Adding Resources to Another Platform Without Breaching an Agreement

Putting a resource you already sell on a second platform sounds simple. You upload the file, write a description and wait for a sale. In practice, every resource carries a small stack of promises you made along the way: to a marketplace, to a co-author, to the artist whose clip art you bought, to the designer whose font sits in your headings. Any one of those promises can limit where the resource is allowed to go.

This checklist is meant to be worked through before you add anything to a new channel, whether that channel is your own website, another marketplace or TeachLessons. Once a resource passes, you can submit it to us with a clear conscience. It is general information, not legal advice. If a contract you signed says something different from what you read here, the contract wins, and if you are unsure what it means, ask a lawyer who can read the actual wording.

Start with your current marketplace agreements

The first question is whether you have agreed to sell anything exclusively somewhere. Some marketplace plans, publisher deals and curriculum contracts offer a better rate or extra promotion in return for a promise that certain resources are sold only there. Others make no such demand. Find every agreement you have accepted and check which kind it is.

The platform or partner decides what its exclusivity covers, so do not guess. Open the current terms and read the definition yourself. Our guide to exclusivity clauses in seller agreements gives you a list of questions to work from.

If you have agreed to exclusivity for certain resources, honor that commitment. We will not accept a resource that you have promised to sell only somewhere else.

• Which plan or tier am I on with each platform today?
• Did I agree to anything exclusive, and on what date?
• Which of my resources fall inside that exclusivity, according to the agreement's own definition?
• Do any older agreements, such as a publisher deal, a district contract or a curriculum company, still apply?

Check the dates, not just the rules

Timing matters as much as wording. An exclusivity term might start on a set date, renew every year or end only when you give notice. Platforms also change their terms from time to time, sometimes with a deadline to choose an option and a default for sellers who don't. Your obligations on a given day depend on which terms applied to you on that day.

Write down when you agreed to anything, or chose not to, and keep the confirmation email. If you change plans later, the same habit tells you exactly when your obligations started and stopped. Our article on what to do when a platform rewrites its seller terms has a checklist for those moments.

Co-authored and commissioned work

A resource you made with a colleague is not yours alone to place. If you split the work and the earnings, your co-author may have their own view about a new platform, and they may have their own exclusivity commitments. Get their agreement in writing before you list a shared resource anywhere new. A short email that both of you reply to is far better than a conversation nobody remembers.

The same goes for work you paid someone else to create, such as illustrations or a reading passage. Check what rights you actually bought. Some commissions cover use in your own products on any platform. Others are narrower.

Third-party clip art, fonts and images

This is the item sellers most often forget. Clip art, fonts, photos and frames you used inside a resource each come with their own terms of use. Some artists allow use in commercial teaching resources on any platform. Some name specific marketplaces. A few ask for credit in a particular form, or require that their images are flattened or secured in the final file.

Go back to the licence for each asset in the resource and check the points below. If the licence only names one marketplace, contact the artist before you list elsewhere. If you cannot find the licence at all, treat that asset as a problem to fix first.

• Commercial use in sold products allowed?
• Any restriction to named platforms or a single storefront?
• Credit line or terms of use page required in the file?
• Rules on flattening, securing or not extracting the artwork?

Keep records, then submit

Once the checks are done, keep a simple record for each resource: where it is listed, under which agreement, which third-party assets it contains and where those licences are saved. A spreadsheet with one row per resource is enough. If a question ever comes up, you can answer it in a minute instead of digging through old downloads. Our record-keeping article suggests a layout.

TeachLessons takes a non-exclusive licence, so listing with us never stops you from selling the same resource elsewhere, and you keep your copyright. You can remove a resource at any time. There are no membership or transaction fees: you keep 70% of the price after a flat 3% payment cost, so a $10 sale pays you $6.79. The key terms page explains the program and the payout calculator shows what each price pays.

When your resources pass this checklist, send them through the submission form with your author details. Our team also checks rights as part of the review, and not every resource is accepted.

Questions sellers ask

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General information about the TeachLessons Seller Program, not legal, tax or financial advice. The seller agreement you receive before listing sets out the binding terms.