Maximizing Your Online Course Profitability
Creating an online course is one of the most scalable business models available today. However, high revenue doesn't always equal high profit. Platform transaction fees, marketing costs, and production expenses can quickly eat into your margins. Our Course Sales Revenue Calculator helps creators, coaches, and educators estimate their true take-home pay before launching.
Whether you are hosting on Teachable, Udemy, Kajabi, or your own WordPress site, understanding your unit economics is key to scaling your ad spend and growing your student base. You can also analyze your overall business health using our Margin Calculator.
Understanding the Numbers
To run a profitable course business, you need to track three key metrics:
- Gross Revenue: The total amount collected from sales (Price × Units Sold).
- Platform Fees: Marketplaces like Udemy can take up to 50-75% of your sale. Self-hosting platforms usually charge a monthly fee plus 2-5% transaction fees.
- Cost of Acquisition (CPA): How much you spend on ads or marketing to acquire one student.
Net Profit = Gross Revenue - (Platform Fees + Marketing Costs)
The Funnel Math
If you are driving traffic to a landing page, your revenue is a function of traffic and conversion rate.
- Benchmark Conversion: A typical course landing page converts at 1% to 3% for cold traffic, and 5%+ for warm leads.
- Revenue Per Visitor (RPV): If your RPV is higher than your Cost Per Click (CPC) on ads, your campaign is profitable.
Use the "Funnel Traffic" tab above to simulate these scenarios.
Pricing Strategies
Low Ticket ($27-$97)
High volume, lower support. Good for tripwires and acquiring leads.
Mid-Range ($297-$997)
The sweet spot for comprehensive video courses. Requires solid marketing.
High Ticket ($1k+)
Often includes coaching or community. High margin but requires sales calls or webinars.