How to Know If Your Teachable Course Ads Are Profitable

Your Teachable dashboard shows revenue—not whether your ads made money. You can see course sales, enrollments, and transaction history, but Teachable doesn't subtract your Meta ad spend, refunds, or processing fees to tell you if yesterday was profitable. To know if your Teachable course ads are actually making money, align cash in (Stripe payouts from Teachable sales) with cash out (ad spend + refunds + fees) by calendar day.

The gap in Teachable's reporting

Teachable gives you solid course analytics:

• Revenue by course and time period
• Enrollment numbers and completion rates
• Student engagement metrics
• Transaction history and refund details
• Affiliate payouts (if applicable)

What Teachable doesn't tell you:

• Daily profit after ad spend: Revenue minus ad costs for a specific day
• Cash flow by day: When money actually landed in your bank vs when the sale happened
• Combined view: Teachable data + Meta Ads data in one place
• Daily net: The one number that answers "did I make money yesterday?"

So if you spent $500 on Meta Ads yesterday and Teachable shows $1,200 in sales, you might think you're up $700. But that $1,200 is by transaction date—it won't hit your bank for days. And it doesn't account for Stripe fees, Teachable's platform fee, or refunds from previous sales hitting today.

How Teachable payments work (and why it matters for profit tracking)

Teachable uses Stripe as its payment processor. When a student buys your course:

1. Student pays → Stripe processes the charge
2. Teachable takes its platform fee (depending on your plan)
3. Stripe batches remaining charges into payouts
4. Payouts land in your bank (usually 2-7 days later)

This payout delay is why Teachable's revenue numbers don't match your bank account. What Teachable shows as "yesterday's revenue" might not land in your bank until next week. For more on this, see Stripe payout schedule: why daily numbers are "wrong".

How to track if your Teachable ads are profitable

Step 1: Track cash in (from Stripe)

Since Teachable uses Stripe, connect to your Stripe account to see:

• Course sales (by payout date, not transaction date)
• Refunds (by the day they're processed)
• Stripe fees (deducted from payouts)
• Net payouts (what actually hit your bank)

Step 2: Track cash out (from Meta Ads + costs)

• Meta ad spend: What Meta charged you that calendar day
• Teachable platform fees: Deducted before Stripe pays you (already reflected in lower payouts)
• Refunds: Reduce future payouts
• Fixed costs: Other tools and subscriptions (allocated daily)

Step 3: Calculate daily P&L

Cash in (Stripe payouts that day) minus cash out (ad spend + other costs) = daily net.

If the number is positive, your ads made money that day. If it's negative, they didn't.

The manual challenge

You can do this in a spreadsheet:

1. Check Stripe → note the day's payouts
2. Check Meta Ads Manager → note the day's spend
3. Account for refunds and fees
4. Calculate net

Every day. Including weekends. Including when you're busy recording courses, running webinars, and managing students.

For more on when spreadsheets stop being practical, see when to stop using spreadsheets for Stripe reconciliation.

Automate it with NetDay

NetDay connects to Stripe and Meta Ads (both read-only) and shows your daily P&L automatically:

• Stripe: All your Teachable sales appear as Stripe charges. NetDay aligns them by settlement date.
• Meta Ads: Daily ad spend by calendar day.
• Daily net: Cash in minus cash out—updated automatically.

You don't connect Teachable to NetDay. You connect Stripe, which is where Teachable sends your money. Every course sale, bundle purchase, and coaching payment that Teachable processes through Stripe shows up in your daily P&L.

For more on profit tracking options for course creators, see the best profit tracking tools for course creators.

What profitable Teachable ads look like in practice

Here's an example of what daily P&L reveals:

Day	Cash In (Stripe)	Cash Out (Ads + Fees)	Daily Net
Monday	$1,850	$1,200	+$650
Tuesday	$920	$1,200	-$280
Wednesday	$2,400	$1,200	+$1,200
Thursday	$1,100	$1,200	-$100
Friday	$3,200	$1,500	+$1,700

Notice: daily ad spend is fairly constant, but cash in varies based on when Stripe batches payouts. A red day doesn't necessarily mean bad ads—it might mean Stripe shifted a payout. That's why daily P&L over time (not any single day) is the real signal. For more, see when to worry about a bad day vs timing.

Common questions

Does Teachable show daily profit after ad spend?

No. Teachable shows revenue, enrollments, and transaction history. It doesn't connect to Meta Ads, subtract ad spend, or show daily profit after costs.

How do I know if my Teachable ads are making money?

Connect Stripe (which Teachable uses for payments) and Meta Ads to NetDay. It aligns cash in and cash out by calendar day so you can see if ads are profitable—not just producing revenue.

Does Teachable use Stripe for payments?

Yes. Teachable Payments uses Stripe as the underlying processor. If you're on the custom gateway option, you can also connect Stripe directly. Either way, your course payments flow through Stripe.

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Teachable shows you revenue. For daily profit after ad spend, try NetDay free for 7 days—no credit card required—and see if your course ads are actually making money.