Create a course
In this article: How to create a new course on Ruzuku — choose your starting point, give it a title, and start building. All Plans
Choose Your Starting Point
When you click New Course, you'll see three options:
- Create a course — A full course with discussions, chats, live meetings, and assessments. This is the right choice for most course creators.
- Create a product — Sell structured content like eBooks, video bundles, or service packages. Products don't include community features like discussions or meetings. Pro
- Browse Instant Courses — Explore 30+ professionally-designed courses you can customize and make your own. Instant courses come with pre-built modules, lessons, and content ready to go.
For most creators, Create a course is the right starting point. Here's how it works:
Create a Course
- Go to your Courses page at courses.ruzuku.com.
- Click New Course in the top right corner.
- Select Create a course.
- Choose how you want to start:
- Start with a template — Pick from coaching, mini-course, or flagship course templates. Templates come with sample modules and lessons already in place, so you can swap in your own content.
- Start blank — Create an empty course and build everything from scratch.
- Enter a title for your course.
- Set your privacy and community preferences. These control which community features your students can access:
- People page — Show or hide the student roster (hiding this also disables chat)
- Chats — Let students chat with each other
- Discussions page — Show or hide discussion forums
- Student-created discussions — Allow students to start new discussion threads
- Click Create course.
You'll land in the lesson editor with your first module and lesson already created. The lesson includes a welcome message template you can customize or replace with your own content.
Tip: Don't worry about getting the title perfect right now. You can rename your course at any time from Manage Course → Rename Course (or press Cmd+K / Ctrl+K to open the command palette).
What Happens Next
After creating your course, you can work through these steps in any order:
- Choose your access format — Full Access (self-paced), Calendar-Based (drip by date), or Individual Release Dates. Your course defaults to Full Access, where all modules are available immediately.
- Create modules and lessons to build out your content
- Set up payments through Stripe or PayPal
- Build your sales page so students can find and enroll
- Open for enrollment when you're ready
For a step-by-step walkthrough, see Step 1: Create your course content in the Getting Started guide.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I create more than one course?
Yes. There's no limit to the number of courses you can create on any Ruzuku plan.
What's the difference between a course and a product?
A course includes community features: discussions, chats, live meetings, and assessments. A product is for selling structured content (eBooks, video bundles, service packages) without the community layer. Products are available on Ruzuku Pro.
What's the difference between a blank course and a template?
A blank course starts empty, so you build everything from scratch. A template course comes with sample modules, lessons, and placeholder content already set up. Templates are helpful if you want to see how a course is structured before creating your own content. You can edit or delete any of the template content.
Can I change the course title later?
Yes. Open the Manage Course menu (Cmd+K on Mac, Ctrl+K on Windows) and click Rename Course. Your new title updates everywhere, including your sales page.
Can I change the privacy and community settings later?
Yes. Go to Course Settings to toggle discussions, chats, and the people page on or off at any time.