How to Create and Sell an Online Course: The Complete Guide from Start to Finish

An online course can be one of the best assets you’ll ever create for your business.

• It can be your main product.
• It can be a low-priced entry point that introduces people to you.
• Or it can be the first step that nurtures leads into higher-paying products, services, or coaching.

That’s exactly how I’ve used online courses myself.

But here’s the part most people don’t talk about: While creating an online course sounds simple in theory, it can get overwhelming very quickly once you actually try to do it.

• What should the course be about?
• How long should it be?
• Do you need fancy videos?
• Which tools do you even use?
• How do you sell it?

I’ve been there.

When I created and launched my first online courses, I spent an unreasonable amount of time trying to piece everything together. Watching videos. Reading blog posts. Comparing tools. Following advice that was either too abstract or clearly designed to sell me a high-ticket program.

Most of the information was fragmented. One place talked about content. Another talked about funnels. Another talked about email marketing. Very few showed how everything actually fits together in the real world.

That’s why this guide exists. It's what I wish I had when I started.

Here I’ll walk you through the complete process of creating and selling an online course, step by step, from the idea all the way to your first sale. No fluff. No motivational speeches. Just a clear system that actually works.

This is essentially what many business gurus teach in their $1,000+ courses, but explained in a practical, grounded way and available to you for free.

And yes, I will also show you a complete example course that we sold at Softailed so you can see what a final product can look like (here is a sneak peek of the landing page).

Before we jump into the first part, I know that some of you are only here for the requirements and quick roadmap. If that’s you, here you go.

What You Need to Launch an Online Course

To launch an online course, you’ll need the following:

• A way to record your content (screen and/or camera).
• A microphone to capture your audio or an AI voice generator.
• A tool to edit video content.
• A place to host your course content.
• A landing page and funnel to explain and sell your offer.
• A checkout to accept payments (if it’s a paid course).
• Automated email sequences.

The good news: You will only need two or three software tools to do it all.

Recommended Tools

If you’re on a very tight budget, you can use Systeme.io instead of ClickFunnels. It can handle the same core tasks on a single platform and offers a free plan to start. (See our Systeme.io review to learn more.)

For video editing, you can use any tool you’re comfortable with. I just found that Camtasia is by far the easiest tool for me, especially for screen recordings and adding details such as quickly zooming in and out to highlight video sections. The tool also comes at a one-time fee (you don’t have to renew the Essentials plan to keep using it). I still use Camtasia 2021 and don’t miss any features.

As for recording yourself, you do not need an expensive camera either. In fact, a laptop webcam or smartphone is enough, but not recording yourself at all is also fine if you’re teaching technical content. If you want to invest in one thing, make it a decent microphone. Clear audio will matter far more to your students than sharp video.

How to Launch an Online Course, Step-by-Step

This is the exact process I follow, and the same process most successful course creators use, when creating and launching an online course:

1. Define the course idea.
2. Validate market demand.
3. Define the solution.
4. Design the course structure.
5. Prepare the course content.
6. Record and edit the course content.
7. Set up the course product.
8. Build the sales pages (funnel).
9. Set up email automations.
10. Drive traffic and make the first sales.
11. Optimize and scale.

That’s the whole system.

You don’t need to do everything at once. Each step builds on the previous one.

If you’re here for the details, I’ll now start with the most important part of all: choosing a course idea that people actually want to buy.

Step 1: Define the Course Idea

If the course idea itself is off, selling will always feel harder than it needs to be. This step sets the direction for everything that follows.

Some people come into this process with a rough idea already. Others don’t. Both are fine.

This step works either way.

What matters is that you don’t try to invent a course out of thin air.

Start With a Context, Not a Product

It feels natural to start with an industry or area you’re interested in. Real estate. Fitness. Marketing. Design.

That’s a good starting point.

An industry gives you context. It tells you who you might want to help and what kind of world they operate in. What it doesn’t give you yet is a course idea.

Courses don’t sell because of the industry they’re in. They sell because they help someone get unstuck in a very specific situation.

So if you already have an industry or audience in mind, keep it. Just don’t stop there.

Zoom In on Real Situations

Every industry contains recurring situations that people struggle with.

• In fitness, it might be trying to lose weight but always falling back into old habits.
• In business, it might be launching something and getting zero sales.
• In real estate, it might be getting leads but not converting them.
• In marketing, it might be posting consistently without seeing results.

Strong course ideas usually start with moments like these. Situations people recognize immediately because they’re living them right now.

If someone reads your idea and thinks, “That’s exactly my situation,” you’re moving in the right direction.

Know Who You Want to Help

At this point, you might already have a clear situation in mind. If so, great.

If you don’t, that’s also fine.

If all you have right now is a clear idea of who you want to help, you’re still on track. You don’t need to force a problem yet. In step 2, I will help you uncover which situations actually matter most to that audience.

For now, it’s enough to know the industry you want to explore.

Clarify the Direction

Whether you already have a situation in mind or not, you should be able to roughly answer at least the first one of these questions, and ideally all three:

• Who do I want to help?
• What situation are they stuck in?
• What should be different for them after they get help?

This doesn’t need perfect wording or to cover every edge case. It just needs to describe a clear direction.

It’s also worth saying this explicitly: You don’t need to be the most advanced expert in the space. The one thing that matters here is scope. Your first course is not meant to be the ultimate solution for everything in a niche.

A course that solves one concrete problem well is far more valuable than one that tries to cover 10 things at the same time.

You can always expand later.

Before You Move On ...

Pause for a moment and check this: Can you clearly explain who you want to help and, at least roughly, what kind of situation they are trying to get out of?

If yes, you’re ready for the next step.

In the next section, I'll show you how take your idea and check it against the real world. This means validating a specific problem and discovering which problems matter most to the audience you’ve chosen.

Step 2: Validate Market Demand

The purpose of this step is to step outside your own assumptions and see what the market actually cares about.

You’re not trying to predict success. You’re simply looking for confirmation that there is a real problem worth solving. Here's how to do it.

What Validation Means in Practice

Validation means finding evidence that people care enough about a situation to want help with it.

That evidence can show up in different forms. People might be actively searching for answers. They might be discussing the problem publicly. Or they might already be paying for solutions, even if those solutions aren’t ideal.

You don’t need all of these. Seeing a few strong signals is enough to move forward with confidence.

Where to Confirm and Discover Problems

You don’t need to guess what people want. Demand leaves clues.

I usually start in places where people speak freely and without polish.

Here are a few of them:

• Communities and forums: Skool communities, Facebook Groups, and Reddit are great starting points to get in touch with your target audience. Look for repeated questions, frustrations, and long comment threads. You can also open a poll or just straight out ask what problems people are facing.
• YouTube comments: Tutorials often attract people who are already trying to solve a problem. When they ask follow-up questions or say they’re still confused, they’re showing you exactly where help is needed.
• Existing courses and products: If people are already paying for solutions in a space, that’s a strong sign. You’re not late. You’re stepping into a market that already exists. Often, the opportunity lies in making the solution clearer, more focused, or easier to follow.

The Fastest Way to Validate

The most effective way to validate demand is to offer help before turning it into a full course.

You can help a small number of people for free, or in exchange for a testimonial, and see whether your approach actually helps them move forward.

For some, this might look like a small workshop. For others, a few one-on-one sessions or a simple step-by-step guide. The format doesn’t matter much. What matters is that real people apply what you’re offering and get results.

This does more than just validate demand. It also teaches you what to emphasize, what to simplify, what people struggle with most, and whether they are willing to pay for a solution.

You don’t need dozens of conversations or a large audience.

Seeing the same signals a few times is usually enough. Helping even a handful of people successfully can give you more confidence than months of research.

Validation should take days, not months.

Before You Move On ...

Ask yourself (honestly): Have I seen enough real-world signals to believe this course is worth building?

If the answer is yes, you’re ready for the next step.

In the next section, I'll take what you’ve learned and turn it into a solution by working backwards from the outcome your students want to achieve.

Step 3: Define the Solution

Now that the problem is clear and worth solving, the next step is deciding how you’ll help people solve it.

In an online course, the outcome is the result people want to achieve. The solution is the process, framework, or system you teach to help them reach that result. Both can take many forms. The key is designing a solution that reliably guides people toward the desired outcome.

Let's take a look at an example to make this more clear.

Example Problem (Where Potential Customers Are Now)

A salon owner who is busy with clients often struggles to answer phone calls during treatments. They don’t want to interrupt appointments and make their clients feel like a lower priority, but they also don’t want to miss potential business by letting calls go unanswered. Hiring someone solely to answer the phone may not be financially practical. The situation often leaves them feeling stressed and frustrated.

Example Outcome (Where They Want to Be)

A salon owner who no longer has to answer calls themselves, but still has every call handled. The phone isn’t constantly ringing, and they can focus fully on their clients without worrying about missed opportunities. Their day feels calmer and more organized, and they don’t have to hire extra staff to make it happen.

Example Solution (What Gets Them There)

An AI receptionist that automatically takes all calls 24/7 with a welcoming human voice to schedule and cancel appointments. It answers any questions potential clients may have, all for less than $100/month.

Well, this is exactly what we’ve built and teach salon owners in our SilentPhone Masterclass (this is the example course we’ll use as reference throughout this guide).

You might think, “Wow, that sounds like an awesome solution”. And yes, the solution is pretty cool. But that doesn’t make it a great course solution just yet. I’ll get to why it’s actually horrible in a second.

Before that, I want you to see what we did here.

We took the current situation of the target audience (problem) and their ideal future (desired outcome), including their feelings and frustrations.

Then, we came up with a solution that fixes the problem. We built the solution (AI receptionist), tested it, and then created our course to teach salon owners how to build their own AI receptionist.

Choosing the Right Solution

To choose the right solution for your course, it’s extremely important to keep your target audience in mind.

Understand who they are and what kind of solution suits their lifestyle.

When I said our AI receptionist for salon owners was a horrible solution, it wasn’t because the product doesn’t deliver. It’s because the solution is not a good fit for teaching it to the target audience.

Despite making the process as straightforward as possible, it’s too big a barrier for salon owners to jump into techy things and build an AI agent from the ground up. Most of them give up internally when they hear “building” and “AI”.

We still made good sales on this course because our marketing was strong, but the market fit for this type of solution is more of a done-for-you service than a do-it-yourself product.

Don’t make it hard for yourself by choosing a solution that becomes hard to sell to your audience.

If we were to reapproach the salon owners, a better solution for a course could have been something much simpler. For example, how to set up an online booking system where clients can schedule and cancel appointments.

Once salon owners are comfortable with clients booking and managing appointments online, it becomes much easier to later introduce an AI receptionist for their calls as a done-for-you solution (we offer to build it for them).

Here are some more examples of solutions for different industries:

• Fitness: A simple habit-based fat loss system that helps people stay consistent with training and nutrition before introducing advanced programs or coaching
• Online business: A step-by-step roadmap for getting the first sale before selling advanced funnels or traffic strategies
• Real estate: A clear follow-up system for inbound leads before introducing CRM automation or outsourced lead handling
• Freelancers: A repeatable client onboarding process before upselling done-for-you systems or team building
• Content creators: A publishing workflow that helps them stay consistent before introducing monetization or scaling strategies
• Ecommerce: A product validation process, online store, and ads setup before teaching advanced CRO or inventory scaling
• Local businesses: A basic lead capture and response system before upselling automation or AI tools

The best course solutions are usually simple, practical, and easy to adopt. Once people see results, more advanced or technical solutions become much easier to sell after that.

Before You Move On ...

Create a new folder in your Google Drive (my favorite for courses), Notion, ClickUp, or whatever you want to use to store everything for your online course.

Organization is key, since you’ll work with a lot of different files and formats to put your course together.

Start with a document that includes your entire progress so far:

• Who your target audience is.
• What problems they have.
• What problem you want to focus on.
• Your solution.
• How it works.
• Requirements.
• General course idea.

This will help a lot with the next step, where you’ll create the actual course structure.

Step 4: Design the Course Structure

Once the solution is created, the course structure becomes much easier.

You’re no longer figuring out what you’re offering, but deciding how to guide someone through the solution in a way that feels clear, logical, and achievable.

The biggest mistake you can make here is starting with videos or lessons. That usually leads to messy courses that feel overwhelming to students and hard to finish.

Instead, the structure should follow the solution you’ve already defined.

Structure Follows the Solution

Your course structure should mirror the way your solution works in the real world.

• If your solution is a process, the course follows that process step by step.
• If it’s a system, the course is structured around its components.
• If it’s a setup or implementation, the course follows the same order someone would realistically go through when building it.

The idea is to translate the solution into a clear path.

Think in Progress, Not Content

A helpful shift is to stop thinking in terms of “lessons” and start thinking in terms of progress.

Ask yourself: What needs to happen first for someone to move forward? What needs to happen next? Where does the solution really come together?

Each of these moments becomes a natural milestone in the course. Those milestones turn into modules or sections. Inside each module, you can then decide how many videos, explanations, or demonstrations are needed.

This keeps the course outcome-focused instead of content-heavy.

Example: Quick Draft Structure

Using our salon owner example from earlier, a first course structure to build an AI receptionist could look something like this:

• Start with a short introduction.
• Clarify the goal and expected outcome, so they understand what problem the system solves and what success looks like.
• Set up the foundation and requirements needed to get started.
• Guide students through the system from A to Z.
• Handle common edge cases.
• Show how this system can be extended + next steps.

After this initial draft, it’s time to make it concrete by turning it into a definite course structure.

Example: Initial Course Structure

Once you have a rough draft, you need to bring your quick version and solution together to form a clear outline for your online course.

I like to do it like this:

• Open a new Google Slides file.
• Create a slide for each bullet point in your quick draft structure (which represents your course modules) and change their background color to something you recognize. I chose blue.
• Refine the structure by changing headlines, splitting modules, merging them together, or adding modules.
• Add new slides for each step under your modules (these represent the lessons within your modules) and change their background color to something else. I chose yellow.

Your course structure is done as soon as you have added all slides with a headline for all modules and lessons. And don’t worry, it doesn’t have to be perfect yet.

When you get to creating the content for each module, you may notice that you want to add or change something. That’s fine. These slides are made to puzzle your course together without sacrificing clarity.

Keep your slides ugly. I mean it. Plain black text on weirdly colored slides is all you need at this point to keep it clear for yourself. For now, you’ll only need the slides to be organized and build upon each of your modules step by step.

Later, you can make it look nice and use it for different purposes, such as displaying it in your video lessons or sending it to your students.

Step 5: Prepare the Course Content

You have a clear course structure. You know the modules. You know the lessons. You know the order.

Now it’s time to prepare the actual content.

This step is not about recording yet. It’s about removing friction before you do. Here are the next steps to follow.

Decide What Needs to Be Explained vs. Shown

Before writing anything for your first video, ask yourself one simple question for each lesson: Does this need an explanation, a demonstration, or both?

Some lessons are conceptual. They explain why something matters or how to think about a decision. Others are practical and need to be shown step by step on screen.

Being clear about this upfront helps you choose the right format and keeps videos focused.

Turn Lessons Into Scripts

If you’re a naturally good speaker, you don’t need to script your course word for word. Preparing clear talking points for each lesson can help you make it sound more natural. These points can be key ideas, steps, or actions you want to cover (in order).

However, if you’re not very comfortable speaking I highly recommend that you script the entire course word by word. Obviously, this also applies if you want to use an AI voice.

As you write your scripts, make sure to talk to yourself. You must write in the way you’d speak and keep it conversational. Otherwise, your course will feel very stiff and unnatural.

For each lesson, you should also be able to answer:

• What is the goal of this lesson?
• What should the student be able to do after it?
• What are the main points I need to cover to get them there?

If you can answer those three questions, it’s time to put it in writing.

Again, you can use Google Slides for this part to keep everything in one place.

Under each slide, you’ll find the “speaker notes” section that you can freely adjust in size by dragging it up/down.

Simply click inside and start writing.

If you’re planning to display or send your slides to students, you can now also add content to the slides. Keep it short and descriptive.

Create Supporting Materials Where It Makes Sense

Not everything needs to live inside a video.

Some things are better delivered as:

• Checklists (example)
• Templates (example)
• Short written guides (example)
• Example files (example)
• Links to tools or resources (example)

These materials reduce video length, make the course easier to follow, increase the perceived value of your course, and boost completion rates.

A good rule of thumb: If something is meant to be reused or referenced later, it probably shouldn’t only exist inside a video.

You can drop all of your materials inside a new folder (e.g. “Materials”) to keep things organized.

Keep the First Version Lean

The first version of yur course doesn’t need to be perfect.

It needs to be clear, useful, and complete enough for someone to get results.

Avoid the temptation to:

• Add extra lessons “just in case.”
• Over-explain edge cases.
• Cover advanced scenarios upfront.

Those can always be added later, based on real feedback.

Coming back to your slides. If you want to show them on screen, this is the time to duplicate the file and make it look better (removing the background color and adjusting the font to your brand).

Don’t overdo it. Your students won’t care about the look of your slides as long as they’re readable. If you want to go all out on design, do it when your course is already a success.

Step 6: Record & Edit the Course Content

Now you’re ready to turn everything you’ve prepared into an actual course.

This is the step where most people expect things to get complicated. In reality, if you did the work in the previous steps, this part is mostly execution.

You already know:

• What you’re going to say.
• What you’re going to show.
• How the course is structured.

Video Length

Before I show you how to record and edit your videos, look at these statistics.

Why do you think these numbers are so low?

It’s because people get excited first, and then never follow through or lose interest in your course.

The reason why higher-priced and self-hosted courses have a higher completion rate is that the upfront commitment is higher. People who pay more are more likely to complete the course. People who already know and like the creator are more likely to complete the course.

But still, 20-30% is not that great.

And that’s mostly because of one thing: engagement.

If your course is boring or hard to follow, people will start zoning out and forget to finish it.

The single best way to prevent that from happening is to keep your video lessons between two and 10 minutes.

Of course, there are many more factors to boosting engagement, including your speech, course interactivity, and level of content depth. But all of these things depend on your specific subject and audience, which I am not able to assess.

The video length guideline, on the other hand, can be implemented for any course.

Keeping your videos within this range will do three important things:

• It gives students an instant feeling that it’s easy to complete a lesson.
• It makes it easier for students to resume the course.
• It builds satisfaction among your students.

If you notice that any of your video lessons require more than 10 minutes, try to break them up into two separate lessons.

The importance of shorter videos should be clear now. Let’s get to recording, editing, and uploading.

Recording & Editing Your Course Videos

There’s no single “right” way to record a course.

Some courses work best as screen recordings. Others benefit from slides with voiceover. Some mix in camera footage. All of these are fine.

What matters is that your audio is clear, your explanations are easy to follow, and your pace is calm and intentional.

To get started recording, open your slide(s) and script for the first lesson. Then, check what you need to cover and begin your recording.

Follow this simple process to create your video lessons:

• Prepare what you want to show.
• Record your screen and audio (if needed, multiple times).
• Edit video (trim clips, add helpful effects if needed, add very soft background music).
• Export video to your computer.

By far the easiest tool to do all that is Camtasia Editor. As mentioned earlier, purchasing the Essentials plan once without renewing the licence is all you’ll ever need.

The software allows you to record your screen, camera, microphone audio, and system audio all at the same time, and gives you plenty of options to edit your video afterward.

Here are two basic tutorials to get familiar with the tool.

Recording Basics

Editing Basics

That’s it. If you’re speaking yourself, you can repeat this process for all of your videos until your course is complete.

Using an AI Voice Instead of Your Own

If you don’t want to show and speak yourself, you can create an entire online course by only using an AI voice.

The process is not that different compared to what I described above. Using an AI voice simply requires two additional steps.

1. Generating the AI audio.
2. Matching the AI audio to your video timeline.

Here is the whole process:

• Prepare what you want to show in your video.
• Record your screen.
• Generate AI voice audio using your script.
• Download AI audio and add it to your editing timeline.
• Edit video (trim clips, extend frames and speed-up clips to match rate of speech, add small effects if needed, add very soft background music).
• Export video to your computer.

If you’re skeptical of the result, you can consider signing up for the example online course that we’re been referencing throughout this guide. The entire online course was built with an AI voice. We used a young, deep, and not too crisp voice to keep it as natural as possible.

That was the short version. The long version to execute this goes as follows.

Step 1: First, create an ElevenLabs account.

Step 2: Go to “Voices” on the left sidebar and filter the voices for language, accent, tonality, and more (see red highlights):

After that, simply click each voice to preview it.

You can shortlist the ones you like by clicking on the “Plus” icon on the right. All of your shortlisted voices will then be saved under “My Voices” (see green highlights).

Step 3: Once you’ve made your decision, go to “Text to Speech,” select your voice, and choose a voice model. Just pick the latest version that is available to you as you read this guide (see the red highlights below).

Step 4: Paste the first paragraph of your script, click “Generate speech,” and download the version you like (see green highlights below).

Step 5: After downloading a paragraph of audio, add it to the timeline of your video editor and match the spoken audio to what’s visible on screen:

Repeat the process for all paragraphs until your video lesson is complete, including your edits.

After that, simply download your video and continue with the next lesson.

Important tips:

• Only generate audio for more than a single paragraph at once if your video doesn’t have a lot of moving action. It will make the editing process easier, and you won’t have to regenerate as much text if specific parts sound weird.
• If your audio is slower than what’s happening on screen, extend the video frames.
• If your audio is faster than what’s happening in your video clip, speed-up the video section.
• To have enough ElevenLabs credits for your course and to clone your own voice (if you prefer to use yours), you will need a paid plan for a single month. Get the Creator plan for one month and pay as you go for any additional credits you may need. When I first started, I made the mistake of purchasing way too many credits upfront. Don’t do it unless you know for certain that you’ll need a lot more.
• (Optional) To make AI voices sound more human, you can add short speech cues like [laughs] or [sighs] in square brackets (see pink tags inside screenshots above). ElevenLabs will use them to express emotion exactly where you place them. There’s no fixed list of cues. You can freely write natural expressions that fit the moment.

Edit Only to Remove Friction

Editing is there to make the course easier to consume, not to make it flashy.

Focus on:

• Removing long pauses.
• Cutting obvious mistakes.
• Tightening sections where you went off-track.

Avoid over-editing. Jump cuts, effects, and animations don’t improve learning if the content is already clear. They mostly slow you down during production. Leave everything out that distracts instead of making things clearer.

The goal is “clear and watchable”, not perfect and cinematic.

Organize Your Files

Inside your project folder, create a folder for your finished videos.

Next, create a folder for each module and place your videos inside. Make sure all of your videos are numbered and have a short descriptive name.

The last thing you want to happen is to be looking for videos and realizing that you can’t find them. Here is what a clean structure looks like:

This small habit saves a lot of time in the next step, when you upload everything into your course platform.

Before You Move On ...

Are all lessons recorded, edited, and ready to be uploaded without further changes?

If yes, you’re ready to turn this content into an actual course product.

In the next step, I'll show you how to set up the online course inside ClickFunnels, including modules, lessons, pricing, access, and the student experience.

Step 7: Set Up the Course Product

By this step, all the hard creative work is done.

Now it's time to set up the course to make it accessible to students, so they can log in, watch the content, and move through it without friction.

For everything that follows (step 7 to step 9), I will use ClickFunnels and show you how things are done inside.

The software costs $97/month and covers literally everything you’ll need. In other words, this is all you'll need to collect payments and keep your online course, landing pages, and email automations running.

Create the Course

The first thing you should do in ClickFunnels is set up your course with all your content and materials.

Inside your Workspace, go to “Workspace Settings,” then click “My Assets” and “Course Videos.”

Now, click “Upload Course Video” and drop all of your videos in there.

This is where your organized files will shine because your clear file numbering and naming will make it easy to select the correct video for each lesson.

After uploading all your videos, navigate to “Courses” and click “Create Course.”

If this tab is not visible to you, click on the “Plus” icon next to “Apps” and add the “Courses” app.

From here, a pop-up will open where you need to select “Custom” for the course type.

Then, fill in the fields for title and description of your course. (And don’t worry, you can always adjust everything later).

Once done, you can start adding your modules and lessons until your entire structure stands:

Then, click on each lesson one by one to add your videos and notes for each lesson.

All you have to do is click on “Select a video” to pick your video for each lesson, and on the right side, you can add any additional resources you may want to display below your video:

Here is how the above looks to students:

At this point, your course is fully set up and visible to your students once you have published all your modules and lessons.

Create the Product

To charge money for enrolling in your course, you’ll have to create a product and link it to your course.

Navigate to “All Products” and click on “Create Product.”

This will open a window that asks you to choose whether your product is of a digital or physical nature, along with the product name and description.

Select “Digital,” type in the name of your course, and click “Create product.”

After that, set the price type to “One time,” type in your selling price, and confirm by clicking the button.

Your product is now created, and you’ll see the following screen:

Select an image for your product (can be the same as the preview image for your course), toggle the Customer Center on (to make your products visible inside your customers’ dashboard), and set a price along with a “compare at amount.” (This is optional, to make your product appear as if it’s on sale, which is a great emotional trigger for people to buy).

Now, scroll down and select your course under “Purchase Actions” and hit "Save."

And that's it! Now your course is connected to a product and is almost ready to be sold.

Connecting a Payment Gateway

The last step before collecting payments is connecting a payment gateway to your ClickFunnels account.

ClickFunnels has its own gateway called Payments AI, but I generally recommend using Stripe for flexibility.

To connect Stripe, click the “Plus” icon next to “Apps” in the left sidebar and add Stripe.

After that, Stripe will appear on the left. Simply click on it and follow the instructions to either connect your existing Stripe account or create a new one, and then connect it.

Once done, it should look like this:

Before You Move On ...

• Did you create your course, including title, description, and image?
• Did you connect each lesson to a video and add your materials below?
• Did you publish all modules and lessons?
• Did you create your product and connect it to your course?
• Did you connect a payment gateway to your account?

If your answer to all of these questions is “yes,” then you’re ready to move on.

Technically, you could just grab your product link at this point and send it to your audience in order to make sales and have students enroll.

However, creating a sales funnel will help you sell and promote your course a lot more effectively.

In the next step, I'll show you how to build the sales page and checkout so people understand what you’re offering and why it’s worth buying.

Step 8: Build the Sales Page and Checkout (Funnel)

If you want consistent sales, you need a proper flow that does three things:

• Explains what the course is.
• Builds enough desire and trust.
• Makes buying feel simple.

That’s what this step is about.

The Only Pages You Need (For a First Version)

When most people say “sales funnel”, they usually mean a very simple set of pages. For most first launches, keep it lean:

• Sales page: This is where you explain the offer and do the persuasion work.
• Checkout page: This is where they pay.
• Thank you page: This is where you confirm the purchase and tell them exactly what happens next.

Optional, but useful later: An order bump or one-click upsell, a pop-up to collect leads before getting to the checkout page, a waitlist page (if you’re not selling yet), or an application page (if it’s high-ticket).

You can add these additional parts once you’ve proven that people will buy.

Build the Funnel Inside ClickFunnels

Inside ClickFunnels, go to “Funnels” and create a new funnel.

If you’re a beginner, it’s better not to start from scratch but use a template. I recommend the presentation funnel:

As soon as you click on that, you’ll see a very helpful three-step video guide that will show you exactly how to build your funnel.

After that, select a funnel template that you’d like to import. Don’t overthink design. The copy and structure will matter far more than the template.

Importing the funnel will give you four connected pages that people will walk through:

• Sales page
• Checkout page
• Upsell page (you can delete this one if you don’t plan to make people upgrade their order)
• Thank you page

Now, adjust the content on each page to match your course.

What Your Sales Page Must Communicate

A good sales page is not long because it’s trying to impress. It’s long because it answers questions and removes doubts.

At a minimum, your sales page should clearly cover:

• The promise: What result the buyer can expect.
• Who it’s for: So the right people feel seen and the wrong people self-select out.
• The problem: Show you understand the problem you are trying to solve.
• The solution: How the course helps them get to the outcome.
• What’s included: Modules, lessons, templates, resources.
• Proof: Testimonials, results, examples, or your credibility.
• Objections: Dispel common objections like time, difficulty, “will this work for me?”, tools, experience level.
• A clear CTA: Tell them exactly what to do next.

The simple model is: Your sales page should make the reader feel like buying is the obvious next step.

People don’t buy products. They buy transformations. If you fully understand their feeling and emotions, it becomes significantly easier to sell your course.

Connect the Checkout to Your Product

On your checkout page, you’ll need to connect the product you created in Step 7. That way, when someone pays, they are not only charged the correct amount but also automatically get access to the course through the customer center.

Hover over the checkout section and click the settings icon:

A side menu will open where you have to click “Product Select:”

Then, select your product and hit “Save:”

Once done, you can do a real test purchase. ClickFunnels makes this super easy by giving you a test credit card in sandbox mode.

Just enter the card details and use any account holder, future date, and security number to make a purchase.

You want to make sure:

• Payment works.
• You receive access via email.
• The thank you page loads properly.
• The next steps are clear.

Make sure you don’t forget to turn “Live Mode” on when you’re ready to receive real payment. To do that, open your funnel and go to "Settings," then toggle Live Mode on:

Your sales page is ready, and your checkout can receive payments.

Time to make it complete with your thank you page.

Make Your Thank You Page Do Its Job

Most people treat the thank you page as an afterthought. It’s not.

A good thank you page reduces refunds and support requests because it tells the buyer exactly what happens next.

Keep it simple:

• Confirm the purchase.
• Tell them where to log in.
• Tell them what to do first.
• Set expectations so they actually start.

I recommend using a button that directly leads students to the course dashboard or the first module.

Got a Budget to Build Your Funnel?

If you have $2,000-$5,000 to spare and don’t want to deal with creating the funnel yourself, you can consider using freelancers from Upwork and Fiverr to do it for you. I don’t recommend letting one person do it all, but rather splitting this up into different tasks for two to three freelancers:

• One for the copy: Since you best know your audience and course, I generally recommend structuring and writing the page contents yourself (or together with AI). However, if you don’t like writing, you can consider hiring someone to do it for you (also for step 9).
• One to draft the design: If you want your funnel to look its best, you can consider hiring someone to design each funnel page in Figma.
• One to set up the funnel in ClickFunnels: Once you have your designs in Figma, you can send them to someone who’s capable of recreating the designs in ClickFunnels. You can also hire someone for cheap to design and set up a funnel altogether, but they usually don’t offer the best designs.

Consider signing up for our example course if you want to see what an ideal design output in Figma. You can also present it to your copywriter/designer a a reference to follow. We share our entire funnel designs (desktop + mobile version, including all upsell products and services) in the notes of the last lesson:

Before You Move On ...

Open an incognito window and go through your funnel as if you were a new customer.

Ask yourself:

• Is the sales page clear and convincing?
• Is it obvious what they get and who it’s for?
• Does the checkout feel effortless?
• Does the thank you page reduce confusion?

If everything feels smooth, you’re ready.

Need more inspiration? Check our funnel and take from it what you like:

• Sales page
• Checkout page
• Thank you page

Congratulations if you made it this far. At this point, you’ve completed all steps to create, host, and be able to sell your online course. Everything that follows from here is designed to help you get sales.

Step 9: Set Up Email Automation

Once your funnel is up and runing, it's time to make the system smarter with some email marketing automation.

Email automation has three jobs:

1. Follow up with people who didn’t buy yet.
2. Guide and support people who did buy.
3. Nurture customers to buy into the next product/service.

If you skip this step, you leave money on the table and increase refunds.

Part 1: Follow Up With Non-Buyers (Optional But Powerful)

Not everyone will buy on their first visit.

That’s normal.

Some are busy. Some are unsure. Some just need a reminder.

This is where a simple follow-up sequence makes a massive difference.

Rather than bore you with a huge wall of text, I’ll refer to this video explaining how it’s done in ClickFunnels:

The requirement for this type of workflow is to either use a two-step checkout form (customers confirm their contact details before entering their payment details in the next step) or a pop-up that collects contact details before landing on the checkout page (as we did for our example course).

The concept is as follows. Trigger it when:

• Someone opts in to your funnel.
• Someone visits your page and leaves their email.
• Someone starts checkout but doesn’t complete it.

For a first version, three to five emails are enough.

Here’s a simple structure that works:

• Email 1 – Reminder: Short recap of the offer. Clear link back to the sales page.
• Email 2 – Problem Agitation: Talk about the cost of not solving the problem.
• Email 3 – Clarification: Answer common objections. Who it’s for, who it’s not for.
• Email 4 – Proof or Example: Share a testimonial, case study, or walk through what’s inside.
• Email 5 – Urgency (optional): If you’re running a limited-time offer or bonus.

You don’t need complicated psychology here. Clarity and repetition outperform cleverness.

Part 2: Onboarding Buyers Properly

This part is just as important.

When someone buys your course, the next 48 hours determine whether they start it, finish it, or refund it (if you have a policy for that).

So create a short onboarding sequence.

Trigger this when someone purchases your course.

Here’s a simple structure:

• Email 1 – Welcome: Thank them. Tell them exactly where to log in. Tell them what to do first..
• Email 2 – Encourage Action: After one to two days, remind them to complete Module 1.
• Email 3 – Reinforce Commitment: After a few days, remind them why they bought and what result they’re working toward.

This increases completion rates and reduces refunds dramatically.

Next to your email workflow, you can also adjust the automatic system emails (see how).

Keep It Simple

You do not need:

• 30 emails
• Complex branching logic
• Hyper-segmented behavior triggers

For your first course, simple linear sequences are more than enough.

Once you have real data, you can optimize for more.

Part 3: Nurture Customers (When You Have a Next Offer)

This part becomes super relevant once your course is not the end of the journey.

Maybe you plan to offer:

• Coaching
• A done-for-you service
• A software
• An advanced course
• A mastermind
• Recurring support
• Community

If that’s the case, your course should not be the final step. It should be the bridge.

The biggest mistake people make is waiting until they launch their next product before thinking about this. By then, they’ve already lost attention and momentum.

Email automation allows you to stay in contact with your customers after they finish the course.

The easiest person to sell to is someone who:

• Already bought from you.
• Already got value.
• Already trusts you.

If your course delivers results, some students will naturally want more.

Your job is simply to stay present and guide them to the next logical step.

You don’t need an aggressive sales machine.

A simple long-term nurture sequence can include:

• Value emails: Share additional tips, clarifications, or updates related to the course.
• Case studies or wins: Highlight success stories from students who implemented the system.
• Personal insights: Talk about lessons learned while helping clients or improving your own systems.
• Soft transitions: Introduce the idea that there’s a next level for those who want more support or speed.

Now, when you later launch your follow-up offer, you already have a warm audience.

When Should You Build This?

Not before you have real students, feedback, and proof.

For now, focus on getting your first sales and making sure your course actually delivers results.

Once that’s working, Part 3 becomes extremely powerful.

Before You Move On ...

Ask yourself:

• Do non-buyers receive a follow-up sequence?
• Do buyers receive a proper onboarding sequence?
• Are system emails adjusted and tested?
• Do you have a plan for future nurturing, even if you’re not implementing it yet?

If yes, your backend is now set up properly.

In the next step, I'll talk about driving traffic and getting your first real sales.

Step 10: Drive Traffic and Make Your First Sales

Now we’re at the part most people think is the hardest.

In reality, traffic only becomes complicated when the earlier steps weren’t done properly.

If...

• Your idea is clear
• The problem is real
• The solution makes sense
• The sales page communicates it well

...then traffic is simply about putting the right people in front of your offer. It's that simple.

Option 1: Organic Traffic (Start Here)

If you already have a following, organic traffic is usually the smartest first move.

It costs time instead of money and forces you to understand your audience better.

The simplest way to approach organic traffic is to talk about the problem your course solves.

Not your course. Not your features. Not your modules.

The problem.

Create content around common mistakes, misconceptions, small actionable tips, examples, before and after situations.

This works on any platform where you have an audience.

At the end of your content, lead people to your funnel.

Keep it simple: “If you want the full step-by-step system, I put everything together here.”

That’s enough.

Option 2: Paid Traffic

If you’re just starting out or want to speed things up, paid ads accelerate everything.

Start small.

Run ads directly to your sales page or to a page that only collects their name and email address in exchange for a free PDF or something. Don’t overcomplicate it with 12 steps and retargeting campaigns from day one, especially since ad platforms run a lot smarter with their AI targeting these days.

Your first goal with ads is not massive profit, but data.

You want to know:

• Are people clicking?
• Are they staying on the page?
• Are they buying?

Once you see sales coming in, then you optimize.

Make sure to start with just one channel for your ads and make it the one where most of your potential customers hang out. For example, if your audience is mostly using Instagram, then only run ads on Instagram/Facebook. Once you have fully established and scaled that ad channel, you can add the next one.

Important Note About Meta Ads

When you get started, create a bunch of different ad creatives that highlight your target audience's problem to catch their interest. Use a variety of different angles to communicate it, and run these ads in a single ad campaign with broad targeting (only adjust the location). Give the algorithm at least three days to learn, and then start looking for your winning ads.

Most marketers make the mistake of not being patient enough, not testing enough creatives, stopping to create more, and failing to capture the problem of their audience.

Let me make this very clear: The primary goal of your ads is to get people's attention and make them click.

Your ad is not supposed to sell yet. That’s the job of your landing page and funnel.

Once you see your first sales coming through, you can start scaling.

Option 3: The Fastest Way to Your First Sale

If you want speed and certainty, there’s something even simpler than content or ads: direct outreach.

If you already know people in your niche, you can:

• Message them.
• Offer them access.
• Ask for honest feedback.

You validated earlier. This is just an extension of that step.

Your first sales can easily come from conversations, not algorithms.

And that’s completely fine.

Before You Move On ...

Ask yourself:

• Do I know where my first sale is supposed to come from?
• Which channel is my audience using the most?
• Am I actually sending traffic to my funnel consistently?
• Am I measuring clicks, opt-ins, and purchases?

If you can answer those questions, you’re doing it right.

In the next step, I'll talk about what to do after the first sales come in. This is where you learn how to optimize, improve, and turn your course into a scalable asset instead of a one-time launch.

Step 11: Optimize and Scale

If you’ve made your first sales, you’re past the hardest part.

At this stage, people often get distracted. They start thinking about new courses, new niches, new funnels.

That’s usually a mistake.

The real opportunity now is not creating something new. It’s improving what already works.

Make Sure the Course Actually Delivers

Before scaling traffic, check your product.

Are people:

• Starting the course?
• Progressing through it?
• Finishing it?
• Getting results?

If completion rates are low, look at video length, clarity, overwhelm, missing steps, and unclear expectations.

Sometimes small improvements dramatically increase perceived value.

I highly recommend collecting feedback at the end of your online course via forms, similar to how we do it in our example course:

The first link is asking people to leave a review.

This does two things:

1. It gives us a general idea of how satisfied people are with the course, including what they liked/didn’t like.
2. It provides free marketing materials since we can use and post positive reviews.

Make sure to disclose that by leaving a review, you earn the right to publish it. You could also give people something in return, such as a discount code for your follow-up product.

The second link is asking people for improvements without any commitment. They can just share what’s on their mind regarding possible improvements.

Now, here is the tricky thing: Based on statistics, we already know that most of your students will not complete the full course. But their feedback is still useful.

To still capture some of these people, I recommend setting up an activity-based email workflow. For example, you can have the automation trigger when a student doesn’t complete any lesson within a week of signing up, or if they have watched some lessons but never made it past a specific module.

Ask them what has stopped them, and send them something like the second link I talked about, so they can freely share their experience via a simple form. Ensure that you have a system in place to collect all replies in one place to get an idea of the bigger picture.

You want to understand:

• What was unclear?
• Where did they get stuck?
• What would have helped them more?

This feedback is gold. It is key to improving your product, but also to selling your audience any other offers in the future.

Improve Conversion Before Increasing Traffic

Let’s say:

• 100 people visit your sales page.
• Two people buy the course.

That’s a 2% conversion rate.

Before doubling your ad spend, ask: can you increase that to 3% or 4%?

Sometimes that happens by:

• Clarifying the promise.
• Adding better testimonials
• Simplifying the offer.
• Improving the headline.
• Tightening the checkout.

Scaling a weak funnel is expensive. Improving it first is smart.

A good technique to test changes is using split tests. In other words, you create two different versions of your funnel and have them run side by side. Based on their individual performance, you then turn off the worst-performing version.

To do this, you can use the built-in feature from ClickFunnels that allows you to automatically distribute 50% of the traffic to one page and the other 50% to your second version:

As soon as you have collected enough data, keep the better-performing version and run your next test. So, if you tested different headlines first, you can then test a simpler flow, then video in the header vs. no video, and so on.

Add an Offer as Logical Next Step

Once students complete your course, some will want more.

This is where you can introduce:

• Coaching
• Done-for-you services
• A premium upgrade
• A community
• Advanced implementation support

Your course becomes the entry point into a bigger ecosystem.

That’s how you turn a simple online course into a real business as you increase the customer lifetime value.

Doing that will allow you to spend more on ads and makes them more profitable. Now, each conversion is not just equal to the price of an online course sale, but to the online course sale + what people spend on your follow-up products (on average).

Raise the Price (Carefully)

If you plan to keep your course as your main product, one of the easiest scaling levers is price.

When real value is delivered and people are happy, you can test a price increase.

Not dramatically. Gradually.

For example:

• from $47 to $67
• from $97 to $127

Watch what happens.

If conversion barely changes, you just increased profit instantly.

Optimize Your Ads

I said this before, and I'll say it again.

To stay relevant and not have your ads get stale, you’ll constantly have to create new ad creatives.

If you haven’t run any ads so far, you should get started with it to scale your business.

Apart from vertical and horizontal scaling inside one ad platform, you can also consider launching your ads on another platform, and then another.

The Long-Term Perspective

A successful course business is rarely built in one launch.

It’s built through:

• Feedback
• Iteration
• Small improvements
• Consistent traffic

The first version is never perfect.

But it doesn’t have to be.

It only needs to work well enough to generate data and results. From there, refinement is much easier than starting from zero again.

Example Course

I know this guide is very long, and things can get overwhelming.

I’ve been there.

That’s also why I know that sometimes it’s easier to just see how it all ties in together and then reverse engineer what’s already working. Luckily, we have a sample course that you can go through. You an even copy it if you want!

From funnel pages, course structure and content, to upsells, email workflows, and ad creatives, you can experience the entire thing like a real customer for only $7 if you buy it here.

The reason why the course is not free is that we want to avoid spam sign-ups. After all, we also put a lot of work into this.

Make sure to grab this opportunity if you want to see what an ideal online course looks like from the outside and inside, to replicate parts or send suggestions to your designer. It will drastically speed up your progress no matter what part you're mostly interested in.

Before You Close This Guide

Congratulations, you’ve made it to the end! You now have the full roadmap to launching your online course and making your first sale. I hope you enjoyed this guide and can use it to get your knowledge out to the world.

The system I shared with you literally covers every single step that you’ll ever need.

Everything else you see online is usually just a part of or a variation of these steps (often packaged into an expensive course or coaching product).

If you’re serious about launching your own online course, bookmark this page and take your time to carefully go from one step to the next.

Building your first online course is not a sprint. It's a stepping stone to a lasting business if you do it with care.

On that note, I wish you all the best and success with your online course!