Memberships on Teachable

Teachable creators sell their knowledge by creating courses, coaching services, and digital downloads. They can also bundle products together in different combinations to sell at a single price. But how can creators leverage their knowledge products to drive recurring revenue?

Enter—memberships.

  • Project Role: Lead Designer

    Year(s): 2023-2024

  • As the creator economy built around knowledge products continues to surge, creators are looking for predictable and sustainable revenue streams to support the long-term growth of their businesses. In parallel, as they grow their product offering, they seek to improve the way students can access their suite. 

  • Unlock a brand new revenue stream for Teachable creators through memberships, where students can purchase access to all of the products in a school for a single recurring price. Creators get recurring revenue and students get better, more simplified access to content. 

Context

Teachable found that 72% of its top-earning creators used bundles to offer memberships, which drove a 44% increase in average student lifetime value (LTV). This widespread use of bundles as a workaround highlighted the need for a dedicated membership feature, as bundles lacked proper content delivery and member experience tools, and often resulted in off-platform payments, obscuring revenue data.

Initial Research

A competitive analysis of creator economy platforms showed varied membership strategies. Some direct competitors merely rebranded bundles, while others lacked membership features entirely, positioning Teachable as a potential leader in dedicated membership offerings. Indirect competitors like Patreon and Ko-Fi emphasized the need for sophisticated membership tools. To further understand creator needs, I interviewed existing Teachable creators using bundles for memberships, exploring their membership structures, mental models, needs, and pain points.

Findings revealed key pain points for creators using bundles for tiered memberships. While creators used tiers to offer varied access to content, community, and events, the bundle workaround created challenges in content and student management, scaling, and student experience. Specifically, the single, unorganized bundle content view hampered navigation, community engagement, and personalized experiences, forcing reliance on third-party integrations.

The current student experience after purchasing a bundle; products in a bundle are shown in a simple list categorized by product type. (Click to enlarge)

The solution

Create a simple membership program that’s easy to setup and start, with options to curate content, connect with members, and expand their offering.

Deliver a high-quality membership experience where students can check out easily, engage with content, and manage their accounts.

If approximately 5% of all users in each of Segments 2 and 3 adopt a membership product in their schools, Teachable can grow its annual GMV by up to $6 million after just four quarters.

Design explorations

Through our research and definition stages, we identified an MVP opportunity to create a membership pricing model with a creator-facing and a student-facing experience. I began by mapping out these flows in a UX map to conceptualize the different components that would become part of the experience. 

The student experience consists of the point-of-purchase, an authenticated dashboard, and account management. (Click to enlarge)

The creator experience consists of onboarding, management, and sales/monitoring. (Click to enlarge)

I began wireframing by exploring different membership schemas, linearity, and interactions. I quickly moved from paper prototypes to low-to-mid fidelity mockups. In this example, I chose a linear onboarding flow to minimize friction and guide creators as they build their first tier, thereby establishing a clear mental model.

(Click to enlarge)

In low- and mid-fidelity wireframes, I explored more specific feature opportunities and interactions to simplify the creator-facing experience. These designs led us to developing an onboarding experience to guide creators through creating their first membership tier. Then, we isolated the importance of a simple pricing flow and critical tier management tools. (Click to enlarge)

Student-facing iterations focused on developing selling tools to promote and compare membership tiers. Within the creator dashboard, I explored layouts leveraging existing infrastructure while enabling dynamic experiences. (Click to enlarge)

Final design & implementation

Throughout the design refinement process, I collaborated with Product and Engineering to prioritize features based on effort and impact. By conducting impact vs. effort analyses, we identified quick wins to deliver continuous customer value while managing scope. The final product includes creator onboarding, membership management, sales page tools, a student dashboard, and student account management.

Creators are guided step-by-step through their first membership tier setup upon initial navigation to the Membership tab. This onboarding process allows them to name the tier, add products, enable community features, and set pricing, enabling quick tier launch and sales. These same controls are then available on individual tier pages, maintaining consistency with the creator's established mental model. Product organization within tiers is enhanced by custom grouping, facilitating learning path creation, topical content organization, and a curated student experience. (Click to enlarge)

The creator-facing membership dashboard serves as their control center for their program. They can view stats about their program, manage their tiers and create new ones, edit their sales page, and make changes to their membership-level settings. ​(Click to enlarge)

Membership sales pages feature a modular "tier block" showcasing tiers side-by-side. Tier cards automatically display the number of included products (with customer preview) and a customizable area for descriptions and perks. Creators can also highlight a specific tier to drive sales. (Click to enlarge)

The revamped student dashboard improves the membership experience and accommodates future dynamic content. Products are organized by creator-defined sections, enabling students to follow learning paths or find relevant courses. Students can access the community, view membership details, and track recent updates like new lessons or products. A new progress block allows returning students to quickly resume previously accessed content.

Success metrics

Memberships on Teachable launched in September 2023. I took a critical role in assisting our partners’ go-to-market efforts, generating assets for support articles, building walkthrough wizards, co-hosting an information session with customers, and more.

After two quarters, we found that adoption would steadily increase over the course of the GTM calendar, and that creators selling memberships were seeing greater earnings.

4.0%

adoption across top our top 25 creators

adoption across creators earning $5K-$2.5M

2.9%

38.8%

higher monthly ARPU for members compared to other students

$2.7M

generated by creators by the end of Q1 2024

Post-MVP enhancements

Following launch, we embarked on a new research process to understand how the Memberships MVP did and did not meet creators’ expectations. We monitored usage statistics, adoption metrics, and user sessions; conducted surveys; and interviewed creators who had adopted, as well as creators who had not adopted to understand next steps.

Voice-of-the-Customer interviews, including real-time mockup audits in Miro, explored creators' mental models of memberships. Post-launch research highlighted the need for direct student engagement tools, seamless content delivery to the student dashboard (beyond new products), and expanded branding personalization.

Post-MVP enhancements, driven by research, included:

  • membership-wide headers for student dashboard customization

  • a "trending" section surfacing community posts and lesson updates

  • direct publishing of exclusive content to the membership dashboard, enabling creators to share valuable knowledge and drive engagement