Online Course Agreement Template: What To Include

Yes, you should have a written online course agreement if you're selling digital learning content in Australia. It sets the rules for access, refunds, payments, intellectual property and student behaviour, so everyone knows what they're signing up for.

The slightly trickier part is that an online course agreement isn't just a copy-and-paste set of website terms. It needs to work with the Australian Consumer Law, your payment setup, your course platform, your community features and the way you want students to use your content.

A good agreement doesn't have to feel heavy or unfriendly. Done well, it protects your business while still giving your students a clear, fair experience.

Do You Need An Online Course Agreement Template?

Yes, if you're taking payments for an online course, membership, online coaching program or digital learning product, you need terms that students accept before they buy or access the content.

Your agreement is the document you rely on when questions come up, such as:

• Can a student share their login with a friend?
• What happens if someone wants a refund after watching half the course?
• Can you remove a student from your Facebook group or platform community?
• What happens if a payment plan instalment fails?
• Can students download, copy or reuse your worksheets and templates?

Without written terms, you'll often be left trying to piece together what was promised in sales pages, emails, checkout copy and social media posts. That can make refund disputes, chargebacks and unpaid instalments much harder to manage.

For Australian course creators, the agreement usually sits alongside your website terms, privacy policy and checkout process. The key is making sure students can see and accept the agreement at the right time, ideally before they pay. A checkbox at checkout that says they agree to your terms is usually much stronger than hiding the terms in a website footer.

Templates can be a helpful starting point, but online courses vary a lot. A $49 self-paced mini-course has different risks from a $3,000 program with payment plans, live calls, community access and downloadable resources. Your agreement should match the way your course actually works.

What Should Your Online Course Terms And Conditions Cover?

Your online course terms and conditions should cover the full student journey, from purchase through to access, completion, refunds and what happens if something goes wrong.

A practical agreement usually deals with these areas:

• Who the agreement is with: Your legal business name, ABN or ACN, and who can enrol.
• What the student is buying: The course name, inclusions, bonuses, live sessions, templates, certificates and any time limits on access.
• Account access: Login rules, password sharing, platform availability and what happens if the student misuses their account.
• Payment terms: Upfront payments, subscriptions, instalments, failed payments, currency, GST and any third-party payment processor terms.
• Refunds and cancellations: Your student refund policy, refund process, any change-of-mind policy, and how that works with the Australian Consumer Law.
• Intellectual property: The course content licence and what students can and can't do with your videos, slides, workbooks, templates, prompts and community content.
• Community rules: Behaviour standards for forums, group chats, live calls and social media groups.
• Disclaimers: Clear limits on what outcomes you promise, especially if your course relates to business, marketing, finance-adjacent education, health, fitness or professional skills.
• Privacy and communications: How you handle student details, email updates and marketing messages.

The agreement should also line up with your sales page. If your sales page promises lifetime access, but your terms say access ends after 12 months, you'll have a problem. The Australian Consumer Law looks closely at the overall impression you give customers, not just the wording buried in the terms.

Say Priya sells an online social media course for $497. Her checkout page says students get lifetime access to all future updates. Six months later, she wants to move platforms and charge students again. If her terms didn't clearly limit access or define what lifetime access means, she may struggle to change the deal after the sale.

How Do Consumer Guarantees Affect Online Course Refunds?

The Australian Consumer Law means you can't use your refund policy to take away a student's consumer guarantee rights.

You can have a firm refund policy. For example, you might say there are no change-of-mind refunds once a student has logged in or downloaded the course materials. However, that policy still needs to sit underneath the consumer guarantees that apply to goods and services supplied to consumers in Australia.

For online courses, the most relevant guarantees often include that services will be provided with due care and skill, will be fit for a disclosed purpose, and will be supplied within a reasonable time if no timeframe is agreed. Digital products and course materials can also raise consumer guarantee issues if they don't match what was promised.

If there's a minor problem, you can usually offer a fix first. That might mean restoring access, replacing a missing module, rescheduling a live session or correcting a broken download.

If there's a major failure, the student may be entitled to a refund or other remedy. A major failure could be something like:

• You advertised a live 8-week course, but only provided two short pre-recorded videos.
• The platform was unusable for a substantial part of the access period.
• The course was materially different from the sales page description.
• The student told you they needed a course for a specific purpose, you confirmed it would suit, and it clearly didn't.

Your agreement should avoid wording like no refunds under any circumstances. That can be misleading and may also raise unfair contract term issues. Since the unfair contract terms regime under the Australian Consumer Law applies to standard form consumer and small business contracts, harsh one-sided terms can be void, and penalties can apply if a business proposes, uses or relies on an unfair term.

A Worked Refund Example

Let's say Mia sells a $1,200 photography course with $300 upfront and three monthly instalments of $300. Her terms say students get 14 days to request a change-of-mind refund, but only if they've watched less than 20% of the course and haven't downloaded the templates.

One student watches 60% of the lessons, downloads all presets and asks for a refund because they changed their mind. If Mia's checkout made the refund rules clear, she may be able to decline that change-of-mind refund.

Another student can't access the videos for three weeks because of a platform issue, and Mia doesn't respond. That isn't just change of mind. Mia should look at whether the student is entitled to a remedy under the Australian Consumer Law, even if her standard policy says no refunds after login.

How Can You Protect Your Course Content And IP?

You can protect your course content by giving students a limited licence to use it, rather than transferring ownership to them.

In most cases, you or your business will own the copyright in the course videos, scripts, slides, worksheets, templates, graphics, audio, downloads and written materials you create. If you paid contractors to help create the course, check your contractor agreements. Copyright doesn't always automatically transfer to your business just because you paid for the work.

Your online learning terms of use should clearly say that students receive a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable licence to access the course for their own learning. That sounds technical, but the practical point is simple: they can use the course, but they can't take the content and treat it as theirs.

Your licence limits should cover whether students can:

• Share their login with another person.
• Download videos or only stream them.
• Print worksheets for personal use.
• Use your templates with their own clients.
• Copy slides into their own course, workshop or paid program.
• Post screenshots or recordings in public.
• Use your trade marks, business name or logo.

If your course includes templates, prompts, checklists or swipe files, be extra clear. Some course creators are happy for students to use templates inside their own business, but not resell them or include them in another product. Others want much tighter limits.

You can also include practical enforcement rights, such as suspending access if a student shares login details, uploads your videos to a public site or copies your materials into their own program. Keep these rights fair and proportionate. A clause that lets you cancel access for any reason with no refund may be risky if it's too broad.

If your course name or signature framework is central to your brand, you may also want to look at trade mark protection through IP Australia. Copyright protects the content itself, but a registered trade mark can help protect your brand name, logo or course name.

What Should You Do About Payment Plans And Failed Payments?

Your agreement should set out exactly what happens if a payment plan instalment fails, including notice, access suspension and whether the remaining balance is still payable.

Payment plans are popular because they make higher-value courses more accessible. They also create a common problem: a student gets access to most of the content, then stops paying.

Your terms should make these points clear:

• Whether the payment plan is a subscription that can be cancelled, or a fixed total price paid by instalments.
• The exact instalment amounts and due dates.
• What happens if a card payment fails.
• How many times you'll retry the payment.
• When access may be paused.
• Whether overdue amounts remain payable after access is paused.
• Whether any late fees apply, and how they're calculated.

Be careful with late fees and acceleration clauses, where the full remaining balance becomes due after one missed payment. These clauses can be useful, but they need to be drafted fairly. If the amount is excessive or the clause operates harshly, it may be challenged as unfair or unenforceable.

For example, if Mia's $1,200 course is sold as a fixed-price program payable over four instalments, her terms might say that a missed $300 instalment gives her the right to send a reminder, retry the payment, suspend access after 7 days and recover overdue amounts. That's clearer than simply saying payment plans are non-refundable and all failed payments will be pursued.

If you charge interest, credit fees or offer more complex deferred payment arrangements, get tailored advice. Depending on the structure, consumer credit laws or buy now pay later rules may become relevant. Many course creators keep things simpler by using a payment processor and plain instalment wording that reflects the real course price.

You should also keep good records. Save the checkout terms accepted by the student, invoice history, payment reminders, platform access logs and refund correspondence. If a chargeback or dispute arises, those records can make a big difference.

Online Course Agreement Template: Clause Outline

An online course agreement template should be tailored before you use it, but this outline gives you a sensible structure to work from.

1. Parties: Write your legal business name, ABN or ACN, contact details and who the student is contracting with.
2. Course Details: Describe the course, inclusions, access period, live components, bonuses, certificates and any excluded items.
3. Eligibility And Accounts: Set age requirements, account setup rules, password security and limits on account sharing.
4. Fees And Payment: Include prices, GST treatment, instalment dates, subscription terms, payment processor use and failed payment steps.
5. Access And Delivery: Explain how students access the course, platform requirements, downtime, updates and expiry dates.
6. Refunds And Cancellations: State your change-of-mind policy, refund request process and how consumer guarantees are preserved.
7. Intellectual Property Licence: Give students a limited licence and spell out what they can and can't do with your materials.
8. Community Rules: Cover respectful conduct, no harassment, no spam, no solicitation, confidentiality inside groups and your moderation rights.
9. Student Contributions: Say how you can use comments, testimonials, questions, assignments or posts, and when you'll ask for consent.
10. Disclaimers And Outcomes: Avoid guaranteeing results and explain that outcomes depend on the student's effort, experience and circumstances.
11. Privacy And Communications: Refer to your privacy practices, email updates and marketing consent, including Privacy Act 1988 and Spam Act 2003 considerations where relevant.
12. Suspension And Termination: Set out when access can be paused or ended for non-payment, misuse, IP breaches or community rule breaches.
13. Liability Limits: Include reasonable limits that don't exclude rights that can't be excluded under the Australian Consumer Law.
14. Changes To The Course Or Terms: Explain how you'll handle course updates, platform moves and changes that affect current students.
15. Governing Law: Choose the Australian state or territory law that applies to your agreement.

Your community rules deserve more than a throwaway line if students interact with each other. If you run a private Slack group, Facebook group or live coaching calls, your agreement should let you remove posts, mute students, issue warnings or remove access where behaviour affects the group.

Privacy also matters. If you collect personal information, record live calls, publish testimonials or show student wins in marketing, be clear about consent. The Privacy Act 1988 applies to many businesses with annual turnover above $3 million and to some smaller businesses in special categories, but good privacy practices are useful even if you're not legally required to have a full privacy policy.

Key Takeaways

• An online course agreement should cover access, refunds, IP, community rules and payments in one clear document.
• Your refund policy can't remove students' rights under the Australian Consumer Law, so avoid absolute no refund wording.
• Protect your course content with clear licence limits, especially for templates, downloads, recordings and community content.
• Payment plan terms should explain instalments, failed payments, access suspension and overdue amounts in a fair way.
• Community rules help you manage groups, live calls and student behaviour without making decisions on the fly.
• A template is only a starting point. Your agreement should match your course model, platform, pricing and risk level.

If you'd like help with your online course terms, refund policy, payment plan clauses or IP protections, you can reach us at 1800 730 617 or team@sprintlaw.com.au for a free, no-obligations chat.