How to Sell Online Classes: 8 Steps That Work

Here is how to sell online classes in 2026: choose one format (live drop-in, a fixed series, a recorded class, or live with replays), write a one-line promise for a specific student, price it as a single class plus a pack or series, and put booking, checkout and reminders on one page so a stranger can go from "that looks good" to "I'm registered" in under two minutes. Then fill the first class from people who already know you, record it, and sell the replay and the next series to everyone who came. The teachers who struggle usually skip the boring middle: time zones, reminder emails, refund rules and what happens after the class ends.

Every step below can run in Coachful, the platform we make: the class page lives on your website or a checkout funnel, students book and pay through your own Stripe account, email reminders go out on their own, and recordings, courses and the community sit inside your branded client app. You can also run the steps with separate tools, and the cost table further down shows what that stack looks like as listed in October 2026.

The playbook is written for independent teachers and coaches: language tutors, yoga and movement teachers, art and music teachers, public-speaking coaches, business coaches running skills workshops. It follows one fictional teacher through every step so you can see the decisions with real-looking numbers. Those numbers are illustrative, not benchmarks.

What is the 8-step plan for selling online classes?

The plan is eight steps you can finish in about four weeks of part-time work. The table shows each step, roughly how long it takes, and what "done" looks like before you move on.

Worked example (fictional): Lucía. Lucía teaches Spanish conversation to adults who studied the language at school and froze the first time they ordered dinner in Madrid. She has 340 people on an email list from a free pronunciation guide, about 1,200 Instagram followers, and a handful of private students. She wants a group class that earns more per hour than private lessons without working more evenings. We will build her offer step by step.

Step 1: Which online class format should you sell?

Sell the format that matches how your students actually learn your subject and how much live teaching time you want. There are four realistic options, and most teachers end up combining two of them.

• Live drop-in classes. A recurring class (every Tuesday at 7 pm, for example) that anyone can book one at a time. Easy to buy, easy to skip. Works for practice-based subjects where each class stands alone: yoga flows, conversation practice, figure drawing sessions, Q&A clinics.
• Fixed series or cohort. Four to eight classes that build on each other, sold as one purchase with a start date. Students commit up front, attendance is better, and you can teach a real progression. Works for skills with a clear sequence: public speaking, beginner watercolour, a first 5K, a business skill.
• Recorded classes. Pre-filmed lessons students watch on their own schedule, often called asynchronous learning. No calendar to manage, but no live accountability either. If you go fully recorded, you are really selling a course, and our guide on how to sell online courses covers that path.
• Live plus replay. Teach live, record it, and give registrants the replay. This removes the biggest objection ("I can't make that time") and turns every class into an asset you can sell again.

A quick way to choose: if your students need feedback on what they produce (their accent, their posture, their painting, their pitch), keep a live element. If they mostly need information in a sensible order, recorded is fine. If they need both, sell a series with live classes and replays, and a recorded library as the cheaper entry point.

Decide these four numbers now:

1. Class length (45, 60 or 90 minutes; 60 is the easiest to schedule across time zones).
2. Frequency (weekly is the default; twice weekly suits language and fitness).
3. Maximum class size, based on how much individual attention the class needs.
4. Series length, if you run one (four weeks is easier to sell than twelve for a first offer).

Lucía's choice: a four-week live series, two 60-minute classes a week, capped at eight students so everyone speaks in every class. Each class is recorded for registrants. Separately, she keeps a weekly drop-in conversation hour for former students who want practice without a commitment.

Step 2: How do you write a class promise people will pay for?

Write one sentence that names who the class is for and what they can do after it that they cannot do now. Topic descriptions ("Intermediate Spanish conversation") get browsed; outcomes ("Hold a 10-minute dinner conversation in Spanish without switching to English") get bought.

Use this template and fill every blank:

For [specific student] who [specific frustration], this [length] [format] gets you to [concrete thing they can do] by [the end of class / week 4], through [how the class works].

Three filled examples from different subjects:

• For adults who studied Spanish at school but freeze when someone replies fast, this four-week live series gets you holding a 10-minute dinner conversation without switching to English, through small-group speaking drills in every class.
• For managers who dread presenting to their leadership team, this three-class workshop gets you delivering a five-minute update without notes, through recorded practice runs and live feedback.
• For beginners who own paints but have never finished a picture, this six-week watercolour series gets you to six finished small landscapes, through one guided painting per class with an overhead camera.

Outline each class, not just the series

Students decide faster when they can see what happens in class one. Give every class a title and a one-line result. A simple run-of-show for a 60-minute live class:

1. 0 to 5 minutes: arrivals, one warm-up question in the chat.
2. 5 to 15 minutes: the one idea or skill for today, demonstrated.
3. 15 to 45 minutes: practice (breakout pairs, guided exercise, live feedback).
4. 45 to 55 minutes: share-backs and corrections.
5. 55 to 60 minutes: the homework, and what next class covers.

Lucía's outline: Week 1 ordering and small talk; week 2 talking about work and family; week 3 opinions and disagreeing politely; week 4 a full dinner role-play with surprise questions. Every class ends with a three-minute voice-note assignment students send her before the next session.

If you teach movement, breathwork or anything touching health, add a scope line to the outline and the page: your class is education and coaching, not medical treatment. Ask about injuries, pregnancy and medical conditions at booking, and tell students to get clearance from a doctor first if they have chest pain, dizziness, a recent injury or surgery. Our guides for online yoga teachers and online Pilates teachers go deeper on screening.

Step 3: How should you price online classes?

Price backwards from what you need to earn per teaching hour, then offer at least two ways to buy: a single class at full price and a pack, series or membership that costs less per class. The bundle is what most people should buy; the single class makes the bundle look sensible.

The four pricing models

• Drop-in: one class, one payment. Highest price per class, lowest commitment.
• Class pack: five or ten classes bought up front and used over a set period (for example 10 classes in 12 weeks). Good for recurring classes that do not build on each other.
• Series: one price for a fixed run of classes with a start date. Good for anything with a progression.
• Membership: a monthly subscription for unlimited (or a set number of) live classes plus the replay library. Smooths your income once you have a steady schedule; harder to sell before people have tried a class.

Set a price with this worksheet

1. Write your target income per live teaching hour, including prep and follow-up time. If a 60-minute class takes 30 minutes of prep and 30 minutes of follow-up, one class is two working hours.
2. Multiply your target by the working hours per class. That is your target revenue per class.
3. Divide by a realistic number of paying students (plan for about two-thirds of your cap, not a full room).
4. Round to a clean number and check it against what your students currently pay for private lessons in your subject. A group class per student usually costs well under a private lesson; that is its selling point.
5. Set the pack or series at a per-class discount large enough to notice (for example 15% to 25% off the drop-in price), and the membership slightly above the price of four drop-ins if it includes replays.

Lucía's pricing (illustrative): she wants about $90 per working hour. Each class costs her two working hours, so she needs $180 per class. Planning for six of her eight seats sold, that is $30 per student per class. Her eight-class series therefore lists at $240, with an early-bird price of $210 for the first week of sales and a two-payment plan of $125 each. Her drop-in conversation hour is $25, or $100 for a five-class pack used within eight weeks. None of these are market rates; they are the result of her own target and her own cap.

Two extra levers worth using once the basics work:

• Order bumps: a small add-on at checkout, such as a printable phrasebook or a recorded pronunciation clinic, for students who are already buying. Our playbook on selling PDFs online covers how to package one.
• Payment plans: splitting a series into two or three payments helps with series priced above what people spend on impulse. Keep the plan total slightly higher than the pay-in-full price.

Where Coachful fits: offers can be sold as one-time payments, subscriptions or payment plans, with coupons and order bumps, all included in your Coachful membership. The offer editor asks for the student and the result before it asks for the price, which is the order this playbook recommends.

Step 4: How do you set up booking and scheduling for live classes?

Set up booking so the student sees class times in their own time zone, gets a confirmation with the video link immediately, and receives reminders without you sending anything. Most no-shows in online classes come from three avoidable problems: the wrong time zone, a lost link, and no reminder on the day.

Checklist for a working class schedule:

• Time-zone detection on the booking page. State your own time zone in the class description too ("Tuesdays 7 pm Madrid time"), because some students forward the details to themselves.
• A booking cutoff (minimum notice) so nobody registers two minutes before start and misses the welcome email.
• Buffers between classes and private sessions so you can reset your room, your lights and your head.
• A capacity limit that matches Step 1, and a decision on what happens when the class is full (a waitlist, or a link to the next date).
• Automatic video links on every booking rather than one link pasted into a document.
• Reminders: one the day before and one an hour before. For evening classes, a text or WhatsApp reminder reaches students who will not open email after work.
• Calendar sync both ways, so a dentist appointment blocks a class slot instead of double-booking you.
• Intake questions at booking: level, goals, anything you need to know (injuries for movement classes, materials for art classes).

In Coachful, booking pages have availability rules, buffers, minimum notice and time-zone detection, with two-way Google, Apple/iCloud and Outlook calendar sync. Each session gets built-in video or an auto-created Zoom, Meet or Teams link. Email reminders are standard, and SMS (24 hours before) and WhatsApp (1 hour before) reminders run once messaging is enabled. You can charge for sessions, sell session credits, and ask intake questions on booking. If you teach with a colleague, multi-coach session types can assign bookings round-robin or to whoever is least busy.

This short walkthrough shows the scheduling setup from session type to booking page:

After someone books, the class should appear where they already look. Students in Coachful see upcoming events and their program inside the coach's branded client app, so the next class and last week's replay are in the same place.

Lucía's setup: two classes a week, Monday and Thursday at 7 pm Madrid time, with a 12-hour booking cutoff and a 30-minute buffer after each class. Her intake asks three questions: "Where did you learn Spanish?", "What situation makes you freeze?" and "Anything I should know to make class comfortable for you?" Answers land on each student's record, so she reads them the afternoon before class one.

Step 5: How do you take payments for online classes?

Take payments through a processor you own (Stripe is the usual choice), so money lands in your account and you can issue refunds, payment plans and receipts without asking a platform for permission. Then decide your tax handling and write a refund rule before the first sale.

Payment setup checklist

1. Connect your own Stripe account (or Razorpay where it is the local option) and turn on Apple Pay and Google Pay; phone buyers abandon checkouts that ask them to type a card number.
2. Create the products from Step 3: drop-in, pack, series, membership, with any payment plan.
3. Add one coupon for early birds and one for returning students, each with an end date.
4. Decide tax handling. Online classes sold across borders can trigger sales tax or VAT obligations. In the EU, for example, VAT on many digital and electronically supplied services is handled through the European Commission's VAT One Stop Shop; in the US, self-employed income and estimated payments are covered in the IRS Self-Employed Individuals Tax Center. Live classes and recorded classes can be taxed differently, so check with an accountant for your country and your students' countries.
5. Write a refund and missed-class rule and put it on the class page and the receipt. Copy and adapt:

Full refund up to 48 hours before the first class. After that, no refunds, but you can transfer your seat to the next series once. Missed a class? Every registrant gets the recording within 24 hours, and class packs can be used within 12 weeks of purchase.

Run one real purchase on your own card, check the receipt email, then refund yourself. It takes ten minutes and catches most setup mistakes before a student sees them.

Coachful payments run through your own Stripe Connect or Razorpay account, with one-time charges, subscriptions, payment plans, order bumps, coupons, refunds, Apple Pay, Google Pay and Stripe Tax, and an invoice for every transaction. There is a 0% Coachful platform fee; you pay only Stripe or Razorpay processing. There is no PayPal option, which matters if your students expect to pay that way. Our comparison of platforms for selling coaching packages covers checkout features across tools in more detail.

Step 6: What goes on a class page that sells?

A class page needs seven blocks in this order: the promise, who it is for (and not for), what happens in class, the schedule in the visitor's terms, the teacher, the price with one button, and a short FAQ. Anything else is optional.

Copy block you can adapt (Lucía's page):

Speak Spanish at Dinner: a four-week live class for people who freeze

You studied Spanish for years. Then a waiter replied at full speed and you switched to English. In four weeks of small-group classes, you will hold a 10-minute dinner conversation in Spanish, with surprise questions, without switching back.

This is for you if you can read a menu but go blank when someone talks to you. It is not for you if you are a total beginner (start with the free pronunciation guide) or you want grammar drills.

How it works: eight live 60-minute classes, Mondays and Thursdays at 7 pm Madrid time. Maximum eight people, so you speak in every class. Every class is recorded for you. Short voice-note homework with personal feedback.

Your teacher: Lucía, who has taught conversation classes to adults for nine years and still remembers freezing in her first English job interview.

Price: one payment, or two monthly payments. Full refund up to 48 hours before class one.

[Reserve my seat]

Notice what the page avoids: no list of 30 topics, no paragraph about the teacher's philosophy before the promise, no three competing buttons. One page, one decision.

FAQ questions every class page should answer

• What if I miss a class? (Replay policy.)
• What do I need? (Laptop or phone, headphones, materials list.)
• What level is this for? (A self-check: "you can do X but not Y.")
• Will I be on camera? (Say so plainly; some students need to know.)
• Can I pay in instalments? (Yes or no, and how many.)
• What happens after the series? (The next step you will offer.)

Where the page lives matters less than having it. A booking or checkout funnel page is enough for a first class. In Coachful, the website builder and the booking, application, lead-magnet and checkout funnels all publish from the same account, with pixels and UTM tracking, so the page, the payment and the student record stay connected. If you would rather not build the page yourself, see the white-glove note in the Coachful section below. Our coach website builder page shows the templates.

Step 7: How do you fill your first online class?

Fill the first class from people who already know you, in this order: past and current students, your email list, then social followers, and only then strangers. A first class sells on trust, and trust is highest closest to home.

The two-week launch sequence

1. Day 1: personal invites. Message 15 to 20 people individually who would genuinely benefit. Not a broadcast; one message each.
2. Day 2: email announcement to your list with the promise, the dates and the early-bird deadline.
3. Days 3 to 10: social posts showing one moment from the class experience: a short clip of a drill, a before-and-after from a past student (with permission), the materials laid out.
4. Day 7: email two, answering the most common question you received.
5. Day 10: early-bird ends. One short email the morning it closes.
6. Day 13: last call, with the number of seats left if that number is true.

Scripts to copy

Personal invite (text or DM):

Hi Maya, I'm running a small four-week Spanish conversation class starting 1 December, max eight people, Mondays and Thursdays at 7 pm Madrid time. You mentioned freezing when people reply fast, which is exactly what this is built for. Want me to send you the details? No pressure if the timing's off.

Announcement email subject lines:

• A small class for people who freeze in Spanish
• Eight seats, four weeks, one dinner conversation
• The class I wish I'd taken before Madrid

Social post with a comment keyword:

The moment most adult learners freeze is not grammar. It's the waiter's second question. In my new four-week class we practise exactly that, eight people max. Comment DINNER and I'll send you the details.

The keyword post only works if the reply arrives fast. Coachful's Instagram automations can reply to a comment containing a chosen keyword with a DM that holds your booking or checkout link, and the person lands in the same lead and client records as everyone else. The social planner schedules the posts themselves to Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, X, Threads and YouTube from one calendar. Email broadcasts and multi-step sequences handle the launch emails and the follow-ups.

A free taster works well for a first series: a 30-minute free class or recorded mini-lesson, offered in exchange for an email address, followed by a short email sequence that invites people to the paid series. Our guide to running a paid online workshop covers the one-off workshop version of this launch.

Lucía's launch: she sent 18 personal messages, two emails to her 340 subscribers, and five Instagram posts over 12 days. Illustrative outcome for planning purposes: four seats from personal messages, three from email, one from Instagram, so the first series fills eight of eight. Your mix will differ; the point is that personal outreach usually does more of the work for a first class than any post.

Step 8: How do you deliver, record and resell your classes?

Deliver every class the same way, record it with consent, send the replay within 24 hours, and offer the next step before the series ends. Delivery is where you earn the second purchase, and the second purchase is where an online class business becomes stable.

Before each class

• Read the intake answers for anyone new.
• Test audio, camera angle and lighting 15 minutes early. For hands-on subjects (art, music, cooking, crafts) set up a second angle: an overhead phone or a camera pointed at your hands.
• Open the class with the same ritual every time, so latecomers know where they are.

Recording and replays

Tell students the class is recorded at booking and again at the start of each class. Recording consent rules differ by country and, in the US, by state; Wikipedia's summary of recording laws shows how much they vary, so check yours. A simple line on the booking page covers most cases: "Classes are recorded and shared only with registered students. You can keep your camera off."

Then decide replay access:

• Registrants only, for a limited time (for example 30 days): encourages live attendance.
• Registrants forever: simplest and friendliest.
• Replay library sold separately: a recorded version of the series sold as a cheaper self-paced option, or bundled into a membership.

In Coachful, webinars list upcoming and recorded sessions with their registrations, and Michelle, the built-in AI assistant, can summarize recorded sessions so you can send a recap with key phrases or exercises alongside the replay. Recordings can also be added to a course with modules, lessons and drip release, delivered into the student's branded home and app.

The resell moment

Make the next offer in the second-to-last class, not after the final one, when energy is highest. Copy and adapt:

Next Thursday is our last class. A few of you asked what comes after. In January I'm running a second series on telling stories in Spanish, same small group. Everyone in this class gets first access and the early price until Sunday. The link is in the chat and in your email.

Other resell paths: a class pack for the drop-in hour, a membership with replays, or a private session for students who want individual feedback. Coachful's community feed, group chat and cohort groups (created automatically when someone enrolls in a program) give a series a place to keep talking between classes, which makes the next offer feel like a continuation rather than a pitch. Our group coaching software page shows how cohorts work.

Which numbers matter when you sell online classes?

Track five numbers from the first class: seats sold, show-up rate, replay views, rebooking rate and revenue per teaching hour. The table uses Lucía's illustrative figures to show how they connect; these are examples for planning, not industry benchmarks.

The illustrative math behind the last row: eight students at the early-bird price of $210 is $1,680 gross. Card processing typically takes a few percent; allowing an illustrative 3% leaves about $1,630. Eight classes at two working hours each is 16 hours, so roughly $100 to $105 per working hour, compared with her $90 target. The second series is cheaper to run because the outline already exists, so prep time drops and the hourly figure rises.

Look at these after every series, not every class. A single class with low attendance on a holiday week tells you nothing; three series in a row with the same rebooking problem tells you a lot.

What tools do you need to sell online classes, and what do they cost?

You need five jobs covered: a class page, booking with reminders, checkout, email, and a place for replays and students to gather. You can buy one platform that does all five or stitch together specialist tools. The table lists vendor prices as listed in October 2026; check each vendor before buying.

A typical stitched stack for live classes is a scheduler, an email tool, a video tool and a course or community host. That means four logins, four bills and student data in four places, and someone has to keep the class link, the reminder and the replay in sync by hand. Current Coachful plans for comparison: Lite: $29/month for up to 5 clients; Solo: $49/month for up to 20 clients; Pro: $99/month with unlimited clients; Studio: $199/month with unlimited clients.

Kajabi

Kajabi is built for selling knowledge products: courses, communities, websites, funnels and email in one place. It suits teachers whose business is mostly recorded content with occasional live calls. As listed in October 2026, Basic is $179/mo with a cap of 5 products and 2,500 contacts, and there are no per-student habits or check-ins. Pick it over Coachful if your classes are mostly recorded and you want a large course-creator ecosystem.

Skool

Skool combines a community, a classroom and a calendar inside one group, with gamified leaderboards. It is cheap to start, but Hobby takes 10% + 30¢ per transaction and there is no custom-domain website, funnel builder or email automation. Pick it over Coachful if a community feed is the heart of your class and you are happy selling only inside Skool.

Stan Store

Stan Store is a link-in-bio storefront for digital products, courses, memberships and paid calls, with a 0% Stan fee on sales. Email marketing, upsells and discount codes are reserved for Creator Pro, and there are no contracts, invoices or student records. Pick it over Coachful if you sell mostly from Instagram or TikTok and want the fastest possible store.

Calendly

Calendly handles booking pages, reminders and paid bookings, and its free plan allows one event type. It does not host a class page, a replay library, courses or email marketing, so it is one piece of a stack rather than the stack. Pick it over Coachful if you already have everything else and only need a booking link.

Systeme.io

Systeme.io is a low-cost marketing suite with funnels, email, courses, community and a free plan that never expires, with 0% transaction fees. Its older profile notes no native 1:1 scheduling with client records and basic community features. Pick it over Coachful if budget is the deciding factor and your classes are mostly recorded.

How do you sell online classes in Coachful, step by step?

We make Coachful, so weigh this section accordingly. Coachful is a coaching platform where one subscription covers booking, payments, contracts, program delivery, courses, a community, a website with funnels and email, and an AI assistant, with one login for you and one branded app for your students. It is built for coaches and teachers who deliver programs, not just one-off sessions, and for people replacing four to six separate tools. It is not HIPAA-certified, has no PayPal, is not a course marketplace that sends you buyers, and has no permanent free plan. To start, take a free trial and, if you like, ask the team to build your first class page for you.

Here is the eight-step plan mapped to Coachful:

1. Format: create a session type for a recurring live class, a webinar for a one-off, or a program for a series. Programs can carry weekly goals, daily tasks and check-ins between classes.
2. Promise and outline: write it in the offer editor (who it is for, the result). More than 40 program templates and 48 course templates with quizzes give you a starting structure.
3. Pricing: set one-time, subscription or payment-plan pricing on the offer; add coupons and order bumps; bundle a series with a replay library or downloads.
4. Booking: set availability, buffers, minimum notice and reminders; connect Google, Apple/iCloud or Outlook calendars; choose built-in video or auto-created Zoom, Meet or Teams links.
5. Checkout: connect Stripe Connect or Razorpay, turn on Apple Pay, Google Pay and Stripe Tax, and send a coaching agreement with e-signature if your classes need terms signed before the first session.
6. Class page: publish it on your website (30 designed homepage templates, custom domain, blog) or as a checkout or booking funnel with pixel and UTM tracking.
7. Filling the class: email broadcasts and sequences with triggers, delays and A/B splits; the social planner; Instagram keyword automations that DM the link; a link-in-bio page that sells.
8. Delivery and resell: run group calls and webinars, share recordings in courses with drip release, keep the cohort talking in community groups, and use the client record (sessions, payments, check-ins, status) to see who is drifting before the next series opens.

This walkthrough shows how webinars are set up and how registrations and recordings appear:

Why Coachful stands out: a free white-glove service. On every plan, you can go to Create > We'll build it for you and describe what you need: a class sales page, a booking or checkout funnel, a launch email sequence, a course outline, a webinar setup or a whole website. Attach up to 8 reference links and up to 10 files (logo, photos, copy), and the Coachful team builds it inside your own account, usually within about 24 hours. Nothing gets invented: no fake credentials, testimonials or prices; gaps are left for you to fill. It does not include recording your videos, logo design, ad management or ongoing marketing. One recent build: a business mentor for beauty professionals got a 12-week mentorship sales page, a free start-up-guide funnel and rewritten follow-up emails. More in our post on the white-glove service.

Payments carry a 0% Coachful platform fee, so your class revenue minus Stripe or Razorpay processing is yours. Plans are flat monthly prices; lower plans cap the number of clients and Pro is unlimited (Pro: $99/month with unlimited clients). See the course platform and scheduling pages for feature detail.

What does a 30-day plan for your first online class look like?

Thirty days is enough to go from idea to a first paid class if you keep the first version small: one format, one class page, one launch. Here is the plan week by week.

If the first launch sells fewer than half the seats, run the class anyway. A class of three that goes well gives you recordings, feedback and stories for the next launch, and cancelling teaches your first buyers that your dates move.

What mistakes stop online classes from selling?

Most failed class launches share a handful of fixable problems. Check your plan against this list before you announce.

• Selling a topic instead of a result. "Watercolour basics" competes with every free video. "Six finished landscapes in six weeks" does not.
• Only one price. Without a pack or series, every class is a fresh decision to attend, and attendance drops.
• Times in your time zone only. International students guess, guess wrong, and miss class one. Show local times and state yours.
• Pasting one video link into a document. Links get lost; send a link with every booking and in every reminder.
• No refund or missed-class rule. You will be asked; deciding case by case feels unfair to students and exhausting to you.
• Launching to strangers first. Ads and cold posts are expensive ways to test a promise. Fill the first class from people who know you.
• Waiting until the last class to mention what's next. Make the next offer while the group is still together.
• Forgetting the replay. A replay sent two days late with no summary gets ignored; one sent the next morning with three key points gets watched.
• Using five tools before you need them. Each extra tool is another place for a link, a payment or a student's email to go missing. Start with what covers the whole path.

For related playbooks, see how to sell coaching packages online, starting an online tutoring business and 30 online course ideas if you are still choosing a subject.

Frequently asked questions about selling online classes

What is the easiest way to start selling online classes?

Run a short live series for people who already know you, with one class page, one checkout and automatic reminders. A four-week series with a small cap is easier to fill and deliver than an open-ended membership. Record each class so the first series also becomes your first replay product.

Should I sell live or recorded classes?

Sell live if your students need feedback on what they do (speaking, movement, art, presenting); sell recorded if they mainly need information in order. Many teachers sell live classes with replays included, then sell the recordings as a cheaper self-paced option later. That combination covers both buyers who want accountability and buyers who need flexibility.

How much should I charge for an online class?

Work backwards from your target income per working hour, count prep and follow-up time, and divide by a realistic number of students (about two-thirds of your cap). Then offer a pack or series at a noticeable per-class discount. There is no universal rate; the worksheet in Step 3 gives you a price you can defend.

How many students should be in an online class?

It depends on how much individual attention the class needs. Conversation, coaching and feedback-heavy classes work best small, often six to ten people, while demonstration-style classes can hold far more. Set a cap that lets you deliver the promise on your class page.

Do I need a website to sell online classes?

No. A single class page or checkout funnel is enough for a first class, as long as it shows the promise, schedule, price and refund rule and connects to booking and payment. A full website helps later for search traffic and credibility.

How do I handle students in different time zones?

Use a booking page that detects and shows each visitor's local time, and also state your own time zone in the description. Send reminders a day before and an hour before with the link included. If your audience spans continents, consider two class times or replays for everyone.

Can I sell class packs in Coachful?

Yes. Coachful supports paid sessions and session credits, so you can sell a set of classes up front, alongside one-time payments, subscriptions and payment plans. Payments run through your own Stripe or Razorpay account with a 0% Coachful platform fee, and these features are included in your Coachful membership.

What is Coachful's free white-glove service?

It is a build service included on every plan: you describe what you need (a class sales page, funnel, email sequence, website or course outline), attach references, and the Coachful team builds it in your account, usually within about 24 hours. It does not include recording videos, logo design or running ads. You review and edit everything before it goes live.

Do I need to collect sales tax or VAT on online classes?

Possibly, depending on where you and your students are and whether the class is live or recorded. In the EU, many electronically supplied services go through the VAT One Stop Shop, and US self-employed income rules are summarized by the IRS. Check with an accountant for your situation.

Is it legal to record my online classes?

Usually, if you tell students and get their consent, but rules differ by country and US state. State it on the booking page and at the start of class, share recordings only with registrants, and let students keep cameras off. Check your local rules or ask an attorney if you are unsure.