Teachable Changed Its Usage Rules on September 3. The Platforms Publishing the New Limits Don't Agree With Each Other.

Pick a number for how many products you can publish on Teachable's $39 Starter plan. One? Five? Unlimited?

All three answers are in circulation this month. Two of them are being published by companies that would quite like you to cancel.

The part everyone agrees on

The prices. Starter runs $39/month ($29 annual) with a 7.5% platform transaction fee; Builder is $89 ($69 annual) and Growth is $189 ($139 annual), both at 0%. Teachable moved off the old Basic/Pro/Pro Plus names to Starter, Builder and Growth plus an unpriced Custom tier — plan names, prices, product limits and student caps all changed. The free plan was retired and replaced with a 7-day trial.

The break-even math is close to settled too, give or take a model. DDIY puts the point where Starter costs more than Builder at roughly $670 a month in sales, or around $535 on annual billing. GroupApp's calculator says $681. Kourses says $650. Same story, different rounding.

The part nobody agrees on

Now the limits.

Circle's alternatives roundup says Starter supports 100 students and one published product, and Builder supports 1,000 students and five products. SamCart publishes the same pair of numbers.

DDIY's review says Starter stops at 5 products and 100 active students, Builder at 10 and 1,000, Growth at 50 and 5,000. Heartbeat lists 5 on Starter, 10 on Builder, 50 on Growth. Dodo Payments adds a second ladder nobody else mentions: imported students capped at 5, 50 and 1,000.

There's a stranger disagreement underneath. Circle's page says Teachable's free plan "still technically exists," capped at 10 students with a 10% plus $1 fee. DDIY says flatly that if you see a guide describing that tier, the plan is gone.

One reviewer simply gives up on the question. Ruzuku notes the plan cards list 5, 10 and 50 products, then tells readers to confirm their own school's product allowance and overage terms with Teachable directly.

What actually changed on September 3

This is the reason the tables conflict: the rule changed, and not everyone updated.

Since September 3, 2026, Teachable does not cap students who pay through its checkout on any plan — but under current terms, each free or imported student above 100 costs $0.50 a month. The current policy states every plan includes unlimited published products and 1,000 GB of video storage.

The policy was last updated on 28 September 2026 and applies to schools created on or after 3 September 2026; each school gets 100 of those students free, then $0.50 a month per student above 100, on every plan. A student counts when you import them, add them via API, enrol them manually, enrol them at $0, or grant access after a sale elsewhere. A buyer who checks out on Teachable for more than $0 never counts — and a 100% coupon is a $0 checkout, so it does not dodge the fee.

The arithmetic is unforgiving for lead-magnet businesses. A thousand free students costs $450 a month. And bulk importing a list requires Growth, which imports up to 1,000 students — every one of which counts.

Which rules you're under depends on a date

Schools created before 3 September 2026 stay on the legacy schedule until their first renewal on or after 30 April 2027, where students added outside Teachable checkout cost $1.50, $1.00 or $0.75 a month on Starter, Builder and Growth once the school passes its included limits.

So the competitor tables aren't all lying. They're describing different cohorts of school, mostly without saying so. It doesn't help that Teachable's own Help Center still carries an older usage-fee table with plan-specific product and student limits, dated months before the legal policy was revised.

One useful detail buried in the fine print, from a checkout operator who read the page closely: Teachable's usage-fees page says a student with no access to any product stops counting.

Two dates decide your bill — when your school was created, and when it next renews. No comparison chart on the internet knows either one.