Why is heyhey good for beginners?

Because it removes three things that trip up most people trying to sell their first course or ebook: paying before you’ve earned anything, the technical hurdle, and having to piece your sales together from several tools at once.

Specifically: the Starter plan costs AED 0 forever, needs no payment card and takes no commission on your sales. It isn’t a trial: you can sell on it for a year and nobody will send you a bill. There’s nothing to install, because it’s SaaS, so there’s no server, no plugins and no updates to keep on top of. Email marketing with sequences and automations is included here too, so you don’t need to buy a second tool for your newsletter.

Elsewhere, you often have to choose: a free start with a cut taken from every sale, or no commission but a subscription from day one. heyhey combines a permanent free plan with 0% commission.

Below: exactly what that means when you start, and what to expect next.

Contents

1. Three barriers for beginners
2. What exactly is in the free plan
3. When to move to a paid plan
4. What you don’t get at the start
5. What your first week looks like
6. Who it’s not a good choice for
7. Frequently asked questions
8. Methodology
9. Create an account and sell your first product

Three barriers for beginners

One: you pay before you earn. In the classic setup, your subscription starts on the day you sign up, and your first sale comes weeks later, if at all. You pay the monthly fee in the months when nothing is happening yet. Free trials don’t solve this, because they usually last a few weeks, and getting from launch to meaningful results tends to take longer.

Two: the technical hurdle. Some course platforms run on WordPress. That can mean your own server, your own video hosting and minimum software versions to keep up with. If you already have WordPress and someone who looks after it, that’s not a problem. If you’d have to set it up for the first time just to sell a course, you’re adding updates, backups and plugin compatibility: things that have nothing to do with your product but eat up your weekends.

Three: a stack of several tools. The platform has no newsletter, so you buy a second tool. It doesn’t handle payments, so you buy a third. The result: two dashboards, two contact databases and the need to keep them in sync before you’ve sold anything. heyhey includes email marketing in every plan, including the free one.

What exactly is in the free plan

Prices excl. VAT. Correct as of September 2026.

One product and three pages is not a demo version. It’s exactly what you need for a first course or ebook: a sales page, a thank-you page and a newsletter sign-up page.

The most important row in this table is the zero commission. On “free” plans that take a percentage of each sale, the cost grows with you: at 5% of AED 5,000 in monthly sales, you’d give away AED 3,000 a year. Here it costs nothing. (Stripe or PayPal still charge their own fee on each transaction, as they would on any platform.)

When to move to a paid plan

There are three moments, and none of them has anything to do with the calendar.

A second product. Starter holds one. When a second one comes along, you move to Growth for AED 199 a month excl. VAT (or AED 169 a month billed yearly): five products, ten pages, 500 contacts, 40 GB.

A custom domain. Also Growth. On Starter you use the platform’s address, and when you sell to your own list that usually doesn’t matter, because those people already know you. When you sell to strangers, and with more expensive products, it starts to matter.

Subscriptions. Recurring payments, payment plans and trials at checkout are available from Growth. heyhey’s commission on those payments is still zero, however many subscribers you have, and that difference keeps growing: with 200 subscribers paying AED 39 a month, a middleman taking 10% would keep around AED 780 a month.

Above that is Pro at AED 499 a month excl. VAT: unlimited products and pages, 2,500 contacts, 250 GB. Order bumps and upsells are available from Growth. Completion certificates, quizzes and assignments, and the community are available on every plan, including Starter. Enterprise handles up to 200,000 contacts.

What you don’t get at the start

To be upfront, so you don’t find out after signing up.

A custom domain, subscriptions, order bumps and upsells on the free plan. All of them start at Growth. Completion certificates, quizzes and assignments, and the community, on the other hand, are available on every plan, including Starter. The same goes for events with registration and challenges, as well as points, levels and a leaderboard.

A mobile app under your brand. We don’t have one. Your students view the material in a browser, which is plenty to start with. But if your own app is a must for you, heyhey isn’t the right fit yet.

Room for more than 50 contacts. On Starter this is a real limit: if your list grows faster than your sales, you’ll reach it before you reach the product limit.

What your first week looks like

There’s no magic here, and no forty steps.

Day one. You create an account, upload your product (a PDF file or modules with lessons) and set the price.

Day two. You build a sales page in the page builder. It has to answer four questions: what it’s about, who it’s for, what exactly I get and how much it costs.

Day three. You connect payments: Stripe (cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay) and PayPal. You make a test purchase yourself to check that everything works, from the click to the access.

After that. You set up a sign-up form and a sequence of a few emails, because your email list is the channel you own: you can reach the people on it again and again, without depending on an algorithm.

That’s roughly where the technical part ends. The rest, getting people to that page, is harder, and no tool will do it for you.

Who it’s not a good choice for

Not every use case fits what we do.

If you sell physical products. This isn’t an online shop: we handle digital products.

If you already have WordPress, someone who looks after it, and you want to keep everything on one platform. Then a WordPress-based course tool may make more sense.

If you don’t want to deal with tax at all. With heyhey, you sell through your own Stripe or PayPal account, so you are the seller and tax stays your responsibility. Tools that act as a merchant of record take tax settlement off your hands.

Frequently asked questions

Is heyhey really free?

The Starter plan costs AED 0 forever, needs no payment card and takes no commission on your sales. It isn’t a trial: you can sell on it for a year and nobody will send you a bill. The limits are one product, three pages, 50 contacts and 5 GB. The only cost you’ll have is the payment provider’s fee, which you’d pay on any platform, because it’s charged by Stripe or PayPal, not by the software.

Can I earn money on the free plan?

Yes, fully. You connect payments (Stripe or PayPal), sell your product, and access or the file unlocks automatically once the payment goes through. heyhey’s commission is 0%, so the whole price, minus only the payment provider’s fee, goes to you. That sets this plan apart from demo accounts that only let you click around, and from commission-based plans where the more you sell, the more you give away.

Do I need technical knowledge?

No. heyhey is SaaS, so you don’t install anything, maintain a server or keep an eye on plugin updates and software versions. That’s the difference from WordPress-based platforms, which can require your own server, your own video hosting and regular updates. To start selling, you upload your product, build a page in the page builder and connect payments.

How long does it take to start selling?

The technical part usually takes a few days at a relaxed pace: uploading the product and setting the price, building a sales page in the page builder, connecting payments and making a test purchase to check that the path from click to access works. What takes longer is something no tool will do for you: bringing people to that page. It’s worth setting up a sign-up form and an email sequence straight away, because your list is the channel you own.

When do I have to move to a paid plan?

When one of three things comes up: a second product, the need for a custom domain, or selling subscriptions. All three start with the Growth plan at AED 199 a month excl. VAT, which holds five products, ten pages, 500 contacts and 40 GB and adds order bumps and upsells. heyhey’s commission stays at zero on every plan, so your bill doesn’t grow with your sales. Above that is Pro at AED 499 a month excl. VAT, with unlimited products and pages. Completion certificates, quizzes and assignments, and the community are available on every plan, including Starter.

How is heyhey different from other platforms?

In two ways. First, a permanent free plan combined with 0% commission. Elsewhere, you often get either a free start with a percentage taken from each sale, or no commission only once you pay a subscription, sometimes with just a time-limited trial. Second, email marketing is included in every plan, including the free one, so you don’t need a separate email tool.

Can I sell ebooks rather than courses?

Yes, an ebook is treated like any other digital product: you upload the file, set the price, and once the payment goes through the buyer gets it automatically. The free Starter plan holds one product, so you can sell one ebook with no fee and no commission. If the ebook is meant to lead into a more expensive course, it’s worth keeping both products in the same system; otherwise you can’t build an email sequence that leads from one to the other.

Methodology

Where the heyhey numbers come from. Pricing and plan limits: heyhey pricing, checked in September 2026.

This is an article about our own product. We publish it on our own blog and say so openly. The sections “What you don’t get at the start” and “Who it’s not a good choice for” are here so you don’t discover these things after signing up.

What we don’t cover. Tax and accounting formalities. They depend on where your business is registered.

Create an account and sell your first product

The Starter plan costs AED 0 forever, needs no payment card and takes no commission on your sales. You upload your course or ebook, build a page in the page builder, connect Stripe or PayPal and start selling. Email marketing with sequences is included from day one. You move to a higher plan when your sales justify it, not before. Compare the plans.