Courses · Idea
How to Sell an Online Course for Free on systeme.io
Selling your first course puts a money decision in front of you before any teaching decision: pay a platform every month while you still have zero students, or start on a free plan and work inside its limits. I’d start free, on systeme.io. In my 365-ideas list this is idea #171, written there as a course teaching analytical thinking, but nothing in the build depends on the topic; any skill you can teach goes through the same steps. What follows is the order of work, what the free plan gives you, what you’d pay once you outgrow it, and the slow part: finding the first students.
To sell an online course for free, use a platform whose free plan covers course, sales page and checkout. On systeme.io, the free plan hosts one course for up to 500 students, with no fee of its own. The limits: Stripe or PayPal charge per sale, lifetime sales cap at USD 10,000 unless you upgrade, and a systeme.io badge stays on.
Heads-up: the tool links in this article go to my own reviews and comparisons. Some of those pages carry affiliate links, so I may earn a commission if you sign up through them, at no extra cost to you. It never changes which tool I'd actually reach for.
Idea #171, and is a course worth selling?
The row in my list reads “A course teaching analytical thinking”, with systeme.io to host it, Claude for the content, Canva for the slides and beehiiv for email. The topic makes a good example because it’s a skill people struggle to teach themselves: breaking a messy problem into parts, testing an assumption before trusting it, reading a chart without fooling yourself. Swap in spreadsheets, bookkeeping for freelancers or beginner photography, and every step below stays the same.
Is it worth doing? It can earn well or not at all, and three things decide which: how badly people want the skill, how many of them already trust you, and the price you set. None of those is a platform feature. On a free plan the money you put at risk is close to zero, so what you spend is time, and what you need most is students. The best-built course earns nothing while its sales page has no visitors.
Pick a topic people will pay for, then pre-sell it
The cheapest market research you have is the questions people already bring you. If colleagues ask you to sanity-check their reasoning before a meeting, that’s demand you can see. Narrow the topic until one sentence says who it’s for and what they can do at the end. “Analytical thinking” is a subject; “make better calls at work by testing your assumptions before you commit” is a course someone can picture buying.
Then sell it before you build all of it. There are two ways to do that, the lighter one first:
- A waitlist. A short page that describes what you’ll teach and collects the emails of people who want it. It tells you there’s interest.
- A pre-sale. The same page with a price and a start date, so people pay now and get the lessons when they’re finished. It tells you someone will pay.
If you pre-sell, pick a start date you can keep, and refund anyone you can’t serve on time. Both options can run on the same platform that will host the lessons.
Why one free account can carry the whole build
To sell a course you need four things: the lessons, a page that explains them, a checkout, and a way to email the people who sign up. Built from separate tools, that’s a course host, a page builder and an email service to connect before you’ve sold anything. On systeme.io they’re four parts of one account, which is why I’d use it here: one login, only a payment account to connect, and a free plan that covers the whole job from the first lesson to the first sale.
I’ve used that free plan for months to email a small list and build a landing page, but I haven’t sold a course through it, so the setup below follows the platform’s own help pages.
The other free way in is a course marketplace, where you usually trade control over the price and the customer list for the marketplace’s traffic. For something you want to build a business around, keeping both is worth more than borrowed traffic.
Setting it up: how to sell a course on systeme.io
There are official video tutorials for the screens themselves. The order of work matters more than any single screen:
- Build at least the first module. Put the lessons in the order a student needs them, and give each lesson one job.
- Create a sales funnel for it. A funnel is a sequence of pages: one that explains the course, then a payment page (called an order form there) that takes the money.
- Set what the payment page delivers. The order form is where you choose what the buyer receives, and a course is one of the options.
- Connect Stripe or PayPal, so payments have somewhere to land.
- Open both pages as a buyer would, on your phone as well as a laptop, before you share the link anywhere.
That’s the whole path from a lesson to a working checkout; how far it takes you depends on the free plan’s limits.
What the free plan gives a course seller
| For a seller (as of November 2026) | On the free plan |
|---|---|
| Courses | 1 |
| Students | Up to 500 |
| Sales funnels | 3, within a limit of 15 funnel steps |
| Lifetime sales | Up to USD 10,000; then 3 days to upgrade, or payment pages stop accepting new sales |
| Branding | A systeme.io badge on your pages that free accounts can't remove |
| Platform fee | None (Stripe or PayPal take their usual processing fee) |
The funnel count is the limit you’re likely to plan around first: one funnel to make the sale plus a second that gives away a free lesson for an email already uses two of the three. The badge is a matter of taste; some sellers mind it on a paid product’s page, others never notice it. The student and sales caps are the good problems to have, since reaching either means people are buying. When you get close to any of these, the next plan up, Startup, holds five courses, unlimited students and up to ten funnels, and lets you remove the badge. One more rule matters if students keep coming back: systeme.io deactivates a free account after six months with no login or activity, so log in now and then, even in a quiet month.
Making the lessons: slides, visuals and an AI first draft
For slides, a course cover and the visuals inside each lesson, I’d use Canva. Presentations are one of the jobs where I’ve found nothing missing in it, and the free plan is enough to start. Pick one clean template at the start and keep every lesson on it, so it all looks like one product rather than a folder of mismatched files.
An AI assistant (the row names Claude) earns its keep on structure. Hand it your notes and it quickly returns a tidy module outline and a first batch of quiz questions. What it can’t supply is the part students pay for: your worked examples, the mistakes you’ve watched people make, the order that actually helps someone learn. On a subject like analytical thinking, check every exercise it writes, because lessons in careful reasoning can’t afford one sloppy example.
Your first students, without a following
This is where most of the effort goes, and no platform does it for you. The approaches that work without an audience are slow and unglamorous:
- Start with the people who already ask you. As a first test, a direct message to someone who once asked for your help beats a post to strangers.
- Give one lesson away. A free mini-lesson in exchange for an email is the most natural lead magnet you can offer, because it’s a sample of the real thing. The same account collects those emails and sends to them, so anyone who liked the free lesson is one email away from the paid course.
- Answer questions where your students already are. Forums, groups, comment threads: help properly, and mention what you sell only when it answers the question.
- Let the first buyers rewrite your sales page. Ask what nearly stopped them from buying, and use their words.
The first students arrive one conversation at a time, and each one who finishes is a reference for the next.
The row in my list also names beehiiv for email. At launch you don’t need it, since your platform already emails your waitlist and your students. A dedicated newsletter tool like beehiiv is worth adding later, if the newsletter grows into a product of its own.
What it costs to get started
| What you need | Free to start? (as of November 2026) | What makes you pay |
|---|---|---|
| Course, sales page and checkout (systeme.io) | Yes, on the free plan | Outgrowing a free-plan limit: Startup is USD 17 a month, or USD 170 a year |
| Payments (Stripe or PayPal) | A processing fee on each sale | Every sale |
| Slides and visuals (Canva) | Yes, on the free plan | Premium templates and elements |
| AI assistant for outlines and quizzes | Claude's free tier covers outline and quiz drafts | Leaning on it daily |
FAQ
How do you sell an online course for free? Pick a platform whose free plan both hosts the lessons and sells them, so nothing costs money before a student pays. Test demand first with a waitlist or a pre-sale, then share your sales page where your future students already are. Free here means no platform fee; the payment processor still takes its cut of each sale.
How do you create and sell a course on systeme.io? Build the lessons, create a sales funnel with a page that explains what you’re selling and a payment page (an order form, in its terms), set the course as what the order delivers, and connect Stripe or PayPal. Preview both pages as a buyer, then share the link.
How many students can a free systeme.io course have, and what happens at the sales cap? Up to 500 students, on the one course the free plan includes. Lifetime sales are capped at USD 10,000; at that point you have 3 days to move to a paid plan, and if you don’t, payment pages stop accepting new sales. You aren’t moved to a paid plan or charged without choosing to.
How do you sell an online course without a following? Begin with anyone who already comes to you for advice, give away one lesson in exchange for an email, and answer questions where your future students gather. Pre-sell before you build everything, so the first buyers shape what you make. Expect it to be slow, with early sales coming from conversations more than from posts.
Is selling online courses profitable? It can be, but no single figure fits, because the result depends on demand for the skill, how many people already trust you and your price. Starting on a free plan keeps the cash outlay near zero, so the main investment is your time. A course starts earning when students find it, not when it’s finished.
Do you need your own website to sell a course? No. On systeme.io everything a buyer sees, from the sales page to the lessons, is hosted for you, so a link is enough to start. If you want your own address, the free plan lets you connect one custom domain.
How much does it cost to start selling a course online? On a free plan, nothing up front: the plan carries the whole build, and the payment processor takes a fee on each sale. Costs begin once you outgrow the free plan or want premium design elements.
Where to start this week
Write the one-sentence promise of your course, who it’s for and what they’ll be able to do at the end, and send it to five people who’ve asked you for help. Their replies tell you whether to take it further. The platform can wait a day; that sentence can’t. And if the answer is no, my free list of 365 business ideas, sent by email, pairs 364 others with the tools to build them.
