Business

  • Business, Business, blogging & Money

    WebinarGeek Review: The GDPR-Friendly Webinar Platform

    This post may contain affiliate links, meaning if you decide to make a purchase via my links, I may earn a commission at no additional cost to you. See my disclosure for more info.

    TL;DR: WebinarGeek is a webinar platform built by a European company with GDPR compliance baked into how it handles data, which matters if you’re marketing to EU audiences or just don’t want to think about it constantly. It covers live, automated, and on-demand webinars in one plan structure. It’s not the cheapest option and its brand recognition outside Europe is lower than the big US platforms, but the compliance angle and feature depth make it a solid pick for course creators and coaches running regular webinars.

    Webinars remain one of the highest-converting formats for selling a course, a coaching offer, or any higher-ticket product, because live (or convincingly live-feeling) presentations build trust faster than a sales page alone. WebinarGeek’s whole pitch is doing that without the data-compliance headaches that come with hosting on a platform built under different privacy rules.

    What is WebinarGeek?

    WebinarGeek is a webinar and online-event platform that supports live webinars, automated (“evergreen”) webinars that run on a schedule without you presenting live each time, and on-demand replays, all from one account. It’s built by a Netherlands-based company, and GDPR compliance is a core part of its design rather than a bolted-on afterthought, which matters if you’re collecting registrant data from EU visitors.

    Beyond hosting the webinar itself, it handles registration pages, reminder emails, and post-webinar follow-up, plus analytics on who attended, how long they stayed, and where they dropped off — the kind of detail you need to actually improve your webinar over time instead of guessing.

    WebinarGeek pricing

    Plan Viewers Best for
    Basic Up to 50 Small, occasional live webinars; check current pricing
    Premium Up to 1,000 (configurable in smaller tiers) Regular live and automated webinars with custom branding; check current pricing
    Enterprise Up to 5,000 Larger organizations needing Salesforce/HubSpot, SSO, and SLA support; check current pricing

    I wasn’t able to get exact monthly prices to display during verification — WebinarGeek’s pricing page loads the actual numbers dynamically — so check current pricing directly on their site before committing. All plans include a 14-day free trial, which is enough to run at least one real webinar and judge the platform for yourself before paying anything.

    What it does well

    The automated webinar feature is the standout: you record a presentation once, and the platform runs it on a recurring schedule with interactive elements — polls, chat, timed offers — that make it feel live to attendees. This is a serious tool for course creators who want a repeatable sales webinar running in the background without presenting it fresh every time.

    The GDPR-first approach is a genuine differentiator if you market primarily to a European audience, or if you’d simply rather not audit a US-based platform’s data practices yourself. Built-in registration analytics, reminder sequences, and marketing integrations mean you’re not stitching together three separate tools to run one webinar funnel.

    For a course launch, that combination matters in practice: you set up a WebinarGeek registration page and reminder sequence once, let the automated webinar run on its schedule, and check the attendance analytics afterward to see exactly where interest dropped off — all inside the same account, instead of gluing together a separate landing page tool, email platform, and video host.

    Where it falls short (and who shouldn’t buy)

    Brand recognition is lower outside Europe, so if you’re specifically looking for the platform with the biggest name recognition among a US audience, WebinarGeek isn’t that. The viewer caps on lower tiers (50 on Basic) will feel tight quickly if your webinars regularly draw a large live crowd, pushing you toward Premium sooner than you might expect.

    It’s also not the cheapest webinar tool on the market, particularly once you factor in higher tiers for bigger audiences. If you only run a webinar once or twice a year and don’t need automation, a simpler video-conferencing tool with basic webinar features might cover your needs for less money.

    Worth naming too: the interface leans functional rather than flashy. If you’re expecting the kind of polished, marketing-heavy dashboard some US competitors lead with, WebinarGeek’s design prioritizes the mechanics of running and analyzing webinars over visual flair. That’s a fair trade for most course creators, but it’s worth knowing going in.

    Who it’s for

    WebinarGeek fits course creators, coaches, and small businesses running webinars as a regular part of their sales funnel, especially anyone marketing to European customers who wants GDPR compliance handled at the platform level rather than pieced together themselves. It’s less suited to someone hosting a single one-off webinar with no plans to repeat the format.

    FAQ

    Is WebinarGeek actually GDPR-compliant?

    It’s built by a European company with GDPR compliance as a core design consideration, including how registrant data is stored and processed. That said, using a compliant platform is one part of overall compliance — your own privacy policy and cookie consent setup still matter.

    Can WebinarGeek run webinars automatically, without me presenting live?

    Yes. Its automated webinar feature lets you record once and run it on a recurring schedule with simulated live elements like chat and polls, which is useful for an evergreen sales funnel that doesn’t require your ongoing presence.

    How much does WebinarGeek cost?

    Pricing is tiered by viewer capacity across Basic, Premium, and Enterprise plans, with a 14-day free trial available on all of them. Exact current pricing is best checked directly on their site, since it can change and varies by billing term.

    What’s the viewer limit on the cheapest plan?

    The Basic plan supports up to 50 viewers per session, which suits small or early-stage webinars. Larger or growing audiences will need to move up to Premium, which scales up to 1,000 viewers.

    Is WebinarGeek better than US-based webinar platforms?

    “Better” depends on your priorities. If GDPR compliance and European data handling matter to your business, it has a real edge. If you need the platform with the widest US brand recognition or the lowest possible entry price, it’s worth comparing against alternatives first.

    If webinars are — or should be — part of how you sell online, the compliance and automation combination here is hard to match elsewhere. Start a free WebinarGeek trial and run your first webinar without committing to anything.

    If you also want the rest of your site’s cookie and privacy compliance sorted at the same time, iubenda handles that side of the equation. And if webinars are part of a bigger list-building push, my ultimate guide to email marketing covers what to do with attendees once they’ve registered.

  • Business, Business, blogging & Money

    Designrr Review: Turn Blog Posts Into Ebooks in Minutes

    This post may contain affiliate links, meaning if you decide to make a purchase via my links, I may earn a commission at no additional cost to you. See my disclosure for more info.

    TL;DR: Designrr turns blog posts, PDFs, or podcast transcripts into formatted ebooks and lead magnets without any design skill, and it does that one job well. It’s not a full design tool — templates can look similar to other Designrr users’ output, and true custom layouts take patience. If you need lead magnets fast and don’t want to learn a design program to make them, it’s worth the subscription.

    Turning a handful of blog posts into a downloadable ebook is one of the highest-leverage things you can do for list growth, and also one of the things bloggers put off longest because it sounds like a design project. Designrr exists specifically to remove that excuse.

    What is Designrr?

    Designrr is a browser-based tool that converts existing content — blog URLs, Word docs, PDFs, YouTube videos, or podcast audio — into a formatted ebook, complete with a table of contents, chapter breaks, and a cover. You pick a template, the tool pulls in your content and applies the formatting, and you edit from there rather than building a layout from a blank page.

    The core use case for bloggers is turning a cluster of related posts into a single downloadable guide: a content upgrade, a lead magnet for your email list, or a low-priced digital product. It also exports to formats built for Kindle and other ebook stores if you want to go beyond a simple opt-in freebie.

    Say you’ve published fifteen posts over the past year on one specific topic — meal prep, budgeting, freelance pricing, whatever your niche happens to be. Feed those URLs into Designrr and you get a formatted first draft of an ebook in roughly the time it would otherwise take to lay out a single chapter by hand. That draft still needs editing — Designrr assembles and formats your existing words, it doesn’t rewrite them for you — but skipping the manual formatting is where most of the time saving comes from.

    Designrr pricing

    Plan Price Best for
    Standard $29/month Occasional ebooks, one user, 100 templates
    Pro $39/month Frequent creators wanting Kindle/ePub export and a flipbook option
    Premium $49/month Repurposing podcasts or video (includes transcription hours)
    Business $99/month Higher-volume creators needing more transcription hours
    Agency Premium $249/month Agencies managing ebooks for multiple clients

    There’s no permanently free plan, and every tier is a monthly subscription rather than a one-time purchase — worth factoring in if you only need to make one or two ebooks a year. Plans can be cancelled anytime, so you can subscribe for the month you actually need it and cancel once you’ve exported what you needed.

    What it does well

    The content-import side is genuinely useful: pointing Designrr at a blog URL or a batch of posts and having it pull the text and images in, rather than copy-pasting everything into a design tool by hand, saves real time. The templates look professional out of the box, which matters if design isn’t your strength, and the table-of-contents and chapter-break handling is automatic instead of something you have to build manually.

    The transcription and video-to-ebook features on the higher tiers are a genuine differentiator if you already create podcast or video content — turning an existing episode into a written guide is a repurposing shortcut most competing ebook tools don’t offer.

    Where it falls short (and who shouldn’t buy)

    Because everyone’s starting from the same template library, ebooks made in Designrr can end up looking somewhat similar to each other if you don’t spend time customizing fonts, colors, and layout details. If brand-perfect, fully custom design is non-negotiable for you, you’ll still want a proper design tool for the final polish.

    The transcription hours are limited on the lower tiers, and if you’re repurposing a lot of long-form video or podcast content regularly, you’ll want to budget for Premium or Business rather than Standard. It’s also a recurring cost with no lifetime plan, which makes it a harder sell if ebook creation is a rare, occasional task for your business rather than an ongoing part of your content strategy. And if your source content is thin or unedited, Designrr will format it beautifully, but a nicely formatted ebook built on weak content still reads as a weak ebook — the tool speeds up production, it doesn’t fix the writing underneath it.

    Who it’s for

    Designrr makes the most sense for bloggers and content creators who already have a backlog of posts, or existing podcast and video content, and want to repurpose it into lead magnets or low-priced products without hiring a designer. If ebook creation is a one-off task, a single month’s subscription covers it. If you’re building a system where new content upgrades come out regularly, the time saved on every single ebook adds up fast.

    FAQ

    Can Designrr turn a blog post directly into an ebook?

    Yes. You can import directly from a blog URL, and Designrr pulls in the text and images to build out chapters automatically, which you can then edit and reformat inside the editor.

    Does Designrr have a free plan?

    No, there’s no permanently free tier — pricing starts at $29/month for the Standard plan. Since plans can be cancelled anytime, you can subscribe for a single month if you only need to produce one or two ebooks.

    Can I sell ebooks made in Designrr, or only use them as lead magnets?

    Both. Designrr exports to formats suitable for Kindle and other ebook retailers as well as standard PDF, so the same ebook can double as a free opt-in and, later, a paid product with light reformatting.

    Do I need design experience to use Designrr?

    No. It’s built specifically for people without design skills — you choose a template and the tool handles layout, chapter breaks, and formatting. You can go deeper and customize fonts and colors if you want, but it isn’t required.

    Is Designrr worth it for a small blog?

    If you have even a handful of posts on one topic, turning them into a downloadable guide is one of the faster ways to grow an email list. For a small blog making its first lead magnet, a single month on the Standard plan is enough to find out if it’s worth keeping.

    If you’ve got blog posts sitting around that could be a lead magnet or a small product instead, that’s the fastest way to put them to work. Try Designrr for a month and turn your best posts into an ebook — and if you’re still building out the content to repurpose, my ultimate guide to blogging covers what to write first.

  • Business, Business, blogging & Money

    How to Create an Ebook With AI (And Actually Sell It)

    This post may contain affiliate links, meaning if you decide to make a purchase via my links, I may earn a commission at no additional cost to you. See my disclosure for more info.

    An ebook is still the easiest first digital product you can make. You don’t need a course platform, a videographer, or a launch team. You need something useful to say and a way to package it so people will happily pay for it.

    That second part is where most people stall. Writing 40 pages from scratch feels enormous, and formatting a book in a word processor is its own special misery. This is the gap AI tools have closed. In this tutorial I’ll walk you through the workflow I recommend: build the ebook with Designrr, a tool made specifically for turning existing content into books, then sell it through Payhip.

    One honest note before we start: AI can draft, structure, and format for you, but it cannot make the book worth buying. That part stays your job, and I’ll point out exactly where your input matters most.

    What you’ll need

    • Source material: old blog posts, a podcast transcript, workshop notes, or at minimum a clear outline
    • A Designrr account — plans start at $29/month, and the Standard plan covers a text-based ebook
    • A Payhip account to handle checkout, delivery, and VAT
    • Two to four focused hours, spread over a few days if that suits you better

    How to create an ebook with AI, step by step

    Step 1: Decide what the ebook is actually for

    Before you touch any tool, choose: is this a free lead magnet or a paid product? A lead magnet should solve one small, specific problem in 10 to 20 pages. A paid ebook needs to go deeper and deliver a complete result someone would pay for. This one decision changes the length, the depth, the cover, and the price, so don’t skip it.

    Step 2: Gather the content you already have

    The fastest ebooks are assembled, not written. If you’ve been blogging for a year or two, you probably have a book’s worth of material sitting on one theme already — you just haven’t seen it as a book yet. Pull together the five to ten posts that fit your topic. If you’re newer and don’t have an archive, that’s fine too; you’ll simply lean harder on the AI drafting in the next step. And if you’re still building that archive, my ultimate guide to blogging is the place to start.

    Step 3: Import or draft inside Designrr

    Designrr’s core trick is importing. You paste in the URLs of your blog posts, or upload Word and Google Docs files, and it pulls the content into a book project with the formatting handled. For gaps in the manuscript, its built-in AI writer (Wordgenie) can generate an outline and chapter drafts from a topic prompt. My advice: let Designrr assemble the skeleton from your existing content first, then use the AI only to fill holes — an intro here, a missing chapter there. Books built this way sound like you, because most of the raw material is you.

    Step 4: Edit like an editor, not a typist

    Here’s the part nobody selling you an AI dream mentions: raw AI drafts are competent and completely forgettable. Your job in this step is to add the things AI can’t — your stories, your examples, your opinions, the mistakes you made so your reader doesn’t have to. Cut the filler sentences that state the obvious. Check every fact and number the AI produced, because it will occasionally invent them with total confidence. This step takes longer than generating the draft did. That’s normal, and it’s what separates an ebook people finish from one they refund.

    Step 5: Design the cover and layout

    Designrr ships with template libraries and cover designs, so pick one close to your vibe and adjust colors and fonts to match your brand. Resist the urge to overdesign. A clean, readable layout with consistent headings beats a decorated one every time. The cover matters more than the interior — it’s what shows on your sales page — so spend your fussing budget there.

    Step 6: Export the right format

    For selling on your own site, export a PDF — it’s what buyers expect and it looks the same on every device. If you also want e-reader formats, the Pro plan and up adds Kindle and ePub-style exports plus flipbooks, but honestly, for a first product a well-made PDF is plenty. Don’t let format perfectionism delay your launch.

    Step 7: Set up your Payhip product page

    Now the selling part. I like Payhip for a first ebook because it’s genuinely simple: upload the PDF, write your sales copy, set a price, and it handles checkout, instant delivery, and EU VAT for you. You can start on their free plan, which takes a percentage of each sale instead of a monthly fee — check current pricing on their site. Write the product description around the result your reader gets, not the number of pages.

    Step 8: Launch it to your list, even a tiny one

    An ebook without a launch just sits there. Send it to your email list in a short series: one email announcing it, one answering objections, one last-call. Twenty warm subscribers beat a thousand cold Instagram followers for a launch like this. If your list barely exists yet, this product is the perfect excuse to fix that — my ultimate guide to email marketing walks you through the setup.

    Pro tips and common mistakes

    • Don’t publish the first draft. The single biggest mistake. AI-generated books that skipped human editing are flooding every marketplace, and readers can smell them. Yours has to be better to sell.
    • Read it out loud once. Awkward AI phrasing hides from your eyes but not your ears.
    • Price on outcome, not page count. A 30-page ebook that solves a painful problem can cost more than a padded 120-page one.
    • Add affiliate links inside the ebook for tools you genuinely recommend, with a disclosure. It turns a one-time sale into ongoing income. I learned this properly from Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing, the $197 course by Michelle Schroeder-Gardner (who built a $50k+/month affiliate income) — it’s the course I took myself.
    • Make a mini version as a lead magnet. Chop out one chapter, give it away for email signups, and let it sell the full book for you.

    FAQ

    Can you really create an ebook with AI?

    Yes — AI handles the heavy lifting of drafting, structuring, and formatting. Tools like Designrr assemble a book from your blog posts or generate chapters from prompts. What AI can’t do is supply your experience and stories, which is exactly what makes an ebook worth paying for. Plan to spend real time editing.

    Is it allowed to sell AI-generated ebooks?

    On your own site or via Payhip, yes — you set the quality bar. Marketplaces have rules, though: Amazon KDP, for example, requires you to declare AI-generated content when you publish there. Wherever you sell, a heavily edited, genuinely useful book is both safer and more profitable than raw AI output.

    How long does it take to make an ebook with AI?

    If you’re assembling from existing blog posts, a focused weekend is realistic: a few hours for import and drafting, and the bulk of your time on editing and the cover. Starting from scratch with AI drafts, give yourself one to two weeks of part-time work so the editing doesn’t get rushed.

    What should I charge for my ebook?

    Most self-published ebooks in the blogging and business space sell somewhere between roughly $9 and $47, depending on how specific and valuable the outcome is. Lead magnets are free by definition. Start at a price you can say out loud without flinching, and test upward from there.

    Do I need Designrr, or can I use free tools?

    You can absolutely build an ebook in Google Docs or Canva for free — it just takes longer and the formatting fights you. Designrr earns its $29/month when you’re importing lots of existing content, want polished templates, or plan to make more than one ebook. For a single tiny freebie, free tools are fine.

    That’s the whole system: pick a real problem, assemble what you know, let AI do the grunt work, and put your name on something you’re proud of. Head over to Designrr and turn the content you already have into an ebook you can actually sell — the sooner it exists, the sooner it can earn.

  • Business, Business, blogging & Money

    How to Sell Templates Online (Canva, Notion & More)

    This post may contain affiliate links, meaning if you decide to make a purchase via my links, I may earn a commission at no additional cost to you. See my disclosure for more info.

    Templates are one of the most sensible digital products you can sell. You design something once — a media kit, a Notion planner, a budget spreadsheet — and sell the same file hundreds of times, with no inventory, no shipping, and no client deadlines attached.

    But “make it once, sell it forever” only works if you pick the right kind of template, sell it in the right place, and actually market it. In this guide I’ll cover what sells, where to sell it (marketplaces versus your own shop), and how to set up a storefront in an afternoon with Payhip — the platform I recommend for starting out, because the free plan gives you a full shop with no monthly cost.

    What template sellers actually sell

    The template market is bigger than most people think, and it’s not just designers earning here. The most popular categories:

    • Canva templates — Instagram post packs, Pinterest pins, media kits, ebooks, workbooks, price lists. If you can design a clean layout in Canva, you can productize it.
    • Notion templates — content planners, habit trackers, freelance dashboards, second-brain setups. Huge demand, low design skill required, high logic skill required.
    • Spreadsheets — budget planners, pricing calculators, content calendars for Google Sheets or Excel.
    • Documents — resume templates, contract and proposal templates, pitch decks.

    The pattern: people pay to skip a blank page. The best-selling templates solve one specific, slightly tedious problem for one specific person — “media kit for food bloggers” beats “social media bundle” every time.

    Marketplace or your own shop?

    You have two routes, and they trade discovery against control.

    Marketplaces like Etsy and Creative Market bring built-in search traffic, which is great when nobody knows you exist. The downsides are real, though: listing and transaction fees stack up, you’re competing on page one with thousands of lookalikes, and — the part that stings long-term — the customer relationship belongs to the platform, not to you.

    Your own shop flips that. With Payhip you get your own storefront and checkout, you keep every customer email address, and there are no listing fees. The trade-off is honest too: you bring the traffic yourself, via Pinterest, SEO, or your email list.

    My advice: do both if you can. Use a marketplace for discovery and your own Payhip shop for everything you promote yourself, so your best traffic builds your list instead of Etsy’s.

    Setting up your template shop on Payhip

    This is genuinely a one-afternoon job. Create a free account, add your first product, and connect PayPal or Stripe to get paid. Payhip handles checkout, file delivery, EU VAT, and discount codes — the boring parts you don’t want to build yourself.

    Payhip’s pricing is refreshingly simple, and all features are included on every plan:

    Plan Monthly price Transaction fee
    Free Forever $0 5%
    Plus $29 2%
    Pro $99 0%

    Start on Free Forever. The 5% fee only hurts once you’re doing serious volume, and at that point upgrading to Plus pays for itself — it’s a nice problem to have.

    For delivery: Canva templates are sold as a PDF containing the template share link, Notion templates as a duplicate link, and spreadsheets as the file itself or a copy link. Include a short “how to use this” page — it cuts your support emails in half.

    How to price templates

    Don’t overthink version one. Single templates tend to sit at pocket-money prices, bundles and full systems justify noticeably more — a “90-day content planner with training video” can charge several times what a lone template can. Raise prices as reviews come in.

    Two principles that matter more than the exact number: bundles out-earn singles almost always, and a small free template is the best marketing you have. Give one away in exchange for an email address, then let your email list do the selling.

    Marketing: the part that decides everything

    Templates are visual products, which makes Pinterest the natural traffic channel — pins showing the template in use keep converting for months. A blog helps too: a post like “what goes in a media kit” can sell your media kit template at the end of it.

    And because you own the customer emails with your own shop, every buyer becomes a future buyer. A simple sequence — deliver, check in, recommend the next template — is enough.

    Worth knowing: template shop traffic also monetizes beyond your own products. Once you’re writing content that attracts buyers, affiliate recommendations slot in naturally next to your templates — Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing ($197, the course I took myself) teaches exactly that model. And if you want to expand your product line fast, some sellers build on PLR products as a starting point — with heavy customization, please.

    The honest downsides

    Selling templates is real work, so let me name what the “passive income” crowd skips.

    • Saturation is real. Generic templates (“Instagram templates, pink”) are everywhere. Without a specific niche, you’ll drown.
    • Copying happens. Your bestseller will inspire imitations. Your brand and list are the defense; the files themselves are not.
    • It’s a volume game at low prices. Meaningful income means either lots of sales or higher-priced bundles — usually both, eventually.
    • Licensing rules matter. For Canva templates, read Canva’s content license: build sale templates with your own or free elements, not Pro content. Boring, but it protects your shop.

    Who shouldn’t do this? If you want money this month, selling templates will frustrate you — selling stuff you already own is faster. And if you hate marketing, a template shop without promotion is just a very organized folder.

    FAQ

    How much money can you make selling templates online?

    It ranges from a few sales a month to a full income, and nobody can promise you a number. The sellers who do well niche down hard, build an email list from day one, and treat marketing as the main job — the template is only half the product.

    Do I need Canva Pro to sell Canva templates?

    No, you can design sellable templates with a free Canva account. Just make sure the elements you use are allowed in templates for sale under Canva’s content license — your own uploads and free elements are the safe route.

    Is it legal to sell Canva and Notion templates?

    Yes. Canva explicitly allows selling templates via share links within its content license rules, and Notion templates are simply pages you created and share as duplicates. What you can’t do is resell someone else’s template or Canva’s Pro assets as your own.

    Where is the best place to sell templates online?

    Etsy and Creative Market win on built-in discovery; your own shop on Payhip wins on fees, control, and owning customer emails. Most successful sellers end up combining a marketplace with their own store.

    How are templates delivered to buyers?

    Usually as a link: a Canva template share link inside a PDF, a Notion duplicate link, or a copy link for spreadsheets. Platforms like Payhip deliver the file automatically after checkout.

    Templates won’t make you rich by Friday, but they’re one of the most realistic ways to earn from design or organizational skills you already have. Head over to Payhip and open your free template shop — pick one specific person, solve one tedious problem for them, and put your first product up this week.

  • Business, Business, blogging & Money

    20 Digital Product Ideas You Can Create in a Weekend

    This post may contain affiliate links, meaning if you decide to make a purchase via my links, I may earn a commission at no additional cost to you. See my disclosure for more info.

    The hardest part of selling digital products isn’t the selling — it’s overthinking the product for six months. So here’s the constraint that fixes it: pick something you can genuinely create in one weekend, put it up for sale on Monday, and improve it once real buyers react.

    Every idea below fits that constraint. For the “put it up for sale” part I recommend Payhip, because the free plan has no monthly fee — you pay a 5% fee per sale and nothing before that, which is exactly the risk profile you want for a weekend experiment. Let’s get into the ideas.

    1. Printable planner pages

    Daily planners, habit trackers, meal planners, budget sheets. Design a cohesive 10-20 page pack as PDFs, and be specific: a “content planner for food bloggers” outsells a generic planner. Printables are the classic first digital product for a reason — no delivery logistics, no updates, evergreen demand.

    2. Spreadsheet templates

    A budget tracker, a freelance income dashboard, an affiliate link tracker, a content calendar in Google Sheets. If you’ve built a spreadsheet that solves your own problem, clean it up, lock the formulas, add an instructions tab, and sell it. Spreadsheet buyers pay for the formulas they don’t want to build.

    3. A short, specific ebook

    Not a 200-page book — a 25-40 page guide that solves one problem: “how to pitch brands as a nano-influencer” beats “social media marketing”. If you blog, you’ve already written half of it; compile, restructure, and edit over a weekend.

    4. Canva templates

    Instagram post packs, Pinterest pin templates, ebook layouts, media kits. Build them in Canva and deliver them as template share links in a PDF. Designers dislike this advice, but non-designers happily pay for a starting point that already looks good.

    5. Lightroom presets

    If your photos have a recognizable look, package it. Export 5-10 presets, show honest before/after examples, and niche down: presets for food photography, moody travel shots, or bright product photos all have their own buyers.

    6. Phone and desktop wallpapers

    Small price, easy volume. Seasonal quote wallpapers, minimalist calendars, illustrated packs. These work best as an entry product that introduces people to your bigger items rather than as your main earner — be realistic about the price point.

    7. Checklists and cheat sheets

    A one-page SEO checklist, a podcast launch checklist, a travel packing list by climate. Cheap to make, genuinely useful, and excellent low-priced products that turn browsers into first-time buyers who trust you with bigger purchases later.

    8. Email swipe files

    Welcome sequences, sales emails, pitch templates for freelancers. Writers who’ve sent hundreds of emails forget how paralyzing a blank draft is for everyone else. Package 10-20 fill-in-the-blank emails around one goal.

    9. Digital stickers and GoodNotes elements

    The digital planning community on iPads buys stickers, washi strips, and planner decorations constantly. If you can illustrate — even simply — a themed sticker book is a fast weekend build with a devoted audience.

    10. A recipe collection or meal plan

    Seven dinners with a combined grocery list, a batch-cooking plan, 15 high-protein breakfasts. Food content converts because the buyer saves time every single week. Photograph as you cook one weekend and write it up the next day. Selling food PDFs works well on Payhip since every plan supports digital downloads with unlimited products.

    11. A workbook or guided journal

    Prompts plus structure: a goal-setting workbook, a burnout recovery journal, a brand clarity workbook. The value is the sequence of questions, not fancy design. Pair it well with an ebook you already sell.

    12. A mini video course

    One outcome, 60-90 minutes of lessons, recorded over a weekend with screen recording and a decent mic. Think “set up your first Pinterest ad” rather than “master marketing”. Short courses often outsell long ones because people finish them.

    13. A recorded workshop

    Even faster than a course: teach one live 90-minute session, record it, sell the replay with the slides and worksheet. The live version funds the product, and the deadline forces you to actually make it.

    14. Audio: meditations or affirmations

    Guided meditations, sleep audio, affirmation tracks for specific situations (before a job interview, after a diagnosis, morning routines). Record with a quiet room and a good mic; sell packs of 5-10 tracks.

    15. A stock photo bundle

    Bloggers and small brands need styled photos: flatlays, desk scenes, seasonal imagery. If you already shoot for your own content, batch one themed shoot and sell 30-50 images as a bundle, with a clear license note.

    16. Resume and CV templates

    Job seekers buy polished, ATS-friendly templates in Word and Google Docs formats. Add a short “how to customize this” page. Evergreen demand, and niching helps here too: creative fields, academia, career switchers.

    17. Pitch and proposal templates

    Freelancer proposals, brand collaboration pitches, sponsorship one-pagers. Anyone who sells services needs these documents and hates writing them. If you’ve closed real clients with yours, that story is your sales page.

    18. Coloring pages

    Adult coloring books, kids’ activity packs, seasonal sets. If you draw — or design clean line art — a 20-30 page PDF pack is a comfortable weekend project with a buyer base that returns for new themes.

    19. PLR content packs

    Write once, license many: sell blog post packs, email sequences, or social captions that buyers may edit and publish as their own. I’ve explained how this model works in my post on boosting your online sales with PLR, and why it fits busy creators in this piece on embracing PLR. Ironically, PLR is also a shortcut on the buying side: some sellers start by customizing PLR instead of writing from scratch.

    20. A small resource library membership

    Bundle several of the ideas above — templates, checklists, printables — into one vault with a monthly price. This is the natural upgrade once three or four individual products exist. Payhip supports memberships alongside downloads and courses, so you can add this later without switching platforms.

    FAQ

    What are the easiest digital product ideas for beginners?

    Printables, checklists, and spreadsheet templates. They need no filming, no course platform, and no design skills beyond Canva basics. Start there, learn what your audience buys, then graduate to workbooks and mini courses.

    Where should I sell digital products without monthly fees?

    Payhip’s Free Forever plan charges $0/month and a 5% transaction fee, with all features included. When sales grow, Plus is $29/month at 2% and Pro is $99/month with no transaction fee — you upgrade when the math favors it.

    How much should I charge for a weekend-made product?

    Price on the problem solved, not the hours spent. Checklists and wallpapers sit at the low end, templates and workbooks in the middle, courses and bundles higher. Test a price for a month before deciding it’s wrong.

    What if I’d rather not create products at all?

    Then sell other people’s products as an affiliate instead — it’s how I’d start with zero creation time. The course that taught me the model properly is Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing ($197), by Michelle Schroeder-Gardner, who built her $50k+/month affiliate income with exactly what she teaches.

    Do I need an audience before launching a digital product?

    No, but you need access to one: your email list, Pinterest traffic, a niche community, or SEO. A small product is actually a good reason to start building that audience — it gives every post and pin somewhere to point.

    Pick one idea, block out Saturday and Sunday, and ship the imperfect first version — that’s the entire strategy. Head over to Payhip to set up your free store so that by Monday morning, your weekend project has a buy button.

  • Business, Business, blogging & Money

    Gumroad vs Payhip: Fees Compared (Keep More of Your Money)

    This post may contain affiliate links, meaning if you decide to make a purchase via my links, I may earn a commission at no additional cost to you. See my disclosure for more info.

    TL;DR: On fees, Payhip wins at every sales volume I ran the numbers for: its free plan takes 5% per sale against Gumroad’s 10% + $0.50, and paid Payhip plans push your fee to 2% or 0%. Start on Payhip’s free plan here if keeping more per sale is the goal. Gumroad still earns its cut if you want marketplace exposure through Discover and completely hands-off sales tax.

    Gumroad and Payhip solve the same problem: sell a digital product without building a store. Both let you start with no monthly fee, both handle file delivery and checkout, and both take a slice when you sell. The slices are very different sizes, and since fees quietly decide how much of your work you keep, this comparison is mostly math. I’ll show my numbers so you can check them against your own products.

    The fee structures, side by side

      Gumroad Payhip
    Monthly cost $0 $0 (Free), $29 (Plus), $99 (Pro)
    Fee per direct sale 10% + $0.50 5% (Free), 2% (Plus), 0% (Pro)
    Marketplace sales 30% via Gumroad Discover No marketplace
    Payment processing No separate line on their pricing page Stripe/PayPal standard rates on top
    Tax handling Merchant of record since January 2025; handles sales tax worldwide Collects and remits EU and UK VAT on digital sales

    One honest wrinkle before the math: Payhip’s percentages exclude payment processing (in the US, Stripe’s standard card rate is 2.9% + $0.30), while Gumroad’s pricing page lists no separate processing line. To keep the comparison fair, I’ve added full Stripe processing to Payhip’s side in every scenario below. Payhip still comes out cheaper each time.

    The math at three revenue levels

    Assume a $20 product. Here’s what each platform takes per month, with Stripe processing added on top of Payhip’s cut.

    Monthly sales Gumroad (10% + $0.50) Payhip Free (5% + processing) Payhip Plus ($29 + 2% + processing)
    25 sales ($500) $62.50 $47 $61
    100 sales ($2,000) $250 $188 $157
    250 sales ($5,000) $625 $470 $349

    At $5,000 a month, Payhip’s Pro plan ($99, 0% platform fee) beats everything: $99 plus roughly $220 of processing is $319, half of Gumroad’s $625. The gap widens as you grow, because a flat 10% scales with your success and a flat $99 doesn’t.

    The upgrade points are worth memorizing. Payhip Plus starts beating the Free plan just under $1,000 a month in sales, and Pro overtakes Plus around $3,500 a month. Below those lines, stay on the cheaper plan; the beauty of Payhip’s pricing is that every feature is included at every level, so upgrading is purely a fee decision.

    What the fee table doesn’t tell you

    If fees were the whole story, this post would be over. Three things genuinely favor Gumroad.

    Sales tax, handled completely. Since January 2025, Gumroad acts as merchant of record: it collects and remits sales tax worldwide, and legally it is the seller. For creators with buyers in many countries, that removes a real administrative burden. Payhip handles the biggest chunk (EU and UK VAT on digital products) but other jurisdictions remain your homework.

    Discover, the built-in marketplace. Gumroad can send you buyers you didn’t earn through its Discover feed, at a steep 30% fee on those sales. Thirty percent of a sale you’d never have made is a fine deal; just don’t build a business plan on marketplace traffic, because for most sellers it stays a trickle.

    Familiarity. Buyers have seen Gumroad checkouts for years. It’s a small trust advantage, and smaller every year.

    On the other side, Payhip’s structural advantage beyond fees: your money lands directly in your own Stripe or PayPal account at the moment of sale, rather than flowing through a platform payout schedule, and every feature (coupons, your own affiliate program, memberships, courses) is available on the $0 plan.

    Verdict: who should pick what

    • You have an audience (blog, list, socials) and sell direct: Payhip, no contest. The 5% free plan keeps the most money in your pocket at the start, and the paid tiers scale cheaper than 10% + $0.50 ever will.
    • You have zero audience and hope the platform brings buyers: Gumroad’s Discover is the only marketplace option here, but temper expectations and mind the 30%. Building your own audience remains the real fix; my ultimate guide to blogging is where I’d start.
    • You sell globally and dread tax admin: Gumroad’s merchant-of-record setup is genuinely valuable, and for some sellers worth the higher fee.
    • You’re scaling past a few thousand a month: Payhip Pro turns your platform fee into a flat $99, which is where serious margins live.

    Whichever you pick, sell through an email list rather than hoping for passing traffic; my ultimate guide to email marketing covers building the asset that makes any store work.

    FAQ

    What fees does Gumroad charge?

    Gumroad charges 10% + $0.50 per sale made through your own links or profile, with no monthly cost. Sales that come through its Discover marketplace carry a 30% fee instead. Since January 2025, Gumroad is merchant of record and handles sales tax worldwide.

    What fees does Payhip charge?

    Payhip’s Free Forever plan charges 5% per sale with no monthly cost. Plus is $29 a month with a 2% fee, and Pro is $99 a month with 0%. Stripe or PayPal processing fees apply on top of every plan.

    Is Payhip cheaper than Gumroad?

    For direct sales, yes, at every volume I’ve modeled, even after adding full Stripe processing to Payhip’s side. The gap grows with revenue: at $5,000 a month on a $20 product, Payhip Pro costs roughly half of what Gumroad’s 10% + $0.50 works out to.

    Do I pay Stripe or PayPal fees on both platforms?

    On Payhip, yes: the processors charge their standard rates on top of Payhip’s percentage. Gumroad’s pricing page doesn’t list a separate processing fee alongside its 10% + $0.50. The comparison table above adds processing to Payhip’s side, so the totals stay honest.

    Who handles VAT and sales tax?

    Gumroad handles it all as merchant of record. Payhip automatically collects and remits EU and UK VAT on digital products, and leaves other jurisdictions to you. If most of your buyers are in the EU, UK or US, Payhip covers the hard part; a truly global audience tilts this point toward Gumroad.

    Run the numbers on your own product price and volume, but the pattern holds: the platform fee is the biggest lever on your margins, and it’s the one you control today. Open a free Payhip store, keep 95% instead of roughly 87%, and let the difference compound with every sale.

  • Payhip Review- The Underrated Gumroad Alternative
    Business, Business, blogging & Money

    Payhip Review: The Underrated Gumroad Alternative

    This post may contain affiliate links, meaning if you decide to make a purchase via my links, I may earn a commission at no additional cost to you. See my disclosure for more info.

    TL;DR: Payhip is the lowest-risk way I know to start selling digital products: every feature on every plan, unlimited products, and a free plan that only takes 5% when you actually sell something. You can open a free Payhip store here and have an ebook listed tonight. Skip it if you need a designer storefront or built-in marketplace traffic.

    Gumroad gets the headlines, Shopify gets the conference talks, and Payhip quietly does the job for creators who just want to sell a PDF, a course or a template pack without monthly overhead. I keep recommending it to bloggers with a first product idea, and this review explains why, along with the parts that might make you choose something else.

    What is Payhip?

    Payhip is an e-commerce platform for creators. You upload a product, set a price, and Payhip gives you a checkout link, a simple storefront and embeddable buy buttons for your own site. Money goes straight into your PayPal or Stripe account rather than sitting in a platform wallet.

    You can sell digital downloads, online courses, coaching, memberships and physical goods. For digital products in particular it handles the annoying parts: file delivery, download limits, license keys for software, and EU and UK VAT on checkout.

    Payhip pricing

    Plan Monthly price Transaction fee
    Free Forever $0 5% per sale
    Plus $29 2% per sale
    Pro $99 0%

    Every plan includes all features, unlimited products and unlimited revenue. You are paying purely to lower the transaction fee. PayPal and Stripe charge their standard processing rates on top, on every plan.

    That structure is the quiet genius of Payhip: you can validate a product at zero fixed cost, then upgrade only when the math favors it. Around $1,000 a month in sales, Plus starts costing less than Free’s 5%; around $3,500 a month, Pro overtakes Plus. Until then, stay free and spend nothing.

    What Payhip does well

    No feature gates. Coupons, affiliate programs for your own products, upgrade pricing, pay-what-you-want, customer messaging: it’s all there on the $0 plan. Most competitors save something essential for the expensive tier.

    VAT without tears. Payhip collects and remits EU and UK VAT on digital sales for you. If you’ve ever read a VAT-on-digital-goods explainer and closed the tab in despair, this alone justifies the platform.

    It works with a blog instead of replacing it. Embed buy buttons in posts, link a product from your newsletter, done. Pair it with a proper list from day one; my ultimate guide to email marketing covers that side.

    Fast to learn. The dashboard is plain and shallow in the good sense. Upload, price, publish takes minutes, not a weekend of settings.

    Where Payhip falls short (and who shouldn’t buy)

    Storefront design is basic. You get clean but generic pages with limited customization. If brand aesthetics are central to your product, you’ll feel boxed in compared with a custom Shopify or WordPress shop.

    No marketplace traffic. Etsy and Gumroad’s Discover feed send buyers to listings; Payhip sends you nobody. You bring the audience, or nobody comes. If you have no blog, list or social following yet, fix that first.

    Marketing tools are thin. The built-in email and analytics features are serviceable at best. You’ll want a real email platform and your own tracking alongside it.

    Stripe and PayPal only. If neither processor operates properly in your country, Payhip is a non-starter. Check that before anything else.

    Who shouldn’t buy: sellers who want discovery traffic built in, full website-builder control, or deep funnel features like order bumps everywhere and complex upsell chains.

    How Payhip compares to the alternatives

    Against Gumroad, the trade is fees versus reach. Payhip is cheaper per sale at every plan level, while Gumroad offers its Discover marketplace and handles global sales tax as merchant of record. If you already own your audience, cheaper wins; if you own nothing yet, reach is tempting, though marketplace traffic is rarely as big as people hope.

    Against Etsy, the difference is dependence. Etsy brings shoppers but takes listing fees, transaction fees and total control of the relationship; your customers are Etsy’s customers. On Payhip, you keep the email address and the customer, which matters more with every product you launch.

    Against course platforms like Teachable or Podia, Payhip is simpler and much cheaper, but lighter. Its course builder covers videos, files and quizzes without the polish of a dedicated platform. For a first mini-course it’s plenty; for a flagship $500 program with communities and certificates, you’ll outgrow it.

    Who is Payhip for? My verdict

    Payhip fits bloggers and creators who already have (or are building) an audience and want to sell their first digital products without betting money on the outcome. The free plan means a failed product costs you nothing but the time it took to make.

    It’s the platform I suggest when someone tells me they’ve been sitting on an ebook draft for six months. Put it on a free Payhip store, price it honestly, and let real buyers vote. If you’re still building the audience half of that equation, start with my ultimate guide to blogging.

    A realistic first launch looks like this: one small product at a modest price, a product page written in your own voice, buy buttons embedded in your two or three most-visited blog posts, and one honest email to your list. No countdown timers, no webinar. Payhip handles checkout and delivery; your only job is sending people to the page and reading what they say afterwards.

    FAQ

    Is Payhip really free?

    Yes. The Free Forever plan has no monthly cost, no product limits and no revenue caps. Payhip takes 5% of each sale, and PayPal or Stripe take their standard processing fees. If you sell nothing, you pay nothing.

    What fees does Payhip charge?

    5% per sale on the free plan, 2% on Plus ($29/month) and 0% on Pro ($99/month). Payment processing by Stripe or PayPal comes on top of every plan, at their normal rates.

    Is Payhip better than Gumroad?

    On fees, usually: Payhip’s free plan takes 5% per sale where Gumroad takes 10% plus $0.50 per direct sale. Gumroad counters with its Discover marketplace and merchant-of-record tax handling, so sellers who want discovery traffic may still prefer it.

    Does Payhip handle VAT?

    Payhip collects and remits EU and UK VAT on digital product sales automatically at checkout. Other sales taxes remain your responsibility, so check your local rules or ask an accountant once revenue becomes meaningful.

    What can you sell on Payhip?

    Digital downloads (ebooks, templates, printables, software with license keys), online courses, coaching sessions, memberships and physical products. Most creators start with a simple digital download because delivery is instant and support is minimal.

    If you’ve been waiting for a sign to finally sell that ebook, template or mini-course, this is it. Open a free Payhip store, list one product this week, and let the 5% fee be the only thing you owe until real money comes in.

  • Payhip Tutorial: Sell Digital Downloads With Zero Monthly Fees
    Business, Business, blogging & Money

    Payhip Tutorial: Sell Digital Downloads With Zero Monthly Fees

    This post may contain affiliate links, meaning if you decide to make a purchase via my links, I may earn a commission at no additional cost to you. See my disclosure for more info.

    Selling your first digital product should not require a monthly subscription before you have earned a cent. That is the whole reason Payhip keeps coming up in my recommendations: the free plan is free forever, every feature is included, and Payhip only earns when you do.

    In this tutorial I will walk you through the entire setup — account, payments, your first product, VAT, and the launch — in about an hour of actual work. By the end you will have a working store selling an ebook, template, printable, or any other file you can dream up.

    One expectation to set honestly upfront: Payhip is a storefront, not a marketplace. Nobody browses Payhip looking for products the way they browse Etsy. You bring the audience; Payhip handles the selling. Keep that in mind and you will not be disappointed.

    What you need before you start

    A finished digital file (PDF, template bundle, audio, video — anything downloadable), a Stripe or PayPal account to receive money, and something to sell to: a blog, a social following, or an email list, however small. That is the complete list.

    Step-by-step: your Payhip store

    Step 1: Create your free account

    Sign up at Payhip — the Free Forever plan needs no card details. At the time of writing, free means a 5% transaction fee on sales; the paid plans (Plus at $29 a month with a 2% fee, Pro at $99 with no fee) only make sense later, and I will show you the math for when.

    Refreshingly, all three plans include every feature and unlimited products. You are not being squeezed toward an upgrade to unlock basics — the only difference is the fee.

    Step 2: Connect Stripe or PayPal

    In your account settings, connect Stripe, PayPal, or both. Payments from customers land directly in these accounts — Payhip never holds your money. Both processors charge their own standard processing fees on top of Payhip’s cut, which is normal everywhere. Offering both options is worth the five minutes: some buyers simply will not use one or the other.

    Step 3: Upload your first product

    Click to add a new product, choose digital download, and upload your file. Give it a clear, benefit-driven name — “Budget Planner for Freelancers (Google Sheets + PDF)” beats “My Planner v2”. If your product is a bundle, zip the files and mention exactly what is inside. Buyers get a secure download link automatically after checkout, and you can push updated files to past buyers later — handy for templates you improve over time.

    Step 4: Write a product page that actually sells

    The description does the selling, so structure it: one sentence on the problem, a short list of what is included, who it is for (and who it is not for), and what changes after using it. Add real previews — a mockup, sample pages, a short video if you have one. Vague pages do not convert, and no platform can fix that for you.

    Step 5: Price it and let Payhip handle VAT

    Pick a price you can defend, not the lowest one you dare to ask. Digital products are judged on the outcome they deliver, not their file size.

    Then the unglamorous part that Payhip quietly does well: tax. If you sell to EU customers, digital products fall under EU VAT rules, and Payhip calculates, collects, and remits that VAT for you. If the phrase “VAT MOSS” has ever scared you away from selling digital products, this feature alone justifies the platform.

    Step 6: Put the store where your audience is

    You get a hosted storefront out of the box, which is fine, though design customization is fairly basic — this is not the platform for pixel-perfect branding. The stronger move for bloggers: embed Payhip buy buttons or checkout directly into your own blog posts, so readers buy without leaving your site. If your blog is not ready for that yet, my ultimate guide to blogging covers building the audience half of this equation.

    Step 7: Launch with a coupon and your email list

    Create a launch coupon — Payhip supports discount codes on every plan — and give your audience a reason to buy this week instead of someday. Email beats social here, every time. If you do not have a list yet, start one before your next product; my ultimate guide to email marketing walks you through it from zero.

    Pro tips and common mistakes

    The upgrade math: Plus at $29 a month (2% fee) beats the free plan’s 5% fee once you sell roughly $1,000 a month. Below that, the free plan is genuinely the better deal — upgrading early is donating margin. Run the numbers on your real revenue, not your hoped-for revenue.

    Common mistakes I see: launching with no traffic plan and blaming the platform; skipping the mockup images; pricing at $3 because impostor syndrome said so; and forgetting to test the full checkout yourself before announcing. Buy your own product with a 100% coupon and check the emails a customer receives.

    FAQ

    Is Payhip really free?

    Yes. The Free Forever plan costs $0 a month with unlimited products and all features; Payhip takes a 5% cut of each sale instead (plus normal Stripe or PayPal processing fees). No sales, no costs.

    What can you sell on Payhip?

    Digital downloads, online courses, coaching, memberships, and even physical products. For bloggers, downloads are the natural start: ebooks, templates, printables, presets, spreadsheets.

    When should I upgrade from the free plan?

    When 3% of your monthly revenue exceeds $29 — around $1,000 a month in sales — the Plus plan starts paying for itself. Before that point, the free plan’s 5% fee is cheaper than any subscription.

    Do I need my own website to sell on Payhip?

    No — every account includes a hosted storefront with its own link you can share anywhere. That said, sellers with their own blog or audience consistently do better, because Payhip brings the checkout, not the customers.

    How does Payhip handle EU VAT?

    Payhip calculates the correct VAT at checkout based on the buyer’s country, collects it, and remits it for digital product sales in the EU and UK. You price your product; the tax handling happens behind the scenes.

    You could keep polishing that ebook for another month, or it could be for sale by tonight. Head over to Payhip and open your free store, upload the file, and let the first real sale tell you what to improve.

  • How to Presell Your Course Before You Build It
    Business, Business, blogging & Money

    How to Presell Your Course Before You Build It

    This post may contain affiliate links, meaning if you decide to make a purchase via my links, I may earn a commission at no additional cost to you. See my disclosure for more info.

    The saddest thing in the creator world is a finished course nobody buys. Months of recording, editing, and building — launched to silence. The fix is almost embarrassingly simple: sell the course before you build it.

    Preselling means offering a founding-member version of your course, taking real payments, and only then producing the content. If enough people buy, you build it with their feedback. If nobody buys, you just saved yourself three months. All you need is a sales page with a checkout — I recommend Podia for this because the landing page, checkout, and course area live in one place — plus an email list, even a small one.

    Here is the exact process, step by step.

    What you need before you start

    Three things. First, an audience you can reach: an email list, a warm social following, or a community you are active in. It does not need to be big, but it cannot be zero. Second, a course idea tied to a problem people already ask you about. Third, a platform to take payments — Podia has a 30-day free trial with no card required, so you can run the whole presell before paying anything.

    Step-by-step: preselling your course

    Step 1: Define the transformation, not the topic

    Nobody buys “a course about Pinterest”. People buy “get your first 10,000 monthly blog visitors from Pinterest in 90 days”. Write one sentence: who it is for, what changes for them, and how long it takes. If you cannot write that sentence, you are not ready to sell — or build.

    Step 2: Sanity-check demand in real conversations

    Before building a sales page, talk to five to ten people who match your audience. Ask what they have already tried and what they would pay to fix. You are listening for the words they use — those words become your sales copy. If the conversations feel lukewarm, adjust the promise now, not after launch.

    Step 3: Design the founding-member offer

    A presell offer trades a lower price and extra access for patience and feedback. The classic shape: a meaningful founding discount off the planned price, direct access to you (a group call or Q&A thread), and a clearly stated delivery schedule — for example, one module per week starting on a specific date.

    Be explicit that the course is being built. Hiding that is where preselling turns sleazy; stating it plainly is what makes founding members feel like insiders instead of guinea pigs.

    Step 4: Build a one-page sales page with checkout

    You need one page: the promise, who it is for, the module outline, the delivery date, the founding price, and a buy button. In Podia you can build this page, connect the checkout, and set up the course area it will eventually live in, all inside the same account. No stitching together a page builder, a cart, and a course platform.

    Add a plain-language guarantee: if the course does not go ahead, everyone gets a full refund. This single line removes most of the risk your buyers feel.

    Step 5: Put a real deadline on the offer

    Open the founding offer for a fixed window — five to seven days works well — and close it visibly. A deadline is what turns “interesting, maybe later” into a decision. For a first presell, a simple stated close date is enough.

    When you later rerun the offer evergreen, use a tool like Deadline Funnel to give every subscriber an authentic personal deadline that actually expires. Fake countdown timers that reset on refresh train people to ignore you; real ones train people to decide.

    Step 6: Launch it to your email list

    Email beats social for selling, every time. A simple sequence works: an announcement, a story or objection email, a straight what-you-get email, and two emails on the final day. If your list is tiny or rusty, spend two weeks warming it up first — my ultimate guide to email marketing covers that groundwork.

    Step 7: Count the sales and decide honestly

    Set your go/no-go number before launch — many creators use five to ten founding sales as the minimum worth building for. Hit it? Build, delivering module by module and folding in feedback. Miss it? Refund everyone with a gracious email, ask the non-buyers what held them back, and either rework the offer or move on. A refunded presell is a cheap lesson; a built course nobody wanted is an expensive one.

    Common mistakes and pro tips

    The mistakes I see most often: preselling to a completely cold audience (validation needs warmth), promising a delivery date you cannot hit (pad your estimate), and writing a vague promise because a specific one feels scary. Specific sells.

    Two pro tips. Deliver the first module quickly — buyers who receive value in week one rarely refund. And record your founding members’ questions as you go; they become your course improvements and your future sales page copy. Course platforms run launch events on this exact model constantly — I saw it up close at the Teachable summit, where creator after creator credited their first income to a presell, not a polished launch.

    FAQ

    Is it ethical to sell a course that does not exist yet?

    Yes, if you are transparent. State clearly that it is a founding-member presale, give a delivery schedule, and offer full refunds if you do not deliver. What is not ethical is pretending a half-built course is finished.

    How many email subscribers do I need to presell a course?

    Less than you think, but more than zero. With a few hundred engaged subscribers you can realistically test a small founding cohort. What matters is engagement: 300 people who open your emails beat 5,000 who forgot you exist.

    What should I charge for a presell?

    A meaningful discount off the planned full price — commonly somewhere between 30% and 50% — in exchange for buying early and giving feedback. Do not go so cheap that the sale proves nothing; a $10 yes does not validate a $300 course.

    What if people buy and I realize I cannot deliver?

    Refund everyone, promptly and personally. It stings, but it costs you a little pride instead of your reputation. This is exactly why you set a minimum sales threshold and a realistic delivery schedule before opening the cart.

    Which platform is best for preselling an online course?

    Anything that combines a landing page with checkout will work, but it is simplest when the sales page, payments, and the eventual course live in one system. Podia does exactly that, and the free trial covers a full presell window.

    If you already have a checkout or email tool you like and just want a dedicated page to turn visitors into founding members, I’d also look at Leadpages, a tool built specifically for landing and opt-in pages. It won’t handle your checkout or course delivery, but for the one page doing the convincing, it gives you more templates and built-in split-testing than an all-in-one platform typically offers.

    You do not need a finished course to start earning from one — you need a specific promise, a small warm audience, and a page that takes payments. Head over to Podia and start your free 30-day trial, put your founding offer on a page this week, and let real buyers tell you whether to build.

  • How to Price an Online Course (Psychology + Math)
    Business, Business, blogging & Money

    How to Price an Online Course (Psychology + Math)

    This post may contain affiliate links, meaning if you decide to make a purchase via my links, I may earn a commission at no additional cost to you. See my disclosure for more info.

    Ask ten course creators how they picked their price and at least eight will admit some version of “I guessed, then felt weird about it.” Pricing an online course sits exactly where psychology and math collide, and most advice only covers one half.

    This guide covers both: the numbers that tell you what your price needs to be, and the buyer psychology that tells you what your price is allowed to be. I will use simple worked examples throughout, and where platform costs matter I will use Podia as the reference, since its fees are easy to reason about and I recommend it often for first courses.

    By the end you will have an actual number — not a shrug.

    Why most creators underprice their course

    Underpricing feels safe. A low price seems easier to defend, easier to sell, and kinder to your audience. In practice it backfires three ways.

    First, price is information. Buyers read $19 as “a PDF with ambitions” and $190 as “a structured path to a result.” Same course, different expectations — and people commit harder to things they paid real money for, which means better completion, better results, better testimonials.

    Second, cheap prices attract refund-prone, support-heavy customers more often than premium prices do. Every experienced creator I have compared notes with confirms this pattern, uncomfortable as it sounds.

    Third, the math rarely works, as you are about to see.

    The math: work backwards from your goal

    Start at the end. Say you want your course to add $2,000 a month to your income. Two honest routes get you there:

    • At $50, you need 40 sales every month.
    • At $200, you need 10.

    Now apply a common rule of thumb: on a typical launch or evergreen funnel, somewhere around 1-2% of engaged email subscribers buy. Forty monthly sales at 1.5% conversion implies roughly 2,700 fresh, engaged subscribers a month — a serious traffic operation. Ten sales implies about 700. Which audience do you actually have? That question alone disqualifies most low prices.

    Then subtract costs, because your price is not your profit:

    • Platform fees. On Podia’s Mover plan ($42/month at the time of writing) you also pay a 5% transaction fee; the Shaker plan ($84/month) drops that to 0%. Sell $2,000 a month and Shaker’s higher subscription already beats Mover’s fee — run that comparison for your own numbers on Podia’s pricing page.
    • Payment processing. Roughly 2.9% + 30 cents per card transaction, on any platform.
    • Refunds and ad spend, if applicable. Budget a margin so one refund week does not sink the month.

    The lesson from the math is almost always the same: fewer sales at a higher price is the more achievable business for a small audience.

    The psychology: what your price says before your sales page loads

    Anchor against the alternative, not against other courses. Your course does not compete with a $12 ebook; it competes with the cost of the problem. If your course saves someone three months of trial and error, or replaces $600 of one-on-one help, say so — then your $190 price has a context in which it looks small.

    Tiers change the question. Offering two or three versions (course only / course plus templates / course plus a call) moves the buyer from “yes or no?” to “which one?” Most pick the middle. Keep it to three tiers at most; choice overload kills checkouts.

    Round numbers versus charm prices. $197-style pricing signals “deal,” round numbers like $200 signal calm confidence. Both work; premium positioning usually leans round. What matters more is not changing your price weekly — buyers notice, and trust erodes.

    Cheap creates doubt. Below a certain floor — for most transformation-focused courses, somewhere around $50 — a low price stops being attractive and starts being suspicious. If you want an entry product, make it deliberately small (a workshop, a template pack) instead of discounting the flagship.

    Payment plans, launch discounts, and raising prices

    Payment plans widen access without lowering the anchor. Three payments of $79 keeps the $200-ish value signal while fitting more budgets. Expect slightly higher failed-payment admin; platforms handle the retries, but factor in the noise.

    Founding-member pricing is the honest discount. For a first launch, a reduced price in exchange for feedback and testimonials is fair to everyone — as long as you say the price will rise, and then actually raise it. Deadlines only work when they are real.

    Raise prices on evidence. Once students get results, each launch can step the price up; early buyers keep what they paid, which rewards trust. Listening to how experienced creators handle this taught me a lot — I shared my notes from the Teachable Summit, where pricing came up in nearly every session.

    A worked example, start to finish

    Imagine a course teaching freelancers to write proposals that win clients. The creator has 1,500 engaged subscribers, built through the kind of list-first approach I describe in my ultimate guide to email marketing.

    • Value anchor: one won client is worth $1,000+, so a price up to a few hundred dollars is defensible.
    • Audience math: 1,500 subscribers at 1.5% conversion suggests roughly 20-25 sales on a good launch.
    • Goal: $4,000 from the first launch. $4,000 divided by 22 expected sales lands near $180.
    • Decision: founding price $149, public price $199 afterwards, with a 3 x $55 payment plan. Tier two at $299 adds a proposal review.

    Every number there came from a goal, an audience size, and an anchor — not a feeling. That is the whole method. And practically: on Podia you can set all of this up — tiers, payment plans, coupons for the founding launch — inside the 30-day free trial, before you have paid the platform anything.

    FAQ

    How much should I charge for an online course?

    Work backwards: income goal, divided by realistic sales from your audience size (1-2% of engaged subscribers is a common launch benchmark), sense-checked against the value of the outcome. For transformation-focused courses that lands between $100 and $500 far more often than under $50.

    Is $200 too much for an online course?

    Not if the outcome is worth multiples of that and the course delivers a clear path to it. Buyers judge price against the problem, not against cheaper courses. Under-explained value is the usual problem — not the number itself.

    How should a beginner price their first course?

    Use founding-member pricing: a genuinely reduced first-launch price in exchange for feedback and testimonials, with a stated plan to raise it. You get proof and momentum; early students get a fair deal for taking a chance on you.

    Should I offer a payment plan?

    Usually yes, for anything over about $150. Plans widen access while keeping your anchor price intact. Expect a little extra admin from failed payments, and price the plan slightly above the pay-in-full total.

    When should I raise my course price?

    After evidence: student results, testimonials, a smoother course experience. Raising the price at each launch — while letting existing students keep their deal — is the most trust-preserving way to grow revenue from the same course.

    Price is a decision you can make with a calculator and defend with a straight face: goal, audience math, value anchor, then commit. When you are ready to put a real price on a real checkout page, start your free 30-day Podia trial and build the tiers and payment plan from this guide today — the number gets much less scary once it is live.

  • Teachable Review: Still the Course Platform to Beat?
    Business, Business, blogging & Money

    Teachable Review: Still the Course Platform to Beat?

    This post may contain affiliate links, meaning if you decide to make a purchase via my links, I may earn a commission at no additional cost to you. See my disclosure for more info.

    TL;DR: Teachable is still one of the strongest platforms for people whose business is courses. The course player, graded quizzes, and certificates outclass most simpler rivals, and higher plans drop transaction fees to zero. But the entry plan double-dips ($39/month plus a 7.5% fee), there is no free tier anymore, and email marketing is barely there. If structured courses at scale are your plan, Teachable’s free trial is worth your week; casual creators should look at friendlier options first.

    What is Teachable?

    Teachable is one of the original hosted course platforms, and after all these years it still carries that identity: it is a school builder more than a storefront. You create courses with sections and lectures, students get a clean learning environment with progress tracking, and you get the machinery around it — checkout, quizzes, completion certificates, student management.

    It has broadened over time. Coaching products and digital downloads are options now, and I have written before about creative ways to use Teachable beyond hosting courses. But make no mistake about the center of gravity: this platform is optimized for people teaching structured material to enrolled students.

    This teachable review is written for the person deciding whether that focus is a feature or a limitation. It is genuinely both, depending on your business.

    Teachable pricing in 2026

    These prices come straight from Teachable’s pricing page at the time of writing. Annual billing runs about 22% cheaper; monthly prices shown first.

    Plan Monthly Annual (per month) Transaction fee Limits
    Starter $39 $29 7.5% 5 products, 1 admin, 100 active students
    Builder $89 $69 0% via teachable:pay 10 products, 1 admin, 1,000 active students
    Growth $189 $139 0% via teachable:pay 50 products, 5 admins, 5,000 active students
    Advanced $399 $309 0% via teachable:pay 100 products, 5 admins, 10,000 active students

    There is a 7-day free trial and a 30-day guarantee. Standard card processing (2.9% + 30 cents for US cards, more for international) applies on top, and the 0% platform fee assumes you process payments through teachable:pay.

    Read that Starter row twice. Thirty-nine dollars a month and 7.5% of every sale is a real cost for a beginner — sell $1,000 of courses and you have paid over $110 that month before card fees. Builder is where the economics start making sense.

    If you do commit, annual billing is the sensible default. The discount brings Builder down to $69/month, and a year is a realistic horizon for a course business anyway — nobody builds a profitable school in six weeks, and switching platforms mid-launch is misery you can avoid by deciding properly once.

    What Teachable does well

    The learning experience. The course player is polished and familiar to students, progress tracking works, and graded quizzes plus completion certificates are built in. If your course needs to feel like a course — not a folder of videos — this is what you are paying for.

    Room to grow. The plan ladder up to 10,000 active students, multiple admin seats on higher tiers, and pricing tools like payment plans mean you will not outgrow the platform quickly. Larger course businesses stay on Teachable for a reason.

    Zero platform fees where it counts. From Builder up, Teachable takes nothing per sale when you use its payment system. For a business doing steady volume, that beats percentage-based pricing by a wide margin.

    Selling machinery. Order bumps, coupons, and the option to run your own affiliate program for your courses give you real levers once you are past your first launch. Combined with the assessment features, Teachable covers the full serious-course-business checklist better than most.

    Where Teachable falls short (and who shouldn’t buy it)

    • No free plan. The old free tier is gone; the 7-day trial is short for evaluating something this central to your business. Plan your trial week before starting it.
    • The Starter squeeze. $39/month plus 7.5% per sale plus a 100-student cap makes the entry plan hard to recommend for anyone who expects actual sales.
    • Email marketing is minimal. You can send basic emails to students, but list-building, sequences, and automation need a dedicated tool — my ultimate guide to email marketing covers what to pair with it. Budget for that second subscription.
    • One admin seat until Growth. If you work with a VA or co-creator, you hit this wall at $189/month (or $139 annually).
    • It is course-shaped. Downloads, communities, and mixed product catalogs feel bolted on. Creators selling a bit of everything usually find all-in-one platforms more comfortable.

    Skip Teachable if you are testing your very first $29 product, if community is your core offer, or if you want website, email, and products under one roof. It rewards commitment, not experiments.

    My verdict: still the one to beat — for one kind of creator

    Is Teachable still the course platform to beat? For structured, scaling course businesses: yes. Nothing in the simpler all-in-one category matches its learning experience, assessments, and student capacity. For everyone else, the answer has genuinely changed over the years — beginners and mixed-product creators now have friendlier, cheaper homes.

    If you recognize yourself in the first group, do it properly: start the Teachable trial, build one complete module with a quiz and certificate, and test-run checkout in the same week. Seven days is enough if you arrive prepared.

    FAQ

    Is Teachable worth it in 2026?

    For course-first businesses that will use the quizzes, certificates, and student capacity, yes — especially from the Builder plan up, where transaction fees drop to zero. For casual or mixed-product sellers, the entry costs outweigh the benefits.

    Does Teachable have a free plan?

    Not anymore at the time of writing. Plans start at $39/month (or $29/month billed annually), with a 7-day free trial and a 30-day guarantee instead of a permanent free tier.

    What are Teachable’s transaction fees?

    The Starter plan charges 7.5% per sale. Builder, Growth, and Advanced charge 0% when payments run through teachable:pay. Card processing fees — roughly 2.9% + 30 cents for US cards — apply on every plan.

    Can you sell more than courses on Teachable?

    Yes: coaching products and digital downloads are supported, and each counts toward your plan’s product limit. The tools are functional, but platforms built around mixed catalogs handle non-course products more gracefully.

    Is Teachable good for beginners?

    It is easy enough to learn, but the pricing punishes small scale — the 7.5% Starter fee and 100-student cap bite exactly when you are starting. Beginners with a serious course plan should consider jumping straight to Builder on annual billing.

    If your ambition is a real course business — enrolled students, graded progress, certificates, growing cohorts — Teachable remains the benchmark the others get measured against. Head over to Teachable and start your free trial with one module ready to upload, and you will know by Friday whether it is your platform.

  • Podia vs Teachable: Which Course Platform in 2026?
    Business, Business, blogging & Money

    Podia vs Teachable: Which Course Platform in 2026?

    This post may contain affiliate links, meaning if you decide to make a purchase via my links, I may earn a commission at no additional cost to you. See my disclosure for more info.

    TL;DR: In the podia vs teachable question, the honest answer depends on what you sell. Choose Podia if you are a solo creator selling a mix of courses, downloads, coaching, or webinars and want your storefront, checkout, community spaces, and email in one simple dashboard — Podia’s 30-day free trial gives you a full month to test that. Choose Teachable if courses are the core of your business and you want the stronger course player with graded quizzes and certificates. Neither is bad; they are built for different creators.

    The two platforms in one minute

    Podia is an all-in-one selling platform. Courses, digital downloads, coaching, webinars, community spaces, a website builder, and built-in email marketing live under one roof. Its whole personality is “keep it simple” — fewer settings, calmer interface, faster from idea to checkout page.

    Teachable is a course platform first. It has been one of the biggest names in online courses for years, and it shows in the learning experience: a polished course player, quizzes, certificates, and tools designed for structured curriculum. You can sell coaching and downloads there too, but courses are clearly the main act — you can start with Teachable’s free trial to see that focus for yourself.

    Podia vs Teachable: comparison table

    Prices below are what I verified on both pricing pages at the time of writing (July 2026). Both companies adjust pricing now and then, so double-check before buying.

    Podia Teachable
    Entry price Mover, $42/month Starter, $39/month (or $29/month billed annually)
    Mid-tier price Shaker, $84/month Builder, $89/month (or $69/month billed annually)
    Transaction fees 5% on Mover, 0% from Shaker up 7.5% on Starter, 0% on higher plans via teachable:pay
    Free trial 30 days, no card 7 days, plus a 30-day guarantee
    Product types Courses, downloads, coaching, webinars, bundles Courses, coaching, digital downloads
    Email marketing Built in (subscriber allowance per plan) Minimal — you will need a separate email tool
    Quizzes and certificates Basic quizzes Graded quizzes, certificates, stronger course player
    Best for Solo creators selling a product mix Course-first businesses that plan to scale

    Pricing and fees: which one actually costs less?

    On paper Teachable’s Starter plan is the cheapest way in, especially billed annually. But entry plans are where both platforms hide their compromises: Teachable Starter takes a 7.5% cut of every sale and caps you at 5 products and 100 active students, while Podia’s Mover takes 5% and limits your included email list to 100 subscribers.

    The real comparison happens at mid-tier, where the transaction fees drop to zero: Podia Shaker at $84/month versus Teachable Builder at $89/month (or $69 annually). At that level Podia includes its email tool and more product flexibility, while Teachable includes room for 1,000 active students and its stronger course machinery.

    My rule of thumb: if you will use the built-in email, Podia’s mid-tier is the better deal because it replaces a second subscription. If you already pay for a proper email platform anyway, the gap narrows to almost nothing.

    Course experience: Teachable is still ahead

    If your students expect a school, Teachable feels more like one. The course player is polished, quizzes can be graded, and certificates of completion are built in. For structured programs — cohorts, curriculums, anything where progress and proof matter — this is Teachable’s home turf.

    Podia’s courses look clean and are easy to build, but assessments are basic. There is no serious grading machinery, and if certificates or compliance-style features are on your requirements list, Podia will feel thin. Plenty of creators never need any of that; be honest about whether you do.

    Beyond courses: Podia wins almost everything else

    This is where the two philosophies split. Podia treats downloads, coaching, webinars, bundles, and community spaces as first-class products, and its built-in email means a beginner can run their entire business — content, list, sales — from one login. If email strategy is new to you, my ultimate guide to email marketing explains what you will actually need from whichever tool you pick.

    Teachable can sell coaching and downloads, but they feel like extras around the course core, and its email features are too limited to replace a real email platform. Most Teachable creators end up paying for a separate email service on day one — which is fine, just budget for it.

    Worth knowing: if what you really want is courses plus funnels plus email in one modern system, there is a third road. I wrote about a ConvertKit, ClickFunnels and Teachable alternative that bundles those jobs for less.

    Ease of use: how much software do you want to manage?

    Podia is the calmer tool. Fewer menus, fewer decisions, and a storefront you can genuinely set up in an afternoon. The trade-off is fewer knobs to turn later.

    Teachable gives you more control — over pricing structures, course behavior, student management — and correspondingly more settings to understand. It is not hard, but it is more. If tech friction is what has kept you from launching, that difference is not trivial.

    Verdict: who should pick what

    • First-time creator with a small audience: Podia. The 30-day trial, one-dashboard setup, and included email make it the gentlest serious option.
    • Course-first business that will scale: Teachable. The course player, graded quizzes, certificates, and student capacity are built for exactly this — take Teachable for a spin if that is your road.
    • Selling a mix — downloads, coaching, a course, a community: Podia, without much hesitation.
    • Already paying for a good email tool and wanting maximum course features per dollar: Teachable on annual billing.

    If I had to hand one platform to a blogger launching a first digital product this year, it would be Podia — not because it does the most, but because it removes the most reasons to procrastinate.

    FAQ

    Is Podia cheaper than Teachable?

    At entry level Teachable is slightly cheaper ($39/month, or $29 billed annually, versus Podia’s $42), but it charges a 7.5% transaction fee there against Podia’s 5%. At mid-tier they nearly match ($84 versus $89 monthly), where Podia’s built-in email can make it the better total deal.

    Which platform is better for beginners?

    Podia. The interface is simpler, the 30-day trial is four times longer than Teachable’s, and having website, checkout, and email in one place means fewer tools to learn before your first sale.

    Does Teachable have transaction fees?

    Yes, on the Starter plan: 7.5% per sale at the time of writing. Higher plans drop to 0% when you process payments through teachable:pay. Standard card processing fees apply on every plan, on both platforms.

    Can I switch from Teachable to Podia later?

    Yes, creators move in both directions. You re-upload content, rebuild sales pages, and redirect your links; the tedious part is moving students and existing customers, so it is worth choosing carefully now rather than migrating mid-growth.

    Do Podia and Teachable offer free trials?

    Both do. Podia gives 30 days with every feature and no credit card. Teachable offers a 7-day trial plus a 30-day guarantee. Trying both in the same week is a perfectly reasonable way to decide.

    Bottom line: Teachable builds better classrooms, Podia builds a simpler business. If an all-in-one setup is what gets your first product live, start your free 30-day Podia trial and put a real product in it this month — the platform question answers itself once something is actually for sale.