Glossary
What is an email course? A definition, with examples
Also called email mini-course, course by email.
Last reviewed 11 October 2026
What is an email course?
An email course is a finite sequence of five to ten lessons delivered one email at a time, in order, on a clock that starts when each reader joins, and it ends on a day both of you knew about in advance.
It is also called an email mini-course or a course by email. Finite is the load-bearing word. A newsletter is a standing arrangement with no end and a course is a promise with a last day, which is why people finish courses and do not finish newsletters, and why a stranger will agree to five mornings when they would not agree to something indefinite.
The per-reader clock is the other half. Five messages scheduled a day apart work once, for the people already on the list; everybody who arrives on Wednesday starts at day three of something whose beginning they never saw.
Examples, checked 26 September 2026
- Tiny Habits 5-Day Program, by BJ Fogg: five weekdays, Monday to Friday, delivered by email, with a human coach replying to each daily check-in.
- 5-Day Generative AI Jump-Start, by Camp Tech: five daily lessons, the first the morning after sign-up, then its Friday Tech Tips newsletter.
- Charge what you’re worth, by Double Your Freelancing: a free nine-lesson email course on raising freelance rates.
See also
- Drip campaign
A drip campaign is a stored sequence of emails sent to a person on a timer after some trigger, run towards a goal the sender chose, which is the same machinery an email course runs on and a different promise to the reader.
- Welcome sequence
A welcome sequence is the short run of emails a new subscriber receives after joining a list, sent to introduce who you are and what will arrive, and it is the mail people are most likely to read because it is the only mail they are expecting.
- Five-day challenge
A five-day challenge is five daily emails that each ask the reader to do one small thing, usually framed by a pre-challenge email before day one and an offer on day six, which makes seven, so the unit of progress is an action rather than a lesson.
- Completion rate
A completion rate is the share of confirmed subscribers who reach the end of a course, and for a five-day course measured by a click on the last day it commonly runs between one in ten and one in four, with longer courses lower.
Read next
This term is covered properly in How to create an email course people finish, which is a longer piece on the subject.
Every other term is on the glossary index , the longer writing is in the guides, and what this site itself does is on the home page.
Thinking of writing an email course?
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