4 Online Course Pricing Models -

Jun 23, 2022
Woman deciding on her online course pricing.

Pricing is one of the trickiest parts of launching a new course. You must strike the right compromise between giving value to your audience and setting a price they're willing to pay, or making the decision to be charging for your classes even at all.

When you decide on a course pricing method, it's an excellent idea to evaluate different options and think about the goals you want to achieve for your income. Below are four common pricing models to consider in planning the pricing of your classes.

1. Free classes

2. Baseline courses

The basic courses are able to reach a broad population by providing information that is appealing to a wide range of people at an affordable price point. The courses should be ones that you can create relatively quickly. Also, they shouldn't demand a huge time commitment from students, or focus on topics that are too in-depth or technical. The courses could result in lots of registrations but lower participation because of the cost-effectiveness and low risk.

3. Premium courses

Online courses that are premium in quality are the goal for most content creators when they are considering pricing strategies. These courses have the highest cost points, and offer high quality and in-depth information. Course material must be unique, taught by a reputable or well-known instructor, or cover a subject that you won't discover elsewhere. These qualities make up the price.

4. Subscription for courses

Regardless of which pricing model you decide to use, how can make sure that you're setting the correct price for your courses?

How to set the price of your courses

Setting the price for courses isn't exactly a scientific procedure, however you can use the formula below to take some doubt from the pricing.

In order to begin, you'll need the following key bits of information.

  • The goal of revenue. Consider how much you would like or must earn from the course. Do you have to pay expenses to make a profit? Do you have an income goals? What's the maximum sum of money you'd like to make?
  • Conversion. How many people in your target audience are you expecting to take the course? Using the information you have from your email list, your social media followers and landing pages as well as other information about your campaign You can determine an estimated the conversion rate of your target audience. The rate must be a percentage represented in the form of a decimal. For example, if you expect 10percent of your viewers to convert, you can use 0.10 in the calculation that follows.

You're now ready to test out the formula:

      Revenue = Size of the Audience x Conversion Rate x Price      

Input different numbers to determine how your prices of courses change based on the goals you have for revenue, or how revenue increases or decreases depending on course price points and conversion rates.

The best course price is the one that allows you to meet the revenue targets you set for your target audience's size as well as your estimated percentage of conversion.

Set yourself up for success while remaining grounded

The third element in the pricing strategy is ensuring the content of your course is in line with the pricing. If you use the formula and you get that the price is too high then you may need consider rethinking your plans as it's unjust to cost $10,000 for just 10 minutes of information, for example.

In the end, contemplating the different pricing models with the formula for pricing as a guide will assist you in choosing the best pricing method that is suitable both for you and your customers.