The Complete Guide to Course Pricing

Most course creators underprice their work — and it costs them revenue, student results, and long-term business sustainability. If you've ever stared at a blank pricing field and felt your stomach tighten, you're not alone. Pricing anxiety is nearly universal. As pricing coach Tom Buford puts it:

"I don't think I've ever had anybody set a price, and I said, 'Oh, you should come down.'"

— Tom Buford, Charge What You Deserve

Understanding why creators underprice is the first step toward fixing it.

What Are the Three Reasons Creators Underprice?

Three forces push creators toward prices that are too low:

• Impostor syndrome. You look at your own knowledge and think, "Who am I to charge that much?" Your expertise feels easy to you — because you've spent years developing it. The yoga teacher who spots alignment issues in a glance doesn't realize that skill took a decade to build. The marketing consultant who instinctively knows which headline will convert doesn't see how rare that instinct is.

• The comparison trap. You search your topic on Udemy, see a $19 course with 4.5 stars, and panic. But mass-market platforms compete on volume — they need tens of thousands of enrollments to make the math work. You're building something fundamentally different: a focused transformation with personal attention. Comparing your course to Udemy is like comparing a private cooking class to a YouTube recipe video.

• Fear of rejection. A low price feels safer. If someone says no to $47, it stings less than a no at $497. But this safety is an illusion. Low prices don't just attract fewer committed students — they actively push away the people who would benefit most from your work.

Why Does Charging More Lead to Better Student Outcomes?

Here's what most new creators don't expect: charging more actually produces better outcomes for your students. Tom Buford describes it this way — imagine you have a health problem. You find two solutions: a $17 e-book and a $1,700 guided program. You buy both. Which one do you use first? Every time, it's the $1,700 program. The investment creates commitment.

When students pay a meaningful amount, they show up differently. They complete more of the course. They do the exercises. They ask better questions. They implement what they learn. And because they're more engaged, they get better results — which means better testimonials, more referrals, and an easier time marketing your next launch.

The paradox is real: charging more often leads to happier students.

Why Do Low Prices Push Away Your Best Students?

There's another dynamic that catches creators off guard. When a serious buyer sees a course priced at $47, their first thought isn't "what a deal!" — it's "how much value could this really deliver?" Low pricing sends a signal, and it's not the signal you intend.

The people with the budget and motivation to invest in real transformation will often skip right past a cheap course, assuming it can't offer what they need. Tom compares the anxiety of raising your price to skydiving: "The scariest part isn't the jump — it's the drive to the drop zone." Once you actually raise your price and see that people still enroll (and get better results), the fear dissolves.

The Path Forward

None of this means you should slap a $2,000 price tag on an untested course. Pricing well is a skill, and this guide will walk you through it step by step — from understanding what drives your course's value, to finding your price range, to testing and refining over time.

But start with this shift in mindset: your goal isn't to find the lowest price people will accept. It's to find the price that reflects the real value of the transformation you deliver.

As Danny Iny of Mirasee has said: "The best thing you can do for your students is charge enough that they take you seriously."

The most important pricing shift you can make is to stop pricing based on what your course contains and start pricing based on what it produces. Nobody buys a course because they want to watch videos. They buy it because they want to become something different on the other side. Tom Buford puts it directly:

"It's the result that you're selling. The value comes post-consumption."

— Tom Buford, Charge What You Deserve

When you price based on content — hours of video, number of modules, pages of worksheets — you're anchoring to the wrong thing entirely.

What Is the Ripple Effect?

The transformation your course delivers extends far beyond the obvious outcome. Tom calls this the "lifetime value" or ripple effect — the downstream consequences of one skill, one mindset shift, or one capability change.

Consider a weight loss course. The surface result is losing 20 pounds. But the real value is everything that comes after: more energy, better sleep, confidence in social situations, clothes that fit, a longer and healthier life with your family. The ripple extends outward in ways the student might not even articulate when they enroll.

The same is true in any niche. A photography course doesn't just teach camera settings — it gives someone the ability to capture their children's milestones, launch a side business, or express themselves creatively for the rest of their life. A business course might be the difference between quitting a draining job and building a career on their own terms.

When you map out the full ripple of your course's transformation, you'll see that your price probably doesn't reflect a fraction of the real value.

Laura's Story: From Local Talk to Online Course

Tom shared the story of Laura, a photography teacher who illustrates these principles in action. Laura was invited to give a talk at a local event. She prepared a presentation, showed up, and offered a $50 follow-up course for anyone interested. Thirty-five to forty people signed up on the spot.

The combination was powerful: Laura had demonstrated her expertise in person, the audience already trusted her, and $50 felt like a no-brainer for what they'd just experienced. When Laura later tried to replicate this online at $100, her signups dropped to 10-20 per session.

Was it the price? Not necessarily. It was the shift in context — online buyers need more convincing because they can't experience you in person first. This is an important lesson: pricing doesn't exist in isolation. Your marketing, your credibility, and how students experience you all feed into what they're willing to pay.

What Happens When You Stop Overloading with Content?

One of the most counterintuitive pricing insights is that more content doesn't mean more value. In fact, it often means less. Tom puts it bluntly:

"We try to show off our brains by putting in so much information. But the student is thinking: get me to where I want to go as quickly and as easily as possible."

— Tom Buford, Charge What You Deserve

A bloated course with 80 video lessons isn't more valuable than a focused course with 20. If anything, the bloated version is less valuable because students get overwhelmed, fall behind, and quit. The most premium courses in any niche tend to be the most focused — they cut ruthlessly to deliver the transformation in the most direct path possible.

This means you can charge more while delivering less raw content, as long as that content is sharp, well-structured, and results-oriented. (This is the same principle behind structuring your course around outcomes rather than topics.)

How Do You Map Your Course's Full Value?

Here's a practical exercise that shifts your pricing perspective:

1. Write down the immediate outcome of your course — the thing a student can do right after finishing.
2. Map the downstream effects over the next year, five years, even ten years. What doors open? What problems disappear?
3. Ask existing students what was most valuable. Tom says the answers almost always surprise creators — it's rarely the thing you spent the most time building. It might be a throwaway comment in a Q&A call, a template you included as a bonus, or the community accountability.

If you teach freelance copywriting, the immediate result might be "write a client proposal." But the downstream effects include landing that first client, building a portfolio, raising rates, leaving a day job, having schedule flexibility, and eventually building a sustainable creative career.

When you see the full picture, pricing a course at $97 for that kind of transformation starts to feel absurd.

The PRICE framework — Personalized support, Results achieved, Industry research, Course depth, and Experience — gives you a systematic way to evaluate what your course should cost. Developed by Mirasee, it replaces guesswork with five concrete factors. Each one pushes your justified price higher or lower.

P — Personalized Support

The single biggest differentiator in course pricing is how much direct access students get to you. A self-paced video course with no interaction sits at the bottom of the value scale — not because the content is bad, but because students are on their own to implement it. The moment you add a human element, value jumps.

Where personalized support lands on the pricing spectrum:

• No interaction (self-paced only): $50–$200
• Group Q&A calls + assignment feedback: $300–$700
• Small-group coaching or hot-seat critiques: $1,000+
• One-on-one calls + personal messaging (Slack, Voxer, email): $3,000+

Ask yourself honestly: how much of you does the student get? That answer heavily influences what you can charge.

R — Results Achieved

This factor captures the specificity and measurability of your course's transformation. Vague outcomes like "feel more confident" or "understand the basics" are real, but they're harder for a prospective student to evaluate — so they support lower prices.

Contrast that with specific, measurable results: "Land your first freelance client within 60 days." "Increase your close rate by 30%." "Publish your photos in a local magazine." These outcomes feel concrete and valuable, and students will pay accordingly.

Think about Laura, the photography teacher. "I teach photography" is a soft description that could mean anything. But "my students' photos get published in local magazines within three months" is a hard, measurable result — and it justifies a completely different price point.

I — Industry Research

What do competitors charge? This matters not because you should copy them, but because their prices anchor your students' expectations. If every course in your niche is $200–$500, pricing at $2,000 requires you to clearly explain why you're different.

Do your research: find 5–10 courses covering similar topics. Note their prices, what's included, and where the gaps are. But here's the key insight — Tom Buford's advice is to look up, not down. Study the premium competitors in your space, not the cheap ones. If you're building your pricing strategy around matching the lowest-priced competitor, you're in a race to zero.

C — Course Depth

The scope of your transformation matters. A mini-course that solves one specific problem in 1–3 hours occupies a different tier than a comprehensive flagship program that walks someone through an entire career change over several months.

This isn't about cramming in more hours — remember, focused is better than bloated. It's about the scope of the transformation. Are you teaching one skill, or guiding someone through a complete methodology? Are students building one project, or developing an entire portfolio? Broader, deeper transformations justify higher prices because they require more expertise to design and deliver well.

E — Experience and Expertise

Your credibility factors into pricing more than you might expect. Published books, certifications, speaking engagements, media features, years of practice, and documented case studies all give students confidence that their investment will pay off.

But here's what most new creators miss: you don't need all of these on day one. Credibility compounds over time. You start with pilot pricing, gather testimonials, refine your method, and then raise prices as your track record grows. Each cohort of satisfied students becomes proof that your course works — and that proof supports your next price increase.

Quick-Reference Summary

Use this checklist to score yourself across all five factors:

• P — Personalized Support: How much direct access do students get to you?
• R — Results Achieved: How specific and measurable is the promised outcome?
• I — Industry Research: Where does your price sit relative to premium competitors?
• C — Course Depth: Does your course teach one skill or guide a complete transformation?
• E — Experience: What credibility markers back up your expertise?

If you score high across all five, you're looking at premium pricing. If you're starting out with a self-paced course, softer outcomes, and limited track record, that's fine — price accordingly and plan to grow. The PRICE framework doesn't give you a magic number. It gives you a defensible range — and having that range means you can price with confidence rather than anxiety.

Course pricing isn't a single number — it's a ladder. The most successful course creators don't offer one product at one price. They build a range of offerings at distinct price points, each designed for a different level of commitment and support.

What Are the Key Psychological Price Thresholds?

Pricing research shows that buyers process certain price points differently. Each threshold requires a corresponding jump in perceived value — not just a little more content, but a fundamentally different experience:

• $97 — Impulse buy. Low enough that most people won't agonize over the decision. Typically self-paced content with no live support.
• $197 — Starter course. A slight pause, but still accessible. Students expect solid content and some community.
• $497 — Professional investment. Students expect real depth, structured support, and some level of interaction.
• $997 — Commitment. This is where a course becomes a commitment. Students expect live coaching, community access, and meaningful implementation support.
• $1,997+ — High-touch. Small groups, direct feedback, extended access. Students expect a significant share of your attention.
• $4,997+ — Elite/certification. Premium or certification experiences with substantial personal attention and guaranteed outcomes.

How Do the Three C's — Content, Community, Coaching — Work?

Tom Buford teaches the "3 C's" framework for moving up the price ladder without drowning students in more videos. Your course's value sits on three legs:

• Content — the lessons, frameworks, and materials that teach the transformation. This is your baseline.
• Community — the peer connection: discussion spaces, accountability partners, shared challenges, group events.
• Coaching — your direct involvement: feedback, Q&A calls, hot seats, one-on-one sessions.

Most creators only think about content, but the other two are often more powerful. You can keep the same core content across tiers and move up the price ladder entirely by adding community and coaching:

• $97: Content only (self-paced).
• $497: Content + community forum + weekly group calls.
• $997: Content + community + small-group coaching + assignment feedback.

The content hasn't changed — but the experience (and the results) are dramatically different.

How Did Laura Use a Dual-Price Strategy?

Remember Laura, the photography teacher from Chapter 2? When she moved online, Tom helped her develop a dual-pricing approach. She offered an evergreen, self-paced version at $100 and a live, facilitated version at $500 — same core content, but with live sessions, feedback on student photos, and group interaction.

Tom's advice on the gap between tiers was critical: "If one's $97 and the other's $197, people just wait for the cheaper one or can't see the difference. But $100 and $500 — now there's a very distinct difference in what you're getting."

What Value-Adds Work Beyond More Content?

The most successful course creators find ways to increase value that don't involve recording more lessons:

• Community events — photo walks, writing sprints, live critiques
• Peer feedback structures — students review each other's work, deepening learning
• Contests and challenges — create motivation and community energy
• Templates and swipe files — practical resources students use in their own work

Tom emphasizes that these additions often become the thing students value most, even though creators tend to obsess over their video content. It's the human connection that transforms a course from a passive learning experience into an active one.

Should I Offer Payment Plans?

Once you're above $500, offering a payment plan significantly increases conversions. A common structure is to offer a slight premium for the payment plan to account for administrative overhead. For example, a $997 course might offer three monthly payments of $347.

Typically 30–50% of buyers choose the payment plan option, so offering it meaningfully expands your addressable market.

How Many Students Do You Actually Need?

Here's the math that changes everything. If your course is priced at $500 and you enroll 20 students per month, that's $10,000 per month — $120,000 per year. Twenty students. Not twenty thousand. Not two thousand. Twenty.

"You don't need thousands of students. $500 times 20 a month is $120K a year. And if you're providing real value, 20 students a month is absolutely achievable."

— Tom Buford, Charge What You Deserve

When you price appropriately, the volume requirement drops dramatically. This means less marketing pressure, more time for each student, and a more sustainable business. The price ladder gives you a path: start where your confidence and credibility allow, then move up as your track record grows.

Your first price isn't your forever price — it's a starting point. The best way to find it is through a pilot launch: a small, low-risk test with real students that validates your pricing before you commit to it at scale. This is the same pilot launch approach used to validate your course itself — applied specifically to pricing.

How Does Pilot Pricing Work?

A good pilot launch has four elements:

1. Price at 30–50% below your target. If you're aiming for $497 long-term, pilot at $247–$297.
2. Limit seats to 10–20 students. Enough to get meaningful feedback, small enough to provide personal attention.
3. Be transparent about the pilot. Tell students: "I'm offering the founding version at a special rate in exchange for your feedback and a testimonial."
4. Gather data systematically. Track what worked, what confused students, and what they valued most.

This approach gives you everything you need for your next launch: testimonials, refined content, confidence in your pricing, and proof that people will pay for your transformation.

Laura, the photography teacher from Chapter 2, followed this path naturally — her $50 local talk was effectively a pilot that validated demand and gathered social proof before she scaled to $100 and $500 tiers online.

How Do You Read Market Signals After Launch?

After your launch — whether pilot or full — pay attention to what the data tells you. Here are the key signals and what they mean:

Signs your price is too low:

• Conversion rate above 5% from a warm email list
• Students telling you "this is a steal"
• Nobody asking about payment plans
• High enrollment but low perceived seriousness

Signs your price may be too high (or your marketing needs work):

• Conversion rate below 1%
• High cart abandonment rates
• "I can't afford it" as the dominant objection

The sweet spot: 2–4% conversion from a warm email list, with a roughly even split between pay-in-full and payment plan choices.

But Tom Buford offers an important caveat:

"If you set a price too high, you can always correct it. Usually when people aren't buying, it's not the price — there's probably something in the marketing that needs to change."

— Tom Buford, Charge What You Deserve

Don't drop your price at the first sign of resistance. Investigate whether the issue is actually your messaging, your audience targeting, or your sales page — not the number itself.

When Is the Right Time to Raise Your Price?

Raise your price when any of these conditions apply:

• You have strong testimonials proving results
• You've meaningfully improved the course content or support
• Demand exceeds your capacity
• It's been 6–12 months since your last adjustment

How Do You Raise Your Price Without Losing Students?

A price increase doesn't have to feel abrupt. Follow these steps:

1. Announce the increase in advance — this creates natural urgency for anyone on the fence.
2. Grandfather existing students at their current rate to maintain trust.
3. Add something visible — a new bonus module, community feature, or coaching element — so the increase feels justified, not arbitrary.
4. Raise by meaningful increments — going from $97 to $197 is a real step up that signals new value. Going from $97 to $117 just looks like inflation.

Each price raise gets easier. Your second will feel much more natural than your first. And with each increase, you'll attract students who are more committed and more likely to succeed — which generates even stronger testimonials for the next round.

Pricing mistakes are expensive in both directions: they cost you revenue, and they cost your students the results they came for. Here are the seven most common traps — and how to avoid them.

Are You Racing to the Bottom?

When you see a competitor drop their price, the instinct is to match them. Then they drop again, and you follow. Tom Buford describes where this leads:

"Somebody sees something less expensive than me, so I have to match that. Then it's a race to see who goes to zero the fastest."

— Tom Buford, Charge What You Deserve

The fix is to look up, not down. Study the premium courses in your niche — the ones charging $500, $1,000, or more. What do they offer? How do they position themselves? That's your north star, not the cheapest competitor.

Are You Giving Your Course Away for Free?

Free courses have completion rates under 5%. When there's no financial commitment, there's no psychological commitment either. Students sign up on impulse, watch the first video, and never come back.

Free lead magnets — checklists, mini-workshops, short trainings — are smart for building your audience. But the course itself needs a price tag. Even $47 creates enough commitment that students take the material seriously.

Are You Addicted to Discounts?

Running a 50%-off sale feels great in the moment — revenue spikes, enrollments surge. The problem is what happens next: your audience learns to wait. If you run a sale every month, nobody pays full price anymore. You've trained your market to expect discounts.

The healthier approach:

• Limit discounts to 2–3 times per year at most
• Consider offering bonuses instead of price cuts — an extra coaching call or template pack increases perceived value without undermining your base price
• Never discount more than 30% on your core offering

Are You Pricing Locally When You Sell Globally?

Tom encounters this constantly: creators who price based on what feels reasonable in their local market, forgetting that their online course reaches potential students worldwide. A $200 course might feel expensive if you're thinking about your neighborhood, but it's modest when your audience spans the English-speaking world.

Online courses aren't constrained by geography. Your market isn't your town — it's everyone with an internet connection and the problem you solve.

Are You Pricing by Time Instead of Transformation?

"My course is 20 hours of content, so I'll charge $20 per hour — that's $400." This logic feels reasonable, and it's completely wrong. Your students don't care how many hours they'll spend watching videos. They care about what they'll be able to do when they're finished.

A 3-hour course that teaches someone to land their first freelance client is worth far more than a 30-hour course that teaches the theory of freelancing without actionable steps. Price based on the value of the transformation, not the volume of the content.

Are You Offering One Price for Everyone?

A single product at a single price means you're leaving money on the table at both ends. Budget-conscious students who would have bought a lighter version walk away. Premium buyers who would have paid more for coaching and community feel underwhelmed by a one-size-fits-all offering.

As Chapter 4 covered in depth, a simple 2–3 tier structure captures value across segments. You don't need a complex product line — just a clear ladder from self-paced content up to a supported experience.

The Meta-Mistake: Are You Never Reviewing Your Pricing?

This is the most insidious mistake because it doesn't feel like a mistake at all. You set a price, students enroll, everything seems fine. So you never revisit it. Meanwhile, your course improves, your testimonials pile up, your expertise deepens — and your price stays frozen at the level you set when you were least confident and least proven.

Commit to reviewing your pricing:

• After every cohort
• When you add meaningful value (new coaching, community features, content)
• At least once a year

Price is the highest-leverage change you can make to your business. A 20% price increase on the same number of students goes straight to your bottom line — no extra content to create, no extra marketing to run.

"Marketing is not yuck. And neither is pricing. When you're genuinely helping people, charging what you're worth is part of the service."

— Tom Buford, Charge What You Deserve