Case study: Compass Doula Academy

The Compass Operating System: a course platform built to fit.

Compass Doula Academy, a doula training academy, ran its courses, sales pages, and emails on Funnel Gorgeous, and every change was a fight. I built Compass OS, a custom course platform that replaced it: courses, a Skool-style community, sales pages, checkout, emails, and affiliates in one place the academy owns.

Subscription savings: Over $150 a month
Time back: About 40 hours a week of work and frustration
What it replaced: Funnel Gorgeous, with a Skool-style student community
Who it's for: Students on their phones, and the academy team running everything behind them

The problem

Funnel Gorgeous was clunky, and it got in the way.

The academy sells self-paced courses, live cohorts, memberships, and one-on-one hours. On Funnel Gorgeous, every new page, price, or email took hours of clicking, some things simply weren't possible, and the monthly bill kept coming. Click a problem to see how Compass OS handles it.

Sales pages and emails

Ask Claude, and it's built

New sales pages created with ClaudeMinutes

Email drip campaigns set up in the same placeBuilt in

Preview and "send me a test" before anything goes outBuilt in

Now in Compass OS

For students

A Skool-style home for every student.

Students get the layout they already know from Skool, on their phone or laptop, saved to their home screen like an app. Screenshots show test data.

Classroom

Every course, with progress

The Classroom shows each course as a tile with how far the student has gotten. Courses they haven't bought show the price and an Unlock button.

Cohort lessons open on their dates, and self-paced lessons drip out by days since purchase.
Search across posts, members, and lessons from the top bar.
Sign in with an emailed link, with no password to forget.

Lesson page with folding modules down the side, Mark complete and Next lesson buttons, a Listen button, and handouts and transcripts

Lessons

Watch, read, or listen

Each lesson has its video, handouts, transcripts, and links in one place, with Mark complete and Next lesson right at the top.

Videos stream through private, expiring links, and a lesson marks itself done when the video ends.
The Listen button plays a whole course like a podcast, with speed controls and resume.
Modules fold up, so a 70-lesson course stays easy to find your way around.

Admin form for adding a calendar event with date, start time, length, who can see it, a Zoom link, and a replay video

Community and calendar

Posts, chat, and live calls

The Community tab has spaces for general talk, announcements, each cohort, and support. The Calendar holds every live call.

Posts with tags, comments, emoji reactions, pinned posts, and up to six photos, GIFs, or documents.
One-to-one chat between students, and a notifications bell.
Live calls with Zoom links, add-to-calendar buttons for Google, Apple, and Outlook, and replays afterward.
A members directory students can opt out of. Email addresses and phone numbers are never shown.

Sales pages list showing each course and cohort page with whether it's on sale, purchases so far, and Preview and Price and details buttons

Buying and membership

Checkout, upsells, and memberships

Sales pages for cohorts, self-paced courses, the accelerator, and live sessions send students to Stripe Checkout, with Klarna for paying over time.

An order bump and upsells, like a printed coursebook or an hour one-on-one.
Monthly and yearly memberships. Upgrades charge only the difference.
Students update cards and plans themselves in the Stripe billing portal.
Approved affiliates get their own link and see what they've earned on the Earn tab.

For the academy team

Run the whole academy with buttons, not support tickets.

Everything Funnel Gorgeous did, and the things it couldn't, sit in one admin with a quick start guide built in. The team also manages it with Claude, so a new sales page or drip campaign is a request, not a project.

Dashboard to-do list grouped into Do first, Soon, and Later, with owner tags and items marked Found by the site — **What needs doing, first**A to-do list sorted by urgency, with problems the site finds on its own, plus revenue, enrollments, completion, and refunds.

Student profile

Every student's storyPurchases, emails, replies, shipping, and private notes on one timeline. Email, give access, or refund from the same page.

Cohort settings with start date, enrollment close, seats, weeks, live call times, regular price, early-bird price, and early-bird last day — **Cohorts and prices**Set seats, dates, and early-bird pricing. Stripe prices are created automatically, and products can be duplicated.

Course editor with the course name, short description, draft or live status, and a tile image upload — **Courses, without a page builder**Modules, lessons, unlock rules, video, audio, and handouts uploaded right in the editor.

Email editor with a warning that the email won't send until a bracketed gap is filled in, beside a preview of the saved version — **Emails that wait for you**Any email with a [GAP] still in it is held until it's filled in, so a half-finished email never goes out. Student replies land on their timeline.

Affiliates page with applications, affiliates, and commission rates per product with a 20 percent default — **An affiliate program, built in**Applications, links with 30-day last-click credit, commission rules per person or product, refunds taken back, and a spreadsheet of what's owed.

Where the 40 hours come from

What actually moves the needle.

An easy place to work

Every screen is plain buttons and forms, so running the academy no longer means fighting a page builder.

A sales page for every new offer

New offers and cohorts get their own sales page in minutes, without starting from a blank template.

Offers unlock access on their own

Each offer is connected to its courses and community spaces, so buying it gives the right access automatically.

Managed with Claude, no API walls

The team asks Claude for a new sales page, a drip campaign, or a process change, and it works directly in the platform they own, without a rented tool's clunky API limits.

Edit pages on the fly

Sales pages and websites can be changed the moment an offer, date, or price changes.

Drip emails without a workflow expert

Email sequences are simple to set up and hard to get wrong, with previews, test sends, and emails held until every gap is filled in.

And the touches the team loves

More than one business

The same admin runs the academy, a private doula client practice, and a local community events website for community and lead generation.

Replies don't get lost

When a student answers an email, the reply lands on their timeline. Anything unmatched waits on its own screen.

Lists and waitlists

Interest lists, waitlists for full cohorts, and drip emails, with unsubscribe on every marketing email.

Coursebooks to ship

Printed coursebook orders show up in a shipping list, and tracking numbers land on the student's timeline.

Beyond the subscription savings

Fewer costly mistakes.

Compass OS also put an end to embarrassing, expensive slip-ups. The old setup leaned on freelancers. Every change waited on their timetable, and too often it came back wrong, so everything had to be checked twice.

No more freelancer costs. Changes that used to be paid jobs are now done in-house, the same day.
On the academy's timetable. A new cohort or offer goes live when the academy is ready, not when someone else gets to it.
Less double-checking. Offers connect to the right courses automatically, so there's no wiring to re-check after every launch.
Mistakes caught before students see them. Half-finished emails are held, missing details show up on the to-do list, and the last seat can't be sold twice.

How it came together

Familiar for students, easy for the owner.

Those were the two goals from day one. Students shouldn't have to learn anything new, and the owner should be able to do it herself with a button instead of a support request.

Built from what was missing. Every feature came from something Funnel Gorgeous made slow, couldn't do, or charged extra for.
Students first. The Skool-style layout means members recognize it the first time they sign in.
Secure by default. Every table has row-level security, payment webhooks are verified, and the platform has hundreds of automated tests.
Owned, not rented. It runs on the academy's own domain with Next.js, Supabase, Stripe, Resend, and Bunny Stream, and grows when the academy needs something new.

Good questions

Frequently asked questions.

What is a good Funnel Gorgeous alternative for course creators?

For a course business that has outgrown templates, a custom course platform is a strong Funnel Gorgeous alternative. Compass OS replaced Funnel Gorgeous for Compass Doula Academy, a doula training academy with one platform for courses, community, sales pages, checkout, email, and affiliates, built around how the academy already works. It saves over $150 a month in subscription fees and about 40 hours a week.

Is a custom course platform a good Skool alternative?

It can be. Compass OS keeps the Skool-style layout students already know, with Community, Classroom, Calendar, Members, and About tabs, and adds what Skool doesn't cover for this academy: sales pages, Stripe checkout with upsells, drip emails, cohorts with seat limits, and an affiliate program.

Can Claude build sales pages and email drip campaigns on a custom course platform?

Yes. Because the academy owns its platform, the team uses Claude to manage its processes, create new sales pages, and set up email drip campaigns in the same place the courses and students live, instead of rebuilding them by hand in a page builder.

Can a custom course platform take payments with Stripe?

Yes. Compass OS uses Stripe Checkout, including Klarna, for courses, cohorts, and memberships. Prices set in the admin create the Stripe prices, early-bird pricing ends on its own, cohort seat limits are enforced at checkout, and students manage their own subscriptions in the Stripe billing portal.

Can I move my students and courses off Funnel Gorgeous to a custom platform?

Yes. It's easy to transfer your existing system, including your Stripe integration and the other tools you already use. Courses, lessons, and students come with you, and existing Stripe subscriptions can be connected to students' new accounts so nobody has to sign up again.

How much does a custom course platform cost?

It depends on what you need, and you get a fixed-price quote before any work starts. For this academy, replacing its subscriptions with an owned platform saves over $150 a month, plus about 40 hours a week of time spent working around the old tools.

Fighting your course platform?

If Funnel Gorgeous, Skool, Kajabi, or a stack of tools is costing you hours every week, a platform built around how you teach and sell can give them back. Start with a free 15-minute call.

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