Automatic fee splits and invoices for courses taught by several instructors
TL;DR Shareroll lets two or more instructors who run a paid course, cohort or workshop together agree a split once and then forget about it. Every learner's payment gets divided at settlement through a licensed payment aggregator, each instructor gets their own invoice trail and refunds come back out in the same ratio.
Co-taught courses are everywhere - a designer and a developer run a bootcamp together, or three coaches share a cohort. The money usually lands in one person's account, and that person then transfers shares by hand, pays GST on the whole amount and handles refunds alone. Trust wears thin fast when payouts run late.
Course platforms haven't fixed this. The two biggest Indian ones serve more than 200,000 and 100,000 creators, but neither homepage mentions a co-instructor split[1][2].
One large gateway's split product is gated. A business needs domestic turnover above ₹40 lakh in FY25 or FY26, shown through GST-3B returns[3], and most small instructor teams fall below that line.
What it does, in regulatory terms: software that instructs an RBI-authorised payment aggregator to split settlements. Shareroll never holds learners' money. RBI requires non-bank aggregators to be authorised, keep funds in escrow and meet a net worth of ₹15 crore at application, rising to ₹25 crore[4], so the money stays with the licensed partner.
Instructors create a course, add co-instructors and set the split, whether that's fixed percentages, a guaranteed fee to one person or different rates for different batches. Learners pay on a Shareroll checkout or a link dropped into an existing course site. At settlement the aggregator moves each share to each instructor's bank account. Shareroll keeps the ledger, issues statements and claws refunds back pro rata.
The seed suggested smart contracts on a blockchain. We dropped that. Payouts in tokens would be virtual digital assets taxed at 30% with 1% TDS[5], and Indian instructors want rupees and clean tax records, not wallets.
The instructors who share a course pay, usually the one who set it up. Small training firms that hire guest faculty are a second buyer.
A per-transaction fee on top of the aggregator's charge or a monthly plan for heavy users are the obvious models. Test both, since we found no public Indian benchmark.
Rupee split settlement now exists inside aggregators, with immediate, delayed or custom settlement schedules[3], but only for bigger merchants. Abroad, global payment platforms already handle multi-party payouts for platforms[6]. So a thin layer that pools lots of small instructor teams under one platform account, within aggregator rules, is now doable.
We found no public figure for revenue from co-taught courses in India. The adjacent signal is the creator base - one platform reports 200,000+ creators[1] and another 100,000+ creators with more than one crore courses sold[2].
Even if only a small share of them teach with partners, that's a reachable niche.
Gateway split products in India and abroad provide the plumbing for platforms[3][6]. Indian course platforms host and sell courses but don't advertise co-instructor splits[1][2]. Shared-expense apps track debts but move no money.
The gap is a ready-made split layer for small instructor teams who can't qualify for a gateway's split product themselves and don't want to switch course platforms.
| Difficulty | Moderate (31/100) |
| Starting capital | ₹35–65 L |
| Time to launch | 6–9 months |
The software is modest. The hard part is the partnership, because an aggregator has to accept Shareroll as a platform and approve each instructor as a linked account. GST on shared fees also needs a CA's written answer before the first launch goes live.
You don't need a payments licence yourself, as long as a licensed partner holds the money. That is the whole design.
Building this outside India? The categories above usually have a local equivalent, so check with your own regulator.
Don't let AI change a split or approve a payout on its own. Money rules need a human click every time.
Want to work out the AI layer for Shareroll? Talk to Yash →
Here's what can go south -
I like this as a narrow, useful tool for a founder who understands payments and creator businesses. If you want to build a blockchain product then this isn't the one.
Prove two things first - that an aggregator will onboard you as a platform, and that 30 instructor teams will route a real launch through it.
Plan for about ₹35–65 L over 6–9 months, mostly product, the aggregator integration and finding your first instructor pairs.
Not if you never hold the money. The settlement runs through an RBI-authorised payment aggregator, and you stay the software layer that tells it how to split.
Yes. Global payment platforms already work on the same platform-and-sellers model abroad, so you would build on a local equivalent and check its payout and tax rules first.
The free Shareroll validation kit has the line-by-line capital breakdown, the effort scoring, the payments and GST checklist, a 14-day validation sprint with pass/fail targets, a 90-day launch plan, 10 interview questions for instructors, and 5 assumptions to test. Download the kit →
Thinking about building Shareroll or something close to it? The make-or-break work is signing a payment aggregator that will onboard small instructor teams under your platform, and I'm happy to think that through with you. If you need a hand, you know where to find me. Talk to Yash →
For illustration only. Names are fictional and ideas hypothetical; sourced facts are real but may be out of date. Nothing here is legal, financial or professional advice, and Yash Khatri is not personally liable for any use of it. Read the full disclaimer.