Online Course Vs Membership: How to Differentiate Between them

Introduction: Online course Vs Membership

A lot of people get confused about the differences between an online course Vs membership.

The biggest reason is the pricing factor. People view an online course as a one off payment, and a membership as a recurring payment.

But there is so much more to it than that.

So, let’s get into it…

Online Course Vs Membership – What exactly are they?

Online Courses:

OK so let’s look at online courses first. An online course Vs membership, is a structured way of teaching a student something on your website. It can be one lesson or a whole host of lessons and topics, depending on what is needed to teach them everything you want them to know.

A lesson/top/module, (different platforms call them different things), can consit of anything from a bit of text to images, videos, transcripts, MP3s, PDF downloads and more.

Once the student has completed the lesson they can click complete lesson and move onto the next. They can also move backwards and forwards and lessons can be linear, (you need to complete the previous lesson), or free form, (complete in any order).

You can also add things like certificates and gamification in the forms of leaderboards etc. You can also track that students have completed lessons and add a quiz, or an assignment, to make sure they have understood everything they have learnt.

An online course can be a one off payment or students can pay over the period of time that the course lasts for. So, for example, if the course lasts for 6 months then you can offer a 6 month payment plan. Please note: that if the course is self-study, and they get access to everything straight away, check your legal position on offering a payment plan. It can sometimes be seen as buy now, pay later. If this is the case,  you need to be a registered creditor to offer it.

You can also add the option of extra support on your course, by adding them to a social media group, Slack channel, or by having one to one sessions.

You do also need to check VAT Moss rules for offering self study courses without any extra support as they can incur an extra VAT charge.

Memberships:

Memberships are usually run on a recurring payment basis (monthly or annually) and can include a variety of different things, including online courses and support. A significant differnece between an online course Vs membership, is that you don’t really need any special software to run a membership. You could simply use a Paypal button and an email list that sends out what you want your members to know/learn. You can also add support such as a Slack channel or a Facebook group etc. Please note that you cannot just charge for members to be in a Facebook group (it’s against Facebooks rules) so you will need to offer emails, Zoom calls etc. as part of the package.

When it comes to membership software or plugins there is not usually a structured approach (unlike online courses). You usually have a number of pages that you protect and can only be seen by members who have access.

You can create a structure yourself, by creating pages that have links to other pages, but it can sometimes be a long, drawn out process.

Memberships are ideal for having a page of videos that you can just add to or content you want to protect. So, for example, if you have a Facebook group and have a Zoom once. amonth and the recordings are placed on a page protected by a login form.

Conclusion: Online Course Vs Membership

As mentioned at the start people often confuse having a membership with a recurring or monthly payment and a course with a one off payment. But as you can see there is much more to it than that.

It depends on the structure and what you are offering. In my membership, The Tech Tavern, you get added to a Facebook group, get sent emails, have a weekly tech support call via Zoom and have access to a number of online courses as part of your recurring monthly fee.

When it comes to online courses Vs membership it does not really matter which you choose, but if you are using WordPress and are choosing between an online course and membership plugin, they differ greatly in the options they offer.

Most membership plugins just offer the option to take recurring payments and protect certain pages. However, some online course plugins offer both stuctured courses and protected pages (as well as recurring payments).

But that’s a whole new topic for another blog!

The best way to choose is to revist your plans, look at your audience and decide what materials and support you are going to offer in what type of medium.

Stay tuned, and to make sure you don’t miss a blog post, sign up to our newsletter to be emailed the rest of the blogs in the online course series.

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