How to Sell Online Courses in 2026

The short answer

To sell an online course, decide where it lives first, then decide how people will hear about it. You have three places to sell: a marketplace like Udemy, your own website, or inside a paid membership.

Then do three things:

• Test demand: Talk to people you'd want as students, collect email sign-ups or run a small paid pilot before you spend months recording.
• Build an email list: Give interested people a way to hear when the course opens.
• Promote it: Email, useful content and a few well-chosen partners will get you further than ads at the start.

You don't need a big audience or an ad budget for your first sales. You need a clear offer and a way to reach the people who have the problem you teach.

Still building the course? Start with how to create an online course, then come back here.

Are online courses still profitable in 2026?

They can be, but the market's size tells you little about your own result. That comes down to demand, price, how many people buy and what you spend getting them there.

Statista's online education outlook projects $280.99 billion in worldwide market revenue in 2026.¹ That figure covers online university degrees and professional certificates too, not just courses sold by independent creators.

Course platform Ruzuku published its Course Success Index, built on 27,156 courses and more than 1.3 million student enrollments.² It shows how much learning happens on one platform. It doesn't say what any creator earned.

Some creators do publish their numbers. Justin Welsh launched The Creator MBA in January 2024 and reported about $1.61 million from 2,850 purchases.³ Treat that as the far end of the range: he had a large audience and an established business before he launched.

Your own math is simpler. Sell a $200 course 20 times and you've made $4,000 before costs. Platform fees, payment processing, refunds and any ads come out of that.

Where to sell: marketplace, your own site, or inside a membership

Where you sell decides how buyers find the course, what you pay per sale and how much of the buying experience you control.

1. Marketplaces

Udemy's cut

3%–63%

Best for

No audience yet

Marketplaces like Udemy already have people searching for courses. You can publish without building a sales site, but you play by the platform's rules and its revenue split.

Under Udemy's instructor revenue share, you get 97% of the net amount when a student buys through your own coupon or referral link.⁴ When a student finds the course through Udemy itself, with no instructor coupon or link, you get 37%.

The trade is reach for control. Udemy brings students you wouldn't find on your own, but you have less say over branding, pricing and how you talk to students, and your sales depend on how Udemy ranks and promotes your course.

2. Your own website

Fees on a $200 sale

$6–$27

Best for

You already have an email list

Course platforms such as Teachable, Thinkific and Podia host your lessons, take payments and manage students. Kajabi adds email marketing and other business tools to course delivery.

You'll usually pay a monthly subscription plus some mix of transaction fees and payment processing. And nobody browses your site by accident, so bringing buyers there is your job.

In return you control the price, the branding and the relationship with every student. You also own the upkeep: sales pages, payment settings and whatever breaks. Check each platform's current fees before you commit. Our Teachable pricing and Podia pricing breakdowns go plan by plan.

3. A paid membership

Billing

Monthly or yearly

Best for

Courses you keep adding to

In a membership, people pay on a schedule for access to your courses, resources or a community. It works when you keep giving them something new: fresh lessons, live sessions, group discussion or updated material.

The hard part is giving members a reason to stay. You'll be keeping content current, handling cancellations and answering questions. If your course solves a problem people only have once, a one-time price is probably the better fit.

Before you pick this model, work out how many paying members you need to cover your costs, and count the hours you'll spend making lessons and supporting members. The membership pricing calculator shows what similar memberships charge.

What you keep from a $200 sale

The table compares the fees on one $200 course sale across eight places to sell. It assumes a US seller and a domestic US card payment, so processing means 2.9% + $0.30 ($6.10 on $200). For Udemy it assumes the full $200 counts as net. Monthly subscriptions, taxes, refunds and other business costs are left out.

Teachable's Starter plan adds a 7.5% transaction fee ($15) on top of processing, and Podia's Mover plan adds 5% ($10). Gumroad takes 10% + $0.50 on a direct sale before processing. Sales that come through its Discover marketplace pay a flat 30%, processing included.

Udemy's share applies to its net amount, which is what the student paid after taxes and fees, so it can be less than the list price. Skillshare isn't directly comparable: teachers earn from minutes watched and have to meet monthly eligibility rules to get paid at all.

Your real costs will move with your plan, payment method, location and where each sale came from, so read these as estimates. A marketplace takes a bigger cut, but it can bring you buyers you'd never reach on your own.

Pre-sell before you finish

You don't have to finish every lesson to find out whether people will pay. Pre-selling tests demand before you sink more time and money into production.

Three ways to do it:

• Build a waitlist: Put up a page that says who the course is for and what they'll learn, and ask for an email address. Sign-ups show interest. They don't prove anyone will buy.
• Offer a founding-member price: Give the first group a lower price. Say exactly what's included, when access starts and which lessons are still being made.
• Run a paid pilot: Teach a smaller version live to a small group, answer their questions and fix the material based on what they tell you.

A pilot shows you which lessons need more explanation and how much support students want, and their questions often turn into better lines for your sales page. If you'd rather charge from day one, our guide to launching with a paid waitlist walks through it.

Be clear about delivery dates, refund terms and what buyers get. If the course only runs with a minimum number of students, say what happens if you don't reach it.

Launch or evergreen: how each works

A launch sells the course during a set window. Evergreen sales let people find it and buy it any time of year.

A launch calendar

• Two weeks before: Publish useful content, collect questions and invite people onto your email list. Use what they ask to sharpen the offer.
• One week before: Share the course details and open registration if you're ready. Say who it's for, what it covers and how students get access.
• Launch week: Send emails on what students will learn, answer common questions and remind people when enrollment closes. Make the sales page easy to find.
• After launch: Welcome students, ask for feedback and look at sales and refunds before you plan the next one.

Use real deadlines. If enrollment closes on Friday, close it on Friday, or tell people plainly why it changed. Each email should do one job: explain the course, show a result or answer an objection.

An evergreen funnel

An evergreen funnel takes someone from finding your work to buying the course, without a launch.

1. Get attention: Publish articles, videos or social posts about the problem your course solves.
2. Collect emails: Offer a checklist, a short lesson or another free resource in exchange for an email address.
3. Build interest: Send emails that answer common questions and dig into the problem.
4. Present the course: Say what students get, who it's for and what changes for them.
5. Follow up: Handle the usual objections and remind people about the offer, without sending the same email five times.

A photography teacher, for example, could give away an indoor-lighting checklist, follow up with emails on the most common lighting mistakes and one practical fix, then introduce the course that covers the full setup.

Watch two numbers: sales page visits and purchases. Plenty of visits and few sales means the offer needs work. Few visits means the emails or the audience do.

Launches suit courses where students move through together on a schedule. Evergreen suits a course that solves a problem people run into all year. Plenty of creators do both: launch first, improve the material from student feedback, then sell it year-round.

Marketing channels: email, content, webinars, affiliates and ads

Go where your future students already are. If people already read your emails, sell there before you spend anything on ads.

1. Email marketing

Email reaches people who asked to hear from you. Use it to share lessons, answer questions and announce when enrollment opens.

Tools such as Mailchimp have several plans, including a limited free one.¹² Check contact limits and sending allowances before you pick.

A small list of people who open your emails beats a big list of people who don't. Keep every send relevant and let subscribers choose what they get.

2. Content marketing

Articles, videos, podcasts and social posts get your work in front of people while they're looking for answers. The photography teacher could publish a free tutorial on indoor lighting and link it to the paid course on the full process.

The main cost is your time, plus whatever you spend on editing, design or hosting. Pick topics from questions your future students already ask, and end each piece with one next step: join the list or see the course.

3. Webinars and live workshops

A webinar lets people see how you teach before they pay. Demonstrate a technique, take questions and show how the full course builds on the session.

A free meeting tool is enough to start. If you outgrow it, compare Zoom's webinar plans and similar tools.¹³

Track registrations, attendance and sales to decide whether the event is worth repeating. If attendees don't buy, look at whether the right people showed up and whether the offer was clear.

4. Affiliate marketing

Affiliates recommend your course to their own audiences for a commission on each sale. You borrow trust that took them years to build.

Agree on the commission rate, when you pay, how refunds are handled and how sales are tracked before anyone promotes. Pick partners whose audience matches your course, not the ones with the most followers.

5. Paid advertising

Search and social ads reach people outside your audience, but a click isn't a sale.

Test with a budget you can afford to lose, and track spend, purchases and revenue. If the numbers don't work, fix the audience, the ad or the sales page before you spend more.

For a first course, email, content and conversations with would-be students will teach you more, for less, than paid ads.

Raise the value: bundling with coaching, a community or a cohort

Adding support to a course helps students actually use what they learn, and it's the easiest way to justify a higher price.

• Add coaching: One-on-one sessions or group calls let students ask questions and get feedback. Price in the hours it takes you.
• Include a community: A private group gives students somewhere to talk through problems and share progress. Give them a reason to post.
• Run a cohort: A cohort moves everyone through the course together on a schedule. Live sessions, group assignments and shared deadlines help people who learn better with others.

Only offer the support you can keep up. Say what's included, how long it lasts and whether recordings and materials stay available afterward.

You can also start with a self-paced course and add coaching or a group later, once buyers ask for it.

Where Heartbeat fits

Heartbeat is built for selling a course with people around it. You can start with a waitlist, free or paid, that collects sign-ups before the course exists and gives every member a referral link. When you open, the waitlist turns into a live offer and those members get first access.

Checkout handles one-time prices, installment plans, subscriptions and bundles, so a course, a coaching tier and a membership can sit side by side. The course runs self-paced or as a cohort with drip release, next to the discussions and live events your students join. Affiliate tracking is built in, with commissions, custom links and payouts, so partners can promote without another tool. Heartbeat has a 14-day free trial, with no card required to start.

Frequently asked questions

Is selling online courses profitable?

It can be. What you earn comes down to how many courses you sell and what's left after fees, ads and refunds.

What is the best platform to sell online courses?

There isn't one best platform for everyone. Udemy can bring you students through its marketplace, while Teachable, Thinkific, Podia and Kajabi let you sell under your own brand. Compare fees, features and how you'll reach buyers before you choose. Our list of the best online course platforms compares them side by side.

How can I sell online courses effectively?

Pick a problem people want solved and show how your course solves it. Test demand before you spend heavily on production, then use email, useful content, webinars and the right partners to reach buyers.

Are online courses still profitable in 2026?

Yes, they can be, but a growing market doesn't sell your course for you. Results depend on demand, your price and what it costs you to reach each buyer.

How much does it cost to sell an online course?

It depends on where you sell. You might pay a subscription, transaction fees, payment processing or a share of each sale. Marketing and student support add to that.

How do I make my first online course sales?

Start with people who already know your work or have shown interest in your topic. Ask about their problems, then invite them to a waitlist or a paid pilot, and use what they tell you to improve the offer.

Should I launch my course once or sell it all year?

A launch gives you a set window to promote the course. Evergreen lets people buy any time. Many creators launch first, learn from it, then keep selling year-round.

Do I need a large audience to sell online courses?

No. A small audience that cares about your subject is enough to test a course. Focus on reaching people who need what you teach, not on follower counts.