Pricing a new micro-credential
A pricing and profitability study for a proposed non-credit engineering micro-credential: a 12-sheet scenario model, a 13-slide deck, 8 charts and an interactive explorer that tests itself against the spreadsheet.
+5 learners per intake outweighed price
Result
- 12sheets in the scenario model
- 13slides in the deck
- 12workbook results the explorer checks itself against
No decision has been recorded, and the workbook stays internal.
The problem and what I built
What should a new engineering micro-credential charge, and is it worth launching? The model tests the list price, what's left after costs, the break-even enrolment and a three-year plan.
A 12-sheet scenario model with 8 charts and automatic checks, a 13-slide deck, and an explorer that is checked against 12 workbook results.
Full detailsHow it works, the full feature list, decisions, numbers and next steps
Tools
- Excel (openpyxl)
- python-pptx
- Charts
- A single-file JS and SVG explorer
Volume matters more than price.
Pricing study: from template to finding, step by step:
- Template audited: A received cost template: 6 issues found
- Scenario model: 12 sheets, 8 scenarios, 3-year base and downside
- Explorer: 12 controls; a self-test against the workbook
- Deck and finding: 13 slides: volume matters more than price
The question
What should a new engineering micro-credential charge, and is it worth launching? The model tests the proposed list price, what's left after delivery costs, fees, overhead and the launch cost, the break-even enrolment, and a three-year plan.
What I built
A scenario model (12 sheets)
- a dashboard with 8 charts and 8 automatic model checks
- 8 scenarios
- a 3-year view (base and downside)
- a price optimizer with three demand curves
- a contribution grid (11 prices by 14 enrolment levels)
- a sensitivity tornado
- editable assumptions
- 17 market comparables, each with its URL and the date it was seen
- notes
A deck and an explorer
- A 13-slide deck in action-title style, including risks, next steps and an appendix on issues in the template.
- An interactive explorer: 12 controls, 4 headline tiles and 3 charts, with dark mode, ARIA labels and Canadian number formatting.
- The explorer tests itself. A built-in self-test checks its JavaScript against results cached from the workbook, so the web tool is checked against 12 workbook results.
Key decisions and findings
- Gave a price band instead of one number. The demand curve is run at three elasticities.
- Said what drove the results. The notes say plainly that switching from the template's discount stack to individual list prices plus discounted employer cohorts improved the results because of the policy, not because of new demand data.
- Placeholders labelled. 9 of the 20 key inputs are flagged as placeholders, and every slide footer says so.
- The source template, audited. An audit of the cost template the model started from found 6 issues, including swapped labels and formulas overwritten with typed values. That template came from another unit, and I credit it as a received tool.
- The headline finding: "volume matters more than price." The modelled best price was close to the proposed price, and five more learners per intake mattered far more.
Results and status
A draft for discussion. No decision has been recorded. The workbook itself stays internal.
What I'd do next
- If the course goes ahead, replace the placeholder inputs with confirmed figures and re-run the scenarios.
- Share a genericized version of the explorer here, with internal figures removed.