Sell Online Courses From Your Own Website
Would you like to sell online courses from your own website but you’re not sure what your options are?
Or are you on a budget and you’ve been looking for free online course platforms only to find out that the free plan never gives you all the functionality you need?
I know how you feel!
Finding the best online course builder that is also affordable can be a real struggle…
But… I have great news for you!
When I was looking for a course platform a little while ago, another blogger told me about a new platform that only charges a one-time fee…
… and if that was not enough, it literally offered all the functionality I was looking for (and more!)
So if you want to create online courses and sell them from your website the easiest and most affordable way, keep reading!
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I may earn a small commission for affiliate links in this post at no extra cost to you. Please read my disclaimer for more information.
How to sell online courses from your own website
There are 3 ways to sell online courses from your own website:
- Use a course platform
- Install a LMS plugin on your WordPress site
- Use ThriveCart
(I’ll let you in a secret, the 3rd option is super easy to use and the most affordable…)
1. Use a course platform
Using a course platform seems to be the most common way for course creators to sell online courses.
And for good reasons, online course platforms offer:
- Tons of functionality
- Easy course creation
- Integrations with many third party apps
But as you compare online course platforms, you will notice that they are kinda pricy.
Some popular Course Platforms and their prices:
Teachable -> $119 p/mo for unlimited courses & students & affiliates
Thinkific -> $49 p/mo for unlimited courses & students & affiliates
Podia -> $75 p/mo for unlimited courses & students & affiliates)
These prices would be ok if you were guaranteed to sell many courses every month. But if you’re a new course creator and you’re testing the waters, committing to high monthly fees can be a bit scary.
Some online course platforms offer a free plan, but often the functionality is so limited that it’s clearly only offered to attract new customers.
Some of these limitations are:
- You can only create one course
- Limited amount of students (as low as 10)
- No downloads
- Higher transaction fees on course sales
- No chat support
- No affiliates
These free plans are great for trying out the course creation software, but most people would have to upgrade to a paid plan pretty quickly.
When I first wanted to create an online course, I compared heaps of online course builders, but to get all the functionality I wanted I would have paid a minimum of $75 per month.
I wasn’t ready to commit to this so I started looking for other options and I found out that you can add an LMS (Learning Management System) plugin to your WordPress site…
2. Install a LMS plugin on your WordPress site
If you want to save money on course platform fees you could build a membership site on your WordPress website with a plugin.
Membership or e-learning plugins usually cost anywhere between $179 and $400 per year so this is definitely a cheaper alternative to online course platforms.
Some popular WordPress Course Plugins are:
- MemberPress (from $179.50 per year)
- Thrive Apprentice ($299 per year)
- LearnDash (from $199 per year)
I decided to get MemberPress and build my course with that.
MemberPress was fairly easy to set up but if you’re not familiar in WordPress, you might want to hire a developer to help you out.
I was mainly struggling to make the checkout pages look good and I figured I could use an external shopping cart software for that.
I had heard about ThriveCart and it’s beautifully designed and high converting checkout pages, so I figured I might have to invest in that to make my payment checkout page look better.
But then a blogger friend told me that ThriveCart had just added a course platform to its functionality and it was included in its lifetime deal!
This was very exciting news to me, because who doesn’t want a course platform & shopping cart software in ONE for a one-time payment!
So I found out everything I needed to know about ThriveCart’s new course platform (you can read all the details here in this ThriveCart Learn Review), and I realised that this software was the solution to all my problems!
Luckily I managed to get a refund for MemberPress and then I purchased this super affordable ThriveCart Lifetime Deal.
3. Use ThriveCart
So what is ThriveCart? ThriveCart is basically a one-stop-shop for online course creators.
With ThriveCart you can:
- Create online courses
- Build high converting sales pages with up-sells, down-sells and bump offers
- Custom design your checkout pages
- Create a membership site
- Sell digital & physical products
- Start your own affiliate program
- & More
ThriveCart has tons of functionality and it also integrates seamlessly with many third party apps like email marketing platforms, online payment systems, funnel builders etc.
It also integrates with the before mentioned course platforms Teachable, Thinkific and Podia and also with the LMS plugins MemberPress, Thrive Apprentice and LearnDash.
And the best part?
You can get all this functionality for a one-time payment of $495 (or $690 for the Pro account which includes an affiliate centre).
This is incredible value! If you compare this price to most course platforms you can literally save up to $1200 on course platform fees EVERY. SINGLE. YEAR.
A total no-brainer if you ask me!
And to make it even better I offer a FREE Sales Page Template Bundle as BONUS if you buy ThriveCart with my affiliate link (see details below…)
This template bundle includes 3 sales page templates that you can import into ThriveCart with one click, so you can start selling your online courses even faster!
But don’t wait too long because the ThriveCart lifetime deal is only available for a limited time…
ThriveCart Bonus Sales Page Templates
Thinking of getting ThriveCart? Don’t miss my bonus!
Get my ThriveCart Sales Page Template Bundle (valued at $177) for FREE when you purchase ThriveCart with my affiliate link.
Sell Online Courses from Your Own Website with ThriveCart
Let’s have a look at how to create and sell online courses from your own website with ThriveCart.
So technically the courses are not located on your own website, they are hosted on ThriveCart. This is a good thing though because hosting courses on your own website would slow down your site.
You won’t need any tech skills to set up a course or a sales page in ThriveCart, it’s super easy to use, just follow these steps:
1. Create a ThriveCart account
Sign up for a ThriveCart Lifetime Account and receive a link to your bonus Sales Page Template Bundle in your invoice.
2. Create a new course
Log in to your account and click the Learn icon in the top menu.
Next click the green button + Create course.
3. Fill out your course details
In the box that pops up you fill out all your course details, like:
- Course name
- Author
- Course description
- Support contact email
You can also add a course logo, your profile image, and you can choose your course layout. Next you click the green button Create course.
4. Lay out your course modules
Now you’ll arrive in the course builder dashboard where you can add your course content.
First you need to create modules by clicking on the Module button on the left. In the pop-up you can name your module and select whether this module is available to all students or only to students with a specific tag.
5. Add your course lessons
Once you’ve create some modules, you can add lessons the same way you add the modules. To rearrange your modules or lessons you simply click & drag them in the position you want.
6. Add content to your lessons
When you hover your mouse on a lesson an Edit button will appear, click on this to go to the course editor.
Inside the editor you’ll see some dummy text that you can replace with your own, pus all the tools you need to add your course content.
You can add:
- Headers
- Text
- Dividers
- Images
- Bullets
- FAQ
- and more
To add a video, you drag the video item on to your page, upload your video to YouTube, copy the embed code and paste the embed code in the box that will appear on the left. If you don’t want your video visible on YouTube you’ll have to go back to YouTube and change the video settings from Public to Unlisted.
Once you finished your lesson you can either save it as a draft or publish it with the buttons in the top right corner.
7. Edit your course options
In the course options you can do the following:
- Add or edit your support email
- Set your content dripping settings
- Promote your course in the student dashboard
- Customise your course registration or login page
- Setup a custom domain for this course
At the bottom of the page you can also set Behaviour rules, this means you can automatically perform actions based on your students behaviour such as adding them to a mailing list, applying tags, or subscribing them to a webinar.
When you’ve finished your course content and course options make sure to click on Save & Exit.
How to create a checkout page for your course in ThriveCart
To be able to sell your course, you need to create a checkout page for it. To be able to do this you need to turn your course into a product.
Here’s how you do that:
Step 1
In the top menu select Products and in the next page click the blue button Create product. In the popup select Digital product and click the button Create new product.
Step 2
On the next page you name your product and click Next.
Step 3
Here you get to choose your currency and set your product price.
You can choose from the following payment options:
- One-time fee
- Subscription
- Split pay
- Pay your own price
You can also choose to set a trial period or a product quantity limit if you want.
Step 4
Next you get to set up a bump offer if you have one and your payment processors.
Step 5
Next you need to click on the Fulfilment tab in the top menu to let ThriveCart know what you would like it to do after someone buys your course.
Here you can add a support email or url, and in the dropdown on the right you need to select: Add them to my membership site (which is ThriveCart Learn).
Select the right course (if you have more than 1) from the dropdown below.
Step 6
Next you need to click on the Checkout tab to be create your checkout page or sales page.
Here you can select which cart type you want.
After this you need to click on the Design tab. Here you can launch the sales page editor or import a sales page template with the Import a design button. Use this button if you buy ThriveCart with my affiliate link and get my Sales Page Template Bundle as a BONUS in your invoice.
Simply click the button and paste the link that I’ll share with you.
How to Create a Sales Page for your course
To sell an online course you need a sales page. You could create a sales page on your own website and link the BUY NOW button to the ThriveCart checkout page or you can create the sales page in ThriveCart the same way as I showed you how to create a checkout page.
(Sales pages and checkout pages are the same thing in ThriveCart, sales pages just have more info on them.)
You can use ThriveCart’s drag & drop page builder to create your sales pages from scratch or you can import one of my Sales Page Templates with one click!
You can get my Sales Page Template Bundle for free, if you buy ThriveCart with my affiliate link.
ThriveCart Bonus Sales Page Templates
Thinking of getting ThriveCart? Don’t miss my bonus!
Get my ThriveCart Sales Page Template Bundle (valued at $177) for FREE when you purchase ThriveCart with my affiliate link.
This is how you sell online courses from your own website!
As you can see, I tried several ways to create & sell online courses from my website and using ThriveCart was by far the easiest and most affordable way!
Make sure to claim the lifetime deal here before it’s gone.
I hope you now have a better idea on how to create an online course and how to set up the tech aspect of this.
If you have any questions make sure to leave a comment below or email me on hi@sassyboss.co
Recent posts
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Sassy Boss
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