This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
Welcome to a brand new week of the podcast. Well, it's also a brand new week in life, but specifically the podcast, Episode 1598. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School. And wow, as I said that, I just realized 1600 is just around the corner, the day after tomorrow, to be specific. So excited to share that with you. So excited to share every day with you.
Thank you so much for being part of this. Over the past 1500 episodes, we have featured more than a hundred online courses, if I'm not mistaken. Lots of people making online courses and for good reason, because they're profitable. It's something that anyone can do with all sorts of different topics. I've been working on some new course outlines myself and also thinking through this listener question. The question today is about why do online courses cost so much or so little.
There's a huge range. There's not very much consistency to it. So how do you make that decision? And as part of making the decision, you don't want to only think about what's fair, quote unquote fair, or what your time is worth. Ideally, you want to arrive at a final price that customers feel is a perfectly rational price for them to pay in exchange to access to the experience. So how do you decide is there an optimal range? That's what we're going to talk
about today. So stay tuned for that listener question and my answer. Hi, Chris, this is Larry from Vancouver and I've followed the show for years. I've heard many case studies on the show about online courses. One thing I've noticed is that the pricing for these courses is all over the map. Some costs $50 or $100. Others are $1,000 or more. For example, you recently had someone who
does voiceover work share their story in a failure Friday episode. I went to his site and he sells his courses for $3,000 plus a monthly fee to keep accessing them after a year. Part of me thinks that's outrageous. And another part thinks that's ingenious. Why is there so little consistency in pricing all of these courses? And how does someone decide what their price should be?
Thanks and looking forward to your response. Larry, what's up, man? Thank you so much for listening. Thank you for the question. Yes, pricing can be all over the map. You're absolutely right, especially in the world of
online courses. And I think the person you're referring to in that failure Friday episode that sold his courses for $3,000 plus the monthly fee, to be fair, he had a lot of courses and he was selling access, I believe, if I'm not mistaken, to all of them. You could buy each one piecemeal or you could pay several thousand dollars and then you get access to them for a year and then you pay a monthly fee on top of that. I think he had something like 30 courses, whatever it was, it was a pretty big number. So that's him. And I mean, just like Larry said here, in some ways,
you're like, well, that's outrageous. And that's also ingenious. I want to be able to charge thousands of dollars, why not $5,000? Why not $10,000? So in some ways, you price something based on the audience you want to attract. There's a few different variables here. One is value,
you know, what the outcome of the course, the deliverable is, I'll say more about that in a moment, but pricing something based on the audience you want to attract. I have a friend named Elena who sells newspaper advertising. And she often mentions that the customers who are the cheapest, let's just use that word, the cheapest customers who are paying very small amounts of money, they are the ones who require the most contact. They are high maintenance, sometimes low priced buyers, and this is true across lots of different fields, low priced buyers are the ones who complain the most. So you price based on the audience you want to attract. Now that said, desired audience
isn't the only variable. You know, otherwise, it would be simple, we'd be like, we all have $3,000 courses or 5000 or whatever the number is. It also depends a lot on what you're selling. So if you are teaching people, let's say a complex investment strategy, that is proven to work at a high rate of effectiveness, which you know, doesn't really exist. But let's just say, if you had that, and you were selling it, it shouldn't be cheap. You know, if it's sold for
$10, like here's this complex strategy, it's proven to work, and you can have it for the low price of $10, then you'd be skeptical, right? Or consider a course that allows you to be certified as a real estate agent in your area, you know, such a thing has clear value, it's possible to look and say, Okay, you know, what is that value? Well, it has to be something pretty significant, because it's a career certification. If you're selling something that's more of a lifestyle experience or an exercise plan, you know, anything like that, that's where it gets trickier. And so there are courses for those things for free, or for thousands of dollars. So there's some science
to it. But that's where the art comes in of, you know, thinking more about that outcome that you're delivering, what is that value? And how do you want to position the course and, and one rule of thumb that I will suggest, I will leave you with here today, price a little higher than you think you should. Whatever you think the range is, if you're like, Oh, it could be this, it could be that, I would encourage you to price toward the higher end of that range. People tend to undervalue themselves, they tend to have a bit of imposter syndrome, especially those who are just getting into this world of side hustling or starting a business, you know, for the first time. So that's
my rule of thumb price a little bit higher than you think you should. All right, I hope that's helpful. There is definitely a big range. Listeners, if you have a question, come to sidehustleschool.com slash questions. We'll continue to feature them throughout the year, along with updates from listeners as they launch their projects. So glad you're out there. Be sure
to do something for yourself today and come back tomorrow. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School. From the Onward Project.
