The expected value of a $997 course is usually negative

The expected value of a $997 course is usually negative, and the math is simple

Guru course pricing survives on one trick: it makes you price the outcome instead of the product. "The course pays for itself with one client!" Sometimes true. The way to check is expected value, and the inputs are not mysterious.

Take a $997 course teaching freelancing. To price it honestly you need three numbers the sales page never gives you: what fraction of buyers finish the material, what fraction of finishers land paying work, and what that work actually pays in year one. Multiply it through and most courses need a completion-to-income rate north of 20 percent just to break even against a free alternative, and completion rates for self-paced online material hover in the single digits.

The comparison I use: the same $997 spent on used equipment, software, or a freelance listing budget produces guaranteed capability, while the course produces the possibility of capability. That difference is the whole argument. You are not buying knowledge, which is mostly free in 2026. You are buying structure and accountability, and you should price those accordingly.

None of this means courses are scams. The good ones compress a real practitioner's years into a weekend. It means the price is only justified when your honest estimate of follow-through survives contact with your calendar. The people who finish courses would mostly have succeeded without them, and the people who do not finish would have spent the $997 better on literally anything else.

Price your own follow-through first. The course is the cheap part.

The full expected-value math: https://firenomics.com/income/are-guru-courses-worth-it/