have a stable internet connection." — Youness Es-Sebiy, Founder of Youness School

The context behind that quote is real. In 2025, about 36 percent of people in Africa used the internet, the lowest rate of any world region, according to the International Telecommunication Union. For a student living inside that gap, a course that only streams is a course that stalls every time the signal drops. An offline download turns a commute, a power cut, or a weak connection into study time.

Take action

• If any part of your audience studies on mobile or deals with patchy internet, test the offline experience yourself before you commit. Download a lesson, switch off your data, and watch what your student would see.
• Shoot and format your video for a phone screen. Most of these students learn on a device they hold in one hand.

Strategy 5: Keep the door open on price and access

Youness prices across a wide range, from single courses around $60 to full programs above $1,000, so a student pays only for what they need. He also gives free access to families facing financial hardship, and he has used free trial periods to let students try the school before paying.

"We give some courses for free to families facing financial difficulties. We want talented students to have access regardless of their financial situation." — Youness Es-Sebiy, Founder of Youness School

More than 5,000 students have come through Youness School's free-access and trial campaigns, which widened his reach and let prospective students experience the platform before buying. Payment access shapes the model too. In Morocco, many students and parents pay by bank or cash transfer, and a card is rarely the default, so a real conversation often comes before a sale.

Take action

• Build a price ladder. A range from one course to a full program lets students sort themselves by need and budget.
• Give people a low-cost way to try before they buy. A free lesson or trial period does the convincing a sales page cannot.

How Youness thinks about access

Youness built the school around one belief, and he states it plainly.

"We believe talented students should have access to elite-level education regardless of their city, country, or financial situation." — Youness Es-Sebiy, Founder of Youness School

That belief is why offline access matters so much to him, and why the price range stays wide. The students he most wants to reach are often the ones with the least reliable connection and the tightest budgets. Building for them first is what makes the school useful to everyone else.

What his students take away

The measure that matters to Youness is straightforward: whether his students get into the schools they are aiming for. Since 2019 he has worked directly with more than 2,000 of them, with another 20,000-plus reached through free lessons, webinars, and his YouTube channels. They sit the same national exam he once sat, and the strongest performers go on to the top engineering schools in Morocco and France.

"My advice would be to focus on the student experience and content protection. If security, accessibility, and mobile learning matter to you, I would recommend Teachable. Students can learn from any device and access content wherever they are, and that makes a real difference." — Youness Es-Sebiy, Founder of Youness School

Youness is one of a growing number of creators using Teachable to teach students far beyond their home country. Elisa Azoum grew French Mornings to more than 2,850 language students across dozens of countries on the same platform. The pattern is consistent: subject expertise, a clear program, and a platform that travels with the student.

Looking ahead

Youness has a wider plan for the school. CPGE is a small field by design, with roughly ten thousand students entering each year in Morocco. He wants to take the same model to high school students, a group he puts at around half a million in Morocco alone, and eventually to learners in other countries.

"I have a global strategy to develop Youness School and help more people. In Morocco there are about half a million high school students, and we want to give them similar platforms and solutions." — Youness Es-Sebiy, Founder of Youness School

The plan he describes brings together education, technology, and the careful use of AI, built for students who would otherwise sit outside the reach of this kind of coaching.

Youness's students pay differently than a US or European creator's audience does. Cards aren't the default in Morocco. Many families pay by bank transfer. And selling across Morocco, France, Tunisia, and Mauritania means four different markets, currencies, and different sets of tax rules.

But the best part is that, in the near future, Youness won't ave to manage payments manually.

That's exactly what Teachable Payments is built for. Local payment methods appear automatically at checkout based on where the student is. Tax is calculated, collected, and remitted across 45+ countries without the creator filing anything. Prices display in the student's local currency without manual configuration.

For a school built around the belief that talented students should have access regardless of where they live, the checkout experience should reflect that too, and now it does.

What to do next

Explore Youness School: Visit younesschool.com to see the courses and programs, and youness.online for more on Youness's work. Follow Youness Es-Sebiy on LinkedIn and YouTube, and follow the Youness School YouTube channel and company page on LinkedIn.

Try Teachable today: Youness built a school that protects its content, reaches students on any device, and keeps teaching when the internet drops. Teachable handles the video hosting, the mobile app, and the payments so creators can spend their time with students. With Teachable Payments, that now includes local payment methods for an international student base like his.

‍Start your free Teachable today.

Amie Tollefsrud calls herself a lazy person. She has generated over $11 million on Teachable saying so.

"I am a self-proclaimed, very lazy person." – Amie Tollefsrud, Founder of Rebelle Nutrition and Lazy Millionaire

Most creators treat that word as the enemy. Amie treats it as the whole strategy.

She runs an eight-figure course business from her bed or a beach club lounger, and she got there by doing less of the wrong work, not more of it. The lazy move, in her hands, keeps turning out to be the smart one.

Amie's Teachable story at a glance

The turning point: From nanny gigs to a scalable business

Before the eight figures, Amie worked a nannying job and felt certain it was not going to be her life. She trained as a nutritionist, started seeing clients one-on-one, and hit the ceiling every service provider eventually hits. 

There are only so many hours in a day, and trading them for money never scales.

So she did the lazy thing, which also happened to be the smart thing. Amie took the advice she repeated to clients over and over and built it into an online course that could reach all of them at once.

"That's when I created my first online nutrition course to try and reach and help more people all at once. A little less effort from there." – Amie Tollefsrud, Founder of Rebelle Nutrition and Lazy Millionaire

She built that first course from a tiny hut in Maui, carrying five figures of debt and using an outdoor toilet. Amie had no business degree, no investors, and by her own account no tech skills. The slick tools creators reach for today did not exist for her, so she sold it without them. Then she ran her first launch.

"One of my first course launches ever, I think I had made like $5,000 in the span of an hour. And I just remember, like, jumping up and down. [It] was the most money I'd ever made at once in my entire life." – Amie Tollefsrud, Founder of Rebelle Nutrition and Lazy Millionaire

The nutrition courses worked, and as they kept working, her audience started asking her about something other than nutrition.

"All anybody ever wanted to ask me was, like, how I ran [and] how I built [my] business online, because it allowed me to travel the world and really do all the things that I dreamed about growing up." – Amie Tollefsrud, Founder of Rebelle Nutrition and Lazy Millionaire

That repeated question was its own market research. Her audience told her what they wanted before she ever built it, the exact validation signal she now teaches her students to watch for.

So she followed it. The nutritionist became the course-creation expert.

That pivot grew into Rebelle Nutrition's eight-figure education business: Online Course Academy, Passive Income Academy, and the program that ties them together, the Lazy Millionaire Method, which has helped more than 4,000 students across niches build profitable courses of their own. 

Amie has been on Teachable since close to the platform's earliest days, running the same play on repeat for the better part of a decade: take lived experience, turn it into a course, sell the shift it creates, and let it run.

The throughline from that first nutrition course to the business today comes down to a handful of principles Amie applies every single time. Here are the ones doing the heaviest lifting.

Amie's strategies for building an 8-figure course business

Strategy 1: Sell the shift your student is buying

The biggest mistake Amie sees in first-time creators is selling the wrong thing. They list their modules, their PDFs, their hours of video, then wonder why nobody buys.

"When somebody buys a course, they're not just buying the number of lessons or modules or PDFs. They're buying a shift, a shift in how they feel, how they think, what they can do, or what their life is going to look like after the course is finished." – Amie Tollefsrud, Founder of Rebelle Nutrition and Lazy Millionaire

Amie points to her own dentist as the perfect salesperson.

Curious about Invisalign, she expected a pitch about process and timeline. Instead he showed her a photo of her teeth that day, next to a mockup of her teeth a year later. He simply sold her the result she actually wanted.

"Immediately, I was like, 'Take my money. I want that.'" – Amie Tollefsrud, Founder of Rebelle Nutrition and Lazy Millionaire

Amie has her students build what she calls a before-and-after blueprint. They write the student's exact frustration today in the student's own words, then the specific, tangible result waiting on the other side.

The result has to be concrete, never a fuzzy phrase like "feel empowered." It should be something a person could physically point to, like "I don't even need to wear foundation anymore because my skin is so clear," or "I got my 5K down by five minutes." The course becomes the bridge between those two points.

Take action

• Write the shift in one sentence: "This course takes you from ______ to ______." Say it aloud to someone outside your industry. Hesitation on their end means it needs sharpening.
• Replace every fuzzy outcome like "clarity" or "confidence" with something the buyer could point to in real life.

Strategy 2: Get specific enough to stop the scroll

Selling a shift only works when it gets specific enough that the right person cannot scroll past it.

"Vague doesn't sell. Specific sells. Specific is what makes people stop scrolling. Specific is what makes people pull out their wallets and buy." – Amie Tollefsrud, Founder of Rebelle Nutrition and Lazy Millionaire

Her litmus test sits in the gap between "Learn how to eat clean" and "A step-by-step guide to clear your hormonal acne in 30 days."

Identical expertise sits underneath both titles. The second one aims at one specific person with a real promise, and that version is the one that sells. Broad offers leave buyers quietly wondering whether the thing is really for them, and uncertainty kills the sale.

"When somebody is not sure, they do not buy. But when your offer is specific, it builds instant trust. It shows people that you know exactly what they're going through and exactly how to help them." – Amie Tollefsrud, Founder of Rebelle Nutrition and Lazy Millionaire

Amie pushes for a timeframe wherever it stays honest, such as "in 30 days" or "in 90 days," because a clear timeline makes the result feel achievable. She also insists on the buyer's actual language over insider jargon.

Take action

• Rewrite your title to name a clear outcome, and add a realistic timeframe when you can stand behind it.
• Read your title for jargon. Any word your ideal student would never say out loud in conversation has to go.

Strategy 3: Validate before you build a single lesson

Amie is blunt about why so many capable creators, even ones with big audiences, launch into silence. They guessed.

"You wouldn't want to open a French bakery without knowing if anyone in town likes croissants, right? So same thing here. Let's make sure you're baking what people are actually hungry for." – Amie Tollefsrud, Founder of Rebelle Nutrition and Lazy Millionaire

Her method skips surveys and spreadsheets.

Amie has creators hold three to five real conversations with people who feel like ideal students, through DMs, email, or a quick call. 

The questions stay simple: their biggest frustration with the topic, what they have already tried and why it fell short, and whether a step-by-step course to the result would actually help. Then she listens for the line between polite interest and real urgency.

"We're not looking for perfection, we're just looking for proof. Proof that your idea has legs, and proof that people are already searching for this solution." – Amie Tollefsrud, Founder of Rebelle Nutrition and Lazy Millionaire

She also reframes the whole exercise so it never feels like begging for approval.

"Validation is not about asking for permission. You are the expert. You have the vision. This is just about making sure that your offer meets people where they are before you invest the time turning it into something amazing." – Amie Tollefsrud, Founder of Rebelle Nutrition and Lazy Millionaire

Take action

• Before building anything, run three to five conversations with ideal students and capture their exact words. Those words become your sales page copy.
• Track urgency over politeness. "That sounds interesting" carries far less signal than "when can I buy this."

Strategy 4: Launch imperfect, then get 1% better forever

For all the strategy, Amie credits one unglamorous habit above the rest. She ships before it is ready.

"That's also, I think, exactly why I have been successful, because I take action and I launch things actually before they're perfect." – Amie Tollefsrud, Founder of Rebelle Nutrition and Lazy Millionaire

Her first launch, by her own description, was scrappy and far from what she wanted. It still made $5,000 in an hour.

The creators who never break through are usually the ones tweaking and refining until the moment to launch quietly slips past.

"Launch quickly and fast and let it be imperfect. And also just always go back and iterate, like, there's always something you can make better, and then you can get, like, 1% better every time. And it really, over time, does make a difference." – Amie Tollefsrud, Founder of Rebelle Nutrition and Lazy Millionaire

That iteration habit also keeps students coming back. Asked what most reliably turns a one-time buyer into a repeat customer, Amie answered without hesitating.

"The results that they get the first time around. So if they feel like you went above and beyond the thing that they thought they were going to get, they're definitely going to come back in for a second time." – Amie Tollefsrud, Founder of Rebelle Nutrition and Lazy Millionaire

Take action

• Set a launch date before the course feels finished, and treat version one as a starting point instead of a final product.
• Build your first module to deliver a real, fast win. Early results earn you the student's next purchase.

Strategy 5: Build a passive funnel, then get more from every buyer

Amie's revenue does not come from chasing new customers all day. It runs on a system that works without her and pulls more value from every person who already decided to buy.

The top of her funnel is her audience on Instagram, TikTok, and now Substack. From there she offers something free and valuable, a fully automated hour-long masterclass, and sells her program at the end of that training.

Automated email sequences of five to seven messages follow up over the next week with anyone who did not buy right away, paired with a real reason to act now.

The lazy genius shows up in what she layers on top: order bumps and post-purchase upsells.

"Think about, like, when you're at the grocery store and there's all the candy right before you checkout, the people are buying things anyway. So at the last minute, it's a really good time to upsell them on similar items that they might also want." – Amie Tollefsrud, Founder of Rebelle Nutrition and Lazy Millionaire

Someone who just decided to spend money will spend a little more, so one buyer becomes worth far more without any extra traffic.

"It's just a really easy and lazy way, honestly, to generate more revenue with the same amount of effort. You [don't] have to be continuously, like, chasing down [a new] client. You can just make more off of the one-time purchase." – Amie Tollefsrud, Founder of Rebelle Nutrition and Lazy Millionaire

Take action

• Replace one-off launches with an evergreen funnel: free value such as a masterclass leading to your paid offer, backed by an automated email sequence.
• Add an order bump or post-purchase upsell at checkout. The buyer already said yes, which makes it the easiest revenue you will add all year.

Why Amie bets on being human in the age of AI

The obvious objection to any course in 2026 sounds simple. Plenty of people ask why they would pay for a course when AI hands over information free.

Amie does not dodge that objection. She agrees that good free information exists everywhere, then explains why it falls short of the real thing.

"[AI] can give you a lot of valuable information, but [it hasn't] actually done the thing in real life and achieved the results that you're looking for. Like a human can." – Amie Tollefsrud, Founder of Rebelle Nutrition and Lazy Millionaire

Her edge comes from having lived the outcome she teaches, start to finish.

"I actually have achieved the results that I'm teaching in real life. I'm somebody who literally started from zero. I didn't have any money to invest. I didn't even have tech skills... I went through years of, like, struggle and figuring it out and trying things that didn't work and failing. And that was years of experience in real life." – Amie Tollefsrud, Founder of Rebelle Nutrition and Lazy Millionaire

She sees the same change defining the whole industry. The creators who win next will skip the losing game of competing with a chatbot on facts.

"The next wave of successful course creators will be the ones who are thinking really innovatively about what they can offer and sell that is... offering people more than what they can just go to [AI] and find an answer to." – Amie Tollefsrud, Founder of Rebelle Nutrition and Lazy Millionaire

In practice, that means pairing the digital course with something only a person can give: community, group support, an occasional live touchpoint, whatever fits the creator's energy and style.

This reframe helps any creator worried that AI made their knowledge worthless. Amie's bet runs the other direction. The more information becomes free and instant, the more valuable a real guide who has walked the path becomes.

"People don't want a robot or a guru or a PhD professor. They want a real person who's relatable and a few steps ahead of them." – Amie Tollefsrud, Founder of Rebelle Nutrition and Lazy Millionaire

Looking ahead

These days, Amie is most excited about Substack, which she started in the past year.

It has become both a fresh revenue stream and a surprisingly strong top of funnel. Readers who find her there often go on to buy her courses, sometimes converting better than social media. Her approach to it stays pure Amie: every post gets treated like a tiny product.

"I look at every article I write almost like a 12-minute course." – Amie Tollefsrud, Founder of Rebelle Nutrition and Lazy Millionaire

For someone who has done eight figures, she stays remarkably clear that the path was never about being special.

"To be honest, I always imagined that this would be my life... I just had no clue, like, how [I was] actually going to do that." – Amie Tollefsrud, Founder of Rebelle Nutrition and Lazy Millionaire

The advice she would give the version of herself still working that nannying job is the same advice underneath everything she teaches today.

"Keep going. Let the things that you are excited about drive you. If you feel this excited about something, you're probably onto something. Keep going. Keep doing it, because it's just going to lead you to [the life] that you've always dreamed of." – Amie Tollefsrud, Founder of Rebelle Nutrition and Lazy Millionaire

What to do next

Get Amie's free playbook: Grab The Profitable Course Playbook on Teachable, where Amie walks through how to find the right course idea, validate it, and build something people actually pay for.

Watch the full interview: See Amie tell her complete story on YouTube.

Explore more from Amie: YouTube | Instagram | Teachable School | Website 

Explore more creator stories: Read how other educators are winning on Teachable in our Success Stories collection.

Try Teachable yourself: Amie turned a scrappy first launch into an eight-figure business by selling the shift her students want, validating before building, and refusing to wait for perfect. Start your free Teachable trial and build the course your audience already keeps asking you for.

TL;DR: Most platform comparisons focus on discussion features. The real differentiators are fee stacks, tax compliance, and course delivery depth. Skool offers strong gamification and Circle has polished discussion layouts, but both leave international tax filing to the creator across most markets. Our Teachable Payments handles automated tax remittance across 45+ countries, and our Builder plan ($69/month on annual billing) bundles course delivery tools and 0% platform fees in a single subscription. If you sell structured courses to an international audience, the fee math and tax exposure matter more than leaderboard badges.

A thriving discussion board is only as valuable as the business infrastructure sitting underneath it. Creators who pick a community platform based on engagement features alone often discover, after their first international sale, that they owe VAT or sales tax to authorities in various countries, and their platform left that entirely to them. This guide compares the top online community platforms on the metrics that actually determine take-home pay and operational risk: fee stacks, tax compliance, course delivery depth, and mobile delivery.

Must-have tools for building a paid community

Running a paid community is running a business. Before evaluating discussion layouts and gamification, confirm a platform covers three operational requirements:

1. Built-in checkout that handles recurring and one-time payments without a third-party gateway
2. Structured content delivery that keeps members progressing through your material
3. Moderation tools that let you manage student access without writing code

Creators who skip this audit typically discover the gaps during a live launch, when a broken checkout or missing payment tool costs them revenue that cannot be recovered. The launch strategy resources on our blog cover how to pressure-test your full workflow before a live window opens.

How to boost active community participation

Engagement inside a paid community does not happen by itself. The platforms that drive the highest daily active participation combine three mechanics: structured prompts that give members a reason to post, member directories so participants can find peers with shared goals, and gamification layers such as points, leaderboards, and badges that reward consistent contribution.

The trade-off is that gamification without structured content creates engagement that peaks and then plateaus. For creators building course-based student engagement, the combination of discussion spaces and drip-released lesson content produces more sustained retention than either tool alone.

How to collect payments from students

You need built-in checkout support for one-time purchases and recurring memberships, multi-currency acceptance, and subscription management tools that allow students to pause or cancel without manual intervention on your end.

A short enrollment window to a warm email list is a high-stakes event, and downtime or a broken upsell during that window is not recoverable. Reviewing a platform's incident history and uptime documentation before committing is a useful due diligence step.

Managing your course content delivery

A community without a learning path is a chat room. Creators who combine structured courses with discussion spaces see meaningfully higher completion rates because students have clear milestones to work toward and a community to discuss them in. The features that separate deep course delivery from basic video hosting include drip content scheduling, progress tracking at the individual student level, compliance settings like minimum watch-time enforcement, and quizzes with graded assessments.

These features also affect how students perceive the value of what they bought. For creators building toward credentialed programs, delivery depth matters as much as the content itself.

Platform pricing and net margin impact

Headline subscription prices are the sticker price. The receipt has more lines. Every platform stacks a subscription fee, a platform transaction fee on every sale, and a payment processing fee charged by the underlying card processor. International transactions can add a currency conversion fee on top.

Think of the platform transaction fee like rent versus buying: percentage-based fees on lower-tier plans compound as revenue grows. The revenue and pricing strategy resources on our site cover how to model this across different product structures.

Best community software for paid creator growth

The six platforms below represent the realistic shortlist for creators building monetized communities in 2026. Each has a distinct strength, and each has structural limitations that matter at different revenue levels.

Evaluating Skool for paid communities

Skool positions itself around community-first design: the member feed is the product, and gamification, including points, leaderboards, and level-ups for participation, drives daily logins. Skool's Pro plan runs $99/month on monthly billing ($82/month effective on annual billing) and charges 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction up to $900, rising to 3.9% + $0.30 above that.

On tax compliance, Skool collects and remits VAT for EU buyers as a qualifying marketplace under VAT regulations. That coverage does not extend to the 45+ countries that Teachable Payments covers, so creators with students in Australia, Canada, India, or across the US may remain personally responsible for those tax obligations.

On course delivery, Skool reportedly lacks quizzes and completion certificates. Skool reportedly includes a drip feature that unlocks content after a set number of days from when a member joins. If your paid community sells certification-based programs or needs graded assessments, Skool may require a separate platform to handle that delivery, which adds cost and integration fragility.

Circle platform pricing and fees

Circle offers polished discussion spaces with custom branding, organized spaces, and solid moderation tools. Circle's Professional plan runs $89/month on annual billing with a 2% transaction fee, and Business runs $199/month annual with a 1% fee, both stacking on top of standard Stripe and PayPal processing fees.

Circle's course builder reportedly includes basic quiz functionality with minimum passing grades and drip content scheduling across structured and time-based release options. It also reportedly supports basic lesson-order enforcement. What Circle reportedly lacks are graded open-ended assessments, rubric-based scoring, and completion certificates at the level we provide. Circle does not automate international tax remittance, so creators handling international sales are personally responsible for calculating and remitting VAT, GST, and applicable sales taxes. Our Teachable Payments automates that across 45+ countries, and our Builder plan includes the certificate issuance and compliance settings that Circle reportedly cannot match at its mid-tier pricing.

Fully branded iOS and Android mobile apps on Circle require Circle Plus, which carries custom pricing. We include native apps on all plans.

Mighty Networks for paid communities

Mighty Networks combines community, courses, and live events under one roof. According to third-party sources, its plan structure reportedly includes Launch ($79/month), Scale ($179/month), and Mighty Pro (custom pricing) tiers. Platform transaction fees reportedly run 2% on Launch, 1% on Scale, and 0.5% on Mighty Pro.

Mighty Networks supports drip content scheduling and course modules, but does not issue native completion certificates, requiring a third-party tool connected via Zapier to generate them. Like Circle, Mighty Networks reportedly does not automate international tax remittance, leaving VAT and GST obligations as a manual responsibility that Teachable Payments removes. Custom-branded iOS and Android apps require Mighty Pro, putting them out of range for most independent creators, while we include native apps on all plans without an enterprise subscription.

Why Discord and Slack fail for paid communities

Discord costs nothing to start, which makes it an attractive early option. The operational reality for paid communities is less convenient. Discord offers native Server Subscriptions where members pay a monthly fee directly for exclusive channels and perks, with Discord taking a 10% cut of subscription revenue. What Discord reportedly cannot do is gate content by lesson completion, track learner progress, deliver drip-scheduled course content, or automate international tax remittance. Paywalled course delivery still requires third-party tools, and each additional integration is a failure point during a live launch.

Slack's free plan limits message history to 90 days of searchable content, which becomes a real problem for a paid community designed as a searchable knowledge base. Paid Slack plans run $7.25 to $15 per user per month on annual billing, and those per-seat costs scale against you as your community grows. Neither Discord nor Slack reportedly includes built-in course delivery, checkout capability, or automated tax compliance. Both require external subscription management software and leave you personally responsible for international VAT and GST remittance that Teachable Payments automates across 45+ countries.

Teachable for course-heavy creators

Our course delivery infrastructure covers graded assessments, native completion certificates, drip content scheduling, and watch-time enforcement. No other platform in this comparison provides all four natively. Teachable Payments automatically calculates and remits VAT and GST across 45+ countries, removing the creator from the tax filing loop entirely, at a geographic breadth no other platform here matches. The Builder plan ($69/month on annual billing) carries a 0% platform transaction fee, native iOS and Android apps, affiliate tools, and email integrations. BackOffice, an optional add-on carrying its own 2% to 2.8% fee, automates affiliate payouts and tax forms so you don't have to handle disbursement manually.

"Easy to create courses and sell. The platform is so good, and mainly, the designs of the landing page are stunning... I also loved the community they built." - Raghu V. on G2

Direct platform comparison for paid communities

The table below covers the full cost stack across each platform for a creator on an entry-level paid plan, including subscription, platform transaction fees, and payment processing ranges.

Teachable processing: 2.9% + $0.30 for US cards, 3.9% + $0.30 for international cards. Non-USD transactions incur an additional 0.95% Stripe currency conversion fee where currency conversion is required.

Real take-home pay after all fees

The Starter plan's 7.5% platform transaction fee costs more than upgrading to Builder once monthly revenue passes $533 on annual billing, or approximately $667 on monthly billing. Creators should model their expected monthly revenue against both plan options to determine which tier offers better economics at their revenue level.

At higher revenue levels, the math becomes more stark. Percentage-based platform fees on lower-tier plans can compound significantly, while plans with zero platform fees eliminate that variable cost entirely. Non-USD creators should also model currency conversion fees against expected international transaction volume before comparing net take-home across platforms. For a deeper breakdown of how these fees interact with different product structures, the revenue and pricing section of our blog covers the modeling frameworks.

Key platform differences for creators

The three structural differences that determine long-term operational risk are:

1. Tax compliance: Our Teachable Payments covers 45+ countries for automated VAT and GST remittance. Skool reportedly remits EU VAT as a qualifying marketplace but does not cover the broader country set. Circle and Mighty Networks reportedly leave tax remittance to the creator entirely.
2. Native mobile apps: We include iOS and Android apps on all plans at no additional cost. Circle's branded apps reportedly require Circle Plus at custom pricing. Mighty Networks' custom apps reportedly require Mighty Pro at custom pricing. Skool reportedly includes mobile apps on its plans.
3. Student data export: We let creators export student data and purchase history, which matters when a platform restructures its pricing.

How platforms handle course delivery

The table shows that drip content scheduling is available across most platforms, but the features that separate us are quizzes with graded assessments, native completion certificates, and watch-time enforcement. For creators building certification-based programs, these features are not optional additions. They are the product.

Choosing a dedicated community tool for your members

Your primary interaction mode determines which platform makes the most sense operationally. If your members primarily engage through live events and real-time video sessions, dedicated event integration is a gap on Teachable, but creators who choose a community-only platform for that feature remain personally responsible for VAT and GST filing across the EU, UK, Australia, and Canada, where none of those platforms automate remittance.

If your members primarily work through asynchronous video content and self-paced lessons, our course delivery infrastructure gives you deeper student management, graded assessments, native certificates, and Teachable Payments handling tax remittance automatically across 45+ countries. If long-form threaded discussion is the main mode, community-only platforms offer more layout customization for that format, though adding structured courses or certificates later means either working around a platform that lacks them natively or migrating your community to one that does, which is disruptive to members and administratively expensive.

Building on a platform that handles structured course delivery from day one reduces migration risk, provided community discussion depth is not the primary product you are selling.

Best platforms for discussion groups

Community-only platforms offer threaded, channel-based discussions with search and moderation tools, along with more layout customization or event integration than a course-first platform typically provides.

These platforms require creators to manage international tax compliance manually, which becomes a material risk as international sales grow. Our Teachable Payments removes that administrative burden across 45+ countries, and creators whose members expect a community-first experience should weigh that tax and course-delivery advantage directly against the discussion depth and layout customization that Circle and Mighty Networks offer.

Discussion-first creators who choose Circle or Mighty Networks also inherit the course-delivery gap: no native completion certificates, no graded assessments, and no compliance settings, which becomes a structural problem the moment a student asks for a credential or a program needs watch-time enforcement.

Running profitable low-ticket memberships

Low-ticket memberships at $10 to $20/month are highly sensitive to transaction fees. Processing fees and platform transaction fees can represent a significant percentage of revenue per member. When a platform adds a percentage-based transaction fee on top of processing, those margin losses compound fast. Our Builder plan eliminates the platform transaction fee entirely at $69/month annual, so the only per-sale cost is payment processing.

Boost launch revenue with community

A free or low-ticket community tier works as a lead magnet for higher-ticket structured courses. Creators who offer free community access to warm their audience before a course launch consistently see higher conversion rates from engaged community members than from cold email lists. Our audience-building resources detail how to structure this funnel across different audience sizes.

When your membership needs full course delivery

Three clear triggers indicate that a community-only platform is no longer the right fit:

1. International tax exposure: You have students in the EU, UK, Australia, or Canada and your platform does not remit VAT or GST automatically
2. Certificate demand: Students are asking for credentials your platform cannot issue natively
3. Tool fragmentation: Students access courses on one platform and community on another, and you're managing two support queues

Sending a paying community member to a separate URL to access the course they paid for is friction. Friction reduces completion rates and drives refund requests. Our case studies show how creators structure combined product tiers without splitting the student experience across tools.

Managing community and course access

When course content and community discussions live on separate platforms, students deal with two login systems, two notification streams, and two places to look for help. Each additional tool is a potential failure point, and the creator absorbs the support load when they break. Disconnected tools also make it impossible to tie community access to course completion milestones, which is one of the most effective retention mechanics available to course creators.

Tools for scheduled cohort learning

Our drip content lets you release lessons on a schedule that syncs with community discussion topics. For example, a creator running a six-week cohort can unlock lesson three on Monday and progress students to lesson four the following week, all without manual intervention. For cohort-based teaching design, this sync between content release and discussion timing is the structural mechanic that drives higher completion rates.

Scaling revenue via product tiers

The most durable revenue architecture for creators combines three tiers: a free or low-ticket community entry point, a structured paid course as the core product, and a high-ticket coaching or mastermind tier for students who want direct access. We support all three through free enrollments, paid course checkouts, and native coaching features. Each tier feeds the next, and Builder's 0% platform fees protect margins across all three revenue streams.

If you're modeling platform costs before committing to a plan, run the full fee stack, subscription, transaction fee, and processing, against your expected monthly revenue. Compare plans and fees on our pricing page, or start a 7-day free trial and build your first course before paying anything.

FAQs

What should you look for when evaluating platforms for paid groups?

Prioritize payment processing, tax compliance, and course delivery depth before evaluating discussion features. We automate VAT and GST remittance across 45+ countries and include quizzes, certificates, and compliance settings, while Circle and Mighty Networks reportedly leave international tax filing to the creator and lack native completion certificates.

Does managing courses and community in one hub improve student outcomes?

Yes, students who access courses and discussions through a single login complete more lessons and submit fewer support tickets than students navigating between disconnected tools. Single-hub management also allows milestone-based community unlocks, where completing a course module automatically opens a new discussion channel.

How do you calculate your true platform take-home on each plan?

Start with your monthly revenue, subtract the platform transaction fee (percentage varies by plan and platform), then subtract payment processing fees (typically 2.9-3.9% + $0.30 depending on card origin, plus potentially a 0.95% Stripe currency conversion fee for non-USD transactions), and finally subtract the monthly subscription. The economics shift depending on your revenue level and the specific fee structures of each plan tier.

How quickly can you go from signup to first sale on Teachable?

KYC verification is required before payouts are enabled, and processing time varies, so connecting your payout account early in your setup is worth doing before your launch window opens. Most creators build their first course in the no-code editor within a few sessions. The 7-day free trial gives you enough time to build a full course, connect your payout account, and test checkout before committing to a paid plan.

Does Skool handle VAT and sales tax?

Skool remits VAT for EU buyers, acting as a qualifying marketplace under EU VAT regulations, per Skool's own VAT documentation. Skool does not automate tax remittance across the broader set of countries covered by Teachable Payments, so creators with significant sales outside the EU remain personally responsible for calculating and filing those tax obligations.

What is the transaction fee on Teachable's Builder plan?

Our Builder plan charges a 0% platform transaction fee. Standard credit card processing fees apply to US and international card transactions, with a separate Stripe currency conversion fee on non-USD transactions where currency conversion is required.

Key terms glossary

Teachable Payments: The native payment gateway that automatically calculates, collects, and remits sales tax, VAT, and GST across 45+ countries, removing the creator from the tax filing loop entirely.

Platform fee: The percentage-based transaction fee charged by a platform on each sale, sitting on top of standard credit card processing fees and separate from the monthly subscription cost.

Merchant of Record: A legal entity authorized to process payments and assume liability for financial transactions, including tax compliance and remittance to the relevant tax authority on behalf of the seller.

Drip content: A content delivery method where course lessons unlock on a schedule or after specific conditions are met, rather than all at once on enrollment.

Break-even point: The monthly revenue level at which the transaction fees on a lower-cost plan equal the subscription cost difference of the next plan up, making the upgrade economically rational.

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TL;DR: You don't legally need a life coach certification: life coaching is unregulated, so it's optional, not required. Certification can add credibility with corporate or higher-paying clients, plus structured training and a professional network, and accredited programs (look for ICF or NBHWC) range from about $1,400 to $20,000, with some unaccredited courses under $500. Real-world experience, starting with a few clients, and referrals are legitimate alternatives if you'd rather skip a program. Whichever path you choose, you can build and sell your own coaching program on Teachable.

If you've thought about becoming a life coach, you may have also thought about whether you need a life coach certification. The short answer is no, you don't need one. There's no official life coaching certification process. However, the long answer is it depends on your coaching services, clients, and goals.

Life coaching is a fast-growing industry, with the US market estimated at $2.6 billion in 2025 (IBISWorld). Globally, the coaching industry generated $5.34 billion in revenue over the past year, according to the ICF's 2025 Global Coaching Study. It could be a profitable business for you, but what do you need to get started?

There are hundreds of life coaching programs to choose from, which can also make it hard to decide. In this article, we'll dive into life coach certification programs and alternatives to help you make a decision.

What qualifications do you need to be a life coach?

To be a life coach, you only need knowledge and experience in your coaching niche. An accredited life coaching certification can distinguish you from other providers. For example, let's say you work with a large company and offer your coaching services to their employees. The company may ask for a certification as an extra layer of credibility.

Life coaching isn't a regulated profession. It doesn't have a universal standard or certification process. It's up to each coach to decide whether to pursue formal life coaching certification.

However, you can use the qualifications below to help you land more (and higher-paying) coaching clients.

• A relevant degree
• Certification
• Real-world work experience

Most life coaches hold a degree, according to ICF's 2023 Global Coaching Study: 30% have a Bachelor's degree and 65% hold a more advanced degree. They don't usually go to college specifically to pursue life coaching. Rather, backgrounds like psychology and business can naturally transition to a life coaching career.

Certification may provide resources, training programs, and networking opportunities. You can supplement certifications with real-world experience, too. For instance, a former personal trainer or professional athlete would have the right experience to become a fitness coach.

Ultimately, life coaches should be ethical, honest, and knowledgeable of the subject they're coaching. Whether you gain those qualities through a life coach certification program or somewhere else, isn't as important.

Is life coaching certification worth it?

Becoming a certified life coach won't hurt, but is it worth it? The answer depends on your background, needs, and goals.

For some, life coaching certification is a valuable way to gain the tools and knowledge for a professional coaching career. It can also help you connect with potential clients, demonstrate your expertise and credibility, and expand your network.

On the other hand, you can be a successful life coach without it. Ultimately, you must decide what's best for you. Consider the potential benefits and other factors to determine whether life coaching certification is worth it for you.

Opting out of life coaching certification today doesn't mean you can't do it later on after you have your first coaching clients. You can jump into your coaching career and revisit it in a year or two. There's no right or wrong way to start down the path of coaching.

Types of life coach certification

If you pursue certification, look for programs that are accredited. The International Coaching Federation (ICF) and the National Board for Health and Wellness Coaching (NBHWC) accredit coaching programs. ICF focuses on life coaching more broadly, while NBHWC accredits health and wellness coaching programs.

ICF offers three coaching credentials (ACC, PCC, MCC), each requiring an exam, specific education hours, and logged coaching experience. Here's the breakdown for each level:

• Associate Certified Coach (ACC): Over 60 education hours and 100 hours of coaching experience. You'll also need to do ten hours of mentor coaching.
• Professional Certified Coach (PCC): Over 125 hours of education and 500 hours of experience.
• Master Certified Coach (MCC): Over 200 hours of education and 2,500 hours of experience.

Many legitimate coaching programs use the ICF credentialing structure for their certificate programs. However, they may call their levels different names from those above. Carefully review the details of a program to verify it's worth your time and money.

Five life coaching certification programs

Your coaching niche will also influence the certification you choose. For instance, if you specialize in nutrition, business, or executive coaching, you might look for a certification for that area versus a broader life coaching program.

When you're ready to choose a life coaching program, you may find the number of available courses overwhelming. First, it's helpful to narrow down your niche. Here are different types of life coaches:

• Nutrition coach
• Executive coach
• Life coach
• Fitness coach
• Career coach
• Relationship coach
• Family coach
• Finance coach
• Spiritual coach
• Mental health coach
• Leadership coach

Once you have a niche, you can research programs that suit your goals, skillset, and budget.

1. Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching

If you want a thorough life coaching program and don't mind a higher price point, the Institute for Professional Excellence (iPEC) is a good choice. This program focuses on developing leadership qualities and core competencies, including:

• Communication
• Problem-solving
• Creative thinking
• Active listening
• Decision-making

The program also includes training on how to create coaching business plans and develop successful teams. The cost includes ongoing support, membership in an online community of other coaches, and monthly seminars from experts.

The base program includes two life coaching certifications, with a third available as a paid add-on. As a result, the iPEC program is one of the most comprehensive, and also more expensive, options on the market. Therefore, it's ideal for full-time, experienced coaches.

If you've been coaching for a few years and want to boost your credibility for higher-paying clients, it could be worth the investment.

• Cost: $9,995 for the Coach Training Program (CPC and ELI-MP), plus $1,995 for the COR.E Dynamics specialty
• Duration: 320 training hours, 200 of which are ICF accredited.
• Type of certification: Certified Professional Coach (CPC), Energy Leadership™ Index Master Practitioner (ELI-MP), and COR.E Dynamics™ Specialist, in one of four niches
• ICF certified: Yes
• Best for: Experienced coaches

2. Institute for Life Coach Training

The Institute for Life Coach Training (ILCT) has several programs and paths for different credentials and coaching specialties. It offers programs for the following coaching specialties.

• Career development coaching
• Executive and business coaching
• Relationship coaching
• Wellness coaching

At the end of the program, students receive a life coaching certificate and take the ICF exam. Pricing varies depending on the course you choose. ILCT is a good option for those who want to start small and take more courses from the same school later.

• Cost: $4,305 for the ACC path up to $7,800 for the Professional Certified Coach program
• Duration: 60 to 130 hours depending on the path
• Type of certification: ACC or PCC equivalent
• ICF certified: Yes

3. Life Coach School

Life Coach School's Coach Certification Program is a self-paced, budget-friendly option for those who want to build coaching skills without committing to a long, expensive program. Participants will learn to help others set meaningful goals, create actionable plans to achieve those goals, and develop coaching skills.

The program includes foundational modules, deep-dive coursework, and a certification exam, with 12 months of access to complete it on your own schedule.

Upon completion of the program, participants receive a certification from the Life Coach School.

• Cost: $3,000 (or four payments of $797)
• Duration: Self-paced, complete within one year of enrollment
• Type of certification: Proprietary
• ICF certified: No

4. Health Coach Institute

The Health Coach Institute's courses cover nutrition, lifestyle coaching, business development, and more. It's best for those who want to become a health and wellness coach.

Courses from the Health Coach Institute are entirely online. Still, there are opportunities to connect with others in the program. The Institute gives students access to an online library and a private Facebook group.

Trustpilot users rate the company 4.0 out of 5 stars, based on over 1,100 reviews.

One unique aspect of the certification program is addressing your self-limiting beliefs. Learning to do this personally will help you teach your own pupils to do the same.

Professional health coaches teach all Health Coach Institute courses. Parts of the program offer 1:1 instruction, so you can ask experts questions directly.

• Cost: $6,750 ($6,250 if paid in full)
• Duration: Five months
• Type of certification: Dual Health and Life Coach Certificate
• ICF certified: No (ICF-approved school; the program carries 40 ICF continuing education credits)

5. The CaPP Institute

The CaPP Institute offers several programs, but the best choice for new coaches is its Coach Training Intensive program. Unlike other coaching certifications, this is a three-day, online workshop that teaches you how to change lives as a coach.

The program focuses on psychology and coaching theory. The end of the course focuses on business development. It includes a workshop where you'll create a coaching business plan.

The Coach Training Intensive program is best for coaching beginners who want to start right away. It's also a solid option for coaches who have been out of the market for a while and want a quick refresher course.

• Cost: From $1,495 (early bird) or $1,695 standard
• Duration: Three days
• Type of certification: Certified Personal and Executive Coach
• ICF certified: No (the three-day workshop grants a Certificate of Completion with 16 ICF-approved hours; full certification requires the follow-on CPEC program)

The five programs above compared side by side:

How much does a life coach certification cost?

The cost of life coach certification programs depends on the program. Generally, accredited programs range from about $1,400 to $20,000. Some unaccredited online courses may offer life coaching programs for less than $500. However, intensive courses and those accredited by the ICF cost more.

While these prices may seem high, they could be worth the investment compared to how much life coaches make. According to ICF's 2023 Global Coaching Study, the average annual revenue for coaches in North America is $67,800, though this figure will vary based on your niche, experience level, and overhead expenses. The same study puts the average cost per coaching session at $244 globally.

Once you are ready to coach, you can keep your own overhead low by running your program online: with us, you sell coaching without a physical location.

How to choose a life coach certification program

Given all the variables at play, choosing a life coach certification program can be challenging. Answering the questions below will help you decide which coaching program is right for you.

• Is the program accredited by a reputable organization like the ICF?
• What do reviews and testimonials reveal?
• Does the life coaching program's curriculum meet your goals and objectives? Does the program align with your coaching specialty?
• Does the program include educational components such as reading, lectures, seminars, and field experiences?
• What kind of experience and qualifications do the instructors have? Based on this, will the program suit you?
• Does the program provide additional resources (i.e., networking, ongoing support, or in-person meet-ups)?
• What is the cost and time commitment? How much are you willing to invest in a life coaching program? Will it fit within your budget and lifestyle?
• What type of certification will you receive?
• What kind of follow-up or support will you get after?

Life coaching certification alternatives

If you don't think life coaching certification is right for you, don't fret. Getting certified doesn't guarantee a profitable coaching business. It's optional. People care more about results than credentials.

Here are some alternatives for life coaching certification:

Draw on real-world experience

If you've worked as a personal trainer, nutritionist, therapist, or in another role related to the coaching vertical you've selected, put that to use. Talk about your experience when interviewing new clients and include information about your past in your marketing materials. Relevant work history may get you farther than a certification.

Start coaching to build skills

You can always learn by doing, and anyone can start coaching. In the beginning, you can take on two or three clients to build experience. As you gain new skills and confidence over time, you'll be able to take on more clients or charge higher rates. If you want a structured product to sell from day one, you can create an online course or coaching program and price it around your niche.

Get referrals

Most coaches get new clients through referrals. Request Google or social media reviews from your satisfied customers and ask them to pass your name along to anyone they know in the market for services like yours. Those testimonials will do more for your credibility than any certificate would.

Ultimately, whether to pursue life coach certification is a personal decision that you should base on your circumstances and goals. Weigh the pros and cons carefully to decide what's best for you.

If you enroll in a life coach certification program, be sure it's accredited. You should also run the numbers on the course cost and outline a plan for when you'll break even in your coaching journey.

If you decide that certification isn't right for you, draw on your experiences and seek referrals to help you build your business. You can start your coaching journey today without a life coaching certification. Start a 7-day trial and build your first coaching product before committing to a plan.

Frequently asked questions about life coach certification

Do you need a certification to be a life coach?

No. Life coaching is not a regulated profession in the United States, so no certification is legally required to practice. Certification is optional and mainly helps with credibility, training, and access to higher-paying or corporate clients.

Is a life coach certification worth it?

It depends on your goals. Certification is worth it if you want structured training, a professional network, and added credibility with clients who ask for it. It is not essential if you already have relevant experience and can win clients through results and referrals.

How long does it take to become a certified life coach?

It ranges from a few days to over a year. Short intensive workshops run about three days, while ICF-accredited programs require 60 to 200-plus education hours and 100 to 2,500 hours of coaching experience depending on the credential level (ACC, PCC, or MCC).

What is the best life coach certification?

There is no single best certification. Look for programs accredited by the ICF or, for health and wellness coaching, the NBHWC, then match the program to your niche, budget, and schedule. This guide compares five accredited options across price points.

How much do life coaches make?

The average annual revenue for coaches in North America is $67,800, according to ICF's 2023 Global Coaching Study, though it varies widely by niche, experience, and how many clients you take on. The same study puts the average cost per coaching session at $244 globally.

Key terms

Life coach certification: a voluntary credential from a training program that signals a coach has completed structured education and, often, supervised coaching hours, it is not a legal requirement to practice.

ICF (International Coaching Federation): the leading accrediting body for life coaching, with three credential levels (ACC, PCC, MCC) based on training hours and logged coaching experience.

NBHWC (National Board for Health and Wellness Coaching): the accrediting body for health and wellness coaching certifications, distinct from ICF's broader life-coaching focus.

Accredited program: a certification course that has met an external body's, like the ICF or NBHWC, standards for curriculum, training hours, and assessment.

Coaching niche: the specific area a coach specializes in, such as executive, relationship, or health coaching, which shapes which certification and marketing approach fits best.

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TL;DR: Creating an online course starts with a profitable idea and a clear transformation for students, not a platform choice. From there: price for value rather than volume, build a curriculum lesson by lesson, and choose a creator-first hosting platform that keeps you in control of pricing, content, and student data. You do not need expensive gear, voiceover slides and a basic microphone are enough to start. Grow an email list before you launch, then launch with a planned email sequence. This guide covers all nine steps, idea to launch, plus FAQs on cost, timeline, and platform choice.

If you've been wondering how to create an online course, we'll walk you through the entire process in nine steps, from picking a profitable idea to launching.

With the rise of online course creators, more people are interested in how to start teaching online for a living. Is it profitable to sell online courses? Our answer would be yes. More than 150,000 creators use Teachable. Across Teachable and Hotmart combined, creators have earned more than $10 billion to date.

That said, when it comes to how to sell a video course, PDFs, templates, quizzes, live coaching, or other teaching resources, there are best practices to keep in mind. Across thousands of course launches on Teachable, we've found a standard pattern that has been proven successful time and time again.

Everything you need to know about how to create, build, and make your online course, then start making money is here.

1. Select your most profitable idea for creating an online course

For some, coming up with a course idea is the hardest part of the process. We all want a slice of that multi-billion dollar pie, but how do you know your online course idea is profitable?

We created a profitable course idea workbook to help you unleash your money-making course idea. Download our guide if you're ready to:

• Diversify your income and become a thought leader in your space
• Elevate your online knowledge business
• Pinpoint the most profitable and creative idea

Believe it or not, everyone has an online course in them. We all have unique hobbies, passions, and skills that can translate into an online course. We have profitable teachers with courses ranging from cake decorating to watercolor painting.

When it comes to finding your profitable course idea, it can be broken down into three main questions:

• What do you know? Write down the topics that you're passionate about, and consider the skills and experience that you possess.
• How will my course provide value? Validate your course idea with your target audience.
• What niche is right? Look at what exists already and niche down your topic.

If you know a topic well, you can create a profitable online course around it.

For example, perhaps you're passionate about horticulture. While everyone may not be invested in aquaponics, some are dying to learn more about aquaponics. You need to find them.

2. Find your audience and define your outcome

Finding your audience is easy. Your audience may hang out in the same online spaces that you do. Whether you frequent horticulture subreddits or are active in Facebook groups, go there and ask about their struggles.

The power of transformation

Think about the transformation your course provides for your target audience. What outcome will students have after taking your course? As a course creator, you need to make that outcome apparent in your pitch to potential students.

Do your students want to learn all about aquaponic gardens? Maybe not. But if you can teach them how to set one up in their own home on a budget, that will get people excited!

Communicate your value clearly

To ensure that your customers value your course, present it clearly. You can tell them that you'll teach them programming, and that's fine and dandy. However, you'll show them real value if you tell them instead that you'll teach them programming so they can get a job that pays more and has more flexibility.

It's great to advertise what your customers are going to learn. It's even better if you can market your course and tell them what they will get from learning the skills you'll teach them.

3. Set your income goals and price your course

Many creators have brought in attractive, sizable incomes through online courses. Setting clear income goals is important, but your goals should be more specific than "make money."

Whether you're hoping to make $1,000 or $10,000, keep that number in your mind while you're pricing your course. You can systematically work backward to make sure you hit your revenue goal.

To make $10,000 from creating an online course you could either sell it for $10 to 1,000 students or for $100 to 100 students.

To make more money with an online course, the answer is simple: charge more.

If you price too low, students might not be as motivated to follow through. People oftentimes associate "cheap" with "low-quality" and will be less inclined to buy based on that perceived value.

There are many benefits to using premium pricing. Here are a few proven ones to consider:

• It's easier to hit your income goals. You'll make more with fewer students.
• Your students will get better results.
• Your students will be more fun (and easier) to work with.

There are many considerations when it comes to pricing, so we have an in-depth post on other pricing strategies here.

Charging more for your courses is one of the easiest and most important tactics you should take. However, there are other ways that you can make more money. We've built in course features like upsells, course bundles, and more to help creators increase course revenue.

4. Build your curriculum and course content

You've got your idea and you've figured out pricing. Now you get to start creating your course.

When people set out to make an online course, this is often where they get stuck. They know what they want to teach, but implementing it is another story entirely.

The best way to plan your course is to write down every step that students would need to do in chronological order to get their desired outcome. Each step becomes a lesson in your course.

Keep in mind that the purpose of your course is to bring your students to a transformation, so plan your course accordingly. Each lesson should lead to that final outcome.

Building the curriculum

Once you've outlined your lesson topics, you're one step closer to building a complete curriculum. You'll probably spend the most time here, and it makes sense. Your course is your product.

Developing a full course curriculum can feel overwhelming, so complete it in small steps. For example, set aside at least 30 minutes a few days a week to develop a 10-minute lesson. When it's broken up into smaller tasks, it feels easier to accomplish.

Also, remember that the curriculum you use after your first-course cohort can change and evolve. There will be opportunities to improve your content, so gather feedback from your students. Much of the feedback you receive will be things you wouldn't have thought about or noticed without having real student experiences to pull from. It is completely acceptable to launch your course and adjust it later, so don't let the fear of imperfection hold you back.

It is easier to sell an online course when you have an organized curriculum with learning objectives, milestones, lessons, and estimated hours to complete. You should include these specifics on the sales page so that potential students know what to expect and understand what is expected of them in terms of time, costs, and benefits.

If you still aren't sure where to begin, you can follow our step-by-step guide on how to create a curriculum.

5. Choose your online course hosting platform

Of course, your course will need a home. Before you can launch, you'll need to decide where you will host your content. At a minimum, the platform that you choose should house your course materials in various formats: video, PDF, and so on. It should also serve as a sales page, also called a landing page.

This will help potential students learn more about you and your course. It's also where they will hit buy and make a purchase.

There are typically three options for hosting:

Online course platform

An online course platform is designed for creators. For instance, with Teachable, you'll have everything you need to create and sell online courses, on your terms. You can start a 7-day free trial and start uploading your videos, PDFs, and other course materials right away.

There is also the option to host your site on Teachable. Alternatively, if you already have a website, we can easily integrate with it.

A creator-first platform lets you keep control of your content, pricing, and student data, which is the key point marketplaces lack. (More on the specifics below.)

Self-hosting

With self-hosting, you set up everything yourself. You'll need to set up and pay for a server to host your site. Then, you have to build the site, set up payment processing, design landing pages, and everything in between.

Self-hosting gives you the freedom to build your site how you like, but doing that also takes a significant amount of time and technical knowledge.

Marketplace

In terms of hosting, learning marketplaces like Udemy and Skillshare act similarly to YouTube. They host everything on their site, and you upload the videos. The appeal for some is that these sites have users and traffic, although, that doesn't mean that those users will watch your video course.

We commonly see creators move away from marketplaces because the platforms take a significant portion of a creator's revenue. After putting hours of time into a course, you could end up keeping only a fraction of what a student pays, since a marketplace platform can take as much as 63% of a standard sale.

How to choose an online course platform

When you're figuring out how to create an online course, consider which features are not negotiable for you. Here is what many creators prioritize:

• An intuitive platform. We let you create a beautiful academy that conveys trustworthiness and authority through clean design. You can go from signup to a live, purchasable course without external tools.
• Ownership of the course domain name. Do you want students to come directly to your website to look more professional?
• Mobile responsive. Many students take their courses on a phone or tablet rather than a computer, so this matters more than it might seem.
• Control over the school. This is probably the most critical point. Marketplace platforms like Udemy run their own promotional discount programs, which can drop your course's effective price well below what you set it at, and can keep as much as 63% of a standard sale. They also deny you control over student data and email lists. We give you complete control over pricing and let you collect student email addresses that you can take with you even if you stop teaching.
• Payments. Being able to accept payments from day one is essential. It only takes a few minutes to set up payments when you use Teachable. Plus, we can help manage taxes, affiliate payouts, and more.

All of the above is available on Teachable. If you are itching to make a course, you can get started right now with a 7-day free trial.

6. Gather your tools to make an online course video

People often ask: What equipment do I need to create an online course?

Voiceover slides

With Teachable, you can get started without fancy camera or microphone equipment. We let you upload text, PowerPoints, keynote presentations, videos, and audio interviews, so you can work with whatever medium you are most comfortable with.

To create slides, you can use templates from one of the below free services, and customize them with your own personal branding:

• Google Slides
• Canva
• Figma

Most often we see instructors using a combination of both text and video. If you are voicing over slides, we recommend using a free tool like Loom or trying out Screenflow for Mac. Both allow you to voiceover slides, and you can edit the video afterward.

You can also easily set up a low-cost home video studio in the beginning. As your online course business grows, you can always invest in equipment but it isn't needed to get started. Video content can seem intimidating, but with a bit of practice, you'll start feeling like a natural.

Video equipment

If you want to invest in audio, video, or other recording equipment, we have some recommendations.

Microphones

• ATR2100x-USB – At around $79, Audio Technica's ATR 2100 is a budget-friendly microphone that will connect directly to Mac and Windows via USB. Many creators use it for podcasting, streaming, and course voiceovers. If you want to explore other low-cost options, we also put together this list of the best affordable microphones for creators.
• Rode NT-1 or SM7B – If you want to splurge a little on your audio setup, consider these two microphones. Both are commonly used in professional studios. Many popular podcasters use the SM7B ($399), so you've likely seen it in action. The Rode price ranges from $199 to $229, so it's still relatively affordable.

Cameras

• Logitech HD Pro Webcam C920: Beginners may want to start with a simple webcam. They are easy to set up and are low-cost. Logitech's webcam is under $60, and you can clip it to your computer.
• Canon EOS M50 Mirrorless Vlogging Camera: Many YouTubers and content creators use the Canon EOS M50. At around $680, it's a good starter camera.
• Nikon Z30: A little more expensive than the Canon, Nikon Z30 is about $850 on its own. Although, for an additional $150, you get the creator kit, which includes accessories like a tripod, remote control, and mini-microphone.
• Panasonic LUMIX GH6: The Panasonic LUMIX GH6 is a high-end camera that many professional YouTubers use. It takes crisp, clear videos and photos indoors and outside, but it is not beginner or budget-friendly. The camera body costs about $2,200. Lenses and other accessories come at an extra cost. If your course business focuses on creative production and the investment makes sense, it could be worth it.

Lighting

You can start off using natural lighting for your videos. All you need to do is set up near a window with the light facing you. However, natural lighting can be fickle. If you are filming during rainy days or early morning and evening hours, there may not be much daylight to work with.

It is a good idea to have backup lighting equipment, and there are a lot of affordable options. With a home studio, you'll generally want to go with two lighting choices.

• Ring light: You've likely seen many makeup YouTubers use ring lights. They cast light on your entire face, and you can find them for as low as $30. However, some larger lights can be a few hundred.
• Umbrella lighting: You can get a low-cost studio light kit like this LimoStudio, 700W set for under $70.

Backdrop or green screen

If you have a space in your home or office to set up a background that reflects your brand and business, then you may not need a backdrop. However, if you don't have a dedicated space or just want a simple background, you can do that with the help of a backdrop. If you plan to change your background through editing, grab a green screen. You can find a backdrop separately for as low as $35, or get an all-in-one studio kit that includes it along with lights.

Editing software

Once you record your videos, you may want to add or overlay them with images or text. You also may make mistakes during recording. Instead of completely redoing your course, you may be able to simply clean up and cut sections. To do that, you'll need video editing software. The most popular choices are:

• Premiere Pro
• Final Cut Pro
• iMovie

When it comes to how to sell a video course, you may want to invest a little more into the production quality of your content. These tools can help give your courses a professional polish, but again, they aren't required to get started.

7. Grow your audience and email list

You may have heard that you should build an email list for your business, but how do you do that exactly?

The fastest way to grow your email list is to give something away for free.

This free product will be your lead magnet, and it's intended to draw in a targeted and interested audience.

This lead magnet will prove to your audience that you produce quality content and that you're a trusted resource.

Here's what you can give away:

• Ebooks
• Podcasts
• Templates
• Or, our favorite, a mini course

Your lead magnet should be directly related to your online course content, so you attract your target audience. If you teach TikTok marketing, create a lead magnet for TikTok, not Facebook or another platform.

The mini course

With a mini email course, you can look at your full, ten-section course. Then, take the first section and repurpose it into a lead magnet. The people interested in your lead magnet will also be interested in your premium offering on the same topic.

Viral giveaways

Viral giveaways are another popular way to grow your email list. With software like KingSumo, you can give away a high-value prize pack. Make sure it's specific to your course and grow your list like crazy. Viral giveaways are effective because entrants can share a link to your giveaway to get more entries, thus advertising your giveaway with zero effort on your part.

Ebooks

If you have a ton of blog posts on your course topic, compile them into an ebook to giveaway to your course audience. If you already have the content it will be nearly effortless to compile and convert to a PDF. From there you can set up landing pages and lead magnets on relevant posts and begin collecting emails.

Conversions

It's usually safe to say that 2% of your email list will convert into paying customers. Going back to step two, we can figure out how large your list should be before you launch. If you need 100 students to reach your $10,000 goal, then you should aim to have a list of 5,000 before you launch.

8. Build a course sales page

Setting up your sales page is key to start making money online and creating your online course.

There are six assets that we recommend including to make your sales page as high-converting as possible:

• A headline: Tell us what your transformation is.
• Subhead: Go a bit more in-depth.
• A promo video: Optional, but recommended. A quick two-minute video can help add a face to your brand.
• An explanation of the course: Here is where you can go further in-depth and explain what your course is, what your students will gain from it, and why your course is the best course.
• Testimonials: If you have previous customers or fans of your brand who are willing to vouch for you, that can go a long way in creating social proof.
• Pricing: People need to know what they'll be investing in to take your course. With Teachable Payments, we make setting up pricing easy.

Interested in more information on creating beautiful sales pages?

• Build a beautiful online course homepage

9. Launch your course

After all your hard work, it's time to launch your online course. And, while it's fun to experiment with different marketing techniques, we've found that when it comes to launching, a tried-and-true method always performs better. This is why we've created a plug-and-play email launch sequence for you.

It's easy to implement, effective, and has been used by Teachable creators to drive their own launches.

The idea is simple: After building your email list and nurturing it with some free content (like blog posts, videos, etc.), you launch your course through a series of strategic emails. These emails work to build anticipation for your launch and the urgency to buy now.

Here's what the sequence looks like per day:

• Tease out your course
• Answer "What is the course"
• Tell your audience the course is open
• Answer FAQs
• Offer a surprise bonus for those that buy now
• Say thank you and show social proof
• Make a logical argument to buy now and say your course is closing
• Send three emails saying today is the last day

To make it even easier, we created a full step-by-step guide and email sequence template for launching a course.

Anyone can learn how to create an online course. However, you can increase your chances of success by following this step-by-step guide. Join more than 150,000 creators who use Teachable to turn an idea into an online course. Start a 7-day trial and build your first course before committing to a plan.

FAQs

How much does it cost to create an online course?

You can create an online course using a creator platform's free trial plus tools you likely already own, like a laptop and a phone camera. Beyond that, the main costs are optional: a budget USB microphone (around $80), basic lighting (from $30), and a paid platform plan once the trial ends. Most first courses are made for under $200.

How long does it take to create an online course?

Most creators take four to eight weeks to build their first online course, working part-time. The curriculum takes the longest. A good rule of thumb is to set aside 30 minutes a few days a week to produce a single 10-minute lesson, then launch once you have enough lessons to deliver the outcome you promised. You can improve the course after launch based on student feedback.

How do I create an online course for free?

Sign up for a platform's free trial, outline your course as a chronological set of lessons, and record them as voiceover slides using free tools like Google Slides, Canva, or Loom. You do not need paid gear or software to publish a first course. Start with the free trial, then reinvest in equipment once the course earns.

How do you structure an online course?

Structure an online course by writing down every step a student needs to take, in order, to reach their desired outcome, then turning each step into a lesson. Group related lessons into modules or sections, and give each one a clear learning objective. Include milestones and an estimated time to complete so students know what to expect.

What is the best platform to create an online course?

The best platform is one built for creators, so you keep control of your pricing, content, and student email list rather than handing them to a marketplace. Look for an intuitive builder, native mobile apps, built-in payments, and your own course domain. See how we handle all of this.

Key terms

Online course platform: Software that lets you build, host, and sell digital course content, along with handling payments and student access, without writing code or managing separate tools.

Curriculum: The ordered sequence of lessons that takes a student from where they start to the transformation your course promises, usually broken into modules with clear learning objectives.

Lead magnet: A free resource, such as an ebook, mini course, or template, that you give away to attract and qualify an audience before pitching a paid course.

Sales page: The dedicated page where you present your course's transformation, pricing, and social proof to convert a visitor into a paying student.

Cohort-based course: A course where a group of students moves through the material together on a set schedule, as opposed to a self-paced course students complete on their own timeline.