Cohort-Based Courses: What They Are and the Best Platforms to Run One (2026)

A cohort-based course is an online course where a group of students starts on the same date, works through the lessons on the same schedule and finishes together. Most add live sessions and a discussion space where the group talks between lessons. A self-paced course works the other way: each student starts the day they buy and moves at their own speed.

The shared schedule helps both sides. Students have a reason to keep up (the group call is on Tuesday, and everyone will be talking about week three), and they get to know the people going through it with them. The teacher gets one group to support at a time, instead of students spread across every module, and a launch date to sell toward.

Many cohort courses mix the two formats, with recorded lessons and live calls, but they keep fixed start and end dates. That means a platform has to handle four things: start dates, lessons released on a schedule, live sessions for the group, and a place for the cohort to talk between sessions.

We compared nine platforms on those four things. For each one, you'll find what it costs at three cohort sizes, what happens when you start a second cohort, and the kind of business it suits best.

The short list

Prices are in US dollars. Starting price is the cheapest plan that can run a cohort, so Kajabi starts at Growth.

How we chose

We scored every platform on the same five things:

• Cohort tools: Can you set a start date, schedule lessons, and run more than one cohort in a course?
• Live sessions: Is streaming built in or do you bring Zoom, and how many people fit?
• Group space: Does each cohort get its own chat, and is it still there afterward?
• Cost: The plan, the platform's cut, and card processing at three cohort sizes.
• Control: Can you export your students and offer your own app, and whose checkout takes the money?

Then we walked each platform's pricing page and help docs through one imaginary cohort: set a start date, release week one, let a student in three days late, start a second cohort, and keep the group talking afterward. This was desk research. We didn't run a paid cohort on any of them.

We left out corporate training software (built for HR teams, not creators selling seats), one-to-one coaching schedulers, and video tools that have no way to hold lessons.

The platforms

1. Heartbeat

Heartbeat is made for communities that charge members to join, and a cohort course fits inside one. Each cohort runs as its own copy of the course, with its own modules, lessons, assignments and dates, and Heartbeat creates a group for the people enrolled in it. Lessons can go live on a set date or drip out after enrollment, and public assignments post into a channel so the cohort sees each other's work.

Live sessions run as events, in Heartbeat's own voice and video rooms or through Zoom, which syncs recordings and attendance. When the cohort ends, the group and its channels stay in the same community as your membership, so alumni don't need a new home, and the next cohort starts with its own group. Members use the Heartbeat app on their phones, and the Scale plan adds your own branded app. Heartbeat has a 14-day free trial, with no card required.

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2. Maven: for experts who need buyers as well as tools

Maven is built for live cohorts. You set the course's start and end dates, plus application and payment deadlines, and Maven runs the course page and checkout. Each cohort gets its own community, which stays open after the course ends.

Listing a course is free. When a student pays, Stripe takes 2.9% plus $0.30, then Maven takes 10% of what's left. All payments go through Maven, and students can ask for a full refund until the halfway point of the course. The 10% applies to every sale, including students who found you through your own newsletter or podcast, so it costs the most for experts who already have an audience.

3. Disco: for academies and organizations running programs

Disco suits training programs run by an organization, such as a company academy for customers or staff. It has templates for cohort courses, learning paths, events and chat. The Create plan is $399 a month billed annually, or $499 billed monthly, with no fee on sales.

Create has a cap of 250 active members. If past cohorts count toward that number, four cohorts of 60 would fill it in a year, so ask Disco how it counts alumni before you commit. Scale adds a branded app and starts at $999 a month, billed annually.

4. Mighty Networks: for a course that lives inside a community

Mighty Networks combines courses, events, livestreams and member spaces. From the Launch plan up, you can use the Cohort Course template, with a group feed next to the lessons.

Launch is $950 a year with a 2% fee. Scale is $2,150 a year and drops the fee to 1%. The extra $1,200 a year is covered by the lower fee once you sell more than $120,000 a year. Check the livestream caps against your cohort size: Launch fits 100 viewers, Scale 200 and Growth 1,000. A 100-person cohort fills Launch's limit with no room for you or a guest speaker.

5. Circle: for a community where the course is one part

Circle is a community platform with courses next to discussions, events and live streams. A scheduled course releases each section to all enrolled students on a date you pick. Professional is $89 a month, billed annually, with a 2% fee plus card processing.

Which plan you need usually comes down to cohort size, because live streams on Professional fit 100 attendees. Business fits 200, costs $199 a month billed annually, and lowers the fee to 1%. A branded app needs Circle Plus, which is priced on request. See Heartbeat vs Circle for a side-by-side.

6. Kajabi: for creators who already sell by email

Kajabi suits creators whose sales already come from an email list. One cohort course can hold several cohort groups, each with its own start date.

Cohorts need Growth, at $249 a month or $199 billed annually, which includes 50 products and 25,000 contacts. Kajabi Payments charges 2.9% plus $0.30, and 0.7% more on payment plans. A cohort course can't be duplicated or switched to self-paced later, so pick the format before you build.

7. Thinkific: for a course library with an occasional cohort

Thinkific fits creators who mostly sell a library of self-paced courses. The Start plan costs $109 a month, or $82 billed annually, and includes live cohorts and coaching with Zoom. Lessons can be released on calendar dates, so everyone gets week two on the same morning.

The release dates are set on the course, not on each student or group. A student who joins late sees everything released so far, all at once, and a second cohort on different dates means duplicating the course. Card processing applies, plus a 0.5% assessment on buyers in the US, Canada, the UK and the EU.

8. Teachable: for creators already selling self-paced courses

If your self-paced courses already live on Teachable, you can run a cohort there. Sections can be released on a set date, which has to be chosen at least 48 hours ahead. Teachable's Community feature is no longer open to new schools, so plan where live calls and group chat will happen before you sell seats.

The Builder plan is $89 a month, or $69 billed annually, with no Teachable fee. Starter takes 7.5% of sales. Dated sections release at midnight UTC, which is the evening before for students in the US. See our guide to the best online course platforms for more course hosts.

9. LearnDash: for a WordPress site you run yourself

LearnDash adds courses to your own WordPress site. Groups can have start and end dates, so different cohorts can run through one course. You keep full control of the site and your student data, but you're also the one paying for hosting, installing updates, and fixing things when a plugin breaks the night before a cohort starts.

LearnDash isn't sold on its own anymore. It comes in a bundle with The Events Calendar, Give and Kadence for $350 a year for one site. Budget separately for hosting, checkout, video and a community plugin. Once a course sits in more than one dated group, you have to clone it for each cohort.

Which platform for which business

The right platform depends mostly on how many people join each cohort and what you charge for a seat.

Here's the reasoning behind the table. With small, low-priced cohorts, the yearly plan price matters most, so we picked the cheapest plans that still handle start dates. With large groups, the limit is how many people fit in a live session. With expensive seats, a percentage fee costs more than a flat subscription (10% of a $1,200 seat is $120 per student), unless the percentage brings you students you couldn't find yourself, which is what Maven's marketplace is meant to do.

Or choose by how you sell:

• No audience yet: Maven, because it brings buyers to your course page.
• Training members, customers, or staff: Disco.
• Already selling by email: Kajabi.
• Mostly self-paced, with a cohort now and then: Thinkific or Teachable.
• Community first: Circle or Mighty Networks.
• Group coaching: Circle or Mighty Networks, since live sessions and the group space matter more than lesson tools.
• Your own WordPress site: LearnDash, if somebody technical can help you.
• A paid community where each cohort keeps its own group afterward: Heartbeat.

If the course tool you already use can set start dates, run your first cohort there. You'll learn what you actually need (bigger live sessions, a separate chat per group) before paying to move.

What to check before you sign up

Fees at your cohort size

We priced a US creator running four cohorts a year, with students paying in full by US card. Small is 15 seats at $250 ($15,000 a year), medium is 40 seats at $600 ($96,000), and large is 100 seats at $1,200 ($480,000). Plans are billed yearly where offered, since the group space stays open between cohorts.

Each figure adds the yearly plan, platform fees, and card processing at 2.9% plus $0.30 per payment (60, 160 and 400 payments a year). Maven takes 10% after Stripe's fee, and Thinkific includes its 0.5% assessment. Payment plans add $0.30 per extra payment, plus 0.7% on Kajabi. Disco's large column assumes 400 students a year fit under its 250 active-member cap, which depends on how it counts past cohorts.

For a small cohort, every option except Disco costs between about $1,300 and $3,000 a year. For a large cohort, Maven costs $36,000 to $46,000 more than the other hosted tools. Whether that's worth it depends on where your students come from. If Maven's marketplace fills seats you couldn't fill yourself, the fee can pay for itself; if most students come from your own list, you're paying 10% on sales you would have made anyway.

Running more than one cohort

Say you run three groups at once: a morning cohort, an evening cohort, and your alumni. Each one needs its own start date, its own chat, and its own announcements (the evening group doesn't need to hear that the morning call moved). Kajabi handles this inside one course, giving each group its own start date. On Thinkific and Teachable, the dates are set on the course, so everyone in it shares one schedule. A second group means copying the whole course, then repeating every later change in each copy. LearnDash also needs a copy per cohort once its groups use dates.

Moving later

If you copy a course for every cohort, each copy is another course to rebuild if you switch platforms later. Kajabi cohort courses can't be switched to self-paced, so turning a past cohort into an evergreen course means building it again. On Maven, payments stay with Maven, though you can export your student list as a CSV.

Apps and limits

• Live attendees: 100 on Mighty Launch and Circle Professional, 200 on Mighty Scale and Circle Business.
• Streaming hours: 20, 30, or 40 a month on Mighty, by plan.
• Active members: 250 on Disco Create.
• Contacts: 25,000 on Kajabi Growth.
• Branded apps: Heartbeat Scale, Kajabi Pro, Thinkific ($199 a month extra), Disco Scale, Mighty Pro, and Circle Plus.

Before you sign up, also check what happens to the group after the last session. On Maven, the cohort community stays open after the end date. On the others, find out whether alumni keep access, and whether they count toward your member limit (and your bill) while they do. Our guide to the best online community platforms covers where to keep a group going.

Frequently asked questions