What does it cost to create a course?

Creating an online course can cost up to $5000 or more dollars a year depending on how you choose to market it, what site you host it and the material involved with content creation. The good news is that it doesn't have to cost that much.In this blog, my goal is to take to mystery out of it and help you to know how you could reduce the costs and still create a marketable course

1. Online platform- This goes without saying, but you will need a site in which you can host your course on. Now here is the good news you have a ton of options. You could host your course on wordpress and use that for your website as well....kind of killing two birds with one stone. Or you could consider using a digital learning platform like thinkific, kajabi, teachable etc. Thinkific and Teachable have free options to host your content, but the free options do often have limitations (i.e. the number of courses you can create or the number of students you can have, or if you can create a drip schedule). Wordpress can be challenging to figure out that is why thinkific and the other sites often have more courses because they are user friendly.
2. Video1 YouTube $0. With YouTube, you could create unlisted videos and then embed them into your course. This is 100% free.#2 Vimeo $7 to $75 a Month. Your next option is to go with Vimeo but this option often has a lot of restrictions like you can only upload 5 GB a week etc,#3 Google Drive- Google drive- you can also upload videos to your google drive and share those, but eventually once you hit The first 15GB of storage you will need to purchase a storage plan.
3. Creating a domain name- This on average is around $10 per year. Many people chose to create a domain for their course so that it is easier to find. For example if you have a domain name it would look like: https://nicolyawilliams.com/plan-to-publish-academy/ vs https://nicolyawilliams.thinkific.com/courses/plan-to-publish-academy  The longer the URL the harder it is for people to locate or search. In order to save money with this option you could use Bit.ly which is a website that will give you a FREE bit/ly website address that shortens the longer URL's as not to overwhelm your followers.
4. Laptop- This goes without saying, but you will be doing A LOT of work on your computer so you want to make sure it's good quality and will grow with you. If you already have a laptop you're in great shape. If not do not try to skimp out on this cost, because you will want a computer you can have for some time. Even after your first launch you will continue to expand on your course and engage with your audience and this just can't happen effectively from a tablet or phone.
5. Video cameras. Video is a great way to connect with your audience so you may find that there are times you want to record videos of yourself through the process. You have the option of recording using a video camera which can be a few hundred bucks. The good news is now most tablets and phones record in HD (if you use the back facing camera) so you can literally use that, with some editing software (i.e. Imovie) and be good to go.
6. Ring light. This goes along with #4. You may have times where you want to record yourself for your students. While many people will invest in ring lights ($50-$200) to ensure that they have good lighting wherever they go you can also just use the natural good ol sunlight. Consider finding a place in your home with a nice background and natural sun light and this will definitely do the trick.
7.  Screen capture software. Many online courses, especially those with tutorials will want to share their screen with their learners to walk them through something. You can chose to use a software like screencast o matic which is around $16 for the year and pretty easy to learn to use. It also has editing tools where you can add text, add voice overs etc. If you're looking to save on this you can consider the free membership with zoom which will allow you to screen record for up to 40 minutes. Then you can download this and put it on your YouTube channel as unlisted for your students to see once they have the link.
8. Slide presentation. You will likely want to create slides for your course as well as incorporating different formats for learning is important. The good news is there is no cost here. You can use google slides for FREE and super easy to use all you need is a gmail account. If you have the microsft office suite you can choose to use Powerpoint as well. Per year that is around $70.
9. Setting up a way to take payments. There are many different options to take payments for your course.  Having a safe and secure payment processor is imperative because you want your learners to feel safe purchasing from you. Most learning platforms have that built in but understand there is a fee that they keep when processing it. So in this case it is not an up front cost. You also have the option of#1 Stripe –  Stripe will take all major credit cards to collect payments. They charge you a flat rate of 2.9% + 30¢ per successful charge as long as you're doing under $1 million in volume per year.#2 PayPal –  Paypal also uses a flat-rate pricing structure is a base rate of 2.9% plus $0.30 per transaction The only  problem with Paypal is not everyone uses them so sometimes it's good to use stripe instead or consider using both.  is not everyone uses is PayPal so when I sell courses I like to offer both options because like me there are people who like to use just that solution.#3 Online learning platform – The final option to consider using the online platform you have your course hosted on. Thinkific charges you the fees from stripe or paypal, but not a spefic fee.  I believe that teachable is the same.
10. Email. This can range from free to $119 a month. It is imperative that you invest in an email platform. The last thing you want to do is enroll 100 people in your course and then manually use your gmail to send them each emails. I highly recommend active campaign, but there are other options like mailer lite, convert kit, active campaign. Mailchimp has a free option, but understand that it limits certain things you can do. So it's important you do your research to find an email server that will work for you and your growing business.
11. Webinar- Webinars are a GREAT tool to get in front of your audience and let them experience who you are and what you can support them with. I do webinars often and enjoy the opportunity to engage. Webinars are great tools to teach your audience something and then offer to support them more in depth by selling your product at the end. I highly recommend you have an account to host webinars. You could utilize Zoom for free, but you will only get 40 minutes, and while that sounds long most webinars are around an hour in length. Consider upgrading your membership with zoom or investing in other webinar options.
12. Advertising. This is 100% personal how you want to do this. You could spend nothing and advertise organically using the followers you already have or you could spend thousands of dollars. Advertising is one of the best ways to start driving traffic to your course and making sales. If you do choose to advertise I highly recommend using Facebook ad's as it is connected with Instagram and those are the top two social media platforms. The neat thing is you can pick an ad budget and adjust it as you see fit. The reality is you don't have to start with ad's but it is good to consider this as an option. I did no begin with ad's, but now I use them all the time. It has really helped my business become more visible.

As you can tell you can definitely create and launch a course on a budget. So do not let money be the thing that stops you from sharing your expertise with the world. Once your business continues to grow and you make more profits from your course you can consider making more investments later down the road.