We’ve all grown up online - some of us have even been hopping between digital platforms since we could hold a phone. Now, there's a platform for everything, with each platform claiming that they are better than the rest.
So, when thinking about which platform is best for you and your business, most people struggle to decide. Telegram channels are amazing, but they don’t have organization features like Discord. On the other hand, Discord is much harder to learn, whether you want to create your own community or join one.
This is a very common issue that people face when they’re trying to find the perfect platform for their ideas - they need a platform that's great at everything, not just one thing.
That’s where Whop comes in.
Whop is a social commerce platform that lets anyone create an online hub, known as a whop, for a huge range of digital products and services. With your whop you can offer up access to exclusive courses, sports betting tips, live coaching calls, and so much more.
Whop also has a marketplace called Discover. Millions of people a month browse the Discover page to find the perfect whop to join.
Speaking of whops, let’s clear up the difference between Whop and a whop:
- Whop is a social commerce platform for selling online
- A whop is your own internet hub that you can create and sell access to (they can be free, too)
What is a whop?
A whop is a customizable online space you can build and shape to fit your needs.
When you first create a whop, it will be a blank canvas.
Now, think of your online hub idea - what does it offer to its members: chat rooms? Forums? Courses? Livestreams?
No matter what kind of an online space you want to create, you can make it with your whop. This is done by using what we call “apps.”
To easily understand what apps are, think of them as features. For example, Discord has chat rooms, Coursera has online courses, and Twitch has livestreams. Those platforms all have unique features, but with whop, you can use all of those features in a single platform.
Let’s imagine you want to create a coding community where you want newbie and experienced coders to get together, chat, learn, and collaborate. You can make this community a reality by adding the Chat app to your whop, so your members can chat with each other, Course app, so that you can create elaborate lessons and your members can learn, and the Forums app so that people can post their project ideas and find others who are willing to collaborate.
As you’ve seen so far, a whop can become what you want it to be since you can tailor it with the features that your idea requires. That’s great - but how do you “sell” it?
Well, unlike Discord servers or Telegram channels, whops are ready to be monetized right out of the box.
Before we get into the details of a whop, how to create one, and the apps you can add, let’s look at some examples of hypothetical whops so that you can get a good understanding of them.
Examples of whops
As we mentioned, you can create all kinds of communities on Whop - the only limit is your imagination. Let’s imagine a couple of hypothetical whops, which apps they would use, and the products they could offer:
- Coding Academy: The Coding Academy whop is a place for all developers to gather and improve themselves, no matter their knowledge level. You can meet with other developers, exchange feedback, find people to collaborate with, and even take on the Introduction to Python and Introduction to JavaScript courses.
- Apps: The Coding Academy whop uses the Courses, Chat, Content, and Forums apps.
- Fantasy Writers Guild: The Fantasy Writers Guild whop is the perfect place to improve your fantasy writing skills and socialize with other fantasy writers. It doesn’t matter if you dabble in the world of fantasy writing as a hobby or professionally. The Guild is the perfect inn for you.
- Apps: The Fantasy Writers Guild whop contains multiple Chat apps, Content, and Events apps.
- Naut Sports Picks: The Naut Sports Picks whop is a sports betting community that is run by experienced betters who want to share their knowledge and tips with others. The Naut community focuses on NBA and NFL picks and has an active community where people can discuss their strategies.
- Apps: The Naut Sports Picks whop has the Chat, Content, and Guess The Score apps.
How to join a whop
Joining a whop is an easy process, but first, you need to find a whop to join.
The best way to find whops to join is via Whop Discover.
Discover has two tabs: Explore, which displays livestreams, Content Rewards, events, and more of some of the most trending whops - and Leaderboards, which is where you can find whops listed by category and stats.
The Leaderboards tab allows you to filter whops by their category and display the results by different metrics "Most addicting," "Newest", "Most reviews", "Highest affiliate earnings", and more.
Now, as an example, let's go to the Reselling category of the Leaderboards and sort the list using the Most reviews button.
Find a whop that looks good, go to its page, and click the Get access button. This is going to display the payment popup where you're prompted to use a payment option, like card, enter a promo code (if any), and click Get access.
Once you complete the purchase, you'll be taken to the whop's main page. Congrats, you just joined a whop!
How to create a whop
All right, so far, you know what whops and apps are. In this section, we’re going to walk you through the easy steps of creating your very own whop.
First of all, you should know that before creating a whop, you have to create an organization. You can think of organizations as your seller profile - if you're going to create two whops, one for regular members and one for VIPs, you're going to do it under the same organization.
You should only create a second (or more) organization if you are selling a completely different product or would like to set up a different payout profile.
So, let's create an organization first.
You can do this by clicking on the Start selling button on the left side of your screen to go to your Dashboard. Then, since you don't have any whops, you're going to see the Create your whop button. Clicking on it will direct you to the onboarding, where you can create an organization.
Or, you can just click the Create your whop button below:
After clicking the Create your whop button, you're going to see the single-step onboarding, which will let you create an organization.
Since organizations don't need any setup, all you have to do is to give it a name. The organization name has a 30-character limit, so make sure you optimize it.
After deciding on a name for your organization, click the Continue button to create it.
After you create the organization, you'll be directed to your dashboard.
Now, if you take a look at the Your whops section at the top left of the dashboard or the whop list at the bottom of your screen (refresh the page if it's empty), you'll see a whop with the same name as the organization.
Let's click on it to see what your first whop looks like.
After clicking on your new whop, you'll be directed to its main page. There, you can see app categories, the quick post field, the Edit store button, and more. You'll be able to configure most of your whop in this page.
What’s next?
After creating your whop, it’s time to actually set it up. There are three main things left for you to do: add apps, pricing options, and configure your store page. After you’re done with all these, you can launch your whop.
Let’s see them in order:
- Add apps - Apps are the very things that make your whop a usable platform and not just an empty space.
You should take a look at every single app that is available on whop and decide which ones your platform needs. Hot tip: avoid adding too many apps (you don't want a cluttered whop), but add enough apps so that your whop can function as intended.
Remember that you can add multiple instances of the same app or link existing apps from other whops under the same organization. Read our 'how to add apps to a whop' guide. - Add pricing options - Pricing options are what allow you to sell access to your whop. There are a number of pricing option types like free, monthly, weekly, and one-time payment, waitlisted options, and more.
Creating pricing options on Whop is really easy and takes just a couple of minutes. Read our 'how to add pricing options to a whop' guide. - Set up store page - After you’re all done with apps, it’s time to set up a landing page for your whop. When you first create a whop, its overview page will be created alongside it automatically - but it will be empty. It will only list a couple of details about your whop but nothing more.
By setting up your store page, you can provide information about your products, apps, platform, and basically, everything a potential user needs to see to be able to decide if they want to be a part of your whop or not.
If you want to learn how to set up the perfect store page for your whop, check out our 'How to set up your Whop store page' guide.
How to make money with a whop
While you can earn money with a whop by becoming a creator and selling courses, training, communities, or all kinds of digital products, you can also earn money as a user as well.
Earning money as a creator
There are countless ways you can make money as a creator on Whop. Let's take a look at a few popular ways creators on Whop make money:
- Selling courses - Selling digital courses is a very popular way to make money online. Doing so on Whop, however, feels like a juiced up version of regular online courses. With the help of other apps, your online course will be much more interactive and efficient.
- Selling access to paid communities - Creating and running paid communities on the web is a good way to make money online, but with Whop, you'll be able to create even more powerful communities with seamless paid access.
- Selling coaching - Usually, selling premium coaching services can be a bit tricky to sell since you'll most likely have to direct your customers to multiple platforms to pay, schedule, have the call, and more. On Whop, however, you can do it all in a single platform.
Earning money as a user
One of the coolest features of Whop is Content Rewards - it's a system that allows creators and businesses to pay their users for their UGC (user-generated content) and clipping.
On Whop, Content Rewards are evaluated based on the views that the content gets. For example, if you submit a short-form with 50k views to a Content Reward that pays $3 per 1k views, you'll be rewarded $150 by the creator. This creates a win-win scenario for both you and the creator: you get paid, the creator gets promoted.
If you want to learn more about Content Rewards, take a look at the Whop Clips whop and check out the live Content Rewards on Whop.
Create your own whop today
Now you know everything you need to know about whops. If you ever want to learn more about having and running your whop, make sure to check out the Whop category of our blog and join the Whop University whop.
Making money online has never been easier. Signing up to Whop, creating your own whop, and start making money online.
