Renting a course platform is the fastest and cheapest way to start, but for an academy with steady sales it often becomes the more expensive choice over two to three years. A rented platform charges every month, usually in US dollars, may take a share of each sale, can put its own name in front of your students and keeps your data in its system. Owning costs more at the start, but it turns the main platform cost into a one-time payment that does not grow with your sales or with the exchange rate. The right answer depends on your own numbers, so below we explain each cost and show a simple calculation you can repeat with your figures.
What are you really paying for when you rent a course platform?
Global course-hosting services sell monthly or annual plans. Cheaper plans usually limit the number of courses, students, team members or features, and the plans that remove those limits cost more. When you compare offers, look at four kinds of cost:
- The subscription. Usually priced in US dollars and charged every month or every year, whether you sell a lot or a little.
- Fees on each sale. Some plans add a platform transaction fee or a revenue share on top of what the payment processor charges.
- Add-ons. Extra team seats, a custom domain, removing the vendor's branding or connecting your own payment gateway are sometimes sold separately or only on higher plans.
- Bank and currency costs. Paying a dollar subscription with an Egyptian card can carry foreign-currency fees and spending limits set by your bank, so ask your bank before you commit.
Renting has real advantages. You can launch quickly without a large upfront cost, the vendor handles hosting and updates, and you can test whether people will pay for your course before you invest more. For a first course, that is often the sensible choice.
How much do revenue share and transaction fees cost as you grow?
A fixed monthly fee is predictable. A percentage is not, because it grows with your success. Take a hypothetical platform fee of 5%: on EGP 100,000 of monthly sales it is EGP 5,000 a month, and on EGP 300,000 it is EGP 15,000. The platform does no extra work for that difference. You are paying more because you sell more.
Keep this separate from payment gateway fees. Every academy pays a card or wallet processor, whether it rents or owns, so the fair comparison is the platform's own fee on top of that. When you read any pricing page, ask three questions: is there a platform fee per sale on this plan, does it disappear on a higher plan, and are payouts delayed or held for a period?
Why does the vendor's name on your checkout matter?
On many rented plans, students see the vendor's name in the web address, on the checkout page, on receipts or in emails. That has two costs.
The first is trust at the moment of payment. Among US online shoppers who abandoned a checkout in the Baymard Institute's research, 19% said they did not trust the site with their credit card information. A student who comes from your Instagram page and sees an unfamiliar brand at the payment step has one more reason to hesitate.
The second is your brand. Every visit, link and review builds the vendor's name as well as yours, and a web address you do not control is one you cannot take with you. Some plans let you use your own domain or remove the vendor's branding, so check which plan you need for that and what it costs.
How does the Egyptian pound's movement change the cost of a dollar subscription?
This is the risk Egyptian academies feel most. A plan priced in dollars is a cost in pounds that changes every time the exchange rate does. Here is roughly how many pounds one US dollar cost at key points, as reported at the time:
- November 2020 to March 2022: around 15.7 (Reuters via BusinessDay)
- 21 March 2022: 18.17 to 18.27, after a devaluation of about 14% (same report)
- Early March 2024: about 31 (AP)
- 6 March 2024: more than 47 by midday, after the Central Bank of Egypt let the market set the rate (same AP report)
- 27 February 2026: about 47.72 (Egyptian Streets)
- 22 October 2026: 55.35 at the National Bank of Egypt, the first time the dollar passed 55 pounds (same report)
In other words, a dollar cost about 3.5 times as many pounds in October 2026 as in early 2022, and about 16% more than in late February 2026. An academy that prices its courses in pounds but pays its platform in dollars absorbs that difference, unless it raises prices for students. Because the rate is now set by the market, it can move in either direction, and that uncertainty is itself a cost when you plan a budget.
Owning a platform does not remove currency risk completely, because some providers, such as hosting or video streaming, may also bill in dollars. What changes is the size of the exposure: the largest part of the cost, the platform itself, is paid once instead of every month.
What happens to your students and data if you want to leave?
The cost people forget when they rent is the cost of leaving. Moving later can mean rebuilding pages, re-uploading videos and asking students to create new accounts. Before you sign with any provider, check whether you can export:
- The full student list with contact details and purchase history.
- Each student's progress and the certificates already issued, including whether verification links keep working.
- Your videos and files in their original quality.
- Courses, packages, prices and coupons.
- Your page addresses, or at least redirects, so links from Google and social media do not break.
Regulators take exit costs seriously. The European Union's Data Act removes switching charges, including data egress charges, for cloud and data processing services from 12 January 2027. That law does not cover an academy in Cairo or Riyadh, but it shows that being stuck with a provider is a recognised business risk. We wrote about the same risk for AI tools in how to avoid AI vendor lock-in and own your data.
How do you calculate the total cost over 2 to 3 years?
Use your own numbers. The example below uses hypothetical inputs, not real market prices or quotes, and counts platform costs only. Payment gateway fees are left out because you pay them whether you rent or own.
| Cost item (renting) | Hypothetical input | Total over 36 months |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription | USD 100 a month | USD 3,600, about EGP 199,260 at a rate of 55.35 |
| Platform fee on sales | 5% of EGP 100,000 monthly sales | EGP 180,000 |
| Total rented cost | Both items above | About EGP 379,260 |
Now test how sensitive that total is:
- If sales grow. At EGP 200,000 a month, the platform fee alone becomes EGP 360,000 over three years.
- If the rate moves. The same USD 3,600 was about EGP 171,792 at the late February 2026 rate of about 47.72 and about EGP 56,520 at the early 2022 rate of about 15.7. Over three years the pound cost of a dollar plan can change by a large amount.
Then price the alternative for the same 36 months: a one-time build cost from a fixed written quote, plus hosting, video streaming and, if you want one, a care plan. If owning costs less than the rented total for your numbers, it pays for itself within the period. If it costs more, renting may still be the better choice for now. Run the calculation again each year, because sales and exchange rates change.
When does renting make sense, and when should you own?
| Question | Renting | Owning |
|---|---|---|
| Upfront cost | Low | Higher, one-time |
| Monthly platform cost | Subscription, often in dollars | Provider costs such as hosting and streaming, plus any care plan |
| Share of your sales | Possible on some plans | None to the platform builder |
| Currency exposure | Every month | Mostly limited to provider bills |
| Brand and domain | Depends on the plan | Yours throughout |
| Data and exit | Depends on export tools | Your database, your copy |
| Best for | Testing a first course | Steady sales and long-term growth |
Rent when you are testing your first course, have few students and are not yet sure people will pay. Own when sales are steady, your brand is known, you sell to students in more than one country, and the rented cost over two to three years is higher than the cost of owning.
What should you ask before you sign with any platform?
- What is the total cost over 36 months in pounds, at today's rate and at a weaker rate?
- Is there a platform fee per sale on top of payment processing fees?
- Will students see your brand and domain everywhere, including checkout and emails?
- Which payment methods are supported? In Egypt, the NTRA counted 46.3 million active mobile wallets in the second quarter of 2025, so a card-only checkout leaves many buyers out.
- Can you export all student data, progress and certificates at any time, in a standard format?
- Who owns the code and the data, and where is the data stored?
How does HBS LMS work if you decide to own?
HBS LMS is built for academies that choose to own their platform. We build it under your logo, colours and domain and hand it over, and the academy owns it. It is a one-time project fee, not a subscription, payable at once or in 12 monthly instalments, and HBS takes no percentage of your sales. Hosting, video streaming and payment fees are paid directly to those providers, and an optional paid care plan is available if you want us to keep managing the platform.
Payments run through a local gateway, Kashier, with Visa, Mastercard, Apple Pay, Vodafone Cash and other wallets. Prices show in EGP inside Egypt and USD abroad with a daily-updated exchange rate, and a second gateway for the Gulf is optional. Students are enrolled automatically when payment completes, and your student data, reports and certificates stay on your own platform. To see why we chose this model, read why we built HBS LMS.
Not sure whether owning makes sense for your academy yet? Send us what you pay your current platform and roughly what you sell each month, and our team will help you work through the numbers. Explore HBS LMS.
