ChatGPT answers, unedited

For cohort-based classes, you usually don’t need a full “course empire” platform at the beginning. The cheapest route is often to combine a simple course host + community + payments. The right choice depends on whether your class is mostly live interaction or content delivery.

Here are inexpensive options worth considering:

My recommendation by stage

If this is your first cohort and you’re validating demand:

• Use Zoom + Discord/Slack + Stripe payment links + Google Drive/Notion.
• Spend almost nothing.
• Focus on getting testimonials and refining the curriculum.

If you want a polished experience but can’t afford big SaaS fees:

• Look at Maven if you want cohort-native tools and don’t mind revenue share. Maven
• Look at Teachery or Thinkific if you want to own the customer relationship and keep more revenue. Teachery LearnStream

If your value comes from peer interaction/community:

• A community platform like Circle may fit better than a traditional LMS because students spend more time talking, sharing work, and networking. Circle

A simple low-cost stack I’ve seen work well:

• Landing page: Carrd or your own website
• Checkout: Stripe payment link
• Live sessions: Zoom
• Curriculum: Notion or Google Docs
• Community: Discord/Slack/Circle
• Recordings: YouTube unlisted, Vimeo, or cloud storage

One thing to watch: a platform with a low monthly price but a percentage fee can become expensive once you sell higher-ticket cohorts. A 5–10% revenue share feels cheap at $2,000 in sales but hurts at $50,000+. Teachery Maven

If you tell me your expected cohort size, price per student, and whether it’s live-only or includes videos, I can narrow this to the cheapest setup that won’t paint you into a corner.

If you’re selling cohort-based classes (live sessions, community, accountability, start/end dates), you can often avoid expensive “all-in-one” platforms. The cheapest option is usually a lightweight stack rather than a full LMS. Ruzuku LearnStream

Here are good inexpensive options to evaluate:

Teachfloor Teachfloor## Lowest-cost setup I’d consider

If you’re testing your first few cohorts, a “stack” can be cheaper:

• Landing page: carrd.co or convertkit.com
• Payments: stripe.com payment links or checkout
• Live classes: zoom.us or meet.google.com
• Community: discord.com, slack.com, or Circle
• Content/files: notion.so, Google Drive, or a simple course host

This can get you running for close to the cost of your existing software subscriptions, while you validate demand.

My shortlist by situation

• You have no audience and want discovery: Maven may be worth the revenue share. Ruzuku
• You already have an audience/email list: Circle + Stripe + Zoom is often economical.
• You want to run cohorts now but later sell recordings: Thinkific, Podia, or Teachable are safer long-term homes.
• You want the absolute cheapest MVP: Stripe + Zoom + Discord/Slack + Notion.

A useful rule: don’t pay for “academy” features until you have enough students that admin time becomes your bottleneck. A $500/month platform only makes sense if it saves more than $500/month in labor or helps you sell significantly more seats.

If you tell me your expected cohort size, price per student, and whether you already have an audience, I can narrow this down to the cheapest setup that won’t paint you into a corner.

Yes. If your main goal is cohort-based classes without getting eaten alive by platform fees, I’d look at these in roughly this order:

Pricing varies by billing cycle and changes frequently, so treat those as current ballparks rather than quotes. www.ruzuku.com

My picks for your situation

1. Ruzuku — if you're validating the idea

This is the one I'd investigate if you literally can't afford much upfront. Its free tier supports up to 5 students, and it has cohort-friendly features such as scheduled content and discussion. www.ruzuku.com

You could run your first tiny cohort there, use Zoom/Google Meet for live sessions, and avoid committing to a $100+/month software stack.

2. Thinkific — best inexpensive "real business" option

Thinkific's current Basic plan is $40/month when billed annually, and its Start plan—which adds live cohorts and coaching, Zoom sessions, assignments, payment plans, and memberships—is $82/month annually. www.thinkific.com

That's attractive if you're expecting to sell enough seats that percentage-based fees become painful.

3. Teachfloor — best actual cohort platform

If the cohort experience itself is the product—weekly assignments, peer interaction, feedback, community, etc.—Teachfloor is probably the strongest fit. Current comparisons put it around $89/month with Stripe fees rather than an additional platform percentage. www.ruzuku.comwww.teachfloor.com

4. Maven — interesting if you don't already have an audience

Maven is purpose-built for cohort-based courses and can provide marketplace discovery. The tradeoff is that you give up a percentage of sales rather than paying only a monthly SaaS fee. www.ruzuku.com

That's actually a good trade if Maven helps you fill seats—but a bad trade if you're already bringing all your students yourself.

An even cheaper approach

You don't necessarily need a "cohort platform."

For a first cohort, you can build a surprisingly professional setup with:

Stripe/PayPal → Zoom/Google Meet → Google Drive/Notion → private Discord/Slack → email

Then your only meaningful software costs are payment processing and whatever you're already using.

Once you have, say, 10–20 students paying $300–$1,000 each, I'd move to something like Thinkific or Teachfloor if the manual administration starts becoming annoying.

One thing I'd avoid: choosing a platform solely because it has a $9/month or free plan. A 5–10% transaction fee can become dramatically more expensive than a $40–$90 monthly subscription once you're selling a decent-sized cohort. For example, at $10,000 in cohort revenue, a 7.5% platform fee is $750.

If you tell me (1) your expected price per student, (2) roughly how many students per cohort, and (3) whether you need community/peer discussion, I can narrow this down to the cheapest setup for your specific economics.

Absolutely. If your priority is “I want to run live cohorts without giving a big chunk of revenue to the platform,” I’d avoid expensive all-in-one platforms at first.

Here are the options I’d look at:

Current 2026 comparisons put GroupApp around $39/month, Mighty Networks around $41/month annually, Teachfloor around $89/month, and Circle around $89/month. www.disco.cowww.teachfloor.com

My top 3 for your situation

1. Maven — best if you're just validating the idea

Maven is interesting because you can start without a monthly platform subscription and instead give up a percentage of sales. That's attractive if you don't yet know whether you'll sell 5 seats or 50. The tradeoff is that revenue share becomes expensive once you're selling substantial cohorts. www.ruzuku.com

For example, on a $1,000 cohort, a 10% fee is $100. If you sell 20 seats, that's $2,000 in fees—at which point a flat-fee platform starts looking much better.

2. Teachfloor — best purpose-built option

If the cohort itself is the product—weekly live classes, assignments, peer feedback, progress tracking, etc.—I'd seriously investigate Teachfloor. It's specifically designed around collaborative/cohort learning rather than retrofitting a normal course platform. Current comparisons put it at about $89/month. www.teachfloor.com

3. DIY stack — best if money is really tight

You don't actually need a dedicated cohort platform.

You could run:

• Stripe → payments
• Zoom/Google Meet → live classes
• Google Drive/Notion → curriculum and resources
• Discord/Slack → cohort community
• Google Forms/Tally → applications
• ConvertKit/MailerLite/etc. → email

That can get you surprisingly far for almost no fixed cost. The downside is that you become the integration layer.

One option I'd be careful with

Circle is excellent if your business is fundamentally a community with courses/events attached, but at ~$89/month plus transaction fees, I'd probably wait until you've validated the cohort. www.heartbeat.chat

Likewise, Kajabi is powerful, but if you're specifically trying to minimize costs, you're paying for a lot of marketing/business infrastructure you may not need yet. Its current plans include cohorts, funnels, email, websites, etc., but that's overkill for many first cohorts. www.kajabi.com

What I'd do if I were starting from scratch

First cohort: DIY or Maven
↓
Consistently selling cohorts: Teachfloor / GroupApp
↓
Cohort + recurring community becomes the business: Circle / Mighty Networks

The key question is how much you're charging per student and how many students you expect per cohort. If you tell me something like “$500/student, 15–25 students, 6-week cohort”, I can calculate the actual fees for each option and tell you which one gives you the highest take-home revenue.

Yes. If your main concern is keeping platform costs close to zero, I’d avoid the big all-in-one platforms at first. Cohort classes are unusual because you often don’t need sophisticated course hosting—you need checkout + scheduled content + community + live calls.

Here’s how I’d narrow it down:

Pricing changes frequently, so I'd verify the exact plan before committing. Current 2026 comparisons put Ruzuku at a free entry level, Thinkific around $36+, Teachable around $29+, and Teachfloor around $89/month. www.ruzuku.com

My top 3 for your situation

1. Maven — best if you have $0 budget upfront

This is probably the most interesting option if you're testing whether people will buy your cohort. There's no monthly subscription; instead, Maven takes a percentage when you make a sale. It is specifically designed around live cohort courses rather than trying to retrofit a traditional course platform. www.guideflow.com

The downside is obvious: once you're selling substantial volume, a percentage of revenue can become much more expensive than a flat monthly subscription.

2. Ruzuku — best inexpensive purpose-built option

If you already have an audience and don't need a platform to help you find students, Ruzuku is worth a serious look. It supports scheduled/dripped content, discussions, cohort-style delivery, and live sessions without taking a percentage of your sales. www.ruzuku.com

3. Thinkific — best if you want to build a longer-term course business

If your plan is:

cohort → repeat the cohort → eventually sell a self-paced version

I'd lean toward Thinkific. It gives you a more conventional course platform and can avoid platform transaction fees when using its payment system. www.ruzuku.com

There's also a much cheaper way

You don't actually need a dedicated cohort platform.

For a first cohort, you could build the whole thing with:

• Stripe → payment
• Zoom/Google Meet → live classes
• Google Drive/Notion → curriculum and assignments
• Discord/Slack → student community
• Google Forms → applications/intake
• Email → reminders and announcements

Your fixed software cost can be very close to $0, with payment processing being the main unavoidable expense.

The tradeoff is that you become the platform: you'll manually manage enrollment, reminders, access, recordings, etc.

What I'd do

If you're just trying to get your first cohort off the ground, I'd actually start with Stripe + Zoom + a community tool, rather than paying $50–150/month before you've validated demand.

Once you're consistently selling, say, 10–20+ seats per cohort, then move to something like Ruzuku, Thinkific, or Teachfloor depending on how much automation you need.

If you tell me (1) what you're teaching, (2) expected price per student, and (3) roughly how many students you expect per cohort, I can calculate the actual dollar cost of each option and tell you which one gives you the highest profit.

Yes. If your goal is cohort-based classes—fixed start/end dates, live sessions, a student group, and payments—you don't necessarily need an expensive “online course platform.”

The big distinction is whether you want to avoid monthly fees entirely or just keep them very low.

What I'd do in your position

If you have little/no revenue yet: don't spend $50–$100/month just to test the idea.

I'd build the first cohort with something like:

Payment: Payhip or Gumroad
Live classes: Zoom/Google Meet
Community: Discord, Slack, or a free community tool
Course materials: Google Drive/Notion
Email: MailerLite/Kit's free tier

Then once you're consistently selling cohorts, move everything into Teachery or another all-in-one platform.

If you're already confident you'll sell 10+ students per cohort: I'd seriously look at Teachery. It currently charges $49/month with unlimited courses/customers and no Teachery transaction fee, and it has a $550 lifetime offer advertised. www.teachery.co

That's particularly attractive for cohort classes because you can create payment pages and sell courses using one-time or recurring payments. help.teachery.co

One important trap

Don't automatically choose the platform with the lowest monthly price.

For example, Podia's Mover plan is currently $42/month when billed annually but takes 5% of sales. Its Shaker plan eliminates that platform fee. help.teachery.cowww.podia.com

So if you sell a $500 cohort to 20 students = $10,000, a 5% platform fee is $500. At that point, a $49/month zero-platform-fee service can be dramatically cheaper.

My shortlist for you would be:

1. Teachery — best if you want a proper course platform without revenue-based fees.
2. Payhip — best for starting with almost no fixed cost.
3. Podia — best if you want courses + email + community in one place.
4. Gumroad + separate community/video tools — best ultra-lean DIY setup.
5. Circle — best if the community is the core product rather than the course content.

If you tell me your expected cohort price (e.g. $100, $500, $1,000), number of students, and whether the classes are live on Zoom, I can calculate the actual fees for 3–5 setups and tell you which one is cheapest at your expected revenue.

Yes. If your main constraint is “I want to sell live cohorts without giving a big percentage of revenue to the platform,” I’d avoid the big all-in-one platforms at first.

Here’s how I’d shortlist them:

Prices change frequently, so I'd verify the current plan before committing. Recent 2026 comparisons put Ruzuku, Thinkific, Teachfloor, LearnWorlds, and Podia in roughly these ranges. www.teachfloor.comwww.ruzuku.com

My picks for your situation

1. Ruzuku — probably the first one I'd investigate

It's unusually aligned with what you're describing: cohort-based courses, scheduled content, live sessions, discussion, and 0% platform transaction fees. It even has a free option for very small cohorts. www.teachfloor.comwww.ruzuku.com

The tradeoff is that it's less of an elaborate marketing/website platform.

2. Thinkific — best “serious business” budget option

If you want a more conventional course platform with checkout, payment plans, course content, and community capabilities, Thinkific is worth considering. It advertises hosted checkout and payment-plan functionality, and its current payment setup can avoid platform transaction fees. www.thinkific.com

One caveat: Thinkific just raised prices around August 13, 2026, so I'd check the current pricing rather than relying on older comparisons. support.thinkific.com

3. Teachfloor — best if “cohort” is the core product

This is more purpose-built for cohorts than Thinkific. It supports scheduled learning, live sessions, community, attendance, etc., and its model is a flat SaaS fee rather than taking a percentage of sales. The downside is the ~$89/month starting point, so I'd only choose it once you're reasonably confident you'll run multiple cohorts. www.teachfloor.com

4. Maven — interesting if you need customers, not just software

Maven is specifically designed around cohort-based courses and has marketplace/discovery built in. The catch is the revenue share—recent comparisons put it around 10–20%, depending on the circumstances. www.teachfloor.comwww.ruzuku.com

So I wouldn't pick it if your priority is minimum fees. I'd pick it if you think Maven's distribution can bring you students you couldn't otherwise acquire.

The cheapest approach: don't use a course platform at all

If you're comfortable cobbling together a few tools, you can get surprisingly far with:

Landing page → Stripe → Zoom → Circle/Discord/Slack → Google Drive/Notion

You collect the money yourself and use free/cheap tools for delivery. Your main unavoidable cost is payment processing rather than a percentage going to a course marketplace.

This can make a lot of sense for cohorts because the value isn't necessarily in fancy prerecorded-course functionality. Your actual product might be:

6 weeks + weekly live workshop + assignments + peer group + feedback + office hours

You don't necessarily need a $100+/month LMS for that.

What I'd do if you're just starting

I'd choose based on cohort size:

• <10 students / validating the idea: Ruzuku or DIY stack
• 10–50 students / want a proper course checkout: Thinkific
• 50+ students / cohorts are becoming your core business: Teachfloor
• Need help finding students: Maven
• Want an inexpensive all-in-one website + email + courses: Podia

And I would not start with Kajabi. You're paying for a large marketing/automation ecosystem that probably isn't your bottleneck when you're trying to prove a cohort offer.

If you tell me roughly your expected cohort price (e.g. $300, $1,000, $3,000), number of students, and whether you need community + Zoom + email, I can calculate the actual dollar cost of each option and tell you which is cheapest at your expected revenue.

Yes. If your main constraint is “I want to sell live cohort programs without giving a big percentage of revenue to the platform,” I’d avoid platforms whose business model is primarily a transaction cut.

Here are the options I’d investigate first:

My picks for your situation

1. Teachfloor — probably the strongest fit

It's specifically designed around cohort-based learning: scheduled cohorts, live sessions, assignments, peer review, community, and payments. Its current Startup plan starts at $89/month, and Teachfloor says it takes no percentage of course revenue; you pay Stripe's processing fee instead. www.teachfloor.com

If you're charging, say, $500/student, this matters a lot. You'd rather pay $89/month + payment processing than surrender 5–10% of every enrollment.

2. Ruzuku — worth a serious look if you want cheap/simple

Ruzuku is interesting for a lean launch. Its current comparison information lists a free tier for up to five students and 0% transaction fees, with paid plans when you grow. www.ruzuku.com

I'd consider this if you're running a relatively straightforward 4–8 week program and don't need a sophisticated community/marketing ecosystem.

3. Circle — best if community is a major part of what you're selling

Circle currently starts at $89/month and includes courses, discussions, events, live rooms, paid memberships, and custom domains. It explicitly supports cohort-based courses. circle.so

The tradeoff is that you're paying for a broader community platform rather than a platform designed exclusively around cohort delivery.

4. Maven — best if you can't afford any upfront platform cost

Maven is a different model. There's no upfront listing cost, but Maven takes a 10–20% revenue share according to its current course-pricing information. help.maven.com

So I'd use Maven if your problem is cash flow, not long-term margins. Once you're reliably selling cohorts, a flat-fee/0%-transaction platform will usually become more attractive.

What I'd do if I were starting with very little money

For your first cohort, I'd actually keep the tech stack extremely lean:

Landing page + payment checkout + Zoom + community + simple course hub

You don't necessarily need a $100+/month "all-in-one" platform before you've proven people will pay.

For example:

• Landing/sales page: Carrd or your existing website
• Payment: Stripe
• Live classes: Zoom/Google Meet
• Community: Discord or Circle
• Course materials: Google Drive/Notion
• Enrollment/onboarding: automated email + calendar

Then migrate to Teachfloor/Circle once the administrative overhead starts costing you more than the software.

One important calculation

Suppose you sell a cohort for $750 to 15 students:

Revenue = $11,250

A platform taking 10% costs you $1,125 per cohort.

A platform costing $89/month costs you roughly $89–$178 for a 4–8 week cohort.

That's why, for a cohort business rather than a $20 self-paced course, I'd strongly favor flat monthly pricing + Stripe fees over revenue-share pricing.

My shortlist:
Teachfloor → Ruzuku → Circle → Maven, in that order, assuming your priority is keeping platform costs low while still delivering a genuinely cohort-based experience.

If your priority is “I want to run live cohorts without giving a big chunk of every sale to the platform,” I’d look at these first:

\*Pricing changes, and annual vs. monthly billing makes a substantial difference. Current 2026 comparisons put Ruzuku at free for up to 5 students, Thinkific around $36–$49+, Teachfloor around $89, and Maven at roughly 10% on paid enrollments. www.teachfloor.comwww.ruzuku.comwww.guideflow.com

My picks for your situation

1. Ruzuku — cheapest purpose-built option

This is probably where I'd start if you're validating your first cohort. It supports scheduled/dripped content, discussions, live sessions, and cohort-style delivery without taking a percentage of your sales. The free tier is particularly interesting if you're starting with only a handful of students. www.teachfloor.comwww.ruzuku.comwww.guideflow.com

2. Thinkific — best balance of cheap + professional

If you expect to eventually have multiple cohorts, evergreen courses, or a larger student base, Thinkific is worth considering. The course infrastructure and checkout are more mature, and you can avoid platform transaction fees when using its payment setup. The downside is that its community/cohort functionality isn't as deeply designed around cohorts as some alternatives. www.ruzuku.com

3. Teachfloor — best actual cohort experience

If the cohort itself is your product—weekly assignments, peer interaction, discussions, feedback, live sessions—I'd put Teachfloor near the top. It is specifically oriented toward cohort/community learning and charges a flat subscription rather than taking a percentage of revenue. www.teachfloor.com

4. Maven — best way to avoid monthly cost while testing

Maven is interesting if you don't want to pay anything until you make a sale. It's built specifically around live cohort courses and includes marketplace/discovery functionality. The tradeoff is that you give up roughly 10% of paid enrollments, so it gets expensive once you're selling significant volume. www.guideflow.com

For example, on a $500 cohort with 20 students ($10,000 revenue), a 10% platform fee is about $1,000. At that point, a flat-fee platform can become much cheaper.

There's also a dirt-cheap "DIY stack"

If you're comfortable cobbling a few tools together, you don't actually need a traditional course platform.

Landing page + Stripe + Zoom + Google Drive/Notion + email + private community

You could use:

• Stripe → payments
• Zoom → live classes
• Notion/Google Drive → curriculum/materials
• Slack/Discord → cohort community
• MailerLite/Kit → email
• A simple website/landing page → sales

That can get your software costs extremely low. You're essentially paying payment-processing fees rather than a course platform fee. The downside is more manual administration.

What I'd do if I were starting from scratch

First cohort: Ruzuku or Maven
→ prove people will pay.

Once you're consistently selling: Thinkific or Teachfloor
→ move to a flat monthly fee and keep more of your revenue.

If you're extremely cost-sensitive: DIY stack
→ Stripe + Zoom + Notion + community + email.

I'd avoid Kajabi, Circle, and similar $80–$150+/month platforms initially unless you specifically need their marketing/community ecosystem. Current comparisons put Circle around $89/month and Teachfloor around $89/month, while higher-end all-in-one platforms can be substantially more. www.guideflow.com

If you tell me (1) your expected cohort price, (2) number of students, and (3) whether the classes are live on Zoom, I can calculate the actual dollar cost per cohort for 5–6 platforms and tell you which one is cheapest at your scale.

If you’re selling cohort-based classes and trying to keep costs low, I’d avoid jumping straight to expensive “all-in-one” platforms. The cheapest setup depends on whether your value comes mostly from live teaching, community/accountability, or course content.

Here are the options I’d shortlist:

A few budget-friendly setups:

Option 1: Cheapest “just launch” stack

• Landing page: your website or a simple page builder
• Payments: Stripe
• Community: Discord, Slack, or a private group
• Live sessions: Zoom/Google Meet
• Content: Google Drive/Notion

This can get you running for almost no monthly cost.

Option 2: Best balance for a first paid cohort

• Maven if you want cohort-native tools and don’t mind revenue share.
• Thinkific if you want to own the customer relationship and build a course library over time. www.thinkific.comwww.ruzuku.com

Option 3: Community-led cohort (coaching, masterminds, accountability)

• Skool or Circle-style community platforms make sense if the discussions, peer feedback, and relationships are the main product. www.ruzuku.com

A simple rule of thumb:

• Under $2k/month revenue: don’t overpay; use a lean stack.
• $2k–$10k/month: move to a dedicated platform when admin starts eating your time.
• $10k+/month: optimize for automation, marketing, and student experience.

If you tell me:

1. your expected cohort size (10 people vs 100+),
2. price per student, and
3. whether it’s live coaching vs prerecorded lessons + community,

I can narrow it to the cheapest option that won’t box you in.

Yes. If your main constraint is “I don't want to give a platform a big percentage of every cohort sale,” I’d focus on platforms with either a low flat monthly fee or a low/no transaction fee.

My shortlist

Current comparisons put Ruzuku, Thinkific, LearnWorlds, Teachable, Maven and Skool among the more affordable options, although pricing and fee structures change frequently. www.ruzuku.com

💰 If money is really tight

I'd seriously consider a DIY cohort stack:

• Zoom/Google Meet → live classes
• Google Classroom / Notion → curriculum, assignments and resources
• Discord/Slack → cohort community
• Stripe → payment
• Google Forms/Tally → applications/intake
• Calendly → scheduling

You can start with essentially no LMS subscription at all. The tradeoff is that you're assembling the pieces yourself.

For a cohort where you're teaching live and the students mostly need a schedule, recordings, assignments, community and payments, you don't necessarily need a sophisticated "course platform."

🏆 What I'd pick

If you already have an audience:
Thinkific or Ruzuku. You pay a predictable monthly amount rather than sacrificing a chunk of every enrollment. Thinkific is particularly attractive if you expect to eventually have multiple courses. www.ruzuku.com

If you want a genuinely cohort-native experience:
Maven. It's designed around live cohort courses rather than trying to turn a traditional self-paced LMS into one. The catch is the revenue share, so it's inexpensive to start but can become expensive once you're selling a lot. www.ruzuku.com

If community is the product:
Skool is worth investigating. It's more community-first than traditional LMS-first, which can work extremely well for accountability-heavy cohorts. creatoreconomy.org

If you want the absolute lowest-cost experiment:
I'd do the DIY stack until you've run 1–2 cohorts and know people will pay. Then move to an LMS once the operational hassle becomes more expensive than the subscription.

One important warning: don't choose based solely on the advertised monthly price. A $29/month platform taking 7.5% of every sale can cost dramatically more than a $50/month platform taking 0%. www.ruzuku.comwww.savingsec.com

If you tell me roughly (1) your expected cohort price, (2) number of students, and (3) whether classes are live on Zoom, I can calculate the cheapest setup for you—including what you'd actually pay at 10, 25, 50, and 100 students.

If you’re selling cohort-based classes (live sessions + community + assignments + a start/end date), you usually don’t need an expensive “all-in-one” platform at the beginning. The cheapest route is often to combine a few low-cost tools rather than pay $100–$300+/month for a full academy platform.

Here are options worth looking at:

Lowest-cost “stack it yourself” approach

Many first-time cohort creators use:

• Payments: Stripe Payment Links or Gumroad
• Community: Discord, Slack, or a free Circle/Skool-style community trial
• Live classes: Zoom or Google Meet
• Course materials: Notion, Google Drive, or a simple website
• Email: MailerLite or ConvertKit

That can get you running for roughly $0–$30/month, aside from payment processing.

My shortlist by situation

You have an audience already (LinkedIn, newsletter, YouTube, etc.)
→ Start with a DIY stack or Thinkific/Podia. Avoid revenue-sharing marketplaces.

You’re validating your first cohort
→ Maven can make sense because you avoid upfront software costs, and Teachfloor is worth considering if the cohort workflow itself is the differentiator. www.teachfloor.comwww.ruzuku.com

Your value is the community/network
→ Circle or Mighty Networks.

You want maximum profit margin
→ DIY stack first. Upgrade only after you’ve proven people will pay.

A practical test: if you’re running one cohort of 10–30 students, I would usually avoid paying $100+/month until the cohort is consistently profitable. A $500/month course launch can justify better tooling; a first $1k–$5k cohort usually benefits more from keeping costs low.

If your priority is selling live cohort-based classes without getting eaten alive by platform fees, I’d look at these first:

Pricing changes fairly frequently, so I'd verify the current plan before committing. Recent 2026 comparisons put Ruzuku at 0% transaction fees, Thinkific at 0% with its payment solution, Teachfloor around $89/mo, and Maven around a 10% revenue share. www.ruzuku.com

My picks for your situation

1. Ruzuku — best if you want to spend almost nothing

This is the one I'd investigate first if you're testing your first cohort. It's specifically designed around cohort-style courses, including scheduled content and discussion, and has a free option for very small cohorts. www.ruzuku.com

2. Thinkific — best if you want something you'll grow into

Thinkific supports live cohorts, self-paced courses, assignments, communities, payment plans, and subscriptions. Its current platform also emphasizes selling and checkout rather than requiring a separate payment stack. www.thinkific.comwww.teachfloor.com

3. Teachfloor — best actual cohort experience

If the cohort is the product—not just a prerecorded course with a weekly Zoom call—Teachfloor is worth considering. It's built around collaborative learning, peer review, scheduled learning, and live sessions. The downside is the ~$89/month starting price. www.teachfloor.com

4. Maven — best if you want help finding students

Maven is unusually cohort-native and has marketplace/discovery built in. The tradeoff is that you give up a percentage of revenue rather than paying a conventional monthly SaaS fee. That's potentially attractive when you're starting from zero, but painful once you're doing substantial revenue. www.ruzuku.com

An even cheaper approach

You don't necessarily need a dedicated course platform at all.

For a first cohort, you could use:

Stripe/payment checkout + Zoom + Google Drive/Notion + Discord/Slack

Then your costs are mostly payment processing rather than paying $50–$150/month for software. You can give students a simple member page containing the schedule, recordings, assignments, and links.

I'd especially consider this if you're selling something like a 4–6 week cohort with 10–30 students, where the live interaction is the main value and you don't have hundreds of lessons to organize.

One important distinction: don't optimize solely for the lowest monthly price. A 10% revenue share can be much more expensive than a $50/month platform once you're selling $5,000–$10,000 cohorts. Conversely, when you're making your first $500–$1,000, paying $89/month can hurt.

If you tell me roughly (a) what you'd charge per student, (b) expected students per cohort, and (c) whether you need community/discussion, I can calculate the cheapest setup for you and compare the actual dollar cost of 4–5 options.

If your main goal is cohort-based classes without giving a big percentage of revenue to the platform, I’d look at these in roughly this order:

Prices vary by billing cycle and change frequently, so I'd verify before committing. www.teachfloor.comwww.ruzuku.com

My recommendations

1. If you have almost no budget: Gumroad + Zoom + Discord/Slack

This is probably the route I'd take for your first cohort.

• Gumroad handles checkout/payment.
• Zoom handles live classes.
• Discord, Slack, or a private community handles discussion.
• Google Drive/Notion handles materials.
• You don't pay a monthly LMS subscription.

The downside is that Gumroad's roughly 10% transaction fee can become expensive once you're making meaningful revenue. www.savingsec.com

2. If you want a real cohort platform: Ruzuku

Ruzuku is worth investigating because it's specifically designed around online/cohort teaching rather than trying to turn a generic course platform into one. It supports scheduled content, discussions, live sessions and certificates, with 0% platform transaction fees on its paid plans. www.teachfloor.comwww.ruzuku.com

3. If you want to minimize fees as you scale: Thinkific

Thinkific is more conventional LMS software, but it's attractive if you're worried about revenue-share fees. Its payment system can eliminate platform transaction fees, leaving you primarily with payment-processing costs. www.teachfloor.com

4. If the cohort experience itself is the product: Teachfloor

Teachfloor is more purpose-built for cohorts: peer review, scheduled learning, Zoom integration, attendance, etc. The tradeoff is the ~$89/month starting price, so I'd use it once you know you'll have enough students to justify the subscription. www.teachfloor.com

5. If you want zero software subscription: Moodle

Moodle is open-source and can be self-hosted, so there's no platform revenue share. The catch is that you're taking on hosting, setup and maintenance yourself. www.teachfloor.com

The important economics

Suppose you sell a $500 cohort to 20 people = $10,000.

A 10% revenue-share platform costs you roughly $1,000 before payment processing.

A $50/month platform costs roughly $50–$100, depending on how long you're running the cohort.

So if you already have an audience and can fill your seats yourself, a flat-fee platform is usually dramatically cheaper. If you don't have an audience, a revenue-share platform such as Maven can make more sense because you're partly paying for its discovery/distribution. Maven is specifically built around live cohorts and marketplace discovery. www.ruzuku.com

My short version:

• $0 upfront: Gumroad + Zoom + community
• Best cheap dedicated cohort tool: Ruzuku
• Best once you're selling consistently: Thinkific
• Best cohort-specific experience: Teachfloor
• Best if you need students discovered for you: Maven

If you tell me roughly what you'd charge per student, expected cohort size, and whether you already have an audience, I can calculate the cheapest setup for your first 3 cohorts.