How to Price Your Online Course

1. Do Some Market Research

Before you even consider looking at how to set prices for your online course, you need to know what you’re dealing with – and who. Start by gaining an understanding of your audience before even looking at the competition. If you get bogged down with what others are offering, you’ll confuse yourself and head down a pricing rabbit hole.

2. Figure Out Your Revenue Goals

Revenue goals allow you to approach your pricing pragmatically without letting other elements cloud your approach. What are you hoping to achieve? Is this the beginning of your online empire, or are you simply looking to cover the cost of creating the course?

Establish out how many people are likely to buy your course (based on your market research) and how much your course has cost you to create. Then, ensure you keep your main goals and objectives central to your pricing approach. 

3. Establish How Much It’s Costing You to Create

When pricing your course, consider initial expenses – for equipment and production – the cost of tools, additional staff (think, editors or copywriters) and the number of hours of work you’ll be investing in building it. Establish a baseline cost and work from there. Try to include a buffer for the unexpected. Once you’re done, use this baseline as a starting point. 

4. Pick a Pricing Model

OK, so you’ve got your online course ready to go, but how will you charge for it? Will you be asking for a once-off payment, or do you prefer membership options? Here are some of the pricing models that are great for online course offerings:

• Once-off lifetime membership: A single payment model that gives the customer everything at once. No different packages and no monthly transactions. Just a one-off payment, and you’re done. 

• Subscription video-on-demand (SVOD): These pricing models are great if you’re planning on adding new video elements and offers to your course in the future. This model works by charging a regular subscription either every month, six months or annually. As you release new content, subscribers gain access to it through their subscriptions. 

• Multi-tiered Subscriptions: This model works the same as SVOD but with a little something extra. Audiences choose from various subscriptions based on what they’re willing to pay. By categorizing each level by the value offered or by capping how much content a subscriber can consume, you’ll open your offering to different demographics.

• Transactional video-on-demand (TVOD): Here, customers can purchase different parts or modules (videos) of an entire course, picking and choosing which ones they want. You can also offer them the choice of selecting discounted, time-restricted access or unlimited – even downloadable – access for a premium.

1. Offer Different Payment Options

Besides knowing your course’s worth through market research, you can always get a little creative with your payment options. 

• Once-off – is quick and easy, and you get your payment in one go. However, some people may not have enough to pay the total amount upfront. 
• Installments – allow users to pay for your course in increments over months instead of all at once. You can always offer a discount to people who are still prepared to pay in full. 
• Tiered pricing – is perfect if you’re looking to make a little bit more from your course. Tiered pricing allows you to charge a base price and to add different tiers or levels for bonus content or additional resources.

2. Include Freebies

Everyone loves a free lunch, and free offers are a great way to attract traffic and stir up interest in your course. But it’s important to remember that you’re still in it for the revenue. While giving away some of your content, like snippets of the course or even limited-time free trials, are helpful, be careful not to give away too much. You want to get people interested, not give away your work for free.

• Content upgrades – Basic, useful content is always a winner. Downloadable templates, checklists or worksheets are very handy lead magnets that require little effort to create. 
• Live Q&As – Recently, live sessions – held throughout the life of the course, with creators engaging directly with their audiences, are proving extremely popular and effective. These two-way discussions (usually hosted online and streamed live) allow creators to demonstrate their expertise. At the same time, potential buyers can have questions answered directly by the creator themself before deciding to purchase the course. 
• Free coaching – This freebie can massively increase the value of your course by offering it as an included bonus. Personalized coaching and consulting is also a great way to boost revenue as a paid supplement to current or later courses too.

3. Do a Little Marketing

There’s no point in pricing something if nobody can find it. Marketing is an important element of your online course, and you will need to consider how much it’ll cost you to do your marketing.

Social media, Google Ads, article or blog references and website advertising are great ways to tell people about what you have to offer – and how much they can expect to pay for it. 

Pricing Too Low

• Advantages– Many people will want to buy your course due to its low cost, meaning you’ll have more interested buyers paying the smaller amount asked. Since you’re not charging very much, you won’t need to spend as much time on the smaller, less-intense project, allowing you to create even more low-budget courses. 
• Disadvantages– Low prices can often create the perception of low quality. This can cause problems when you’re, in fact, offering a high-quality course where people ironically think it’s not worth their money. The economies of scale with low prices also run the risk of having not enough people buying your course for other reasons, leaving you without any income.

Pricing Too High

• Pros– High prices mean big profit margins. Why not charge high for your efforts? If you’ve done your research and put in the time and quality needed to create a compelling course that is 100% credible and adds real value to your audience, then you should be charging lucrative prices that reflect your effort. 
• Cons– If this is one of your first online course offers, you may face a little difficulty convincing people to pay hundreds of dollars – without the ratings, reviews or proof of previous online course success to back it up. High-priced courses come with big competition and require you to put in even more time, effort and resources.