Instructor Terms

1. Acceptance and scope

By creating a creator profile, publishing a course, or accepting payouts, you agree to these Instructor Terms in addition to the Terms of Service, Content Policy, Acceptable Use Policy, Copyright and DMCA Policy, and Payout Disclosure. Where these terms and the general Terms of Service conflict on an instructor-specific point, these terms control.

Like every policy on this site, this document is an implementation draft pending review by qualified counsel. It reflects how the platform currently operates.

2. You are an independent seller

You are an independent third-party seller offering your own digital course to learners through our marketplace. You are not an employee, contractor, agent, partner, or joint venturer of SmartKourse. Nothing here entitles you to wages, benefits, unemployment or workers’ compensation coverage, or any employment protection.

You control your course subject matter, curriculum, teaching approach, schedule, and pricing within the limits of our policies. You are responsible for your own business expenses, equipment, insurance, and tax obligations. The precise seller-of-record and merchant-of-record characterization for this marketplace is under review by counsel and accounting, and may be restated.

3. Eligibility and onboarding

To publish and be paid, you must be legally able to enter contracts, hold a SmartKourse account in good standing, complete creator onboarding (including selecting your country — we collect country only, not a mailing address, on your SmartKourse profile), and complete Stripe Connect identity verification. You must give accurate identity, business, and banking information and keep it current. We may decline or revoke creator status where verification cannot be completed or where information is inaccurate.

If you are outside the United States and Canada, review Stripe’s supported currencies list before relying on payouts. Joining when your country or currency corridor is not supported means you accept responsibility for transfer fees and related costs, as described in the Payout Disclosure.

4. Stripe Connect and the money flow

SmartKourse uses Stripe Connect with separate charges and transfers. Concretely:

1. The learner pays SmartKourse. The charge is created on the platform account.
2. SmartKourse records the transaction, calculates the platform fee, and credits your share to your creator ledger.
3. After the holding period in section 10, SmartKourse creates a Transfer of your share to your Stripe Connect account.
4. Stripe pays out from your Connect account to your bank on its own schedule.

Your relationship with Stripe is governed by Stripe’s Connected Account Agreement in addition to these terms. Stripe may independently hold, delay, or reject funds based on its own verification and risk rules, and we cannot override those decisions.

5. Platform fee

SmartKourse retains a platform fee on each qualifying charge of 20% or $5, whichever is greater. The percentage governs above $25; below that price the $5 minimum governs. The fee is calculated on the amount actually charged to the learner, so a discount code reduces the base the fee is computed on.

Because of the minimum, the lowest price you can charge subscribers is $5, and at exactly that price your earnings are zero. Price above the minimum if you intend to earn.

6. Stripe processing fees

Stripe’s payment processing fee for each transaction is allocated to the creator share in our internal accounting. Your net for a transaction is the amount charged, minus the platform fee, minus the Stripe processing fee attributable to it. Your net for a transaction is never negative — if fees would exceed the gross, your net is floored at zero rather than becoming a debt.

Stripe sets its own rates, which vary by payment method, card type, and country, so the exact processing fee differs per transaction and is not something SmartKourse controls or marks up.

7. Worked examples

These figures come from the same calculation the platform uses, and exclude Stripe processing fees, which are deducted from the creator share when known.

• Charge $15 → platform fee $5 ($5 minimum) → creator share before Stripe fees $10.
• Charge $49 → platform fee $9.80 (20%) → creator share before Stripe fees $39.20.
• Charge $20 → platform fee $5 ($5 minimum) → creator share before Stripe fees $15.

8. Pricing your course

You set your prices and plan types within platform limits, including the $5 subscriber minimum. Prices must be displayed honestly: no fake original prices, no perpetual “ending soon” countdowns, and no strike-through comparisons against a price you never genuinely charged. Price changes apply prospectively and never alter a charge a learner has already authorized. Discount codes you create are subject to the same honesty rules.

9. Certificate enablement fee

If you choose to offer completion certificates on a course, SmartKourse charges a one-time enablement fee of $200 for that course. This is optional. A certificate records completion of your course on this platform only — it is not accredited and does not certify competence, and you must not describe it as a license, degree, or professional credential.

10. Holding period and payout timing

Your share is held for 30 days after the qualifying sale before SmartKourse creates the Transfer to your Connect account. The hold exists so that refunds and card disputes, which arrive well after a sale, can be reconciled against funds still on the platform rather than clawed back from you later. It is deliberately aligned with the 30-day learner refund window.

Once transferred, Stripe typically makes funds available for bank payout in about 0 days, subject to your Connect account status, verification state, country, and Stripe’s own schedule. We keep the Connect-side delay short so you are not held twice.

11. Risk-based holds and suspension

The platform hold is 30 days for every payout-eligible creator. Based on account history, dispute rate, and fraud signals, staff may assign risk tiers, require manual review, or suspend payouts entirely while investigating suspected fraud or a policy violation. Risk tiers do not change the platform holding period. These determinations are made by staff review, not by an automated scoring system. If your payouts are suspended, we will tell you why and what would resolve it.

12. Refunds, disputes, and reversals

Refund decisions are made by SmartKourse under the Refund Policy. When a sale is refunded or a dispute is lost, the corresponding creator credit is reversed. If the funds are still within the holding period, the reversal happens on the ledger before any transfer. If a transfer has already been made, we may reverse the transfer, offset the amount against future earnings, or request repayment.

Dispute fees charged by Stripe or the card networks on a disputed transaction are allocated to the creator share for that transaction. Persistently high dispute rates can result in manual review, payout suspension, unpublishing, or removal from the marketplace, because they threaten the platform’s processing ability for everyone.

13. Taxes and reporting

You are solely responsible for determining, collecting where required, reporting, and paying your own taxes on your earnings. SmartKourse does not provide tax advice. Stripe may issue tax forms to you and to authorities based on your payout activity and jurisdiction, and you must supply the tax information Stripe Connect requires. Payouts may be blocked until that information is complete. The platform’s own tax-collection model on learner purchases is under review by counsel and accounting.

14. Your content obligations

• You own your content or have all rights and licenses needed to publish it here, including for music, footage, images, code, slides, fonts, and any third-party material.
• Your listing must accurately describe what is included, the level, the format, and the approximate length. Do not list a course you have not built.
• You must comply with the Content Policy, including its prohibited and restricted categories.
• You must not include others’ personal information, defamatory material, or content that infringes privacy, publicity, trademark, or copyright rights.
• You are responsible for the external links and downloadable files you provide, including keeping them free of malware.
• Video hosted through third-party embeds remains subject to that provider’s terms and availability; if your video is removed there, your course breaks here.

15. License you grant SmartKourse

You keep ownership of your content. You grant SmartKourse a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicensable (to our hosting and delivery providers) license to host, store, reproduce, reformat, index, publicly display, publicly perform, transmit, and distribute your content in order to operate the marketplace, deliver the course to learners who have access, and promote your course and the platform — including excerpts and thumbnails used in listings, search, category pages, and platform promotion.

The license ends when you remove your content, except that it continues as needed for learners who already purchased access, for backups, and for records we must retain. You also license us to use your creator name, handle, and profile image to attribute and promote your courses.

16. What learners receive

Learners receive a personal, non-transferable, non-commercial license to view your course for the duration of their plan. They are prohibited from redistributing, reselling, or re-uploading it. Enforcement of those rules on the platform is ours; pursuing infringement off the platform is yours, and we will cooperate reasonably with a legitimate request.

17. Marketing claims and reviews

Do not promise earnings, employment, job placement, exam results, accreditation, or any other outcome. Do not claim credentials, affiliations, or endorsements you do not hold. Do not describe a SmartKourse certificate as accredited. Testimonials must be genuine, and where a testimonial is atypical, say so.

You may not review your own courses, buy or trade reviews, offer incentives for positive reviews, or pressure learners to change or remove reviews. See the Reviews and Endorsements Policy. Manipulating reviews is grounds for removal from the marketplace.

18. Learner data you receive

You receive limited information: that a learner enrolled, their public profile information, and reviews or comments they leave on your courses. You do not receive their payment details. You may use that information only to deliver and support your course. You may not export it into a marketing list, sell it, or use it to contact learners off-platform for unrelated purposes. You must comply with applicable privacy law in how you handle it, and delete it on request where you have no lawful basis to keep it.

19. Supporting your learners

You are expected to answer reasonable questions about your own course content, fix broken lessons and dead links, and respond promptly when SmartKourse contacts you about a learner complaint, a moderation issue, or a copyright notice. We do not impose a response-time guarantee, but unresponsiveness that leaves learners without working content is a reason we may unpublish a course.

20. Review, unpublishing, and removal

We may review any listing and may refuse, unpublish, edit metadata on, or remove content that violates our policies or applicable law, creates payment-network risk, or is the subject of a credible legal complaint. Where circumstances allow, we will explain the reason and give you a chance to fix the problem. We do not promise a review timeframe or any particular moderation outcome. If you think we got it wrong, reply to the notice or write to Contact form on this website (email address pending owner configuration).

21. Copyright notices against your content

If we receive a copyright notice about your course, we may disable access to the identified material and will notify you. You may submit a counter-notice under the process described in the Copyright and DMCA Policy. Accounts that repeatedly infringe are terminated.

22. Termination and what happens after

You may stop selling and unpublish your courses at any time. We may terminate creator status for policy violations, fraud, legal risk, or sustained dispute rates. On termination, earned amounts that are not subject to refund, dispute, or reversal are paid out on the normal schedule; amounts under investigation are held until resolved.

Learners who already purchased lifetime access may retain access to what they bought, and the license in section 15 continues to that extent. Sections on fees already incurred, reversals, indemnity, and liability survive termination.

23. Representations and warranties

You represent that you have the right to enter this agreement and to publish your content; that your content and its marketing comply with applicable law and our policies; that you hold any licenses or qualifications legally required to teach your subject matter where such requirements exist; and that the information you provide to us and to Stripe is accurate.

24. Indemnity and liability

You will indemnify and hold harmless SmartKourse and its personnel from claims, damages, liabilities, and reasonable legal costs arising from your content, your marketing claims, your breach of these terms, your tax obligations, or your infringement of another party’s rights.

SmartKourse makes no promise about sales volume, visibility, ranking, marketplace traffic, or earnings, and does not guarantee that your course will sell. The limitation of liability in the Terms of Service applies to this agreement. Counsel review is required for this section.

25. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms, including fee structures and holding periods. Fee and payout changes apply prospectively to sales occurring after the change takes effect, and we will give notice before they do. All financial figures on this page come from the shared configuration used by the platform’s own accounting code, so this page and the ledger cannot silently diverge. Governing law and venue follow the Terms of Service, currently California.

26. Contact

Creator support: Contact form on this website (email address pending owner configuration). Legal notices: Contact form on this website (email address pending owner configuration). You can also use the contact form.