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Payload Essentials

From 0 lines of code to deployed application.

Pre-order now to lock in your spot at a reduced price.

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Payload Essentials

Course Curriculum

1. Introducing Payload Essentials1 lesson

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 10 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 Frontend & Deployment

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

Pricing

Early bird: $249 — available during pre-release only. Full price at launch: $499.

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