Courses: Create Your Online Course in Squarespace
Courses has been available in Squarespace 7.1 since the summer of 2023. It is a new feature that allows you to create an online course with a handy lesson overview, progress bar, checkbox option, and expandable navigation. All of this is, of course, behind a paywall and login system.
Previously, only Member Areas were available for this purpose. However, these were not specifically designed for offering online courses. Courses has now been developed for this purpose.
Create course
In Squarespace , you can find a Course in the menu on the left under "Content & Memberships."
Here you can choose from a Course, Video on demand, a Member Site, and a Blog.
Here, you select Course.
Enter the name of the course. Two templates for the overview page will then appear. Once you have selected one of the two templates, your course will be created in the Not Linked section of your website. You can then fill the course with content yourself.
If you create the Course this way, there will be a paywall for your course right away. You can also remove the paywall manually.
Another way to create a Course is by clicking on the plus sign in Website > Pages (this is how you normally create a new page). From the pop-up that appears, select Course. You can create this in the Main Navigation or in the Not Linked section. This way, there is no paywall by default, but you can add one manually later.
Note: If you would like to offer iDEAL as a payment method, please refer to this blog post.
Course structure
Your course consists of two parts:
Course Overview
This is the overview page with the complete lesson overview, including a progress bar.
You could expand this page into a sales page if you want your website visitors to be able to see the complete lesson structure before purchasing. If you don't want that, keep the entire course in the Not Linked section and create a separate sales page for your course.Course Content
The individual lessons are divided into modules (chapters) with a drop-down navigation menu on the side.
A lesson page consists of the following parts:
Section 1:
Name of the course
Button "Complete & Continue"
Icon for displaying the lesson overview
A video (optional)
Course description
Section 2:
Fill in as desired
Section 3:
Button "Complete & Continue"
In the settings for each lesson (via the three dots), you can add an excerpt from the lesson, edit the URL, add a thumbnail, add a video (which will be displayed in section 1), and indicate whether this lesson has been published or is still a draft. You can also schedule a lesson for publication.
You can also use the settings (three dots) to indicate whether the lesson may be displayed as a "public preview." This can be useful if you want to give people a sneak preview without them having to sign up for the course.
Set Pricing Plan
Via Pricing Plan, you can set how you want to sell your course. There are three ways to do this:
Fixed amount ( including the option of weekly or monthly installments)
Subscription ( for a certain number of months)
Free
If you have multiple courses, you can also create bundles of courses and offer them at a different price. You create a separate pricing plan for each course or bundle.
If you want people to be able to purchase your course via iDEAL, select Free under Pricing Plan. Please refer to this blog post for more information.
The Digital Product Block
You will then need the Digital Product Block to sell the course. You can place this block directly on your sales page if you process payments via Stripe and PayPal.
As soon as your website visitor clicks on the Sign Up button, a pop-up window opens. There, they first create an account. This is followed by payment in Squarespace.
Payment methods in Squarespace:
As you may know, it is not (yet) possible to offer iDEAL and Bancontact payments.
However, you can activate the following payment methods via Squarespace (via Settings > Store Payments):
Credit card (via Stripe)
Apple Pay (via Stripe)
PayPal
If you still want to enable iDEAL or Bancontact payments, you can use Plug&Pay in combination with Mollie. The workflow for selling a course is explained in this blog post.
Note: Starting in February 2026, iDEAL payments will be available directly through Squarespace. Unfortunately, Bancontact is not (yet) available.
Evergreen or drip course
Both options are possible. In the settings for a lesson, you can choose (just like with a blog post) whether youwant to publish the lesson immediately orschedule it.
If you offer a drip course, there is a chance that someone will be able to purchase your course until a certain time. In your Digital Products overview, you can set the Sign Up limit for your digital product yourself.
Notification emails
When someone purchases a course from you, they will receive two notification emails:
‘verify your account’ email
welcome email
You can edit the texts in these emails via:
Selling > Selling Tools > Customer notifications > Customer Accounts > Account Verification, and
Selling > Selling Tools > Customer notifications > Content & Memberships > Welcome ( also adjust the Canceled email immediately)
Please note: keep the texts fairly general. These are standard emails that will be sent for all your courses.
If you have set the language of your website to Dutch (Settings > Site languages), the recipient will receive the emails in Dutch.
Email Campaigns Link
The course participants will be listed in Contacts under Courses. This makes it easy to email these people separately if you use Squarespace's email program (Email Campaigns).
Set "Log in" in your navigation
Once students have purchased the course, they must be able to log in via the navigation bar at the top of your website. Therefore, the Log in option must be made visible. You can do this as follows:
Via Pages > Edit > Edit Site Header > Add Elements > Account
If Login is displayed in the navigation bar and you click on it, a pop-up window will appear. Here, students can enter the email address and password they previously created themselves. They can also request their password here if they have forgotten it.
You will also see in that pop-up that you can create an account. If someone does that, they will not suddenly gain access to all your courses. Someone will only gain access to a course if they have created an account via a Digital Product Block.
What does Courses cost?
Using Courses itself is free. It is a Collection within Squarespace. Just like a blog, portfolio, event, etc. You do need at least the Business Plan for this.
You only pay when you sell your digital product. This fee is 9% per sale if you are on the Business or Commerce plan. 30 minutes of video content is included.
You can also purchase the Digital Product Add On to reduce the fee percentage and get more video storage. Prices can be found here: https://www.squarespace.com/ecommerce/online-courses
Good to know
Courses is only available in Squarespace 7.1.
If you are still using Squarespace 7.0, you may want to consider upgrading to 7.1 or using Member Areas.
Courses uses Fluid Engine.
iDEAL/Bancontact payments are not available through Squarespace. However, you can enable this using a workaround. (Update 2026: iDEAL payments are now available through Squarespace Payments. You can read more about this in this blog post. Unfortunately, this does not apply to Bancontact.)
Integration with Mailchimp is not possible.
You cannot add students manually.
You cannot set how long a student has access to a course.
You can manually remove a student from your course (via the member's profile in Contacts).
You can upload videos directly to Squarespace or work with Video Blocks, which allow you to use Vimeo or YouTube links.
Courses does not have built-in certificates. After completing a course, the student cannot download a certificate.
There is no built-in affiliate program (yet).
