Tutorial · 8 steps · about 10 minutes

Publish your first course in Chapters

By Gill · builder of Chapters LMS · Updated September 2026

A course in Chapters isn't for sale until you press Publish. Publishing is what creates the matching product in your Shopify store — until then, there's nothing for a customer to buy. This tutorial goes from an empty dashboard to a live course, showing every screen along the way.

What you need

Chapters installed and the free plan activated (no charge until you sell).
A course title and a price — even a rough one. You can change both later.
At least one lesson's worth of content: a video file, or a few paragraphs of text.

Step 1: Open Chapters and press Create course

In your Shopify admin, open Apps → Chapters LMS. The dashboard shows your courses, lessons and students. Press Create course in the Recent Courses card — it's also on the Courses page in the left sidebar.

The Recent Courses card in the Chapters dashboard with the Create course button — The Create course button lives in the Recent Courses card on the dashboard.

Step 2: The course wizard opens

Chapters creates a draft called Untitled course and opens the five-step wizard: Basic Info, Media, Curriculum, Settings, Publish. Everything you type saves automatically, so you can leave and come back.

The blue banner at the top is the app keeping score for you: a course needs at least one lesson before it can be published, and the banner changes as you get closer.

The Chapters course wizard on step 1 with the Add your first lesson banner — Step 1 of 5. The banner tells you exactly what's still missing.

Step 3: Fill in the basics

Give the course a title — this becomes the product name in your store. The subtitle is a one-line tagline; the description is what students read before they buy, and it becomes the product description too.

Write the description as a promise, not a table of contents: what will the student be able to do afterwards?

Basic Information form with title, subtitle and description filled in — Title, subtitle and description. The title becomes your Shopify product name.

Step 4: Set the price, then Save & Continue

Enter the price in your store's currency. Type 0 to make the course free — students still go through checkout at no charge, which is how they get enrolled. The optional compare-at price shows a struck-through original price next to the real one.

Pick a course type (recorded videos, live classes, or both) and a level, then press Save & Continue.

Price, compare-at price, course type and level fields with the Save and Continue button — Price 49, no compare-at, recorded videos, all levels. Selling in more than one currency? Prices follow your Shopify Markets settings automatically.

Step 5: Media — optional, skip it for now

You can add a thumbnail (1280×720 works best) and a short preview video here. Neither is required to publish. If you skip the thumbnail, Chapters uses the poster frame of your first lesson video. Press Continue.

Course Media step with thumbnail and preview video upload areas — Both optional. You can come back to this step any time.

Step 6: Add your first chapter

The Curriculum step starts empty. Press Add Chapter, name it, and confirm. Chapters are just groups — most courses use a handful, like Getting Started, The Basics, Your First Project.

Already have an outline in a spreadsheet? Import from Excel builds every chapter and lesson from it in one go.

Empty Curriculum step with Import from Excel and Add Chapter buttons — An empty curriculum. Add Chapter, or import an outline from a spreadsheet.

Add Chapter dialog asking for a chapter title — Name the chapter and confirm.

Step 7: Add lessons to the chapter

Press Add Lesson on the chapter. You can add several at once — one title per line — and pick the type: video, text/article, or live class. You can change a lesson's type later.

Chapter 1 Getting Started row with Edit, Add Lesson and delete controls — Your chapter, ready for lessons.

Add lessons dialog with a lesson title and Text/Article type selected — One title per line to create several lessons at once.

A new lesson is empty until you give it content — a video upload, or text for an article lesson. Press Edit on the lesson to add it. This is the step most people skip, and it's the one thing that blocks publishing:

A text lesson marked Empty in the curriculum, with Edit, Quiz, Assignment and Make sample buttons — Empty means the lesson has a title but no content yet. Press Edit to add it.

Review and publish step at 61 percent ready with Next: Add content to 1 empty lesson and a disabled Publish button — If you jump ahead to Publish with an empty lesson, Chapters tells you exactly what's missing.

Step 8: Publish

Once every lesson has content, the banner turns green: Your course is ready — publish it to start selling. Press Publish now.

Green banner reading Your course is ready, publish it to start selling, with a Publish now button — The readiness score counts a thumbnail too, but you don't need 100% to publish.

That's it. The course is live, and three new buttons appear: Preview (see it as a student), Copy student link, and Add students (enroll someone by hand without a purchase).

Course page after publishing: status Published, Your course is live banner, View as customer and Copy student link buttons — Published. Customers who buy are enrolled automatically.

What happened behind the scenes

Open Products in your Shopify admin and you'll find a new product with the course's name. Chapters created it the moment you published: status Active, product type Course, inventory not tracked, and no shipping — so a course-only cart never asks for a shipping address.

Shopify Products list filtered to the new course product, showing status Active and product type Course — The product Chapters created. Price, discounts, collections and multi-currency all work like any other product.

Because it's a normal product, everything you already know applies: discount codes, collections, Shopify Markets for local currencies, your theme's product page. When someone buys it, the payment lands in your regular Shopify checkout and Chapters enrolls them automatically.

If something's not right

The Publish button is greyed out+

Look at the “Next:” line under the readiness score — it names the one thing that's missing. The usual causes: a lesson with a title but no content (see Step 7), no price set (0 counts as set), or the course still called “Untitled course”.

I can't find the product in Shopify+

It's only created when you publish. In Products, search for the course title, or filter by product type “Course”.

Customers can't see the course on my store+

Publishing makes the course buyable; showing it on your storefront is the next step — add the Chapters course blocks to your theme so the product page shows the curriculum and your homepage shows a course grid. Step 3 of the setup guide walks through it.

I published by mistake+

Press Unpublish course on the Publish step. The product is taken off sale; existing students keep their access.

Put the course on your storefront: add the theme blocks (about 5 minutes), then run the launch test — buy your own course once and watch the whole journey. Stuck anywhere? Email chapters@pixipace.com and I'll look at your store.