GoHighLevel Memberships & Courses: Setup Guide (2026)
GoHighLevel Memberships & Courses: Setup Guide (2026)
By Dr Priya Jaganathan, GoHighLevel Certified Admin · HL Growth Partner, Australia · Updated 9 August 2026 · 10 min read
Yes — you can build, host and sell full courses inside GoHighLevel, and the Memberships product is bundled into every plan rather than sold as a separate subscription. That means video hosting, checkout, drip content and member logins are covered by the same US$97 or US$297 per month you already pay for the CRM. For most Australian coaches and consultants the practical cost of running a course platform drops to payment processing fees plus your existing sub-account.
On this page: What's included · Course builder structure · Offers, coupons and pricing · Checkout and payments · The member experience · Automation with Workflows · Migrating from Kajabi or Teachable · GoHighLevel memberships vs the alternatives · Analytics and progress tracking · Limitations worth knowing · Common mistakes to avoid · Frequently asked questions · Related articles
GoHighLevel memberships give you a complete course platform inside the same sub-account that runs your CRM, funnels and automation — no separate Kajabi bill, no Zapier bridge between your checkout and your student list. If you are already paying for HighLevel, the course side is effectively free capacity you have not switched on yet.
I build these for Australian coaches, allied health practices and consultants most weeks, and the pattern is consistent: the platform is capable, but people underestimate the setup discipline. Products, offers, categories and lessons are four distinct layers, and building them in the wrong order means rebuilding. This guide follows the order I actually work in, with AUD pricing examples and the honest limitations.
What's included in GoHighLevel memberships
The Memberships product is one module with several parts. Courses is the core: you create products, structure them into categories and lessons, upload video, and publish to a member area on your own domain. Video hosting is included, so you are not paying Vimeo or Wistia on top.
Quizzes and assessments sit inside lessons, with pass marks and the option to gate progression until a learner passes. Certificates can be issued automatically on course completion, with your logo and the student's name merged in — useful for CPD-style programs where participants need proof of completion.
The Communities crossover
Communities is a separate product but it shares the same member login and mobile app. You can attach a group to a course so buyers land in a discussion space the moment they purchase. If you are weighing up whether to run a paid group alongside your program, our guide to GoHighLevel Communities covers the setup and where it falls short of Skool.
Course builder structure: products, categories and lessons
The hierarchy is products → categories (modules) → lessons (posts). A product is the whole course. Categories are your modules. Lessons hold the actual content — video, text, downloadable files, embedded forms, quizzes.
Each lesson supports a video upload, rich text, attachments and custom HTML if you need an embed. Themes control the look of the member area; the Neue and New Classic themes are the ones I use because they handle mobile properly without custom CSS.
Drip content
Drip is set at the category or lesson level, either by days from enrolment or by a fixed date. Days from enrolment is right for evergreen programs. Fixed dates suit cohort launches where everyone moves together. You can also gate a lesson behind completion of a prior lesson, which is the cleaner option for sequential technical training.
Naming discipline
Name products the way a customer would, not the way you file them internally — those names appear in the client portal, on certificates and at checkout.
Offers, coupons and pricing models
A product is the content. An offer is what someone buys. This separation is the single most useful thing about how HighLevel courses are structured — you can bundle three products into one offer, sell the same product at three price points, or grant free access to a lead magnet course without touching the content itself.
Offers support free access, one-time payment, or recurring subscription with a set number of instalments or open-ended billing. Coupons are created at the offer level with percentage or fixed discounts, expiry dates and usage caps.
Worked AUD examples
Three models I see working in Australia:
- Lead magnet plus core offer. Free 4-lesson mini course as the free offer; A$697 one-time for the full program. The free course does the qualifying work your sales page can't.
- Payment plan. A$1,497 one-time or 4 × A$427 recurring. The plan version usually takes 55–65% of buyers and lifts total conversions enough to be worth the extra admin.
- Membership subscription. A$97/month recurring for a library offer bundling five products, with new content added quarterly. Annual at A$970 to reduce churn.
If you also sell physical products or workbooks alongside the course, the same payment settings power a GoHighLevel ecommerce store, so you can run both from one Stripe connection.
Checkout, order bumps and funnels
Every paid offer generates a hosted checkout page, but I rarely use the default. A two-step order form inside a funnel converts better: step one captures name, email and phone (creating the contact record before payment), step two takes the card. That first step is what makes abandoned checkout recovery possible.
Payments run through Stripe or PayPal via Payments → Integrations, and Australian Stripe accounts handle AUD natively. Invoicing sits separately for higher-ticket programs where a client needs a tax invoice first — issue one, then grant offer access manually once it clears.
Order bumps and upsells
Order bumps sit on the order form as a tick box: add the workbook bundle for A$47, or the recorded Q&A archive for A$97. One-click upsells run as a post-purchase step in the funnel. A bump attach rate of 20–30% is normal, and it costs nothing to test.
The member experience: portal, app and domains
Members log in through the client portal, and you can map a custom domain — learn.yourbusiness.com.au — so nothing in the URL says GoHighLevel. Branding, logo and colours are set per sub-account.
Magic links replace passwords: the member enters their email and receives a one-tap login link. That removes most "I can't log in" tickets, usually the largest support category in any course business.
There is a mobile client portal app on iOS and Android where members can watch lessons, track progress and post in communities. On the standard plans it is the HighLevel-branded app; a fully white-labelled app is a separate paid add-on, so budget for it if branding matters to you.
Drip and automation with Workflows
This is where GoHighLevel memberships pull ahead of dedicated course platforms. Course events are native Workflow triggers, so your student lifecycle and your CRM are the same system.
Triggers worth building
- Offer access granted — sends welcome email and SMS, applies a
course-activetag, creates an opportunity in your onboarding pipeline. - Course completed — issues the certificate email, requests a testimonial via a form, adds the contact to your upsell segment.
- Lesson completed — useful for milestone congratulation messages and for spotting people who stop at module two.
- Abandoned checkout — fires when the two-step form captured details but no payment followed. Three touches over 48 hours typically recovers 8–15% of them.
Pair those with a broader nurture sequence so non-buyers stay warm. Our guide to GoHighLevel email automation and lead nurture covers the sequence structure I use before and after a launch.
Tags and custom fields
Tag on purchase, tag on completion, tag on refund. Store the enrolment date in a custom field so you can segment by cohort later. Without this, reporting on a course cohort six months out is guesswork.
Migrating from Kajabi, Teachable or Thinkific
There is no one-click importer. The migration is manual but rarely as bad as people fear. The sequence that works:
Download your video files from the old platform first — some plans restrict export, so confirm before you cancel anything. Rebuild the product structure in HighLevel, upload videos lesson by lesson, then recreate offers and pricing. Export your student list as CSV and import into Contacts with a tag identifying their course.
Existing students then need access granted: bulk-grant the offer to that tagged segment and send a re-onboarding email with a magic link. Keep the old login live for two to four weeks so nobody is locked out mid-module.
If you would rather not build from a blank sub-account, a pre-built membership structure imported via snapshot saves days. We cover options in our roundup of GoHighLevel snapshots for coaches.
GoHighLevel memberships vs Kajabi and Teachable
Pricing below is indicative AUD at typical 2026 exchange rates; check the GoHighLevel pricing page for current USD figures.
| Feature | GoHighLevel | Kajabi | Teachable |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry cost (approx. AUD/month) | ~A$150 (Starter, includes CRM) | ~A$110 (Kickstarter) | ~A$60 (Basic) |
| Course product limit | Unlimited | 1 on entry plan | Unlimited |
| Video hosting | Included | Included | Included |
| Transaction fee on sales | None (Stripe fees only) | None | Up to 5% on Basic |
| CRM, pipelines, SMS | Included | Limited | No |
| Certificates | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Community included | Yes | Yes | Limited |
| Client sub-accounts / SaaS Mode | Yes (Unlimited plan) | No | No |
The honest read: if courses are your only product, Teachable is cheaper. If you need CRM, pipelines, SMS, funnels and courses in one place — and especially if you resell to clients under SaaS Mode — GoHighLevel wins on total cost by a wide margin.
Analytics and progress tracking
The Memberships dashboard reports enrolments, revenue per offer and completion rates. Per-student progress shows which lessons each person has finished, which is your early-warning system for refund requests.
Because everything is contact-based, you can segment on it: build a smart list of everyone tagged course-active who has not completed a lesson in 14 days, then run a re-engagement Workflow. Add a short mid-course feedback survey using GoHighLevel forms and surveys to capture why people stall — the answers usually point at one specific module.
Limitations worth knowing
Video uploads have per-file size and length ceilings, so long recordings — a three-hour workshop, say — need splitting into shorter lessons or hosting externally and embedding. Splitting is better pedagogy anyway.
Community gamification is lighter than Skool: no points, levels or leaderboards at that depth, so if gamified engagement is your retention strategy you may want both. SCORM and xAPI are not supported, which rules HighLevel out of corporate LMS procurement that mandates SCORM packages.
Assessment logic is straightforward — pass marks and gating, not branching or randomised question banks. There is also no native affiliate tracking inside courses; you use the separate Affiliate Manager. Documentation for edge cases lives at the official HighLevel help centre.
Common mistakes to avoid
- Building lessons before mapping the offer. Decide what people buy and at what price first — the product structure follows the offer, not the other way around, or you will rebuild categories mid-launch.
- Using the default checkout instead of a two-step order form. Without capturing contact details at step one you have no abandoned checkout data and no way to follow up non-buyers.
- Forgetting to tag on purchase. Untagged buyers are invisible to segmentation, so you cannot email cohorts, exclude buyers from ads, or report on completion by intake.
- Publishing before testing the member journey. Buy your own offer with a 100%-off coupon and walk the whole path — checkout, welcome email, magic link, first lesson, mobile app.
- Uploading raw three-hour recordings. They hit file limits, buffer badly on mobile, and completion rates collapse; 8–15 minute lessons finish far more often.
- Cancelling the old platform too early. Keep Kajabi or Teachable live for a few weeks after migration so existing students always have a working login while you verify access.
If you want a membership site built and selling inside GoHighLevel — courses, checkout and follow-up automation included — book a strategy call with the HL Growth Partner team.
Frequently asked questions
Do GoHighLevel memberships cost extra on top of my plan?
No. Memberships, Courses and Communities are bundled into the Starter and Unlimited plans at no additional charge, including video hosting. Your only additional cost on sales is standard Stripe or PayPal processing, and optionally the white-label mobile app add-on if you want the member app under your own branding.
How many courses and students can I have?
Course products and enrolled students are unlimited on standard plans. The practical constraints are video file size and length per lesson rather than any cap on how many products or members you host, which is why splitting long recordings into shorter lessons matters.
Can I move my existing Kajabi or Teachable course across?
Yes, though it is a manual rebuild — there is no automated importer. Download your videos first, recreate the product and category structure in HighLevel, import your student list as CSV with a cohort tag, then bulk-grant offer access and send a magic link re-onboarding email.
Can students access courses on their phone?
Yes. There is a client portal mobile app on iOS and Android where members watch lessons, track progress and participate in communities. The member area is also fully responsive in a browser on your own custom domain, so a phone works even without the app installed.
Does GoHighLevel support certificates and quizzes?
Yes. Quizzes and assessments can be placed inside lessons with pass marks and optional gating so learners cannot progress until they pass, and certificates can be issued automatically on course completion with your branding and the student's name merged in.
