How Much Should You Charge for an Online Course?

Authors note‍

• By the end of this article, you’ll know how to price your online course based on the outcome it delivers, the audience you serve, the support you include, and the value your offer creates, backed by what I’ve learned after four years of watching thousands of experts price, launch, adjust, and sell their offers.
  
  
• You’re most likely an expert coach, consultant, educator, course creator, or influencer looking to create, build, or scale a digital business of your own based around what you know so you can create financial freedom for yourself and genuinely help your customers win. This is for you.
  
  
• Heads up: The pricing framework I cover in this guide is based on the value of the result your course helps customers achieve, including the transformation, audience, ROI, support level, positioning, and delivery model, instead of copy/pasting your competitors price.

The honest answer to online course pricing

I can’t count the number of times experts have asked me “Alex, how much should I charge for my online course?” so I decided to lay it all out here, and bring the receipts. Truth be told, it’s a complicated question and the answer depends on several factors.

• What kind of course are you selling?
• Who are you selling to?
• What will your customer be able to do after they take your course?
• How involved will you be in the delivery of the course?

The good news is, I’ve got the 15 years of Kajabi data from +100,000 businesses our customers have built to help us understand what the market is willing to pay for digital products. You’ll find the answer you came here for, broken down by the type of course you’re planning to price. In order to not bury the lede here is the main takeaway:

Mini courses usually land in the $47 to $147 range, while signature courses tend to sit between $197 and $997 depending on the depth, outcome, and audience. If you’re selling a premium cohort, coaching offer, certification, or high-touch program, you can usually price much higher, often from $1,000 to $5,000+, with certification-style programs commonly starting around $2,000 or more.

Course pricing by experience level

Here’s what these price ranges mean for you: don’t assume your first offer needs to be cheap just because you’re new.

However, if you’re selling your first course, avoid jumping above $1,000 unless you’re adding live coaching, selling it as a cohort, offering 1-1 feedback, or some other kind of hands-on help that makes the offer more valuable. 

A course takes real work to build, but once it’s created, your main job is marketing it, while coaching and live teaching require your ongoing time and attention.

That’s why fewer customers at a higher price usually beats trying to sell a low-priced offer to a huge crowd, especially when your personal involvement helps your customers get to the desired transformation.

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Calculate your course price

Pricing your offer should not feel like throwing a dart at the wall and hoping it lands somewhere profitable.

The Kajabi Pricing Calculator helps you choose a smarter number by giving you a personalized range based on the real details of what you are selling. It looks at your audience size, the value of the transformation you provide, the level of support included, and the business goals behind your launch.

Instead of guessing, copying another expert’s price, or choosing a number that “feels right,” you’ll get a recommended range, a launch pricing strategy, and guidance for explaining the value clearly. Yeah, you’re welcome.

All of this matters because the price of your offer shapes how people understand what they are buying, how confidently you sell, and how much revenue your digital products can potentially bring in. Plus, it’s packaged nicely in a downloadable PDF that you can save for later.

You better believe that this is a tool I wish existed when I was first starting out. Use the calculator so your decision is backed by real inputs and data instead of your educated guess.

What determines your course price?

1. Transformation Value

The biggest driver of your course price is the transformation your course delivers. People don’t pay premium prices for “information,” they’ll probably end up asking an AI chatbot for that instead.

Your customers will pay for a specific outcome they want badly enough to stop scrolling, pull out their card, invest the time, and solve the problem.

A course that teaches “how to take better photos” can still sell, but it will usually sit at a lower price point because the result is broad and they’re a dime a dozen.

A course that teaches wedding photographers how to book their first 10 paid clients can charge more because the outcome is specific, measurable, and tied to something valuable. The buyer can picture the result before they buy.

Think about it this way, the more painful the problem, the more concrete the outcome, and the more obvious the before-and-after, the easier it is to raise the price.

If someone can look at your course and think, “If this works, my life or business gets meaningfully better,” then congrats, you are no longer competing with every cheap course on the internet.

2. Audience Sophistication

Who you teach matters just as much as what you teach. Remember that.

Beginners usually need more explanation, more structure, and more confidence before they buy. Experienced students, on the other hand, often pay more for speed, precision, and a better way to get a result they already care about.

In comparison, a course for established consultants teaching them how to set up five essential automated email sequences could sell for $1,000 or more because that buyer already has an offer, an audience, and a reason to fix the problem quickly.

Advanced buyers are not paying you to explain why the problem matters. They’re already aware.

They’ll buy your course to help them avoid trial and error, bad decisions, and wasted time.

This is why courses for more sophisticated audiences often support higher prices, as long as the course delivers on its high-level guarantee.

3. ROI Potential

Some courses are valuable because they help someone enjoy a hobby, build a skill, or improve their personal life. Others are valuable because they help someone make money, save money, save time, or avoid an expensive mistake.

The closer your course gets to a measurable return, the more pricing power you can command.

Imagine a $49 watercolor course, it may be worth every penny, but most buyers are not expecting it to pay them back financially. It’s for fun. 

Way different from a $2,000 course that teaches accountants how to package and sell advisory services. One or two new clients could cover the full cost of the course, which makes the price feel more logical.

This is why business, career, finance, sales, and professional skill courses often command higher prices than interest-based courses.

The buyer is not only asking, “Do I want this?” They are asking, “Can this help me earn back more than I spend?”

Regardless of the type of course you are selling, be aware that your potential customers are thinking about the return on their investment.

4. Support Level

Support changes the entire value of a course. In a good way.

A self-paced course gives students the content and lets them work through it on their own. That can be great, but it also means the buyer is responsible for staying motivated, making decisions, and figuring out what to do when they get stuck.

Add live coaching, office hours, feedback, accountability, or cohort-based learning, and the offer becomes immediately more valuable.

A self-paced course about coding a mobile app might sell for $297. Add weekly live reviews, direct feedback, and a four-week implementation schedule, and that same core material could support a $1,500 price because instead of buying access to your vault of videos, students are buying your help and feedback while they apply your evergreen lessons.

The rule of thumb here is: The more access directly to you + guidance you include in your offer value stack, the more you can charge for your program. 

5. Positioning And Market Category

Your course price is shaped by how buyers categorize it in their mind.

• Broad topic course: gets compared against every low-cost alternative online. 
• Niched down course: for a specific person solving their targeted problem, and instantly feels more valuable.

Here’s what I mean: “How to get better at social media” sounds like something someone might expect to buy for $49. “How local landscaping professionals can use short-form video to book more consultations” feels more valuable because it speaks to a defined buyer with a clear business goal.

Premium pricing becomes easier when your course is built and specifically targeted for one type of buyer, one urgent problem, and one outcome they already know they want.

Broad offers attract broad comparisons. Specific offers make people feel like you built the solution for them.

6. Delivery Model

Your delivery model is how your students will actually experience the course.

Sure, a video-only course can be simple, scalable, and profitable, but it usually has a lower perceived value than a course that includes templates, assignments, workshops, community access, implementation checkpoints, or even live interaction.

For example, a video-only course about launching a podcast might sell for $147.

Consider adding a launch checklist, recording templates, episode review sessions, and a private group for accountability, and the offer can move into the $500 to $1,500 range because the student gets more than information.

They get a process… YOUR winning process.

The delivery model should make the end result easier for your students to achieve.

Keep that in mind while you’re building this out. And remember that more “stuff” does not always mean more value.

Three extra modules can make the course feel heavier, not necessarily better.

But tools, feedback, structure, and interaction that help students finish faster can justify a higher price because they increase your value stack and ultimately light the path to 100% completion rates.

Common pricing questions + my answers

Listen, I deliver six webinars every week to hundreds of experts who are trying to turn what they know into income, and naturally over the past four years they have asked me questions related to the pricing of their future online course. I took their most common questions and answered them below for your benefit.

What is a good price for a first online course?

$197 to $497 is high enough that the buyer takes it seriously, but not so high that you need a miracle to sell it. For most first-time course builders, that usually means starting somewhere in the low to mid hundreds, then adjusting based on the pain of the problem and the clarity of the outcome. If you have no social proof testimonials yet, keep it simple, sell it, get feedback, and earn the right to raise the price later. Use the Kajabi Pricing Calculator to get a personalized price range based on your offer, audience, support level, transformation value, and launch goals.

Should coaching cost more than a course?

Yes, coaching should almost always cost more because access costs more than information. A course gives people the map, but coaching helps them apply it, fix mistakes, stay accountable, and move faster. The more your time and advice are involved, the more the offer should cost, because the customer is not just buying content, they’re buying a better chance of execution.

Can shorter courses charge premium pricing?

Absolutely, if the course gets someone a valuable result faster. People do not pay for the number of modules, they pay for the outcome, the speed, the certainty, and the cost of staying stuck. A 90-minute course that helps someone land a client, fix a sales page, or save ten hours a week can be worth more than a 40-hour course packed with filler.

How much should I charge for my first course?

For your first course, start with a price that’s high enough to command respect, but is still a no-brainer for your potential customers to say yes to. For most experts, that lands somewhere around $197 to $497 if the course solves a specific problem and has a clear outcome. Don’t price it like a tip jar. Price it like something that should create a result.

Can I raise my price later?

Yes, and you should. Your first price is a test, not a tattoo. Once you start making sales, collect as many testimonials as you can and let your past customer’s praise do all the selling. I recommend increasing your prices gradually as your course becomes more and more refined.

What counts as a high-ticket course?

A high-ticket course usually starts around $1,500, but the number alone is not the point. High-ticket pricing requires more trust, more specificity, and usually more support, like coaching, feedback, live sessions, templates, accountability, or implementation help. People will pay premium prices when the result is expensive to delay, painful to miss, or valuable enough to justify the investment.

Should I offer payment plans?

Yes, especially if your course costs a few hundred dollars or more. Payment plans lower the decision barrier without lowering the actual price, which means you can protect the value of your offer while making it easier to buy. A word of advice: make the one-time payment option cost less than the payment plan to encourage more upfront sales.

How many students do I need to be profitable?

Fewer than you think if the price is right. Ten students at $500 is $5,000, while one hundred students at $50 creates the same revenue but with way more support, questions, potential refunds, and headaches. Start by calculating your costs to make & maintain your course, then cross reference with how many sales you need to break even. Everything after that is profit.

‍Quick word of advice: be on the lookout for mandatory revenue sharing policies from the software you use to host your course. Some platforms take up to 30% of each sale you make, meanwhile Kajabi takes 0% of your revenue.

What pricing model converts best?

The best model is usually a simple one-time price with a payment plan option. It’s simple to understand, and within reach for your customers since they can pay over time. Subscriptions work well for ongoing value, like community, coaching, or monthly training, but they are harder to sell if you only need to solve your customer’s problem once.

Should coaching cost more than a course?

Yes. The more involved you are in helping someone get their desired result, the more the offer should cost. I’d argue that coaching should be the most expensive thing you sell. Access to you is more valuable because it includes your feedback, accountability, correction, and trusted advice.

Can short courses charge premium prices?

Yes, especially if the result is valuable enough. People could care less how many hours of content is inside, they’d rather buy speed, clarity, and the outcome on the other side. A short course that helps someone land a client, fix a sales page, or save hours every week can charge more than a bloated course full of filler. Content volume matters less than people think. Nobody wants more homework. They want the shortest credible path to the result.

What affects perceived value most?

The biggest driver of perceived value is the gap between where the customer is now and where they want to be. Things like specific outcomes, strong proof, clear positioning, urgency, and ongoing support all make the offer feel more valuable. It answers the question: “what do I get when I buy?” so increase the amount of items in your value stack to increase your offer’s perceived value.

Does audience size determine price?

No. Audience size does not determine price, but it does determine how easy it is to get enough people to see your offer. If you already have a large audience that knows, likes, and trusts you, selling gets easier because more qualified people are hitting the sales page with less effort. But quality still beats size. A small audience full of serious buyers with a painful problem will outperform a massive audience of casual followers every time. 

Build your expert business on Kajabi

At this point, you should have a smarter way to price your course than copying someone else’s number and hoping it works.

No more guessing, use Kajabi’s Pricing Calculator based on real revenue data from Kajabi Heroes to get a data-backed pricing suggestion for your course offer. 

The next step is building your offer in a place that can actually support the business you’re trying to create. ‍

Kajabi is the platform of choice for over 60,000 experts (who have made over 11 billion dollars) and enables you to build & sell courses, run your coaching programs, manage payments, build communities, automate marketing, and grow your recurring revenue all from one platform instead of duct-taping six disconnected tools together with integrations. 

Whether you’re starting from scratch or looking to switch from another platform, Kajabi is the all in one solution with no technical setup required to sell digital products and yes, migration support is available. Kajabi gives you the foundation to price, sell, and scale with confidence.

I should know, I personally used Kajabi to create courses which resulted in over half a million dollars in revenue back in 2019, and I’ve been helping people do what I did (and better) ever since.