How to Create Online Course: Earning Guide 2025

Have you ever thought that the skill you have whether it’s mastering Excel spreadsheets, baking the perfect sourdough loaf, or playing the guitar could be more than just a hobby or a job requirement? I’m here to tell you that it absolutely can be. In today’s digital world, you have the incredible opportunity to create an online course, package your knowledge, and turn it into a powerful stream of income. This isn’t just another fleeting trend; it’s one of the most rewarding and scalable side hustles available today.

In this guide, I’m going to walk you through the entire process, step-by-step. We’ll cover how to find a profitable online course idea, choose the right online course platforms, record professional-quality videos on a budget, and market your course to find your first students. My goal is to give you a realistic, no-fluff roadmap to help you sell online courses and build a business you’re proud of. This is your comprehensive guide to launching a successful online course side hustle in 2025 and beyond.

—- Chapter 1 —-

The Digital Gold Rush: The Real Opportunity to Create an Online Course

Before we dive into the “how,” it’s essential to understand the “why.” The world of online learning is exploding, but with that comes a lot of hype. Let’s cut through the noise and look at the real, data-backed opportunity in front of you.

Welcome to the Creator Economy: Why Online Courses Are a Premier Side Hustle

We are living in the golden age of the creator. More than 200 million people worldwide now identify as content creators, using their skills and passion to build audiences and businesses. While there are many easy side hustles, creating an online course stands out for its unique potential for scalability and impact.

The e-learning market isn’t just big; it’s colossal. The industry has grown by an astonishing 900% since the year 2000 and is projected to become a $1 trillion industry by 2032. This isn’t a bubble; it’s a fundamental shift in how people learn and develop skills, both personally and professionally.

What’s particularly interesting is who is driving this growth. It’s not just individual learners. A massive driver is the corporate world. Today, an estimated 90% of companies offer some form of online training to their employees, which has been shown to increase their revenue per employee by a significant 42%. This reveals a second, often-overlooked market for you as a course creator. A course on a professional skill, like “Advanced Data Visualization in Tableau,” could be sold directly to individual analysts (B2C) and also licensed to companies for their entire data science teams (B2B). This dual-market potential creates a powerful pathway to diversify your revenue streams from a single course.

What Can You Realistically Earn? From Side Income to a Seven-Figure Business

Now for the big question: how much money can you actually make? The answer varies wildly, and I believe in being completely transparent about the numbers.

Let’s start with a dose of reality. A 2024 study of Udemy instructors found that the average instructor earns about $3,306 per year, with a staggering 75% making less than $1,000 annually. This is a crucial statistic because it shows that simply uploading a course and hoping for the best is not a viable strategy.

However, for those who approach this as a real business, the potential is immense. Many successful creators consistently earn between $1,000 and $10,000 per month, forming a “creator middle class” that has turned their expertise into a significant income stream. This is a realistic and highly achievable goal if you follow the steps in this guide.

At the highest end of the spectrum, the sky is the limit. Top-tier creators are building seven-figure businesses. For example, web development instructor Rob Percival has earned over $2.8 million from his courses, and the Mikkelsen Twins, who teach people how to publish on Amazon, bring in $1.44 million per year. These are outliers, of course, but they demonstrate the ultimate potential of a well-executed online course business.

The enormous gap between the average and the top earners isn’t due to luck. It’s a direct result of strategy, platform choice, and marketing. One of the most telling statistics is the difference in average earnings based on the platform. The average instructor on a paid Thinkific plan earns around $1,200 per month, while the average Udemy instructor earns just $250 per month.

This isn’t because Thinkific creators are smarter; it’s because they are operating under a different business model. When you use a platform like Thinkific, you are forced to learn marketing, build an audience, and sell your course directly. You control your pricing and can charge based on the value you provide (e.g., $299). In contrast, Udemy’s model relies on its own marketing, which involves massive discounts (often selling your course for $9.99) and taking a large cut of the revenue. The higher earnings on hosted platforms are a direct consequence of a business model that rewards direct marketing and premium pricing. This guide is designed to give you the skills to operate within that more profitable model.

—- Chapter 2 —-

Finding Your Gold Mine: How to Pick a Niche That Actually Sells

The foundation of a successful online course is choosing a topic that people are actively looking for and willing to pay to learn. Your passion is the starting point, but market demand is what turns that passion into profit.

The Power of Niching Down: Why “Cooking” Fails but “30-Minute Vegan Meals for Busy Moms” Succeeds

The single biggest mistake I see new creators make is choosing a topic that is too broad. A course on “Cooking” or “Photography” is destined to fail because it’s competing with thousands of established experts and free YouTube videos. The key to success is to niche down.

Think of it like this: a broad keyword like “running shoes” is incredibly competitive. But a more specific, long-tail keyword like “best running shoes for beginners with flat feet” has far less competition and targets a person with a very specific problem they are desperate to solve. That person is a highly motivated buyer.

Let’s apply this to course ideas. Instead of a “Business Course,” you could create a course on “Cash Flow Forecasting for Small Service Businesses”. Instead of “Photography,” you could create “iPhone Food Photography for Instagram”. By niching down, you go from being a tiny fish in a vast ocean to a big fish in a small, profitable pond. You become the go-to expert for a specific audience with a specific need.

Your Keyword Research Toolkit: Finding Low-Competition, High-Demand Topics

So, how do you find these “gold nugget” niches? You use a process called keyword research. This might sound technical, but it’s something anyone can do with free tools. Here’s a simple, repeatable process:

1. Brainstorm Your Seed Keywords: Start by listing broad topics you’re knowledgeable about. Don’t overthink it. Just write down your skills and interests, like “guitar lessons,” “project management,” or “dog training”.
2. Use Google to Find What People Ask: Type one of your your seed keywords into Google. Scroll down and look at the “People Also Ask” (PAA) box and the “Related Searches” at the bottom of the page. These are pure gold. They are the exact questions and phrases real people are using to find information about your topic. Add these to your list.
3. Explore Forums and Q&A Sites: Go to platforms like Reddit and Quora. Search for your topic and look at the questions people are asking. What are they struggling with? What problems do they need solved? This is invaluable, direct-from-the-source market research.
4. Spy on the Competition (The Smart Way): This is my favorite trick for validating a course idea. Go to a marketplace like Udemy and search for your potential course topic. A brilliant strategy I learned from a successful instructor is to look for keywords that have fewer than 1,000 search results and where the top-ranking course has around 30 reviews or fewer. This signals that there’s demand (people are buying), but the market isn’t saturated. You have a real chance to create a better course and rank at the top.
5. Use a Keyword Tool to Get the Data (Optional but Recommended): To add a layer of data to your research, you can use a free tool like Google Keyword Planner or an affordable paid tool like KeySearch. You’re looking for two main things:
   • Search Volume: How many people are searching for this term per month? For a new creator, targeting keywords with a volume of 100+ monthly searches is a great starting point.
   • Keyword Difficulty (KD): How hard is it to rank for this keyword? These tools provide a score. Look for keywords with a low KD score, as they represent the “low-hanging fruit”.

This research process does more than just validate your idea. The list of questions and long-tail keywords you generate becomes the exact blueprint for your entire business. The main topic is your course title. The questions from “People Also Ask” become the titles of your individual lessons and modules. And those same keywords become the titles for your promotional blog posts and YouTube videos. A single, thorough keyword research session gives you the roadmap for your product, your curriculum, and your marketing plan all at once.

—- Chapter 3 —-

The Architect’s Blueprint: Structuring a Course Students Will Love (and Actually Complete)

Once you have your profitable idea, the next step is to structure your knowledge in a way that is logical, engaging, and leads to real results for your students. Great instructional design is what separates a course that gets rave reviews from one that gets abandoned after the first module.

From Brain Dump to Blueprint: The Course Outlining Method

The goal here is to create a clear path from A to Z for your student. Don’t just start recording. Follow this structured outlining process first.

1. Define the Transformation (Your Learning Objectives): Before you plan any content, you must clearly define the end result. What specific, tangible skill will your student have after completing your course? This is your “Big Promise.” Write it down. For example: “After completing this course, you will be able to confidently design, bake, and decorate a three-layer celebration cake from scratch”.
2. Map the Milestones (Your Modules): Now, work backward from that final transformation. What are the major steps or milestones someone needs to achieve to get there? Aim for 4 to 8 key milestones. These will become the modules of your course. For our cake example, the modules might be:
   • Module 1: The Baker’s Toolkit & Pantry Essentials
   • Module 2: Mastering the Perfect Cake Batter
   • Module 3: The Science of Baking & Cooling
   • Module 4: Making Silky Smooth Buttercream
   • Module 5: Assembling and Crumb Coating
   • Module 6: Professional Decorating Techniques
3. Detail the Steps (Your Lessons): Finally, break down each module into small, individual lessons. Each lesson should teach one single concept or action. This makes the content feel manageable and prevents students from feeling overwhelmed. For Module 2, the lessons could be:
   • Lesson 1: The Creaming Method Explained
   • Lesson 2: How to Properly Measure Dry Ingredients
   • Lesson 3: Mixing Without Overworking the Gluten
   • Lesson 4: Prepping Your Cake Pans

The Art of Engagement: Keeping Students Hooked from Start to Finish

A common problem with online courses is low completion rates. The key to keeping students engaged is to make the learning experience active, not passive. Here are some proven tactics:

• Keep Videos Short and Sweet: Research and experience consistently show that the ideal length for an instructional video is between 5 and 10 minutes. This respects your students’ attention spans and makes it easy for them to fit learning into their busy lives.
• Incorporate Active Learning: Don’t let them just sit and watch. Build in simple activities. This could be a short multiple-choice quiz after a module, a downloadable PDF checklist, or a specific “action step” assignment that asks them to apply what they’ve learned. Keeping things focused is key, much like with paid online surveys, where brevity and clarity lead to better completion.
• Use a Conversational Tone: Speak to your students as if you’re a friendly mentor sitting across from them. Use “you” and “I.” An informal, personalized tone helps build rapport and makes the experience feel more human and connected.
• Mix Your Media: While video will likely be your primary format, supplement it with other materials. Include downloadable cheat sheets, text-based lessons for quick reference, and helpful infographics.

To help you put this into practice, here is a simple template you can use to structure every single lesson you create.

—- Chapter 4 —-

Your Home Studio on a Budget: Creating Pro-Quality Videos Without Breaking the Bank

Many aspiring creators get stuck at the technical stage, believing they need thousands of dollars in fancy equipment. That’s simply not true. You can create a professional-looking and sounding course with a few strategic, budget-friendly purchases.

Audio is King: The Best Budget Microphones for Crystal-Clear Sound

Let me be blunt: your audio quality is more important than your video quality. People will tolerate a slightly grainy video, but they will click away instantly if they can’t hear you clearly or if the audio is full of echo and background noise. A good USB microphone is the single most important investment you will make.

Here are my top recommendations for 2025:

• The Go-To Starter Mic: Blue Yeti (around $100). This microphone is a legend in the creator world for a reason. It delivers excellent sound quality, is incredibly easy to use (just plug it into your USB port), and has multiple recording patterns, making it very versatile.
• The Ultra-Budget Champion: Razer Seiren Mini (around $50). If your budget is tight, this is the mic to get. It’s small, stylish, and delivers sound quality that punches way above its price tag. It’s a fantastic starting point.
• The Upgrade Pick: Audio-Technica AT2020USB-XP (around $150). For those who want to invest a little more, this mic offers higher-quality 24-bit recording and has built-in noise reduction features, which can be a lifesaver if you’re recording in a less-than-perfect environment.

or a more detailed look at the latest models, MusicRadar provides an excellent, up-to-date.

Let There Be Light: Simple & Affordable Lighting Setups

After audio, good lighting is the fastest way to elevate your video from “amateur” to “professional.” You don’t need a complex Hollywood setup. The goal is to get a soft, even light on your face.

• The Pocket Powerhouse: Aputure AL-M9 ($45). This credit-card-sized LED light is incredibly powerful and affordable. You can place it on a small tripod on your desk, and it will instantly make you look better on camera.
• The Budget Studio Kit: Neewer LED Lights with Tripod Stand (around $55 for a two-pack). This kit gives you two lights on stands, allowing you to create a simple “three-point lighting” setup (using a window as your main light and these as fill/backlights). It’s a fantastic value for a complete home office studio.
• The Free Option: Don’t underestimate the power of a window! Position your desk so you are facing a window. The natural daylight will serve as a beautiful, soft main light source. You can then use a simple desk lamp off to the side to fill in any shadows.

The Magic of Free Software: Recording and Editing Like a Pro

You do not need to pay for expensive software to create your course videos. The free tools available today are more than powerful enough.

For Screen Recording: OBS Studio

If your course involves showing your computer screen (like for a software tutorial, a presentation, or coding), OBS Studio is your best friend. It’s a completely free, open-source, and incredibly powerful tool that works on Windows, Mac, and Linux. It lets you combine your screen capture, your webcam feed, and your microphone audio into different “scenes.” This means you can record a professional-looking video with an intro, a full-screen view, and a picture-in-picture view, all without needing to do much editing later.

Here’s a super-simple setup guide:

1. 1. Download and install OBS Studio from their website.
   2. When you first open it, run the “Auto-Configuration Wizard” and optimize it for recording.
   3. In the “Sources” box, click the “+” button and add a “Display Capture” source to record your screen.
   4. Click “+” again and add a “Video Capture Device” source to add your webcam.
   5. Click “+” one more time and add an “Audio Input Capture” source, selecting your USB microphone.
   6. Arrange your webcam feed where you want it on the screen, hit “Start Recording,” and you’re off!

For Video Editing: DaVinci Resolve or Clipchamp

Once you have your recording, you might need to trim the beginning and end or cut out a mistake.

• • DaVinci Resolve: If you want to learn a truly professional tool, the free version of DaVinci Resolve is a gift. It’s a Hollywood-grade video editor that is more powerful than most paid software. It has a steeper learning curve but is an incredible skill to have.
  • Clipchamp / Adobe Express: For beginners who want something simple and intuitive, Clipchamp (which is now owned by Microsoft and built into Windows) or Adobe Express are fantastic browser-based options. They allow you to easily trim clips, add text, and export your final video without needing to download complex software.

—- Chapter 5 —-

Choosing Your Storefront: A Deep Dive into Online Course Platforms

This is the most important strategic decision you’ll make. The platform you choose dictates your business model, your earning potential, and your relationship with your students. There are two main paths you can take.

The Two Paths: Marketplace vs. Hosted Platform

1. Marketplaces (e.g., Udemy, Skillshare): Think of these as a massive digital supermarket. You are a supplier who gets to place your product on their shelves. They have millions of customers walking the aisles, so they can bring you traffic. However, they control the pricing, the branding, and they take a very large percentage of every sale.
2. Hosted Platforms (e.g., Teachable, Thinkific): Think of this as building your own independent boutique shop. You get your own website (e.g., YourCourseName.com), you set your own prices, you control the branding, and you keep almost all the revenue. The catch? You are 100% responsible for bringing your own customers through the door.

The Marketplace Deep Dive: Udemy and Skillshare

Marketplaces can be a tempting place to start because they promise a built-in audience. However, you need to go in with your eyes wide open.

• Udemy: The biggest advantage is its massive audience, which creates the potential for passive sales if your course happens to rank well for a popular search term. But the downsides are significant. The revenue share model is tough: you only receive 37% of the revenue from sales that Udemy drives through its marketplace. The platform is famous for its constant, deep-discount sales, which can devalue your course to as low as $9.99, making it very difficult to earn a substantial income. Furthermore, Udemy is shifting its focus to its “Udemy Business” subscription service, where the instructor revenue share is projected to drop to a mere 15% by 2026.
• Skillshare: This platform is excellent for creative topics (art, design, photography) and has a strong community feel. However, the payment model is based on your share of a monthly royalty pool, determined by the number of minutes your videos are watched. This can average out to just $0.05 to $0.10 per minute watched. After a recent change in their payment model, many instructors reported a 50-60% drop in their earnings. It’s estimated that Skillshare keeps around 80% of the total revenue generated on the platform.

The most effective way to view these marketplaces is not as your primary business, but as a validation tool and a marketing channel. The low revenue share and lack of control make it nearly impossible to build a high-income business on these platforms. However, their huge user base makes them the perfect place to test a course idea with zero financial risk. If your course sells on Udemy, you’ve proven there’s a market for it. A smart strategy is to publish a smaller, introductory version of your course on a marketplace. Use it to gain visibility and collect positive reviews. Then, you can leverage that social proof to drive traffic to your own website, where you sell the full, premium-priced version of your course on a hosted platform. This reframes the marketplace from a sales platform into a powerful lead-generation machine for your real business.

The Hosted Platform Deep Dive: Teachable vs. Thinkific

For anyone serious about building a long-term, profitable course business, a hosted platform is the way to go. You own the brand, the student data, and the revenue. The two biggest players for beginners are Teachable and Thinkific.

• Teachable: Its main strengths are its simplicity and user-friendliness. It’s incredibly easy to get a course up and running quickly. It also has excellent built-in features for selling one-on-one coaching, including scheduling and client management tools. A potential downside is that its starter plans come with a transaction fee (the current Starter plan has a 7.5% fee on sales), which can eat into your profits as you grow.
• Thinkific: Thinkific’s biggest advantage is its pricing model: all of its paid plans have 0% transaction fees. This is a huge deal. It also offers a very capable free plan to get you started. Its course creation and marketing features are generally more robust than Teachable’s, offering things like advanced course compliance (e.g., forcing students to complete a video before moving on) and better community-building tools. The trade-off is that it can feel slightly more complex for an absolute beginner.

The Verdict for 2025: For most aspiring course creators who want to build a sustainable business, Thinkific is the superior choice. The combination of a 0% transaction fee on paid plans and a more powerful feature set for marketing and student engagement gives you a better foundation for scaling your business. Teachable remains a strong contender for those whose primary focus is simplicity or who plan to sell a lot of one-on-one coaching alongside their courses.

For those looking at the very high end of the market with all-in-one needs, platforms like Kajabi are worth exploring. Expert marketer Neil Patel offers a great overview of getting started with Kajabi on his blog.

To make this critical decision easier, here is a clear, at-a-glance comparison of the platforms.

—- Chapter 6 —-

Your Launch Playbook: How to Market and Sell Your Course

Creating a fantastic course is only half the battle. If you’ve chosen a hosted platform, you now need to become a marketer. This doesn’t have to be scary or complicated. It’s about consistently providing value and building trust with your audience.

Building Your Sales Engine: The Power of Content Marketing

The most sustainable way to sell your course is through content marketing. This means creating free, valuable content that attracts your ideal student and demonstrates your expertise.

• Start a Blog: Write helpful articles that answer the very questions you discovered during your keyword research. If your course is on “30-Minute Vegan Meals,” your blog posts could be “The 5 Must-Have Spices for Any Vegan Kitchen” or “How to Meal Prep Tofu for a Week.” This builds your authority and helps you rank on Google over time.
• Start a YouTube Channel: YouTube is the second-largest search engine in the world. Create short “how-to” videos and tutorials that give your audience a taste of your teaching style. A video titled “Watch Me Make a Delicious Vegan Curry in Under 20 Minutes” is a perfect advertisement for your full course.
• Optimize Your Sales Page: Your course sales page is your digital storefront. Use the keywords you researched in your course title, subtitle, and description. This will help people who are searching for a solution like yours find you directly through Google.

The Email Funnel: Turning Visitors into Paying Students

Your email list is your single most valuable business asset. Unlike social media followers, you own your email list. The goal is to get interested people from your blog or YouTube channel onto your email list and then build a relationship with them.

1. Create a Lead Magnet: Offer a valuable freebie in exchange for an email address. This could be a PDF checklist (“The Ultimate Vegan Pantry Checklist”), a short video tutorial, or a free mini-course.
2. Nurture with Value: Once someone signs up, don’t immediately try to sell them something. Send them a series of 3-5 automated emails that provide more helpful tips and establish you as a trusted expert.
3. Make the Offer: After you’ve built trust, you can pivot to a sales sequence. Introduce your course, explain the transformation it provides, share testimonials from happy students, and make a clear call to action to enroll.

Pricing, Promotions, and Building a Community

Finally, let’s talk about the launch itself.

• Pricing Your Course: Don’t just pull a number out of thin air. Research what similar courses in your niche are charging. More importantly, price your course based on the value of the transformation you’re providing. If your course helps someone land a job that pays $10,000 more per year, charging $497 is an incredible value. Consider offering tiered pricing, like a self-paced version for $199 and a version with group coaching calls for $499.
• Your First Launch: To get your first students and crucial testimonials, it’s a great strategy to offer a special introductory price or a limited-time bonus for early adopters. This creates urgency and rewards your first supporters.
• The Ultimate Expert Tip: Build a Community: This is what separates good courses from great businesses. Create a private space, like a Facebook Group or a Discord server, exclusively for your paying students. This adds immense value beyond the course content itself. It fosters a supportive environment where students can help each other, creates accountability, and gives you a direct line of communication to get feedback, answer questions, and build a loyal community of fans who will be eager to buy your next course. For a masterclass in building a business around a powerful community, look no further than Marie Forleo’s B-School. Mirasee offers an excellent breakdown of her success and strategies.

Building a profitable online course is a journey. It requires you to be a teacher, a technician, and a marketer. But by following this roadmap, you can build a sustainable business that not only provides a fantastic income but also allows you to share your passion and make a real impact on people’s lives.

It’s a powerful way to build a business on your own terms, and it all starts with that first step of deciding to share what you know. This is how you build a solid foundation for your future, whether it’s supplementing your income with gig apps or building an entire educational empire from your home base at Finstle.com.