💰 Guided — Pricing Strategy¶
Last updated: 8 May 2026 Status: Live — single-tier ($9 / cert / 1 year). Vendor pass + all-access retired. Decision record: pricing-decision-2026-05.md
Pricing Philosophy¶
Core principle: Free study guides drive organic traffic. Practice exams are the paid product.
Study guides compete with free official content (Microsoft Learn, AWS Skill Builder, etc.) — charging for them is a losing battle. But practice exams with 200 scenario-based questions, 3 study modes, spaced repetition, and adaptive learning? Nobody else offers this combination at our price point.
The funnel:
Study guides are the SEO magnet. Practice exams are the revenue engine.
Pricing (current — single tier)¶
| Tier | Price | Duration | What's included |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Forever | Complete study guides (all modules, flashcards, ELI5) + 20 practice questions per cert |
| Single Cert | $9 | 1 year | Full practice exam (~200 Qs), all 3 modes, adaptive, progress tracking |
That's it. One product. One price. One decision for the buyer.
Why $9 (not $14, not $19)¶
- Anti-gatekeeping price. Whizlabs $20–30, MeasureUp $99–119, Tutorials Dojo $15. Putting Guided at the floor of the market makes the brand promise — "$9, not $79" — visible at every price comparison.
- Impulse-buy threshold. $9 is close to two coffees. People buy without overthinking, then study harder because they paid (sunk cost works in our favour).
- Margin is fine. Stripe takes ~30c + 2.9%, leaves ~$8.45. Hosting + KV + email + question generation = effectively zero marginal cost per learner.
Why 1 year (not lifetime)¶
- Cert exams change — questions need updating, old content needs retirement
- 1 year gives us flexibility to pivot pricing, retire certs, or change the platform
- Industry standard (Whizlabs, MeasureUp, Pearson all use time-limited access)
- 1 year is generous for cert prep — most people pass within 3–6 months
What's free (and why)¶
| Free forever | Why |
|---|---|
| Complete study guides | SEO magnet — "AZ-900 study guide free" drives organic traffic |
| All module content | Builds trust through days/weeks of usage before purchase |
| Flashcards within study modules | Part of the study guide experience |
| 20 practice questions per cert | Try-before-you-buy — shows quality of explanations |
| All 3 study modes (for free Qs) | No feature gating — full experience, limited volume |
| Progress tracking | Even free users see their readiness — creates motivation to continue |
| Paid ($9) | Why it's paid |
|---|---|
| Full ~200 question bank | This is the core product |
| Unlimited practice sessions | Volume is the differentiator |
| Domain-specific practice | Targeted weak-area drilling |
| Exam simulation (full length) | Real exam conditions need full question bank |
| Spaced repetition (full bank) | SR needs all questions to be effective |
Pricing display surfaces¶
Cert landing page (src/pages/[slug]/index.astro)¶
Single $9 callout in the FAQ ("How does purchasing work?"). The hero "Unlock $9" button drives all conversion.
Vendor page (src/pages/[vendor]/index.astro)¶
No explicit pricing section — pricing appears in FAQ answers only. Single $9-per-cert messaging.
Help page (src/pages/help/index.astro)¶
Single $9 card under "Step 2 — Unlock the full exam". Was a 3-card grid until 8 May 2026.
Homepage (src/pages/index.astro)¶
Pricing communicated through: - Hero: "$9, not $79." - "What's inside $9" section - Comparison table: "$9 (guides free)" in the pricing row - FAQ — explicit $9 mentions throughout
TOML fields¶
price_practice = 9 # All certs set to 9 (universal pricing)
price_bundle = 0 # 0 = study guide is free (no separate paid bundle)
There are no platform-level prices anymore. The single tier is $9 across the board.
Competitive landscape¶
| Platform | Questions | Price | Free tier | Modes | Our advantage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MeasureUp | ~150 | $99–119 | 0 | 1 | 11× cheaper, 3 modes, free study guides |
| Whizlabs | ~200 | $20–30 | 5 Qs | 2 | 2–3× cheaper, SR, adaptive, free guides |
| Tutorials Dojo | ~300 | $15 | 0 | 2 | Cheaper, free guides, SR, no upsell |
| ExamTopics | Crowdsourced | Ads/"free" | Ads | 1 | Original questions, no ads, better UX |
| Guided | ~200 | $9 | 20 Qs + full guides | 3 | — |
Retired tiers (historical record)¶
| Retired | Was | Active dates | Sales | Decision |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vendor Pass | $59 / 1 year / all certs of one vendor | 25 Apr → 8 May 2026 | 0 | Retired |
| All-Access | $149 / 1 year / all certs all vendors | 25 Apr → 8 May 2026 | 0 | Retired |
Both Stripe products and prices are archived (recoverable, not deleted) in case the decision is ever reversed.
Future pricing considerations¶
- Annual renewal: Email reminder 30 days before expiry with one-click renewal
- Student discount: Possible 20% off with .edu email — only if it doesn't undercut the simplicity of "$9, full stop"
- Bulk/team pricing: For training departments — future consideration. Likely a separate "teams" SKU that doesn't muddy the consumer story.
- Price increases: Watch competitor moves. If $9 starts looking unsustainable, $12 is the next ceiling — still under the impulse-buy threshold.