Esthetician courses and guides: turning what you explain every week into something you own
Count how many times this week you explained the same thing. How to start a retinol. What not to do after a peel. Why their SPF matters even in winter. Each of those explanations is a small lesson, and you deliver it live, for free, one client at a time.
Guides and courses are the part of virtual esthetics that turn those explanations into something you build once and send again and again. They are often called digital products, but they are really your teaching, written down.
Guides versus courses
A guide is one topic, one page. Aftercare after a chemical peel. A three-step morning routine. How to patch test a new product. Most guides are free, because their job is to make your advice stick and save you repeating yourself.
A course is a series with an outcome. A 30-day acne reset. Barrier repair over six weeks. A pre-wedding skin plan that starts four months out. Courses are where a price makes sense, because the client is buying a result and a structure, not a single page.
What to make first
Do not start with the course you think would sell best. Start with what you already explain most, because you know it is wanted and you already know how to say it.
Good first guides:
- Aftercare for your most booked treatment. You send it after every appointment anyway.
- A starter routine for your most common client type.
- "Before your first visit", so new clients arrive prepared.
Good first courses:
- The problem you are known for. If half your book comes to you for acne, pigmentation or sensitivity, that is your course.
- A seasonal reset, which gives regulars a reason to come back to you between visits.
- An event plan with a clear date, like a wedding, where clients already want a timeline.
The course my own clients love most is my 6-week vitality reset.
What goes inside
Keep each lesson short enough to read on a phone. A few principles:
- One idea per lesson. "Week 2: add your treatment step" beats a wall of text.
- Name the products you recommend, and make them easy to buy from inside the lesson. A routine they cannot buy is a routine they will not follow. See shoppable homecare plans.
- Attach what helps: a printable routine chart, a short video, a checklist.
- Stay in scope. A course teaches cosmetic skincare. It does not treat a medical condition, and it should tell the reader when to see a doctor.
Pricing a course
There is no standard price, and anyone who quotes one is guessing about your market. Think about what the client would otherwise spend to get the same guidance: a consult, a treatment, a trial and error shelf of products. Some estheticians include a course free with a treatment package, and sell it on its own to people who are not local. Others offer the first guide free and the full course paid. Decide, then take payment the same way you take it for everything else.
Delivering it
This is where most course plans stall. Course platforms are built for creators selling to thousands of strangers. They usually charge a monthly fee, sometimes a cut of each sale, and they put your course in a separate login your client will forget. For an esthetician with a client list rather than an audience, that is a lot of overhead for something your clients would rather just receive from you.
What you want is simpler: write it once, send it to a client in a tap, and have it sit somewhere they already look, next to their aftercare and their appointment.
How SlickChart handles it
SlickChart has a course and guide builder built in, at no extra fee and with no cut of your sales. You can write a new guide or start from the guides for your profession and rewrite them in your own words, build courses with lessons and a cover, attach files, and link the products you recommend. You send it in a tap, and your client opens it in their own client app, where each product shows with a buy link. You set the price and take payment your usual way.
Start with one guide this week. Pick the thing you explained most, and write it the way you say it.