Today we’re talking about how much it actually costs to launch an online course! I’ll be sharing the last three launches I had and the exact expenses that went into those launches. These will be the exact numbers so that you can see how they’re different and how the profit can vary. I’m excited to dive into this and show you exactly what went into each launch. We’ll talk about the Business Confident Photographer Course launch in 2020, the Reels Mini Course launch in 2021, and the Instagram Growth Course launch in 2023. Let’s dive in!

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The Business Confident Photographer Launch

This was a course that I created for photographers about the business side of things. For this launch, I spent $1,500 on Facebook ads and I spent $2K a month with a Facebook ads team. I did that for about 4 months – a month or so before the launch, the month of, and 2 months after. I also spent $3K on email copy and sales page copy. That’s $8500 in expenses. The launch generated us $25K, so that means we had a profit of $16,500, which is pretty good! If we’re being picky, we could take another $4K off that profit for the 2 months after the launch that I ran the Facebook ads, too – that brings me down to $12,500.

I share all of that to say that my profit margin was lower than I would want it to be for a course like that. It was one of my first big course launches. I spent a lot of time preparing for this and didn’t really profit the way I expected to.

The Reels Mini Course Launch

So, about a year after I launched the Business Confident Photographer, I launched the Reels Mini Course. This course launched in October 2021. I hired a videographer, had a video editor on my team, and paid for some Facebook ads. I also had my virtual assistant who I paid extra during the launch and WebinarJam. I ended up with about $2,199 in expenses. That’s WAY less than the almost $10K I spent on the previous launch. During the launch, we made about $40K, which means we had a profit of roughly $37,800. Insane, right? This was definitely my most profitable course and my most time effective course. I kept my expenses really low and that proved to me that spending more didn’t necessarily mean bigger results.

The Instagram Growth Course Launch

The last course launch I want to recap is the Instagram Growth Course which was our most recent launch. I spent a total of $279.35 on Facebook ads to my warm audience but didn’t see a ton of conversions on that, so I shut those off for a few days. That was the only direct expense I had for the launch. My part time team member did work a lot on this launch but it’s hard to parse out of her pay what exactly was the course. I talked more about this launch in a recent podcast episode, but the bottom line is that it didn’t go as well as we’d hoped.

Time vs. Money for Launches

Now that we’ve talked through the numbers, I wanted to talk about the time we invested in each launch. There is a difference in the time and money spent in each launch. For the Business Confident Photographer, I spent 173 hours working on that course. That included ideation, creating slides, outlines, filming, editing, and loading into Kajabi. That means I made about $95/hour in profit.

For the Reels Mini Course, I spent 79 hours working on the course. I cut out over 100 hours from the last launch. This was a shorter course, too and I had people like my VA to hand things off to during prep. With the profit we made on that course, it was about $478/hour. That’s crazy, right? Being strategic about who I brought in to help me really made a difference. The Reels Mini Course was also very timely, and my audience really wanted it, too.

Now, to be honest, I don’t have the exact number of hours I put into the Instagram Growth Course – I don’t track as well as I should as a busy working mom! Our expenses were lower, and I think I probably put in hours somewhere between the previous two launches.

What Did I Learn?

When I look back on these courses, I think I learned that done is better than perfect. I made this mistake with the Instagram Growth Course – I wanted everything to be perfect… from the slides to the sales pages to the emails. I spent way too much time worrying about them being perfect and not getting them done. I remember looking back at the other two launches and thinking how much I let go of – they weren’t perfect – and they still did really well.

I also learned that you don’t need the biggest, fanciest team to launch something well. Instead, being strategic about who you work with during a launch is more important. I could have invested in different things, but I didn’t have the budget – and that’s okay. I’m learning every time we do a launch – about how to make good investments, see good ROI, and how to utilize who I have on my team. There’s so much pressure to hire people to do things for you and while it can be helpful, it’s not the only way to do something.

I hope that seeing the reality of how much it costs to launch an online course is helpful for you! If you’re listening and you have ideas about what to talk about next, please send in your requests! I really do want to know what you want to hear about in future episodes. Email me at [email protected] with your questions!! I can’t wait to hear from you! Don’t forget to leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, too. We appreciate all of the support and love!