COMPARED WITH SELAR
Selar sells your course. It does not run your academy.
Selar is built for African creators selling digital products, and it is very good at it: unlimited course video, modules, drip content, a certificate on completion, and money in naira and other currencies without a merchant account of your own. An academy needs the things either side of the sale.
WHERE EACH TOOL STOPS
An island in the middle of the chain.
Drawn from what Selar publishes about its course product. A gap is a step its pages do not describe, not a claim that it cannot be done.
Selar: Apply to Admit, not published; Pay to Enrol, in Checkout, then access; Attend to Assessed by staff, not published; Credential, in Certificate on completion; Employer verifies, not published. Alethris: Apply to Employer verifies, in One record per learner.
THE JOINS
A sale and an enrolment are not the same event.
Selar is built around the first. An academy is built around the second, and around everything that has to happen after it.
A purchase gives a buyer access to the material on their own schedule. A cohort has a start date, a timetable, sessions that happen at a time, and people who fall behind and need noticing.
A cohort with its own schedule, sessions learners add to a calendar, a register taken in the room, and a dashboard that says who needs attention today.
Progress through the material tells you how much of the course somebody has opened. Whether they can do the thing the course teaches is a different question, and answering it means a person reading their work.
Assignments with the artefacts they require, versioned submissions, rubric assessment by a named assessor, and revision requests the learner sees.
A certificate issued for finishing the videos attests that the videos were finished. An employer reading it has no way to tell whether anything was demonstrated, or to check it at all.
A credential issued from a completed record, with a code and a QR, and a verification page carrying the programme, the method and the competencies the academy approved.
One seller's account fits one person selling their own work. An academy has instructors, mentors, assessors and a finance admin, and they must not all be able to do the same things.
Staff roles with separate authority: who may assess, who may approve a payment, who may issue a credential, and a record of who did.
SIDE BY SIDE
What each one is holding when the course ends.
Selar's column is what Selar publishes about its course product. Where it says nothing, this page says nothing.
| SELAR | ALETHRIS | |
|---|---|---|
| Video, audio and files | Unlimited hosting, stream-only | Lessons, files and video in a versioned programme |
| Releasing content over time | Drip scheduling | Modules and lessons on a cohort's schedule |
| How a learner is doing | Progress you can export | Progress, what is due, and who is at risk |
| Reducing what a learner pays | Coupon codes, for one product or the whole store, with a quantity limit | A code on the application, or an automatic offer for a window, with caps and a price floor |
| An application and an admission decision | — | On the learner's record, with its author |
| Sessions and attendance | — | A schedule and a register |
| Work a learner submits | — | A submission, with its versions |
| How that work was judged | — | A rubric, signed by its assessor |
| The certificate | On course completion | Issued from a completed record |
| Whether an employer can check it | — | A public verification page |
| Separate authority for staff | — | Instructors, mentors, assessors and finance admins |
WHAT IT COSTS
A share of each sale, or a plan and a choice about collection.
Selar takes its cut when something sells. Alethris charges for the academy and only takes a share of money it actually collected. No figures here: both move.
| SELAR | ALETHRIS | |
|---|---|---|
| Each month | A plan, with a free tier | A plan, by the size of your academy |
| When something sells | A transaction fee, which varies by currency | A share, only of money Alethris collected |
| When you collect the money yourself | — | Nothing |
| How a learner can pay | Card, in naira and other currencies | Card, Pay with Transfer, a bank transfer your staff confirm, or a sponsor |
| Getting paid out | Selar collects and pays you out | Paystack settles to your own account |
Where the figures actually are
When Selar is the right answer
- What you sell is a recorded course, and the buyer works through it whenever they like.
- You sell more than courses — ebooks, templates, memberships, tickets — and want one storefront for all of it.
- You want to be paid in naira and in other currencies without setting up a merchant account.
- You are one person. There is no team to give different permissions to, and nobody is going to dispute a result.
Selling a course well is a real business and Selar is built for it. Alethris is not, and it would be a heavy way to do it.
MOVING
Most academies should keep both for a while.
Selar sells. Alethris runs the programme that has to be assessed. Those are different jobs and they can run side by side.
ONE
Keep the storefront
If you also sell ebooks, templates or a membership, keep Selar for those. Alethris has no storefront and is not going to grow one.
TWO
Bring the cohort, not the catalogue
Move the one programme where somebody has to read the work and stand behind a result.
THREE
The lessons come with you
Upload them into a programme with modules and lessons, versioned as editions so a running cohort is never changed underneath it.
FOUR
Keep collecting money the way you do
Record every payment against the learner, whoever collected it. There is no fee on money we did not collect.
Ask who reads the work.
If nobody does, a course platform is the right tool and Selar is a good one. If somebody does, and their judgement has to survive being questioned later, that judgement needs somewhere to live.