r/onlinecourses

I’ve been working on a few online course projects recently and one thing that always surprises people is how long it actually takes to finish one properly.

Planning the structure is usually the easy part the slow part starts when you begin turning everything into actual lessons, quizzes, and a flow that feels natural for learners.

Even with decent tools, there’s still a lot of back and forth building content, testing it, fixing structure, adjusting pacing, and then trying to make it more engaging so people don’t drop off halfway through.

I’ve also been experimenting with a few newer AI based course tools while trying to speed up some of the repetitive parts. One that stood out was Mexty AI because it didn’t just generate content it actually helped turn material into a more structured learning flow with quizzes and progression built in. Still needed refining, but it reduced some of the manual rebuilding I usually end up doing.

So even though creation feels faster on the surface, the full process still takes a lot of manual effort once you go beyond the basics.

someone here can share their insights/experiences, I'd really appreciate it.

I'm currently getting into the space of creating and selling online courses and I've done my homework up to this point;

ik the stats on the avg course sale

I've became familiar with the go to platforms to build courses

What generally makes a course good and worth the money.

How to implement courses within my niche.

I believe i have most of the basics down, but there are a few more things I'd like to understand before dedicating time out of my day to start seriously building.

3 questions:

1. Assuming everyone has used the top platforms for course building and promotion, which has been your preference and why? what do they do thats better than anywhere else?

2. How long did it take to get steady sales?

3. Would you build an audience to the problem your course solves 1st, or do you see more success with strategies like sales funnels and meta ads?

all answers will be greatly appreciated.

thanks.

this question is directed more towards people whose gotten experience using Teachable, Kajabi, Thinkific, Skool, etc. any of the bigger names out there when it comes to building and selling online courses.

Asides the feature drawbacks each one has, I've read about a few cases that are a bit discerning and would like to know if these are more common then not.

Kajabi users have been reporting random account terminations with no recourse.

They get no warnings or explanations, and have a hell of a time trying to appeal the action. I saw one story about an academy account who lost access to hundreds of students and months of work.

I also saw where Kajabi supposedly forces upgrades past a certain number of contacts on a plan.

With Teachable there were articles suggesting that their transaction fees and payments burned many of their long term creators, and are some of the worst in terms of gaining access to the student data you could use for marketing.

by far the most interesting thing I've seen though were articles from creators who've actually seen some success with courses talk about the ability to white label their works. specifically, none of the platforms really allow for it.

Now I'm here looking to see if anyone has had such experiences.

I am stuck trying to relaunch my old training company as an online learning platform and community. The company operated in South Africa from 2006 to 2013, until I moved to China to pursue an MBA and work for my for government in Beijing. At that time, I was teaching people how to be smart and safe online and had a lot of credibility because of my background in IT Security. I had great success with private schools, especially parents, teachers and students. Now I want to relaunch with online courses and the community, targeting the same people worldwide.

So I am working on the following:

1. The course creation (talking through slides, PDF downloads, video demos, etc).
2. Sales funnels, email campaigns with lead magnets.
3. Brand Kit on Canva & Brand Style Guide for my company's social media profiles and posts.
4. SEO on my blog to drive traffic to sales funnels.
5. Differentiation from free content, courses by Google, Microsoft, FBI, Khan Academy, et al.
6. How to drive traffic to my sales funnel

I am not sure whether I should offer a free webinar, then sell the course or offer a free eBook and sell a course, or sell a paid webinar. So how do I prioritise this into a workflow or strategy so I can just do the first course by myself, before I invest in hiring freelancers to take over specialised tasks?

I'll be honest, because I'm done pretending.
I have a development background. I spent 6 months building a vibe coding course  the curriculum, the recordings, the landing page, all of it. I told myself this was my way out. Package what I know, build an asset, stop trading time for money.
I saw the screenshots. The "$47K in 30 days" posts. The "I made this while traveling" threads. I'm not naive  I knew those were outliers. But I figured somewhere between "overnight millionaire" and "complete failure" there was a realistic middle ground waiting for me.
There wasn't. Not yet anyway.
4 months in. $312 total. 7 students  two of whom I'm pretty sure are people I know personally.
The course is good. I know it's good because the people who went through it told me it changed how they work. But "good" apparently doesn't mean "sells."
And now I'm sitting here wondering  is this just how it works? Or did I buy into something that was never real to begin with?

So I want to hear from you.
When you built your course  what were you actually trying to create? Freedom, income, impact, legacy? And did you get there?
Because I'm starting to wonder if any of us actually get what we came here for  or if we just don't talk about it when we don't.

I wish to sell courses on a variety things, like How to make animation with AI (yeah yeah I know, sorry).

But I dont know where to begin or what platform to sell it on! Gumroad, kajabi, ​etc.

1. Ideally I'd just have PDFs/PowerPoint that show the step by step process.

2. Do I need to include video? Or have to set up lessons?

I prefer one with a low cost to start, Ideally.

I'm a professional opera singer.

I have an online studio, a private coaching community, and a digital course.

I am in desperate need of marketing help to review my offer, and build funnels, ad creative, and landing pages.

Does anyone here have any recs???

Thanks