I feel like there’s a big misconception about the cost of developing an online course – I know that a lot of you think it has to be a big, expensive exercise, and this plays into your fear of launching and nobody buying. 

Because, after all, you don’t want to invest a ton of money into something that nobody ends up buying, right?!

Today, I’m breaking down how much it costs to develop an online course – and I think you’ll be surprised that it doesn’t have to cost as much as you think. 

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How much does it cost to develop an online course?

Online course creation cost: Planning tools

I just use Google Docs for this, which is 100% free. I also love Airtable and Notion, both of which are also free. 

If you’re more of a mind-mapper, then there’s a great free mind-mapping tool called Draw.io

Trello is another great option because it makes it easy to move around your course topics and structure, and you can see it all visually in front of you. 

 

 

Online course creation cost: Creating slides

You don’t have to do slides – you could choose to do 100% direct to camera, however that’s a lot more advanced and I wouldn’t recommend it for your first course, unless you’re already a pro with video or you have a good video editor to do it for you. 

For slides, I use a combination of PowerPoint and Canva. PowerPoint isn’t free, but you could use Google Slides or Keynote as a free alternative. Canva has a free version also, which should be all you need!

If you want your online course slides to look pretty, I recommend the templates on Creative Market.

Online course creation cost: Recording and editing video

If you have a Mac, you can record your screen and audio using the Quicktime app that’s already installed on your computer.

If you don’t have a Mac, you can download and install the Zoom app for free and record your slides and audio that way. Zoom is a conference calling app, but you can just have a call with yourself, share your screen and hit record. 

Those are the two free ways of doing it, and they’re great if you’re on a minimal budget – but you can’t use those apps to edit – so you’d either have to edit it in a third party app, or just not edit it at all. 

I personally use an app called Screenflow for recording and editing my slides AND direct-to-camera video content (and I actually use it to record my videos for Youtube as well because it’s WAY faster than iMovie). 

Screenflow is a one-off cost of $129 USD, and it is worth every cent in time it will save you editing your videos.

Ok, now – let’s talk audio for a second: Do you need a microphone to create an online course?

I’m going to say that no, you don’t HAVE to have one, but using a microphone will mean better sound quality and therefore a better experience for your students. A better experience usually means you can charge a higher price for your course. 

You can get a decent microphone for around $100 to $150. Here are two USB microphones I recommend: 

• Rode NT USB
• Audio Technica ATR2100

If you’re recording video, you need a camera. Or, you can use the webcam built into your computer – that’s totally fine too.

Cameras can be MEGA expensive, but you don’t need that. I use this webcam by Logitech for recording my online course videos. 

Online course creation cost: Hosting your online course

There is only one platform I use and recommend for hosting your digital course, and that’s Kajabi. 

Kajabi literally does EVERYTHING you need it to – from being a landing page builder, a checkout tool, to hosting your course videos (so you don’t slow down your website). 

You can even use it as a tool for building an email list from scratch, which is something I’ll chat about in a sec.

Kajabi takes care of ALL the back end tech – so rather than having to piece together various plugins on a WordPress site, or having to figure out how to do the billing yourself, or how to code and design a fancy sales page – you can do it all in one place, really easily. 

At $149 USD per month, it’s not cheap, BUT unlike some of the cheaper platforms, Kajabi doesn’t take a % of your sales. 

Plus, absolute worst case scenario? You sign up for a month, launch your course and if nobody buys, you can cancel it. 

A big hesitation I often hear is: If I offer lifetime access to my course, do I need to pay for Kajabi forever? And that’s a no. You can always choose to take your course off Kajabi and make the files downloadable for your students from a Dropbox folder. That way they have lifetime access to them. 

Online course creation cost: Launching your online course

Ok, firstly – there’s Facebook Ads. Do you NEED to run Facebook Ads? No, you don’t have to. It's possible to have a successful online course launch with a small Facebook Ads budget, or even no budget.

There are other free ways to market your online course launch, like collaborations. These can be super successful too. 

For a free alternative, you could do a FB Live into a FB Group. 

You also need an email marketing tool – somewhere to collect email addresses and be able to send out emails to them during your launch. Believe me, this is CRUCIAL. 

Kajabi can do this for you. Or alternatively, you can use a third-party one like ActiveCampaign, Mailchimp or Convert Kit and plug it into Kajabi.

And that’s it.

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