Selling online courses and digital products is a huge industry. The online learning market was worth over $217 billion in 2023 and shows no signs of slowing down.
Entering this industry can feel overwhelming for solopreneurs, freelancers, and coaches, particularly if you have a small following or limited access to a marketing team.
The good news is that AI-powered platforms are changing this, automating the heavy lifting and enabling creators to attract the right customers (and package an online course/digital product), without needing to manually chase leads or build complicated funnels.
Platforms like Nas.io take things one step further by using AI tools like Magic Leads and Magic Reach to find users ready to buy and automate outreach. This not only allows creators to focus on making their content but also ensures decisions are made based on data rather than guesswork. This can work regardless of whether you’re creating courses, hosting coaching sessions, or building digital downloads.
In this guide, how to sell digital products online, from the 5 best AI-powered platforms for selling courses, to highlighting top features, pricing options, and explaining how you can simplify and automate course sales for your brand.
What Are AI-Powered Platforms for Selling Courses?
AI-powered platforms for selling courses are tools that use AI to automate tasks, including finding leads, marketing, follow-ups, and generally optimizing the sales funnel.
They’re helping to drive the $10 billion creator revolution, and help solopreneurs and small creators sell courses and digital products without needing to hire a big tech team or build a huge audience.
AI-powered platforms tend to include features such as:
- Lead Generation and Forecasting: AI can identify who is most likely to buy your course/product and when.
- Marketing Automation: You can use AI to create email sequences, follow-ups, and promotions automatically.
- Customer Segmentation: Divide customers based on behavior and engagement to increase personalized messaging.
- Sales Funnel Optimization: AI can assist with suggesting timing, pricing, and messaging to improve conversion rates.
Platforms like Nas.io can help you find customers and sell courses without needing to juggle multiple tools. For example, Nas.io’s Magic Leads can show which audience members are ready to buy, and Magic Reach can handle outreach and follow-ups.
Compared to traditional platforms, AI tools save creators time, increase accuracy, and allow them to make smarter decisions. This applies regardless of whether you’re selling a single course or digital products like templates and guides.
Why Solopreneurs & Creators Need AI for Selling Courses
Selling courses online can be really difficult without AI.
Challenges solopreneurs and creators often face include:
- Chasing Clients: Manually sending cold emails, DMs, and social outreach can take hours without concrete results.
- Tech Overwhelm: Creators may struggle managing multiple platforms for course creation, email marketing, and sales funnels.
- Manual Marketing: Deciding who to target, when to follow up, and how to price a course and promote it can be overwhelming.
AI can remove a lot of this friction, with tools like Nas.io automating outreach and follow-ups, and even suggesting optimized messaging to aid conversions. It reduces overwhelm and levels the playing field with bigger competitors, helping creators to scale their knowledge into profitable courses.
It can also help with providing a stable income, allowing solopreneurs to be confident even without a big audience. AI can provide freedom from time-for-money trade-offs, allowing more of a focus on creating highly informative courses that can be sold as recurring income.
Criteria for Choosing the Best Course Selling Platform with AI
Not all course platforms are the same, particularly when you’re looking to AI for help with selling and overall management.
Here are some key factors to consider when choosing the best AI-powered course-selling platform to ensure you decide on the best platform for you:
User-Friendliness for Non-Techy Creators
The platform you choose should be intuitive and easy to use – particularly if you don’t have a lot of coding experience.
Many platforms offer drag-and-drop editors, simple dashboards, and step-by-step set-ups to make launching your first course as easy as possible.
AI Features for Lead Generation, Marketing Automation, and Sales Optimization
It’s best to look for AI platforms that offer you a range of features, including:
- Lead generation tools to help you find and nurture potential buyers automatically
- Audience segmentation to filter customers based on behavior and interests
- Automated follow-ups to reduce manual time and introduce drip campaigns
Ability to Package Various Digital Products (Courses, Coaching, Challenges)
You want to choose a platform that supports a range of functions, including multi-module online courses, coaching or consulting sessions, and downloadable guides or challenges.
Selecting a tool that offers you the ability to package different digital products lets you diversify your offering and test what your audience responds best to.
It also means you won’t need to switch platforms if your business grows to offer new digital formats.
Pricing and Scalability for Solopreneurs and Small Creators
While extensive tools are important, it’s also key to choose a platform that fits your current budget and can grow with you.
Some AI platforms charge per active user, while others offer a flat rate. Make sure you choose a platform that you can not only afford, but that you won’t outgrow as your courses scale.
Integration Options and Support Resources
The best tools offer good integration options with other tools like email marketing platforms, payment processors, and analytics platforms. Instead of stitching together multiple tools, platforms like Nas.io use AI to find customers and sell courses seamlessly.
It’s also important to ensure that the platform offers good support resources and tutorials, especially if you’re new to selling courses or using AI course platforms.
Top 5 AI-Powered Platforms for Selling Courses and Digital Products
Here are the best AI platforms for selling courses and digital products that combine course-selling with automation features.
Whether you’re selling one course or a full digital pack, these options will help relieve you of many of the manual efforts you’re currently focusing on and allow you to scale your online course/digital products business.
Nas.io
Nas.io is built for solopreneurs, freelancers, coaches, consultants, and mompreneurs who don’t have large audiences or extensive tech skills. It uses AI to remove marketing guesswork, automate outreach, and improve follow-ups to increase course sales faster, even for solopreneurs new to selling online.
Key AI features include:
- Magic Leads: AI helps you find potential buyers automatically, who are in the right place in their buying journey.
- Magic Reach: Offers automated outreach and follow-ups, reducing manual burden on you / your team.
- Get Inspired AI: Produces product ideas based on your audience, giving opportunities for new revenue streams.
- All-In-One Dashboard: Provides course creation, payment processing, automated follow-ups, lead generation, and analytics from one intuitive dashboard.
Nas.io is best for creators ready to launch courses / digital products without needing to build separate tools for marketing or communities. It’s ideal for solopreneurs with small followings or without tech skills, allowing you to start packaging and selling courses without needing to spend heavily on ads to start scaling your business.
Thinkific
Thinkific is a popular course platform that offers easy course creation and marketing integrations. It’s gradually integrating automation and AI features into its platform, and is useful for creators looking to explore email automation and drip campaigns.
Key AI features include:
- AI chatbot/quizzes via add-ons for reducing admin overhead and nurturing leads
- Offers various marketing integrations to improve email automation campaigns and sales funnels
Thinkific is best for creators looking to prioritise ease of use, and who are looking for a solid course-creator that provides room to grow for automation.
It’s important to consider that you may need to integrate multiple tools with Thinkific to access full automation, as it’s a much less ‘out-of-the-box’ option than Nas.io.
Kajabi
Kajabi is an all-in-one platform for courses, membership sites, digital products, email marketing, and funnel building. While a higher cost than other tools, it’s useful for those familiar with creating courses and seeking the next step for their online business.
Key AI features include:
- AI-based customer tracking and behavior-driven marketing messages
- Useful for creating digital products beyond courses, such as ebooks and templates
- Integrated payment and membership management
Kajabi is best for creators with varied digital offerings who are looking to scale, invest, and grow their business from one dashboard.
However, Kajabi is more expensive than other tools and may be more than a beginner requires from an AI-powered course/digital product creator.
Podia
Podia is a platform focused on creators selling courses, memberships, digital downloads, and coaching. It’s useful for those seeking automated email sequences powered by user behavior, and a user-friendly platform that keeps everything in one place.
Key AI features include:
- AI chat and marketing tools for engagement
- Automated sequences triggered by user behavior
- Ability to produce digital products beyond courses
Podia is best for creators with varied digital offerings who are looking for a simple platform that encompasses a range of tools in one platform.
It’s important to consider that Podia lacks some advanced AI lead generation features found in platforms like Nas.io, and is a tool more focused on course/digital product creation.
LearnWorlds
LearnWorlds is a platform noted for its AI-powered LMS capabilities, and is good for creators looking for strong engagement and automation features.
Key AI features include:
- AI assistant for building and improving courses
- Automation for upselling and course completion reminders
- AI analytics on student engagement + personalized recommendations
LearnWorlds is best suited to creators seeking a deep learning experience, alongside reliable sales automation. It’s particularly good for those looking to deliver more advanced training or certification options for their customers.
However, LearnWorlds may be overwhelming to creators just starting or those starting with smaller courses or minimal marketing options.
Quick Comparison Table
| Platform | Best AI Features | Ideal For | Typical Entry Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nas.io | AI lead generation, outreach, and product ideas | Solopreneurs, freelancers, coaches, consultants, and mompreneurs with niche audiences | From $20.75 / month |
| Thinkific | AI Chat / Quizzes and marketing integrations | Beginners to growing creators | From $36 / month |
| Kajabi | Full funnel automation and behavior-driven AI | Scaling creators seeking an ‘all-in-one’ platform | Free plan, paid plans start from $71 / month |
| Podia | Automated email and multi-product support | Creators with courses and templates | From $33 / month |
| LearnWorlds | AI content creation and analytics | Advanced creators/training pros | From $24 / month |
How to Get Started Selling Courses with AI Today
Getting started with selling courses via AI platforms may seem overwhelming, but hopefully, we’ve given you a good starting point with the above tips and platform recommendations.
Before building anything, make sure you validate your course idea quickly. This can involve asking your audience what problems they’ve faced that need solving, or running a small survey/poll to gauge interest in your ideas.
You can use AI tools like Nas.io’s Get Inspired to see which content resonates with your audience and what has sales potential.
Package your offer by deciding which type of product you want to offer, whether it be courses, coaching, challenges, or digital products. You can then start attracting customers automatically using AI features like Magic Leads and Magic Reach to attract the right customers without needing a big budget or social media following.
When you’re ready to go, you can automate sales funnels and follow-ups to maximize revenue with minimal effort, and track/optimize your sales performance with AI analytics. This data will help you identify which emails are driving sales, which products/courses perform best, and where you can improve your messaging or pricing.
Nas.io combines the above steps into one single platform, negating the need for multiple tools, an expensive marketing team, or a huge following. Start a free trial with Nas.io today to start focusing your expertise while AI handles the heavy lifting.
Build your business smarter with AI. Nas.io helps solopreneurs find customers and sell online — without needing followers or code.
FAQ
What is the platform for selling courses with AI?
Nas.io is the best platform for selling courses with AI if you’re a solopreneur, freelancer, or creator looking for an all-encompassing AI tool that handles lead generation, automated outreach, and course creation in one platform.
Can I sell digital products and courses without technical skills?
Yes, you can sell digital products/courses without technical skills, particularly when using a platform like Nas.io. This platform enables you to create, package, and sell courses without coding knowledge, plus you can automate emails, funnels, and customer dashboards within an intuitive, user-friendly tool.
How does AI help automate course marketing and sales?
AI helps automate course marketing and sales by predicting which customers are most likely to buy and when. They also usually offer audience segmentation for personalized messaging and optimize pricing to increase conversion rates.
Is it possible to find customers for my course without a social media following?
It is possible to find customers for your course without having a large social media following. Tools like Nas.io’s Magic Leads and Magic Reach allow you to find the perfect buyers for your products, while also automating outreach, allowing you to build a community without first needing a large following.
How much do AI-powered course platforms typically cost?
AI-powered course platforms typically cost from $20 per month, with pricing increasing based on the extent of features and the number of users required.
