Tutorial viewers are solving a problem right now. That's the best moment to offer a deeper course. Most creators waste it with a vague buried link.
Someone finds your tutorial through YouTube search. They watch the whole thing. They follow along. They solve their problem. And then they close the tab and forget you exist.
You just gave away your best sales pitch for free, and the viewer had no idea you sell a course that goes ten times deeper.
This isn't a content strategy problem. You made good content and it found the right person. The problem is what happens in the four inches of space between the video player and the "Show more" button.
Think about who's watching a 20-minute tutorial on React hooks or color grading or Ableton routing. They're not casually browsing. They searched for a specific problem, picked your video from a list of results, and committed real time to it. They trust your teaching enough to follow your instructions.
That's a warm lead by any definition. In paid advertising, you'd spend real money to get someone that interested.
The global e-learning market sits around $300-400 billion and is growing at 8-15% per year depending on which research firm you ask. (The Business Research Company, 2025) Online courses are not a niche. People worldwide are paying for structured learning, and they're doing it in every language, in every field, from every country.
YouTube descriptions collapse after roughly 100 characters on mobile, 150 on desktop. Most viewers never expand them. Whatever you put in those first two lines is all they'll see.
If your first two lines look like this:
Follow me on Instagram: [link] Join my Discord: [link]
You just used your most visible real estate to send potential students to platforms where they'll never buy anything.
If they look like this:
Learn the full React workflow in the complete course (projects, exercises, lifetime access): [link]
Now the viewer who just watched your free tutorial sees a natural next step. Not a hard sell. A clear offer that connects to what they were already doing.
"Check out my course" tells people nothing. What do they get? What can they do after finishing it? Why is the course better than watching more free tutorials?
Good course pitches name the result:
Go from tutorial follower to building your own projects: [link]
The full design workflow I use for client work, start to finish: [link]
Ship a real app by the end of the course, not another todo list: [link]
Each of these tells the viewer what they'll be able to do, not just what they'll sit through. That difference matters because people don't buy courses. They buy outcomes.
If you haven't picked a platform yet, or you're reconsidering, here's where things stand:
Udemy has 70+ million students and handles all the marketing on their platform. The catch: you keep only 37% of sales that come through Udemy's marketplace. Sales from your own links keep 97%. You also can't control pricing. Udemy runs constant sales that price courses at $10-15 regardless of what you set. For creators with their own YouTube audience, the revenue split on organic Udemy sales is painful.
Teachable charges $49-430/month depending on the plan, with 0% transaction fees on paid plans. Handles payments in 130+ currencies and manages EU VAT compliance, which matters if you sell internationally. You control pricing, branding, and the student experience.
Gumroad takes a flat 10% of every sale. No monthly fee. Dead simple to set up. It's a merchant of record, meaning Gumroad handles sales tax and VAT globally. Good for creators who want to start selling fast without committing to a subscription.
Podia starts at $29/month (with a 7.5% transaction fee on the starter plan, dropping to 0% at $69/month). Includes video hosting, which saves you a separate Vimeo or Wistia bill. Clean interface, no technical setup.
Thinkific has a free plan for one course. Paid plans from $49/month. No transaction fees. Good course builder with quizzes and certificates. Popular in Canada and Europe.
The right choice depends on your audience size and where they are. If most of your viewers are outside the US, make sure your platform handles multi-currency checkout and regional tax compliance. A buyer in Germany hitting a US-only checkout with no VAT handling is a buyer who leaves.
If your YouTube audience is international (check your analytics), your course pricing should account for purchasing power differences. A $99 course is a casual purchase in the US or Western Europe but a meaningful expense in Southeast Asia, Latin America, or Eastern Europe.
Some approaches:
Purchasing power parity (PPP) discounts. Gumroad and some Teachable setups let you offer location-based pricing. A viewer in India sees a lower price than a viewer in the US. This expands your addressable market without devaluing the course for higher-income regions.
Tiered pricing. Offer a base tier and a premium tier. The base tier contains the core content. The premium tier adds community access, live calls, or bonus modules. This lets price-sensitive buyers in with the base tier while capturing more revenue from buyers who want the full package.
Regional launches. If you notice a large cluster of viewers from a specific country, consider a localized promotion targeting that audience with a regionally appropriate price.
Add UTM parameters to your course link so you can trace which videos drive enrollments:
?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=description&utm_campaign=react-course
Compare across your catalog. You'll typically find that beginner tutorials and "how to get started" videos drive the most course clicks, because those viewers are at the start of their learning path and most likely to want structured guidance.
Advanced, niche tutorials drive fewer clicks but often higher-intent ones. Someone watching "Advanced TypeScript generics" who clicks your course link is more likely to buy than someone who found your "What is JavaScript?" video.
If you have enough data, test two versions of your course pitch:
Run version A on half your tutorials and version B on the other half. After a few weeks, check which one drives more clicks. Keep the winner.
Your old tutorials still get views. YouTube search traffic is evergreen. A tutorial you uploaded 18 months ago might still get 500 views a week, and its description probably still has your old links, a course that's been updated since, or no course link at all.
Go through your top-performing tutorials (sorted by views in YouTube Studio) and make sure each one has your current course link in the first two lines. If you have a large library, Sendari can push the course link across an entire playlist at once and keep new uploads consistent, so you don't have to remember to paste it every time.
