4 Online Course Pricing Models -

Pricing is among the most difficult aspects of starting an entirely new course. You must strike the right compromise between giving an audience with value as well as establishing a price that they're willing to pay--or choosing whether you'll charge for your courses in any way.

Before you choose a course pricing method, it's a good idea to compare different options and think about your goals for revenue. Here are the four most common pricing models to consider as you plan and price your courses.

1. Free classes

2. Baseline courses

The basic courses are able to reach a broad audience by providing content that appeals to many people with a reasonable price. These should be courses that can be created quickly. They also shouldn't require a huge time commitment from students or deal with topics that are too in-depth or technical. These courses may result in lots of registrations but less participation due to the cost-effectiveness and low risk.

3. Premium courses

Premium online courses are the goal for most authors when contemplating pricing strategies. The courses that are premium have the most cost points, and offer high quality deep content. The course content must be original, taught by a reputable or well-known instructor, or cover the subject you can't discover elsewhere. These qualities can justify the higher price point.

4. Subscription-based courses

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

The formula for setting your price for your course

Pricing courses isn't exactly a scientific procedure, however you can use the formula below to take some of the guesswork from the pricing.

In order to begin it's necessary to have a few key pieces of data.

• The goal of revenue. Consider how much you want or need to get from the course. Are you required to pay for the costs in order to be profitable? Are you working towards a revenue goals? What is the total amount you'd like to make?
• Conversion. Which percentage of your target audience will actually take the course? Utilizing information from your mailing list, social media following, landing pages, or other campaign information to calculate an approximate percentage of conversion for your customers. It should be represented as a percentage using the form of a decimal. For example that if you are expecting 10% of your viewers to convert, then use 0.10 in the calculation that follows.

Then you're ready to try your hand at the following formula:

      Revenue = Size of the Audience Conversion Rate x Price      

Enter different numbers in order to determine how your cost of the course changes according to the goals you have for revenue and also how your revenue rises or decreases at different pricing points for the course and rates.

The optimal course price is the one that allows you to meet your revenue goals given your target audience's size as well as your estimated percentage of conversion.

Reach your goals while staying focused and grounded

The last element of the pricing strategies is to ensure the content of your course is in line with the price. If you employ the formula and you get an exorbitant course price it may be time review your objectives It's not reasonable to charge $10,000 for 10 minutes of instruction like that, for instance.

Ultimately, thinking about the various pricing strategies using the pricing formula as a guide can help you select the best pricing method that is suitable both for you and the customers you serve.