Buying software
Your own learning platform or a marketplace: how to choose
· 5 minute read
Quick answer
Sell on a marketplace while you are still finding out whether people will pay, because it brings an audience and costs nothing up front except a share of every sale. Build your own platform once buyers come looking for you by name, because from that point the marketplace's cut, its rules and its ownership of your student list cost more than the software would. The choice is a question about where your audience comes from, not a technical one.
Anyone selling a course online makes this decision twice. Once at the start, when a marketplace is obviously right, and once later, when it is no longer obvious and nobody tells you the moment has arrived.
This is how to tell where you are.
What a marketplace actually gives you
Three things, and they are worth real money:
- An audience. People are already on the site looking for something to learn. Some of them will find you without you spending anything on reaching them.
- The machinery. Payments, refunds, video hosting, a player that works on a bad connection, tax handling, a mobile app. All of it built, maintained and paid for by somebody else.
- No risk up front. If the course does not sell, you have lost the time it took to make, and nothing else.
For a first course, or for testing whether a subject sells at all, that combination is very hard to argue against. Build nothing. Publish, and find out.
What it takes in return
The cut is the visible cost, and it is not the important one. Three other things cost more over time.
You do not get the student list. In most cases you cannot email your own buyers outside the platform. That means every launch starts from zero again, and the audience you built belongs to the marketplace rather than to you.
You do not set the rules. Pricing, discount campaigns, what a refund means, how your course is ranked and who it is shown next to are all decisions made above you and changed without asking. A discount season you did not choose can reprice your entire catalogue.
You cannot change the product. If your teaching needs a cohort, a mentor thread, a live assessment, a certificate that means something to an employer, or a corporate buyer purchasing forty seats at once, you get whatever the marketplace already supports and nothing else.
Working on something like this?
Describe the problem in a few lines. We reply with a scope, a timeline and a price, even when the answer is that you do not need us.
The signal that it is time to move
One question decides it: where do your buyers come from?
If most of them found you by browsing the marketplace, your platform is doing the selling and it is earning its cut. Leaving is expensive, and the new site will be quiet.
If most of them arrive because somebody recommended you, because they watched you on YouTube or Instagram, because they are on your mailing list, or because they searched for your name, then you are doing the selling and paying a share of every sale for infrastructure. That is the point where the arithmetic turns, and it usually turns well before anyone notices.
Two smaller signals point the same way. You are turning down the kind of work your platform cannot support, such as corporate or institutional buyers. Or you are spending on ads and sending that traffic to somebody else's checkout.
What your own platform has to do before it is worth it
Not everything a marketplace does. Enough of it that a student never notices what is missing:
- Enrolment and payment that work on a phone, on a middling connection, first time.
- Video that is not simply a public link anybody can pass around.
- Progress a student can see, and a way to get back to where they stopped.
- Assessment, if your subject needs it, and certificates on completion if they mean anything in your field.
- A screen your own teachers can use to build a course without calling a developer.
- Reports: who enrolled, who finished, who stopped and where they stopped.
That last one is quietly the most valuable, because it is information the marketplace has about your students and does not give you.
The scope of a first version is the whole decision. Build the narrow thing that serves the students you already have, and add the rest when a real student asks for it. Learning platforms covers what we include in a build and what we leave out on purpose.
What it costs to run one
Three buckets, and they behave differently:
- Building it. A one-time cost, driven by the same things that drive any custom build. What a CMS website costs applies here almost line for line.
- Running it. Hosting, the payment gateway's percentage, and video. Video is the one that surprises people: storage is cheap and delivery is not, and a popular course moves a lot of data.
- Selling it. The budget the marketplace used to cover out of its cut. If you are already doing your own marketing, this is not new money. If you are not, it is the real cost of leaving, and it is larger than the software.
Can you do both?
Yes, and it is usually the right answer for a year or two.
Keep an introductory course on the marketplace, priced to be found, and treat it as advertising you get paid for. Sell the deeper programme, the cohorts and anything corporate on your own platform, where you set the terms and keep the list.
The one thing to avoid is the same course at two prices on two sites. Students find out, marketplaces have rules about it, and you end up competing with yourself.
If you decide to build
Ask the questions you would ask about any custom software before you commit, especially the ones about ownership and about what happens after launch. The list in what to ask a developer before you hand over a booking system is written for bookings, but everything in it about payments, ownership and who can change what applies just as well to a platform holding your students.
Questions about this
When should I move off a course marketplace?
- When most of your buyers already arrive through your own audience: a mailing list, social media, recommendations or a search for your name. At that point you are doing the selling and paying a share of every sale for infrastructure you could run yourself.
What does a marketplace cost beyond its commission?
- The student list, which you usually cannot email outside the platform, control over pricing and discounts, and the shape of the product. If your teaching needs cohorts, real assessment or corporate seat purchases, you get only what the platform already supports.
Can I sell on a marketplace and my own site at the same time?
- Yes, and for the first year or two it is often the best answer. Keep an introductory course on the marketplace as advertising you get paid for, and sell deeper programmes and corporate seats on your own platform. Avoid the same course at two different prices.
What is the minimum a learning platform needs at launch?
- Enrolment and payment that work on a phone, video that is not a public link, visible progress, a course builder your teachers can use without a developer, and reports on who enrolled and finished. Assessment and certificates only if your subject needs them.
Which costs more to run, video or hosting?
- Video, once a course sells. Storing it is cheap and delivering it is not, so the bill follows how much people watch rather than how much you uploaded. Ask about delivery pricing specifically before choosing where the video lives.
Will my sales drop if I leave the marketplace?
- They will if the marketplace was finding your buyers. That is the test: check where recent students came from before you move. If they came from your own audience, the platform was taking a cut of sales it did not make.