Enrolment is the moment a curious visitor becomes your student. Lectful keeps that moment short — because every extra click is a chance to lose them. Here's exactly how it works, so you can set it up with confidence.
Free courses
For a free course, enrolment is a single step. The learner clicks Enrol, creates an account (or signs in), and they're in — dropped straight into the first lesson. No payment, no friction.
Free courses are your best top-of-funnel tool: use one as a taster, then invite those students into a paid course once they trust you.
Paid courses
For a paid course, the learner clicks Buy or Enrol and goes to checkout. They pay with card, PayPal, or whichever provider you've connected, and access is granted the instant the payment succeeds — no manual approval on your side.
Access is automatic. The moment Stripe, PayPal, or Mangopay confirms the payment, the learner is enrolled and the course unlocks. You never have to add students by hand for a normal sale.
You control what "buying" means:
- One-off purchase — pay once, keep access. Simple and predictable.
- Plans & memberships — a recurring subscription that unlocks a bundle of courses. See Sell access with plans & memberships.
- Free with a coupon — hand out a discount or 100%-off code for launches, partners, or scholarships.
To turn payments on, connect a provider first: Connect a payment provider.
Enrolling students yourself
Sometimes you want to add learners directly — a corporate cohort, a beta group, or someone who paid you offline. You can enrol them from the admin dashboard without them going through checkout. This is also how Organizations work when you sell seats to a company.
Their first lesson
Once enrolled, the learner lands in the lesson player: video (or text, audio, PDF, whatever you built), the curriculum in the sidebar, and a Mark complete / Next control to move through. Their progress saves automatically, so they can leave and pick up exactly where they stopped — on any device.
If you've set lessons to drip on a schedule, learners see the locked lessons with their unlock date. Great for cohort-based courses where you don't want everyone racing ahead.
What to do next
- Decide how you'll charge — How to price your online course
- Turn on payments — Connect a payment provider
- See what happens after they finish — Progress, certificates & community
Set the path once, and every future student walks it on autopilot.