Cohort Courses

Some courses are best taken alone, at your own pace. Others come alive when a group starts together: everyone on the same schedule, learning in step, with content that unlocks week by week. That is what a cohort course is for.

A cohort course looks like a regular course from the outside, but instead of one price and instant access it runs in scheduled cohorts. A cohort is one group of students who start on a set date, work through the material as it is released, join live calls, talk to each other in a group chat, and finish together. You can run the same course again next season as a fresh cohort, with new dates and a new roster.

Creating a cohort course

1. Go to Courses in your dashboard sidebar, then click Courses.
2. Click Create Course.
3. When asked What kind of course is this?, choose Cohort. (The other option, Self-paced, is the classic buy-once course. See Creating a course.)
4. Fill in the Course details. These stay the same across every cohort you ever run:
   • Course title, like "Songwriting Bootcamp". At least 5 characters.
   • Description, written in the rich text editor. This is your pitch.
   • Cover image and Intro video, both optional.
5. Fill in the First cohort:
   • Cohort name, a label for this particular run, like "Spring 2026".
   • Start date and End date.
   • Timezone. Your release schedule and call times are read against this, so pick the one you plan the program in.
   • Capacity (optional). The most students you will take. Leave it blank for no limit.
6. Click Create cohort course.

You land straight on the new cohort, ready to add content.

The Cohorts page

Open a cohort course from your course list and you land on its Cohorts page, one card per run. Each card shows the cohort name, its status, its start date (or Not scheduled), and how many students are enrolled out of your capacity. Click the arrow on a card to open that cohort.

To add another run, click New cohort and fill in the dialog: Cohort title, Start date, End date, Timezone, Capacity (optional), and Copy content from:

• Course template (default) copies the course's own modules and lessons.
• An existing cohort copies everything from a run you have already built. Pick the one to copy under Source cohort.
• Start blank gives you an empty cohort to build from scratch.

Copying from a past cohort is the fastest way to run your program again. You only change the dates.

Inside a cohort

A cohort opens into a workspace with a tab for each part of the program.

At the top are two buttons that decide whether the world can see it:

• Publish makes the cohort available to students. Until you publish, it is yours alone. Unpublish puts it back into draft.
• Archive takes a finished cohort out of circulation while keeping every record. Restore brings it back.

Details

Edit the Title, Description, Start date, End date and Capacity (optional) here, then click Save details.

There is also a Status setting so the cohort card reads correctly as the program moves along: Draft, Scheduled, Active, Completed or Archived.

Modules and drip release

Building the curriculum works just like a self-paced course. Add modules, then add lessons inside each one. See Modules and lessons for the full walkthrough.

The difference in a cohort is that every module has its own release rule, which is what keeps the group moving together. When you add or edit a module you get When does this module unlock?:

• Immediately when the cohort starts. Available from day one.
• A number of days after the cohort starts. Fill in Days after start, for example 7 for a weekly rhythm.
• On a specific date. Fill in a Release date and the module opens that day.

Each module in the list tells you its rule in plain words, like "Unlocks 14 days after start" or "Unlocks on 3 March". TribeNest opens each one at the right moment, so there is nothing for you to unlock by hand.

Students

The Students tab lists everyone enrolled in this cohort, with a search box for finding somebody by name or email. Each row shows:

• Name and Email.
• Account, which is either Claimed (they have finished setting up their login) or Pending claim (they bought, but have not set a password yet). See Student access.
• Enrolled, the date they joined.
• Status, either Active or Revoked.

Pricing plans

The Pricing tab is what students pay to join this cohort. A cohort with no plan cannot be bought, so this is the tab that opens the doors. Until you add one it reads "No pricing plans yet. Without a plan, no one can enroll in this cohort."

Click Add plan and fill in:

• Title, which is what buyers read, like "Pay in full" or "3 monthly payments".
• Total amount and Currency. This is the whole price of the cohort.
• Installments (1 = pay in full). Leave it at 1 to charge everything at once, or set it higher (up to 24) to split the total into that many payments.
• Interval (days), how far apart those payments are spaced. 30 gives you roughly monthly.
• Show as the default plan to buyers, which is the plan the checkout preselects.

Click Save plan. Each plan shows its terms underneath its title: "USD 900.00, pay in full" for a single payment, or "USD 900.00 total, 3 installments every 30 days" for a plan that is split. The plan you chose as the default carries a Default badge.

You can offer more than one plan at a time, for example a pay-in-full option beside an installment option, and buyers pick between them at checkout.

Changing a plan

1. Open the cohort's Pricing tab.
2. Click Edit on the plan you want to change.
3. The Edit plan window opens with that plan's title, amount, currency, installments, interval and default setting already filled in.
4. Change what you need, then click Save plan.

The plan is updated in place, so your list keeps one row per plan and buyers see the new terms straight away.

Retiring a plan

Click the bin icon beside a plan to take it off sale. TribeNest asks Archive this pricing plan? and reminds you that archived plans are not shown to new buyers, and that existing enrollments tied to the plan stay on it. Nobody who already bought is moved onto different terms.

How installments get collected

You set the plan once and TribeNest collects the rest for you. The first payment is taken at checkout and the later ones are charged automatically on the schedule you set, through your connected payment account.

Payments do sometimes fail, so students are looked after without you having to chase them:

• If a card is declined, the student gets an email explaining what happened, with a button to update their card. The new card is charged straight away, so there is nothing else for them to do.
• If their bank wants to confirm the payment, they get an email with a one-step confirmation.
• If no card ever reached us, they get an email asking them to add one.

Every one of those emails names the date their access would end if nothing changes, and access keeps working until then. If access does stop, settling what is outstanding brings it straight back. Nothing is deleted in the meantime.

Live calls

The Calls tab is your program's live schedule: weekly Q&As, workshops, office hours, whatever the cohort needs. Everyone in the cohort can join, and nobody else. Recordings appear for the same group afterwards.

Calls have their own guide. See Live calls.

Announcements

The Announcements tab posts cohort-wide updates. Click New announcement and fill in:

• Title and Body. The body takes plain text or basic HTML.
• Publish now (uncheck to save as draft).
• Pin to the top, for something you want everyone to keep seeing.
• Email enrollees when published, which sends the announcement to every enrolled student's inbox as well as posting it.

You can pin, unpin, edit or delete announcements at any time using the buttons on each one.

Group chat

Every cohort gets a General chat channel the moment it is created. Anyone enrolled with active access can post, and replies can be threaded one level deep. The Chat tab lists the channels attached to this cohort so you can see what your group has.

Students find the conversation in the members area of your site, alongside their other chats.

The student page

The Page tab controls the cohort's own page on your published site. It is the page a visitor reads before they enroll and the home base for everybody already on the program, and it has three views:

• Templates, a set of starter layouts. Click Apply on the one you like.
• Customize, where you add, remove and reorder blocks. Click Save layout when you are happy.
• Preview, which renders the page with your real cohort content, exactly as students will see it.

The blocks you can place are:

• Course header, the title, cohort and dates.
• Hero banner, a full-width banner with your intro video.
• Lesson list, every module in order, with each one's release date.
• Upcoming sessions, the next live calls.
• Announcements, your latest posts.
• Progress bar, how far a student has got.
• Pricing plans, the plans on offer.
• Instructor bio, a short blurb about you.
• Rich text, anything else you want to say.
• Chat preview, a panel that points at the group chat. The conversation itself lives in the members area.

A badge at the top tells you whether the layout is Live or Draft. Click Publish to push it live, or Unpublish to fall back to the previous layout.

How students buy a seat

Seats are sold from the cohort's own page on your site. Click Publish on the cohort and that page goes live; until then it is yours alone.

What a visitor sees

The page is built from the blocks you arranged on the Page tab, so the exact shape is yours. What it draws from the cohort is:

• The course title and the cohort name, so somebody landing cold knows which run they are looking at.
• The dates, reading "Runs Apr 6, 2026 to Jun 15, 2026". A date you have not set yet shows as TBD, so fill both in before you publish.
• Your description and intro video.
• The curriculum: every module in order, with its lessons, so a buyer can see what the program covers.
• The pricing plans you set, each with its price and its terms underneath, like "Pay in full" or "3 installments every 30 days". Your default plan is the one drawn with a highlight.

Underneath all of that is an Enrol button. That button is the only way a cohort seat is sold.

The three checkout steps

Clicking Enrol opens a checkout with three numbered steps.

1. Choose a plan. Every plan you offer is listed with its price and terms, and your default one is already selected. This step comes first because choosing between paying in full and paying over time is the decision the buyer came to make.
2. Your details. First name, last name and email. The panel underneath repeats the plan they picked and its total, so nothing about the price is a surprise. TribeNest tells them "We will send your access to this address", because that address is what their course is tied to afterwards.
3. Payment. The card step shows Due now, which is what actually leaves their card today. On a three-payment plan that is the first payment, with a line beneath reading "3 payments in total, USD 900.00 altogether". On an installment plan they are also asked to authorise the later payments, which is what lets TribeNest collect them without the student having to come back.

The confirmation

Once payment goes through, the buyer lands on a confirmation page headed You have your seat, with the course and cohort named, their own name, a short reference number, and what they paid today. A line confirms the details have been emailed to them, and their access email follows in the usual way. See Student access.

A plan priced at zero skips the payment step entirely and confirms straight away.

A cohort is only ever sold through its cohort page

A cohort course has no price of its own: the price lives on the cohort's plans, which is what makes different runs of the same program cost different things. So a cohort course cannot be bought through the ordinary course checkout. Anyone who reaches for it that way is told "This is a cohort programme. Choose a start date and a payment plan to enrol."

For you that means one rule: link people to the cohort, not to the course. That is the page carrying the dates, the plans and the Enrol button.

When a seat cannot be sold

Buyers are turned away for three reasons, each with a message that says which:

• The cohort is full. If you set a Capacity, TribeNest counts enrolled students, paid seats waiting to be claimed, and anyone part way through checkout in the last few minutes. When those fill the cohort, the next buyer is told "This cohort is full. No places are left." Leave capacity blank and there is no limit. Revoking somebody's access frees their place.
• They already have a seat on this cohort. The same email cannot buy the same run twice.
• Their payment plan cannot be collected in the currency you priced it in, or your connected payment account cannot take installments. Both point the buyer at your single-payment plan.

Running the same program again

Because content, prices and students all live on the cohort rather than the course, running your program a second time is short work:

1. Open the course's Cohorts page.
2. Click New cohort.
3. Give it a fresh name, new dates and a timezone.
4. Under Copy content from, choose An existing cohort and pick the run you just finished.
5. Adjust anything that changed, add your pricing, then Publish.

Your last cohort keeps its own students, chat and records, untouched.

Related guides

• Live calls for scheduling the live part of your program.
• Modules and lessons for building the curriculum inside any course.
• Certificates for handing out proof of completion at the end.
• Student access for how students get in, and what to do when they cannot.
• Creating a course for the classic self-paced, buy-once course.