Table of Contents

⚡ Quick Summary

Create your Teachable school on the free plan, structure your course into 6 modules with 3-5 hours of video content, price between $49-$97 to start, set up Stripe and PayPal for global payments, and launch with an early-bird discount to your existing audience before scaling with paid ads.

🎯 Key Takeaways

  • ✔Start with a free Teachable account and upgrade to Basic ($59/month) once you consistently sell more than 10 courses per month to eliminate transaction fees.
  • ✔Keep your total course length between 3 and 5 hours with lessons under 15 minutes each to maximize student completion rates.
  • ✔Set up both Stripe and PayPal payment gateways to accept payments from students in over 190 countries.
  • ✔Price your first course between $49 and $97, then increase pricing after collecting 10 or more positive student reviews.
  • ✔Use a soft launch strategy with an early-bird discount of 30 to 40% to generate initial enrollments and social proof.
  • ✔Build a simple funnel with a free lead magnet, 5-email nurture sequence, and course pitch to automate student acquisition.
  • ✔Add quizzes and downloadable worksheets to each module to boost completion rates by up to 25%.

🔍 In-Depth Guide

Setting Up Your Teachable School in Under 30 Minutes

Start by creating a free account on teachable.com. Choose a school name that reflects your brand. I recommend using a custom domain or subdomain for credibility. Inside the admin panel, upload your logo, set your brand colors, and configure your payment gateways. Connect both Stripe and PayPal immediately. Go to Settings, then Payments, and follow the prompts for each provider. Teachable takes a transaction fee on the free plan (10% plus $1), so if you plan to sell more than 10 courses per month, upgrading to the Basic plan at $59 per month removes the transaction fee entirely. I switched to Basic after my second month and saved over $200 in fees within the first quarter. Set your school's default currency to USD for the broadest reach, even if you are based in Dubai like me.

Structuring Course Content That Students Actually Finish

The biggest mistake I see new course creators make is dumping 40 hours of content into one course. Completion rates drop below 15% when courses are too long. I aim for 3 to 5 hours of total video content split across 6 modules. Each module should solve one specific problem. Start every module with a quick overview video under 2 minutes, then deliver 3 to 4 lesson videos of 8 to 12 minutes each. Add a quiz at the end of every module using Teachable's built-in quiz feature. I also include downloadable worksheets as PDFs. For my Dubai-based business coaching course, adding practical worksheets increased completion rates from 22% to 47%. Always end your course with a final project or action step that gives students a tangible result they can share.

Launching and Getting Your First 50 Students

Before you launch publicly, do a soft launch to your email list or social followers with an early-bird discount of 30 to 40%. I sent a 3-email sequence to my list of 2,400 subscribers and got 38 enrollments in the first week for my initial course. Use Teachable's coupon feature to create a time-limited discount code. After the soft launch, create a simple funnel: a free lead magnet like a checklist or mini-course, followed by a 5-email nurture sequence, ending with a pitch for the full course. I promote the lead magnet through YouTube descriptions, LinkedIn posts, and Instagram stories. For paid traffic, start with $10 to $20 per day on Facebook ads targeting people interested in your topic. Track conversions using Teachable's affiliate dashboard and UTM parameters to know exactly where your students come from.

📚 Article Summary

I have been creating and selling online courses for over four years now, and Teachable remains one of my go-to platforms for anyone getting started. When I first launched my course business from Dubai, I tested at least six different platforms before settling on Teachable for its simplicity and built-in payment processing. If you are thinking about turning your knowledge into a paid course, this guide walks you through every step I personally follow.The first thing you need before touching Teachable is a clear course outline. I always start with a Google Doc where I list 5 to 8 modules, each with 3 to 5 lessons. This structure keeps students moving forward without feeling overwhelmed. Once your outline is solid, sign up for a free Teachable account at teachable.com and choose a school name that matches your brand. I use my main domain sawankr.com with a subdomain for courses.Inside Teachable, head to the course builder and start adding your curriculum. Upload your videos, PDFs, quizzes, and text content module by module. I record most of my course videos using OBS Studio on my desktop and CapCut for editing. Keep each lesson under 15 minutes. Students in Dubai and the Middle East, where I teach a lot of professionals, prefer short focused lessons they can watch during lunch breaks.Pricing is where most new creators freeze up. My advice after launching 12 courses: start between $49 and $97 for your first course. You can always raise prices later once you have testimonials and social proof. Teachable handles payments through Stripe and PayPal, so set both up to capture the widest audience. I have students paying from over 30 countries, and having PayPal as a backup for regions where Stripe is limited has made a real difference.The sales page is your storefront. Teachable gives you a built-in page editor, but I recommend keeping it simple. Write a strong headline, list 5 to 7 bullet points about what students will learn, add a short video introduction, and include at least 3 testimonials. I usually record a 2-minute walkthrough of the course content to give potential students a preview.Finally, marketing your course matters more than the platform itself. I drive most of my enrollments through YouTube content, LinkedIn posts, and email sequences. Set up Teachable’s built-in email tool or connect it with ConvertKit to send automated welcome emails and drip content. My best-performing funnel sends 5 emails over 7 days after someone downloads a free resource from my site.

❓ Frequently Asked Questions

Teachable offers a free plan that lets you publish courses with a 10% transaction fee plus $1 per sale. The Basic plan costs $59 per month and removes transaction fees. For most new creators, starting on the free plan and upgrading once you hit consistent sales is the smartest approach.
Yes. Teachable supports custom domains on all paid plans. You can point a subdomain like courses.yourdomain.com to your Teachable school through your DNS settings. This takes about 15 minutes to configure and makes your school look much more professional.
You can start with just your laptop camera and a decent USB microphone like the Blue Yeti or Fifine K669. I use OBS Studio for screen recordings and CapCut for editing. Good audio quality matters more than video quality for online courses.
Start between $49 and $97 for your first course. This price range is low enough to reduce purchase hesitation but high enough to signal value. Once you collect 10 to 15 positive reviews, consider raising the price by $20 to $50.
Teachable collects EU VAT automatically through their BackOffice tax feature on the Pro plan and above. For other regions, you will need to handle tax reporting yourself. I use a simple spreadsheet to track revenue by country for my Dubai-based accounting.
Yes. Teachable has a built-in certificate feature available on paid plans. You can customize the certificate design with your branding. Certificates increase perceived value and give students something to share on LinkedIn, which also helps market your course.
If you already have your content outlined, you can build and launch a course in 2 to 3 weeks working part-time. Recording and editing videos takes the most time. I batch-record all lessons in one or two days, then spend a week editing and uploading everything to Teachable.
Sawan Kumar

Written by

Sawan Kumar

I'm Sawan Kumar — I started my journey as a Chartered Accountant and evolved into a Techpreneur, Coach, and creator of the MADE EASY™ Framework.

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