Sell Online Courses Without Teachable

Real talk. You signed up for Teachable (or Kajabi, or Thinkific) because someone on YouTube said you need an LMS to sell courses.

Here’s what an LMS gives you:

• Course builder with drip content
• Quiz engine with grading
• Completion certificates
• Student progress tracking
• Built-in community forum

Here’s what you’re actually using: a checkout page and a way to send video links.

Teachable’s Pro plan costs $119/month. That’s $1,428/year. For a course builder and checkout. Plus 5% transaction fees on the Basic plan if you haven’t upgraded.

If your course is a video series with PDF resources — and let’s be honest, that’s 90% of online courses — you don’t need an LMS. You need a payment page and automatic delivery.

Here’s the minimal stack that works:

Total: fraction of what Teachable costs. And you keep 97%+ of your revenue instead of paying platform fees on top of processing fees.

The key difference: you’re separating content hosting (where the videos live) from payment (how you get paid). This gives you flexibility. Switch video hosts? No payment disruption. Change payment platform? Your content stays put.

Step 1: Host your content

Upload videos to Vimeo (domain-restricted for security) or unlisted YouTube. Create a Notion page or simple website with the course structure and embedded videos. Google Drive works too for PDFs and resources.

Step 2: Set up your payment page

Create a product on NoCode.shop with your course title, description, and price. Add payment options: one-time, subscription, or instalments. Connect Stripe for cards, GoCardless for SEPA if you have European customers.

Step 3: Configure delivery

Set up automatic delivery: after payment, the customer gets an email with the course access link (Notion page, Vimeo showcase, or downloadable files). For subscription courses, use content gating — access only while the subscription is active.

Step 4: Launch

Share your payment link everywhere: social media, newsletter, bio links. No need for a full website. The payment page IS your sales page.

Quick decision framework:

Go one-time if:

• Your course is a fixed, self-contained product (e.g., “Learn Figma in 5 hours”)
• You don’t plan to add content regularly
• Your price point is $97+ (high enough to justify a one-time purchase)

Go subscription if:

• You create new content regularly (monthly lessons, live sessions)
• You offer community access alongside the course
• You want predictable monthly revenue

Go hybrid if:

• You have a flagship course (sell one-time) AND ongoing content (sell as subscription)
• The one-time course is your acquisition product, the subscription is your retention product

The Zuora data is clear: subscription businesses grow 3.4x faster. If you can make subscription work for your content, do it.

Set up your first subscription course: see how memberships work.

If you genuinely need certificates of completion (for professional training, CPE credits, or compliance), then yes, you need an LMS. That’s a legitimate use case.

But ask yourself: do your students actually need a certificate? Or is it a nice-to-have that you’re paying $150/month for?

For most creator-led courses — skill-based, practical, outcome-driven — the certificate doesn’t matter. What matters is: did the student get the result they paid for?

Quizzes? You can build simple quizzes with Typeform (free), Google Forms, or embed them in your Notion page. No LMS needed.

Save the $1,400+/year you’d spend on an LMS and invest it in marketing your course. That’s a much better ROI.

For the full picture on selling digital products, check our creator’s complete toolkit.