Instead of “renting” a SaaS community/portal every month like (Hubflo from about $72/mo and up & Heartbeat from about $40/mo with in-app payments), you own a Website that does the same jobs—sell courses, take payments, run community and forums—without ongoing platform fees. Your build like (courses.rivusbeacon.com) can accept Stripe or other gateways for course sales, and this website also provides threaded forums and adds profiles, groups, activity feeds, and DMs, that can be enabled pr disabled with a click of a button, all under your domain and control.
What’s included at this tier
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Strategy & IA: offer/funnels, sitemap, course & product architecture
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Design system: typography, color, components, reusable blocks
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Courses (LMS) setup: curricula, lessons, quizzes, certificates, drip rules
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E-commerce: products/bundles, coupons, taxes, order emails
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Payments: Stripe + alt gateway wiring, test orders, receipts
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Membership/community: Forums + profiles, groups, DMs, activity
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Core pages: home, catalog/courses, product/course detail, checkout, dashboard, support/FAQ
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On-page SEO & analytics: titles/meta, schema basics, events/goals dashboard
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Performance & security hardening: caching, image pipeline, firewall rules, backups
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Content migration (starter), admin training, 30-day post-launch support
Timeline: 2–3 weeks with content/assets ready. Two revision rounds.
Why this price is fair (value math)
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You own the platform. No monthly “rental” for course/community SaaS. Avoiding even $99–$249/mo tools saves $1.2k–$3k+/yr—the site pays for itself in 3–9 months just in avoided software fees.
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Revenue engine, not brochureware. One launch can cover the build: e.g., 50 seats × $199 = $9,950, or 20 seats × $499 = $9,980. After that, it’s margin.
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Community flywheel. Forums + profiles keep learners engaged, lift completion, and create upsell paths to coaching, cohorts, and merch—value you can’t get from a static site.
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Transferable assets. Reusable templates, components, and automations reduce future campaign costs.
“Premium courses + e-commerce + community build is $7.5k one-time. It replaces monthly SaaS fees, adds forums & profiles, sells via Stripe/any gateway, and usually pays back in the first cohort.”