You have recordings people ask for after class. The question is not whether to sell them, it is where, and most of the advice online points you at a marketplace or a download store without saying what you give up. This guide walks through the options and then the setup we use ourselves: your own WordPress site, WooCommerce checkout, and a player that keeps playing when the screen goes dark.
What a meditation recording needs that a video course does not
A guided meditation is listened to with the eyes closed, often lying down, usually on a phone. That changes the requirements. The audio has to keep playing when the screen locks. The student has to be able to find the next session without hunting through a library. And the lesson needs to pause and resume from the same spot, because a 40-minute body scan is not something anyone restarts from the top.
Most course platforms were built for someone watching a screen. Their web players stop when the phone locks, and their apps are shared with every other creator on the platform. Keep that in mind as you read the options.
Four ways to sell, and what each one costs you
Marketplaces and meditation apps. Insight Timer, Udemy and similar platforms bring an audience. In return they set the terms, take a share of what you earn, and keep the student’s email. You are a track in their library, not a teacher with students.
Download stores. Payhip, Gumroad and Etsy let you sell an MP3 for a small fee per sale. The student gets a file. That works for a single recording, but the file is now outside your control, there is no progress or sequence, and nothing brings the student back for the next one.
Membership paywalls. A membership plugin locks pages on your site behind a monthly payment. You keep the student and the money. The weak point is the listening experience: a web page in a browser tab, which stops the moment the phone locks, and a recurring charge that students cancel when life gets busy.
Your own site with lessons as products. This is the model BOS was built for. Each recording or series is a WooCommerce product on your WordPress site. Students buy it once or as a program, get an account, and their progress follows them from the website into an app published in your name. You pay a flat monthly price and keep every dollar of the sale.
Setting it up on WordPress
- Record cleanly. A quiet room, a USB microphone or a good phone close to your mouth, and one pass of noise removal in Audacity or GarageBand. Export MP3 at 128 kbps or higher. If you add music under your voice, check that the licence allows it inside a narrated product you sell.
- Install the free plugin. BOS Lessons for WordPress works with WooCommerce, which you may already have. Up to five lessons are free, so you can test with real students before paying anything.
- Build a program, not a pile. Group recordings into a sequence with a purpose: “Seven nights to sleep”, “Breath for anxious mornings”, “A 21-day body scan”. Students finish programs. They rarely finish libraries.
- Set the price on the product. A single 20-minute recording, a 5-session series, a full program. Your checkout, your currency, your refund policy. Stripe or PayPal charge their usual card fee and nobody else takes anything.
- Publish the program page. The plugin renders it in your site’s own theme, with the lesson list, a preview and the buy button, next to your schedule and your blog.
- Let students listen. They sign in once, press play, and the lesson keeps going with the screen off in the BOS app. Progress and favourites sync between the website and the app.
Pricing that works for audio
Teachers tend to underprice audio because a file feels smaller than a video. Students do not think that way. They pay for the result and for the voice they trust. A useful starting range from the studio we built this for: single recordings at the price of a drop-in class, a short series at the price of a workshop, and a full program at the price of a term of classes. Offer one free recording on the program page so people can hear you before they buy.
When to add your own app
The website is enough to start. Add the app when students ask for it, and they will, usually because they want the lesson on the lock screen with a play button, or because they want to download it for a flight. A branded app in your name on the App Store and Google Play, with push reminders you send from your dashboard, is the App plan. Sales still go through your website, so Apple and Google take nothing from them.
A real example
Sense in Motion, the Melbourne studio that BOS grew out of, sells 104 audio lessons across 11 programs to more than 200 students, in English and in Hebrew, from its own WordPress site and its own apps. No marketplace, no revenue share, and the student list belongs to the studio. The same setup is what you get with the free plugin and, when you are ready, the app.
Ready to try it? Install the free plugin, or read how BOS compares with the platforms you may be looking at.