Terms and Conditions for an Online Course or Cohort-Based Program

An online course is not a physical product and not quite a service either, and a generic Terms and Conditions template written for one of those doesn’t hold up well against how students actually behave. Someone can buy access, watch two modules, decide the course isn’t for them, and ask for a refund on day 40. A cohort member can share their login with a friend who never paid. A discussion forum can turn hostile between two students in a live cohort with three weeks left to run. None of that is covered by boilerplate written for a one-time digital download.

Three clauses do the real work in a course or cohort T&C: how long and under what terms a student keeps access to the content, when a refund request is no longer honored because of how much of the course the student has already used, and what happens when a student’s conduct, inside the course or the community around it, crosses a line.

How Should the Content Access Window Work?

The first question a course T&C has to answer is the one students actually ask before they buy: how long do I have this, and what happens to my access after the course ends. The answer depends on the format, and the clause should name the format explicitly rather than leave it implied.

A self-paced course sold as a standalone product usually grants either lifetime access (rare in practice once you account for platform migrations, but sometimes stated that way for marketing reasons) or a term-limited window, commonly one to three years from purchase, after which access lapses unless the student renews or repurchases. A cohort-based program runs on a different clock: access is tied to the live cohort dates, plus a stated period of replay or recording access afterward, often 30 to 90 days, after which the recordings come down or move behind a separate paid alumni tier. State which model applies, the exact length of the window, and whether the platform reserves the right to update or retire course content during that window (a common and reasonable reservation, since course platforms revise material over time, but one students should be told about rather than discover).

Drip scheduling, where modules unlock on a fixed release schedule rather than all at once, needs its own line too, since it directly affects both the access-window clause and the refund-threshold clause below: a student who bought a 12-week drip course but canceled a subscription seat in week 3 has only ever had access to a third of the content, which is a materially different situation than a student who had full access to a self-paced course from day one and simply didn’t finish it.

How Should Completion-Based No-Refund Thresholds Work?

Time-based refund windows alone (a flat “refunds within 14 days”) leave a gap that course creators run into often: a student requests a refund on day 13 after finishing the entire course, having gotten full value from it before asking for the money back. A completion-based threshold closes that gap by capping refund eligibility to whichever comes first, the time window or a stated share of the course accessed, so that a student who has effectively finished the material no longer has a refund path regardless of how many days remain in the window.

State the threshold in concrete, measurable terms rather than a vague reference to “substantial completion,” since that phrase invites exactly the dispute the clause exists to prevent. Two workable ways to measure it: by module or lesson count (no refund once the student has opened or completed more than a stated share of the total lessons), or by platform-tracked progress percentage if your course platform reports that number reliably. Whichever measure you pick, name it in the clause and make sure it’s something you can actually verify from your platform’s own data if a dispute reaches a payment processor chargeback review, since an unverifiable threshold is not much better than no threshold at all.

Cohort programs sold with live coaching calls or community access complicate this further, because completion isn’t only about video lessons watched. If your program’s value includes live sessions or 1:1 calls already delivered, the clause should also address a student who attended those sessions asking for a refund afterward, typically by stating that refunds are not available once the student has attended a stated number of live sessions or calls, independent of the lesson-completion percentage.

What Should the Student Conduct Clause Cover?

A course or cohort T&C needs conduct rules for two different contexts: the content itself, and any community or discussion space that comes with it. On the content side, the clause should state plainly that course materials are for the enrolled student’s personal use, that sharing login credentials or redistributing recordings, slides, or downloadable materials outside the platform violates the agreement, and that a violation can result in access being revoked without a refund. This is the single most commonly skipped clause in course T&Cs, and the most commonly needed one, since credential sharing is the main way paid course content ends up circulating for free.

On the community side, if the program includes a discussion forum, a private group, or live cohort calls, the clause should set baseline conduct expectations (no harassment, no spam or unsolicited promotion of a competing product or service, respect for other students’ and instructors’ time) and state what happens when they’re violated: a warning for a first minor issue, and removal from the community or the entire program, without refund, for serious or repeated violations. Vague language here (“be respectful”) gives you nothing to point to when you actually need to remove someone mid-cohort, while specific, named prohibited behaviors give you a documented basis for that decision.

What Else Belongs in the T&C?

A few structural pieces round out a course or cohort T&C once the three clauses above are drafted. State who owns the intellectual property in the course materials (the creator retains ownership; the student receives a limited, non-transferable license to use them for personal learning) and, separately, who owns anything the student produces during the course, such as a template they customize or a project they submit for feedback, since that ownership question comes up more often in cohort programs with graded or reviewed work. If the program includes live video sessions, add a line covering session recording: that calls may be recorded, that recordings may be shared with the cohort or reused in future course versions, and how a student can opt out of appearing on camera if that matters to your format. And if the course makes any claim about outcomes (income, career results, certification value), pair the T&C with a results disclaimer stating that outcomes depend on the student’s own effort and aren’t guaranteed, the same clause a coaching or consulting business needs for the same reason.

Getting the access window, completion threshold, and conduct clauses right up front means fewer disputed refunds and a documented basis for removing a student who genuinely needs to be removed, instead of improvising both in a support inbox mid-cohort. A Terms and Conditions generator built for digital content businesses prompts for the access model, refund threshold, and conduct rules as their own fields, so the finished document reflects how your course or cohort program actually runs rather than a template written for a one-time digital download. If your program also involves individual coaching or 1:1 calls, our guide to Terms and Conditions for a coaching or consulting business covers the session-cancellation and results-disclaimer language that pairs with it, and if you run an ongoing paid community alongside the course, see Terms and Conditions for a membership or paid community site for the recurring-billing side of that setup.