Running a course business on Teachable or Thinkific and hitting the walls on custom branding, pricing models, or the learner experience you actually want to deliver?
Selling courses but your platform takes 5-10% of every transaction and still doesn't give you the data and learner analytics your business needs?
Online Course Platform Development
Custom online course platforms built for creators, ed-startups, and organisations that have outgrown off-the-shelf tools -- with the course authoring, video delivery, payments, and learner analytics your business actually needs.
100+ products shipped since 2019. We build online course platforms for course creators and organisations who need full control over their learner experience, pricing model, and data.
Course authoring with video lessons, quizzes, assignments, and downloadable resources
Stripe payments for one-time, subscription, and payment plan models -- no platform transaction fee
Automated certificate generation, credential management, and LinkedIn sharing
Instructor dashboards with enrolment numbers, completion rates, and revenue analytics
RaftLabs builds custom online course platforms for course creators, ed-startups, and organisations publishing learning content at scale. Online course platform development covers course authoring tools, adaptive bitrate video hosting, learner enrolment and progress tracking, payment and subscription handling via Stripe, certificate generation, instructor dashboards, community features, and white-label delivery. Custom platforms make sense when off-the-shelf tools like Teachable, Thinkific, or Kajabi impose transaction fees, limit your pricing models, or constrain the learner experience you need to deliver. Most online course platform projects deliver in 10--14 weeks at a fixed cost with full source code ownership.
100+Products shipped since 2019
·SCORMCompatible
·FixedCost delivery
·10-14Week delivery
Off-the-shelf course platforms are built for the average creator. At some point, average stops working for your business.
Teachable, Thinkific, and Kajabi solve the first problem: getting a course live fast. They stop solving problems the moment you need custom pricing structures, a learner experience that reflects your brand, analytics beyond completion rates, or a business model that doesn't hand 5--10% of revenue to a third-party platform.
Custom online course platform development builds the platform around your content, your pricing model, and your learner experience -- with no per-transaction fee, no branding constraints, and no ceiling on what the platform can do.
What we build
Course authoring and content management
Video lesson upload and streaming with adaptive bitrate delivery so learners on slow connections get a usable experience. Chapter markers and transcript generation for accessibility and navigation. Quiz and assessment builder for knowledge checks at the lesson, module, and course level. Downloadable resource management for worksheets, templates, and reference materials. Content drip scheduling releases lessons on a fixed schedule or based on elapsed time since enrolment. Bulk content import for creators migrating from another platform.
Learner enrolment and progress tracking
Self-enrolment for open courses and cohort-based enrolment for live cohort programmes with fixed start dates. Individual progress tracking per lesson and module shows each learner exactly where they are and what remains. Completion certificates are triggered automatically on course completion. Resumable video position saves where a learner stopped so they can pick up on any device. The learner dashboard gives a clear view of active courses, progress, and completed credentials.
Payments and monetisation
Stripe integration handles one-time course purchases, recurring subscription access, and payment plan models -- all without a platform transaction fee on top of Stripe's processing cost. Course bundles group multiple courses at a single price. Coupon and discount management for promotional campaigns. Revenue reporting per course and per instructor so you know exactly what is performing. Refund handling through the admin panel without manual Stripe dashboard work.
Instructor and creator tools
Instructor dashboard shows enrolment numbers, module completion rates, assessment performance, and revenue analytics in one place. Multi-instructor support with configurable revenue sharing splits -- useful for marketplace models or co-authored courses. Discussion thread management lets instructors respond to learner questions without leaving the platform. Student Q&A moderation tools keep course forums on topic and useful.
Certificate and credential management
Automated certificate generation fires on course completion with no manual admin work. Custom certificate design carries your branding, course name, completion date, and instructor signature. Blockchain-anchored credentials for professional certifications that need to be independently verifiable. Shareable LinkedIn credential links let learners add their completion directly to their profile, extending your reach to every learner's professional network.
Community and engagement features
Course-specific discussion forums and Q&A threads per lesson give learners a place to ask questions and connect with peers without leaving the platform. Cohort Slack or Discord integration for live cohort programmes where community happens off-platform. Peer assignment review for courses that include structured feedback from other learners. Live session scheduling for cohort courses integrates with your calendar tool so session links and reminders reach learners automatically.
Frequently asked questions
Off-the-shelf platforms make sense at the start: low setup cost, fast to launch, and enough features to validate your course business. Custom development makes sense when: (1) Transaction fees at your revenue volume cost more per year than a custom build would. (2) Your pricing model -- complex bundles, multi-tiered subscriptions, B2B site licences -- doesn't fit what the platform supports. (3) You need white-label delivery with your own domain, branding, and no third-party platform visible to learners. (4) You need learner data and analytics that go beyond what the platform exposes. (5) You're building a marketplace or multi-instructor platform where the standard tools don't fit the revenue-sharing or permission model you need. We scope every project and tell you honestly whether a custom build is justified at your current stage.
Yes. White-label and multi-tenant course platform development is one of the more common patterns we build. A white-label platform lets multiple instructors or organisations each have their own branded environment -- separate domain, separate branding, separate learner base -- all running on one codebase and infrastructure. Each tenant manages their own courses and learners. Revenue sharing, commission structures, and platform-level versus tenant-level permissions are all configurable. This is the right architecture for an ed-marketplace, a franchise training programme, or a SaaS course platform business where you sell access to the platform rather than selling courses directly.
We don't build our own video infrastructure. We integrate with purpose-built video hosting services -- typically Mux or Cloudflare Stream -- which handle adaptive bitrate transcoding, global CDN delivery, and storage at scale. This gives your learners reliable playback on any connection speed and any device without you managing video infrastructure. Chapter markers, progress tracking, resumable position, and playback speed controls are all built on top of the video player. For very large existing course libraries being migrated from another platform, we handle bulk video migration as part of the project.
A focused custom course platform -- course authoring, video hosting integration, learner progress tracking, Stripe payments, and certificate generation -- typically runs $20,000--$50,000. A full-featured platform adding multi-instructor support with revenue sharing, community forums, white-label multi-tenancy, affiliate programme, and mobile app delivery typically runs $50,000--$120,000. Cost depends on the number of content types, payment model complexity, multi-tenancy requirements, and whether a mobile app is in scope. We scope every project before pricing it.
Talk to us about your online course platform.
Tell us your current platform, your learner volume, your pricing model, and what your existing tool can't do. We'll scope the right platform and give you a fixed cost.
