Evergreen funnel for an online course: sell all year round
How to build an evergreen funnel for a video course: free content, an automated sequence, honest personal deadlines and the numbers to track.
A launch concentrates sales into a few days and then stops. An evergreen funnel sells all year, a little at a time, to whoever arrives each week. Many creators use both: two or three launches a year and, in between, an always-on automated path.
This guide covers how to build an evergreen funnel, how to use deadlines correctly and which numbers to watch.
What is an evergreen funnel?
A four-step path each person goes through from the day they sign up: free content, a welcome email sequence, the course presentation, and an optional offer with a personal deadline. There's no shared date: everyone has their own calendar.
The launch vs evergreen comparison is in how to launch an online course. The key difference is that a launch creates urgency for everyone at once, while evergreen must create it per person, or do without.
How do you build one?
| Automated | Written once | |
|---|---|---|
| Free content and sign-up page | Yes | Yes |
| Welcome and delivery email | Yes | Yes |
| Value emails (2-3) | Yes | Yes |
| Course presentation | Yes | Yes |
| Answers to doubts and personal deadline | Yes | Yes |
| Sources of new people (content, ads) | No | No |
Our editorial framework. The only part you can't automate is bringing new people in every week.
The free content is the entry point: see lead magnet ideas for creators. The sequence is similar to a launch, but with dates relative to sign-up, as we explain in the email sequence to sell an online course.
How do you use deadlines?
Honestly. A personal deadline ("the welcome price is valid for 72 hours from your sign-up") is legitimate if it's true: after 72 hours, for that person, the offer really ends. Annex I of Directive 2005/29/EC bans, in all circumstances, falsely stating that a product will only be available for a very limited time to push an immediate decision.
So no countdowns that restart when the page reloads, and no "expired" offers reappearing to the same person a week later. A no-deadline alternative is a first-week bonus, or no urgency at all: a funnel can simply present the course well.
An example with numbers
A creator brings an average of 100 new subscribers a week to his free content, thanks to YouTube videos and a small ad budget. Each subscriber gets six emails over ten days, with the course presented on day five and a welcome price valid for 72 hours. After three months he measures: 2% of subscribers buy by the end of the sequence. With a $149 course that's 2 sales a week, about 104 a year, each with a margin of about $141 after fees of 5% plus 30 cents. If he lifts subscribers to 150 a week, sales rise to 3; if instead he improves the sequence and the rate reaches 3%, he gets the same result with no extra subscribers. In practice, the two numbers to move are weekly subscribers and purchase rate, and it pays to work on one at a time. The 2% is the example's assumption, not an average.
Which numbers should you track?
- New subscribers per week: the funnel's fuel.
- Opens and clicks on the sequence emails: where people stop reading.
- Sales page visits from the emails.
- Purchases by the end of the sequence.
Multiply new subscribers by the purchase rate: that's the number of weekly sales to expect. To track where subscribers come from, use links with UTM parameters, as we explain in UTM tracking for creators.
When isn't it worth it?
When you haven't sold the course in a launch yet (you don't know which message works), when you lack a steady flow of new people, or when the course has live parts on fixed dates. In those cases periodic launches earn more and take less maintenance.
Which mistakes should you avoid?
- Building the funnel before your first launch. Find out what convinces first.
- Fake deadlines. They're banned and destroy trust.
- Forgetting new people. The funnel doesn't fill itself.
- Never rereading the sequence. Prices, dates and links change: check every three months.
- Pushing after the sequence ends. Non-buyers move to the regular newsletter.
Key terms. A funnel is the path from first contact to purchase. Evergreen means always available. A personal deadline is calculated from each person's sign-up date.
How we checked. We read Annex I of Directive 2005/29/EC on EUR-Lex. The example uses our profit calculator's formulas; the 2% rate is an assumption. We found no independent data on creator evergreen funnel conversion rates. Contact: hi@heytea.app. Editorial note: we check every figure against the sources listed below and correct mistakes openly.
Frequently asked questions
What is an evergreen funnel?
An automated path that takes someone from first contact to buying the course at any time of year: free content, a welcome email sequence, the offer. Unlike a launch, there's no shared date: each subscriber goes through it from the day they sign up.
Are personal deadlines in an evergreen funnel legal?
Yes, if they're real: an offer valid 72 hours from sign-up must genuinely end after 72 hours for that person. In the EU, falsely stating that a product is only available for a very limited time is always banned (Annex I, point 7, of Directive 2005/29/EC). A countdown that resets on every visit isn't a real deadline.
When should you switch from launches to evergreen?
Once you've run at least one successful launch, know which message converts and have a steady flow of new people, for example from search, social or ads. Without new people every week, an evergreen funnel stays empty.
How many emails are in an evergreen funnel?
Usually 5 to 8: welcome and free content delivery, a few value emails, the course presentation, one or two emails answering doubts and, if there is one, the personal deadline reminder. After the sequence, non-buyers move to your regular newsletter.
Which numbers should you track?
Four: new subscribers per week, the share who open and click the sequence emails, the share who visit the sales page, the share who buy by the end of the sequence. Subscribers times purchase rate tells you how many sales to expect each week.
Sources
- Directive 2005/29/EC on unfair commercial practices, Annex I, point 7. Accessed 19 October 2026. eur-lex.europa.eu
- Tea free tool, course profit calculator. heytea.app