Stop selling a course without locking out my learners
Courses have seasons. You rework the material, you're overrun with orders, you retire a class you've outgrown. None of that should punish the people who already paid - so on a bernard site, going off sale and keeping faith with learners are the same move.
How it works
- Say what you want. "Take Glazing at Home off sale for now" hides it; "retire it for good" archives it.
- Enrolment closes; access doesn't. The course page swaps its enrol button for a quiet "Enrolment is closed just now". Every existing learner's link works exactly as before (Let learners in without accounts or passwords) - term dates included (Charge once, or sell a year of access).
- Approve, and reopen whenever. Publishing it again is one ask; the page, the syllabus and the free taster come back as they were.
Behind the scenes, hiding also withdraws the course from your site's machine-readable course listings - no stale "enrol now" signals left for search engines to trip over, which is exactly the kind of tidiness that keeps a site trusted (Give my site a health check). What never changes: a paying learner's way in. bernard treats that as untouchable.
The prompt
“Take my [course name] course off sale [for now / for good]. Existing learners must keep their access.”
Press Copy, then paste it into your AI and fill in the [bracketed] parts. First time? Connect your AI to bernard first - a one-time setup in bernard → your site → Use your own AI.
Questions people ask
- If I stop selling my course, do existing learners lose access?
- No - that's the promise. Hiding a course closes enrolment for new people, but everyone who already paid keeps exactly what they bought: their link keeps working, lessons keep playing, files keep downloading.
- What's the difference between hiding and archiving a course?
- Hidden means off sale but alive - the pages stay up for enrolled learners, enrolment says 'closed just now', and you can reopen any time. Archived means retired for good. Either way, the change drafts first and happens when you approve it.
- Does a hidden course still show up in search?
- No. A hidden course drops out of your course list, your site's course feed and the machine-readable markup - search engines and AI assistants stop being told about it. Its pages stay reachable only for the people who hold a link.
- Can I delete a course completely?
- Yes, once it is archived and nobody is enrolled on it. Archive first - that step is reversible, so you can change your mind. Then ask to delete it for good and confirm, and the course, its lessons and its pages go. If anyone is still enrolled, bernard refuses: deleting would take their access and their record with it. Move them on first, or just leave the course archived - archived courses cost you nothing and stay out of sight. Your videos and worksheets stay in your files either way.
- Can I delete just one lesson?
- Yes, and it needs confirming because it is permanent: the lesson's notes, its transcript and captions, its edit history, its discussion and every learner's tick against it all go with it. Its video and worksheets stay in your files. Bernard refuses in three cases rather than doing quiet damage - if it is your free preview lesson (move the preview to another lesson first), if it is the only lesson in the course, or if it has sub-lessons nested under it. If you only want it out of the way, moving it to the end of the syllabus is usually what you mean.