Before you can start selling products on your Forento platform, there are a few initial setup steps. This guide will cover the essential aspects of getting started, along with tips, best practices, and suggestions to help you build an attractive and functional platform quickly.
​

To start selling, you need to:

With a little extra effort, you can create a platform that truly reflects your brand and provides a customized, valuable experience for your members. This guide will cover the following topics:

Each section includes links to detailed guides with step-by-step instructions, which you can find under the "Relevant Links" section for each topic.
​

At the end of the guide, you'll find a checklist that covers all the crucial steps from joining Forento to launching your platform. Use this checklist to ensure you've set up everything necessary before inviting your first member.

In the platform customization settings, you'll be able to enter basic information, upload a logo, select a brand color, and choose from multiple themes.

The customization options you choose will determine the overall look and feel of your platform. For example, your logo will be displayed across your platform, including pages such as the login/signup page. The main color you select will appear on menu items, action buttons, and more.
​

Some customization options are not displayed directly on your platform but are visible when sharing your platform externally. The title and description will be shown when sharing a link to your platform on social media or in search results for relevant keywords.

Depending on your plan, you might have seats available for co-admins. These seats can be assigned to anyone you'd like to collaborate with on your platform. They can be permanent members of your team or people you hire to help with specific tasks related to your platform or website.
​

To invite a team member, simply enter their email address and wait for them to accept the invitation. Once they've accepted, they'll be asked to create their own Forento login, which they'll use when co-managing your platform.
​

Creators on Forento sell a wide range of products, from e-books to website templates and corporate training. We've made it easy for you to sell any type of informational or educational product by offering various product formats.

The product formats in Forento are:

You can use these formats to publish either free or paid products on your platform. They can be sold individually or bundled together in Memberships. Membership tiers allow you to sell monthly or annual subscriptions to members, who pay recurringly to access your content.
​

You can choose to connect either PayPal or Stripe as your platform's payment gateway. Both options allow you to set a custom currency and sell your products internationally. Everything is automated, so you won't have to manually assign access to products or remove a member from a subscription if they stop paying.
​

These payment gateways provide a separate dashboard where you can see detailed overviews and statistics for payments. However, you can view core information here: https://app.forento.io/payments
​

Once your account is set up, you'll be able to publish paid products and memberships and accept payments from members.

Throughout each member's experience on your platform, they'll receive one or more automated emails on behalf of your platform. These emails can be purely transactional, such as the Password Reset email sent to those who click the "I forgot my password" button. Additionally, you can enable a Welcome Email that is sent out to each member right after they sign up for your platform.
​

You can customize these emails using either plain text (MJML) or HTML. If you prefer a simple format with clear text, choose MJML. If you'd like to add visual elements, opt for HTML.
​

You can edit the emails and set up your welcome email here: https://app.forento.io/settings/student-emails.
​

By default, emails from your platform will be sent from a standard Forento address unless you connect a custom email address. You can connect your own email address via SMTP here: https://app.forento.io/settings/platform.
​

Instead of using the free subdomains provided by Forento, you can buy or connect a custom domain to your platform. Doing this will replace the free subdomains ("name.forento.app" and "name.forento.site") with:

If you already have a domain name from another provider, you can connect it to Forento using DNS records. If you don't have a custom domain, you can buy one directly through Forento.
​

You can search for available domain names in Forento here: https://app.forento.io/settings/domain/register and connect an existing domain here: https://app.forento.io/settings/domain.

The Forento website builder is a full drag-and-drop editor that provides coaches, educators, and entrepreneurs with powerful tools to build virtually any website imaginable.
​

You can create responsive, SEO-friendly, and high-converting sales pages or professional, multi-page websites. The editor works with pre-designed elements and blocks that you can easily drag and drop onto your website.
​

You'll find more than 10 templates specifically designed for coaches, public speakers, designers, educators, trainers, and other specific use cases relevant to selling information products. You can either choose one of these templates and swap out the content to fit your brand and style, or build something from scratch—it's up to you.
​

To get started building your site, go to: https://app.forento.io/website and click "Enable website".

Once you've completed these steps, our system will generate your new website and direct you to your website's Edit Mode. There, you'll be able to drag and drop various elements, including pre-designed sections containing multiple elements.
​

When you've added everything you'd like to your website, the final step is to give visitors an easy way to access your platform. You can add a login and sign-up button to your website using the button element and entering your platform's actual sign-in/sign-up link as an external URL.
​

Note: Forento websites are not tested on Internet Explorer, so we don't guarantee 100% website performance on this browser. We highly recommend switching to another browser to avoid any technical issues.
​

The list below acts as a checklist for the topics covered above, aimed to help you as a creator ensure that you haven't missed any crucial steps in building your platform. Please note that not all of these are required or necessary, so ignore those that are not relevant to your platform or business. You may copy the list and import it into any project management, task, or checklist tool that you might have.

Platform Customization

General

Website

Products & Pricing

User Experience