21 Tools You Might Need to Create Your Online Course
Creating an online course is a fantastic way to add an additional revenue stream to your business, but if you’ve started exploring what it takes to put together an online course you may be feeling a little overwhelmed with all of the different tools and tech available for course creators.
In this post, I’m sharing 21 of my favorite tools that you might need to create your online course, but don’t worry - you won’t need everything at once! For example, you do NOT need to worry about setting up your affiliate program before launching your first course!
However, everything on this list is a great tool to help make it easier to grow the online course side of your business.
Course Recording Tools
One of the first tools you’ll likely be looking into when starting on your course creating journey is something to record video or audio lessons. This does not need to be complicated and something like Zoom, Loom*, or Screencast-O-Matic can work very well. All of these tools allow you to record your screen, camera, or both simultaneously and you can host your videos directly in these tools which is a great time-saving bonus.
For editing, Descript* is a easy tool to use since you actually edit your transcript and from that, Descript will edit the video seamlessly (pretty cool, right?)
Course Design Tools
Canva* is definitely the easiest tool for creating all of the graphic assets you’ll need to make your course slides pretty and engaging. I also recommend Entrepreneur Templates*, a Canva templates membership that includes a lot of slide deck templates and even ones for marketing your course.
Online Course Platforms
There are tons of options for hosting your online course, and it can be challenging to choose the one that’s right for you. In fact, you can even host your online course directly in your Squarespace* website with their member’s area if you wanted a super simple solution that keeps all your assets in once place!
If you’re looking outside of Squarespace I’d definitely recommend you spend some time comparing plans, features, and pricing to make sure you won’t have to change platforms all of the time.
With that being said, here are a few of the most popular all in one platforms: Podia*, Kajabi, Thinkific*, Teachery*, and ThriveCart Learn*
Carts and Checkouts
Just like with your course platform, there are a lot of options for your cart & checkout.
If you’ve decided to host your course on Squarespace* you can simply use the in-built e-commerce functionality to sell your product for an easy all-in-one solution. An outside course platform will also likely have their own cart and checkout functionality which is another easy way to take payment for your brand new course.
For more robust features, such as adding bump offers and upsells, I love the stand-alone cart platforms ThriveCart* (which also has it’s own course platform included for free that I recently swapped all of my products over to!).
Affiliate Program
A lot of the all-in-one programs have their own affiliate program system built in, but if you need a separate system I highly recommend ThriveCart*!
Course Live Component Tools
If you are adding live or personalized support to your course, there are several tools and options for that. AirTable, ClickUp, Google Forms, and TypeForm are also options for getting feedback, submissions, or for your students to ask questions.
Zoom is the most popular option for hosting live calls, but if you have a student community inside a Facebook Group, you could also simply use Facebook Live.
Other options for creating a community include creating a private Slack channel, Mighty Networks, and Circle.
Final Thoughts
While I just shared a TON of amazing resources with you, the right tools for YOU to create your online course will come down to your timeframe, tech-skills, existing tech stack and, of course, your budget.
Need help picking the perfect tools to launch or grow your online course? Book in an Untangling Session!
