How do I sell online courses on Shopify?
You’ve got expertise, you want to package it as a paid course, and you already have a Shopify store. So how do you actually sell an online course through it? There are two roads, and picking the wrong one costs you money and headaches. Road one: host the course natively inside Shopify, so students buy it like any product and watch it while logged into their normal Shopify account. Road two: run the course on an outside platform like Thinkific or Teachable and use an app to enrol buyers there. This guide walks both, then looks closely at Alva Courses, the cheapest native option (5.0 stars across 11 reviews, and Built for Shopify), including the one pricing detail that trips people up.
We build Shopify apps ourselves (variant images and combined listings), so we read this category the way a course creator should: where does the course actually live, what does the video cost you, and what happens when you outgrow the cheap plan? All of that is below. First, the fork in the road.
In this guide
- Native courses or an external platform?
- What is Alva Courses, and what does it do?
- How much does Alva Courses cost?
- What do merchants say?
- Where Alva Courses shines
- Where it falls short
- Is there a bigger, better-known option?
- How do you set it up?
- FAQ
Native courses or an external platform?
This is the decision that matters, so make it first. A native course app (Alva Courses, Tevello, Courses Plus) hosts the course inside your Shopify store. Students buy it as a normal product, then watch it logged into the Shopify customer account they already have. One checkout, one login, one place. An external setup (Thinkific, Teachable, Coursebox) hosts the course on that company’s platform, and a connector app enrols your buyer over there after they pay. You’re then running and paying for two systems, and your student bounces between them.
Which is right? If you already run a big Thinkific school and just want Shopify to take payment, keep the external platform. But if you’re starting fresh and want the course to live where your store and customers already are, native is simpler, cheaper, and a smoother experience for the student. For most Shopify merchants adding a course, native wins. That’s the lane Alva Courses plays in.
What is Alva Courses, and what does it do?
Alva Courses is a native course app built by Alva Apps Ltd, a small independent studio in London whose three focused digital-product apps all charge no commission on your sales, just a flat monthly fee. You build a course from videos, images, quizzes, and PDF lessons in a no-code editor, and it’s hosted right inside your store using Shopify customer accounts. When someone buys, they get access instantly through a customisable email and the checkout and thank-you pages. It tracks each student’s progress, awards a certificate on completion, and gives your course a comments thread so students can ask questions. It’s genuinely one system: the course, the checkout, and the customer account are all Shopify.
One honest scoping note, because it’s easy to assume otherwise: Alva Courses does not currently do scheduled drip content (releasing lessons week by week) or recurring membership subscriptions. It has a “Limited Time Access” option, which gates how long a student can access a course, but that isn’t the same as dripping lessons on a schedule or billing a monthly membership. If those are core to your model, note it now and check the alternatives section.
How much does Alva Courses cost?
Two plans, both with a 14-day trial, and there’s one detail in here you must not miss:
| Plan | Price | Video hosting | Everything else |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unlimited | $9.99/mo | Shopify-hosted, capped at 1GB / 10 min per video | Unlimited courses, members, comments, progress tracking, certificates |
| Unlimited Pro | $14.99/mo | Alva hosting: 50GB, no per-video limits | Same as above |
Here’s the catch. The $9.99 plan hosts your videos on Shopify Files, which caps each video at 1GB and 10 minutes. For a short lesson that’s fine. For a real course with 30-minute deep-dives, it isn’t, and you’ll need Unlimited Pro at $14.99/mo for Alva’s own 50GB hosting with no per-video limit. So budget for $14.99, not $9.99, if your lessons are substantial (or host on YouTube or Loom and embed, which the app supports). Even at $14.99 it’s the cheapest native course app on the App Store, well under Tevello’s $29 and Courses Plus’s $19.99. One more note: older reviews mention a free plan, but Alva no longer offers one, it’s paid plans with a trial now. Since a course is close to pure profit once it’s made, the monthly fee is easy to justify; our profit margin calculator makes that obvious, and our customer lifetime value guide matters here because course buyers often come back for the next one.
What do merchants say about Alva Courses?
All 11 reviews are five stars, and one name shows up in almost every one: Tom, the founder, who answers support himself. For a young app, that hands-on support is the real selling point.
“Cannot recommend this app enough! Finding Alva Courses after migrating to Shopify was the best thing I’ve done. The support is second to none, Tom is exceptional and is on hand to help with all parts of setting things up, migrating and troubleshooting. I am only on the free plan whilst I still design my courses. However, the experience and support is something you would expect from a higher priced app. I for one will be upgrading to the premium subscription as soon as I have written my next course.”
MATT JACKSON PHOTOGRAPHY, United Kingdom, February 2026 — Alva Courses on the Shopify App Store
“Very easy to use, customizable, and works seamlessly for selling online courses on Shopify. The customer support (Tom) is outstanding and very responsive. I’m also looking forward to the upcoming feature that will allow different product variants to be linked to different courses. Highly recommended. Thanks!”
Tokos, Canada, December 2025 — Alva Courses on the Shopify App Store
Read those with clear eyes, though. Eleven reviews is a small sample, and a 5.0 from 11 people tells you far less than a 5.0 from 600. There are no critical reviews yet, but there also isn’t much history. What you’re really buying at this stage is a solid native app plus a founder who picks up the phone, not a battle-tested platform. For some creators that’s exactly the right trade; for others it isn’t.
Where Alva Courses shines
- Cheapest native course app on the App Store. $9.99 to $14.99/mo, against $29 for the market leader.
- Truly native. Course, checkout, and student login are all Shopify. No second platform, no second bill, no bouncing your students around.
- Complete basics. Video, quiz, and PDF lessons, progress tracking, completion certificates, and a comments thread, all in a no-code editor.
- 0% commission. Flat monthly fee, so the studio doesn’t take a cut of every course you sell.
- Hands-on founder support. Tom is named in review after review for helping with setup and migration personally.
Where it falls short
- The video cap on the cheap plan. 1GB and 10 minutes per video on the $9.99 tier. Real lessons need the $14.99 plan or an embed from YouTube or Loom.
- Young and small. 11 reviews, launched late 2024. It’s proven enough to trust, but it’s not a decade-old platform, and that’s a fair thing to weigh.
- No drip scheduling or membership subscriptions. If you need to release lessons weekly or bill a recurring membership, this isn’t built for that yet.
- No free plan anymore. It’s a 14-day trial then a paid plan. Fine, but don’t expect the free tier some older reviews mention.
Is there a bigger, better-known option?
Yes, and honesty demands naming it. Tevello Courses & Communities is the category leader by a mile: 5.0 stars across more than 600 reviews, also native and Built for Shopify, at a flat $29/mo. What that extra money buys is real scope, communities, memberships and subscriptions, and drip content, the exact things Alva doesn’t do. If your plan is a membership site with a community and scheduled lesson releases, Tevello is the safer, more complete choice, and we’d tell you so. Courses Plus sits in the middle ($19.99/mo, with a limited free tier capped at five lessons). So the honest read: Alva is the budget native pick with a founder who’ll hold your hand, and it’s ideal for a straightforward video course. Tevello is where you go when you need communities, memberships, or drip, and can justify the price. Pick by what your course actually needs, not by the star rating, which is a perfect 5.0 for all three.
How do you set it up?
The setup is genuinely no-code. Install Alva Courses, build your course in the editor by adding video, PDF, image, and quiz lessons, and connect it to a Shopify product so buying that product grants access. Turn on Shopify customer accounts so students have somewhere to log in, upload your videos (or paste YouTube and Loom links to sidestep the size cap), switch on certificates and progress tracking if you want them, and you’re selling. You can see it running in Alva’s demo store before you install anything, and the full studio and its other tools are at alvaapps.com. Once the course sells, the rest of your store still has to convert, which is where our notes on a high-converting product page and what to fix first for conversion come in. A course pairs naturally with the digital files in our guide to selling digital downloads on Shopify, and if any lessons ship as protected PDFs, see selling and protecting PDFs.
Frequently asked questions
Can I sell courses on Shopify without an external platform?
Yes. Native course apps like Alva Courses, Tevello, and Courses Plus host the course inside your Shopify store, so students buy it as a product and watch it logged into their Shopify customer account. You don’t need Thinkific or Teachable unless you already run one. Native keeps everything, payment, access, and student login, in one place.
What is the cheapest way to sell online courses on Shopify?
Among native, Built-for-Shopify course apps, Alva Courses is the cheapest at $9.99 to $14.99/mo with no commission, versus $19.99 for Courses Plus and $29 for Tevello. Just budget for Alva’s $14.99 Unlimited Pro plan if your videos are longer than 10 minutes, since the $9.99 plan caps video size, or embed from YouTube or Loom for free.
Does Alva Courses support drip content or memberships?
Not currently. Alva Courses offers a “Limited Time Access” option that controls how long a student keeps access, but it does not do scheduled drip releases (lessons unlocking week by week) or recurring membership subscriptions. If drip or memberships are central to your model, Tevello supports both at $29/mo, and is the better fit there.
Where are the course videos hosted?
On Alva’s $9.99 Unlimited plan, videos sit on Shopify Files, capped at 1GB and 10 minutes each. The $14.99 Unlimited Pro plan uses Alva’s own hosting with 50GB and no per-video limit. You can also embed YouTube or Loom videos on either plan, which avoids the size cap entirely.
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Umid
Co-Founder at Craftshift