Learn to sell on Helm. Properly.
Everything you need to open a shop, list products, fulfil orders, go live and get paid. Short lessons, plain numbers, and no pretending something works before it does.
Every lesson tells you how long it takes, what you will be able to do, and whether it is real yet.
Most marketplace academies do not publish lesson lengths, do not state what you will learn, and quietly mix shipped features with roadmap. We do all three, on every lesson, on this page.
The one we care about most
Track 5 is a full, honest breakdown of what selling on Helm costs, including a worked example of a real order from checkout to your bank account. Almost nobody publishes this. We think that is the whole problem.
Ten tracks, sixty lessons, about seven hours end to end.
Start at track zero if you are new. Jump straight to track five if what you really want to know is what this costs. Every card below opens the full track, with each lesson, its length, and whether the feature exists yet.
0
5 lessons
Start Here
What Helm is, who buys here, what it costs and how to decide if this is right for you.
1
7 lessons
Open Your Shop
Registration, verification, payouts onboarding, tax details and your storefront basics.
2
9 lessons
List Your Products
Adding products, images, pricing, honest descriptions, and the rules about what belongs on a family safe marketplace.
3
5 lessons
Get Your First Order
How people find products on Helm today, and the realistic path to order number one.
4
6 lessons
Fulfil It Properly
Handling time, tracking, carriers, and what happens when a delivery goes wrong.
5
6 lessons
Money on Helm
Commission, processing, payout tiers, timing, and a real order traced from checkout to your bank.
6
5 lessons
Refunds and Returns
The claim window, how a refund moves, and exactly who pays return shipping.
7
5 lessons
Reviews and Your Reputation
How reviews work, how to reply well, how to appeal, and the promise Helm can prove.
8
7 lessons
Going Live
Your first broadcast, the kit you need, selling on camera, and growing an audience.
9
5 lessons
Shop Health
What is expected of you, what happens when something goes wrong, and how to put it right.
If you sell somewhere else already, here is how Helm compares.
We built this table because the question every seller actually asks first is "what do I lose by moving?" Where we are behind, we say so.
| What you want to know | On Helm | Elsewhere |
|---|---|---|
| Commission | 6% per order | Typically 6%, sometimes 5% in a few categories |
| Payment processing | 2.9% plus 30 cents, published | Usually not published at all |
| A worked example of a real order | Track 5, lesson 2 | We could not find one anywhere |
| How fast you reach faster payouts | 5 delivered orders moves you to standard, 25 to express | Commonly 30 delivered orders in 90 days before a score even exists |
| Fastest payout | 2 days after delivery | 1 day after delivery, at the top performance tier |
| Tracking for connected shops | Every seller, native or Shopify connected | Varies by fulfilment method |
| When delivery is recorded | The carrier's timestamp, not ours | Platform recorded |
| Score on a brand new shop | No score shown under three reviews. It says New store with an honest count | No published rule |
| Deleting a product to escape a bad review | Does not work. Reviews survive the product | No published rule |
| Paying to change a review | Not accepted, and provable. Every moderation writes an audit row in the same transaction | Prohibited, but not independently checkable |
| Buyer claim window | 30 days, counted from delivery | Commonly 30 days, counted from delivery |
| Hold on a brand new seller’s first payouts | 14 days, then 7 once you have 5 delivered orders | No fixed figure published |
| Promotions, coupons and flash sales | Being built | Mature and extensive |
| Creator commission and affiliates | Being built | Mature and extensive |
| Catalogue size and buyer traffic | Early | Very large |
Both of those numbers have now shipped
A buyer now has 30 days from delivery to open a claim, and a brand new seller now waits 14 days after delivery for their first payouts rather than 21. Track 5 and track 6 carry the shipped numbers, and so does Shop Policies, because a marketplace that publishes two different figures has really published neither.
Three ways in, depending on where you are.
Start at zero and go in order
Tracks 0 through 4 take about three hours and get you from deciding whether to sell to shipping an order correctly. Do not skip track 5.
Read the money, then the differences
You already know how to list and ship. Start with track 5, then track 6 and track 7, because that is where Helm behaves differently from what you are used to.
Get shippable first, then go on camera
Track 8 is the fun one, but a live stream that sells creates orders you then have to fulfil. Do track 4 first. It takes forty two minutes and it will save you a bad week.
Helm University FAQ
Do I need an account to read this?
No. Every lesson on this page is public and always will be. You need an account to open a shop, not to learn how.
What does Shipped or Coming mean on a lesson?
Shipped means the feature exists on Helm today and you can go and use it now. Coming means we are building it and the lesson is not published yet. We will not teach a feature as though it works before it does, because a seller who plans around a feature that does not exist loses money.
Why are the lesson lengths so short?
Because you have a business to run. Most lessons are five to nine minutes and no lesson is longer than nine. A whole track fits in a lunch break.
Is this only for sellers?
Right now, yes. Helm University is written for people selling on Helm, including sellers who go live. A dedicated creator curriculum is planned separately, and track 8 already covers going live as a seller.
Do I get a certificate?
Not yet. Every track is written so that an end of track check and a badge can be added without restructuring anything. We would rather ship the lessons first and the badge second than the other way round.
What happened to Live Academy?
It became this. Live Academy promised a programme for creators going live on Helm, and that is now track 8. The old address still works and brings you here.
Something here is wrong or out of date. What do I do?
Tell us. A marketplace's documentation is only worth anything if it matches the code, and the fastest way we find a mismatch is a seller reporting one.
Open a shop, or just read track 5 first.
Nobody at Helm will be offended if you read what it costs before you sign up. That is rather the point of publishing it.