- Most pricing mistakes come from pricing out of fear, so creators drop the price, add more options or run another discount.
- A lower price rarely brings in enough extra buyers to make up for what you give up on every sale.
- Two pricing options, a real deadline and a price based on the result you deliver will do more than any discount.
- Run the math backward from your revenue goal before every launch so you know whether your price can get you there.
When I work with creators on pricing their digital products, the same pattern shows up almost every time and it's that we undervalue what we sell. Pricing a course, a membership or a template shop can feel like the hardest decision in the whole business, and a wrong call costs you money on every single sale.
If you're stuck on pricing as you plan for 2027, you're not alone. After years of teaching pricing to my MBA students and working through it with digital product creators, I keep seeing the same ten mistakes. Some of them are strategy mistakes and some of them come from not feeling confident about the price. All of them are fixable.
Let's walk through them.
The 10 pricing mistakes I see most.
Believing a lower price means more revenue
Creators assume that dropping the price will bring in more total revenue, but basic economics says otherwise. Most digital products that deliver a real result don't sell much more when the price drops, because the buyers who want that result aren't shopping on price. Cutting the price mostly just cuts what you earn on each sale. I go deeper on why in Every 'It's Too Expensive' Is a Story Problem.
Selling without a deadline
Leaving your offer open to buy all the time feels like it should increase sales, but it usually does the opposite. People need deadlines to make decisions, and if they believe your product will still be there next month, next month never comes. Even in an evergreen funnel, you need a real deadline to give people a reason to act.
Offering too many pricing options
More choices feel generous, but they slow the sale down. Two options is enough for most digital products. One is a full-pay option with savings for paying all at once and the other is a payment plan that makes the offer easier to buy for more people. Any more than that and the buyer has to make extra decisions on the exact page where you need them to make one.
Ignoring the value of the result
Pricing starts with the value you deliver, and the amount of content inside matters a lot less. What result does your buyer walk away with and what is that result worth to them? If someone gets a promotion, a first client or a launched product out of your program, they'll gladly pay for it. If the result is harder to put a number on, ask what it would cost them in time, energy and money to figure it out alone. That's also a much better thing to compare your price to, which I cover in What Is Your Offer Being Compared To?
Not paying attention to the marketplace
You need a pulse on what others in your space charge and how they package their offers. The point is to see the gap only you can fill and price your offer for it, so don't copy what they do. Markets move too, and what buyers expect from a digital product going into 2027 is different from what they expected even two years ago.
Not making the offer different
Worried someone will copy your content? They can't copy you. Build the parts only you can offer into the product itself, like group coaching, office hours, feedback on their work and access to your community. Information is free and AI can write a decent outline of almost anything, so the parts of your offer that include you are the parts nobody can copy, and they're what supports a higher price.
Ignoring how the offer looks
A digital product isn't something you hold in your hand, but it still has packaging. Your sales page, your slides, your product images and your copy all tell the buyer what the offer is worth before they read a word about what's inside. A high price on a page that looks thrown together makes people doubt it, and doubt costs you sales. The way the offer looks has to match the price.
Always discounting to get the sale
I'm not a fan of discounting digital products, especially made-up discounts. I once watched a creator position her program at $1,997 and claim it was half off a $4,000 price that, based on how often those ads ran, never actually existed. Buyers can tell when a discount is made up and constant sales train your audience to wait. If you want to reward people who buy quickly, add a bonus that goes away on a real date and keep the price the same.
Never testing the price
Think of your first price as your best guess. It may take a few launches to find the right one, and the price you're looking for is the one that brings in the most profit, which isn't always the one that brings in the most sales. You probably won't see much difference in sales between $697 and $897, so the higher price brings in more on every sale. You only learn that by testing. I walk through how to do it in How to Raise Your Prices Without Losing Buyers.
Not knowing your numbers
Your price decides how many people you need to reach, so run the math backward from your revenue goal. Say your goal for a launch is $25,000 and your funnel converts at 4%. At a $297 price, you need around 2,104 people moving through your funnel. Raise the price to $497 and that drops to about 1,258. If you don't know these numbers, you can't tell whether your price can reach your goal with the audience you have, and working harder won't change the math.
What all ten have in common.
Look back at that list and you'll notice most of these mistakes come from the same place, which is pricing out of fear. Fear says lower the price, add more options, run another discount and keep the cart open just in case.
Pricing from value looks different. You name the result, you make the offer look like it's worth the price, you give people a real reason to decide and you let the math tell you whether the price works.
Name the result, show people what it's worth to them and let the math tell you whether the price works.
Dr. Destini CoppIf you're pricing something brand new, you don't have to guess. Run a founding member round and let real buyers tell you whether the offer and the price work before you build it. I walk through exactly how in my guide to preselling your digital product before you build it. Pricing also isn't only for big flagship offers. If your revenue leans on your email list, here's how to build revenue streams from your newsletter alongside your products.
If you're not sure why buyers are passing on one of your offers, the free Pricing Story Finder can help. It's a Claude skill that asks you a few questions about one offer and the people who buy it, then hands back your buyers' story, a better comparison, a starting price range to test and sales page lines in your buyers' own words.
Pick the one mistake on this list that made you wince and fix it before your next launch. That's usually worth more than changing every price at once.
More on pricing.
- Why Nobody's Buying Your $497 Course (It's Not the Price)
- Every 'It's Too Expensive' Is a Story Problem
- What Is Your Offer Being Compared To?
- Pricing Low-Ticket and High-Ticket Offers Isn't the Same Job
- How to Raise Your Prices Without Losing Buyers
- Why Members Cancel (and the Story They Tell Themselves)
Find out why buyers are passing on your offer
The free Pricing Story Finder asks you a few questions about one offer and the people who buy it. It hands back your buyers' story, a better comparison and a starting price range to test.
Get the Pricing Story Finder →Frequently asked.
Will lowering my price get me more sales?
Usually not enough to make up the difference. Most digital products that deliver a real result don't sell much more when the price drops, because the people who want that result aren't shopping on price. Price on the value of the result you deliver and leave fear out of it.
How many pricing options should my digital product have?
Two is enough for most offers: one full-pay option with built-in savings and one payment plan that makes the offer easier to buy for more people. More options than that makes the decision harder and slows the sale down.
How do I price a digital product based on value?
Start with the result your buyer gets and ask what that result is worth to them. If the result is hard to put a number on, ask how much time, energy and money they'd spend getting there on their own. Your price should reflect that, and the number of videos in the product doesn't really matter.
Should I discount my digital product to sell more?
Constant or made-up discounts train buyers to wait and make them trust your prices less. If you want to reward people who buy quickly, add a bonus that goes away on a real date and keep the price the same.
How do I know if my digital product price is right?
Test it. It often takes a few launches to find the price that brings in the most profit, which isn't always the price that brings in the most sales. Also run the math backward from your revenue goal, because your price and your conversion rate tell you how many people you need to reach.
Dr. Destini Copp helps digital product creators build sustainable, systems-based businesses through the Creator Growth Flywheel framework. She's the founder of Creator's MBA and HobbyScool, and has been teaching online business strategy for over a decade. Learn more →
