All The Tools You Need To Build A Successful Online Course or Business 

I have personally tested or researched every tool on this page. These are not just names I pulled from a list. They are the platforms I would choose (and, in most cases, have chosen) at each stage of building a course, membership, or online business.

To make it easier to find exactly what you need, I have organized everything by path. Path 1 is for creators who want to keep it simple with an all-in-one solution. Path 2 is for those who prefer to piece things together with the best individual tool in each category. Path 3 is for creators on the tightest budgets who need to get up and running at the lowest possible cost. And if you want to amplify your results even further, I have also included my top bonus tool recommendations at the end. I included the buttons below for easy navigation. 

This page contains affiliate links. If you purchase through my links, I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. I only recommend tools I have personally used or thoroughly researched.

Path 1: The All-In-One Solution 

Best for: Creators who want to build their course business properly without dealing with multiple tools, multiple logins, and ongoing technical headaches.

This is the path I am currently on and the one I recommend most strongly. With an all-in-one platform, everything is in one place from day one. Course/membership hosting, email marketing, landing pages, checkout, your website, and more. You set it up once, and it all works together natively, so you can focus on creating and selling instead of troubleshooting.

Best All-In-One Platform - Kajabi

Kajabi is my top recommendation for course creators who want the simplest, most powerful way to run their entire course business from one place. It replaces separate tools for course hosting, email marketing, landing pages, checkout, and your website, and everything works together natively from day one. No Zapier. No debugging integrations. No logging into five different dashboards. Plus, Kajabi's built-in AI assistant Cofounder helps you structure your offer, write your landing page, and guide your setup from your very first login, removing one of the biggest barriers most new course creators face.

Path 2: The Best Pieced-Together Stack - Individual Tools

Best for: Creators who prefer best-in-class tools in each category or already have part of their setup in place. 

This path can work well, but it requires more setup, more maintenance, and usually costs more once you are running. If this is the direction you prefer, here are the exact tools I would use in each category and why. I have also included the full cost breakdown at the bottom of this page so you can compare both paths with real numbers before you decide.

Course Hosting - Teachable

Teachable is a long-standing, reliable course platform focused on making it straightforward to get a standard online course up and running. It handles course hosting, payments, and basic sales pages, and is a reasonable option if you want something familiar rather than an all-in-one. For this path I recommend the Builder plan at $89 per month (or $69 per month billed annually), which removes Teachable's transaction fee entirely. You also get 10 products, AI integration, and iOS and Android apps for your students.

Shopping Cart & Checkout - Thrivecart

ThriveCart is the checkout tool I recommend for anyone who is not on Kajabi. It has a strong real-world reputation for higher checkout conversion rates, and the lifetime pricing option means you pay once instead of adding another monthly subscription. Every ThriveCart account also includes ThriveCart Learn, a built-in course delivery platform. Learn is not as full-featured as a dedicated course platform, but it is more than capable of delivering straightforward courses and memberships, which means if your delivery is simple you may not need a separate course platform at all. There is also an optional Learn+ upgrade for more advanced LMS features.

Email Marketing - Kit (Formally ConvertKit)

Kit is built specifically for creators, so the interface and language match what you are doing. The visual automation builder makes it easy to see how your funnels fit together, and the tag-based subscriber system is well-suited for launches and evergreen sequences. It also includes built-in checkout for selling digital products directly from email and landing pages. Price varies greatly based on list size. I recommend trying out a free trial to see if it's what you are looking for. Keep in mind the free Newsletter is not what you need, as an autoresponder is crucial to your email marketing. 

Email Marketing - Aweber

AWeber is one of the oldest email marketing tools in the small business space, and it still appeals to creators who want a straightforward, newsletter-focused platform with solid deliverability and classic list-building features. It includes landing pages and signup forms, which can be enough for simple funnels. If you want something reliable and easy to get started with, AWeber is a proven option. Price varies greatly based on list size. I recommend trying out the free trial and comparing to Kit to see which one works best for your needs. 

Landing Pages - Leadpages

Leadpages is one of the strongest dedicated landing page builders available if your priority is ease of use and conversion-focused templates. In my own testing against landing pages built with other tools, using nearly identical pages, Leadpages consistently won on both design and conversion rate. I recommend the Pro plan, which gives you unlimited landing pages, built-in evergreen countdown timers, and A/B testing.

Website Hosting - SiteGround

WordPress is the most popular platform for building websites, especially for course creators who want a blog as part of their home base. It gives you full ownership of your site, the best long-term SEO potential, and virtually unlimited flexibility through plugins. You will need hosting to run it, and I recommend SiteGround for its faster load times and enhanced security features. Plans start at $2.99 per month on an introductory rate, with renewal pricing generally running $15 to $25 per month. WordPress.org software is free. Visit WordPress.org to download it and install it on your SiteGround hosting.

Path 3: The Tightest Budget Path - Budget Options

Best for: Pre-revenue creators who want to validate their idea before spending anything significant.

There is nothing wrong with starting here. It is better to get your first sales than to sit on the sidelines trying to pick the perfect setup. This path gets you started for less than $10 a month while you validate your idea. Once you start generating consistent revenue, you can upgrade quickly. The tools below are what I would use if I were starting completely from scratch with very little money to invest in tools.

Course Platform and Community - Skool

Skool is a community-first platform that includes course delivery, and it has the lowest legitimate starting cost of any option on this page at $9 per month. The Hobby plan includes unlimited courses and unlimited members but charges a 10% transaction fee on all sales. The math on upgrading is simple: once you are consistently processing around $1,300 per month through Skool, upgrading to the Pro plan at $99 per month pays for itself in fee savings alone. Note that Skool does not include email marketing, so you will need something like the plan below alongside it. And eventually you will want to add a landing page builder and shopping cart for better conversions down the line.

Email Marketing - MailerLite

MailerLite's free plan covers up to 500 subscribers with automations included, which is enough to run a welcome sequence and basic funnel while you build your audience. It has a clean, modern interface and is significantly cheaper than most other email platforms at every tier. When you outgrow the free plan, paid tiers start around $15 per month and stay affordable as you grow. It is not as creator-specific as Kit, or as established as Aweber but it is still a good and very capable email marketing platform that you can grow with. Go to the pricing page to see the free plan up to 500 subscribers.

Bonus Tools

These tools are not required to launch, but they can meaningfully increase your conversions, save you time, or improve the quality of what you deliver. Each recommendation below is my single top pick in its category, based on my own testing and research.

Integration and Automation - Zapier

In a pieced-together stack, you will almost certainly need Zapier to connect your landing pages, email service, and checkout tool together since most of these platforms do not integrate with each other natively. Zapier requires no coding experience and handles the connections automatically once set up. Budget roughly $20 to $99 per month depending on how many workflows you run, and factor this into your total stack cost.

Webinar Software - Easy Webinar

Webinars, both live and evergreen, have become a reliable way to sell courses. Most webinar platforms charge separately for live and automated webinars, which doubles your cost. Easy Webinar handles both in one plan at a lower monthly price, along with the tools and features you need to run high-quality, high-converting webinars

Urgency Marketing - Deadline Funnel

Creating a genuine sense of urgency is one of the most proven ways to increase conversions. Deadline Funnel lets you set personalized deadlines for individual subscribers, which integrates directly across your landing pages, emails, checkout pages, and webinars. Unlike basic countdown timers that reset when someone refreshes the page, Deadline Funnel tracks each person individually. Case studies consistently show this increases conversion rates meaningfully. It integrates with every major tool on this page.

Recording Software - ScreenPal

Most course creators need software that lets them record their screen, their webcam, or both. ScreenPal (formerly Screencast-O-Matic) has been my go-to for years because it works on both PC and Mac, includes solid video editing tools, and is priced significantly lower than most alternatives. It is a hidden gem in the video recording space that many course creators overlook, and it has everything you need to create professional course content without paying for a heavyweight video production tool.

Freelance Services - Fiverr

Whether you need help setting up your WordPress website, designing a logo, creating a book cover image, or editing your work, Fiverr makes it easy to find experienced freelancers at accessible price points. You can search by service, price range, and delivery time. If you are building on WordPress and want someone experienced to handle the setup, Fiverr is the first place I would look.