An online education company replaced Teachable with a custom platform — and launched 3 new course products in 60 days.
The client had 8,000 students across 12 courses on Teachable. Teachable's limitations — no custom assessment types, no cohort-based learning features, and 5% transaction fees — were restricting the product roadmap. We rebuilt the platform in 12 weeks.
Teachable's 5% transaction fees and limited assessment and cohort features blocking product evolution
The client ran an e-learning business with $1.2M in annual course revenue. At Teachable's 5% transaction fee tier: $60,000/year in fees on top of the $299/month platform subscription. The fee calculation alone justified rebuilding the platform.
Beyond the cost: the product roadmap was blocked by Teachable's limitations. The client wanted to build a cohort-based version of their flagship course with peer review, small group assignments, and a structured discussion board. Teachable's "communities" feature existed but was an afterthought — it couldn't support the structured peer review workflow the product required. Custom certificate designs were also impossible on Teachable without third-party tools.
The trigger: a competitor launched a cohort-based version of a competing course and got significant press coverage. The client needed to ship their cohort product or cede the differentiation.
Custom course platform with video hosting, custom assessments, cohort enrollment, certificates, and Stripe billing with no transaction fees
Stack: Next.js 14, Convex, Clerk, Mux (video), Stripe Billing, Resend, Vercel Blob.
Course player: Video playback via Mux with signed URLs and playback tracking. Progress tracking per lesson. Drip scheduling for time-gated content releases.
Assessment engine: Multiple choice quizzes with graded scoring. Written response assignments with instructor review and rubric-based grading. Peer review assignments where cohort members review each other's work with a structured rubric.
Cohort enrollment: Cohort creation with enrollment windows and seat limits. Cohort-specific discussion board with weekly threads. Small group assignment (groups of 4–6 for peer review pairs).
Certificates: Course completion certificate generation as downloadable PDF with student name, course title, completion date, and instructor signature. Certificate verify page with unique verification URL.
Stripe billing: Course purchase (one-time), cohort enrollment (one-time, higher price point), and subscription plan for access to all courses. 2.9% + 30¢ payment processing only — no platform transaction fee.
One honest number to start.
Fixed-scope, fixed-price. The number below is the starting point — final scope is built from your brief.
Custom course platform with video hosting, custom assessments, cohort enrollment, certificates, and Stripe billing with no transaction fees
Three steps, every time.
The same repeatable engagement on every project. No surprises, no mystery, no billable ambiguity.
Brief & discovery.
We send you questions, then get on a call. Output: a written scope with every step, feature, and integration listed.
Build & ship.
Fixed schedule, weekly reviews. No scope creep unless you change the scope — and if you do, we reprice it transparently.
Warranty & retainer.
30-day warranty on every launch. Most clients stay on a monthly retainer for ongoing features and maintenance.
Results
- 8,000 students migrated from Teachable with no data loss
- Teachable transaction fees eliminated ($60,000/year saved at current revenue)
- Cohort course launched 8 weeks after platform launch; sold out first 3 cohorts
Questions, answered.
Teachable's export includes student records, course enrollments, and completion data. All records were migrated via import script. Students received an email to set their password on the new platform. Course access was preserved based on their enrollment history.
All Teachable-hosted videos were downloaded and re-uploaded to Mux during the migration period. The client's local backup copies were the source for re-upload, so quality was identical to the originals.
Course platform with video hosting, assessments, and Stripe billing: from $28k. Fixed-price.
Tell Ryel about your project.
Describe what you’re building and what outcome you need. You’ll have a written, fixed-price scope within the week.