Make an online course gratis: equipment and software
If you're ready to create your very first online course but don't have a budget to match don't worry! It's 100% possible to develop an online course for no cost (or at least with a very low price) and to increase the investment in the event that your business expands.
But that's just one way to go about creating an online course for affordable cost. We'll look at the software and the tools that you could use to create your course with very little or no investment upfront.
Online course creation tools to create an online course that is free
The software you employ for course creation make all an impact on your course's success. They help you create an excellent product that students love. They can help you automate the processes you use and help save time. They also aid in selling to more people, so it can boost your profit.
1. : free trial + an affordable tech stack
Utilized by novice course creators all the way to multi-million dollar entrepreneurs, simplifies your company so that you can concentrate on the things you are best at: creating courses, coaching programmes Memberships, courses, as well as other digital offerings that serve your customers.
In addition to its online course builder it also provides all the tools you require to build your very first course, and to grow your business which includes:
- Builder for websites
- Build a landing page
- Builder of sales funnels
- Software for marketing emails
- Course video hosting
- Pages for ordering
- Payment processing
Basic Plan ($119 a month, billed annually) lets you build three products, 3 sales funnels, infinite landing pages, and unlimited marketing emails sent to as much as 1000 customers.
Try free for 14 days
It has everything your business needs. All you need to know. Yes! Let's go
2. Filmora, iMovie, and Davinci Resolve are free affordable video editing software and video recording
A must-have software to use for online courses includes a video recording tool and editor. Wondershare Filmora not only lets you create and edit videos within the same space It's also flexible and simple to make use of.
It is possible to make talking head-style videos and screen-capture videos as well. This is an option you won't find in similar tools for artists.
If you're just beginning to learn about video editing, Filmora gives you templates that make it easy to create polished, professional videos. If you're an experienced video editor, you'll be able to take advantage of the more sophisticated features like keyframing, split-screen motion tracking, and current templates, and auto beat sync.
Filmora is compatible with desktop, iPad, and mobile devices. The three versions are downloaded at no cost, however, in order for advanced features or to get rid of the watermark, you'll require an upgrade to a paid version.
The annual plan is $49.99 per month.
If you own an Apple laptop, you can access iMovie in the App store. It's free and straightforward to download and editing videos. Plus, you can record audio and add slides. It's great for a first-time production or for an online course who wants to make an easy video
If you have more advanced video-editing skills, DaVinci Resolve is a different software available for free and is not restricted to Mac users. It offers audio post-production as well as color grading, as well as color correction. But, because of this functionality, it may become more complex to utilize.
3. Zoom: free recording and virtual meetings
If you need a 100% free video recording software, Zoom might be your ideal option. Host a meeting, hit record and begin the teaching. Although it does not include an editing tool, it does have tools that make teaching easier.
Zoom's free plan provides the ability to hold meetings for as long as 40 minutes in length. The plan also includes automated captions, screen sharing capabilities that are simple and whiteboards that can be edited. If you prefer to host live lessons, Zoom's Free plans allow you to hold as many as 100 people.
Following your "meeting," your recording will be saved to the cloud or your personal computer (your option). The program will provide you with an Audio file (M4A) as well as an MP4 video file (MP4) along with a text file of your chat.
For $149.90 for a year You can upgrade to Pro, but the free plan gives you all the tools you require to design a a high-quality course.
4. Canva: no-cost and free graphics
Whether it's video thumbnails and course handouts, or even social media posts to promote your class, you'll need to create images. The Canva is a completely free program that lets you make it easy to create stunning images that suit your brand and individual fashion.
Canva Free gives you more than 250,000 templates for free with more than 100 different types of images, as well as 5 gigabytes of storage on cloud. If you want to use images or other elements which are of a premium quality and have a premium look, you can do so with a minimal cost.
Canva Pro unlocks unlimited access to premium features, a brand kit, folders to organize your work, and a background remover. Also, you'll receive 1TB cloud storage. For $119.99 per year, it's the perfect upgrade for those who are creators.
5. Snagit: low-cost screen capture (free trial)
Another option for creating graphics and videos is the Snagit program. Free for fifteen days, a lifetime license is only a one-time fee of $62.99. That gives you a standard one-time license that works to Windows and macOS as well as the initial year's Maintenance.
Although other screen-capturing tools are free to download, none give you the quality of Snagit's captures. Snagit offers high-definition graphics and videos, an editor that allows you to trim your videos, mark up your screenshots and even create animated GIFs.
It can be used to create your course videos, provided that the duration of your classes is one time or less. It can also serve as an easy editor, allowing you to modify images, resize them and even edit the graphics and video. It's a smart low-cost investment for course creators.
6. MailerLite: Free email hosting
Email marketing software is another vital software that is essential for online courses. It will help you build lists of clients and prospects who love your work.
MailerLite MailerLitehas a Free plan that lets you send up to 12,000 daily emails as well as 1,000 contacts. It comes with an automated email builder, an online site, 10 landing pages, including sign-up forms as well as pop-ups. It also has e-commerce integrations that allow you to take the payment on your MailerLite website's landing pages.
If you use MailerLite to build a website as well as landing pages, you'll receive random URLs "subscribepage.com" to create landing pages and "mailerpage.com" for websites. Upgrade to a premium plan in order to assign a custom domain.
Even though this might not be the best option, it equips you with the ability to build your email list and sell your course online for free. Once you start making money it is possible to change to a premium plan or switch to for an all-in-one option.
7. YouTube: free video hosting
Certain course creators are able to offer free or low-cost plans by not providing video hosting on their platform. Students must discover a new way to host their course videos.
The most efficient and simplest method is YouTube which offers you the option of hosting your video for free and unlimited. When uploading your video it is important to set its visibility as "unlisted." In this means it will not appear in the search results.
YouTube is tied to your Google profile, so it's simple to start by logging in to YouTube then click your profile picture, and create channels.
Upload videos using your computer, smartphone, or recording apps. YouTube assigns a link to your video, which you can use to upload your video to the course builder.
YouTube is an excellent alternative for hosting videos on no budget, but it comes with its flaws. The videos that have not been listed are able to be distributed, which means those who aren't paying could be able to access the course materials. Also, at the end of each video YouTube suggests other videos to watch next. This may distract your students and lead them to turn away from the lesson rather than progressing into the next class.
8. Veed: no-cost video and low-cost video hosting
If you want to avoid "watch the next" recommendations at the end of your videos, Veed offers free video hosting for videos less than 10 minutes. The videos you upload will be accompanied by an image of watermark that is removed once you change to a paid subscription.
Veed allows you to make, edit, and upload, collaborate and host videos on one platform. Make use of the platform to capture editing, upload, and share talking-head videos on the same platform.
It is possible to create MP4 videos with a resolution of 720p, that can be uploaded to files with a maximum size of 250MB for the Free plan. There is a limit of 2GB space for files.
For higher limits, upgrade to the Premium plan ($18 per month). That allows 25-minute videos and 1080p resolution. To record 4K video lasting up to two hours, you'll need to upgrade to the Professional plan for 30 bucks per month.
9. Landingi: affordable website builder
Landingi's Core plan is monthly at $29 and less if you pay annually. It gives you an unlimited number of landing pages and 1000 unique visitors per month, with one custom domain. In order to integrate it with your email marketing program or Zapier it is necessary change to the Create plan ($65 per month). The plan increases your limit of traffic to 20,000 unique visits per month and two domains.
It is possible to try Landingi without cost for 14 days. That may be enough time for you to sell your online classes for free!
10. PayPal: Affordable payment options
Once your course has been developed, you must market it. By using a cost-free PayPal business account, you can easily to accept payments online without a merchant account. It is possible to set up to accept one-time and recurring payment and subscriptions.
PayPal is an ideal choice for taking payments as it seamlessly integrates with the majority of websites as well as shopping carts. If you do not have a landing page there's no issue. You can accept payments through a PayPal.me hyperlink to your clients.
Contrary to merchant accounts, which could cost as much as $500 each month, you pay PayPal when you sell something. When a customer makes a purchase on your product using your PayPal integration or button, PayPal takes a small percentage of the price paid before depositing your income in the account of your PayPal account.
11. Stripe: cheap payments
Another payment option that is popular is The Stripe. Like PayPal, you only pay for Stripe when you sell something. The service allows you to accept credit cards and debit cards. It then transfers the proceeds directly into your bank account which means you don't need move funds in order to get these funds.
Stripe integrates with most web-based landing pages, but it is also possible to build your own payment pages directly with Stripe.
Stripe Checkout gives you a ready-to-go, hosted page to offer one-time purchase or subscriptions. Its features include auto-complete addresses payment options, one-click transactions with real-time validation of cards, brand-name identification for cards, as well as built-in security and fraud prevention.
Other ways to collect payment using Stripe includes shareable links, flexible invoicing as well as in-person payment.
Through Stripe, when someone successfully purchases your course and you're paid 2.9 percentage plus $0.30.
12. Zapier: Free and cheap integrations
In the process of deciding how you can develop an online course for free, you need to know how these tools interact with one another. Many of the software to create online courses can work with one another. If they don't, you'll need an easy process to build an integration.
Zapier allows you to automate work with 5,000+ applications with simple workflows, conditional logic, and data formatting. You can get started for no cost and then upgrade to the Professional plan once you're ready.
: one platform that does it all
We've given you 12 tools that can assist you in starting your journey without any initial investment. This is a solution to the issue in creating online classes for no cost, however it also brings additional issues.
Using different tools and tools, you'll have to connect the tools into one stack, and ensure they integrate for a smooth customer experience. Additionally, you'll need to move from one platform to the next in the process of creating your courses, funnels, or emails.
The cost with this approach starts at around $200 and may go upwards to as much as $10,000 in order to develop your online course. This means that you must attract a significant number of potential customers before you can turn into a profit.
All-in-one platforms like this could make you money, time and anxiety. It lets you:
- Create a mobile-responsive, professionally-looking and user-friendly website without any design expertise. Simply drag and drop to build an endless number of web pages.
- Use your own domain name to establish a brand-name online presence for your website and online course.
- Create sales and email marketing funnels. Make email marketing campaigns, automated mail flows, re-marketing strategies along with other things using drag-and-drop simplicity. Built-in marketing pipelines for your business and steps-by-step instructions, you'll be able to develop and sell to your audience quickly and effectively.
- Design upsells, discounts, and even free trials. It's not necessary to work with clunky programming or conflicting plugins. It makes it simple to design multiple upsells, downsells, and even free trials for your loyal followers.
- Build and lay out your course with ease. 's course builder gives you template plug-and-plays for the most common types of classes. With a few clicks, you can lay out and plan your course which includes assessments, quizzes videos and worksheets.
- Accept payments online. It integrates with Stripe and PayPal, making it easy to accept payments right from your website.
- Build more than just an online course. includes memberships, paid newsletters Podcasts, coaching, and memberships. If you think of it, you can construct it using .
Start with an investment of just a few dollars in the Basic plan. You can build three different products as well as gain 1000 users before having for an upgrade Growth plan.
's free educational portal, University, gives you advanced tutorials and guides that will show you how to create your course, but also how to transform your learning into a lucrative enterprise.
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