Have a course and want to share it with your students? Need a way to streamline your course content delivery? This guide will walk you through the basics of getting your first course Hub up and running for your students.
🧰 Features Covered
🔖 Be sure to bookmark back to refer these instructions as you’re implementing this guide!
Guide Purpose
Have a course and want to share it with your students? Need a way to streamline your course content delivery? This guide will walk you through the basics of getting your first course Hub up and running for your students.
Are you fuzzy on what a Hub is?
Check out our thorough overview into what a Hub is, what a Hub is used for and how many you need.
➡️ Feel free to click on any link to dive deeper into what’s being mentioned.
How to build a course on Membership.io
- Activate and prepare your Membership.io account
- Upload your video and audio content into your library
- Organize your Content Library
- Create your course Hub and your module Playlists
- Finish designing and customizing your course Hub
- Finalize your payment process
- Share your Hub with your students
- Take it further
‼️ A note if you have multiple courses
We recommend building out one course at a time.
If you have multiple courses, deciding whether to keep them in one Hub or separate Hubs depends on factors like content volume, student overlap, and branding consistency.
Segments allow you to manage multiple courses in a single Hub, but that doesn’t always mean it’s the best choice.
- If one course is significantly larger than others, separating it may create a more organized experience. Likewise, if your audiences differ, distinct Hubs can help maintain clarity and personalization. Consistent branding across courses makes it easier to keep them together, while varied branding may benefit from separate Hubs.
- Group similar courses together and consider bundling them with a single pricing plan.
- Cohort-based courses (e.g., a 12-week guided program) might be best kept separate from evergreen courses to reduce maintenance.
When unsure, default to separate Hubs—this approach offers more flexibility for scaling and restructuring later.
Part 1 - Activate and prepare your Membership.io account
Activate the right subscription to support your migration needs.
Before you dive in, you’ll need to make sure you have activated a paid subscription that matches your course needs. You can select from four subscription plans depending on what you need:
- Start Plan - $49 monthly or $490 annual
Includes up to 50 hours of video/audio storage and 1 Hub.
- Grow Plan - $119 monthly or $1190 annual
Includes up to 250 hours of video/audio storage and 3 Hubs.
- Scale Plan - $219 monthly or $2190 annual
Includes up to 500 hours of video/audio storage and 10 Hubs.
- Enterprise Plan - starts at $5000 annual
Unlimited hours of video/audio storage and unlimited Hubs.
Once your account has been activated, watch this quick account tour to get more familiar with the backend of Membership.io. You’ll be spending lots of time here, so we don’t recommend skipping this step.
Part 2 - Upload your video and audio content into your Library
Move any video or audio content into your Membership.io Library.
There are two ways to upload content into your Membership.io account. The process you’ll need to take to get your content into your account depends on where your content is currently hosted:
- Importing from a supported media application
If you have existing video or audio content stored in a supported media application, you can bring your existing content into your Membership.io account in a few simple clicks by connecting your media application(s) to your Membership account. You will connect your App in the Apps tab and control which files you import in the Library tab.
- Uploading content from other sources and your computer
If your content is not stored on a supported media application, you can upload it from your content. If your content isn’t currently on your computer, you’ll want to download your files from your current video hosting platform so that it lives on your computer. From there, your files can be uploaded into Membership.io from your computer.
🚨 Before uploading any content, head to the Transcripts page inside of your Membership.io account to populate your custom vocabulary list. This simple step will help boost your transcription accuracy.
📂 Content uploaded will be sorted in Folders.
Folders are used to help you internally sort and manage your files. Content imported from a supported media source will appear in Folders created by your media app. Your members will not see your Folders. We recommend sorting your content into folders based on the type of deliverable or content type each file belongs to.
Each file will be placed in a maximum of one Folder. An example of how your folders could be organized:
- Folder #1 - Module 1
- Folder #2 - Module 2
- Folder #3 - Module 3
- Folder #4 - Module 4
- Folder #5 - Module 5
- Folder #6 - Bonus Material
- Folder #7 - Live Q&A Call Replays
You can create as many Folders as you need to keep your content organized. 👍
Part 3 - Organize your Content Library
Upload thumbnails, adjust descriptions and attach supporting documents and resources.
Creating and maintaining a centralized content library is one of the easiest ways to take total control of your existing and future content. 💪
🚨 If you don't have any content just yet, you can skip this step and come back to it once you have content that you're uploading into your Membership.io account.
Once all your video and audio content has been imported, you’ll want to take the time to organize your content, tag files based on what topics they fall under, update descriptions, and upload any supporting documents and attachments.
📑 Add file descriptions, attachments and video thumbnails
You can customize each file’s description, chapters, thumbnail and attachments inside the File Manager. You can also use Copilot to generate file summaries with a little help from AI.
📝 Review your transcripts
Each video and audio file uploaded into your account is automatically transcribed and captioned by AI. You can use the transcript editor to make any necessary changes.
🏷️ Tag your content for granular organization
While Membership.io does not have subfolder capabilities, you can utilize content tags as a more granular form of content organization for further organization.
🎞️ Setup content automations
Membership.io can automatically send any video files to the right destination(s) using content automations. Any content currently in a folder or with a specific tag can be auto-delivered to your members inside your Hub. This allows you to get content like your Zoom recordings straight to your audience as soon as your call is uploaded. 🤯You can automate your Playlists based on Folders or Content Tags.
Part 4 - Create your course Hub and your module Playlists
With your content organized, it's time to create your Hub.
A Hub is where your students go to access your course content. It is a private site, meaning your Hub is gated by a login and password. Learn more about what a Hub is here.
🖥️ Create your Hub
Head to the Hubs tab of your Membership.io account to create a new Hub. You have the option to build a Hub from scratch or to use a Hub template.
🚨 NOTE: Once you select a template, you won't be able to swap to another template.
🚪Open your Hub editor
Once you create your Hub, you’ll be taken to your Hub dashboard. You’ll want to click Customize to open the Hub Editor where you will be building your Hub.
Inside your Hub editor you’ll find the following tabs on the left side:
- 📄 Pages: This is where you can open your default and custom Hub pages. You can create and link as many custom Hub pages as you need.
- 🎞️ Content: This is where you'll group your video and audio content into Playlists.
- 📝 Attributes: Audience Attributes allow you to collect and use information about your members.
- 🎨 Appearance: The Appearance menu allows you to make changes to your Hub's logos, colours, fonts and more.
- 🤖 Wisdom: The AI Chat Plugin or Wisdom allows you to create an AI chatbot trained on your content.
📼 Create your Playlists
You can use Playlists to group your content together. Open the Content Tab inside the Hub editor to create Playlists for your video and audio content.
You can also add any resources or downloads to your Playlists or files (non-video/audio deliverables) as attachments inside your Hub Content.
Here’s an example of what Playlists a course creator building a 4 module course on gardening would create:
- Module 1 - Priming & Designing Your Garden
- Module 2 - Buying Your Plants
- Module 3 - Planting
- Module 4 - Maintaining Your Garden
- Q&A Call Replays
- Garden Masterclasses
- Bonus Resources
🏠 Build your Hub homepage
Once your Playlists and content are ready, we can turn our attention to your Hub pages. There are two types of pages: default pages and custom Hub pages. It’s a good idea to take the time before you start building your Hub to read through and understand the different types of pages.
Hub pages - including your Homepage - are built using Sections. Sections are containers of content that can include any element such as one video, several videos, an image, a block of text, or a combination of different elements.
- The ⚙️Settings menu next to any Section allows you to configure what elements that Section has.
- The 🖌️Styling menu next to any Section allows you to customize how that Section appears.
There are two different categories of Sections. Content sections are best for Playlists and individual files. Layout sections are best for things like a welcome message, a body of text, or a mix-and-match of different elements.
Should each module live as a Playlist or a custom page?
Whether you create a playlist or a custom page depends on how much content you have:
- If all your module content fits inside one category, consider creating a playlist for that module, and connecting it to the feature section on your homepage.
- If your module consists of multiple categories of content, consider creating a page dedicated to that module content and connecting that custom module page to your feature section on your homepage.
Start with your Homepage. The Homepage is the first page your students will land on once they login to your Hub. We recommend keeping all your course modules linked on your Homepage so your students have a clear view of your course content.
Here’s an example and description of how you can layout your Homepage:
Hero (welcome) banner that welcomes your students to the Hub.
- Add a button in your Hero Banner to connect your course workbook via URL.
- Use a Layout section for this.
One section per module of your course. This section can link to a single file, a playlist inside your Hub, or a custom page.
- Use a Feature section for this. Select between a File, Playlist or Page depending on how your course is set up.
- In this example we rotated between left alignment and right alignment.
📄 Build additional Hub pages
Once your Homepage is done, you can build custom Hub pages to organize your content as you see fit.
Here’s an example of other Hub pages you can build:
- 📚 Resource Library page that includes a Grid Section with links to different PDFs.
- 🎞️ Call Replays page that includes several Playlists organized as Scroll Sections for deliverables such as Q&A Calls, Guest Workshops, and Masterclasses.
- 🎁 Bonuses page that includes gifts that you’ve offered specific cohorts of students/members.
- 📍 Start Here page that includes content geared towards beginners.
📑 Customize your default Hub pages
Once your custom Hub pages have been created, open the Pages tab inside of your Hub editor to review and customize the following default pages that are included with every private Hub:
- Register: The first page your audience will see when registering for a Hub. It collects your member's email field.
- Login: What your audience will first see when they land on a private Hub. The information provided on this page is linked to the permissions granted within your Audiences.
- Onboarding: Your members must complete this page before they land on your Homepage for the first time.
- Discussions: Your own private community forum. 💬
- Audience Directory: This directory is built using your Audience Attributes as filters.
- Playlist: Default view once someone clicks into a Playlist.
- Media: Default view once someone clicks to watch/listen to a media file.
Part 5 - Finish designing and customizing your Hub
Once your Hub shell and content have been set up, you’ll want to turn your attention to the overall Hub appearance and settings.
🎨 Appearance Menu
Access the Appearance Menu to make changes to the fonts, primary colours, button styles and logos used inside your Hub. These are the big site-wide appearance changes. You can also click on the Styling menu inside of every Section to control the appearance of individual elements.
🔒💰🏆 Hub Settings
Exit the Hub editor to configure your Hub settings. Your Hub dashboard gives you the option to control your Hub’s custom domain, member payments, transactional emails, privacy settings and badges. At minimum you’ll want to make sure your Hub is set to private. Most creators opt to also connect a custom domain.
Part 6 - Finalize your payment process
The payment process is one of the most important elements of hosting your course on Membership.io. 💸
You have three options for collecting payments:
- Collect payments with Stripe
Membership.io has an integration with Stripe that you can use to automate create collect payments and create accounts for anyone who wants to sign up for your Hub. The Stripe integration also allows members to automatically cancel their subscriptions through the Customer Portal.
- Collect payments with Kit
Membership.io has built-in Kit automations that you can use to add someone to a Hub once they are added to a specific list (or get a specific tag) inside of Kit.
- Use Zapier to connect an external cart to collect payments
If you're not using Stripe or Kit, don't worry! Lots of members keep their payment systems separate from their Membership Hubs. You can use Zapier to set up any automations to grant and remove Hub access using another shopping cart.
Part 7 - Share your course with your students 🚀
There are two ways your audience can access your course Hub:
- Existing students can be added to your Audiences. You can add students to the Audiences tab of your Membership.io account and grant them Hub access. This allows them to bypass the checkout page if they're done paying for your course.
- New students will need to sign up. You can have your students sign up through your Registration page. Be sure Registration is toggled on. Otherwise, your students will not be able to create an account.
You can find your Hub's link inside the Hub editor by heading to the ↗ arrow and clicking on the 🔗 button as pictured below:
Take it further…
Congratulations! 👏You’ve successfully launched your course Hub. Way to go! Here are some next steps you can take:
- 👋 Customize your Onboarding page with Attributes and videos
To dive further into adding custom onboarding and audience segmentation into your Hub, check out our Custom Onboarding Guide for a step-by-step walkthrough.
➡️See the Onboarding Guide for more information.
- 🎁 Show your members individualized content recommendations.
Membership.io allows you to control who sees what inside of your private Hub. You can show members content that is specific to either their preferences or their purchases - or both!
➡️See the Personalization Guide for more information.