How to create a mini course: eight steps, a worked example and tool prices

What you need before you create a mini course

To create a mini course you need one clear outcome, a source to work from, a tool, and someone who knows the task to check the draft. The outcome should fit one sentence, for example "issue a refund at the counter without calling a manager for routine cases".

The steps below follow the Mini Course Generator help center, because it documents each stage in detail, but the order works in any tool. In Mini Course Generator every step is available on the Plus plan, $49 a month billed monthly or $39 billed annually, and during the 14-day trial that needs no credit card. If you have not yet written the outcome, questions and source down, start with a lesson brief.

Eight steps from blank page to shared lesson

1. Start the course. Click Create mini course and choose AI Course Builder, or start blank and add pages by hand.
2. Add your source. Upload a PDF of up to 100 MB and 100 pages, or add YouTube links. Choose how the AI uses it: Reference, Follow or Preserve. Preserve keeps closest to your original text.
3. Set language, topic and goals. The goals shape the outline. If you upload a PDF, the AI sets audience and tone from the document and you cannot change them.
4. Choose the extras. A quiz of five multiple-choice questions and one feedback question are added by default. Decide whether you want AI images, which cost more credits.
5. Edit the pages. Use the drag and drop blocks to fix text, add your own photos or a video, and add question pages where a decision matters.
6. Review, then publish. The course is a draft until you publish from the three-dots menu on the course card, or through Share and then Publish and share.
7. Set access. Under Learners' Access choose open access, a password, email verification or payment. Invitation-only access needs Pro.
8. Share and check results. Copy the link from the Share menu, send it, and later download the .xls report for the course.

A longer walk-through of the first build is in create your first mini course.

Worked example: a 12-page lesson from a written procedure

Say [your business] has a two-page refund procedure. You upload the PDF, choose Preserve so the wording stays close to the approved text, and write one goal: staff can decide when a refund needs a manager.

The AI drafts 12 pages with a five-question quiz. Using the help center's credit rules, that costs 1 credit for the title, 1 for the outline and 2 per page, or 26 credits of the 1,000 that Plus provides each month. Without AI images it would be 14.

The procedure owner then reads every page against the PDF, replaces two stock images with photos of the real till screen, and rewrites a quiz question that tested a detail nobody needs to memorize. You publish, gate the course with email verification, and send the link to 30 staff. That uses 30 of the 500 learners a year on Plus. A week later you download the report to see who finished and which question people missed.

A mistake to avoid: changing a live page without publishing the change

The Draft and Publish article in the help center describes a trap. Once a course is live, each page has its own state. An amber Edited chip means the page is live but you have changed it since, and learners still see the older version. Your correction reaches them only after you click Publish changes. If you fix an error in a procedure lesson, confirm the chip has gone.

A second caution from the same help center: deleting a mini course makes it inaccessible in Mini Course Generator, and the vendor suggests exporting the content first. Deletion cannot be undone from the steps described, so export to PDF and download the report before you delete anything.

Tool options and entry prices for mini courses

TalentCards paid plans start at 50 users, Teachable Starter adds a 7.5% fee on sales, Podia Mover adds 5%, and LearnWorlds Starter adds $5 per paid enrollment.

Mini Course Generator fits when the lesson is short, comes from an existing document, and goes to staff or customers by link. For a phone-first workforce that will install an app, look at TalentCards. For selling a catalog of courses, Teachable or Podia are built for checkout. More options are in Mini Course Generator alternatives.