How to Build and Monetise an Online Course from Scratch

A complete step-by-step guide to planning, creating, and launching your first profitable course.

Reading time – 15 minutes ‖ Affiliate disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you purchase through them, I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.

The online education market is worth over $350 billion and growing. Yet most people who want to create a course never finish one — not because they lack knowledge, but because they don’t have a clear system to follow.

This guide gives you that system. By the end, you’ll know exactly how to plan your course content with AI, build and host it on a professional platform, and market it to a growing email list. Each section introduces the right tool at the right moment — the same workflow used by full-time course creators earning six figures a year.

The three tools this guide is built around: Jasper (AI writing and planning), Teachable (course hosting and sales), and ConvertKit (email marketing). Used together, they form a complete system that handles everything from your first idea to your first sale.

Part 1: Plan your course with AI (using Jasper)

The biggest mistake new course creators make is starting with the wrong topic — one they find interesting but that nobody will pay for. Before you write a single lesson, you need to validate that your course idea has real demand and that you can position it clearly.

This is where AI dramatically speeds things up. Tools like Jasper can help you brainstorm, structure, and refine your course concept in hours rather than weeks.

Step 1: Choose a profitable topic

A profitable course topic sits at the intersection of three things: what you know well, what people actively search for, and what they’re willing to pay to learn. The simplest way to validate this is to check whether people are already buying courses on the topic.

Run your idea through these four questions before committing:

• Are there existing courses on this topic selling on Udemy, Teachable, or Skillshare?
• Is there search volume for “how to [your topic]” or “learn [your topic]” keywords?
• Would you pay £100+ to learn this yourself if you didn’t already know it?
• Can you identify a specific type of person who urgently needs this outcome?

Step 2: Use Jasper to structure your curriculum

Once you have a validated topic, use Jasper to generate your course outline. A good prompt gives Jasper the context it needs to produce a structured, logical curriculum:

Jasper prompt example “Create a detailed 6-module online course curriculum for [your topic]. The target audience is [describe them]. Each module should have a clear outcome. Include 3-5 lesson titles per module and a brief description of what students will learn. Format it as a numbered outline.”

Jasper will return a full draft curriculum in seconds. Your job is to edit it — cut anything that doesn’t belong, add lessons from your own expertise, and reorder modules so the learning journey flows naturally.

Beyond the outline, use Jasper to write your course description, draft lesson scripts, create quiz questions, and write the sales page copy. A tool that would take days of writing can be reduced to hours.

Jasper  jasper.ai Commission: 25–30% recurring commission   Cookie: 30-day cookie   Why recommend it: Jasper is the best AI writing tool for course creators. Students who sign up stay for months, making it an excellent recurring earner.

Step 3: Define your transformation promise

Every successful course is built around a single clear transformation: the student goes from state A to state B. Before you build anything, write this sentence:

Your transformation promise “After completing this course, [your target student] will be able to [specific outcome] without [common obstacle].”  Example: “After completing this course, complete beginners will be able to build and launch a profitable Shopify store without any coding experience.”

This sentence becomes the foundation of your sales page, email subject lines, and every piece of marketing content you create. Write it before you film a single video.

Part 2: Build and host your course (using Teachable)

Once your curriculum is planned, you need somewhere to host it. Your platform choice matters more than most people realise — it determines how much you earn per sale, how professional your students’ experience is, and how much technical work you have to do yourself.

Teachable is the platform this guide recommends for new and intermediate course creators. It handles payments, video hosting, student progress tracking, certificates, and sales pages — all from a single dashboard, with no technical setup required.

Step 4: Set up your Teachable school

Creating a Teachable school takes about 20 minutes. Here’s the setup sequence that gets you to a live course fastest:

1. Sign up for Teachable and choose your plan (the free plan works for early validation)
2. Set up your school name, logo, and primary colour — keep it consistent with your website
3. Create your first course and add your curriculum structure (copy directly from your Jasper outline)
4. Upload your lesson content — video, PDF, text, or a combination
5. Set your price: start with £97–£197 for a beginner course, £297–£497 for intermediate
6. Configure your payment settings and connect your bank account or Stripe
7. Preview the student experience and test the checkout flow before going live

Step 5: Record your lessons

You do not need expensive equipment to create a professional-looking course. The setup that works for 90% of course creators:

• Camera: Your phone or laptop webcam (upgrade later if needed)
• Microphone: A USB condenser mic — the Audio-Technica AT2020 (~£80) is the standard recommendation
• Lighting: One ring light or a window to your side — avoid filming with a window behind you
• Screen recording: Loom (free) or Screenflow for slide-based lessons
• Editing: CapCut (free) for simple cuts, DaVinci Resolve for more control

Aim for 5–15 minutes per lesson. Research consistently shows that students complete more of a course when lessons are short and focused. One clear idea per video is the target.

Step 6: Write your sales page

Your Teachable sales page is where visitors decide whether to buy. A high-converting sales page has six essential elements:

8. A headline built on your transformation promise
9. A short story about who this course is for and why you created it
10. A curriculum breakdown showing exactly what students get
11. Social proof — testimonials, screenshots, or a counter showing enrolments
12. An FAQ section that pre-handles the most common objections
13. A clear call to action with your price and enrol button

Use Jasper to draft the first version of each section — it’s particularly good at writing benefit-focused bullet points and FAQ copy. Then personalise every section in your own voice.

Teachable  teachable.comCommission: 30% recurring commission (lifetime)   Cookie: 90-day cookie  Why recommend it: Teachable is the easiest platform for beginners to set up and start selling. The 90-day cookie is generous, and the 30% lifetime recurring means every referral pays indefinitely.

Part 3: Build your email list and launch (using ConvertKit)

You can build the best course in the world and still earn nothing if nobody knows it exists. Traffic from search and social media helps, but email is the single most reliable way to generate sales consistently — especially at launch.

ConvertKit is built specifically for creators and educators. Unlike general email tools, it’s designed around selling courses and digital products, with features like landing pages, automations, and paid newsletter support built in from the start.

Step 7: Create a lead magnet

A lead magnet is a free resource you give away in exchange for an email address. The most effective lead magnets are tightly connected to the paid course — they solve a small part of the same problem the course solves in full.

Examples of high-converting lead magnets for course creators:

• A free mini-lesson or “starter kit” version of your course topic
• A PDF checklist or template directly related to the course outcome
• A free video training (30–60 minutes) that previews the core method
• A quiz that diagnoses the reader’s current level and recommends a path

The rule: your lead magnet should be so good that people wonder why you’re giving it away for free. That quality signals what the paid course must be worth.

Step 8: Set up your ConvertKit welcome sequence

The most important automation you’ll build is the welcome sequence — a series of emails that arrives automatically when someone joins your list. This sequence does three things: builds trust, establishes your expertise, and introduces the paid course at exactly the right moment.

A proven 7-email welcome sequence structure:

14. Email 1 (Day 0): Deliver the lead magnet and introduce yourself briefly
15. Email 2 (Day 1): Share your biggest insight on the topic — pure value
16. Email 3 (Day 3): Tell the story of how you learned what you’re teaching
17. Email 4 (Day 5): Address the #1 mistake your audience makes
18. Email 5 (Day 7): Introduce the course — frame it as the solution to the mistake
19. Email 6 (Day 9): Share a student result or detailed case study
20. Email 7 (Day 11): Final invitation — time-limited bonus or early-bird discount

Step 9: Drive traffic to your landing page

Your ConvertKit landing page is where people opt in to receive your lead magnet. To grow your list before launch, drive traffic from at least two of these sources:

• SEO content: Write blog posts or record YouTube videos targeting your course topic keywords
• Pinterest: Create visual pins linking to your landing page — free, high-intent traffic
• Reddit and forums: Contribute genuinely in relevant communities and add your landing page to your profile
• Guest posting: Write for established blogs in your niche and include a link to your lead magnet
• Social media: Share free insights and point followers to your landing page in the bio

Aim to build a list of at least 200–500 subscribers before launching. A small engaged list consistently outperforms a large unengaged one — 500 people who opted in for your specific lead magnet will generate more sales than 5,000 cold followers.

Step 10: Launch your course

A launch is a structured promotional period — typically 5–10 days — where you actively sell your course to your email list and social audience. Most course creators earn more in one launch week than in months of passive sales.

A simple but effective launch sequence:

21. Day 1: Open cart announcement email — course is live, link to sales page
22. Day 2: “Who this course is for” email — paint the picture of the ideal student
23. Day 3: FAQ email — answer the five most common objections
24. Day 5: Testimonial or case study email — proof the method works
25. Day 7: Closing email — cart closes tonight, final chance

After your first launch, leave the course on “evergreen” — always available, with your automated welcome sequence selling it passively to every new subscriber. Launch manually 2–4 times per year to inject urgency and generate larger revenue spikes.

ConvertKit  convertkit.comCommission: 30% recurring commission (lifetime)   Cookie: 90-day cookie  Why recommend it: ConvertKit is built for exactly this use case. The lifetime recurring commission means a reader who signs up in year one can still be paying you a commission in year three.

Part 4: Grow beyond your first launch

Your first launch is proof of concept. Once you’ve made initial sales and collected student feedback, the path to consistent income comes from four activities:

Collect testimonials immediately

Email every student who completes the course and ask for a short testimonial. Offer a bonus lesson or resource in exchange. One strong testimonial on your sales page can increase conversions by 20–30%. Collect them early and display them prominently.

Improve the course based on feedback

Read every student comment and question. The questions students ask most often become your best new content — both for improving the course and for writing new blog posts and email sequences that attract more students.

Raise your price

Most new course creators undercharge significantly. After your first 10–20 students, raise your price. A course that sold at £97 can often command £197 or £297 once you have testimonials and a refined product. Higher prices also attract more serious, committed students who get better results — which generates better testimonials.

Add an upsell or coaching tier

Once your course is established, the highest-leverage thing you can do is add a premium tier — either a 1:1 coaching package, a group mastermind, or a “done with you” version. This can easily 3–5x your revenue per student without requiring new content.

Conclusion

Building a profitable online course is one of the most sustainable ways to earn money as a creator, consultant, or expert. The system works: plan with AI to save weeks of work, host on a professional platform that handles the technical side, and build an email list that sells for you automatically.

The three tools this guide recommends — Jasper, Teachable, and ConvertKit — are the foundation most successful course creators are built on. They’re not the most expensive options, and they’re not the cheapest. They’re the ones that work reliably for people who are serious about building a real business.

Start with step one today. Pick your topic, write your transformation promise, and open a Jasper account. Every successful course that exists was once just an idea on someone’s notepad.