Website builder

Turn your lessons into a course website
that remembers where each learner left off.

Tell Netiva’s agent how your course is laid out. It builds the catalog, lesson pages with video and a signed-in learner area that tracks progress, in clean code you can export.

Start building free More website ideas
Starter prompt

Build an online course website for an independent photographer who sells two self-paced courses and runs a six-week cohort program twice a year. Keep courses, lessons, enrollments and lesson progress in collections. The catalog filters by topic and format and shows the price, and every course page has the syllabus grouped by module, one free preview lesson and an enroll button. Lessons have a video, a caption file, written notes and a workbook. Learners sign in to see their courses, percent complete and a resume button. Each enrollment records the run the learner joined, and module 1 opens on that date with each later module a week after.

Build it in Netiva Paste the prompt into a new workspace and adjust it to your business.
Overview

Who this course website is for

Many course creators run on a patchwork: videos on one host, a sales page on another, a payment link and a spreadsheet of who bought what. Learners email to ask where module 3 went or which lesson they stopped on, and you can’t see who stalled after week one. A course website built with Netiva keeps courses, lessons, enrollments and progress in collections. The catalog and lesson pages render from them, each learner signs in to a dashboard that opens at their next unfinished lesson and you see where every cohort slows down.

Key features

What your course website can do

  • Catalog and syllabus pages

    Courses and lessons are related collections, so the catalog and every course page render from the same records. Add a lesson or move it to another module and the syllabus follows.

    • Catalog filtered by topic and by self-paced or cohort format
    • Syllabus grouped by module and sorted by lesson order
    • A free preview lesson anyone can watch before enrolling
    • Saved views for lessons still missing captions or notes

  • Video lessons with captions and workbooks

    Each lesson page carries its video, a caption file, written notes and a workbook to download, so learners can watch, read along or print the exercises without leaving the course.

    • A WebVTT caption file stored with every video
    • Notes and takeaways drafted by the collection assistant for your review
    • Workbooks, templates and slide decks attached as files
    • Previous and next buttons that follow the syllabus order

  • Progress for every signed-in learner

    Learners sign in and see only their own enrollments. Marking a lesson complete moves the progress bar, and the resume button opens the first lesson they haven’t finished.

    • Percent complete counted from finished lessons
    • Cohort modules released one week at a time
    • A nudge email after 10 days without any lesson activity
    • A completion page once every lesson is done

  • Course sales and enrollment

    Each course is a product in the Netiva store and learners pay through the hosted one-page checkout. Linking a paid order to an enrollment on the learner’s account is logic you ask the agent for.

    • Self-paced and coaching-included tiers as variants with their own price
    • New courses kept in Draft until you mark them Active on launch day
    • Card payments with automatic tax and multi-currency
    • An enrollment you ask the agent to open on payment and close on a refund
Data model

The collections behind it

Netiva keeps your records in built-in collections. Here’s a starting structure — the agent adapts it to your prompt, and you can change it any time.

Courses

Every course you sell or run, with the details the catalog and course pages show.

  • Title (required) Text
  • Summary (required) Who the course is for and what they’ll be able to do Paragraph
  • Cover image (required) Image
  • Topic (required) Used for the catalog filter Text
  • Format (required) Self-paced or Cohort Text
  • Cohort start Cohort courses only; the next run the catalog advertises Date
  • Preview lesson One lesson anyone can watch before enrolling Relation to Lessons
  • Store product Where the enroll button and the catalog price come from; blank for invite-only courses Text

Lessons

The videos, notes and files that make up each course, in syllabus order.

  • Course (required) Relation to Courses
  • Module (required) Syllabus section; in a cohort, module 2 opens a week after module 1 Number
  • Order (required) Position within the module Number
  • Title (required) Text
  • Video Leave empty for reading-only lessons Video
  • Captions A WebVTT (.vtt) file that matches the video File
  • Lesson notes Summary, takeaways, a transcript or a live-call join link HTML
  • Workbook PDF exercises, templates or slides for this lesson File

Enrollments

Who can open which course, how they got access and whether they’ve finished.

  • Learner name (required) Text
  • Learner email (required) Matches the email the learner signs in with Text
  • Course (required) Relation to Courses
  • Cohort start The run this learner joined; module release dates count from here Date
  • Company For team training; blank for individual buyers Text
  • Order number From the store order; blank for learners enrolled by hand Text
  • Status (required) Active, Completed or Refunded Text
  • Completed on Set when the last lesson is marked complete Date

Lesson progress

One record per learner per lesson, so progress follows the account, not the browser.

  • Enrollment (required) Relation to Enrollments
  • Lesson (required) Relation to Lessons
  • Status (required) Started or Completed Text
  • Last opened (required) Drives the resume button and the inactivity email Date & time
  • Completed at Date & time
  • Private notes Notes the learner keeps under the video; only they see them Paragraph

Required field. Types are Netiva collection field types.

Screens

Pages and screens to start with

A typical first version. Ask the agent for more, or annotate the preview to change any of them.

  • Course catalog

    Every open course with its cover, topic, format, price and next cohort start date, filtered by topic and by self-paced or cohort.

    Public

  • Course page

    The summary, the full syllabus grouped by module, a free preview lesson and an enroll button that shows the tier prices and leads to checkout.

    Public

  • Lesson

    Video with captions, lesson notes, the workbook, private notes, a mark-complete button and links to the previous and next lesson.

    Signed-in users

  • My courses

    Each course the learner is enrolled in, with percent complete, the last lesson opened and a resume button.

    Signed-in users

  • Completion page

    The learner’s name, the course title and the completion date, laid out so it prints cleanly on one page.

    Signed-in users

  • Learner progress

    Enrollments by course, cohort run and company, with percent complete, last activity and the lesson where each learner stopped.

    Your team
How it works

From prompt to a live course website

  1. Outline the curriculum

    Tell the agent which courses you teach, how lessons group into modules and whether each course is self-paced or cohort-based. It drafts collections for courses, lessons, enrollments and progress.

  2. Upload lessons and captions

    Add each lesson’s video, caption file and workbook in the collection grid, then paste your outline and ask the collection assistant to draft lesson notes for you to check.

  3. Take the course as a learner

    Sign in to the live preview with a test account, enroll, finish a few lessons and watch the progress bar move. Annotate anything that looks off and the agent fixes it.

  4. Open enrollment

    Publish in one click, mark the course product Active and switch on the welcome and weekly emails. Changes made mid-cohort are checkpointed, so any of them can be rolled back.

Why Netiva

Netiva vs a traditional build

Building a course website with Netiva compared with a traditional build
Criterion With Netiva Traditional build
Learner progress Finished lessons saved to each learner’s account, with a resume button and a team view of who stalled Learners track where they stopped on their own, and you guess who fell behind
Cohort lesson release Modules open by week from each learner’s run start date, with a scheduled email when each one does Unlisted video links pasted into a weekly email by hand
Getting started Describe what you need in chat and watch it take shape in a live preview Hire developers, or stitch together templates, plugins and a hosting plan
Content and data Built-in collections with nine field types, bound straight to your pages Set up and connect a separate database or CMS
Making changes Ask the agent; every change is checkpointed and reversible File a ticket, wait for a sprint, redeploy
Hosting and domain Global hosting and automatic SSL; connect a custom domain from the Starter plan Buy hosting, then install and renew SSL certificates yourself
Code ownership Clean production code you own and can export Locked into a template, plugin or agency setup
Examples

Ways teams use it

  • A photographer with two self-paced courses

    Each course page opens one lesson as a free preview. Buyers are enrolled once you link their paid order to an enrollment, and months later the dashboard still sends them back to the exact lesson where they stopped.

  • A business coach running a six-week group program

    Modules open one per week from the start date on each learner’s enrollment, so a new run never reshuffles the last one. After each live call, the coach adds the recording as a new lesson and checks the progress view to see who has fallen behind before the next session.

  • An independent trainer teaching client teams

    The trainer enrolls each client’s staff by hand, with no checkout, and records their company. Before a renewal meeting, the progress view filtered by company shows which employees finished and which never started.

Good to know

Before you build

  • Decide where lesson videos live

    Video files are heavy, so most creators keep lessons with a video hosting provider and call its API with a key stored securely. Sign-in keeps lessons off public pages, but it isn’t copy protection: anything a browser plays can be screen-recorded.

  • Payment plans and repeat cohorts

    A one-time store product takes a single payment, so a payment plan means selling each installment as its own product and opening enrollment when the first clears, or invoicing outside the site. Retaking a cohort is a second purchase and a second enrollment dated to the new run.

  • A completion page isn’t accreditation

    The completion page shows that a learner finished your lessons. Continuing education credit comes from a licensing board or an accreditor such as IACET, where one CEU equals 10 contact hours, so get approval before you promise credit.

  • Refund rules depend on where learners live

    Show your refund policy on every course page. EU consumers can usually cancel an online purchase within 14 days, and for streamed content that right ends only if they expressly agreed beforehand to give it up when playback starts.

FAQ

Questions about building a course website

Can learners pick up where they left off on another device?

Yes. Progress is saved to the learner’s account rather than the browser, so it follows them from a laptop to a phone. Every lesson they open or finish has a progress record, and the resume button goes to the first lesson in syllabus order that isn’t marked complete. Netiva builds web apps that run in the phone’s browser, so there’s nothing to install.

How do I release cohort lessons one week at a time?

Give each lesson a module number, put the next run’s date on the course for the catalog and copy it onto each learner’s enrollment as they join. Then ask the agent to open module 1 on that learner’s date and each later module seven days after the one before, with locked lessons showing when they open, so a new run never reshuffles the last one. Add a scheduled email for the morning each module goes live. Self-paced courses show every lesson at once.

Can I add captions and transcripts to video lessons?

Yes. Each lesson has a file field for a WebVTT (.vtt) caption file, the format HTML video uses for text tracks, and a notes field that can hold a full transcript. Captions help anyone watching without sound, and WCAG 2.1 lists captions for prerecorded video under Level A, its most basic level of conformance.

Can a course website enroll learners automatically after they pay?

Yes, when you ask for it. Each course is a Netiva store product sold through a hosted one-page checkout that takes cards, with automatic tax and multi-currency. Ask the agent to create an enrollment for the buyer’s account once the order is paid, and to mark it Refunded when you refund the order so the lessons close again. Learners you invite can be enrolled by hand.

Can I run live coaching calls through the site?

Netiva doesn’t host live video. Run calls in the meeting tool you already use, put the join link in that week’s lesson notes for signed-in learners and add the recording as a lesson afterward. If your meeting provider offers a REST API, the agent can call it with your key stored securely, for example to show upcoming sessions on the dashboard.

Which Netiva plan does a paid course website need?

You can build and preview the site on the free plan without a credit card. Connecting your own domain starts on the Starter plan, and how many store products you can list depends on the plan. Recurring subscriptions and memberships come with Business and up. Check the pricing page for current plans before you open enrollment.

Keep exploring
All ideas
Compare

How Netiva compares

All comparisons

Drafted with AI assistance from Netiva’s product pages and reviewed by the Netiva team. Example data models, screens and prompts are illustrative starting points, not customer projects.

Build your course website today

Describe it in a sentence and watch Netiva’s agent build it. Free to start — no credit card required.

Start building free Browse more ideas