Course Creator: Selling Online Courses Without Teachable

Teachable, Kajabi, Podia: these names appear in every "how to sell an online course" guide. But they’re built for the American market, and European course creators discover the issues in practice.

Problem 1: Currency. Your clients pay in dollars with bank conversion fees. Or you configure euros, but certain features remain in dollars (reports, statistics, payment thresholds).

Problem 2: No SEPA. Card payments fail in 10–15% of cases (expiry, limits, lost cards). SEPA direct debit, with only 2.9% failure across 52 million transactions, is significantly more reliable for recurring payments. Neither Teachable nor Kajabi offer it.

Problem 3: VAT. European VAT obligations aren’t natively supported. You have to calculate and declare manually, or add a third-party tool.

Problem 4: Support. When a payment fails at 11pm on a Tuesday, support is in English, 6 hours behind, and often limited to a chatbot.

Alternatives exist on the European side. Each has its strengths:

The key question: do you need a full LMS, or simply a way to sell your courses with clean recurring payments?

If your content is already hosted (on your site, in private video, or in an existing member area), you don’t need an LMS. You need a course selling tool with recurring billing, automatic invoicing, and access management.

Detailed comparisons: PayFacile vs Teachable • PayFacile vs Systeme.io • PayFacile vs Podia

The classic model — selling a course for €200–500 as a one-off — works, but creates a cash flow problem. You launch, sell for a few weeks, then sales slow down.

The membership model inverts this: your learners pay a monthly subscription (€29–79) for access to all your courses. You add content regularly to maintain value.

The numbers speak. A course creator with 100 courses at €99 each must sell constantly to maintain revenue. The same creator with 80 subscribers at €39/month generates €3,120/month in predictable revenue, and each new piece of content strengthens retention.

This model is particularly suited to creators who:

• Already have a catalogue of several courses
• Can produce regular content (even a monthly webinar is enough)
• Serve an audience that needs continuous learning (compliance, tech, marketing)

Before selling online, a few obligations to know (specifics vary by country):

• Registration: most European countries require registration as a training provider if you sell courses, even without public funding.
• Terms and right of withdrawal: your terms must be clear, and the 14-day withdrawal right applies in the EU (unless the course is started with the client’s agreement).

Online courses sold in the EU are subject to VAT (rates vary by country). If you’re below the small business threshold in your country, you may not need to charge VAT.

A tool that automatically handles compliant invoicing with VAT saves you hours of administrative work each month.

For an overview, see our complete guide.