Summary
Price your courses based on course outcomes, live interaction, and projects. Course prices on Maven range from $800-$2,500.
Students pay premium prices for direct guidance on topics are critical to their professional success.
Include more hands-on application opportunities as your course price increases.
Pricing anchors: direct access to an expert and applied projects
One of the most common questions we get is: how should I price my course? Our guidelines anchor pricing on two dimensions critical to student value - live interaction and projects.
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 share course pricing guidance based on student feedback, student interviews, engagement, and conversion data.
Pricing Your Course
Insight: The right price is based on the value provided to students.
Action: Use the lens of value offered to students and our guidance to confidently define your course price.
Our guidelines anchor 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:
Seniority of your student - Courses designed for early career students need to be priced down a bit from our guidance. Conversely, courses for executive audiences can be priced up.
Instructor profile - Our guidance is an average. If the hourly value of your time is above average in your field, it’s natural to reflect this in your pricing.
Number of cohorts - Testimonials and ratings collected each cohort will help establish the value of your course. For your first cohort, price your course in line with the value of the content, but consider a special “beta cohort” discount.
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.
Maven’s pricing research
⭐️ More expert feedback and guidance → More student willingness to pay.
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.
Our research shows that access to trusted 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
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.
Our 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.
Instructor Toolkit: Design, Deliver & Communicate
How can I offer more personalized guidance to my students?
How can I offer more personalized guidance to my students?
Thoughtful instructor feedback on student work is a hallmark of premium courses. Even brief, personalized responses to project submissions and questions will dramatically increase student engagement and satisfaction For example, you can share a Loom, comment on a doc, or respond in your course community.
If you are running your course alone, you might find it hard to offer more personalized feedback to all your students. In this case, think about how you can scale your impact and deliver more value by hiring a course manager or part-time Teaching Assistant to help you (this could be an alum from your past cohorts, for example). When you add more value, your course price can increase.
In addition to providing feedback on student work, use Maven's Reflections feature to understand your students' goals and challenges at key moments (pre, mid, and post-course). These insights help you tailor content, prepare resources, and adjust Q&A time as needed.
How can I deliver more value through practical, applied projects?
How can I deliver more value through practical, applied projects?
Transform your students' learning into real-world success through hands-on projects. While traditional self-paced courses often give students theoretical knowledge, projects empower them to create tangible results they can proudly showcase, get feedback on, and use to apply their new skills. Provide projects that directly support your learning objectives. Some examples:
Synthesizing learning: Have students explore "aha moments" through writing, discussions, or video shares to transform surface knowledge into lasting insights. For discussion prompt ideas, review Maven's resource here.
Templates and Frameworks: Provide practical tools students can apply immediately, like product launch frameworks or research templates.
Practice Projects: Build mastery through repetition with activities like mock interviews or code practice.
Creation Projects: Empower students to build something relevant, like marketing campaigns or portfolio pieces.
Presentation Projects: Allow students to demonstrate their work through live demos or recordings, reinforcing learning and gathering feedback.
Capstone Projects: Challenge students to bring together everything they've learned into one significant achievement. This is their opportunity to create something substantial that showcases their new capabilities - whether it's launching a fully-tested product prototype, presenting a comprehensive product requirements doc, or shipping a production-ready application. Capstone projects can become powerful portfolio pieces that demonstrate real-world expertise to employers and clients.
👉 For more project guidance including examples from real Maven courses, check out the guide here.
What's the right mix of lecture, discussion, and hands-on practice in a live session?
What's the right mix of lecture, discussion, and hands-on practice in a live session?
Your live sessions should be high-impact learning experiences. To design these experiences, aim for less presenting, and more doing. While it's tempting to create elaborate slide decks and pack every minute with information, your students will get more value from focused, interactive workshops. Build each session around 1-2 key objectives and follow the proven "I do, We do, You do" framework:
Demonstrate a concept
Practice it together
Then let students apply it themselves.
This approach helps your students internalize and actually use what they're learning, rather than drowning in information overload.
In a 90-minute workshop, you might cycle through the "I do, We do, You do" framework a couple times. Here's a timing breakdown with teaching ideas:
👉 For more guidance on building your lessons using “I do, We do, You do,” including a video that explains each section, check out our guide here.
What's the best way to create high-quality asynchronous content?
What's the best way to create high-quality asynchronous content?
In Maven, asynchronous content is referred to as a lesson. How many lessons, and what type of each, you include will depend on what course format you pick. Your goal is to amplify student learning by choosing the best format for your learning outcomes.
Workshop-based courses: use lessons to enhance your real-time teaching. In live session-focused courses, your lesson materials work hand-in-hand with your workshop sessions. Think of lessons as powerful supplements that prime students for deeper discussions and spark more meaningful interactions. Whether it's a thought-provoking case study for pre-session reflection or a framework that reinforces live concepts, these materials help students squeeze maximum value from every live moment.
Hybrid courses: create rich self-paced learning When running a hybrid course, your lesson content becomes the cornerstone of student learning. These materials - from comprehensive articles to video deep-dives - replace traditional lectures and deliver core insights. Pack them with substance: each lesson should spark those "aha!" moments that drive real understanding. Build them thoughtfully with frameworks, templates, and carefully curated resources that students can immediately apply to their work.
In both formats, your lessons might include:
Articles that unpack complex concepts
Frameworks that guide decision-making
Real-world case studies that illustrate principles in action
Templates that streamline implementation
Curated resource collections for deeper exploration
Video content that demonstrates techniques in action
👉 For real lesson examples from top-rated Maven courses, review our lesson and asynchronous content guide.
Should I communicate a price increase to my course waitlist?
Should I communicate a price increase to my course waitlist?
We suggest emailing your current waitlist about any planned price increases.
This is a powerful opportunity to create urgency while building trust. Giving advance notice with the option to lock in current pricing (for a limited time) will create a compelling reason to enroll now. Your transparency will also create trust in with these students.
We've provided a template below as a jumping-off point. Remember to write in your own voice with your unique POV. Tip: lead with the student impact and share student testimonial screenshots that align with your price increase
💡How to email your waitlist from Maven
Click “New Broadcast”
Click the “Send to” dropdown and select Waitlist
If you have multiple courses, repeat for each course
✍️ Broadcast email template:
Subject: Heads up - [Course Name] pricing is changing soon ✨
Hey [Name]!
Over the past few months, I've had dozens of conversations with the alumni of [Course Name]...And they're crushing it - (ex. landing promotions, launching successful products, and transforming their approach to [specific skill]).
Their success stories have been so remarkable that I’m adjusting my course price to reflect the real-world value graduates are getting. Starting [Date], [Course Name] will increase from $[Current] to $[New] - but until then, you can join at the founding price and get everything that's helping students succeed: hands-on practice, expert guidance, and a powerful network to accelerate your growth.
What's new? I’ve been busy making the course even better. In the last [timeframe, # of cohorts], I’ve added:
[New awesome thing 1]
[New awesome thing 2]
[New awesome thing 3]
What this means for you:
You can still grab a spot at the current price ($[Current]) until [Date]
You'll get everything that makes the course special - [key benefit 1] and [key benefit 2]
You'll learn alongside amazing folks from [Company 1], [Company 2], and other leading companies
I'm super proud of how the course has evolved, and it's thanks to supportive people like you who've been following this journey.
Ready to dive in? [Link to enroll]
Got questions? Just hit reply - I'm always here to chat!
Cheers, [Your name]
P.S. Wondering if this is for you? Here's what [Recent Graduate Name] had to say: "[Brief, punchy testimonial]"