More and more trainers are now turning to online offerings. But what price is appropriate for your online training or webinar? The new international fee recommendation gives you a clear and simple answer. This way, you can sell your online trainings appropriately:
The question of price for online training is likely as old as online training itself among trainers, coaches, and consultants. However, this question doesn't only arise for trainers who have had to switch to online training (due to the current crisis). Even if you have been offering online formats for a while, pricing can often be challenging:
On one hand, clients want an affordable product. After all, companies in particular hope to save time on in-person training through online training, and thus also money. According to the 2019 fee study, the greatest financial burden for trainers is the increasing reduction of training duration. But be careful:
What costs nothing is also worth nothing!
The quality must also be right, of course. And uniting both in a pricing model is a challenge for you as a trainer. After all, a product that is too cheap may be perceived as inferior from a buyer's perspective; a price that is too high for online training can make customer acquisition more difficult for you.
And with every compromise, you still have to properly account for your own working hours, your expertise, and additional expenses. Your working time for preparation and providing the tools/software is also part of your online training.
Regardless of customer wishes, various factors influence the price of your online training: for example, whether you want to offer a pure online training or a blended learning option, how much content your online trainings or courses include, and what your own standing in the market is (beginner, professional, or experienced senior).
Refer to the new fee recommendation
For simpler pricing of online trainings, the BDVT (Professional Association for Training, Consulting, and Coaching from Germany) and the VBT (Association for Business Trainers in Austria) published a fee recommendation specifically for online formats on June 16, 2020.
Based on the general fee recommendations from the BDVT, the associations suggest the following basic formula for the price of online training:
3 online sessions of 90 minutes = 1 daily rate!
In the following overview, you can see the price recommendations for live online trainings at all experience levels from starter to senior professional:
Area | Starter | Professionals | Senior-Prof. |
Online training with standard content per 90 min. | from €400 | from €460 | from €860 |
Online training with specially developed content per 90 min. | from €500 | from €660 | from €1,100 |
Online coaching per unit. | from €200 | from €275 | from €440 |
Source: Pricing for Online Formats - BDVT / VBT // Own representation
Additionally, you can find price recommendations for web talks and recordings of online trainings for repeated use in the official fee recommendation. You can view the complete fee recommendation for online formats here: Pricing for Online Formats / BDVT Website.
If you offer a virtual blended learning option (that is, the combination of live online training and online course), you should naturally adjust your prices accordingly: By offering an online course with additional content such as materials or exercises, you increase the value for your customers. And ultimately 'value added' is what your customers pay for! What pricing models we recommend for blended learning can be found in this article: Expanding Trainings: How to Calculate the Price for Your Online Course.
Now that you have calculated your optimal price, it's time to sell. We also have 7 selling arguments for you, with which your next sales conversation for online training or virtual blended learning will be successful:
