How to Create Your First Online Course on Teachable in 2026 (Even If You're Not Tech-Savvy)

Go to teachable.com and click 'Get Started Free'. Enter your email and create a password. Teachable offers a 7-day free trial on paid plans, so you can test everything before spending money. Once inside, the onboarding sidebar on the left labeled 'Get Started' walks you through each setup task with a progress bar, which is helpful for first-timers.

Next, choose your school name. This is the brand name students see when they visit your course page. Pick something clear and specific, like 'Beginner Photography Mastery' or 'Excel for Office Workers'. Do not overthink it — you can change it later without losing any data or students.

Now customize your school's look. Go to Settings > Theme and upload your logo (300x300 pixels PNG works best). Use the color picker to set brand colors that match your style. The drag-and-drop homepage editor lets you add a hero image, headline, and a call-to-action button like 'Enroll Now'. You can also edit the navigation menu to include links to Courses, About, and Contact pages. Hit the 'Preview' button at any time to see exactly what students will see. This entire setup takes around 40 minutes and does not require any design experience.

Before you build a single lesson, set up payments. This is the step most beginners skip and then scramble to fix at launch. Go to Settings > Payments in your admin dashboard.

Teachable Pay is the fastest option. It is built directly into Teachable, requires no extra accounts, and starts processing in minutes. It supports credit cards, PayPal, Apple Pay, and Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) options, which Teachable reports can boost conversions by up to 30%. Payouts land in your bank account within 2 to 3 business days. There are no setup fees.

If you prefer Stripe, go to Settings > Payments > Connect Stripe and paste your API keys from your Stripe dashboard at stripe.com. Stripe charges 2.9% plus $0.30 per transaction regardless of your Teachable plan.

Note on transaction fees: Teachable's Free plan charges additional platform transaction fees on top of payment processing. The Starter plan ($39/month billed annually) reduces those fees. The Pro plan ($119/month billed annually) removes platform transaction fees entirely, which matters once you are making consistent sales.

After connecting your gateway, run a test by creating a $1 coupon and completing a mock purchase. Confirm the money appears in your payment dashboard. This takes 15 minutes and prevents painful surprises on launch day.

Before uploading anything, plan what you will teach. A focused mini-course with 3 to 5 lessons will get you to launch faster than a 30-lesson masterclass. Aim for each lesson to be 5 to 15 minutes long with one clear learning outcome per lesson.

Teachable's AI Curriculum Builder removes the blank-page problem. Go to Products > Create Product > Course. Name your course something specific and outcome-focused, such as 'Beginner Guitar Essentials: Play 3 Songs in 30 Days'. Then click 'Generate Curriculum with AI', type your topic — for example, 'social media marketing for small businesses' — and Teachable will produce a full outline with 5 to 10 module titles and lesson descriptions in under 30 seconds.

Review the AI output and edit it to match your actual knowledge and teaching style. Delete sections that do not fit, reorder lessons with drag-and-drop, and rename anything that feels generic. The AI gives you a starting point, not a final product.

Organize your course into sections (also called modules). A simple beginner structure looks like this: Module 1 — Introduction and Quick Win, Module 2 — Core Skill, Module 3 — Practice and Next Steps. Each module contains individual lessons. This structure takes students from zero to a small result quickly, which drives positive reviews and word-of-mouth.

Write down the outline in a Google Doc or notebook before you start recording. Having it in front of you while filming saves significant editing time.

You do not need a professional studio to record your first course. A smartphone propped on a stack of books, good natural light from a window, and a quiet room produce perfectly acceptable video for beginners. Keep lessons between 5 and 15 minutes. Longer videos cause students to drop off and hurt your course completion rates.

For screen-based lessons (tutorials, presentations), use Loom at loom.com. The free plan lets you record your screen and face simultaneously with no editing required. Export as MP4.

To upload, go to your course in the Curriculum builder. Click a lesson, then select 'Upload Video'. Teachable accepts MP4 files up to 2GB via the desktop uploader. Larger files can be uploaded in batches. While videos upload in the background, you can add supplementary materials like PDF workbooks, text blocks, or quizzes to each lesson using the block-based editor.

Add a thumbnail to each lesson (16:9 ratio, minimum 1280x720 pixels) so the course looks professional in the student dashboard. You can create these free in Canva at canva.com using their preset 'YouTube Thumbnail' template.

If your course includes a downloadable resource — a workbook, cheat sheet, or template — go to Products > Create Product > Digital Download to upload the file directly. This can also be bundled with your course as a bonus.

Preview every lesson from the student view before publishing. Check that videos play, PDFs open, and quizzes work on both desktop and mobile.

Go to Products > your course > Pricing in the admin dashboard. For your first course, choose one of these three beginner-friendly pricing strategies:

1. Free — builds your email list and gets your first testimonials fast. Great for a 1 to 3 lesson mini-course.
2. One-time payment — $47 to $97 is the sweet spot for mini-courses in 2026. Easy for students to decide quickly.
3. Payment plan — split a $97 course into three payments of $33 using Teachable Pay's BNPL feature. Higher conversion on mid-priced courses.

After setting price, customize your checkout page. Scroll to Checkout Settings and add: a short testimonial from a beta tester or colleague, a 30-day money-back guarantee badge (builds trust immediately), and a brief bullet list of what students get. These three elements alone significantly reduce cart abandonment.

Set up a coupon for your launch by going to Coupons > Create Coupon. Offer 20% to 30% off for the first 50 students. Set an expiry date to create urgency. Share this code in your launch emails and social posts.

For EU customers, Teachable Pay automatically calculates and collects VAT, keeping you compliant with 2026 EU digital tax regulations without any manual setup.

Test your entire checkout by enrolling yourself using a coupon code for $0. Confirm you receive the enrollment confirmation email and can access all lessons.

Your sales page is what convinces someone to buy before they see the inside of your course. Go to your course, click 'Sales Page', and use the drag-and-drop editor to build it.

Follow this proven structure for beginners:

1. Headline — state the outcome, not the topic. Write 'Master Excel Formulas in 7 Days' not 'An Excel Course'.
2. 2 to 3 minute intro video — record yourself explaining who the course is for and what they will be able to do after. Authenticity converts better than production quality here.
3. Bullet list of learning outcomes — use 'You will be able to...' language.
4. Curriculum outline — show the modules and lesson titles so students know exactly what is inside.
5. Testimonials — even one real quote from a beta tester or colleague adds credibility.
6. Money-back guarantee — restate your 30-day refund policy.
7. Enroll button — place it at the top and bottom of the page.

For a professional URL, connect a custom domain. In Settings > Domains, add your domain (for example, mycourse.com) and update your domain registrar's DNS settings by adding a CNAME record pointing to your Teachable school. This process takes 10 to 30 minutes for DNS to propagate. Your course will then live at your own branded URL instead of a teachable.com subdomain.

Publish the sales page and share the link with 5 people you know to get feedback before your official launch.

You are ready to go live. Click 'Publish' on your course product. Your sales page is now accessible to anyone with the link.

For your first launch, focus on these three low-cost promotion methods:

1. Email your existing contacts — even 20 to 50 people who know and trust you can generate your first sales. Write a personal email explaining what you built and why you made it for them.
2. Post on one social platform — share the story of why you created this course on LinkedIn, Instagram, or in a relevant Facebook group. Link to your sales page.
3. Offer a founding student discount — email your launch coupon with an expiry date. Urgency drives action from people who are already interested.

Once you have your first 5 to 10 students, email them directly and ask for honest feedback. Ask specifically: what was most valuable, what was confusing, and what would they add. Use this to improve lesson clarity before your next promotion.

Monitor performance weekly in your Teachable analytics dashboard. Watch for: page views versus enrollments (conversion rate), lesson completion rates by module (drop-offs signal weak content), and revenue by date (identifies which promotions worked).

If a module has a high drop-off rate, re-record that lesson as a shorter, more focused video. Duplicate your course in the dashboard before making major edits so you always have a backup version. Plan for 1 to 2 hours per week of ongoing promotion and improvement after launch.