eLearning Revenue Models: Charging Per User vs. Per Course Enrollment

The eLearning industry continues to grow, with businesses, educators, and training providers racing to build scalable, profitable platforms. But growth depends not just on content or user experience—it hinges on the revenue model. And two of the most debated approaches are charging per user and charging per course enrollment.

Each has its pros, cons, and use cases. Choosing the right one affects not just how money flows, but also how learners engage, how institutions scale, and how sustainable your business becomes.

Let’s break it down.

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Understanding the Two Models

1. Charging Per User (Subscription or License-Based)

This model charges a flat fee per user, typically monthly or annually, for access to a set or full catalog of courses. It's similar to a Netflix-style subscription—pay once, consume as much as you like (within the terms).

This approach is popular among:

• Corporate training platforms (e.g., LMS Portals)

• Educational institutions using Learning Management Systems (LMS)

• SaaS-based learning products

2. Charging Per Course Enrollment

Here, learners pay individually for each course they want to take. This model is transactional and works much like buying a book or signing up for a workshop.

This is common on:

• MOOCs (e.g., Coursera, edX)

• Skill-specific platforms (e.g., MasterClass, Domestika)

• Individual instructors selling courses via platforms like Teachable or Kajabi

Pros and Cons: Per User Pricing

✅ Pros

Predictable Revenue

Per-user pricing creates recurring revenue. This helps with forecasting, budgeting, and long-term planning.

Better Scalability for B2BI

f you sell to organizations, they prefer per-user licensing. It simplifies procurement, onboarding, and access management.

Encourages Broader Use

Once users or employees are onboarded, there's no cost to take more courses. That often increases engagement across content.

Loyalty Through Ongoing Access

With ongoing subscriptions, users are more likely to stay for updates, new content drops, and platform improvements.

❌ Cons

Low Usage, High Churn Risk

If users don’t engage enough to feel they’re getting value, they cancel. This is especially risky in B2C models.

Harder to Monetize Premium Content

In per-user models, all content is bundled. That limits your ability to price premium or specialized courses higher.

Costs Rise With User Count

In B2B deals, your margins can get squeezed if user support, platform infrastructure, or content licensing scales faster than revenue.

Engagement Gaps

Some users "sign and forget." They don't engage regularly, which

means you're leaving impact (and future upsells) on the table.

Pros and Cons: Per Course Enrollment

✅ Pros

Clear Value Exchange

Learners know exactly what they're paying for. This makes it easier to market and sell individual courses based on outcomes.

Higher Margins per Sale

You can price based on perceived value, not user volume. This is especially helpful for niche or advanced topics.

Flexibility in Pricing

Courses can have different prices depending on depth, instructor, certification, or production quality.

Good Fit for Independent Creators

If you're an expert selling directly to an audience, this model is straightforward and easier to manage solo.

❌ Cons

Unpredictable Revenue

Without subscriptions, you live launch-to-launch. That’s stressful and hard to scale without a large marketing engine.

Lower Lifetime Value (LTV)

Unless you have a strong funnel to upsell new courses regularly, many learners buy once and disappear.

More Pressure on Marketing

You need to sell every course individually. That means constant lead gen, email sequences, landing pages, and ad spend.

Fragmented User Experience

Learners may only engage with one part of your ecosystem. They miss out on other valuable content they didn’t purchase.

How Your Target Audience Affects the Model

Corporate Training (B2B)

Best fit: Per-user pricing.

Businesses value simplicity. They want to onboard employees, not track who’s enrolled in what. Per-user pricing also aligns with training KPIs and allows for usage reporting.

Enterprise buyers are more likely to commit to long-term contracts when the pricing is predictable. Many training platforms even add tiered features (analytics, integrations, support) to their per-user plans, making them more valuable over time.

Individual Learners (B2C)

Best fit: Per course enrollment.

Consumers tend to buy based on immediate need or interest. If they’re learning how to code in Python or edit videos in Adobe Premiere, they want specific, focused value.

Per course pricing supports one-off purchases, seasonal promotions, and topic-specific marketing. You can also bundle or discount multiple courses as part of an upsell strategy.

Higher Ed and Certification Programs

Best fit: Hybrid models.

Accredited programs often blend both models. A student may pay a semester-based tuition (per-user style) but still pay fees for certification courses or exams (per-course style).

This hybrid approach lets institutions balance predictable revenue with variable pricing for higher-value offerings.

Hybrid Models: The Middle Ground

Some platforms combine both strategies to maximize flexibility and revenue. For example:

• Freemium + Premium: Give free access to basic courses, then charge per enrollment for advanced content.

• Subscription + Paywalls: Allow access to most courses with a subscription, but charge extra for premium certifications or live sessions.

• Course Bundles: Sell multi-course packages as a mini-subscription, priced as a one-time bundle.

The hybrid approach works especially well when you're targeting both individuals and organizations, or when your content varies significantly in depth and value.

Key Questions to Decide Your Model

1. Who’s your primary customer—individuals or businesses?

   • Businesses want simple, scalable access.

   • Individuals want flexibility and perceived value.

   
   

2. How deep and broad is your content catalog?

   • If you have lots of courses across topics, per-user models work better.

   • If your courses are few but specialized, per-course pricing makes more sense.

   
   

3. Do you need predictable revenue?

   • Subscriptions smooth out income.

   • Per-course pricing leads to spikes and gaps.

   
   

4. How do learners typically engage with your content?

   • Sporadic learners often prefer to pay as they go.

   • Power users and ongoing learners benefit more from subscriptions.

   
   

5. Can you upsell effectively?

   • If you have a strong funnel or community, per-course pricing can lead to high LTV.

   • If not, a per-user model may lock in more revenue per learner.

Final Thoughts: Pick the Model That Matches Your Growth Strategy

Revenue models aren’t just about pricing—they shape your whole business. They influence your content development, marketing strategy, customer support, platform features, and scalability.

If your goal is long-term user engagement, content depth, and stable income, per-user pricing gives you room to grow.

If your strategy is driven by high-quality, high-impact content that solves specific problems, and you have strong marketing or a niche audience, per-course enrollment gives you flexibility and pricing power.

And if you're in between—or planning to scale—you can mix both.

Whatever you choose, build with intention. Your pricing model will either support your growth or silently hold it back.

About LMS Portals

At LMS Portals, we provide our clients and partners with a mobile-responsive, SaaS-based, multi-tenant learning management system that allows you to launch a dedicated training environment (a portal) for each of your unique audiences.

The system includes built-in, SCORM-compliant rapid course development software that provides a drag and drop engine to enable most anyone to build engaging courses quickly and easily. 

We also offer a complete library of ready-made courses, covering most every aspect of corporate training and employee development.

If you choose to, you can create Learning Paths to deliver courses in a logical progression and add structure to your training program.  The system also supports Virtual Instructor-Led Training (VILT) and provides tools for social learning.

Together, these features make LMS Portals the ideal SaaS-based eLearning platform for our clients and our Reseller partners.

Contact us today to get started or visit our Partner Program pages