How to price your teaching resources: a practical guide

Most teacher-authors find pricing harder than making the resource. You know how long the unit took to write, but that number rarely helps a buyer. A teacher scrolling on a Sunday evening wants to know whether this file will cover tomorrow, or next week, and whether it is worth what you ask. That is the question your price has to answer.

This guide does not tell you what to charge. Your subject, your grade band and the quality of the work decide that. It gives you a way to think about price points, shows what each sale pays you with TeachLessons, and suggests a simple yearly review. If you already have resources ready, you can submit them for review while you read.

Start with the buyer, not the hours

Hours spent are a poor guide to price. A one-page anchor chart might take you an afternoon, and a 40-page unit might take a month, but buyers judge each one by what it does in their classroom. A good way to start is to ask how much class time the resource covers and how much planning it saves. A warm-up for one lesson sits in a different place than a complete two-week unit with slides, assessments and answer keys.

It also helps to think about how teachers spend. Many buy with their own money, often for a lesson coming up soon. They compare quickly and they notice when a price feels out of line with what is included. A clear list of contents, an honest page count and good previews do more to justify a price than any clever number.

Price points teachers recognize

Most catalogs settle into a few tiers. Small single-use items like an exit ticket or a short practice page sit at the low end. Larger sets, such as task cards for one skill or a full week of lessons, sit in the middle. Complete units and bundles that cover a term or a year sit at the top. Keeping your catalog inside a handful of tiers makes it easier for buyers to understand and easier for you to price new work.

Within a tier, keep prices consistent. If two task card sets have the same number of cards and the same level of polish, giving them different prices just raises a question in the buyer's mind. When one resource clearly offers more, such as an editable version or a digital copy for slides, a step up to the next tier is easy to explain.

• Small single-use resources at the low end
• Skill sets and weekly plans in the middle
• Full units and bundles at the top

What you keep at each price with TeachLessons

Our payout is a percentage at every price, so it is easy to plan around. We deduct the 3% payment processing cost from the price the customer paid, then pay you 70% of what is left. That works out to price × 0.97 × 0.70, which is 67.9% of the sale price. There is no membership fee, no annual fee, no sign-up fee and no per-resource fee, so a cheap item and an expensive one pay you the same share.

The table below shows a few price points. For a $10 resource you receive $6.79 and TeachLessons keeps $2.91. For a $50 bundle you receive $33.95. Our article on how the 70/30 split works goes through each step, and the payout calculator shows any price you want to test.

One price across all your channels

If you sell in more than one place, such as your own shop and TeachLessons, buyers may come across the same resource twice. Many sellers keep one price everywhere. It is easier to manage, it avoids awkward questions, and it means one update when you revise a resource instead of several. Each channel will pay you a different amount from that price, and that is fine. Judge each one by what it brings in over a year, not by a single sale.

Discounts are worth a thought too. With us, your payout is calculated on the price the customer actually paid, after any discount and excluding sales tax or VAT. A $20 resource sold at a 25% discount sells for $15, and you receive about $10.19 from that sale. Discounts can bring in buyers who were on the fence, but they work best now and then rather than all the time.

A simple yearly price review

Once a year, sort your catalog by price and look at each tier. Which resources sold steadily? Which ones barely moved? A resource that never sells at its current price may need better previews or a clearer title before it needs a lower price. A resource that sells well and has grown with new pages since launch may deserve a step up.

Small items that sell slowly on their own often do better as part of a bundle. Our article on when bundles beat single resources covers how to group them. If you want to see what a sale pays across a wide range of prices, look at our payout comparison from $1 to $50.

When you are ready to add TeachLessons as a channel, send your resources and author details through the submission form. Our team reviews each one and replies by email. This article is general information, not financial advice.

Questions sellers ask

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General information about the TeachLessons Seller Program, not legal, tax or financial advice. The seller agreement you receive before listing sets out the binding terms.