Creators

Where to find customers who are course creators

Course creators sell a paid curriculum with a cart, a student login, and a refund policy — they are not free YouTube explainers and not 'community-only' Circle operators. They live in Kajabi, Teachable, Thinkific, Podia, SamCart, and sometimes a Circle space bolted onto the course. They argue about drip versus cohort, evergreen webinar replay decay, order bumps, completion rates, and whether the student app still plays DRM video on iOS. If you sell checkout, webinar tech, student success, affiliates for course launches, or a Circle-plus-Kajabi glue layer, find them in r/onlinecourses, Kajabi Hero / Teachable vendor communities, Facebook launch groups, and G2 wars between Kajabi and Thinkific. Ignore people asking how to film a lecture for free. Hunt the operator whose refund spike followed a broken drip. Paste your URL into PainHuntr and keep asking, comparing, and frustrated cart and LMS threads.

Where course creators actually hang out

These are the rooms where course creators ask for recommendations, compare tools, and name the competitor they want to leave. Start here before you buy ads.

Redditmid-size, commercial
r/onlinecourses
This is where people compare Kajabi versus Teachable versus Thinkific with real cart screenshots. Threads titled 'refunds after the webinar replay expired,' 'Teachable transaction fees plus Stripe,' and 'Circle as the community layer on a Thinkific course' are buying briefs. Search drip, cohort, order bump, completion, and named LMS vendors. Commenters who mention a launch calendar or a student login are in-market; 'how do I start YouTube teaching' is the educational-creators page.
Rules gotcha: Guru launch spam is constant. Mods remove landing pages. Answer a specific LMS, refund, or checkout problem. Do not drop a $997 'course on courses.'
Forumvendor-hosted, paying customers
Kajabi, Teachable, and Circle product communities
Kajabi Heroes, Teachable's community, Thinkific's instructors space, and Circle's own community are where paying course operators debug pipeline emails, product-pricing pages, and member permissions when a course and a community share a login. Switching cost is migration of students, not a new YouTube upload. Search 'migrating off Teachable,' 'Kajabi checkout tax,' and 'Circle spaces for a cohort.' These rooms are the opposite of free explainer YouTube.
Rules gotcha: Vendor communities notice competitors. Disclose. Answer with a migration or tax detail, not a category slogan. Do not harvest member lists.
Facebooklarge, launch-calendar energy
Course launch and Kajabi user groups
Facebook still hosts the evergreen-webinar crowd: people asking which replay tool still gates a Kajabi offer, whether Hotmart is worth it for a local-language cart, and how to run a cohort without Circle eating the calendar. If you sell webinar software, checkout, or student-success email, these groups paste invoices. Filter for Kajabi/Teachable/Thinkific in the post, not 'I teach on YouTube for free.'
Rules gotcha: Many groups are MLM-adjacent course-on-courses. Leave those. In operator groups, vendors belong in weekly tool threads. Do not DM every cart screenshot.
Reviewshigh intent
G2 Kajabi vs Teachable vs Thinkific vs Podia
2–3 star LMS reviews are migration diaries: student app DRM failures, surprise transaction fees, drip that un-dripped a module, Circle integration that duplicated members. If you replace checkout, hosting, or community glue, quote those cons. Filter for independent course businesses, not enterprise L&D — that is a different catalog page in education.
Rules gotcha: Do not astroturf LMS reviews. Vendor replies when named are fine. Emailing a reviewer because they left two stars is not.
YouTubecomment-intent
Kajabi and Teachable migration videos
Search 'leaving Teachable for Kajabi,' 'Thinkific vs Podia checkout,' and 'Circle community plus course login.' Commenters name the exact student-export failure, the webinar replay that refunded, and the affiliate cookie that did not fire on SamCart. Stay on paid LMS and cart videos. Skip free-YouTube-teacher tutorials and Skillshare-only explainers — those buyers are on the educational creators page.
Rules gotcha: Comments under 'make $10k with a course' videos are affiliate swamps. Answer the LMS or refund constraint in text. Do not paste a guru funnel.
Xbursty around launches
Course operators on X
Operators tweet refund spikes, Kajabi price-page bugs, and webinar tools that dropped a cart. Quote-tweet chains naming the LMS they fled are switching intent. Search live for drip, cohort, order bump, and Circle. This is not LinkedIn thought-leadership and not free explainer Twitter.
Rules gotcha: Cold DMs that say 'we scale course launches' look like agencies farming. Reply in public to the checkout or student-login failure they named.

How course creators talk about their problems

Search and replies land when you use their words, not your category name. These phrases show up in threads when they are close to buying or switching.

refund spike after drip broke
leaving Teachable for Kajabi
Circle login duplicated students
evergreen webinar replay expired
SamCart order bump not firing
Thinkific transaction fee stack
cohort calendar fighting Circle
student iOS DRM would not play
Hotmart cart for a local launch
completion rate after module six

What course creators complain about — and what that means

PainHuntr classifies conversations by intent: actively asking, comparing, frustrated, discussing, or a passing mention. The quotes below are the shape of demand, not a promise that a specific post is live today.

Frustrated
“Teachable took a cut on top of Stripe and the student iOS app still will not play the DRM lesson. I have a cohort starting Monday. I am exporting if Kajabi will not strand my affiliates.”
r/onlinecourses LMS threads, G2 cons for Teachable, and Kajabi community migration posts.
Comparing
“Kajabi versus Thinkific versus Podia plus Circle — who actually keeps a student login and a paid community without duplicating members? I am not building a free YouTube curriculum. I have a cart.”
Facebook launch groups, YouTube migration comments, and Circle community threads about course permissions.
Actively asking
“Need a webinar replay that gates a Kajabi offer without refunding everyone when the timer hits zero. WebinarJam feels like 2016. Who does evergreen for a $499 course without a 12-week agency onboarding?”
Facebook course-launch groups, X webinar-fail tweets, and r/onlinecourses monetization threads.
Discussing
“Completion fell off after module six. I know I should add student success but every tool assumes I have a TA team. I just want a nudge that is not another Kajabi pipeline I have to design.”
Slower Kajabi Heroes threads and Thinkific instructor spaces.
Mention
“Evergreen cart is still on Teachable. Same bump. Not migrating LMS unless refunds get worse.”
Launch-week tweets. Low intent unless a drip or fee reply chain starts.

Search queries that surface course creators in buying mode

Paste these into Google, Reddit, or X search. They are the manual version of what PainHuntr runs when you paste a product URL.

site:reddit.com/r/onlinecourses (Kajabi OR Teachable OR Thinkific OR Circle) (refund OR migrating OR drip OR fees)

site:community.kajabi.com (checkout OR tax OR pipeline OR Circle)

site:youtube.com ("leaving Teachable" OR "Kajabi vs Thinkific" OR "Circle plus course")

(SamCart OR Kajabi OR Teachable) ("order bump" OR webinar OR refund) (broke OR expensive)

site:g2.com (Kajabi OR Teachable OR Thinkific OR Podia) (cons OR DRM OR fees)

site:facebook.com (Kajabi OR Teachable) (cohort OR webinar OR cart) group

How to reach course creators without getting ignored

Lead with the LMS or cart failure they named — a refund spike, DRM that will not play, duplicated Circle members — and answer that migration before your product appears. Course creators reward people who have run a paid launch, not a free-YouTube pedagogy lecture. Never pitch 'just put it on YouTube.' Offer a student-export checklist, a fee comparison at their price point, or a webinar-replay gate example. Do not ask them to hop on a call during cart-open week. Follow up in the same thread if they reply. Paste your URL into PainHuntr to find asking, comparing, and frustrated Kajabi/Teachable conversations. Do not scrape student emails from a Circle space.

Frequently asked questions

Where do course creators actually buy LMS and checkout tools?

On a business card, after a refund week or a fee surprise, inside Kajabi/Teachable communities and r/onlinecourses. They migrate LMS platforms in public G2 threads before they ever sit an enterprise demo. If your only motion is a 30-minute call during their launch week, you will miss them. Be in the migration thread with a student-export note.

Is a course creator the same as an educational creator?

No. Educational creators may teach for free on YouTube with worked examples and never run a cart. Course creators run Kajabi, Teachable, Thinkific, and Circle with refunds, drip, and affiliates. Some people wear both hats, but the budget splits: a chalkboard explainer is not shopping SamCart. Use the educational creators page for free-first teachers.

How is Circle involved if this is about courses?

Many paid courses bolt Circle on as the cohort layer. That does not make them 'community builders' as a primary identity, and it does not make them Discord server owners. If your product is the LMS-community glue, this page is correct. If your product is a standalone paid community without a course cart, use community builders.

Should I join every Facebook launch group?

No. Pick two rooms where Kajabi or Teachable already comes up. Most launch groups are social proof theaters and will treat a new vendor as spam. Public Reddit, G2, and vendor communities are easier to monitor at scale. PainHuntr exists so you do not live in twenty groups.

What should I paste into PainHuntr if I sell to course creators?

Your LMS, checkout, or webinar URL plus the incumbent — Kajabi, Teachable, Thinkific, SamCart, Circle. The engine looks for people asking for a migration, comparing fees, and venting after refunds or DRM failures, not for every mention of 'course.' Pair that with the queries on this page if you still hunt by hand.

Related audiences

Reading 1,000 threads a month doesn't scale. PainHuntr does.

Paste your product URL. PainHuntr finds the conversations where course creators ask, compare, and complain on Reddit, X, Hacker News, YouTube, and review sites — then helps you reply, track what worked, and do it again.

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