Seven Ways eLearning Can Create a New Revenue Stream for Your Business
- LMSPortals
- Jun 14
- 4 min read
Digital learning isn’t just for online educators anymore. Businesses of all kinds are tapping into eLearning to create fresh income streams—ones that scale without adding headcount or inventory. Whether you sell products, services, or expertise, there's likely an eLearning angle you haven’t explored yet.
Here are seven proven strategies to turn your existing knowledge into a source of recurring revenue.
1. Turn Expertise into Sellable Courses
Package What You Know
Every business has unique knowledge—industry insights, systems, or frameworks. With a little structure, that knowledge becomes a digital course. From onboarding checklists to deep-dive how-tos, anything you teach internally could be valuable externally.
Sell on Your Own Platform or Third-Party Sites
You can host your courses on your website or use platforms like LMS Portals. The latter handle the tech and audience-building, while your job is to deliver quality content.
Example in Action
A marketing firm creates a course on running Google Ads. Freelancers and startups buy it, creating a revenue stream from know-how the firm already uses daily.
2. Add Value with Branded Certification Programs
Why Certification Matters
A course with a certificate feels more official—and people are willing to pay more for proof of expertise. Certification implies credibility, completion, and career value.
Build Tiered Programs
Offer multiple levels—introductory, intermediate, and advanced. Customers can climb the ladder, increasing lifetime value while deepening their skills.
Tap into Professional Markets
Professions that require continuing education—HR, finance, IT, healthcare—are especially open to certification. Offer yours as a badge of competency.
3. License White-Labeled Training to Other Businesses
What Is White-Label eLearning?
You build the course. Other companies rebrand and use it as their own. It's a scalable way to monetize intellectual property without needing to market directly to end users.
Offer Customization for Higher Value
Let clients adjust the visuals, terminology, or examples. This turns a generic training into a “tailored solution” and lets you charge more.
Who Needs This?
SaaS companies onboarding customers
HR teams training remote employees
Niche consultants delivering compliance modules
4. Launch a Premium Membership or Learning Community
Move Beyond One-Time Sales
A course gives you income once. A membership gives you income monthly. Add exclusive content, monthly events, and community access to justify recurring fees.
What to Include
Live expert calls or workshops
Private discussion groups (Slack, Discord, Circle)
Early access to new content
Direct feedback on member work
Build a Sticky Experience
Members won’t just pay for content—they’ll pay to belong. The more interactive and supportive the environment, the longer they’ll stick around.
5. Upsell Existing Products with Training Add-Ons
Make Your Core Product More Valuable
You don’t need to sell training for its own sake. Use it to make your main offering more appealing or easier to adopt.
Examples of Training Upsells
Software company includes advanced tutorials in premium plans
Physical product brand offers pro-level usage tips as a paid add-on
Consultant sells a follow-up “implementation course” post-engagement
Increase Customer Lifetime Value
Helping customers succeed faster reduces churn and makes your offering harder to replace.
6. Sell Corporate Training to B2B Clients
Fill the Internal Training Gap
Most companies don’t want to build internal learning from scratch. You can provide ready-made or lightly customized training they can roll out to teams.
Monetization Opportunities
Sell licenses (per seat or bulk)
Charge annual access fees
Offer custom content development
Build Deep Client Relationships
This isn’t just a transaction. It’s a chance to become embedded in a company’s operations as a long-term learning partner.
7. Create Microlearning and Mini-Courses for Fast Sales
Why Short Courses Sell
Attention spans are short, and not everyone wants a deep dive. Micro-courses (5–15 minutes per lesson) meet learners where they are—on phones, during breaks, or in between meetings.
Ideal Formats
Quick tutorials
Email course sequences
App-based video nuggets
“One skill, one lesson” bundles
Smart Use Case: Lead Generation
Offer a low-priced or free mini-course to attract leads. Then, upsell into a flagship course, a consulting session, or a recurring membership.
Why eLearning Works: The Business Case
High Margins, Low Overhead
Once you create a course, it costs almost nothing to distribute. Margins are far higher than in physical products or time-bound services.
Scales Without Limits
Courses can be sold to 10 or 10,000 people without changing your operations. This lets you grow without hiring or expanding.
Repackaging Existing Knowledge
You probably already have the material—slide decks, blog posts, client presentations. With a little editing and structure, you can turn it into sellable content.
How to Get Started
Step 1: Identify Your Knowledge Assets
Look at what your team does well. What do clients always ask about? What do you explain over and over?
Step 2: Choose a Format
Full course
Micro-course
Certification
Membership site
Corporate licensing
Step 3: Test and Launch
Don’t overbuild. Start lean. Use surveys, social media, or pilot sales to gauge interest before investing in pro video or platform customization.
Step 4: Scale Smart
Once your first offer is working, add layers: more modules, a community, new certifications, or team licenses. Focus on customer success to keep churn low and referrals high.
Summary: You Don’t Need to Be an Educator to Monetize eLearning
You just need expertise, structure, and a delivery system. If you’ve ever trained a new hire, written a guide, or presented to a client—you’re halfway there.
eLearning isn’t just a trend. It’s a smart business model that rewards what you already know.
About LMS Portals
At LMS Portals, we provide our clients and partners with a mobile-responsive, SaaS-based, multi-tenant learning management system that allows you to launch a dedicated training environment (a portal) for each of your unique audiences.
The system includes built-in, SCORM-compliant rapid course development software that provides a drag and drop engine to enable most anyone to build engaging courses quickly and easily.
We also offer a complete library of ready-made courses, covering most every aspect of corporate training and employee development.
If you choose to, you can create Learning Paths to deliver courses in a logical progression and add structure to your training program. The system also supports Virtual Instructor-Led Training (VILT) and provides tools for social learning.
Together, these features make LMS Portals the ideal SaaS-based eLearning platform for our clients and our Reseller partners.
Contact us today to get started or visit our Partner Program pages
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