Can I code this? A Cohort-Based Course With Live Sessions
The course structure and payment gating share Teachable's buildable core. The live video sessions are a different, genuinely harder problem than pre-recorded lessons — the honest move is integrating an existing video SDK, not building your own.
Borderline
Effort: a weekendRunning cost: $15–$30/mo
Why CanICodeThis says Borderline
Modules, a curriculum outline, and Stripe checkout gating access share the same buildable pattern as any course platform
Scheduling live session times and showing them on a per-student dashboard is ordinary CRUD
For the actual live video, integrating an existing WebRTC SDK for the call room is a bounded, well-documented integration
The parts that'll cause problems
Building your own real-time video infrastructure from scratch is a specialist, ongoing engineering discipline — this is exactly why every video-conferencing app on this register lands as at least borderline, several as JUST PAY
Recording live sessions for students who miss them adds real storage and processing scope
Cohort-specific discussion (a private space per group, not just per course) is a genuine additional feature
How I'd build this
frontend
Next.js
database
Supabase
payments
Stripe
hosting
Vercel
MVP scope
Course modules with a curriculum outline, gated behind Stripe checkout
Scheduled live session times shown on a student dashboard
Live video via an existing WebRTC SDK — not custom-built
Basic per-cohort access control
Postpone to v2
Automatic recording of live sessions for those who miss them
Per-cohort discussion space
Breakout rooms during live sessions
What it actually costs to build
AI agent — with a subscription (Claude Pro/Max, Cursor, etc.)
$0 marginal
AI agent — pay-per-use API, no subscription
$43–$86 one-time
Hosting, once it's running
$15–$30/mo
Domain name, if you want your own
~$12/yr
Existing tools solving a similar problem typically run $14.99–$39/mo — see how they compare below.
The build prompt
Build me a cohort course platform: modules with a curriculum outline, gated behind Stripe checkout; scheduled live session times shown on a student dashboard; and a call room for live sessions built on an existing WebRTC SDK (not custom video infrastructure). Basic per-cohort access so each group only sees their own sessions. Skip session recording and breakout rooms for v1.