Caitlin Miller

Announcing a new research report, made for creators like you.

Understanding your audience, fans, and customers is key as a creator. As we close out our third Creator Month at Teachable, we’re pleased to release our brand new consumer report, Creator Connections.

With this inaugural report, we set out to reveal the ins and outs, trends, and behaviors shaping fans and their favorite creators. The report, based on a survey of 1,000 U.S. consumers, tackles everything from the nitty gritty of what goes into creating winning content to the anatomy of developing authentic fan-creator connections.

Inside the report:

• The platforms fans are loyal to and what makes fan-favorite content
• The DNA of authentic connections within creator communities
• Factors driving fans to buy from creators
• Creators’ growing impact as instructors and knowledge sharers

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What’s behind today’s strongest creator-fan connections?

“It takes a highly engaged community—of fans, followers, students, subscribers, you name it—for creators to achieve long-term, sustainable growth. And that growth is the north star for even the biggest and best creators out there,” says Mark Haseltine, Teachable CEO.

“With this report, we set out to understand the trends shaping the people who are logging on, tuning in, and religiously following creators of all kinds. We hope these new insights help not just our Teachable creators, but creators across the industry who are looking to find new and better ways to deliver content, products, and experiences that make an impact—in the here and now, and for some time to come.”

At a glance:

• 70% of consumers feel personally connected to their favorite creators
• 95% have learned something new from a creator, among other findings
• A majority of consumers only follow and meaningfully engage with one to five creators
• Long-form social content is closing in on short-form as Gen Z’s favorite format

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Dive deep into the trends shaping those logging on, tuning in, and religiously following creators—of all kinds. Plus, unlock insights about how creators can remain trend-savvy, without compromising audience trust or brand authenticity.

In celebration of Creator Month 2023, we’ve hosted a series of live events on YouTube with real Teachable creators. These fireside-chat-style events provided a deep dive into what it means to create impact on your students and customers. We’ve tapped creators of every size and industry to share their stories in our special event series, Creator Month 2023: Creating Impact.

Check out our live chat with Ashley Turner. Ashley and her family moved to a few acres of land on the coast of Nova Scotia in 2017 with an interest of being self sustainable. Today, Ashley and her family now operate on over 300 acres of vast wood and pasture land, with a growing operation of premium cattle. (Learn more about Turner Farm here!) And, during the pandemic Ash started teaching live sourdough classes to a worldwide audience.

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Want more stories like this? Be sure to watch our conversations Mary Van Geffen, Shauna Thoresen, and David A Smith MBE on our YouTube.

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We’re sharing the story of Jay Clouse, a multi-faceted creator who is in the game of helping people become professional creators. As a podcaster, newsletter writer, and course creator, Jay embodies the word “impact.” Everyday his content reaches those looking to create and make an impact of their own.

Today, he is the founder of Creative Companion and host of Creative Elements, a narrative-interview podcast exploring how today’s top creators make a living with their art and creativity. He previously led the Community Experience team for Pat Flynn and Smart Passive Income, designing their paid membership community and cohort-based course programs.

Teachable’s very own Jonah sat down with Jay to learn about the power of building a community for thriving students. Watch the full video and see our summary of the interview below.

Building a community for students [0:24]

As a professional creator with a podcast, newsletter, and course creation business, Jay knows how to build a successful community for his students. His story goes back to 2017, when he started building a membership product in 2017. This led to creating courses with LinkedIn Learning in 2018 before eventually bringing his courses to Teachable.

His experience with coaching and group coaching helped him structure his courses independently and showed the value of the transformation he could offer—all before creating his first course.

Creating and launching a successful online course [5:22]

Jay shares that he was able to offer coaching services to creative freelancers, leveraging their expertise in business and content creation. Eventually, he was able to create three courses.

“I actually developed three courses all at once, which I wouldn’t recommend doing,” Jay says. “It’s all combined into one course on Teachable actually, I call it the Freelancing Masterclass. But originally, I developed it as three separate courses: Business for Freelancers, Selling for Freelancers, and Marketing for Freelancers, because I saw them as three different activities.”

Jay explains it was a 48-video, 48-lesson mega course broken into three courses. While he was able to put out great content, Jay notes it was a lot of work to develop three courses and release them simultaneously.

“I was really developing for a long time,” he says. “And I wasn’t getting market feedback as much as I should have along the way. So it wasn’t my most successful launch. By any stretch, it was actually my least successful launch!”

However, by refining the courses and changing the launch strategy, Jay was able to improve sales and make these courses an evergreen offering.

Building and selling online communities [9:58]

“If you think back to 2017, online community wasn’t a thing,” recalls Jay. “In 2017, as I was doing this group coaching exercises, I just recognized that if we’re meeting once a week, there are things I want to say to them and things that they probably want to share with each other between those seven days. And so I needed a way for them to communicate.”

This led Jay to create a private Slack channel for his students. He explains people were getting more value out of continuing to build relationships with their group members.

Today, Jay believes that creating a private membership community as a separate product can be a good option for course creators who want to provide additional support to their students.

Takeaway: Offering a separate paid membership community for students who have purchased a course can provide a higher priced product and allow creators to support students better. It’s also a great way to fuel sales.

Creating a successful community for students [20:11]

A membership can be a good starting point for creators without a full curriculum, as it allows them to showcase their expertise and build a following.

As far as a community, clear purpose and onboarding experience are crucial for community success. What’s more, a community reduces the pressure to create perfect content and allows for unpolished access to the creator. Once a creator has shown value through a community or membership, Jay suggests that a lightweight cohort-based course (think: group coaching with curriculum) could be the next step before creating a pre-recorded course.

Takeaway: Show up, offer value, and be real to build a thriving community.

Your business is your business—always has been and always will be. We get that. At Teachable, we’re in the business of helping yours run as smoothly as possible so you can get back to doing what you do best and focus on who matters the most to you, your students.

This year, we’ve already given you options to make your business run that much better: our AI hub to help spark creativity, our App Hub to integrate your favorite applications and tools, and now, we’re pleased to add another tool to your ever-growing toolkit—Memberships.

Why Memberships? Hint: it’s like putting revenue on repeat

• Generate a 43% higher lifetime value (LTV) of your students and customers
• Develop a predictable, profitable revenue stream
• Build student engagement directly into your business model

With Memberships, creators can now build a recurring revenue model that centers around gating product access by tiers. Creators can customize the student experience of each tier, and students can upgrade and downgrade between tiers all from their own accounts.

Flexibility matters. And that’s why we’re putting control back in your hands, and giving your students the same power too.

Your product, your way

A membership product offers you the ability to group courses, coaching, and/or digital download products together any way you want. From there, you can adjust the level of access to your products based on a student’s tiered plan. Each tier can be individually customized by price and content. Set monthly or annual pricing, or add a free trial; it’s up to you.

What’s more, Memberships allow you to adopt a business model that’s sustainable, profitable, and that much more engaging for students.

Building connection through memberships

You work hard to develop a relationship with your audience—through social media, emails, courses, coaching, and more. Now you can monetize all that you do for your students in an even more powerful way.

Giving your students a membership experience that’s as easy for you to manage as it is for them to access and control.

Memberships also allow students total control over how they learn and spend money with you. Students now can manage their upgrades, downgrades, and cancellations all on their own. From the My Memberships page in their account, your students will be able to take control of their own learning experience.

Plus, offering a membership product lets you release exclusive content over time. Build the experience you want and provide product options for your audience that works best for them.   Release audiobook chapters, podcast episodes, new downloads, or even courses as you see fit.

Like we said, it’s your business, your way.

Making it matter

We don’t have to tell you how you show up for your students matters. But, this goes beyond continuous engagement. Consider the lifetime value (LTV) of a student as part of the full student story.

With Memberships, you can tackle both of those, engagement and LTV, directly. In fact, creators who sell content through a recurring subscription model such as Memberships have a 43% higher lifetime value.

Put more plainly: An increase in student LTV directly translates to an increase in payments revenue for creators. Consider this a win-win scenario. Your students have options that work for them, and you generate more revenue.

We’ve heard time and time again that creators crave this feature, so we’re pleased to offer our Membership feature to those on all paid plans on Teachable. Basic members are limited to one tier and 500 members, whereas Pro and higher can have unlimited members and unlimited tiers.

Setting up a powerful membership product

If you’re on a paid plan at Teachable, you can take advantage of the Membership product immediately in just a few steps. We’ll walk you through it below.

To create a membership tier:

1. Click the Memberships tab on the left admin panel of your school. Click Create a Membership Tier.
2. In the Name field, enter in the name of the tier and then click Next.
3. Use the Sections to add and organize published products to your tiered membership. Once products have been added, click Next.
4. Set the price for your tier by using the drop down menu to select the currency. Additionally, you can set both a monthly and/or yearly membership price for your tier. (If you would like to offer the membership for free, click the Offer for free option). Click Next.
5. Once your tier has been created, you can continue to work on and publish your tier or return to the Membership page.

You can add additional tiers to your membership to offer additional levels of access to products and services by navigating to the Membership page and clicking Create a new tier. Available to those on the Pro plan and up.

Need to make edits? That’s even easier. Update, add, or edit tiers, as well as change the name, imagery, and sales page of your Membership product. The Membership Dashboard displays your total revenue, total number of active members, and the average revenue per member across all tiers, so be sure to familiarize yourself with this hub. Review our Help Center to get all this info and more.

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You have the idea and the skills, now you need a course outline. When it comes time to building your course on Teachable, we’ve made sure to create a platform that can handle all of the heavy lifting so you can focus on the creativity part. But before you even jump into how to create an online course, we want to let you in on a powerful secret step that can save you a lot of time and help make your course creation process even better: outlining. Learning how to outline your online course will help you stay organized and know exactly what you’ll need when it comes time to get those creative juices flowing. Whether your niche is reading tarot cards or you’re working on a management course, having a course outline will ensure the creation process is structured, smooth, and organized. Your students will thank you, too!

But first, let’s take a step back to make sure you have all the information you need to outline your Teachable course like a pro.

What is a course outline?

A course outline contains the building blocks of your online course. It might also be called a class outline or training course outline. It breaks the topic and subject matter down into sections or modules, which can be determined by considering milestones, or learning objectives, you intend for students to have. Modules will be further broken down into specific lessons and learning activities.

Course outlines will include the overall learning objectives, so that the intended outcome is crystal clear for both you and your students. It’s essentially the roadmap for what you’re teaching and how you’re teaching it, as well as what practice/activities students will do in order to best learn what you’re sharing. It will also include any plans for “quizzes” with which students can self-assess where there might be learning gaps or to focus on material they might not have fully grasped the first time.

What should you include in a course outline?

In order for your students to gain the most value from taking your course, it’s imperative that your course outline covers the following:

• The overarching goal – This usually can be summarized in a sentence, and encapsulates the main goal of the course. What will students be able to do, perform, or have fully learned by the end of your course? For example: By the end of this course, students will be able to create their own watercolor painting that includes elements of depth, color psychology, shape, and perspective. You can also include a brief course description here, too!
• Breakdown of modules/sections – What subtopics are essential for students to know in order for them to achieve the overarching goal? Depending on the overarching or main goal of your course, each module can focus on a main component necessary to build towards mastering the skills needed.
• Learning objectives for each module – While it’s tempting to simply present the content of the lessons, including learning objectives really strengthens your lessons. Having these means that you and your students are on the same page about why this particular module is essential to the bigger picture. (And curbs the age-old learner question of “what’s the point of this?”) These are the skills that students will acquire from each lesson. For example, in a module focused on color psychology, the learning objectives could be along the lines of: Students will be able to explain the impact that colors have on the subconscious brain in eliciting specific emotions and feelings.
• The content for each module – How are you teaching it? Determine if video, visuals, or hands-on practice best aligns with the learning objective for each module. Ideally, there’s a mix of all three so that the three main types of learning styles are catered to.
• Homework/practice opportunities – It’s important to include opportunities for practice so that students have a chance to implement what they’re learning. Otherwise, you run the risk of the information going in one ear and out the other for students, which means the overall effectiveness of the course will be lessened.
• Quiz or self assessment – Ideally this is present within each module, and prompts the students to determine how well they grasp the material that you’ve taught. This is an empowering way for students to take more control of their own learning. Don’t worry, this doesn’t have to be a full blown test with multiple choice questions! It can be as simple as including a reflection question at the end of each module.
• Learning objectives that are skill centered – (Also known as learning outcomes!) How well the content is presented and taught can be impacted by the learning objectives that are set. Preferably, these are written in a way that allows for self assessment. For example, saying “students will be able to know why depth perception is important in watercolors” implies they just need the theoretical understanding of depth perception. If we edit this to say “students will be able to implement strategies for varying depth perception”, it’s more specific and translates to a deeper understanding of the content.We’ll dive more into learning objectives and a formula for writing them in the next section!
• Optional: pre and post assessment – While not strictly needed, this is a potent way for you and your students to measure (and marvel at) just how much they learned in your course. The great news is that the same assessment or questions is given both at the beginning or the end, so they are pretty simple to make. The differences between these two assessments are measured and then used as a way to gauge how effective your course was at teaching and what students achieve. These can also make for good testimonial material, and don’t worry, they’re way easier than final exams! We’ll get into how you can create these in a simple and effective way in the next section.
• Optional: learning resources – Providing a brief list of extra resources after each module or after the course as a whole is a supportive way to ensure that student needs are being met. Having these additional links enables students to dig a little deeper and to gain more clarity on certain areas of the material that may have been unclear or where they want to know more.

How to create a course outline step-by-step

Step 1: Begin with the end

Yep, that’s right. To make a great course, think of the end result of your course before anything else. What’s the overarching goal or transformation that your course provides? Then work backwards to determine, step by step, how your ideal student would get to that end goal you’re selling. It’s essential to get clear on this before designing any lesson plans!

Take a few minutes to actually write down the transformation students will experience in your course. Go on, finish this sentence: “By the end of this course, students will be able to do blank.”

If your transformation is either too vast or too vague (e.g. how to live your best life vs. how to feel confident when meeting new people at a conference) you will find your outline may be difficult to craft. Instead think smaller and more specific. In fact, the more specific your outcome is, the better.

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It’s best to choose more actionable words than “understand” when you’re describing your transformation. Consider create, write, make, speak, design, etc. Outcome-based training is the most important thing for being able to outline your online course—and also for your students to comfortably progress through their learning. This will also help you identify if your course is best suited as a standalone course, a subscription, a mini course, or even a course with coaching options.

Step 2: The breakdown: modules & sections

Now that you have the umbrella of the overarching goal open, it’s time to get more specific by looking at the modules/sections that are underneath it. While you’re determining this, keep a time frame in mind. Many creators will split the modules within a certain number of weeks or days to help students pace their learning. If you want your course to be five weeks long, then determine the most important five subtopics that need to be covered, and each of these becomes a module.

Alternatively, you can also decide what the most important subtopics are and then base the time frame off of that.

Step 3: Writing powerful learning objectives

Once you’ve determined the modules, go ahead and decide what is most important for students to learn in each one. Learning objectives usually start with “Students will be able to…” and then include some kind of action word, followed by the task or skill. Remember to get specific with the action words, ideally avoiding the words “understand” and “know” for more concise words that are measurable, outcome based, and taught in the course material.. (For example, how do you measure if someone understands something? That’s a lot more nuanced and subjective than measuring if someone is able to create a podcast or design a website.)

Use the formula below to quickly make learning objectives that are highly effective and measurable:

Students will be able to + [insert specific verb] + [description of end product or demonstration of knowledge]

Students will be able to produce a podcast episode.
Students will be able to write a completed screenplay.
Students will be able to author a book proposal with two sample chapters.
Students will be able to construct a gardening plan.

Examples of strong verbs to use: create, produce, write, design, develop, assemble, collaborate, invent, construct, build, blog, devise, podcast, manage, facilitate, generate

Step 4: Organize the material (including homework)

Now that you have the course broken down into modules, it’s time to sort through the material you want to include. Ideally, each module will include the learning objective, some type of content where the material is being taught (keep reading for the five basic content types!), and “homework” of some kind. This is really just a chance for students to practice and implement whatever skill is being taught in this module—it doesn’t have to be very long, but rather to provide a chance for students to move from passively taking in information to actively getting involved with what you’re teaching. Invite them to try their hand at whatever it is being taught, because the more action and practice that they’re taking, the faster and more thoroughly they’ll learn!

Five basic content types

The style of your course is up to you, and the method of content delivery you think will make the most sense for your subject matter and students may differ from course to course—even section by section or lesson by lesson. There are five basic content types that are most often found on Teachable creators’ courses: text and photo, PDFs and downloadables, slide decks, screen recordings, and video. Since people have different learning styles, incorporating a combination of content types will enhance student learning. We break them down to help you better understand which might be ideal for your course.

• Text and photos: easy and quick; best used for simple concepts or lessons that can be demonstrated in a format that’s most similar to a blog post or article. Just be cognizant that not everyone learns best by reading, and if your lesson has multiple steps, perhaps blocks of texts and pictures aren’t the best option.
• PDFs and downloadables: include spreadsheets, workbooks, cheat sheets, resource material, checklists, etc. that can easily be referenced; not ideal for complex subjects that require walkthroughs or explanations of why.
• Slides: visually emphasize your points; walks students through material one step at a time

• Screen recordings and videos: ideal for complex topics that need step-by-step attention as well as explanation and demonstration; provides more interaction with students and gives a more personalized instructional experience. Screen recordings can be as simple as you talking through a slide presentation or a recording of your computer screen as you demonstrate your skill and provide commentary. They’re cheap to produce and provide a lot of value to students.

• Home videos are also another popular option for content delivery. Luckily, you don’t have to spend a lot to get quality video at home. For your course videos, you can speak directly to the camera, film your hands doing work, or even use a pre-recorded webinar or live event you’ve done.

Some lessons may need just one content type, like a screencast, but others may need two, like a video with a companion PDF workbook. It’s perfectly fine—and encouraged—to use a variety of methods within your course.

Step 5: A closer look at assessments & reflections

Including these elements in your course is a potent way to ensure that students are really getting the most from the material you’re providing. Keep in mind, the assessments can be simple, and you certainly don’t have to grade them! You can use questions that align with the learning objective to assess. For example, if the learning objective is “Students will be able to utilize Podcastle to edit a podcast”, then the assessment or homework would be to familiarize themselves with the platform and to edit a podcast episode! Pretty straightforward, right? Although uncomplicated, this is an effective way for students to implement and check their own learning.

It’s a proven pedagogical theory that reflection on the learning process actually helps to deepen understanding of the material and help it stick. Some weeks the homework could simply be to reflect on what they learned or what areas they found challenging or the most interesting from that module.

Step 6: Decide on a pre & post assessment

Along the same lines as number five, having a pre and post assessment is a great way for students to track their learning, and it can also give you helpful feedback about your course. Including a few questions that align with the learning objectives in your course are a good measure of the learning that’s taken place. These can be collected on a survey (like Typeform or Google survey) for ease of feedback and also a way to collect testimonials!

What do you know about producing a podcast?
How confident are you with editing and publishing individual podcast episodes?

The end result

We believe in the art of simplicity, so we’ll do anything we can to help make your road to course creation a simple one. In fact, we’ve built our entire online course platform to do just this.

So, once you’ve learned how to outline your online course and have pumped out some content, you can easily use Teachable to physically create your course. Our one-click bulk upload option will also help you upload your course sections and lessons simply. From there you can customize your content, preview, and publish.

Course outline examples & template

If you want a template to create your course outline, then look no further. With Teachable’s outline templates, you can be led through creating a Course Outline in a step-by-step process. To get it, just click here to download for free! You can even think of it as a preview of what’s needed if you’re still in the ideation phase of creating your virtual product.

The example below shows how your course outline could look once it’s uploaded onto the platform. Splitting the modules into different categories is a helpful way to keep things organized for your students.

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Key takeaways:

• Actionable transformations lead to the most successful courses and are the easiest to outline and plan.
• A course is made of sections and lessons. Sections contain groupings of lessons. Lessons are structured, informational units composed of text, files, video, and images.
• Sections are the milestones in your course a.k.a. major concepts and skills your students need to master in order to achieve the final transformation.
• Lessons are the bite-sized units of video, audio, text, images, etc. within your section that deliver one takeaway.
• Mapping out your content delivery method will help prepare you for the creation process.
• Use the one-click bulk upload button on the Teachable platform to begin to organize your content.

Outlining your course doesn’t have to be daunting. And, putting in just a little bit of elbow grease before you start creating will not only save you lots of time and energy later on, it will also enhance the learning experience of your students. Future you is already thanking past you.

FAQs

Why create a course outline?

Creating a course outline is an essential part of producing your course. It provides you with structure and organization, which is very helpful as the process can feel overwhelming at times. More importantly, it means that the course material you’re curating is intentional and focused on providing students with the most value possible—having course objectives that you’re building off of creates a solid foundation for learning. Having this outline also means you can share learning objectives with your students so that they feel empowered in their learning process. Overall, a course outline makes it more clear for you and your students, and provides a sense of ease for you during the creation process.

What is the difference between a course outline and a syllabus?

Generally speaking, a course outline is a tool for course creators to consider during the planning phase, while a course syllabus is intended for students to read ahead of starting the course. Once you’ve created a course outline, you can move on to creating the course syllabus, which includes more detailed information, including the course description, specific modules and assignments, dates, a grading rubric, rules of conduct, and other course requirements and expectations of the teacher.

Additional reporting by Nicole Quintana-Wolf

Knowing how to price your online course is a very common yet oftentimes difficult challenge for content creators. But understanding how to sell online courses and putting a price tag on your knowledge doesn’t have to be intimidating. By valuing yourself, your course, and the work you put into course creation, you’ll be able to come up with a fair price that your audience will be more than willing to pay for.

So exactly how much should you charge? We’ve created a three-step guide to online course pricing to help you figure it out.

How to price your online course

Step 1: Rethink your pricing strategy

Make your baseline price higher than you think. We’re just going to lay it out: Consider pricing your online course at a minimum of $100. Because you’ve validated your idea, acquired an audience, and developed your course, you already know it’s valuable. A good baseline price for a course is $100, if not more.

So, why have a baseline price of at least $100?

• All topics are worth it to someone. Don’t discredit students’ desire to learn—anything. From hand lettering to drone flying to coding, there are courses for every taste. If an audience really wants to learn something, they’ll be willing to pay.
• There’s a problem, and you’re the solution. Simply put: An online course provides a shortcut to an outcome. Without your course, your audience might spend ten times the amount of time sifting through information on their own.
• Perspective is your selling point. Even if someone else is teaching the same course topic, you can still be successful by highlighting what makes your course unique. Highlight your perspective and use it as a selling point. Most importantly—don’t be afraid to price accordingly. If you’ve created an online course that’s high quality, students will pay.
• Students have faith in you. (We do too.) Those who are just a few steps ahead of their students tend to be more effective teachers as they can often more easily identify and relate to students’ pain points. Traditional “experts” or “professionals” might not offer the most simplified solution to their students’ problems like you can.
• The people will pay. If you’re launching your product to your mailing list, warm up your audience for a few months prior with a pre-launch strategy. Those who already know the value of your knowledge will be far more likely to spend money with you. Plus, unlike blogs and social media, online courses provide valuable gated content. The exclusivity of what you’re teaching inherently makes your course valuable.

Tips for pricing online courses

With premium pricing, more is absolutely more. Would you believe us if we said it’s as simple as: Charging less means you make less money.
It’s normal to worry about scaring off potential clients with a higher priced course, but playing it safe can actually be dangerous in business as it may not accurately reflect the work content creators put into their offerings. Plus, if you price too low, students might not appreciate it as much or be as motivated to follow through with it.

In addition to the overhead needed to create the course, such as video production equipment, you can also factor in soft costs, like the time you put into creating your course, how much you would charge a client for that much of your time, how much you invested in learning the information you’re teaching, etc. Your time and expertise are valuable. While there is a ton of free information available, don’t underestimate the value of the information you curate, organize, and package for your students. It will save them time and energy, and make their lives easier in the long run.

It can be difficult to measure the true value of your course, which gets easily entangled with financial gains. When considering what makes your idea or offering valuable to others, go beyond what you’re selling and consider why you’re selling it.

• What makes your approach unique?
• What are the immeasurable qualities your student or customer will walk away with?

For instance, you might be an art teacher, who beyond different painting techniques, empowers students to explore their creativity with confidence and playfulness. Or you may be a yoga teacher who doesn’t just demo the fundamentals of poses but also offers tools for increasing mindfulness and building resilience, too. Set your prices bearing in mind all students get out of the course, rather than just the course itself.

Meanwhile, you can always reduce the price via course sales or promotions after your go-to-market strategy is finished, but unless you’re prepared to enhance your original offering, it can be harder to raise the price of a course once you’ve announced it to your audience.

While online courses don’t always have to have a high price tag, premium pricing will help you in the long run and has a number of benefits.

Go on and charge more

• Your revenue goals will be easier to meet. Selling a course at a low price point requires you to enroll more students to reach your income goal—meaning you’re spending more time acquiring new clients. If you charge a higher price, you’ll be able to meet your goals quicker and better use your time.
• A smaller group makes for a better learning experience. If you’re only dealing with 15 students as opposed to 50, those students will get more of your focused attention. This is ideal for securing repeat customers as well as potential referrals for your business.
• Premium pricing increases engagement and communicates value. Pricing your course or coaching session at a premium, ensures students see their purchase as an investment—and one they want a return on no less.
• Secure—and weed out—potential students. If your course is priced too low, you’re likely to get a number of students who aren’t quite your target audience and will likely drop off or not purchase again. Those who will succeed and get the most from your offerings will be more than happy to pay more and thus are more likely to make another purchase.

How much to charge for an online course

How much can you really charge for your online courses? It’s up to you, but arming yourself with some pre-pricing knowledge can be indispensable.

Try this…

Create income goals

Before anything else, you should come up with income goals for your online course. Whatever you’re hoping to accomplish with your business, come up with a goal number.

In real life:

Let’s say you’re hoping to make $5,000 with your online course. With that in mind, if you keep your price point at $100, you need 50 people to buy your course to reach your goal.

But, what if you decide to offer at a higher price point of $250? In that case, you only need 20 people to enroll. And if you price your online course at $500,  you only need to sell to 10 people. See where we’re going?

By putting these goals into place, you can establish a clearer picture of just how many people you need to be selling to in order to consider your launch successful.

Figure out how many people are likely to buy your course

Generally, you can assume that at least two percent of your email list will purchase it, so you use that as a solid starting point.

In real life:

If you have 1,000 people on your list, 20 people will likely purchase. If you want to make $4,000, you need to sell your course for at least $200 to meet your goal

Step 2: Give them an offer they can’t refuse

Now that you’re armed with some basic knowledge on how to price your online course and more importantly, why you should be aiming for a premium price, close the deal for your students with an offer they really can’t pass up.

Add pricing tiers

Pricing tiers make your course accessible to a larger number of students and to students who may not be interested in all of the bonuses you’re offering.
To create your pricing tiers, first decide on which pieces of bonus content you want to offer. Consider which ones make the most sense for your audience and which ones will have the largest ROI. Once you’ve decided on your bonus content, decide how much each piece is worth.

Offer payment plans

Although not every student may be able to shell out a lump sum upfront, it might be more manageable if your course offers smaller payments spaced out over a few months. What’s more, you can typically have higher price tags on plans that are paid out over time.

Step 3: Sweeten the deal

Your knowledge inherently has value, but as your prices increase, so too should your offerings. Some of the best ways to enhance your course content and add value don’t have to be overly complicated. Just learning some basic tricks for how to market online courses can help.

Think beyond the basics and…

• Create a content upgrade. Consider creating an editable worksheet as a lead magnet that your students can refer to and fill out while they go through your curriculum.
• Host live Q&A’s. Schedule a few throughout the life of your course for different times of day so you can capture as many of your students as possible. You can increase the value of your course by several hundred dollars depending on how often you host your Q&A’s.
• Offer coaching. Offering one-on-one online coaching throughout the course to increase its value. Thanks to the ease of scheduling with our coaching feature, you can easily increase the value of your course by hundreds of dollars by offering personalized consulting.
• Create a community. Create a Facebook group or a community on Slack as an added value to your product. From there you can decide how tightly monitored your community will be.
• Improve the production quality of your course. Increase the value of your course by several hundred dollars just by improving the production quality of your course. Thankfully, you can create a great studio set-up at home without spending a ton, making this a great ROI for you.

Remember: Setting your rates is upholding a boundary. It teaches clients how to treat you and respect what you have to offer. So price accordingly.

How to price your online course FAQs

How much should I charge for an online course?

Premium pricing will help you in the long run and has a number of benefits. Consider pricing your online course at a minimum of $100. Once you’ve validated your idea, acquired an audience, and developed your course, you already know it’s valuable. A good baseline price for a course is $100, if not more.

How do you determine a course price?

Create income goals: Before anything else, you should come up with income goals for your online course. Whatever you’re hoping to accomplish with your business, come up with a goal number. Figure out how many people are likely to buy your course: Generally, you can assume that at least two percent of your email list will convert, so you use that as a solid starting point.

How much do people sell courses for?

People sell courses from a wide range of price points. Some start around $40-50 (though, like we mentioned, we recommend keeping your price at a minimum of $100) while others go up to $1,000 or more.

Sections of this post are adapted from previous content written by Morgan Timm and Katie Davidson.

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