Methodology
This page explains how the Course / Digital-Product Platform Profit Calculator estimates revenue, costs, and profit, and how it ranks platforms. All formulas are transparent and implemented in open source code.
Revenue model
Monthly revenue is the sum of enabled streams:
Course sales
courseSalesRevenue = monthlyEnrollments × avgCoursePrice when course sales are enabled.
Memberships
membershipRevenue = recurringMembers × membershipPrice when memberships are enabled.
Coaching, downloads, bundles
Flat monthly amounts you enter when each stream is enabled — useful for SKUs that are not modeled as enrollments × price.
Cost model
monthlyCost = platformSubscription + transactionFees + operatingCosts
Platform subscription is the cheapest published tier (including $0 free tiers) that fits your stated number of courses/products. When multiple tiers fit, we pick the lowest monthly price.
Transaction feesare modeled as a percentage of gross monthly revenue for the selected tier, plus optional flat per-sale fees (for example, Teachable's free-plan $1 + ~10% approximation in our config). Payment processor fees (e.g. Stripe) are not modeled separately.
Operating costsare the sum of marketing spend, content production, contractors/VAs, and other monthly costs you enter. Your "platform budget" is used for recommendation scoring (cost fit), not automatically added as a cash cost line item.
Ranges: conservative, base, and upside
Revenue scenarios use simple multipliers on total revenue:
- Conservative: 65% of base revenue
- Base: Your inputs as entered
- Upside: 140% of base revenue
Transaction fees recompute on scaled revenue in each scenario so fee-heavy plans reflect volume changes.
First-year projection
The first-year estimate compounds your monthly growth rate on both monthly enrollments and recurring members each month, then sums twelve months of revenue and costs. Platform subscription is held constant from your current product count (we do not model automatic tier jumps mid-year as catalog size changes).
Break-even month is the first month where cumulative base-case profit turns positive within the 12-month window.
Platform scoring
Each provider has editorial scores (1–10) across eight dimensions: course builder quality, marketing tools, community features, checkout flexibility, design customization, analytics depth, beginner-friendliness, and all-in-one value.
The recommendation engine combines these with your answers:
- Preference flags (email, community, coaching tools, checkout, branding, simplest setup) boost relevant dimensions
- Creator type adjusts weights (e.g., memberships emphasize community)
- Cost fit compares modeled total monthly cost to your stated platform budget
- Main priority applies additional boosts (profit, lowest cost, all-in-one, beginners, marketing, community)
- Slug-specific nudges encode common tradeoffs (e.g., Kajabi for marketing depth, Podia for budget simplicity)
Important disclaimers
- Pricing and fee schedules change — always verify on each provider's site.
- We do not scrape or call live pricing APIs.
- This is not financial, tax, or legal advice.
- Scores are editorial assessments, not objective measurements.