YouTube is giving creators a powerful new tool to share their knowledge and expertise with the world through a feature it’s calling “Courses.” However, this new service isn’t entirely new. YouTube first teased the feature back in 2022, testing it with a select group of creators to ensure it was ready for primetime use. Now it’s rolling out to more creators, opening up a whole new world of possibilities for both educational content and monetization.
What is a YouTube Course?
Simply put, Courses allow creators to organize their videos into structured, multi-lesson learning programs — like having your own virtual classroom on your YouTube channel. The feature is packed with helpful tools, like quizzes to test student understanding and a dedicated discussion section to encourage engagement and community building. What’s more, these courses can be offered for free or for a one-time fee, giving creators another way to turn their passion into revenue.
YouTube is putting Courses at the forefront
YouTube isn’t just launching courses, it’s actively promoting them to ensure maximum visibility. Courses will appear with a special badge across the platform, including when browsing search results, checking channel pages, or looking at upcoming recommendations. Each channel with a course will have a dedicated “Courses” tab and may even appear on a central course page on YouTube itself. YouTube is also thinking about how to keep learners engaged and motivated: a new information panel on the course playlist page will show the length of the course and what part has already been completed. Those who make it to the end will be given a new badge and will appear in the “You” tab.
Getting started with courses is very easy and the process is similar to uploading a new video. Creators simply visit YouTube Studio on their desktop, click “Create,” then “New Course,” and fill in all the details. Currently, courses can only be created on a computer, but it is possible to upload individual videos from a phone and add them to the course later when back on the computer.
YouTube is rolling this out slowly, so if you don’t see the “New Course” option in YouTube Studio yet, you may have to wait a little longer for it to appear, but this is definitely an exciting new feature that will benefit both creators and viewers.