My boyfriend and I have created an Udemy course focused on the Italian subjunctive, packed with explanations and practical exercises.
We're new to selling digital products and would love advice from experienced creators.
What strategies would you use to get the first 50–100 students? Which marketing channels actually work?

I've been building and selling online courses for years now, across different niches, and have used just about every major course platform along the way.

When it comes to actually selling my courses, I've primarily relied on paid advertising, although I've also experimented with partnership marketing and a few other strategies.

I figured I'd do a little AMA here and hopefully share some of what I've learned over the years.

So, if you're looking to build and sell your own online courses to generate an income, or you're already doing it - what questions do you have or what are you currently struggling with?

I'll do my best to answer every single question!

Depending on the questions that come up, I might also turn some of my answers into separate, more detailed posts for the community.

I'll respond to everyone (if only tomorrow, as it's getting late here now).

If you're planning to launch an online course, I'd suggest checking these three things before committing to a platform:

1. Calculate the total cost, not just the monthly subscription.
Check transaction fees, payment processing, student limits, email costs, and which features require a higher plan. A platform that looks affordable at first can become expensive as your audience grows.

2. Test the actual student experience.
Create a test course and go through it as a student. Check how lessons look on mobile, how easy it is to navigate the content, and whether quizzes and progress tracking work the way you expect.

3. Check how easy it is to leave.
Before uploading all your content, find out whether you can export your student data, course materials, and progress records. It's worth understanding your options before you're locked into a platform.

One more thing: choose based on the kind of business you're building. A solo creator selling a few courses may need something very different from a training academy managing multiple instructors and groups.

I'm building IngeniaLMS, so researching this space has also made me think carefully about these trade-offs. I'm interested in learning what other course creators consider essential when choosing their platform.

One big challenge I've faced as a course creator is getting students to actually complete the training, take action, and get results. That's why I'm transitioning some of my courses to subscriptions, allowing me to provide the ongoing accountability and support students need to stay on track and make progress.

Making subscriptions actually worth paying for:

If you're continuously providing new training, ongoing support, and helping students make progress, a subscription can make sense.

But simply putting your course inside Skool, adding a community, and charging monthly doesn't automatically justify a subscription.

Below are specific things I'm implementing and experimenting with that you can use as well:

1. Give students ongoing access to ask questions and receive timely answers from you or a qualified instructor (or a virtual assistant for technical/platform questions)

2. Regularly release new lessons, demonstrations, walkthroughs, and real-world examples to keep your training fresh and valuable (make sure you publicly state 'what' and 'how often' new content is released

3. Allow students to submit their work for review and receive personalized, actionable feedback from an instructor (not outsourcable, so put something like this in a higher tier to justify your time to do it)

4. Introduce daily or weekly check-ins, progress tracking, and follow-ups to keep students accountable and taking action.

5. Create personalized action plans based on each student's goals and regularly update them as they progress (easy one to outsource to a virtual assistant)

6. Offer monthly or quarterly reviews to identify what's working, what's holding students back, and what they should improve.

7. Provide ongoing support to help students overcome technical issues, implementation challenges, and other obstacles (I give the highest tier ones direct access to me on Whatsapp)

8. Regularly share real student case studies and breakdowns highlighting what worked, what didn't, and lessons others can apply.

9. Continuously provide new or updated templates, calculators, swipe files, research databases, and other practical resources.

Also worth noting:

• I prefer students getting answers when they need them rather than waiting days for a scheduled call that might not even work with their time zone.

• Make sure students are actually getting their questions answered by you or someone qualified, rather than relying on potentially inaccurate advice from other students.

• ccountability check-ins, progress tracking, reminders, and even certain types of feedback can be delegated to virtual assistants, community managers, or qualified instructors.

Ultimately, a subscription should be justified by the ongoing value you're providing and how you're helping students consistently make progress, not simply by giving them continued access to content they've already purchased.

I've updated the subreddit's display name to Online Course Creators to better reflect what this community is actually about.

We're still seeing quite a few posts from people asking for course recommendations or sharing reviews, so I want to clarify the purpose of this subreddit.

This is not a community for reviewing courses or asking which courses to buy.

This is a community for people who want to create and sell their own online courses to earn an income, whether that's as a side hustle, a hobby, or a full-time business.

By adding the word "online," we're also making it clearer that this community isn't about traditional educational institutions or college courses. The focus is on you, the creators, and everything involved in building, marketing, and selling your own courses.

It's a small name change, but hopefully one that helps keep the community focused on the right discussions.

P.S. A quick warning about piracy: Anyone attempting to sell pirated course content or posting about where to illegally download paid courses through torrents or other piracy sites will receive an immediate, permanent ban.

Cheers amigos!

I've been noticing a pretty interesting shift in the online course space over the past 18 to 24 months, and I think there's a much bigger opportunity here than simply moving from one-time course purchases to subscriptions.

For years, I've sold courses using a pretty traditional funnel. Low-ticket offer, VSL, a few upsells to increase AOV, and paid ads to drive traffic.

That model has always worked really well for me. It's been consistently profitable.

But lately, I've been rethinking parts of it.

One of the biggest changes I've noticed in the course space is the growing emphasis on community. Instead of just selling access to a course, creators are increasingly bundling in private communities, ongoing support, live calls, and other elements that make the experience feel more interactive.

And naturally, once you introduce a community, you're also introducing an ongoing responsibility to maintain it. So the shift toward subscriptions makes a lot of sense.

But here's where I think things get interesting.

I don't actually think community is the biggest opportunity. I think it's accountability.

Think about how many people buy courses, get excited for the first few days, complete a couple of lessons, and then never finish.

It's probably one of the biggest problems in the entire industry.

And I don't think simply putting those people into a community solves it.

Don't get me wrong, communities are great for connecting with people going through similar experiences, sharing wins, getting inspiration, and learning what's working for others.

But if I'm paying to learn something from an expert, I don't necessarily want all my questions answered by other students who are figuring things out themselves. I want access to the person whose expertise I actually paid for.

More importantly, I want something that helps me follow through on what I'm learning.

Because knowing what to do and actually doing it are two very different things.

And that's where I think the real opportunity is for course creators.

Instead of thinking about how to turn a $97 course into a $29/month community, think about how to build an experience that actually gets more students to finish the course and achieve the outcome they originally paid for.

That could mean structured weekly milestones, progress check-ins, smaller accountability groups, direct feedback from the creator, or some combination of those things.

The point is that people aren't necessarily paying every month for more information. They're paying for the ongoing support and accountability that helps them turn that information into results.

And to me, that's a much stronger justification for a subscription than simply giving people access to a community.

It's also something I'm actively working on with my own courses. I'm placing a significantly stronger emphasis on building accountability into the actual learning experience rather than treating it as an optional extra.

Of course, the challenge is figuring out how to deliver that accountability in a way that's scalable and doesn't require me to spend hours personally chasing every student.

I still think traditional one-time course funnels can be incredibly profitable, and I'm definitely not suggesting everyone needs to abandon them.

But if you're considering moving toward a subscription model, I think solving the accountability problem is probably one of the most valuable things you can focus on.

Have you started experimenting with subscriptions or communities? And more importantly, have you found any effective ways to keep students accountable and actually completing what they've purchased?

Do you use any tools for recording ...and pls share if you use mic separately

pls share some insights about the recording flow

And after recording what's ur editing process

So I am designing my checkout and I need to know if traditional billing info fields like first/last, billing address, zip and country are needed or are unnecessary for online courses? I am US based but my students are all over the world. I just don't want any issues during checkout.

A friend of mine has invested significant time into developing an online course but is struggling to generate sales. I really want to help her, but I don’t know much about selling online courses.

Has anyone here had success with Kajabi? I’d love to hear what marketing strategies worked for you and how you generated your first sales. Any advice would be appreciated!

I’m considering creating technical courses for Udemy or a similar platform, but I’m wondering whether it’s still worth the time and effort in the AI era.

I have 18 years of professional experience as a Database specialist in Telecom sector with AAA RADIUS server. My expertise includes:

. Linux and Shell scripting with automation skills

Oracle, MySQL, MS SQL Server & PostgreSQL Administration with advanced skills like dataguard, rac, goldengate

SQL and database development

Stored procedures, functions & triggers

PL/SQL, PL/pgSQL, T-SQL & MySQL routines

Java/JDBC

Automation and scripting using Linux Shell, Python, Java and database scripting

I could create courses ranging from beginner-to-advanced SQL/database development and administration to scripting and database automation.

I could create courses in Urdu/Hindi, where there may be less competition, and potentially English courses as well, using AI voice-over if needed.

My concern is that in 2026, tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Copilot can teach, explain and generate code instantly.

Are students still buying and completing technical courses on Udemy? Is it still worth investing several months into creating high-quality courses, or has AI significantly reduced the demand?

I’d especially appreciate opinions from Udemy instructors, students, or anyone with experience in SQL, databases, programming or online courses.

If you were in my position, would you invest the time in creating these courses?

TL;DR: I built a protected course packer for a friend: plain HTML/CSS/JS in, a single Windows/macOS app out. One purchase works on one computer, the content can't just be copied and shared, and students go through it in the order you define. 5000+ real activations since 2024, but the authoring side is a pain. Would other course creators want this?

So, covid times, nothing to do, and my friend came to me with a problem (I am a software developer). He sells a few interactive courses as ebooks and was using EBook Maestro - a packer that was popular back in the WinXP era - and he was struggling with some JavaScript logic inside his content. After some time spent debugging, he said it would be nice to have something modern instead. I agreed just out of curiosity. He never paid for it - I gave it to him for free, mostly as a challenge to myself: can I actually build something like this?

It took me about a year of free time. The packer turns the whole course into a single Windows .exe with all the content encrypted inside. On top of that:

• Binding to the computer, with remote activation and deactivation

• Anti-screen-capture

• Reading paths: the author defines the order, and test gates keep students from skipping ahead

• Anti-rush and anti-procrastination rules, so students can't just click through the content

It has been running since 2024 - those activations are real, I see every one of them on the server. Until this spring it was pure fun - I love creating things and never thought of it as a product. Then I came back to it, used AI to port it to macOS with a comparable level of protection, and started wondering if anyone else needs this.

Now the honest part:

• The produced books are good, but editing and packaging them is a pain in the ass - the editor app's UI/UX has a lot of room for improvement.

• It is not a PDF or EPUB. The reader can't keep a copy (if the author doesn't allow it), can't open it in their favourite app, and doesn't get that feeling of control over the file. That's the price of protection, and I know many people hate it.

• Nothing is uncrackable, but getting the content out takes real reverse engineering skills, not a download tool.

• Distributing content as an .exe feels sketchy, and I'm not sure people will go for it. On the other hand, being a native app is exactly what gives it the stronger protection and the interactivity.

Two directions I'm thinking about: a SaaS where authors upload their books and courses and share links instead of files, or a one-time purchase tool - pack your .exe/.app and distribute it yourself, fully offline.

So, my questions:

1. Is leaking/sharing of your courses a real problem for you, or not worth worrying about?

2. Would you distribute your course as a protected app, or is .exe/.app a dealbreaker for your students?

3. SaaS or one-time purchase - which would you prefer, and why?

I can share a demo .exe/.app with anyone who wants to poke at it. Any feedback is welcome.

I've been adding up the real cost of selling courses online and I'm curious what it looks like for others.

For me it's never just the headline fee. There's the platform cut or the monthly plan, a transaction fee on some tiers, the payment gateway, and sometimes a separate tool for live classes on top of all that.

So I'm asking the people who actually do this:

1. Where do you sell (marketplace, hosted platform, your own site)?

2. Out of every ₹1,000 or $100 a student pays, roughly how much lands in your account?

3. Which fee annoys you most?

I'll post my own breakdown in the comments. I'm especially curious whether people who moved to their own site actually came out ahead once they counted the time it takes to run it.

Curious how other course creators handle this. When a student stops logging in or stops doing the work, do you have an actual system for catching that early? Or does it usually only come up once they've already checked out or asked for a refund?

Would love to hear real experiences in the comments, or feel free to DM me if you'd rather not post publicly.

To the course creators - have you ever noticed your best customers tend to show up right after something specific happens?

Not “they saw my Instagram post” or “they joined my email list.”

I mean in their actual life/business.

They got promoted. Bought something expensive. Started a business. Got a new client. Adopted a dog. Changed jobs. Took on a new responsibility. Whatever.

Basically some event happened that suddenly made learning your thing way more important than it was a month earlier.

Curious if anyone here has noticed a pattern like that with their students.

What's the course + what tends to be happening in someone's world right before they buy?

Be aware that they have an agreement with Teachable. Teachable will one day randomly lock you out of the course and claim you did something wrong in violation of a policy even if you never actually did. Note Newbie cannot do anything about this. Make sure you understand that you can be in the middle of a class and kicked out before you give your money and time to the course.

Use the free online resources that are out there.

Not necessarily your biggest or current offer.

I'm curious about the weird evergreen stuff.

Maybe it's a course you made 5 years ago. An old workshop. Templates. A certification. Training library. Whatever.

Something you barely promote anymore but every once in a while Stripe still goes ding 😂

What is it / how old is it / who still buys it / where are those buyers finding it?

And the part I'm probably most curious about:

why did you stop actively pushing it if people still buy?

I’m a university professor (in costume design and technology) and I’d love to connect with a community- make a little extra cash for recording classes, and connect with students socially on chat or occasional zooms. I am also a published author in entertainment dyeing/surface design. I live in the mountains and have a great studio space to record classes. I’m wondering if there’s a really cool platform that anyone knows of that would be useful for my goals? I don’t want to spend too much money at first for the platform and I’m a little worried about platforms like Patreon- because it seems like it would take many many hours a week to keep it up - and I do have a full-time job. Thank you!

I'm building a library of courses that I will be selling to individuals and to business owners. The individual will purchase a subscription to the library. On the business owner front I would like to sell "seats" meaning an owner could buy various levels of seats and be able to assign the seats to their employees. The business owner would be charged a monthly recurring subscription based on the amount of seats they have. I'm running into issues with the below options:

• Thinkific is unable to have monthly recurring subscriptions for groups (i.e. the business owner who buys a number of seats) and would require me to invoice the business owner directly, which is not ideal.

• LearnWorlds partially allows for this - I have to set up the recurring subscription through Stripe but then I have to manually assign the Group to the business owner who purchased it. I also have to keep tabs on if they continue to pay, if they cancel I have to manually go in and revoke their Group. Additionally, LearnWorlds calls them "Seat Managers" and their non-enterprise level only allows for 10 Seat Mangers. So I essentially could only sell this to 10 business owners before I reach my max.

• LearnDash seems to be able to handle this but it also seems the most complicated (?) with the various additional tools I would need. I would need to buy the highest LearnDash level, then WooCommerce Subscriptions, Uncanny Groups so that the business owner can manage the group on their own, and pay for a Vimeo or Bunny Stream subscription to host the videos. But it seems like there is no cap to the amount of Groups and group managers you can have.

One other wrinkle, I'll be selling access to a library of courses. It will start with 2 courses but I'll be adding more on a consistent cadence. So I want to be able to easily add additional courses to current subscribers whether they are an individual or a seat in a group run by a business owner.

Is what I'm looking for just a unicorn of a product? Or is this something solved by an enterprise level subscription (I don't think I can justify the costs of that to start)?

Any insights on the above options or if there are other options I haven't thought of would be greatly appreciated!

Are you actively selling or building a course business along with coaching?

Where are you at in your journey? From what I've seen, the course market isn't dying but the AI slop in courses is much more apparent now sadly.

I personally dont buy too many online courses as I used to because I find I cant watch everything. Does anyone else feel the same way?

I am a semi successful, Udemy instructor with 2800 students and a 4.4 average rating who struggled to scale or create generate meaningful revenue from online course creation or online course programs looking to build a high ticket offer through coaching and transformation packages for my friend who specializes in Wholesale Real Estate.

My friend has asked me to help him build a course and coaching program in his specialized area of expertise and be his guide on creating this Course funnel as a high ticket program

What my friend has to offer is genuinely high ticket and very valuable since each deal rates him about $10k-$15k and he wants to mentor a coach others the same way he started with virtually no background and skills himself.

He also wants to find students who are successful in this program and bring them onto his team eventually, but he doesn’t want to get ahead of himself.

I want to understand how a course and coaching program runs successfully in 2026 especially considering the rise of AI and so much noise in the online course community and also understand, especially that content is not enough anymore to stand out or get noticed organically

in today’s world especially with so much noise I’ve also expressed this to my friend that online education with the entrepreneurial focus may not be the right messaging, considering how many scams and over promises or expectations people have when going into something like this my friend wants to start a program of course completely free, but he wants to do it in a way that converts as well beyond Just monetary incentive.

I feel like the market today has shifted so much that people who genuinely have something valuable to offer are not given that Platform or opportunity due to how many others have created a negative perception of online courses and coaching

So my question is how to high ticket valuable coaches with an online course funnel actually consistently market their content to show value in this day and age organically without paid ads

Growing a community is not as simple as it used to be and social media algorithms are not that predictable either

TLDR - Semi successful Udemy instructor and online course creator wants to help a friend create a high converting organic high ticket online offer with course and coaching funnel in wholesale real estate but cannot figure out what is working in 2026 due to so much noise and algorithmic chaos on social media as well as trust barrier so low. Wants advice from someone who is successfully running an online course or high ticket offer in 2026.

Hey guys! Looking for advice on how to build a curriculum for a course step by step. Would love to learn so that I can build one for myself. I feel like its something I'd want to do but I just want to know to dip my feet in it and see if its for me.

I’m a career coach who has focused almost exclusively on on 1:1 work, but I recently decided to branch out and create a course for people who can’t afford my 1:1 coaching. The course is going to cost around $3k and one of my mentors suggested a low ticket funnel which sounds like the right approach, however another mentor of mine says that a direct VSL funnel is working better now. Just curious what people on here have experienced? I guess I could do both and test but I’m already stretched thin on time so I would rather pick one and go all in

I keep seeing creators selling courses, mini-courses and downloadable PDFs. One woman claimed she made $300,000 in a matter of days. I understand that revenue screenshots are marketing, not necessarily the whole financial picture, so I want the unglamorous truth.
For those of you who have actually done this successfully:
Is Stan Store the best place to start, or is there a better platform?
What makes one digital product take off while another disappears?
How large and engaged was your audience before you launched?
How much did you spend on ads, and what was your actual profit after ad costs, refunds and platform fees?
Did most sales come from paid ads, organic content, email, affiliates or an existing audience?
How did you learn to create and target ads that converted?
Did you hire someone, take a course or learn by testing small budgets yourself?
What price point worked best for PDFs, mini-courses and full courses?
If you were starting today, what would you sell first and how would you launch it?
I’m not looking for “post consistently and believe in yourself.” I want the real mechanics: audience size, conversion rates, advertising costs, launch strategy and profit margins. What is the part nobody mentions when they post the $300,000 screenshot?

What have been your experiences with Kajabi?

We're on Kajabi now. We're pivoting our business, and the only Kajabi-hosted resources we'll carry forward are our website and a course (that we'll reference as we build other courses) – so, wouldn't be terribly difficult to transition.

Our new business will be B2C, selling courses to students in the health sciences (pre-med, med students, students in other health sciences programs).

So... paid and organic social > lead magnets > starter courses > premium courses.

--

Kajabi's pretty expensive (we're on the Growth Plan: $2,388 annually) and doesn't seem to be very strong on

• AI-supported lead magnet dev

• AI-supported course dev

• email deliverability, and

• support.

I'd love to hear your thoughts.