What is Ruzuku? Platform overview
Ruzuku is an online course platform that helps coaches, trainers, and educators create, sell, and teach courses. It handles course content, payments, enrollment, live sessions, and student engagement in one place, with zero transaction fees on all plans. More than 2,000 creators have used Ruzuku to build 75,000+ courses, serve 1 million+ students, and earn over $40 million in revenue.
Who Ruzuku is for
Ruzuku is built for people who teach. That includes:
- Independent coaches and consultants running group programs or certification courses
- Trainers and workshop leaders moving their teaching online (or blending online with in-person)
- Subject matter experts turning their knowledge into a course business
- Organizations that need a branded, multi-instructor learning platform for their team or clients
- Authors, therapists, and creatives who want to teach without wrestling with complicated software
If you've been thinking about creating an online course but the tech feels overwhelming, Ruzuku was designed with you in mind. The platform handles the technical details so you can focus on your students.
What you can do with Ruzuku
Ruzuku follows a five-step workflow: Create, Sell, Register, Welcome, and Engage. Here's what each step looks like in practice.
Create your course content
Build your course using modules (sections) and lessons (individual content pages). Each lesson can include:
- Written text with formatting, images, and links
- Video (upload directly to Ruzuku — no separate hosting needed)
- Audio files
- Downloadable files like PDFs, worksheets, and slides
- Discussion prompts where students can respond and share their work
- Assignments that students submit for your review
You can choose from three course formats:
- Full Access — students see all content immediately (self-paced)
- Calendar-Based Release Dates — modules unlock on specific dates (for cohort programs where everyone starts together)
- Individual Release Dates — modules unlock based on when each student enrolls (for evergreen courses)
Ruzuku also supports live meetings built directly into the platform. You can host video conferences for up to 60 participants or presentations for up to 250, without leaving Ruzuku. If you prefer Zoom, connect your account and schedule Zoom sessions from inside your course.
Sell your course
Set up payments by connecting Stripe (recommended) or PayPal. Then create one or more price points for your course:
- Free enrollment (no payment required)
- Single payment (one-time charge)
- Payment plan (monthly installments — Stripe only)
- Subscription (recurring monthly or annual — Stripe only)
You can also create coupons for discounts and free trials, add upsells to your checkout page, set up course bundles, offer gift certificates, and track affiliate sales.
Ruzuku charges zero transaction fees on all plans. You only pay standard Stripe or PayPal processing fees (around 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction). Every dollar your students pay goes to you, minus the payment processor's standard rate.
Register students through your sales page
Every course includes a built-in sales page where students can read about your course and enroll. You write the description, set your pricing, and share the link. Students see a clean, mobile-friendly page with an enroll button.
You can also invite students for free by email, which is useful for beta testers, scholarship students, or people who paid outside of Ruzuku.
If you need custom enrollment fields (like "Company name" or "What's your experience level?"), Profile Fields are available on the Pro plan.
Welcome your students
When a student enrolls, Ruzuku sends them a welcome email automatically. You can customize this message to set expectations, share how the course works, and link to the first lesson.
You can also schedule course-wide messages to go out at specific times, like a "Week 1 check-in" email or a reminder about an upcoming live session.
Engage your community
Teaching online works best when students feel connected. Ruzuku gives you several ways to build that connection:
- Discussion forums for Q&A, peer interaction, and community building
- Discussion prompts on individual lessons so students respond to specific questions
- Live meetings (built-in video or Zoom) for real-time teaching, coaching, and Q&A
- Assignments with a review workflow so you can give students individual feedback
- Scheduled messages to nudge students forward and keep them engaged
These tools are especially valuable for cohort-based courses, where a group moves through the material together on a shared schedule.
What makes Ruzuku different
Zero transaction fees
Ruzuku does not charge transaction fees on any plan. Free, Core, or Pro. Your revenue is your revenue. The only fees are the standard processing charges from Stripe or PayPal.
Most course platforms charge 5-10% per transaction on their lower-tier plans, or require expensive plans to eliminate fees. Ruzuku's approach is simpler: one subscription price, no revenue share.
Simplicity-first design
Ruzuku was founded on the principle that online teaching should be "ridiculously easy." The interface is clean and focused. You won't find dozens of settings panels or features you need to configure before you can launch. Most creators go from signing up to publishing a course in a single day.
The Manage Course menu (open it with Cmd+K on Mac or Ctrl+K on Windows) gives you access to everything in your course from one place: content, sales, student management, and settings.
Built-in live sessions
Host live video sessions directly inside your course, without a separate tool. Ruzuku's built-in meetings support video conferences for up to 60 people and presentations for up to 250. If you already use Zoom, you can connect your Zoom account and manage everything from inside Ruzuku.
Designed for cohort courses
Many course platforms are built primarily for self-paced content. Ruzuku handles self-paced courses well, but it also has strong support for scheduled, cohort-based programs where a group of students moves through the material together. Calendar-Based Release Dates, scheduled messages, live meetings, and discussion forums all work together for this model.
Real human support
Ruzuku is known for responsive, personal support. When you email support@ruzuku.com, a real person responds, usually within a few hours during business hours (Mon-Fri, 10am-6pm ET). The team also runs weekly Office Hours where you can drop in for live help, ask questions, and get feedback on your course. Join here to see upcoming sessions.
Plans and pricing
Ruzuku offers three plans:
| Free | Core | Pro | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $0 | $99/mo (or $997/yr) | $199/mo (or $1,997/yr) |
| Students | Up to 5 | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Courses | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Transaction fees | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| Live meetings | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Custom domain | — | — | Yes |
| Multiple instructors | — | — | Yes |
| Certificates | — | — | Yes |
| Custom branding | — | — | Yes |
Free lets you build and publish a course with up to 5 students. It's a good way to test the platform before committing.
Core removes the student limit and gives you everything you need to run a full course business: unlimited courses, unlimited students, payment plans, subscriptions, coupons, upsells, live meetings, and more.
Pro adds white-label features for established businesses and organizations: custom domain, custom branding, certificates of completion, multiple instructor accounts, digital products, a storefront, and custom terminology throughout your site.
All plans include zero transaction fees. For full details, see Ruzuku Pricing: Plans, Features, and What's Included.
The story behind Ruzuku
Ruzuku was founded by Abe Crystal, who holds a PhD in Human-Computer Interaction from UNC-Chapel Hill and an AB in Economics from Princeton. His academic research focused on how people actually learn and how technology can support that process.
That research informed a specific point of view: the best learning happens when technology gets out of the way and lets teachers teach. Course platforms shouldn't require a technical team to set up or weeks of configuration to launch. They should be simple enough that a coach, trainer, or expert can build a course and start teaching the same day.
That philosophy shapes every product decision at Ruzuku. Features are added when they help creators teach more effectively. Complexity is avoided when it doesn't serve the student experience.