How to price your online sessions

Many centers find it difficult to set a specific price for their online sessions.

In situations such as the confinement to which the COVID-19 pandemic has led us, offering their services online is the only way for most businesses to continue to receive income, but it is not easy to decide what rate the sessions carried out in this way should have.

Many centers, in fact, do not even set a price and end up offering their services online at zero cost, an understandable and generous decision that, if the confinement is prolonged, may force many of them to close.

For this reason, we are going to explain why you should consider the option of continuing to charge for your services even if you offer them online, and we will give you a series of keys that will help you establish a fair rate for your clients and for you.

Let’s go for it.

Although everyone is confined to the house, many people need to maintain their previous habits as much as this situation allows.
The reasons are varied, but the main ones are related to preserving physical and mental well-being: maintaining a routine helps to cope with so many hours at home.

Many of these habits require the supervision of a professional, and this is where you come into the equation.
If your clients were paying for your services before confinement, why shouldn’t they now if you can offer them online?

Keeping the link with them will help you to keep them loyal during this stage so that they will continue to be there when you return to normality.
On the other hand, charging for your online services will enhance the value of your work from home and you and your clients will do your bit to keep the small-scale economy active during these days.

Of course there are always very different cases: some customers may not have a job at the moment, but that is not always an impediment to pay for a class. Evaluate each case carefully and keep options up your sleeve for these customers who are in a special situation, such as a free additional service that allows you to maintain contact with them and their loyalty to your business.

When pricing your online services you can consider the following factors:

It is possible that in your case, the fact of providing online sessions may lead to a substantial difference in the contents that you can offer via the Internet, either because they are very practical or because the fact of being online greatly modifies the environment more conducive to take advantage of the service.

In such a case, it is obvious that you will have to find a price that is more competitive than the in-person classes, according to the difference in the service now that you are offering it online.

You can draw up a list of features that your service offers and cross off those that you cannot offer online or not with the same quality as on-site.
This will serve to subtract the percentage of features absent in online mode from the on-site price.

Do you offer the same number of online sessions for an activity as when they were face-to-face?
If so, the price of the session based on this parameter could remain unchanged.

On the other hand, if due to the greater availability of your users you now offer more online sessions for an activity than in its face-to-face mode, you may be able to consider a reduction in the price of each session to bring the total turnover of the activity to the figures prior to the confinement.

Many clients value very highly the fact that a service is provided by their usual professional.

If you have several professionals in your center but these days you are only in charge of the online sessions, it might be a good idea to compensate your clients with a reduction in the price of the session due to the impossibility of dealing with their usual professional.

If, on the other hand, you have always been the only person in charge of offering the services of your center, the usual rate could be the same in online format.

Many businesses have very specialized machinery and other elements equally specific to their sector that are unlikely to be present in any home.

For this reason, if these resources are usually part of your face-to-face services, it is logical to consider the option of reducing their fee. Consider the extent to which they are an essential part of your sessions and the alternatives available in almost any home to set a reasonable rate.

Taking these factors into account you can set appropriate rates for your online services.
Don’t panic if by making calculations you reduce your prices considerably: as long as they are fair and consistent with the current situation they will always be a better option than offering your services at zero cost.

You can also devise additional resources that add value to your online sessions, not only to maintain a fair price for your services, but also to differentiate your online modality from face-to-face in terms of content.

At the end of the day, in a scenario like the current one, when you reopen you will surely be able to offer your face-to-face sessions to a reduced number of people, giving rise to a hybrid “face-to-face-online” system, which will allow you to attend to a good part of the center’s users through the Internet.