Payload Essentials

You've heard what Payload can do. This course shows you how to ship with it.

There's a gap between watching a few Payload videos and actually deploying a production-ready site. You've read the docs. Maybe you've started a project. But getting from "this is cool" to "this is live and a client is using it" takes longer than it should. That's because the resources don't exist yet.

I spent months closing that gap for myself. Then I turned it into a course so you don't have to.

Payload Essentials is nearly 70,000 words of scripted instruction across about 8 hours of video. Two modules. Zero to deployed. No fluff.

"Your way of explaining everything is amazing and super clear."

– commenter on YouTube

What you'll build

A fully functional, production-deployed website that includes:

• A homepage built with reusable, block-based content
• A blog index with featured posts, filtering, and pagination
• Individual blog pages with rich text, related posts, and SEO metadata
• Global navigation and site settings managed through the admin panel
• Cloud-hosted media with auto-generated sizes and CDN delivery
• A white-labeled admin panel that looks like it belongs to you or your business
• On-demand revalidation so content updates go live without a rebuild

Plus the Figma design file and complete source code to reference for future projects.

How we get there

Module 1: Payload Backend Setup

You'll build the entire backend from scratch, covering:

• Analyzing a Figma design and translating it into a Payload schema
• Choosing a database (MongoDB, Postgres, or SQLite)
• Collections: Pages, Posts, Categories, Users, and Media
• Globals: Site Settings and Navigation
• Fields: text, textarea, checkbox, date, richText, upload, relationship, select, radio, array, blocks, tabs, groups, join, and the slugField
• The Lexical rich text editor with a fixed toolbar and blocks
• Access control
• React-powered row labels and error displays in the admin UI
• Custom validation: preventing duplicate featured posts
• Payload hooks: filename slugification, blur data URL generation, secure author population
• S3 cloud storage with Cloudflare R2 and CDN integration
• Auto-generated image sizes (thumbnail, card, full, OG)
• The SEO plugin with auto-generated meta titles, descriptions, URLs, and images
• Canonical URL generation with field-level hooks
• White labeling: custom icons, logos, favicons, and admin metadata with light/dark mode support
• Email adapter integration with Resend for password recovery
• Understanding how Payload stores data in the database

Module 2: Next.js Fetching & Rendering

You'll take everything from Module 1 and render it on a Next.js frontend:

• Fetching data with Payload's Local API
• The select and populate patterns for efficient queries
• Ensuring type safety across your entire project
• Conditionally rendering different image sizes with fallbacks
• Creating dynamic pages, layouts, and components
• Displaying globals: header, footer, and navigation
• Serializing Lexical rich text into rendered HTML
• Mapping Payload blocks to React components

Module 3: Design and Functionality

• Mobile-first responsive CSS for global elements, blocks, and blog pages
• Blog index with featured posts, category filtering, and pagination

Module 4: Optimization and Deployment

• Full SEO metadata: titles, descriptions, OG images, canonical URLs
• Auto-generated sitemap.xml and robots.txt
• Static site generation with Next.js
• On-demand cache revalidation triggered by Payload hooks
• Production deployment to Railway

"Your [content] is a treasure trove for payload devs..."

– commenter on YouTube

Who this is for

• You know basic React and have at least a surface-level understanding of Next.js
• You want a structured, comprehensive resource instead of piecing together blog posts and half-finished GitHub examples
• You're a freelancer or agency developer who wants a modern, code-first CMS to offer clients

You do NOT need to be a Next.js expert. The course covers every Next.js concept you need to make Payload work.

"With so little learning material for payload, you are a godsend..."

– commenter on YouTube

What's the alternative?

Weeks of reading docs. Hunting through GitHub issues. Debugging half-finished examples. And still not having something you'd actually deploy.

I know, because that's what I did before I built this.

This course exists so you don't have to. Sit down, follow the curriculum, and walk out the other end with a site you can actually ship.

"After a long time of getting lost in payload, there is someone who comes to make everything clear"

– commenter on YouTube

Purchase power parity is built in, so the price adjusts to your region. If it doesn't, please contact me.