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Guides

Learn the craft of the paid community.

Practical, honest playbooks for coaches who charge for what they know: launching, pricing, choosing a platform, and getting paid.

We also publish original research, starting with 150 keyword pairs measuring what happens to a software category's search demand when you add the audience it is sold to.

Choosing a platform

Best membership platforms: what each one charges

Fourteen membership platforms with the number that actually decides your bill: what each one takes from every member payment, quoted from its own pricing page and dated. Most roundups compare monthly prices, which is the figure that varies least, and go stale in silence. This one renders from a registry that fails CI when a figure ages out.

7 min readRead
Choosing a platform

Best online course platforms: what each one charges

Eight course platforms compared on the figure that decides your bill: what each takes from a sale, and whether the advertised 0% survives bringing your own payment processor. Most roundups compare monthly prices and go stale in silence; this one renders from a registry that fails CI when a figure ages out.

7 min readRead
Choosing a platform

Squarespace membership sites: what they cost you

You can run a membership on any Squarespace plan, and Squarespace takes a percentage of what your members pay you. Here is what the feature actually does, what the fee is, what you will reach for next and not find, and when staying put is the right call anyway.

7 min readRead
Price

Thinkific pricing explained: what $54, $109 and $219 buy

Thinkific answers the price question in one line and buries the two facts that decide it: memberships and subscriptions start on the $109 plan rather than the $54 one, and the 0% platform fee holds only while you use their processor. Verified September 2026.

9 min readRead
Getting paid

Stripe vs PayPal: the part that actually decides it

Every comparison of these two leads on the percentage, which is the number least likely to decide anything: they are close, they vary by country, and they change. The question that does decide it is who owns the payment relationship, which is invisible until the day you want to leave. What each is genuinely better at, and what to ask a platform before you build on it.

8 min readRead
Choosing a platform

Substack alternatives: what you gain, and what you give up

Substack is the best place to write a newsletter, and it takes a percentage of your subscription revenue for as long as you have subscribers. Here is what each alternative actually changes: what the cut becomes, whether you keep the recommendation network, and which ones give you a place your readers can log into rather than another inbox.

10 min readRead
Monetizing a community

Charging for a Discord server: what it costs, and what it costs you

Discord Server Subscriptions are the only way to charge for access inside Discord, and the fee is not the only thing you give up: the members stay Discord's, the content scrolls away, and a subscription bought in the iOS app costs your member more. Here is what each route actually takes, and when moving the paid part somewhere you own is worth the move.

9 min readRead
Choosing a platform

Membership portals: what they are, and how to pick one

A membership portal is three jobs in one login: taking recurring payment, locking content to the people who paid, and giving them somewhere worth coming back to. Most roundups compare the first job and skip the other two. Here is what actually separates these products, what the pricing pages leave out, and how to tell which shape you need before you pay for a year.

10 min readRead
Costs

Substack pricing explained: what the 10% really costs you

Substack is free to publish on and takes 10% of your subscription revenue instead, for as long as you stay. Stripe's card fee and its recurring-billing fee come off on top, so 10% is the floor rather than the total, and the cut scales with you: the better the newsletter does, the more it costs. The arithmetic at 100, 500 and 2,000 paying subscribers, and the point where a flat fee wins.

9 min readRead
Choosing a platform

Online community building platforms: how to actually choose one

Every list of community platforms ranks products that do three different jobs, and compares them on the one number that matters least. Here is the arithmetic that decides it: what the platform costs once people start paying you, which free plans are free after you earn, and the thing no platform will do for you.

11 min readRead
Sell

Where to sell digital products: marketplaces against your own store

Etsy brings you buyers and keeps them. Your own store brings you nobody and keeps nothing back. That trade is the whole decision, and it is the one every platform listicle skips. What each option actually costs, who ends up owning the customer, and the sequence most sellers should run instead of picking one.

11 min readRead
Sell

Digital products to sell: the eight that actually work

Every list of this kind pads to 125 ideas, because ideas are the cheap part. Eight categories that genuinely sell, what each one earns against the hours it takes to make, which ones a buyer comes back for, and the one question that decides which of them is yours.

12 min readRead
Build

How to create an online course people actually finish

Search this and you get instructional design written for universities, or a software company explaining that step one is signing up. Neither covers the part that decides whether a course works, which is scope. The seven decisions in order, starting with the sentence you have to write before anything else.

11 min readRead
Measure

Why your ad platform and your Stripe dashboard never agree

Meta says 4 sales, Stripe says 7. Neither is lying. What actually breaks browser pixel tracking, what a Conversions API fixes and what it cannot, how to read the gap honestly, and the checks to run before you touch your ad budget.

11 min readRead
Grow

How to turn your course into a private podcast

Your members have hours of commute, dog walks and gym time you are not using. Here is what a private podcast feed actually is, how to build one from the course you already recorded, and how to keep it unlisted, revocable, and measurable.

10 min readRead
Earn

How to make money from your recipes (without a food blog)

Ad revenue pays cents per thousand readers. The recipe creators earning a living charge a small monthly fee for the collection, the cook-alongs, and the room. Here is the model and the pricing math.

10 min readRead
Earn

How to make money from your workouts online

Selling a PDF workout plan once earns you $27. Turning the same programming into a followed-along library plus a community earns that every month, from the same person. The playbook for trainers and movement coaches, with the retention math.

10 min readRead
Sell

How to sell digital products without losing the customer

A practical playbook for selling digital products, PDFs, templates and video, from a link in your bio: what to make first, how to price it, why the download window matters, and the one step almost everyone skips that turns a one-off buyer into a repeat one.

8 min readRead
Switch

How to move your email list to a new platform

The migration nobody explains: which file to export, why your unsubscribes are in a second file you must not skip, how to clean a list before you import it, and what to send first so the new platform does not flag you as a spammer on day one.

10 min readRead
Opinion

If you cannot leave, you do not own your list

Import and export should be free, self-serve and complete on every plan, including the free one. A checklist for testing whether a platform will actually let you go, and why an export paywall tells you everything about how you will be treated later.

8 min readRead
Opinion

Platform fees are a tax on growth (and you pay the most when you win)

A percentage cut of your member payments is not a fee, it is a tax that grows every time your community does. The case for a flat subscription and your own Stripe account, with the crossover math on a real community.

9 min readRead
Opinion

Own your audience, don't rent it from a marketplace

A discovery marketplace owns the relationship, the data, and the off switch. Your domain and your email list are the only assets you keep when a platform changes the rules. Why renting your community is the most expensive free thing you can do.

8 min readRead
Opinion

Community first, not course first: why the room beats the curriculum

Course completion rates are dismal and everyone in the industry knows it. Retention lives in the room, not the lesson list. Why a community with courses inside it outlasts a course with a comments box bolted on.

9 min readRead
Price

Teachable pricing explained: plans, fees, and the 2025 reshuffle

Teachable runs $29 to $139 a month on annual billing, and the entry plan takes 7.5% of every sale on top. What the June 2025 restructure changed, where the student caps bite, and the revenue level where Starter stops being the cheap option. Verified July 2026.

9 min readRead
Price

Podia pricing explained: Mover, Shaker, and Earthquaker

Podia starts at $42 a month, and the entry plan takes 5% of every sale. The bigger surprise is email: even the $150 tier includes just 1,000 subscribers. The full 2026 cost picture, tier by tier. Verified July 2026.

8 min readRead
Price

Whop pricing and fees explained: what Whop actually takes

Whop has no monthly fee, which makes it look free until you read the per-transaction stack: 2.7% + $0.30 processing, a 3% platform fee on app-gated products, and payout fees on the way out. What it really costs. Verified July 2026.

8 min readRead
Price

ClickFunnels pricing explained: every plan and what 2025 changed

ClickFunnels runs $97 to $297 a month, with a $5,997-a-year top tier. It takes 0% of your sales, and the real cost is the limit cliffs: the June 2025 restructure moved caps down into pricier tiers. Verified July 2026.

9 min readRead
Price

Stan Store pricing explained: Creator vs Creator Pro

Stan Store is $29 or $99 a month with a genuine 0% platform fee, so the real question is what the $70 gap buys. Short answer: email marketing, funnels, and upsells are all Pro-only. Plus the fees Stan's 100% claim leaves out. Verified July 2026.

8 min readRead
Price

GoHighLevel pricing explained: the plan is not the bill

GoHighLevel is $97, $297, or $497 a month, and the subscription only buys access. SMS, email, calls, and AI bill separately from a wallet that auto-recharges. The usage math nobody shows you. Verified July 2026.

10 min readRead
Price

Skool pricing explained: what the $9 and $99 plans really cost

Skool is $9 or $99 a month, and the real bill is the rate: 10% of every payment on Hobby against 2.9% on Pro, both all-in, so roughly 7 of Hobby's 10 points are Skool's own margin. The break-even math, what each plan includes, and where the costs hide. Verified July 2026.

8 min readRead
Price

Kajabi pricing explained: every plan, fee, and catch

Kajabi runs $179 to $499 a month after the 2025 price increases, and the famous 0% fee has an asterisk. What each tier actually includes, what happened to Kickstarter, and the questions to ask before you commit. Verified July 2026.

9 min readRead
Price

Circle pricing explained: plans, transaction fees, and add-ons

Circle is $89 to $219 a month plus a 1-2% cut of every member payment, and the add-ons are where budgets quietly grow. The full 2026 cost picture, tier by tier, with the math on what the fee costs you at scale. Verified July 2026.

8 min readRead
Price

Mighty Networks pricing explained: Launch, Scale, and Growth

Mighty Networks runs $95 to $354 a month and still takes 0.5-2% of every sale on top. What the 2025 plan rename changed, what each tier unlocks, and how the stacked fees compare to a flat-price home. Verified July 2026.

8 min readRead
Price

Patreon fees explained: how much Patreon really takes

New creators pay Patreon 10% of everything, and processing pushes the real cost to 12-15% of gross. The full fee stack (platform, processing, currency, the iOS 30%), the legacy-plan exception, and when a flat price wins. Verified July 2026.

8 min readRead
Compare

The best Patreon alternatives for creators in 2026

Patreon takes a percentage of everything you earn, forever. Six alternatives that charge a flat price (or nothing) instead, who each is for, and what you give up leaving the feed behind. Disclosed: we make one of them.

10 min readRead
Compare

The best Mighty Networks alternatives in 2026

If Mighty feels like more platform than your community needs, here is the honest field. Six alternatives, who each is best for, how they charge, and where a simpler fee-free home wins, from the people who make one of them.

10 min readRead
Compare

The best Circle alternatives in 2026 (honest comparison)

Circle is polished, and it charges a platform fee on every member payment. Here are six honest alternatives, disclosed vendor and all, with who each suits and what a fee-free home actually saves you.

10 min readRead
Compare

The best Kajabi alternatives in 2026 (an honest list)

We make one of them and we say so up top. Six real Kajabi alternatives, who each is genuinely for, how the pricing model actually works, and what you trade away, so you stop paying suite prices for tools you never touch.

11 min readRead
Start

How to start a paid community in an afternoon

The honest playbook: pick one promise, seed a little content (not thirty posts), set a price, and invite the audience you already have. A worked example from 800 followers to first paying members.

9 min readRead
Price

Membership pricing: how much should you charge?

Pricing psychology for coaches: anchor to the transformation, dodge the $9 trap, and see what $29 versus $49 actually does to lifetime value, with real churn math you can run yourself.

10 min readRead
Compare

The best Skool alternatives in 2026 (honest comparison)

We make one of the platforms on this list and we say so in the first line. Six real alternatives, who each is genuinely best for, how the pricing works, and what you give up with each.

11 min readRead
Sell

How to sell coaching packages online (without the awkward invoice dance)

Productize the offer, put a signed agreement in front of the money, offer installments, and send one link. Then move finished clients into a community so the revenue keeps recurring.

9 min readRead
Grow

Email automation for coaches: the three sequences that actually matter

Skip the 40-email funnel. A welcome sequence, a lead-magnet sequence, and a win-back: what goes in each email, when to send it, and the worked math from 90 leads a month to real recurring revenue.

10 min readRead

Reading is good. Launching is better.

Nearly everything in these guides works on Drry's free plan (automations need Creator). Start this afternoon, no card, and keep 100% of what your members pay you.

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