It's not just you. It's difficult to price an online course because there are so many variables to take into account. However, you'll be able to decide much more quickly after you understand how to price your course. Long-term, this makes things simpler for you. Additionally, a competitive pricing can help you draw in customers who are genuinely interested in your product.
Online course pricing might be challenging. After all, there are a lot of things to take into account when choosing a price range for your course.
Pricing online courses won't be easy for you if you're like most online educators. In reality, picking a course price is one of the hardest and most confusing decisions you'll have to make out of all the procedures involved in developing and selling online courses.
Because they are aware of how pricing impacts a course's value and adoption, we anticipate that this step is one that many online instructors find difficult. It's not a choice that ought to be made hastily, and it's certainly not something that ought to be conjured up out of thin air without a sound plan of action.
In this blog, you'll find suggestions and best practices to keep in mind as you explore how to realistically price your online course.
Your whole marketing plan must include pricing for your online course. The kind of students your course draws depends on the marketing strategy you use to advertise it (for example, targeting Gen Z with Tiktok tutorials). Your price approach is influenced by your ability to support and care for your students as well as, of course, your ability to make money from course sales.
If you undercharge, your course's perceived value will decline, which will significantly reduce your chances of making money and hinder your marketing efforts.
If you overcharge, you'll lose out on a lot of purchases as well as additional marketing chances.
How do you then locate that sweet spot? The cost of your online course must be determined.
You've made the decision to launch an online course and train to teach online. Congrats! The topic of how much to charge for a course now frequently comes up among online instructors in general and in our Facebook group.
We regrettably can't provide a universally applicable answer to every educator who poses this query. But what we can do is release this thorough advice, which is based on our team's views and experiences as well as several discussions on pricing with other online teachers.
If you're considering developing your own online course, you've undoubtedly already given considerable thought to the cost. If you're like most people, you've undoubtedly been vacillating between charging a low price for your course and earning less money or charging a high price and making more money.
The fact is that each of these choices has advantages and disadvantages. You don't have to pick between these two possibilities, though, and that is one thing we want to be really clear about. In actuality, there are more strategies for maximizing the revenue from an online course that you sell.
When you initially start out online teaching, it can be challenging to resist the urge to offer your courses for a bargain price. Perhaps you lack the self-assurance to demand a premium fee.
Perhaps you don't currently have a lot of content for your course. Maybe you don't know how much your intended audience will pay for your course. Perhaps you don't have a sizable audience or email list to which you can advertise your course. Whatever the situation, we completely understand.
Will you be selling your online course?
If so, you may be considering the appropriate price to set for it.
The material you want to teach in your course is certainly covered in a ton of online resources, including articles, ebooks, podcasts, YouTube videos, audiobooks, white papers, and SlideShare presentations. Knowing this, you may be wondering why someone would pay a high price for your course when there are so many other options available that are free or low.
Yes, there are a lot of people who don't mind wasting hours of their valuable time online searching for free information. But these are the people who will hardly ever wind up purchasing stuff from anyone, and even then they will probably only do it sparingly.
Understanding what motivates individuals to spend money and what gives them the sense that their money was well spent is crucial if you want to sell your online course and make some big money doing it.
The first group consists of inexperienced individuals who have never purchased an online course before. They'll enroll in a course for a modest cost but won't finish it.
The second group are those people who frequently purchase many courses from cheap course marketplaces (where courses normally sell for $50 or less) but never finish them make up the second group. These courses frequently amass "virtual dust" until they are forgotten about or become outdated, just like unread books on a bookcase. In the world of online education, it's tragic.
The third group are those who are willing to pay a premium for high-quality information that is arranged and provided in a manner that is convenient for them. They want to pay for the opportunity to learn from and consult with a professional. They won't just finish your course; they'll put what they learned into practice. You should design your course for these people.
Create an attractive online course if you want people to sign up for it.
And the only way to achieve it is to demand a high price.
Selling online courses for a low price encourages laziness in marketing. Consider this. Would you devote a lot of time and resources to promote your course if each purchase only brought in a few dollars? Most likely not.
Don't make the error of assuming that people will purchase something simply because it is inexpensive (Groupon is to blame for that train's demise). People want to be sure that the item they are purchasing has value and want to know exactly what is contained in it.
You must have the funds to spend for advertising once your online course is launched and you begin selling it. However, if you're charging a cheap price for your online course, you might not have enough money left over after paying for advertising!
Because of this, it's crucial to set a course pricing that both allows for a profit from course sales and covers the costs of managing your business (operation expenditures, salaries, etc.). As Brian Gordon did with his Exam Success course, you cannot simply offer your course for a low price and hope for the best.
You must charge enough to cover running costs if you want to start selling your online course and make money from it.
There are two factors that you should keep in mind when marketing online courses:
1. Whatever you pay for, you get.
2. Most purchasers think this is accurate.
You often get what you pay for both online and offline. This means that offering your course at a low price significantly lowers its perceived value as the majority of buyers think this is the case. If the cost is low, the quality must also be low. Your target market will likely assume that.
Sales will be greatly influenced by how valuable your online course is considered, and pricing it too low will undermine that perception. Your course price will have a psychological impact on your target market.
Positioning your course as the premium alternative in your market is preferable from a branding standpoint. Unless you intentionally want to appeal to budget-conscious customers (such as students), in which case you should behave as such.
To be clear, online training is not any less beneficial than in-person training.
The method of delivery of an educational product has less of an impact on its perceived value than other elements like:
For the sole reason that it is more convenient and allows them to learn at their own pace, some people even choose to learn online.
You've just finished creating the course of your dreams; you have the materials, know exactly how to present them, and are prepared to make it available to the public. What is the optimal price range for your course, though?
Someone will always be able to undercut your course pricing no matter how much you raise it. Price competition alone leads to a downward spiral. Customers that stick with the vendor offering the lowest price are not the ones you want, in any case. Avoid wasting your time by attempting to help these people. Make an effort to sell your course to people who will appreciate its worth.
It can be challenging to set a course's price. Many online educators believe that in order to charge a high price for their course, they must make it extremely lengthy. This is not accurate at all. The length of your online course shouldn't affect how much it costs to take it.
Depending on the worth of the content, the price. This is where length comes into play if you have a lot of value that is described in great detail (thus producing a long course). However, avoid extending it merely because you can. Do not develop 7 hours of training if you can teach someone to achieve their desired outcome in 3 hours.
Having said that, based on the cost of your course, your students will anticipate a specific volume of content. Your students will likely feel ripped off and ask for a refund if, for instance, you charge $500 for a course that only has 30 minutes of content. Ensure you act morally. I advise adding at least 3-5 hours of instruction if you charge $500 or more. If you're donating your
Now that you're prepared, start developing an online course. I love that! But first, you need to calculate the cost before you start creating your sales funnel and landing page.
It might be very alluring to just compare the prices your competitors are asking for their courses and set your own price somewhere in the center. However, that is incorrect advice—you should never base the cost of your course on what your rivals are asking! Instead, you should base course pricing on two factors: the amount of value your students receive from the course, as well as the value they receive from the results of attending the course (and, ideally, achieving their goals).
If you're going to research your rivals, only do it to confirm that there are people who will pay for classes on this subject. Do it to verify market demand rather than to determine the cost of your course. If you truly wanted to use it as a guideline for producing an online course that is better or more in-depth in some way, you could buy a competitive course only to look at the content.
Inform your students of the amount you plan to help them save. Tell them how much time they will save if you are going to help. By putting a dollar amount on the result you help them attain, you make the cost of your course seem like a no-brainer. An consequence that can clearly be measured is if taking your course would help someone get a specific job or get promoted at work, for example.
Although it might seem obvious, many online courses fall short in this regard. They don't explicitly explain to pupils how much they will gain from taking the course or what they will be able to achieve afterward.
The idea is to concentrate on results rather than outputs; in other words, what will they get from participating in your program as opposed to what will they get from it?
The most crucial choice you'll make will be how much to charge for your online course. It's critical to get this properly because it can make or kill your business.
Testing various pricing points to see which one performs best for your target demographic is the best approach to decide what to charge for your course.
If you want to test several pricing points, start with a reasonable (but not too reasonable) price and then progressively raise it. Price hikes should continue until sales figures start to show resistance. If everything else remains the same, when that occurs you'll know you're getting close to the maximum price your target market will pay for your product.
When determining how much to charge for your online course, you must first take into account your level of authority and credibility in your industry.
Publishing free material is a fantastic approach to gain authority and trust in your industry if you're not already recognized as a "expert" on your subject.
As you decide on a pricing for your online course, bear in mind that choosing the appropriate price depends as much on your goal as it does on the course's worth and substance. Here are some things to think about as you set the price for your online course:
Clarify the function of your online course in relation to your objectives, and set the course's cost based on those aims. Quantify your income target and work backwards from there, for instance, if the goal of your course is to establish a new revenue stream to your company. Assume that I require at least 1,000 students paying $100 per month in order to accomplish my 12-month objective of $50K in income. After considering several choices for selling my course (more on that later), I conclude Teachable is the best option because it enables me to retain 100% of my income.
You've now successfully finished reading this article! I hope this was useful to you and that you are now prepared to decide on a cost for your online course. If you want to learn more about giving the right price to your online course, and how to make an irresistible one, explore our marketplace here.
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