If you’ve started asking around about selling a course, you’ve probably heard two pieces of advice. Buy a funnel builder. Or put your course on Udemy, where the students already are.
Both can be good advice. Both can also cost you something you won’t notice until later: your relationship with the people who buy.
Last updated November 2026.
Short answer: Put your course where your hardest problem gets solved. If it’s selling, a funnel builder such as ClickFunnels, Kartra or Systeme.io is made for that job. If it’s teaching (live calls, cohorts, clients doing the work together), a course platform is. If you have no audience yet, a marketplace like Udemy can find students for you, but it keeps their email addresses. Whichever you choose, keep a way to reach the people who buy. And if you already have an email list, even a small one, you have an audience. You can skip the marketplace and start with the people who already know you.
What’s the hard part of your course business?
Before you compare a single feature, finish this sentence: “The hardest part of getting my course to the right people is ___.” Your answer points you to one of three homes.
| If your hard problem is… | Look at | What you give up |
|---|---|---|
| Selling: getting people to say yes | A funnel builder | Live teaching. None of ClickFunnels, Kartra or Systeme.io runs an interactive live class. |
| Teaching: getting people to show up, do the work and finish | A course platform | Often, sales funnels and email marketing. You pair it with the tools you already use for those. |
| Finding students: you don’t have an audience yet | A marketplace | Control of your price, most of each sale the marketplace finds for you, and your students’ email addresses. |
If you have more than one of these problems, that’s normal. Start with the one that’s costing you the most right now.
When does a funnel builder make sense for a coach?
Funnel builders are made for selling. ClickFunnels, Kartra and Systeme.io each give you a page builder, a checkout and an email tool in one login, then add a course area on top. If your launch sequence is more complicated than your curriculum, that’s a good fit for you.
They aren’t equal, on price or on the course side. As of August 2026, ClickFunnels started at $97 a month and Kartra at $59, and Systeme.io had a free plan with paid plans from $17. Systeme.io also includes quizzes, certificates and drip content. But none of the three runs an interactive live class: Kartra’s webinars are broadcast-style, and the other two send you to Zoom. None of them manages a cohort as a group. The closest they get is releasing content to everyone on the same date.
That matters for you as a coach, because so much of coaching happens live. Ruzuku, a course platform, publishes a comparison of ClickFunnels, Kartra and Systeme.io against its own course platform, including prices and the places where the funnel builders come out ahead.
Before you buy anything new, check what you already have. If you’re a Coaches Console member, email marketing, sales funnels and a shopping cart are already part of your system. So is a course builder: you can set a start date for a group program, drip lessons out over time, and add discussion blocks so participants can talk to each other. For a first course, that may be all you need. Adding a second tool that does the same job is how a business ends up held together with spitballs and duct tape. I wrote more about that in why the all-in-one promise often adds to a coach’s overwhelm.
When does a marketplace like Udemy make sense?
A marketplace solves the finding-students problem. Udemy and Skillshare already have learners searching for courses, so you don’t need a list to make your first sale. That’s useful when you’re new and testing a topic.
Udemy keeps most of the sale. When its marketplace finds the student, you keep about 36% of the sale price on a web sale. Udemy sets that sale price, too. List prices top out at $199.99, and its promotions can take them down to $9.99 (as of November 2026).
The bigger cost for a coach is the relationship. Udemy doesn’t give you your students’ email addresses, even when they came in through your own referral link. So a student who loves your course is one you can’t email about your next group program.
To see the numbers side by side, including what a $100 sale pays you in each place, read this comparison of selling on Udemy or Skillshare versus your own course platform.
For most coaches, a course is the first step in a longer relationship. When a platform holds your students’ names and email addresses, you’re renting your clients from someone else. When you hold them, you can follow up, invite them into your next program, and care for them the way you’d care for any client. Keeping the relationship is how you keep taking care of hearts while you take care of business.
If you’d like to plan that path on purpose, Ruzuku has a guide to turning course students into coaching clients that walks through the options.
When is a course platform the right home?
A course platform is made for the teaching problem: live calls, a group that moves through the material together, and conversation right next to each lesson. You need one when your course is really a group program, and the live part is where your clients change.
That conversation makes a measurable difference. Ruzuku, a course platform, looked at 26,632 courses and 1.3 million enrollments. Courses with lesson-level discussions reached completion on 50.9% of enrollments, against 37.3% for courses without them. That’s a pattern in one platform’s data, not a controlled experiment, but it’s a good reason to put the conversation where your clients are learning.
A dedicated course platform earns its place when you want live video meetings inside the course and a cohort the platform tracks as a group. I walk through pairing the Console with one, Ruzuku, in how the Console and a course platform work together. For the rest of your setup, from scheduling to tracking engagement, see my technology guide for running group coaching programs online.
What’s your next step?
- Finish the sentence from earlier: “The hardest part of getting my course to the right people is ___.”
- List the tools you already pay for and the job each one does. You may have more of the selling side covered than you think.
- Pick the home that solves your hardest problem. Before you commit, check one thing: will you have your students’ email addresses? If you add a second tool later, give each tool one job, and keep the client relationship with you.
Then start small. One course, one group, one home. Everything you need and nothing more.
Melinda Cohan is the co-founder of The Coaches Console and author of The Confident Coach, The Professional Coach, and Sustainable Success. Since 2004, she’s helped 50,000+ coaches build businesses they love — without burning out. She believes business is a spiritual playground and that behind-the-scenes systems are what give coaches the confidence to shine. Hear her discuss the elements every coaching program needs on the Course Lab podcast.