Own website, marketplace or TeachLessons: an honest comparison

There are three broad ways to sell a teaching resource online. You can run your own website. You can list on a large marketplace with an established audience. Or you can work with a curated store like TeachLessons that sells resources from several authors and handles the listings. Plenty of teacher-authors use more than one.

None of these is right for everyone, and we would rather say that plainly. This article compares them on what usually decides the choice: how much control you have, how much work falls on you, who brings the buyers and how the money works. If you already know you want to add TeachLessons, the submission form is the place to start.

Your own website

Running your own shop gives you the most control. You choose the design, own the customer relationship and can email past buyers about new resources. After your payment processor and shop software, the rest of each sale is yours.

The catch is that everything else is yours too. You bring every visitor, through search, social media or a mailing list. You handle file delivery, customer questions, refunds and, depending on where you and your buyers are, sales tax or VAT. For an author with an established audience that can work well. For someone starting out, a website with no visitors pays nothing, however good the margin looks on paper.

Then there is time. A shop needs updates, a working download system and someone to notice when a payment fails. Some teacher-authors enjoy that. Others find every hour on the shop is an hour not spent making resources. Neither view is wrong. It is worth being honest with yourself about which one describes you before you build a shop, because a site that nobody maintains quietly loses buyers' trust, even when the resources on it are excellent.

A large marketplace

A large marketplace offers what a new website lacks: buyers who already come there to shop. The platform handles checkout and delivery, and you focus on resources and listings. In return it takes a share of each sale and sets the rules. Fee structures differ from one marketplace to the next and can change, so read each platform's current terms yourself rather than relying on a summary.

The trade-off is less control. You follow the marketplace's rules on listings, previews and pricing, and its search decides which stores buyers see first. Some marketplaces also offer programs that ask for exclusivity. If you sign one, honour it, and check what it covers before listing those resources anywhere else. Our article on exclusivity clauses lists the questions worth asking. For many sellers a marketplace is still a fair exchange for the audience it brings.

TeachLessons

TeachLessons sits between the two. We run the store, checkout and file delivery for teachers in the US, the UK and Australia. We deduct the 3% payment processing cost and pay you 70% of what is left, which is 67.9% of the price. On a $20 sale that is $13.58. There is no membership, annual, sign-up or per-resource fee. Our team writes or improves the title, description, FAQ and structured data for each accepted resource, and features seller resources on landing pages, in Teacher Hub articles and in a seller spotlight.

We are also honest about our limits. We do not promise sales volumes, and we make no claims about how our audience compares with other stores. Not every resource is accepted, because we review for quality, originality and rights. Our licence is non-exclusive, you keep your copyright, and you can remove a resource at any time.

Side by side

Here is how the three options compare on the points that usually matter. For your own website and for marketplaces the payout depends on your own costs or the platform's current terms, so we have not put a number on them. Our payout calculator shows what any price pays through TeachLessons. The rows that matter most differ from seller to seller, so read the table with your own catalog and your own week in mind.

Combining channels sensibly

For many sellers the realistic answer is a mix. A seller with their own website can add TeachLessons to reach teachers their site does not, while keeping their mailing list and direct buyers. A seller on a non-exclusive marketplace can list the same resources with us and keep everything else as it is. Our piece on why teacher-authors add a second channel looks at the risk side, and our guide to selling on multiple platforms covers the day-to-day work.

Whichever mix you choose, keep one price per resource where you can and keep records per channel. When you are ready to try TeachLessons, read about the Seller Program and send a few resources through the submission form. Our team reviews each one and replies by email.

Questions sellers ask

More for teacher-sellers

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.