Unlisted YouTube and Telegram, or a platform? Where to put your paid lessons

How to move your students from Telegram to a platform without losing them

1. 1

   Open your platform and choose its look

   Sign up to Snatr, pick a design for your site, and add your name and logo. Your platform runs on a site in your name.

2. 2

   Upload your paid lessons to the platform

   Upload paid videos to the platform itself so they are encrypted. Old free lessons can stay as YouTube links, or you can make one lesson a free preview on the course page.

3. 3

   Sell the way you already do

   Create a course with a price, or an online group sold monthly or per session. Students pay by card, Fawry or wallets such as Vodafone Cash, and the course opens for them automatically after payment.

4. 4

   Make the move easy for your current group

   Create a discount coupon for your group's students, usable once per student, or print top-up codes for those who pay cash. A student who paid you cash at the centre can be enrolled by you directly.

5. 5

   Announce it in the group with a clear date

   Post your site's link in the group, explain how to sign up, and set the date of the last paid lesson that will be posted on Telegram.

6. 6

   Keep the group for announcements only

   After that date, paid lessons are on the platform only. The group stays the place for announcements, lesson times and links to your site.

How do videos actually leak?

Before choosing where to upload, it helps to know where leaks come from. Most are not hacking; they are simple things students do every day:

• A forwarded link: a student sends the YouTube link or the Telegram invite link to a friend or a whole group.
• Download tools: browser extensions, "paste the link and download" sites and tools like yt-dlp save the video as a file in a minute.
• Reposting: a saved video gets sent on to other channels and groups, and there are bots and accounts that collect lessons and sell them.
• One account for several students: one student pays and shares the username and password with friends.
• Recording the screen or filming it with another phone.

What does unlisted YouTube protect against?

Unlisted YouTube protects against one thing: someone finding the video by chance. It does not appear in search or on your channel, and only reaches people who have the link.

But the link is the only key, and anyone with it can watch without an account and without paying. You cannot close the video to one student who stopped paying without closing it to everyone. Download tools save YouTube videos easily, and there is no student name on the video to tell you who leaked it.

What does a private Telegram channel protect against?

A private channel is invisible without an invite link, and Telegram has a setting that restricts saving and forwarding content inside its apps. That cuts down easy leaks, and students are used to Telegram.

But the invite link itself gets forwarded. A student who joined stays in the channel after they stop paying until you remove them by hand. That setting works inside Telegram's apps; it is not per-student video encryption and it does not stop screen recording. There are no payments, no exams and no record of who watched, and checking Vodafone Cash transfers stays manual.

What does a platform add over YouTube and Telegram?

A platform ties each video to the student's subscription, so a lesson opens only for those who paid and closes when their subscription ends. This is what Snatr adds to the videos you upload:

• Encryption: the video is encrypted and its key goes to the decryption module inside the browser, never the page. We measured it: without the key the picture is noise (10.6 dB); with it, the original video (59.9 dB).
• A moving watermark with the student's name, a short code and your logo, so a student who knows their name will show on a recording thinks twice before posting it.
• One device per student at a time: signing in on a new device signs the old one out, so sharing an account between students stops working.
• Signed, short-lived video links; remove a student or let their subscription end and they cannot open the lessons again.
• Online payments in EGP, plus top-up codes and cards you sell for cash at the centre or a bookshop, with the course opening automatically.
• Lessons in order: the next lesson opens once the student has watched 90% of the video or submitted the lesson's exam.

• Video protection in detail

What nothing can stop, Snatr included

No platform fully stops screen recording or filming the screen with another phone, and Snatr does not stop them. Encryption stops downloading, not recording. What happens instead is that the watermark shows on an ordinary recording with the student's name, which makes posting it awkward for them. But it deters rather than proves, because someone technical can remove it.

On iPhone, iPad and Safari, video is sent as a copy encrypted in a simpler way. Ready-made download tools fail there too, but the protection is weaker against a technical person. And lessons that use a YouTube link on the platform are not protected, because protection covers the videos you upload.

YouTube, Telegram or a platform: the comparison in one table

This table compares the three on what matters to a teacher who sells lessons:

So should I close the group and delete my YouTube channel?

No. YouTube and Telegram are excellent at things a platform is not built for. Free lessons on public YouTube bring you new students, and a group is the fastest way to get an announcement to your students.

The split that works: free content and announcements on YouTube and Telegram, paid lessons on the platform. You keep YouTube's reach and Telegram's speed, with money and protection where they belong. If you teach Thanaweya Amma, this matters even more, because you have many students and an unprotected video travels between them fast.

• A platform for Thanaweya Amma teachers
• Free options and their limits