How to think about pricing your cohort-based course
January 1, 2025
The most valuable learning experiences come from hands-on projects and direct expert guidance – these are transformative elements students can't find elsewhere and are willing to pay more for. By enhancing your courses with these high-impact components, you can confidently price them to reflect their true value.
We’re excited to introduce updated course pricing guidance based on student feedback, student interviews, engagement, and conversion data.
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Insight: The right price is based on the value provided to students.
Action: Use the lens of value offered to students, and our updated guidance, to confidently define your course price.
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Our guideline anchors pricing on two dimensions critical to student value - live interaction and projects. We’ve provided resources for crafting exceptional projects and lessons here.
| Live hours | Projects | Price |
|---|---|---|
| 6-8 | 1+ project | $800-$1,200 |
| 8-12 | Multiple projects or a Capstone | |
| High quality pre-recorded videos or reading material | $1,200-$1,800 | |
| 12-20 | Multiple projects and Capstone | |
| High quality pre-recorded videos or reading material | $1,800-$2,450 |
Additional factors may influence your course price, including:
💡 You might think that your audience size impacts pricing. We’ve found that it does not. Our recent analysis looked only at visitors from the Maven marketplace (ie. not direct landing page visits, coming directly from instructor audience). We learned that courses priced at $950 or higher earned 50-100% more for each visit to their landing page vs. lower-priced courses.
More expert feedback and guidance → More student willingness to pay
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Insight: Direct access to you is what students value most.
Action: Make it clear that you will be there to support and guide them, and students will be more willing to buy your course.
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Our research shows that access to trusted, relevant guidance is what makes professionals decide to buy a Maven course. This is because when they really need to understand something critical to their success, self-directed learning is insufficient. When a topic is important to a student, they want expert guidance: this is what will motivate them to buy your course.
More practical, applied projects → More student satisfaction
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Insight: Practical application makes students feel a course was “worth it.”
Action: Include practical, applied projects in your course and students will be more satisfied with its’ impact, and likely to recommend it.
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Research also shows that practical exercises and applied projects are what students value most from live learning. Projects help students apply new skills or ideas. Application is the most impactful way to learn. The higher the price of your course, the more practical application you must include.