Most guides on selling yoga videos end with “sign up for our platform”. This one ends with your own website. The setup below is what we run for a studio with 104 lessons and 200+ students, and the first steps cost nothing but an afternoon.
1. Record for the student at home, not for the room
A phone on a tripod at hip height, the long side of the mat facing the camera, and daylight from the side rather than behind you. Sound matters more than picture: a clip-on microphone or a voice recorder in your pocket beats the phone’s built-in mic from three metres away. Say the name of the class and its length in the first ten seconds, because that is what a student scanning your library wants to know.
Keep classes to the length people will actually do at home. Twenty to forty minutes sells and gets finished. A ninety-minute recording rarely does.
2. Host the video where it is protected
Do not upload class videos to your WordPress media library. They are large, they slow your site down, and anyone with the link can download them. Upload them to Vimeo or YouTube as unlisted videos instead. The video player then lives on your site behind the purchase, and the hosting cost stays close to zero.
With BOS Lessons you paste the Vimeo or YouTube link into the lesson, and the plugin shows the player only to students who own the program. Audio-only classes, which many teachers add for savasana, yoga nidra and pranayama, are uploaded directly and play with the screen off in the app.
3. Turn classes into programs
A library of 60 single videos is hard to buy and harder to finish. Programs are what students pay for: “Four weeks for a stiff back”, “Morning practice, 20 minutes”, “Hip opening, six sessions”. Each program is one WooCommerce product with its own page, preview video, lesson list and price. A student who buys it sees the lessons in order and their progress through them.
4. Price it like a class, not like a file
Three price points cover most studios: a single class around your drop-in rate, a short program around a workshop, and a full term-length program around a class pass. Add a free class to the program page so people can see your teaching before they buy. You can also sell the same program as a WooCommerce subscription if you prefer a monthly model, but one-off programs are easier to sell and never get cancelled.
5. Sell it from your own site
This is the part the platforms would rather you skip. On your own WordPress site with WooCommerce:
- The student buys with Stripe or PayPal at their usual card fee, and nothing else is taken from the sale.
- The student’s account, email and purchase history are yours, in your WordPress users list.
- The program page sits in your own theme, next to your timetable, your blog and your contact page, so search engines see one site that is about you.
- You decide the price, the currency, the refund policy and the discount for your in-person students.
Compare that with a hosted video platform, where you pay a monthly plan plus a per-subscriber fee, plus a percentage on sales, and the app your students use carries the platform’s terms. We put the numbers side by side on the Uscreen comparison and the Passion.io comparison.
6. Add your own app when students ask
Students will ask for the lessons on their phone with the screen off, offline on a flight, and with a reminder when they have not practised for a week. That is the App plan: a native iOS and Android app in your name on both stores, built from the programs you already sell. Purchases still go through your website, so the app stores take nothing from them. Push notifications go out from your dashboard when you publish a new program or want to nudge the quiet students.
What it costs
The plugin is free, with up to five lessons, which is enough to test the whole flow with real students. Pro is a flat $29 a month for an unlimited library. The App plan is $149 a month plus a one-time setup, and the price does not rise with the number of students. There is no platform fee on any plan. Full details are on the pricing page.
Start this week
Record two classes. Upload them unlisted to Vimeo. Install the plugin, make one program with both classes and a price, and send the link to your in-person students. The first sale from your own site tells you more than any platform comparison.
Install the free plugin or apply for an account; applications are reviewed by hand and answered within a day.