Pricing Online Courses Tips & Strategies
Want to know some effective strategies for pricing online courses? Discover different pricing models that suit the purpose of creating online courses.
Hi Trish Davies, here and I want to talk about pricing online courses. Your creativity deserves to be rewarded with people making that commitment to get their credits cards out.
Receiving notifications that people have made a transaction is hugely rewarding. It gives you a shot in the arm when you get those emails to say someone has signed up for your course.
Behind that monetary value is a real person who is putting their trust in you to help them overcome a problem. That should never be forgotten by you as an online course creator, coach and mentor. In many ways that trust is priceless, but the simple fact is you must put a monetary value on your knowledge and expertise.
Therefore, I thought it would help if I gave you my perspective on pricing online courses. To do just that I want to give you some insights on the strategy to pricing your online course. Along with that I want to share some of my own methodology by giving you some real live examples of my own courses.
Pricing Online Courses Strategies
Before I show you my own examples I want to cover in my opinion the three main strategies to pricing online courses. They are, and in no particular order, free, paid per course and charging a membership subscription.
Free Courses
Offering free courses is still a pricing strategy because of the purpose behind the course. You may offer a free course as a vehicle to attract people to your coaching business. Within the online business world this is referred to as a lead magnet which helps you build a database of contacts that you can offer further courses.
This is the main focus and the thinking behind it is to offer exceptional value for free. You want to make it irresistible for the person signing up and get them to the point where they can’t say no.
The value they get is that they learn new skills, concepts and receive a solution to a problem. That then helps you set them up for future business because they will trust you at the level of giving you their hard earned cash.
Paid Per Course
The next strategy for pricing online courses is the paid per course business model. Here you charge a one off fee for your course. When you get to this stage in your business you will be charging hundreds, and thousands, of dollars.
This is immediate revenue for your business, cash flow, numbers on your sales ledger. The level of information that you are teaching reflects in the price tag. My recommendation is that in time your have multiple paid per courses in your product suite. Each one increases in value which you can offer as stand alone courses or upsells to a previous course.
Membership Subscriptions
Membership subscriptions are somewhat the holy grail when it comes to online coaching. Here you charge a monthly subscription fee which you are probably aware of as you will have something you pay monthly.
This is income that regularly comes in month after month as long as the person keeps up their payments. It is easy to work out the numbers. For example, if you have 100 people paying you $97 per month your residual or guaranteed monthly income is $9700 per month.
On the first of each month, you know you will earn that amount of money unlike the pai per course model. That model requires you to continually bring new customers into your business which is doable but requires effective marketing.
With the monthly subscription model, you have already done the marketing to get those customers into your business. As long as you keep providing the value then your customers will keep renewing their subscription. It is always easier to sell to an existing customer than acquiring a new one.
Do Your Market Research
As with anything in business you need to do your market research and pricing online courses is no different. You must be aware of the ballpark figures that your competitors are charging.
That doesn’t mean you must copy them, but your competitors are a great measuring stick. Analyse what they are offering for the price they are charging. Customers within your market will be used to these levels of pricing structure.
My recommendation is to do things better than your competitors. Offer more value to make you stand out from the crowd. If you want to charge more than the norm then make sure you have an irresistible offer in place to justify the higher price.
Position yourself in your market and tell people why they should buy from you. Never be afraid to ask for the money however high the price is. Always have confidence in yourself, connect with your audience and get them to trust you. When you reach this position price will not be so much of a barrier for the person waiting to click that “Buy Now” button.
Pricing Online Courses – My Own Examples
I am going to give you examples of each of the three pricing online courses strategies that I have shared.
Free 9-Week Program
This online course is a 9-week program that I run periodically live. This is a very strong lead magnet because of the level of value I deliver. I set aside a 9-week block where I turn up each week and show the 9-steps to creating a personal brand.
In tandem with that brand building concept, I show people how to create online courses. Courses that have the foundation of their expertise and life story. So, this is a free course that people enrol into and at the end of it they have the option to carry on with a monthly mastermind. To learn more about this free program click here.
Monthly Mastermind Subscription
This online mastermind is more than a course. What I do is then take my free members on a journey with the intention of creating and selling their online course. Each week we meet up live for around 90 minutes and I help them build their online coaching business.
As you can see there is a monthly membership fee and enables me to know how much residual income in coming in.
Paid Per Course Model
Now this online course is a full 12 month content that is recorded. I deliver this automatically and it is a program that I ran each week for a year. I had a group of business owners who turned up week after week and we went through the process of creating a brand and online training program.
This type of online course appeals to people who want to do things at their own pace. As soon as they have paid the fee they have access to the whole course which they can work through. People can work through this at their own speed and at a time which is convenient with them. To learn more about this online course click here.
There really is no right or wrong when pricing online courses. It is a matter of doing your research and testing to find your own particular sweet spot. The three strategies I have shared with you work so it is just a matter of utilizing which ones are best for you. If you have any questions then please comment below.
Helping you build your authenticity, authority and audience.
Trish Davies
Build Your AU
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