Build an Online Course Platform

Build a website for [YOUR NAME OR BUSINESS], which teaches [WHAT YOU TEACH, e.g. watercolour painting for complete beginners] to [WHO YOUR STUDENTS ARE].

Pages: a home page explaining who you teach and why they should learn from you, with a clear button to the courses; a courses page listing everything you offer; a sales page for one single course; an about page that establishes why you are worth learning from; and a contact page with a form that emails me at [EMAIL] and stores submissions.

The single course sales page must include: what the student will be able to do at the end, who the course is for and who it is not for, the full lesson list with each lesson's title and length, what is included besides video, the price, and answers to [YOUR THREE MOST COMMON PRE-PURCHASE QUESTIONS].

Store courses and lessons as editable data with a private owner screen. A course has a title, short description, full description, who it is for, price, status of draft or published, and an ordered list of modules. A module has a title and an ordered list of lessons. A lesson has a title, a short summary, its length in minutes, its position in order, and an access setting of either free preview or enrolled students only.

On the sales page show every lesson title with its length, marking clearly which one is a free preview. Do not build any access restriction yet — that is the next step.

Design: [THREE ADJECTIVES, e.g. warm, credible, calm]. Colors: [YOUR COLORS]. Typography must be comfortable for long reading, and it must work well on a phone. Use labelled image placeholders saying [REAL PHOTO NEEDED] — do not use stock photography and do not generate images of people, classrooms or student work from scratch. Editing my own real photos is fine; only invented or generated scenes are the problem.

Add one example course with two modules and four example lessons, clearly labelled as examples for me to replace.

When finished, tell me where I edit courses and lessons, and what is still an example.

Add student accounts and course access rules to this site.

People can sign up with email and password, log in, log out and reset a forgotten password. Use the platform's built-in account system — do not build a custom password system.

Each account stores which courses that person is enrolled in. Enrolment is per course, not a single yes-or-no for the whole site. Only I as the owner can change someone's enrolment; a student must never be able to enrol themselves from the website.

Lessons marked free preview are open to everyone, including people who are not logged in. Lessons marked enrolled students only can be opened solely by a logged-in account enrolled in that specific course.

Enforce this on the lesson itself, not by hiding links: a person must not be able to reach a locked lesson by typing its address, and the lesson content, video address and any downloadable file must not be retrievable by anyone not enrolled in that course.

Non-students should still see that the lesson exists — show its title and length with a clear lock, and when they open it show a short message explaining what the course includes, with a button to the sales page. Show none of the actual content.

Add an owner screen listing every student with their email, which courses they are enrolled in and when they joined, where I can enrol or remove someone manually. A normal student must not be able to reach this screen, including by typing its address.

When you are done, tell me plainly what each of these can reach: a visitor who is not logged in, a logged-in account enrolled in nothing, and an account enrolled in this course.

Build the lesson experience for enrolled students.

A lesson page shows the video embedded from [VIDEO SERVICE, e.g. Vimeo], the lesson title, a written summary underneath, any downloadable resources, and clear buttons to move to the previous and next lesson. Alongside it, show the full course outline with the current lesson marked, so a student always knows where they are.

Track progress per student: mark a lesson complete when the student says so, and remember it. Show a progress indicator for the course, and on the student's own home page show which course they are part-way through and a button to continue from the lesson they stopped at.

Add a course home page for enrolled students showing the outline, their progress, and where to resume.

Let students ask a question on a lesson, visible only to them and me, and notify me by email when one arrives so I can reply.

Keep the access rules from the previous step exactly as they are — everything here is only for people enrolled in that course.

Make the lesson page work well on a phone, since many students watch on one.

Add payment to this course site using [PAYMENT PROVIDER, e.g. Stripe] in test mode.

My model is [ONE-OFF PURCHASE PER COURSE / SUBSCRIPTION GIVING ACCESS TO EVERYTHING / BOTH]. Build exactly that and nothing else.

The sales page's buy button starts checkout on the provider's own secure payment page for [PRICE]. Never handle or store card details on my site.

When payment succeeds, enrol that account in that specific course automatically and send them to a welcome page confirming access, with a button straight into the first lesson. The enrolment must be created by the payment confirmation itself, never by anything the buyer's browser can trigger.

If someone buys before creating an account, guide them through creating one with the same email address and make sure the purchase attaches to it. Do not leave a paid purchase with no account attached.

Send an enrolment email confirming what they bought, what access they have and how to get back in.

[IF YOU CHOSE SUBSCRIPTION, KEEP THIS PARAGRAPH:] When a subscription is cancelled or fails, remove access at the end of the period already paid for, and add a manage-my-subscription button on the student's account page that sends them to the provider's own portal.

Add an owner view of purchases with the course, the amount and the date, and tell me exactly what I must do myself in the payment provider's dashboard, including where my secret key goes in the platform's secure settings.

Improve my owner tools for this course site.

Let me write and edit lessons comfortably: reorder lessons and modules by moving them, save a lesson as a draft that students cannot see, and publish it when ready.

Let me release lessons on a schedule instead of all at once — either on fixed dates or a set number of days after each student enrols. Students see upcoming lessons listed with when they unlock, and cannot open them early by any means, including by typing the address.

Give me a dashboard showing how many students are enrolled in each course, how many are part-way through, how many finished, which lesson most people stop at, and any unanswered student questions.

Let me email all students of one course from an owner screen, for announcements such as a new lesson or a live session.

Keep everything already working exactly as it is — especially the access rules, the progress tracking and the payment flow.