Course Pricing ‘Ninja’ Trick

By: Justin Ferriman • November 22, 2016
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18485.jpgWithout question one of the first things people think about when creating a course to sell is how they are going to price it.

Should it be a one-time fee?

Perhaps a subscription payment?

Or maybe a three-month payment plan?

Each possible course pricing model is valid in its own way and should be assessed according to your own offering as well as market.

But what if you didn’t sell your course and gave it away instead?

You might say that is crazy – and perhaps in some industries it would be. But, there is a chance that this approach could work for you and in a big way.

The idea is simple: give away your course, but at the same time give your customers an opportunity to “pay what they want”.

Yes, this will mean you get customers that don’t pay you anything, you should certainly expect that. But the trade-off is that you now have this customer on your email list. So, you are building trust and perhaps they will purchase something from you in the future. In other words, not all is lost.

However, just like there will be people who opt to take your course for free there will also be those that are willing to pay you.

Tom Morkes tried this strategy for an e-book he was selling. His readers contributed an average of $15 for the book resulting in $493.50 after one month. This was offered to his list of just 166 subscribers.

In other words, this approach is totally doable and can result in some nice supplement income. Grow your list large enough and it could really start to pay off.

Tom has a blog post relating to this experiment he did where he includes some more ideas and key considerations should you too decide this is a method you wish to pursue.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering: yes, you can do this with LearnDash courses! 🙂

Justin Ferriman

Justin started LearnDash, the WordPress LMS trusted by Fortune 500 companies, major universities, training organizations, and entrepreneurs worldwide. He is currently founder & CEO of GapScout. Justin’s Homepage | GapScout | Twitter