Overview
You can create courses anytime in your Teachable school—whether you’re setting up your first course or adding new ones later.
This guide walks you through creating a course, setting up pricing, managing design and settings, and preparing for publication.
Create a Course
You can create a new course from several places in your admin view:
From your Dashboard, click Create new product in the top-right corner.
From the sidebar, click the + next to Products.
From the Courses index page, click New course in the top-right corner.
This opens the course creation wizard.
Step 1: Add basic course details
Enter the following information:
Course title
Author
Description (optional)
Thumbnail image
Aspect ratio: 16:9
Recommended size: 1024 × 576 px
Click Continue when done.
Step 2: Add a thumbnail (optional)
You can upload a thumbnail image to represent your course.
Aspect ratio: 16:9
Recommended size: 1024 × 576 px
Click Next to continue.
Step 3: Add a pricing plan (optional)
If you’re not ready to set pricing, you can skip this step and return later.
You can choose one of four pricing types:
Pricing Type | Description |
One-time purchase | Students pay once for lifetime access. |
Payment plan | Students pay a fixed number of monthly payments. |
Subscription | Students pay recurring charges (e.g., monthly or annually). |
Free | Students enroll without payment. |
Each pricing plan can include:
Plan name
Currency and price
Optional subtitle
Optional description
Step 4: Outline your course
Choose how you want to create your curriculum:
Generate with AI – Automatically builds sections, lessons, and sample content based on your course description to help you get started.
Note: Teachable never uses your content to train AI models. Your work remains yours, always.
Start from scratch – Manually add all sections and lessons.
Bulk upload – Upload multiple files, and Teachable creates one lesson per file.
Copy from another course – Reuse content from an existing course in your school.
Click Finish to create your course.
Use the Course Setup Guide
After creation, you’ll land on your Setup Guide—a checklist that walks you through how to structure, design, and publish your course.
From here, you can:
Update your course title and thumbnail
Preview your curriculum under Curriculum Preview
Set pricing under Pricing Plans
Choose your sales page (where students enroll)
Course sales page
Product details page (PDP)
External URL
Choose your thank-you page (where students land after enrolling)
Click Publish course (top-right corner) when you’re ready to go live.
Edit Your Curriculum
You can build or update your curriculum anytime:
Generate with AI
Start from scratch
Bulk upload
Copy from another course
Note: Teachable ensures your content is never used to train AI models—your work remains yours.
Publishing visibility
Published lessons are visible to enrolled students.
Unpublished lessons are hidden.
Public preview lessons are free for anyone to view and can be used as sales teasers.
Drip lessons release automatically based on dates or enrollment timing. Learn more about drip settings →
Manage Course Design Templates
You can choose from two curriculum layouts:
Layout | Description |
Simple | Clean layout with tabbed navigation for minimal distractions. |
Colossal | Rich layout that highlights your curriculum, course info, and instructor bio. |
Add a Completion Certificate
You can add a certificate students receive after completing your course.
Learn how to create certificates →
Manage Course Settings
In the Information page of your course, you can:
Publish / Unpublish – Control whether new students can purchase or enroll.
Preview – View your sales page or curriculum as a student.
Duplicate – Create a full copy of your course (includes all lessons, media, and author info).
Delete – Permanently remove the course (irreversible).
When publishing:
Click Publish course.
Choose:
Yes, publish all – Publishes all pages and lessons.
No, just publish course – Publishes pages but keeps unpublished lessons hidden.
Cancel – Keeps your course unpublished.
Tip: Learn more about product publishing and visibility settings →
Update Course Information
From the Information tab, you can edit:
Course title
Description
Thumbnail image
Promo video (Page Editor 1.0 schools only)
Recommended size: 1920×1080 or 3840×2160 (MP4, M4V, AVI, ≤2GB)
Compress large videos using a tool like Handbrake to reduce file size without losing quality.
Manage Course Authors
Assign an author to display on your course and product pages.
Authors – Connected to a user account; can receive revenue shares and access author dashboards.
Bios without Authors – Display bio details without connecting to a user account (no revenue share).
Learn more about creating and managing authors →
Optimize Course SEO (Page Editor 1.0 only)
If your course uses the legacy Page Editor 1.0, you can update SEO details under Information > SEO.
Friendly URL – A clear, descriptive web address.
Page Title – Appears in search engine results.
Meta Description – Brief summary (max 160 characters).
Tip: New to SEO? Check out our SEO blog guide →
Note: For courses created in Page Editor 2.0, SEO settings are edited directly in the page editor.
Adjust Course Settings
From Information > Course settings, you can manage:
Categories
Group your course with others to improve discoverability.
Learn about managing categories →
Limit Lesson Content Width
Keeps content width at 760px for better readability on all devices.
Hide Progress Bar
Remove the progress bar from student view if desired.
Course Compliance
Require students to complete videos or quizzes before moving on.
Learn more about course compliance →
Drip Settings
Grant full access to all students. You can also grant full access or restore the original drip schedule for specific students.
Next Steps
Once your basic course setup is complete, continue building and refining your course:
FAQs
Can I create a course without adding pricing right away?
Yes. You can skip adding a pricing plan during setup and return later to set one up once you’ve finalized your pricing strategy.
What happens if I publish a course with no lessons?
A course must have at least one published lesson before students can access it. You can still publish the course, but students won’t see any content until lessons are published.
Can I use AI to build my course?
Yes. You can use the Generate with AI option to automatically create sections, lessons, and sample content based on your course description.
Note: Teachable ensures that your content is never used to train AI models—your work remains yours, always.
Can I change my course layout later?
Yes. You can switch between the Simple and Colossal curriculum layouts at any time from your course settings.
What’s the difference between publishing and visibility?
Publishing makes your course available for purchase or enrollment. Visibility controls whether the course appears in your public product directory.
Learn more about product visibility.
Can I duplicate or delete a course later?
Yes. From the course Information tab, you can duplicate, delete, or preview your course at any time. Keep in mind that deleting a course is permanent.
Do unpublished lessons affect enrolled students?
Unpublished lessons are never visible to students. If a course is published but some lessons remain unpublished, enrolled students will only see the published ones.
Can I offer a free preview lesson?
Yes. You can set any lesson to Public Preview to make it available to all visitors. This is a great way to showcase your content to potential students.
What if I want to drip-release content over time?
You can set drip schedules to release sections on specific dates or a set number of days after enrollment. Learn more about drip settings.