How to migrate courses from Google Drive to audienced

Almost every creator who started selling online courses went through a Google Drive phase at the beginning. The logic is simple — you record a video, upload to Drive, share the link with a customer, the customer transfers money to your bank account, you create a manual invoice in Excel. It works. Up to about 30 customers.

Then it starts falling apart. Someone forwards the Drive link to a friend — that friend doesn't pay but watches your course. Someone buys and you can't find them in your Excel list. Another demands a backdated invoice, a third requests a refund. Slowly you realise you're spending more time on admin than on recording new lessons.

This guide is for creators at this point. We'll show you how to move all your content from Google Drive to audienced in a week, import existing customers, automate payments and leave the chaos behind — without losing a single active subscription.

Migration isn't as expensive as it looks. Staying on Drive is the expensive choice — the hidden costs are in admin, lost customers and potential legal trouble.

Why Google Drive only works up to a point

Google Drive is a great tool — for storing files. As a sales platform for courses it has five concrete weaknesses.

1. No protection against sharing

A Drive link (even "view only") can be forwarded. A customer who received it can forward it to a friend in 2 seconds. You don't know who's watching your course — and every view without payment is lost revenue.

2. No progress tracking

You don't know whether a customer watched 2 lessons or 20. You don't know who finished the course and is ready for a testimonial. You don't know who got stuck on lesson 3 and would need help.

3. No automated checkout

Every order requires your manual intervention — you check whether the money arrived, then send the link. That means the customer waits 4 hours or more. Modern buyers expect instant access.

4. No compliant invoicing

As a business, you need to issue proper invoices. Excel invoices without a compliant system are a breach in many EU countries. Fines can reach several thousand euros.

5. Doesn't scale

At 10 customers Drive is bearable. At 100 it's a disaster. At 500 it's technically impossible — you can't maintain 500 separate links, 500 rows in Excel, 500 manual notifications about new lessons.

Before migration — what to prepare

1. Content inventory

Your Drive folders probably contain different file types — videos, PDFs, Excel tables, Word documents. Make an inventory:

• How many courses / programs in total.
• How many modules in each.
• How many video lessons (in hours).
• How many PDFs / other materials.

2. Customer inventory

Export the existing list of customers to CSV. Minimum columns:

• email,
• first name,
• last name,
• which course they bought,
• purchase date,
• status (active / expired / cancelled),
• VAT ID (if B2B).

3. Payments

If you currently take bank transfers, prepare a list of customers with recurring payments (monthly memberships, quarterly). These will be migrated to Stripe subscriptions.

4. Communication

Prepare an email to send to existing customers 48 hours before the move. Never move customers silently — always notify.

Step 1: Set up the audienced account

At create.audienced.io/setup/signup/ you register and set up the basics:

1. Account name (e.g. "Trainer Jane Online").
2. Default language.
3. Time zone.
4. Stripe connection in /admin/settings/payments — the OAuth flow takes 3 minutes.
5. Tax details — you enter your business tax number or pick the MoR model (for those without a registered business).

Step 2: Migrating video content

Videos are usually the biggest part. audienced uses Bunny.net, which allows bulk uploads.

Method A: Direct upload

In /admin/videos use drag & drop on multiple files at once. Transcoding runs in the background. Plan 6–12 hours for 50 GB — depending on your upload speed.

Method B: Import from Google Drive (in development, currently manual)

Right now there's no direct Drive → audienced import, so do it in batches:

1. In Drive select 10 videos and download them as a ZIP.
2. Extract locally.
3. Upload to /admin/videos via drag & drop.
4. Repeat.

Tip: if you have videos in original resolution (1080p or 4K), upload them in the original. Bunny.net creates multiple resolutions itself for adaptive streaming.

Step 3: Setting up courses

In /admin/courses create a new course:

1. Course name.
2. Type — Online / Collection / Drip.
3. Price and currency.
4. Tax rate (local digital goods rate).

Then add modules and lessons. For each lesson:

• Type (Video / Text / PDF / Quiz).
• Content (link an already-uploaded video from /admin/videos).
• Ordering (in which module and in which position).

Tip: before publishing, create a test user and go "through the course as a customer" — check progress, comments, the video player.

Step 4: Importing existing customers (CSV)

This is the most sensitive step. You mustn't lose customers.

In /admin/users → Import (CSV):

1. Attach the CSV.
2. Map columns: email → email, first_name → first name, last_name → last name.
3. Pick the course into which existing buyers should be automatically enrolled.
4. Set "Send activation emails" — yes, only if you're going into production right after the import.
5. Customise the activation email in /admin/settings/email/templates — explain that you're migrating the platform, that they should sign in with their existing email and set a new password.

The import takes from a few seconds to a few minutes (depending on size). After it finishes you get a report with any errors.

Step 5: Migrating recurring payments

If you've had customers on monthly subscriptions via bank transfer, you'll need a transition phase.

Approach 1: Customer updates the payment method themselves

1. After the import the customer gets a sign-in email.
2. In their profile they see that the subscription expires on date X.
3. They click "Update payment method" → Stripe Checkout → enter the card.
4. From then on it's automatically charged.

This is the recommended transition — no unwanted charges.

Approach 2: Import of Stripe subscriptions

If you already have a Stripe account with active subscriptions from another platform, you can plug the Stripe subscriptions directly into audienced users via API. You'll need technical help for that — write to support and we'll handle it.

Step 6: Notifying customers

24–48 hours before the final move, send everyone:

• A notice that the platform will be new (better, faster, mobile app).
• What to expect (email to set a password).
• FAQ — what if any problems.
• Support contact.

An example email template is in /admin/settings/email/templates/migration_announcement.

Step 7: Importing community content (if you had an FB group)

If you had a Facebook group, Discord or Telegram as a "community", audienced has its own built-in community.

You can't automatically import posts from FB (FB doesn't allow that). But you can:

1. Create the community in audienced.
2. Post in the FB group that content is moving and that the FB group will remain only as a "light" channel.
3. Enrol new buyers directly into the audienced community (the community plan automates enrolment on purchase).

Cost comparison — Google Drive vs audienced

Frequently asked questions

How long does the whole migration take?

Depends on scale. For a creator with 2 courses and 100 customers typically 5–7 days. For an academy with 20 courses and 2,000 customers 3–4 weeks. The audienced team can help with migration on Premium+ plans.

What happens to existing Drive links?

After the move you can (and we recommend you) disable them. Change the permission to "restricted" — recipients get a 403. That redirects customers to sign in on the new platform.

My customers don't have the email I used (only FB or phone) — what should I do?

Before the move you need to reach them and get an email. Send a DM, post in the FB group, call the most active ones. Without an email you can't create an audienced user.

What if an existing customer doesn't want card payment?

You can keep bank-transfer payment — in audienced you enable "Manual invoice mode" for that user. You issue manual invoices with support, but progress and access to the course run automatically.

Can I keep Google Drive as a backup?

Of course. After moving videos to Bunny.net, keep the Drive content only as an internal backup. To customers Drive is completely inaccessible.

What about VAT for existing subscriptions?

When you migrate, VAT logic is upgraded. If you weren't charging VAT before and now you are, clearly communicate this to the customer 30 days in advance (a legal requirement in most EU markets). In the MoR model, audienced handles this itself.

My videos are on YouTube (unlisted) — how does that work now?

You can stay on YouTube unlisted and embed the link in the lesson. But we recommend uploading to Bunny.net — better speed for European users, high-quality subtitles, chapters, no YT branding and no "next video" suggestions.

Conclusion

Migrating from Google Drive is one of those things most creators postpone 6–12 months too long. Fear of losing customers, fear of the tech, fear of the new. In practice migration turns out to be easier than the everyday manual work you do on Drive.

The right time to move isn't when you have 500 customers — by then it's too late. The right time is at 20–30, when you can personally walk everyone over to the new platform.