Online courses aren't the only way to monetize your expertise. Ebooks, coaching, speaking, and memberships each have different economics, time requirements, and scaling potential. Here's a practical comparison to help you decide which format — or combination of formats — fits your business.
Courses vs. Ebooks
An ebook is the fastest knowledge product to create — a few weeks of focused writing, some formatting, and you have something to sell. But ebooks typically sell for $10-30, which means you need high volume to generate meaningful revenue.
Courses command higher prices ($100-500+ for a cohort course) because they offer more than information: they provide structure, accountability, community, and a guided path to a specific result. A reader can skim an ebook and put it on the shelf. A course participant has assignments, deadlines, and often a group that keeps them moving forward.
When to choose an ebook: As a lead magnet or low-price entry point. Many successful course creators offer a $15 ebook that introduces their framework, then upsell to a $300 course that walks people through the implementation.
Courses vs. 1-on-1 Coaching
Coaching is the most natural starting point for many experts. You already know how to help people one at a time. The problem is economics: you're trading hours for dollars, and there's a ceiling. Executive coaches typically charge $100-500+ per hour, but even at the high end, you're limited by the number of hours in a week.
Dr. Lisa Chu, a healthcare professional who created "Self-Care for the Caring Professional," found a way to bridge the gap. She packaged her core coaching concepts and activities into a 5-week online course, then offered live coaching feedback through the course community. The result: she could serve 10 participants simultaneously while delivering a similar depth of guidance.
The math tells the story: a 5-week course at $199 with 10 participants generates $2,000 in revenue for roughly 10 hours of facilitation time — comparable to her hourly coaching rate, but reaching far more people.
When to choose coaching: When you're still learning what your clients need. Start with coaching, pay attention to patterns, then package the repeatable parts into a course. Keep coaching available as a premium add-on.
Learn about group coaching programs →
Courses vs. Speaking
A great keynote can inspire an audience for an hour. But inspiration without follow-through fades quickly. Research on learning retention shows that without reinforcement, people forget most of what they heard within a week.
The real power of speaking is as a funnel, not a standalone product. A conference talk introduces your ideas to hundreds of people at once. A percentage of those people want to go deeper — and that's where your course comes in.
Some speakers create a "follow-up course" specifically for event attendees: weekly summaries of the talk's key concepts, implementation exercises, discussion threads for accountability, and a live Q&A session. This extends a single speaking engagement into weeks of ongoing value — and ongoing revenue.
When to choose speaking: To build authority and fill your course pipeline. Use the talk to teach one key insight, then invite attendees to join your course for the full implementation.
Courses vs. Membership Sites
Courses have clear endpoints — "In 6 weeks, you'll be able to do X." Memberships provide ongoing access to a community, new content, and continuing education. The revenue models are different too: courses are typically one-time purchases ($100-500), while memberships charge monthly ($20-100/month).
The challenge with memberships is the content treadmill: subscribers expect new value every month, and churn is constant. Many creators burn out trying to feed the membership beast.
A better model: Offer courses for specific transformations, then invite graduates into a membership for ongoing community and support. The course does the heavy teaching; the membership provides the ongoing connection. This way, your teaching content is created once and refined over time, while the membership value comes primarily from the community itself.
Which Format Should You Start With?
If you're currently coaching or consulting 1-on-1, start by identifying the patterns — the advice you give every client, the exercises you always assign, the frameworks you repeat. Package those into a course.
If you're a writer or speaker, start with a short course that builds on your existing content. Use your audience as your first students.
If you're starting from scratch, a pilot course is the lowest-risk way to test your idea. Teach 5-10 people, get feedback, and iterate before building something larger.
Most successful knowledge businesses eventually combine multiple formats — a book that builds the audience, a course that delivers the transformation, coaching for premium clients, and speaking to fill the pipeline. But you don't need to build all of those at once. Start with one, prove it works, and expand.