How to Sell a Course You Already Teach¶
If you already teach a class well enough that your own students learn something real from it, you have a course. Not a course you'd need to write from nothing. The one you're teaching this semester, to the co-op group on Tuesday mornings, or to your own two kids at the kitchen table, or to the eleven students in the microschool you run. NavEd Network is the place a teacher lists that class for any family to find, wherever they are.
This is written for the teacher who has the class but hasn't thought about listing it: what it takes, what it costs, and what actually happens once a family buys a place.
Step one: it already exists in NavEd Lessons¶
A NavEd Network listing is not a file you upload once and forget. It's a unit built in NavEd Lessons: the readings, the videos, and the assignments, in the order you put them in, the same tool you already use to run your own class. You keep editing it in the same place after you list it, and the listing follows those edits.
If what you built is a document that's finished the moment someone downloads it, a course listing isn't the right shape for it. If what you built is something a student works through over weeks, turning in work as she goes, this is exactly the shape it needs.
Step two: start your Workspace¶
A teacher lists a course from her own free Workspace, at /network/signup/. Starting one costs nothing, and listing a course from it costs nothing. There's no monthly fee for selling and no fee for listing.
Step three: set your price¶
You set the price. NavEd doesn't suggest one or change it. Two pricing options exist: Individual, for one child's seat, and Family, for more than one child from the same household. A parent pays once, on the course page, by card, and that's the whole transaction. There's no subscription and no payment plan today.
Step four: think about what your course page needs to say¶
Every course page tells a family plainly what she's getting. If you have a free sample to show, it sits at the top of the page, and a family can watch it without creating an account or giving a card number. Not every listing needs one, but if you have footage of yourself teaching this material, or a sample lesson a student could try, it's the fastest way for a stranger to decide whether your teaching is the fit for her kid.
The course list itself is ordered by which course went live most recently, not by rating and not by anything a teacher could pay to change. A first-time seller's listing sits in the same kind of card as a teacher who has taught the same class for a decade. Nothing about NavEd Network ranks one teacher's work against another's.
What happens after a family buys¶
The child is enrolled as a student inside your own Workspace, the same as any student you already teach. She gets a sign-in of her own, at your Workspace's own address, not at nav.education. You see who enrolled, where each student has gotten to in the unit, and what's been turned in, and you grade that work yourself, in the same view you already use.
The parent who bought the seat never gets a NavEd login. Her email is used to send her the sign-in details for her child and her receipt, and nothing else. If she wants to know how her child is doing, she writes to you, because you're the one teaching her kid.
How a family finds and signs into your course¶
After a parent pays, she gets an email with her child's sign-in name and a link to set a password. The sign-in name isn't her own email, it's a generated name built for that account, because a purchase never creates a login tied to her own email. Her child signs in at your Workspace's own address, not at nav.education, and that address only ever appears in that one email. The password link is single use and expires after three days, so if a family loses the email or the link expires, they write in and get a fresh one. Nothing is lost and nobody pays twice.
The parent's receipt lives behind a private link in the same email, and once her child's place is set up, a link on that receipt lets her write something about the course if she wants to. What she writes attaches to the course, never to you personally, and it never changes where the course appears in the list.
The money¶
NavEd keeps 3 percent of a sale. Nothing is owed on a course that doesn't sell. The rest goes to your own Stripe account, on a 7-day rolling payout schedule, the same account you'd use to take a card payment for anything else. Stripe's own card processing fee, 2.9 percent plus 30 cents, also comes out of what reaches you, same as it would on any card charge.
On a $100 course: NavEd keeps $3, Stripe's fee comes to about $3.20, and $93.80 reaches you.
You don't need a credential you don't already have¶
Nothing about listing a course requires a teaching license or a certification. What it requires is that you already teach this material and it works for the students in front of you. A parent who taught her own kids a subject well is exactly as qualified to list it as a classroom teacher with fifteen years in a building. If you're still deciding what to build before you teach it at all, our guide to picking curriculum for a small school covers that earlier step.
If you teach more than one subject, start with this one¶
Pick the class where your own students already do the most work without you standing next to them: reading on their own, turning in a written response, working through a problem set before you check it. That independence is what makes a unit survive the trip from your classroom to a screen a thousand miles away. A single lecture or a one-off field trip doesn't fit the shape of a listing. A unit built to run over several weeks does.
What the seller terms say about teaching it elsewhere¶
The seller terms you agree to when you list a course say selling on the Network is non-exclusive: you can keep running it in your co-op, keep your own site if you have one, and list it here too. The same terms say that if you unlist a course, a family who already bought a seat keeps her child's access to it. See how the Network works for more, and read the seller terms themselves before you rely on either point.
FAQ¶
Do I need a teaching credential to list a course?
No. What matters is that you already teach this material and it works for the students in front of you.
What does it cost to list a course on NavEd Network?
Listing is free, with no monthly fee. NavEd keeps 3 percent when a course sells, and nothing if it doesn't.
Where does the money go, and when?
To your own Stripe account, on a 7-day rolling payout schedule. NavEd's 3 percent and Stripe's own card fee come out first.
Can I still teach this course in my own co-op or school?
The seller terms you agree to when you list say yes: selling on the Network is non-exclusive, so you can keep teaching it in person and sell the same course here at the same time. See how the Network works for more.
Does the family need a NavEd account to buy a place?
No. She pays on the course page with a card, gives her name, email, and her child's name, and never creates a login of her own.
What if I stop selling the course later?
The seller terms say unlisting stops new sales, but a family who already bought a seat keeps her child's access to it.
If you're already teaching a class worth listing, starting a Workspace costs nothing.