Frequently Asked Questions

Yes — every part is editable. Lesson titles, slide text, narration scripts, bullet points, quiz questions, answer explanations, and lesson order. We strongly recommend reviewing every slide's narration before publishing. Most of what makes a course feel like you, as opposed to a generic AI output, is in those edits.

Not in v1. CourseBud is built around the book-to-course generation path, not as a course hosting migration platform. If you already have a course running elsewhere and it's working, stay there — we're the right tool when you want to build a new course from a book you've written.

Yes — the process has two stages. First, CourseBud generates a course outline and pauses for your approval. You can rename modules and lessons, add or remove lessons, adjust summaries, and update the course title and description. Only after you approve the outline does the AI proceed to write the full lesson scripts, slides, and quizzes. This lets you shape the structure before the full generation runs.

After the AI finishes converting your book, you review and edit the outline, slides, and quizzes in the Author Studio. When you are satisfied, open the course editor and click Publish — the course goes live and can be listed publicly on CourseBud. You control whether it appears in the course directory or stays accessible only via a direct link. You can also see the public student experience in Covert-Ops: Mastering the Military Thriller, one of the live courses built on CourseBud.

Students can pay by credit or debit card (via Stripe) or PayPal — they choose at checkout. Payment goes directly to the author's connected payout account; CourseBud never holds the funds. The price is set by the author, and CourseBud takes no commission.

Each plan sets a per-author course cap: Starter allows 1 AI-converted course, Growth allows 3, and Pro allows up to 10. You can create one trial course on a free account to preview the output before subscribing. Upgrading your plan immediately unlocks additional course slots.

Yes — there is a one-time $199 setup fee that covers the AI conversion of your book into a course (outline, slides, quizzes, and narration scripts). You pay this when you subscribe. Before then, CourseBud generates a free preview — a full course outline plus the first 3 lessons — so you can see exactly what you are getting before committing. The setup fee is non-refundable once the AI pipeline has processed your book.

Yes — every lesson includes a readable transcript. While a lesson is open, you can click "Show transcript" under any slide to read its narration text, or expand the "Full lesson transcript" panel at the bottom of the lesson to read all slides at once. You can also print the full transcript directly from the lesson page.

No. Upload your book and CourseBud builds a free preview: a full course outline plus the first 3 lessons with slides and quizzes. You can review and edit those lessons at no cost. Subscribe only when you are ready to unlock the remaining lessons, publish the course, and open enrollment to students.

Yes — if your book is in SelfPublishing.pro, CourseBud can pull it in automatically. On the new course page, your SelfPublishing.pro titles appear in a list; select one and the manuscript and cover image are imported for you without a separate file upload. Your CourseBud account just needs to be registered with the same email address you use at SelfPublishing.pro.

Yes. In the course editor you can set a Regular Price and an optional Sale Price. When a Sale Price is entered, students see the reduced amount at enrollment — the original price appears crossed out so the discount is clear. To end a sale, simply clear the Sale Price field and save.

Yes. When creating or editing your course, set the price to $0 and leave the sale price blank. Students can then enroll at no cost. Free enrollment still requires a CourseBud account so their progress is tracked, but there is no payment step.

As soon as your subscription is confirmed, CourseBud automatically picks up where the free preview left off and finishes generating all remaining lessons, slides, and quizzes for your book. You do not need to re-upload anything — the process continues in the background and your course is ready to review and publish within minutes.

Each lesson ends with a short quiz — score 60% or higher and the lesson is automatically marked complete. You can also mark a lesson complete manually if you prefer to skip the quiz. Your progress is saved automatically and tracked on your My Courses page.

Absolutely. You retain all rights to your book, the generated lessons, the narration scripts, and the course as a whole. CourseBud hosts the course and provides the AI tooling; we claim no ownership of your content and never use it to train public AI models.

Students pay you directly through your own Stripe or PayPal account — CourseBud takes 0% of course revenue. You connect a payout rail once (Stripe Connect Express onboarding or a PayPal Business email), and after that every paid enrollment routes straight to you, minus the standard Stripe/PayPal processing fee (~2.9% + $0.30 per transaction).

Each plan has a per-course student cap based on trailing-12-month enrollments (Starter 50 per course, Growth 250 per course, Pro unlimited per course). When a course hits its cap, new enrollments are paused on that course and you'll see a prompt to upgrade. Existing students keep full access. Upgrading is one click and takes effect immediately with prorated billing.

Yes. Cancel from your account settings at any time — your subscription stays active through the end of the current billing period and will not renew. Your course content and student data are preserved for 30 days after cancellation so you can come back if you change your mind or export your student list.

Yes. Students create a free CourseBud account so we can track their progress lesson-by-lesson, remember which slides they've completed, and save their quiz results. They do not need to pay CourseBud anything — only the course price you set, which goes directly to you.

Narration is generated using a professional ElevenLabs voice — warm, clear, and well-suited to educational content. There is currently one default voice; choosing from a curated set of voices is on the roadmap. Cloning your own voice from a recorded sample is planned but not yet in v1.

PDF, EPUB, DOCX, and plain text (TXT). Maximum file size is 50 MB, which comfortably covers books up to about 500 pages. If your manuscript is longer than roughly 150,000 tokens (~300,000 words), the AI pipeline may struggle with full-book context and we will ask you to split it — this is rare in non-fiction.

For a typical 200-page non-fiction book, the full pipeline — parsing, outline generation, slide generation, and quiz generation — runs in about 10 to 20 minutes. You see a live progress page and can step away while it runs. Longer or denser books can take up to 45 minutes.

Books up to roughly 150,000 tokens (around 300,000 words, or most single-volume non-fiction) process cleanly. For longer works — multi-volume textbooks, reference manuals — v1 may either refuse the upload or produce a weaker outline. In those cases we recommend splitting into two courses, which usually reads better anyway.