I sold my courses on a free platform for a year: The limits and real cost of 'free' course platforms

Whoever owns the data owns the business. "Free" platforms don't see you as a creator; they see you as a free supplier for their marketplace. The day you move to your own site, the middleman disappears. You might see a dip in organic discovery at first, but every student you acquire stays on your list forever.

The biggest mistake with a WordPress setup is uploading video files straight to your main host. It completely tanks the site. If you keep encrypted videos on an external video cloud and restrict them to your domain, you can train thousands of students smoothly for 15-20 dollars a month.

Don't shut down the current platform all at once. Release your next course exclusively on your own site. Then, drop a special discount code at the end of the old platform's course saying "Advanced lessons and community access available on our website."

them holding the email list hostage is total vendor lock-in. they sell courses off your back and if you wanna reach your own student again they chareg u commission all over again. honestly moving to your own site sucks for the first week but you'll breathe easy after.

When migrating student data, be mindful of the platform's terms of service and local data protection regulations like KVKK. Encouraging users to sign up for your new system on their own terms rather than scraping data externally ensures full legal compliance.

Free cheese only comes in a mousetrap and that's exactly how digital course platforms work. Right below the lesson you built, they push another creator's course at half the price under "students also bought."

How much of that 34,000 dollar revenue actually came from the platform's own search or homepage features? If you drove most of those signups from your own social channels anyway, paying that cut was a total waste of money.

I moved to my own domain two years ago. I pay a flat 99 dollars a month for hosting and tools. Just cutting out the commissions put a clean 4,100 dollars back in my pocket in the first 6 months. Plus, with the email automations I set up, I ended up selling my second course to 21 percent of my past students.

Timely topic.

Good call starting this thread. Start with a small trial; don't commit to everything at once.

If I were you, I'd go this route.

There's a common mistake people make when doing this. If the gap between accounts receivable and accounts payable turnover days is widening, revenue won't save you.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

The discussion got scattered, let me summarize. Any unwritten clause becomes a point of disagreement later, as both sides remember it differently.

This is exactly what we experienced. The answer varies greatly by industry; there is no one-size-fits-all rule.

Proven by experience.

I disagree with you on this point. Any unwritten clause becomes a point of disagreement later, as both sides remember it differently.

The longer you delay cutting the team, the more people it affects. Good luck with that.

I've been down this road, let me tell you. If it's your first time, start small; scaling comes later.

Hope this helps.

I'll try it. The real issue isn't the number, but what it's based on.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

I agree with this. Looking profitable on paper but having no cash in the bank is very common.