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 balance between providing an audience with value as well as establishing a price that they're willing and able to afford, or even choosing whether you'll be charging for your classes at all.

Before you choose a course pricing model, it's a good idea to compare the options and consider your goals for revenue. Below are four common pricing models to consider when you are planning and pricing your courses.

1. Free classes

2. Baseline courses

Basic courses can reach a large public by offering content that is appealing to a wide range of people with a reasonable price. They should be classes that you can create relatively rapidly. Also, they shouldn't demand an enormous amount of time from students, or focus on subjects that are overly detailed or technical. The courses could result in many signups, but with lower participation because of the cost-effectiveness and low risk.

3. Premium courses

The premium online course is the goal for most authors when contemplating pricing strategies. The courses that are premium have the most prices and provide high-quality, in-depth content. The course content must be original or taught by an experienced or prominent instructor, or focus on a subject that you won't discover elsewhere. These qualities make up the price point.

4. Subscription to courses

Whatever pricing method you decide to use, how can ensure that you're setting the correct cost for your classes?

How to set your course price

Setting the price for a course isn't an exact science, but you can utilize the formula in the following to eliminate some doubt from pricing.

In order to begin it's necessary to have the following key bits of information.

  • The goal of revenue. Consider how much you want or need to get from the course. Do you need to cover costs to break even? Are you working towards a revenue target? What's the maximum amount you'd like to make?
  • Conversion. How many people in your target audience will actually purchase the course? Based on data from your email list, your social media followers websites, landing pages or other campaign information to come up with an estimated conversion rate for your audience. The rate must be represented as a percentage using the form of a decimal. For example, if you expect 10percent of your audience to convert, use 0.10 using the formula in the formula below.

Then you're ready to try out the formula:

      Revenue = Size of the Audience Conversion Rate x Price      

Plug in different numbers to observe how the prices of courses change based on the goals you have for revenue and how the revenue grows or decreases depending on prices for courses and conversion rates.

The optimal course price will allow you to reach your revenue goals given your target audience's size as well as your estimated percentage of conversion.

Be successful while remaining in the present

The third element in the pricing strategies is to ensure the content of your course is in line with the pricing. If you apply the formula and it suggests the course cost is excessive it may be time to reconsider your goals It's not reasonable to offer $10,000 for just 10 minutes of information like that, for instance.

In the end, contemplating various pricing strategies using the formula of pricing used as a reference can help you select a pricing strategy that works with your customer base.