The 12 Best Tools to Create, Record and Sell Your Online Courses

When choosing the right tools to create and sell online courses, there are certain considerations to take into account.

Ask yourself questions like:

With these questions in mind, we’ve created a list of tools that could be ideal for you when creating online course content.

There are numerous physical tools like cameras, webcams, and microphones with which you can make course materials.

Let’s take a detailed look at their features, pricing, and drawbacks.

Please take note that prices are subject to change.

Incorporating video lessons in your courses can help learners improve their knowledge retention, and speaks to different learning styles of visual and auditory learners.

When recording videos on your computer, we recommend using cameras with a high resolution — better visual quality can improve the perceived value of your courses.

Below are our top 3 camera picks for your online courses:

The Logitech Brio 4K webcam made it to our list because it’s ideal for creating video lessons and works well for live online teaching on platforms like Zoom.

In terms of audio, this camera has no built-in microphone input, so you’ll be unable to plug in an external mic. Also, the autofocus works great for images but not so well with videos.

The Canon EOS Rebel T7 camera made it to our list because it’s reasonably priced, and offers additional benefits for course creators, such as built-in wifi.

One drawback to this camera is that it comes with a learning curve owing to its many settings, and autofocusing is less than ideal.

All in all, if you want to take your video lessons to a whole new level, this is one of the best cameras out there.

Plus, it’s smaller and lighter than traditional DSLR cameras.

With cameras under your belt, let’s look at which microphones will give you high-quality audio when creating course material.

EPOS found that 35% of students surveyed felt frustration and annoyance as a result of bad audio.

For this reason, it's best to use an external microphone to create content rather than your computer’s built-in microphone for optimal audio quality.

Listed below are 3 of our best picks for microphones:

One downside to using this microphone is that it has no headphone output or a mute button.

It requires no assembly or external accessories and is compatible with both Windows and macOS.

Besides its 4 sound options, the Blue Yeti also comes with audio controls for:

One drawback to the Blue Yeti is that you’d have to purchase separate accessories like a mic stand or boom arm.

The Blue Yeti made it to our list because it has so many useful features and offers studio-quality recordings at a reasonable price.

It’s important to note that since this mic needs 60dB of gain to give you a warm and balanced tone, you may need to get a Cloudlifter device.

The SM7B made it to our list because it caters to any or all of your audio needs to produce high-quality audio recordings.

Camera? Check. Microphone? Check. What about your lighting setup?

Adequate lighting is essential in course creation and can make a world of difference to the quality of your finished product.

As such, we’ve lined up the best and most affordable lighting options for a studio setup in addition to a simple tabletop setup.

Though the tripod extends to 50 inches, it’s not ideal or tall enough for doing recordings while standing.

This specific ring light made it to our list because it has more lighting options compared to a typical selfie ring light.

If you want more versatility in your lighting options, this is a great option; from varied coloration to a standard hot shoe mount, you can switch up your recordings as much as you want.

So, what’s next on our list?

Though the Fovitec 3-light kit is a great lighting setup, assembling the softboxes is rather difficult and time-consuming.

It made it to our list because it offers maximum versatility with a 3-point lighting setup.

Now that you have a clear idea of which video and audio recording tools you can use, let’s get into software recommendations ideal for your courses.

As with physical tools, software tools play a significant role in the quality of your final output when creating online course materials.

Video editing is a necessity in that you're able to piece together raw footage to create a smooth flow, remove unwanted footage, and add effects — to name a few.

We want to share our picks of premium video editing tools as well as their pros and cons for a better understanding of the tools.

Camtasia has 4 pricing structures:

When you purchase Camtasia, you pay a one-time fee to permanently own the version you bought. Upgrades are available at a reduced price.

Below are Camtasia’s pros and cons:

Adobe Premiere Pro has 3 payment plans:

Below are the pros and cons of this tool:

Final Cut Pro’s pricing is a one-off payment of $299.99 with free updates. On top of that, it comes with a free trial period of 90 days.

Like other editing tools, Final Cut Pro isn’t without its strengths and weaknesses:

The platform or software you choose to host your online courses is of equal importance to the physical tools you use for content creation.

We’ve lined up 3 of the best online course creation tools where we discuss their features, pricing, and more to narrow down on the best one for your business.

And more!

We offer 4 competitive pricing plans (with space for unlimited students):

In addition to online courses, Podia lets customers sell digital downloads like ebooks, PDFs, and checklists.

You can also build an online community where you can charge for access to your courses.

Podia has 3 pricing plans that come with unlimited courses:

Teachable’s 4 pricing plans offer space for unlimited students and are as follows:

Teachable’s Basic plan includes a transaction fee of 5% on the sales you make. This is a significant drawback, especially for course creators that are just starting out.

Podia and Teachable are good options to help you create and sell online courses.

Out of these 3 options, we recommend systeme.io as the best platform to choose.

You’ll save more, can sell your courses through multiple channels (email, affiliates, website building) without needing integrations, and you can test our platform for free, forever!

Do you still have more questions? Below are some commonly asked questions with simple, actionable solutions.

There you have it! Whether you want to live stream or capture good audio with a quality mic and top it all off with great lighting setups, our list gives you many options to choose from.

For the perfect platform to help you get started, we recommend systeme.io as the best option to create and sell your courses.

With our unbeatable pricing, intuitive editor, and advanced features that are fully integrated, there’s a lot you can achieve with us.

Sign up now and watch how easy it is to create your online courses with systeme.io, even if you’re a beginner!