# How to Vibe Code Your Own Teachable (and Stop Paying for It) > Build & sell online courses, coaching, memberships & more - Site: https://teachable.com - Category: Education SaaS - Platforms: Web app, iOS app, Android app - Verdict: **Serious undertaking** (42/100 vibecodeable) - Estimated effort: 2-3 months of dedicated part-time building ## Verdict Build a single-tenant course hosting prototype for personal use, but pay for the real platform if you need a multi-tenant business. Replicating Teachable as a multi-tenant SaaS involves navigating complex financial, legal, and engineering subsystems that go far beyond standard CRUD apps. While an AI coding agent can quickly generate the course catalog, lesson views, and basic admin database schema, you will hit severe friction implementing signed-URL video protection, automated global tax determination, secure multi-party payout splits, and native mobile applications. For a personal-use learning portal, a scoped-down self-hosted version is achievable; trying to run a commercial SaaS clone with global tax liabilities is an exercise in regulatory pain. ### What you can't replicate - Merchant of Record legal protection and direct tax remittance across 45+ countries - Proprietary distribution network of 100M+ active students - Enterprise compliance infrastructure and dedicated payment gateways ## What it does An all-in-one SaaS platform enabling creators, educators, and enterprises to build, host, and sell digital education products with integrated student management, video streaming, and global checkout tools. ### Core features - Multi-tenant school administration dashboard - Drag-and-drop course and curriculum builder - Secure encrypted video hosting and adaptive streaming - Student learning management system (LMS) with video lessons and quizzes - Global checkout flow with payment splitting and subscription recovery - Automated tax determination and calculation across multiple jurisdictions - AI course starter and automated video subtitle translation generator - Companion mobile app architecture for content consumption ## The business ### Pricing - Starter: $39/mo — Basic tools for getting your business started with a 7.5% transaction fee - Builder: $89/mo — Essential features to build multi-product offerings with 0% transaction fees - Growth: $189/mo — Powerful tools for growing your revenue and audience at scale - Custom: Custom — Enterprise-tier solutions for high-volume education businesses ### Funding $12.5M raised. - Seed - Series A - Series B Investors: Accomplice Ventures, Naval Ravikant Founded 2013. Team size: 100-200+. ## The hard parts - Merchant of record liability and automated global tax calculation across dozens of tax jurisdictions - Secure encrypted video storage, multi-bitrate transcoding pipelines, and signed-URL token piracy protection - Multi-tenant architecture enforcing isolated school domains, custom permissions, and drip schedules - Complex financial ledgering for payout splits, affiliate tracks, and multi-currency transaction processing ## How to vibe code Teachable ### Prerequisites - Node.js (Free): Runtime environment for executing the full-stack TypeScript framework and package ecosystem. - GitHub (Free): Source control repository hosting for managing code iterations with AI coding agents. - Supabase Account (Free): Managed PostgreSQL instance for relational data storage, authentication, and file storage buckets. ### Recommended AI tools - Claude Code: Autonomous terminal agent capable of reasoning through multi-file course architecture and complex database migrations. - Cursor: AI-native code editor for reviewing visual diffs and fine-tuning the student LMS interface. ### Stack - Frontend: Next.js - Backend: Next.js Server Actions / API Routes - Database: Supabase - Auth: better-auth - Payments: Stripe - Other: Mux, OpenAI API, Resend, Tailwind CSS ### Hosting - Vercel (Hosting the full-stack Next.js web application and handling edge middleware routing.): $0-20/mo - Supabase (Hosting the relational PostgreSQL database, user authentication state, and raw asset storage.): $0-25/mo ### Build guide 1. **Project Scaffolding and Database Schema** — Initialize the Next.js project with Tailwind CSS, configure Supabase database connections, and create the core relational tables for users, schools, courses, sections, lessons, and enrollments. ``` Initialize a new Next.js project using App Router and TypeScript. Install Tailwind CSS and configure the design tokens for a clean creator SaaS aesthetic. Set up a Supabase client library and create migration files for the relational schema: schools (id, name, slug, owner_id), courses (id, school_id, title, description, price, published), sections (id, course_id, title, position), lessons (id, section_id, title, video_url, content_type, position), and enrollments (id, user_id, course_id, created_at). Ensure foreign keys have proper cascading deletes and indexing on lookup fields. Write an initial seed script to verify database connectivity and test queries. ``` 2. **Authentication and Multi-Tenant School Setup** — Integrate better-auth to handle user registration, secure session management, and tenant school routing for creators and students. ``` Integrate better-auth into the Next.js application supporting email/password and Google OAuth logins. Configure the schema to support multi-tenant user roles ('creator' and 'student'). Build an onboarding flow where a new creator can register and provision their unique school subdomain/slug. Implement middleware to scope admin dashboard routes to the authenticated school owner and student portal routes to enrolled learners. Create the corresponding profile management screens and test session persistence across browser refreshes. ``` 3. **Creator Admin Dashboard & Course Builder** — Build the drag-and-drop course structure manager and administrative interface allowing creators to configure curriculum hierarchies and lesson content. ``` Build a creator admin dashboard with a course management interface. Implement server actions to create, update, reorder, and delete courses, sections, and lessons. Design an interactive course builder view where creators can add rich-text descriptions, upload video items, and configure pricing attributes. Ensure form validation uses Zod schemas and display toast notifications upon successful database updates. Handle edge cases like unpublished draft states versus live catalog products. ``` 4. **Secure Video Hosting and LMS Student Portal** — Integrate Mux video processing for secure media streaming and build the student-facing learning management system interface with progress tracking. ``` Integrate the Mux video API to handle secure video uploads and adaptive streaming playback. Build a dedicated student learning portal featuring a sidebar curriculum navigation tree, video player component with playback speed controls, markdown lesson text view, and quiz modules. Implement progress tracking logic that updates student lesson completion status in Supabase when a video reaches 90% view duration or a quiz is successfully passed. Ensure the UI is fully responsive for mobile browser viewing. ``` 5. **Checkout Flow and Payment Processing** — Implement Stripe checkout sessions for course purchases and automated student enrollment fulfillment via webhook event listeners. ``` Set up Stripe Checkout integration to enable course purchases. Create a checkout API route that generates a Stripe checkout session for a given course price and metadata. Implement a webhook endpoint handler to listen for 'checkout.session.completed' events, verify signatures, and automatically insert a new record into the enrollments table granting the buyer immediate student access. Add a purchase history view inside the student dashboard listing active product enrollments and receipts. ``` 6. **AI Course Starter and Subtitle Generator** — Incorporate AI-powered curriculum generation and automated subtitle translation tools using the Vercel AI SDK and OpenAI API. ``` Incorporate an AI course generation feature using the Vercel AI SDK and OpenAI API. Build a creator tool modal where entering a course topic prompts an LLM call to return a structured JSON curriculum containing modules and lesson titles, which can be automatically imported into the course builder with a single click. Add a background job placeholder or API integration to trigger automated subtitle generation for uploaded course videos. Ensure robust error handling for API rate limits and token usage. ``` 7. **Companion Mobile App Shell (Expo)** — Initialize a companion Expo React Native mobile application for students to authenticate and consume course video lessons on iOS and Android. ``` Initialize an Expo React Native TypeScript project in a separate workspace directory to serve as the student mobile companion app. Configure Expo Router for file-based navigation. Build a login screen connecting to the central backend API, a course catalog screen fetching enrolled products, and a video playback screen utilizing native video components. Implement persistent secure token storage using expo-secure-store. Ensure proper styling consistent with the web student portal for cross-platform uniformity. ``` ### Cost vs paying **Starting costs (one-time):** - Custom Domain Registration: $12 one-time - AI Coding Agent Credits: $40 one-time - Total: ~$52 one-time **Ongoing costs (monthly):** - Vercel Hosting: $0-20/mo - Supabase Database & Storage: $0-25/mo - Mux Video Streaming & Storage: $10-30/mo - OpenAI API Usage: $5-15/mo - Total: ~$15-90/mo - Paying for the SaaS instead: $89/mo (Builder Plan) - Build time: 60-80 hours - AI tool credits: $40 one-time (AI coding credits) - Break-even: Never (built for personal learning and private course hosting) ## Sources - [Teachable Official Website](https://teachable.com) - [Teachable Pricing Page](https://teachable.com/pricing) - [EdSurge: Brazilian Course Creation Platform to Buy Teachable](https://www.edsurge.com) - [AlleyWatch: Teachable Acquired by Hotmart](https://www.alleywatch.com) - [Medium: Teachable is Joining Forces with Hotmart](https://medium.com)