What a First Course Launch Actually Costs in 2026

Most budgets for a first online course consist of one line: the platform subscription. That line is usually the fourth or fifth largest cost in the exercise, which is why so many first launches come in over budget in a category where the software is cheap.

Here is the whole bill, in the order the money actually leaves, with figures read on 21 September 2026 where a vendor publishes them and marked as estimates where nobody does.

Line 1: the platform — $179 to $1,716 for a year

The range is enormous and it is entirely a function of which end of the market you buy into.

At the cheap end, Sensei Pro is $179 for a year — a flat WordPress plugin licence with no cut of your sales, provided you already have a site to put it on. Thinkific Basic is $480 for a year billed annually. Teachable Starter is $348 for a year plus 7.5% of everything you sell. Podia Mover is $504. Kajabi Basic is $1,716.

For a first course, the honest answer is that the cheap end is sufficient. Nothing about a first launch requires marketing automation, twenty-six admin seats or a funnel builder. Buy the smallest plan that does not limit the thing you are actually doing, and upgrade when something specific stops you.

Line 2: payment processing — about 3% of everything, forever

Roughly 2.9% plus 30 cents per card sale, on every platform, on every plan. Sell $3,000 in your first year and that is about $90 plus 30 cents per transaction.

It is small at launch volumes and it is worth internalising early because it is the one cost that scales perfectly with success and never gets cheaper. There is no plan, at any price, on any platform, that removes it.

Line 3: the platform's cut — $0 to several hundred

Only applicable on some plans, and it is the line most likely to surprise you.

On Teachable Starter, 7.5% of $3,000 in first-year sales is $225 — which is two thirds of the subscription again. On Podia Mover, 5% is $150. On Thinkific, Kajabi or Sensei, nothing.

A first launch is precisely where this is easiest to underestimate, because you are budgeting against sales you have not made yet and a percentage of an unknown number feels like zero.

Line 4: video hosting — $0 to $240 a year

Every hosted platform includes video storage. Whether it includes enough depends on what you are making.

If your course is ten hours of screen recording, you are into serious file sizes and may find yourself either upgrading a plan for storage or paying a dedicated video host separately. Prices for those run in the range of a few dollars a month for a hobbyist tier up to $20 or more for a professional one; we have not priced them individually here, so treat the figure as an estimate rather than a quoted number.

On a self-hosted WordPress setup this line is not optional. Serving video from your own hosting is a bad idea that works fine until the first time twenty people press play simultaneously.

Line 5: a domain — $10 to $40 a year

Unremarkable, and worth doing on day one rather than day four hundred. A course sold from a platform subdomain is harder to move later and slightly harder to trust at first glance.

Line 6: hosting, if you self-host — $60 to $400 a year

Only relevant on the Sensei route. Shared hosting at the cheap end will run a small WordPress course site; anything with real traffic wants something better. This is the line that erases much of Sensei's price advantage in year one, and does not erase it at all by year three.

Line 7: the things nobody puts on a pricing page

• Email. Podia includes 100 subscribers on Mover and charges beyond it; Kajabi Basic includes 2,500 contacts; Thinkific expects you to bring your own tool. If you are running an email list of any size, price it explicitly rather than assuming the platform covers it.
• A microphone. The single highest-return purchase in course production, and the one most often skipped. Bad audio ends more courses than bad video.
• Your time. Not a cash cost, but the largest input by an enormous margin. A ten-lesson course is weeks of work, and a platform that saves you three evenings of setup has paid for itself at any price on this page.

Three worked first-year budgets

The cautious minimum. Teachable Starter at $348, a domain at $15, processing at roughly 3% of sales, and a 7.5% cut. On $2,000 of first-year sales: about $363 fixed, plus $150 in platform cut and $58 in processing. Call it $571.

The sensible default. Thinkific Basic at $480, a domain at $15, no platform cut, processing at about 3%. On $2,000 of sales: about $555, and the number barely moves if sales triple, which is the point.

The self-hosted route. Sensei Pro at $179, hosting at $120, a domain at $15, processing at about 3%. On $2,000 of sales: about $372, plus every evening you spend maintaining it.

The gap between the cheapest and dearest of those is under $200 across a whole year. That is the real headline: for a first course, the platform decision is not a financial one at all. It becomes financial in year two, when the percentage fees have compounded and the limits have started to bind.

What to actually do

Pick the cheapest plan that does not restrict the shape of what you are selling, pay monthly for the first quarter rather than committing a year, and revisit once you have three months of real sales data.

The trade between monthly and annual billing is worth understanding before you decide — the gap is larger than most people assume, and it is laid out in annual billing on course platforms. When you are ready to choose, every plan here is priced side by side on the best online course platforms shortlist.