Six Course Pricing Tactics, Rated Out of Ten

Most experts price a course the way they price a session. They count the hours, check what a few competitors charge, and knock a little off to be safe. Then nobody buys, and the first instinct is to drop the price again.

That is the wrong lever. Pricing is a system decision. It decides who buys, how fast they buy, and whether the numbers behind your ads ever work. Below are the six pricing tactics I see most often, scored out of ten on one question: does this help the right buyer say yes at a price the business can run on? The scores come from Mike's filming scripts. The math behind them is mine. If you want the principle underneath all of it first, read Price the Result, Not the Runtime.

Pay what you want scores below zero

Not a low score. A negative one.

Pay what you want hands the buyer the one job you are supposed to do, which is tell them what the result is worth. Given the choice, most people pick the lowest number that does not feel rude. You have now priced your life's work by someone else's comfort.

It also breaks your data. When the price changes on every sale, you cannot tell whether a slow month came from the offer, the traffic, or the number. Every decision after that is a guess. A tactic that makes your revenue unpredictable and your testing impossible does worse than nothing. That is why it scores below zero.

What to do this week: if any offer of yours runs on a sliding scale or a pay what you want button, pick a fixed price and hold it for 30 days so you can read the result.

Discounting scores a 2

A discount feels like a sales tactic. On paper it is a volume problem.

Composite example, round numbers for illustration. A $1,000 course sells 20 seats. That is $20,000. Run it at 30% off and each seat brings in $700. To earn the same $20,000 you now need 29 seats, 9 more buyers, just to stand still. Your ad cost per buyer did not get cheaper because the price did.

The second cost is quieter. A list that sees a discount once learns to wait for the next one. Your full price launch becomes the one people skip.

Mike's rule here is simple: when nobody buys, do not drop the price. They could not tell what they were buying. A discount answers a clarity problem with a money answer. It gets a 2 because there are narrow uses, like a closing window for people who already said yes, but as a fix for weak sales it fails.

If you want to see how price, buyers, and traffic interact across your whole ladder before you change a number, the Offer Ladder calculator maps your low, mid, and high ticket offers on one page and shows the front end math honestly.

Map my ladder

Hourly pricing and good, better, best both score a 3

Pricing on hours puts a ceiling on the product before you sell a single seat. The logic goes: 12 hours of video, so it must be worth about this much. The buyer does not want 12 hours. They want the shortest way to the finish. Mike puts it plainly: "Bloated feels like homework. Tight feels like a shortcut. People pay more for shortcuts." Price by runtime and you end up adding lessons to justify the number, which makes the course harder to finish and harder to sell.

Good, better, best scores the same 3 for a different reason. Most tier structures split one course by volume: the videos, then the videos plus templates, then the videos plus templates plus calls. Now the buyer is comparison shopping instead of deciding. You have also built three products to sell one.

The structure that works is one body of work, three doors: a win in a day, a change in about a month, and something for the rest of their life. Each door has its own finish line, so each has its own price. That is a ladder, not a menu.

Payment plans score an 8

A payment plan does not change the price. It changes when the money lands. That distinction is why it scores high.

A buyer who is ready and qualified but does not want to move the full amount this week can still say yes. You widen the set of people who can buy now without teaching anyone to wait. Nothing about the value of the result gets cheaper.

It is an 8, not a 10, because you carry two costs: the wait and the collection risk. Price the plan above the paid in full amount so the math covers both. Composite example: $3,000 paid in full, or three payments of $1,100. The buyer who pays in full saves $300. The buyer who needs time gets it, and you are paid for carrying it.

Third party financing is a separate tool that moves the wait and the risk to a lender. When it helps and when paying in full is the better call is covered in Financing a Course Build Without Draining Your Cash. This is not financial advice.

Pricing on the result scores a 10

The question that sets the price is not how much content is inside. It is how long the change takes.

A win in a day sits at the low end. On the offer ladder that is the $7 to $97 range. A change in about a month sits in the middle, $300 to $2,000. Something that changes the rest of their life, with support attached, sits at $3,000 and up. The result sets the tier. The tier sets the price. Runtime does not enter the conversation.

This is the only tactic on the list that makes every other number in the business easier. A clear finish line raises conversion on the sales page. Higher conversion lowers the cost per buyer. A lower cost per buyer is what lets paid traffic scale.

A worked example

Composite example, two experts with the same knowledge. The first sells "everything I know about nutrition," 14 hours of video, at $497. Sales are slow, so she runs a 40% discount, then a pay what you want weekend. Every launch brings in less than the last.

The second takes the same knowledge and sells one finish line: get off the 3pm crash in 30 days. Fewer lessons, a named result, one price, and a payment plan for anyone who wants it. She does not discount. When a launch is slow, she rewrites the promise, not the price.

Same knowledge. The difference is what each one decided the buyer was paying for.

What to do next

1. Write your course's finish line in one sentence: who it is for, where they start, where they end, and how long it takes. If you cannot, fix that before you touch the price.

2. Answer the question that sets the tier: how long does the change take? A day, about a month, or the rest of their life. Put your offer in one of those three doors.

3. Remove any discount or pay what you want option from your live offers, and add a payment plan priced slightly above paid in full.

If you already have proof that people pay you and want the pricing, the offer, and the sales system built around it, book your build call.

Book your build call.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best pricing strategy for an online course?

Price on the result the course delivers, not on the hours of video inside it. Start with one question: how long does the change take? A win in a day, a change in about a month, and something for the rest of their life sit at very different price points. Name the finish line clearly, then set the price against what reaching it is worth to the buyer.

Should I discount my course to get more sales?

Usually no. A discount means you need more buyers to earn the same revenue, and it teaches your list to wait for the next sale. When nobody buys at full price, the problem is almost always that people could not tell what they were buying. Make the promise clearer before you touch the number.

Are payment plans a good idea for a course?

Yes, in most cases. A payment plan does not lower the price. It changes when the money arrives, which lets more qualified buyers say yes today. Price the plan slightly above the paid in full amount, because you carry the wait and the collection risk. Keep the paid in full option visible for buyers who prefer it.

Should I offer good, better, and best tiers on my course?

Only if each tier delivers a different result. Most tier structures split the same course by volume: more videos, more calls, more templates. That forces buyers to comparison shop instead of decide. A stronger structure is three doors tied to three different changes, each with its own finish line and its own price.