Online Academy on forento.io – Is It Worth It?

An online academy is an increasingly popular way to monetize knowledge – experts and creators earn by sharing their skills through online courses, e-books, and coaching programs. Many platforms are emerging to make this easier. One of them is forento.io – an international all-in-one platform for creating and selling online courses. Is it worth using? Below, we analyze Forento's features, pros, and cons from a creator's perspective (especially one operating in Poland).

What Is the Forento Platform?

Forento is a comprehensive tool that allows you to easily create your own online academy – a place to sell online courses, training programs, e-books, and other digital content. Users from 146 countries build their educational businesses with it. Forento focuses on intuitiveness: within a few minutes of registering, you can have a ready-made course page that accepts payments from customers worldwide. The platform was created as a response to overly complicated or expensive e-learning tools – its creators focused on delivering all essential features while maintaining simplicity. For example, one trainer described Forento as "the simplest website builder", which significantly sped up his work on courses.

Key Features of Forento

The platform offers many useful capabilities for digital product creators:

- Various product formats: selling video courses (with lessons, quizzes, exams), downloadable materials (e.g., e-books), services such as online consultations, and even memberships (subscriptions) providing access to exclusive content.
- Website builder: a built-in landing page and sales page builder using drag and drop. Ready-made templates tailored to the needs of courses and training programs are available – you can quickly create a professional page for your project.
- Payment processing: integration with Stripe and PayPal allows you to immediately accept payments from customers worldwide, in various currencies. Forento handles the technical side of transactions, so you don't need to implement complex payment gateways yourself.
- Community and educational tools: the ability to create a forum or group for course participants (available in higher plans) plus educational add-ons such as quizzes, tests, completion certificates, and gradual lesson release (drip content). If needed, the platform can be integrated with external applications (e.g., via Zapier) for greater automation.

Advantages of Using Forento

The key advantages of the Forento platform from a creator's perspective are:

- Ease of use: Users praise Forento for its intuitive interface and simplicity. Compared to more complex competitors, the platform is easier and faster to use – you can focus on creating content instead of struggling with technical details.
- Comprehensiveness (all-in-one): Forento replaces the need to use multiple tools. In one place, you have course hosting, a sales page, a payment system, LMS, and community space. This simplifies your work and saves time – you don't need to integrate separate services, everything works right away.
- Free start and favorable pricing: The platform allows a free start – without a subscription, with a 20% commission on sales in the Free plan. This is a great way to test your course idea without financial risk. As your business grows, you can switch to a paid plan (from around $15/month), which eliminates the commission and unlocks additional options (custom domain, no watermark, etc.). Forento's pricing is transparent and considered fairer than many larger platforms.
- Scalability and reach: Forento grows with your business – higher packages offer more capabilities, so you won't run out of functionality as you develop. Thanks to globally operating payments, you can easily reach international customers, expanding the potential market for your content.

Disadvantages and Limitations of Forento

It's also worth knowing the potential limitations of the platform:

- No Polish language version: The admin panel and documentation are in English. You can, of course, run your courses in Polish, but managing the backend requires basic knowledge of English.
- Young platform: Forento is relatively new, so the user community (including in Poland) is still growing, and some advanced features may still be in preparation.
- Commission on the Free plan: The free plan involves giving 20% of revenue to the platform. With higher sales, it quickly pays to switch to a paid subscription to avoid this commission.
- No local integrations: Forento does not offer ready-made connections with typically Polish services (e.g., local payment systems, accounting software). Some issues – such as compliance with local regulations or automatic invoicing – need to be solved using additional tools.

How to Issue an Invoice for a Forento Transaction in Poland?

Finally, let's discuss the invoicing issue for sales on Forento, as this is important for entrepreneurs in Poland. Forento uses Stripe for payment processing, so payments from customers go to your Stripe account. Neither Stripe nor the Forento platform issues VAT invoices – you need to do this yourself, e.g., using a Polish invoicing program.

In practice, this means additional work: you need to transfer transaction data from Stripe to an invoicing system (e.g., Fakturownia). There is an integration between Stripe and Fakturownia, but it does not automatically create new invoices – it only matches imported payments with previously issued documents.

The solution is to use an external integration service such as striptu.com. It allows you to connect Stripe with Fakturownia (a popular Polish invoicing system) so that every payment for your course automatically generates a VAT invoice. The process happens in the background – the integration collects transactions from Stripe and forwards them to Fakturownia without your intervention. This saves you time and ensures that all sales are properly documented on an ongoing basis. Support for other Polish accounting programs (such as ifirma or Infakt) for Stripe is also planned, which will make accounting even easier in the future.

Summary of forento.io

Forento.io is a modern, user-friendly platform for creating an online academy that can facilitate the launch and growth of a business related to online courses. It has a rich set of features and attractive pricing, which attracts many creators. If you value ease of use and want to quickly start selling your course, Forento may be a bullseye for you. Just remember to take care of formal matters (e.g., invoice automation) to fully leverage the platform's potential in the Polish market.