When you first create a Teachable school, it’s published and online by default. An online school is publicly accessible via your school’s URL—but you can take your school offline if you’re still setting up or want to pause access.

Note: Only primary owners, owners, or users with the “Manage school settings” permission can update your school’s status.

Take your school online

To make your school visible to students and visitors:

Navigate to Settings in your admin sidebar
Click the General tab
Under Website settings, toggle School status to Online

Online status makes all published content in your school accessible to new and enrolled students.

Take your school offline

To hide your school from the public:

Navigate to Settings in your admin
Click the General tab
Under Website settings, toggle School status to Offline

Offline schools are not available to visitors on the internet, however, both online and offline schools are accessible to admin users at any time by logging in to your account.

Next steps

By default, your school’s homepage is not published.
👉 Learn how to publish and customize your homepage.
Products like courses, coaching, bundles, and downloads each have individual publish statuses.
👉 Learn more about publishing products and setting product visibility.

Why did my school go offline automatically?

If you didn't manually take your school offline, one of these is most likely the cause:

Payment failure or plan lapse. When a Teachable subscription payment fails or a plan is cancelled, the school is automatically taken offline. Students immediately lose access to all content.
Another admin changed the school status. Any admin with primary owner permissions with the "Manage school settings" permission can toggle the school offline. Check with the primary owner of your school if you didn't make the change.

How to restore your school after a billing issue

Update your payment method or resubscribe to an active Teachable paid plan.
Once your plan is active, go to Settings > General.
Toggle School status to Online.

Note: Your school cannot be set to Online while your Teachable plan is inactive. Restore your plan first, then update the school status.

Frequently asked questions

Can I customize the offline status page?

Yes. By default, students will see: “This school is offline.”

You can edit this message by going to Site > Custom Text.

Can students access their purchases if the school is offline?

No. Students cannot access any purchases while the school is offline.
They can still log in, view their billing settings, or contact you via your school’s contact form.

To restore access: set your school to online and publish your content.