Best Online Course Platforms (2026)

Want to sell a course online? You'll need somewhere to host the lessons, take the payments and keep students coming back, and picking that platform is the hard part.

Some course platforms charge a flat monthly price, while others take a cut of every sale. A few do both, and once students start paying, that cut adds up faster than most people expect.

So we did the math for you. Before getting to the platforms, we'll look at the three main ways people sell a course online. After that comes the part most reviews skip: what each of the ten actually costs you at $1,000, $5,000 and $20,000 a month in sales. (We checked every price ourselves in October 2026.)

We wrote this for creators, coaches and experts selling their own courses. If you're looking to take a course rather than sell one, Coursera and Udemy are better places to start.

The short list: 11 of the best online course platforms

Here are the best online course platforms side by side. Prices are the lowest monthly rate on annual billing, and the fee column shows what the platform takes from each sale before card processing.

Three ways to sell an online course

Before you compare course platforms, it helps to know which kind you're after. Broadly speaking there are three, and the choice mostly comes down to how much money, time and control you're willing to trade.

1. A hosted platform. This is the Heartbeat, Kajabi, Podia, Circle, and Mighty Networks crowd. You sign up, choose a plan and start building lessons right away. Servers, checkout, updates? That's their problem, not yours. Of course, you pay for that peace of mind every month, and you're playing by their rules.

2. A WordPress plugin. MemberPress is the name most people know, and it turns a WordPress site into a course site. The plugin won't cost much on its own, but hosting comes on top, and keeping the site updated, backed up and secure falls to you unless you hire help. What you get back is ownership. It's your site from top to bottom, which means no company can shut it down or decide to change what you charge.

3. Courses on the site you already have. Here you keep your existing website and bolt a course onto it with something like MemberSpace, or use Memberful with a WordPress course plugin. Wix and Squarespace go a step further and build courses right in. For anyone whose site is already up and running, it's hard to beat for speed. Just watch the fees. Most of these tools take a percentage off every sale, which feels harmless at first and a lot less harmless once your course takes off.

Still not sure? Here's a simple rule of thumb. If you don't have a website and don't want to deal with tech, go hosted. If you're happy on WordPress, add a plugin. And if you like the site you have, add a course to it and call it a day.

Online course & membership platforms deep-dive

1. Heartbeat

Most course platforms on this list start from the lessons and tack a community on around them (sometimes as an add-on with additional costs).

Heartbeat builds the course around the community, and those features are available on every plan, even the 14-day free trial. Students talk to each other in channels and DMs, see personalized nudges to meet other like-minded members, gather at live events and take cohort-based courses together, with memberships and checkout all in the same place.

Pulse, Heartbeat’s AI co-builder, can set up your channels, a starter course, and your first offer, and offers generous usage limits (99% of members will never even know there is a limit). Members can access the community via their web browser (often on a custom domain, which is available on every plan) or via the Heartbeat app for iOS and Android. Heartbeat has a 14-day free trial, with no card required to start.

Start your free trialSee pricing

2. Kajabi

Kajabi started as a course platform and now wants to be your whole business, so courses, email, website, community and checkout all live in one account. Basic costs $143 a month on annual billing or $179 per month to month. Kajabi doesn't take a cut of your sales, but you'll still pay card processing, which starts at 2.9% plus 30 cents on Basic.

It could work for course creators who are already earning and want to replace three or four separate tools, though the community is one product among several rather than the center of the account. Check the limits first, too. Basic allows 5 products and 2,500 contacts, so a sixth course means a bigger plan, and your own app in the App Store is a $199 a month add-on, or included on Pro at $399 a month. Skip Kajabi Payments for another processor and Kajabi adds a 2% fee on Basic, too.

3. Podia

Podia is a low-cost way to sell courses and downloads, with a website and email in the same account. Mover costs $42 a month on annual billing and Shaker costs $84. The real difference is the fee: Mover takes 5% of each sale, while Shaker and Earthquaker take nothing.

That means Mover only makes sense while sales are small. At $1,000 a month, Shaker already works out cheaper once you count the fee. Podia might suit creators who sell a mix of courses and downloads, but there's no mobile app, so students can only take your course in a browser. Keep an eye on email, too. Mover includes just 100 subscribers and Shaker includes 500, so a big list means paying extra.

4. Circle

Circle is a community platform first, with courses and events built around the conversation rather than the other way round. Professional costs $89 a month billed yearly with a 2% fee on sales, while Business costs $199 with a 1% fee. Both fees come on top of Stripe's processing.

It could work for course creators whose students join as much for each other as for the lessons. The fee never goes away on the published plans, though, so high earners keep paying it for as long as they stay, and your own app in the App Store needs Circle Plus, which is priced on request.

5. Mighty Networks

Mighty Networks mixes courses, community and events in one place. Launch costs $79 a month on annual billing with a 2% fee, and Scale costs $179 with a 1% fee. There's no plan where the fee drops to zero.

It could work for creators whose course has a lot going on around it, like live sessions and a busy feed. Want your own app in the App Store and Google Play? That takes Mighty Pro, which is priced on request.

6. MemberPress

MemberPress turns a WordPress site into a course and membership site, with a course builder on every plan. The Launch plan lists at $399 a year with 50% off the first year, and it takes 4.9% of each payment. Growth and Scale take no fee at all. Growth costs $699 a year at full price, with the same first-year discount.

If you already run WordPress and would rather not hand your courses to a platform, it's worth a look. The flip side is that hosting, updates and security become your job too, and community tools only come with Growth and Scale. One thing to watch when you buy: renewals are billed at full price, so your bill doubles in year two.

7. Ghost

Ghost is a publishing platform with paid memberships built in, and it's the one entry here with no course builder. It earns a spot if your course is really a paid newsletter or a lesson-by-email series. It takes 0% of your member payments, so Stripe is the only one taking a cut.

It might work for writers selling a paid newsletter, but watch the plan names. Starter doesn't allow paid members, so Publisher, at $29 a month on annual billing, is the real starting price. That price also goes up as your list grows. Members can only talk in the comments, so there's no community to speak of either. Anyone selling video lessons, a cohort or a paid community will need a second tool.

8. Memberful

Memberful adds paid access to a site you already run. There's just one plan, Standard, at $49 a month plus 4.9% of every sale.

It doesn't host lessons itself. To sell a course, you pair it with a WordPress course plugin through its LMS integrations. There's no community built in either, so members talk in Discord, Discourse or Circle, which you connect and run separately. That makes it a better fit for podcasters and newsletter writers than for course creators. Private podcast feeds are the main draw. The 4.9% fee is the other catch. At $20,000 a month, that fee alone comes to $980.

9. MemberSpace

MemberSpace bolts courses and member areas onto Squarespace, Wix, Webflow and other sites. Starter costs $39 a month on annual billing and takes 5% of each sale. (It was on sale for $24 when we checked.) Growth costs $99 and takes 2%.

It could work for creators who love their current site and just want to put a course behind a login. The community side is a forum, and members use your site rather than an app. Remember that you'll still pay for that site, and Starter limits you to 5 member spaces and one website. Once you pass $2,000 a month in sales, Growth's lower fee makes it the cheaper plan.

10. Squarespace and Wix

Got a site on Squarespace or Wix already? You may not need another tool at all, since both let you sell courses and lock pages behind a paywall. On both, though, your plan decides the fee. On Squarespace, Core costs $29 a month on annual billing and takes 5% of your course and membership sales. Plus costs $49 and takes 1%, and Advanced costs $99 and takes nothing. So once you sell more than about $500 a month, Plus is the better deal. Past $5,000, Advanced wins. Wix works the same way. Its Core plan is also $29 a month, but it takes 4% of each sale. Business ($39) cuts that to 2%, and Business Elite ($159) cuts it to zero.

These might work for creators with simple needs: one short course, a few locked pages and nothing more. If you're after a busy community, cohorts or a student app, you'll outgrow them quickly.

What it costs at $1,000, $5,000 and $20,000 a month in course sales

The sticker price is only part of the bill, so here's the full monthly cost on each platform with fees included.

To keep things fair, we used the same setup for every platform:

• $50 per payment, which works out to 20 payments at $1,000, 100 at $5,000 and 400 at $20,000. That could be a $50 course or a $50 monthly membership: the math is the same.
• Annual billing, shown as a monthly cost.
• US card processing at 2.9% plus 30 cents per payment.
• The cheapest plan that fits at each level.

Card processing alone comes to $35 at $1,000, $175 at $5,000 and $700 at $20,000, and every platform below pays at least that.

Here's one worked out in full, using Podia Shaker at $5,000 a month:

• Plan: $84
• Card processing: $5,000 x 2.9% = $145
• Per-payment charge: 100 x $0.30 = $30
• Podia fee: $0
• Total: $84 + $145 + $30 = $259

Look closely at those totals and a few patterns show up.

First, the cheapest rows hide extra costs. MemberPress needs paid hosting, MemberSpace needs a website to sit on, and Ghost, the cheapest of all, has no course builder.

Second, percentage fees sting most at the top end. At $20,000 a month, Memberful's 4.9% fee comes to $980 on its own. Squarespace Core's 5% would cost you $1,000, which is why we moved Squarespace to Advanced, with no fee, in that column.

Third, plans have switch points, and it's worth knowing where they are. On Circle, Business only starts to beat Professional once you're past $11,000 a month. Mighty's Scale plan pulls ahead of Launch at around $10,000. So before you sign up, see which side of the line your sales fall on.

How to launch an online course in six steps

1. Pick a promise. Start with the result, not the topic. "Learn Lightroom" is a topic. "Edit a wedding gallery in an afternoon" is a result, and it's far easier to sell. If you can't say what students will be able to do by the end, the course needs more work.

2. Set your price. Most courses sell as a one-time payment, a payment plan or part of a monthly membership. A payment plan makes it easier to say yes, and a membership keeps paying after the last lesson. If pricing is the bit you agonize over, let a small founding group in at a lower rate first. You can always charge more to the people who come later, and our pricing calculator shows what similar creators charge.

3. Find the right platform. Use the three paths above to narrow things down. After that, go to the cost table and look at the column for the sales you expect a year from now, because the cheapest option today isn't always the cheapest once you grow.

4. Build the first module, not the whole course. Don't spend six months recording before anyone has paid. Outline every module, record the first one or two, and build the rest while your first students work through them. Their questions will tell you what the later lessons need.

5. Launch to your list. Your first students are most likely to be people who already follow your work, so start there. Email your list, talk about the launch wherever your audience hangs out online and give them a real deadline. Running the first round as a cohort with a fixed start date gives you one built in.

6. Get students to the finish line. Students who finish are the ones who buy your next course and tell their friends. Release lessons on a schedule you can keep, give people somewhere to ask questions, and check in with anyone who goes quiet. If someone drops out anyway, email them and ask what got in the way. Not everyone will write back, but the ones who do tend to be blunt, and that's useful.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best online course platform?

It depends on what you sell alongside the course. If students learn together in a cohort or community, Heartbeat or Circle fits best. If courses and email marketing come first, look at Kajabi. Podia suits a budget, especially if you sell downloads too, and MemberPress suits anyone already on WordPress. Whichever you shortlist, compare the full monthly cost at the sales you expect, because percentage fees decide the winner as you grow.

What is the best site for taking online courses?

If you want to take a course rather than sell one, start with Coursera or Udemy, which list thousands of courses from universities and independent teachers. The platforms in this guide are for people selling their own courses.

How much does an online course platform cost?

That depends on which tool you pick and how much you sell. At $1,000 a month in sales, the platforms here with a course builder cost roughly $93 to $178 a month once fees are included. At $20,000 a month, that range climbs to about $758 to $1,199.

Do online course platforms take a cut of my sales?

Some do and some don't. Kajabi doesn't take a cut at all, and neither does Ghost, though it has no course builder. Circle, Mighty Networks, Memberful and MemberSpace take one on every plan we priced. Podia and MemberPress only charge it on their cheapest plans. On Squarespace and Wix, the fee shrinks as you move up, from 7% on Squarespace Basic and 4% on Wix Core down to zero on their top plans. Fees run from 0% to 7%, and you'll pay card processing on top almost everywhere.

Is there a free online course platform?

Free plans that let you sell usually limit what you can sell or take a bigger cut of each sale, so free tends to get expensive once students start paying. A free trial is a better way to test a platform before you commit. Heartbeat starts with a 14-day free trial, no card required, so you can build your first course before you pay anything.

Can I sell a course on my Wix or Squarespace site?

Yes. Both have course tools built in, and if you need more than they offer, you can add a tool like MemberSpace on top. When you work out the cost, remember to include your website plan as well as any course fees.

Is WordPress good for selling online courses?

It can be, if you don't mind looking after the site yourself. A plugin like MemberPress gives you a course builder and full control, and its higher plans don't take a platform fee. The trade-off is that hosting, updates and security are all on you.

What's the difference between a course platform and a membership site?

A course usually sells lessons for a one-time price, while a membership sells ongoing access for a monthly fee. Most platforms in this guide do both, so you can sell a course on its own and a membership that includes it, from the same account.