Ship & Earn Academy

Learn to build for the web, then get paid for it.

Build a real page in week one. Pitch your first paid project by week twelve. No degree, no framework hype, no overnight-riches story — just twelve weeks of writing code, shipping it somewhere public, and learning how to charge for it.

See the curriculum Book a free fit call

Program length
12 weeks
Expected weekly hours
8–10
Tuition
$390, or $35/week
Cohort size
Capped at 24

Who this is for

Three kinds of people do well here. See if one of them sounds like you.

  • The total beginner

    You have never written a line of code. You are in high school or your first year of university, you are curious, and you want something you can point at. Week one starts at <!DOCTYPE html> and assumes nothing.

  • The CS student who has never shipped

    You can write a sorting algorithm but you have never put a page on the internet with your name on it. You will spend twelve weeks turning coursework knowledge into public, linkable work that a client can actually look at.

  • The side-hustler who wants client work

    You already build small things and now you want the money part: how to find a first client, quote a price, write a one-page scope, invoice, and get paid without being taken advantage of.

How it works

Every week runs the same three-stage loop. Learn a thing, ship the thing, then practise selling the thing. The loop repeats twelve times.

The Learn, Ship, Earn loop Three connected stages: Learn leads to Ship, Ship leads to Earn, and Earn feeds back into Learn each week. 1. Learn 2. Ship 3. Earn

  • Learn

    One 90-minute recorded lesson and one live workshop per week, covering HTML, CSS, then JavaScript. You write code during the lesson, not after it. Every lesson ends with a working file on your machine.

  • Ship

    You publish something every single week, even if it is small and ugly. By week twelve you have twelve dated commits and four finished projects on a free static host, all linked from one portfolio page.

  • Earn

    From week five you practise the money skills: writing a two-paragraph pitch, quoting a fixed price, scoping a job in one page, and sending an invoice. You send your first three real pitches in week eleven.

What you will actually build

Four projects. All of them are things small clients genuinely pay for, which is why we chose them.

  • 1. A one-page site for a local business

    A hand-written HTML and CSS page for a real barber shop, food truck, or tutor, with hours, location text, and a contact form that a static host can process.

  • 2. A five-page portfolio for someone else

    You design and build a small multi-page site for a classmate — a photographer, musician, or illustrator — and learn to take feedback from a person who is not a teacher.

  • 3. An interactive tool in plain JavaScript

    A price calculator, tip splitter, or study timer written without a framework, so you understand events, state, and the DOM before you ever touch a library.

  • 4. Your own portfolio and rate sheet

    The page you send to clients: three case studies written in client language, your hourly and fixed-price rates, and a short "how I work" section you can defend.

See the week-by-week breakdown

Proof

Two students, two first paydays. Both amounts are small on purpose — the first one usually is.

My first invoice was $240 for a one-page site for my aunt's dog-grooming business. It took me nine weeks to get there and about four hours to build. The hard part was not the CSS, it was asking for money out loud.

Priya R., 19, second-year student, Cohort 4

I earned $600 in week fourteen doing a three-page site for a climbing gym. I had already written twelve pitches that got ignored. The template for pitch number thirteen came straight out of the earning module.

Marcus O., 23, self-taught, Cohort 3

Read more student stories

Honest expectations

Here is the part most course pages leave out. Read it before you pay us anything.

The time it takes

Plan on 8 to 10 hours a week for twelve weeks. That is roughly two evenings plus part of a weekend. Students who put in under six hours a week usually finish two projects instead of four, and they rarely reach the pitching stage on time.

What we do not promise

We do not promise a job, a salary figure, or a placement. We do not guarantee you will earn anything — around half of each cohort has been paid for work within three months of finishing, and the typical first invoice is between $150 and $700. Finding clients takes rejection, and we can teach the method but we cannot send the emails for you.

Who should not enrol

Skip this if you want to learn React this month, if you are hoping for passive income without client conversations, or if the next twelve weeks are already full with exams or a busy job. Come back to a later cohort instead — the material will still be here.

Cohort 6 completion rate
21 of 24
Paid within 3 months
About half
Typical first invoice
$150–$700
Refund window
Through week two

Next step: pick a date, or just talk to us

Cohort 7 starts Monday 13 January and runs to 4 April. Cohort 8 starts Monday 21 April. Both meet live on Tuesday evenings, 6:30–8:00pm Pacific, and both cap at 24 students. If you are not sure yet, book a free 15-minute fit call — we will tell you honestly whether now is the right time.

Book a free 15-minute fit call See the curriculum first

Prefer email? Write to hello@shipandearn.academy and a real person replies within two working days.