Coaching has become the default answer when someone asks, “How do I monetize what I know?”
It makes sense on the surface. You’re good at something, people need help, so you sell your time in one-on-one sessions. But here’s what most experts discover after a few months of coaching: the income ceiling hits fast, the calendar fills up completely, and the work doesn’t scale.
I’ve watched dozens of talented people burn out trying to fit 40 coaching calls into a week, charging $200 per session and wondering why they can’t break $100K annually. The math is simple—there are only so many hours in a week.
The truth is, coaching is just one business model—and for many experts, it’s not even the best one.
If you’ve built real expertise in your field, you have more valuable, scalable, and often more profitable options. This article breaks down nine proven monetization models that let you leverage what you know without trading hours for dollars or managing a full coaching calendar.
Each model works differently. Some require upfront work but create passive income. Others maintain high touch but with better leverage. The key is choosing the one that matches your strengths, lifestyle, and business goals.
1. Digital products (templates, tools and frameworks)
Digital products are tangible assets that package your knowledge into something people can buy and use immediately. Think Notion templates, spreadsheet calculators, design systems, proposal frameworks, or process checklists.
Why this works: You build it once, sell it infinitely. There’s no delivery cost, no customer service overhead, and no scheduling.
Take Easlo, a Notion creator who built aesthetic templates for productivity. He started in 2020 selling templates for $10-$30 each. By 2023, he’d made over $1 million in revenue from digital products. One person. No team. Just well-designed templates solving specific problems.
The beautiful part? Once a template is made, it sells while you sleep. Your 100th customer costs you nothing more to serve than your first.
Best for: Experts who’ve already created systems, templates, or frameworks for their own work. If you find yourself saying, “I have a spreadsheet for that,” you have a product.
Strategic considerations: The market is crowded with low-quality templates, which actually works in your favor if you create something genuinely useful. A financial model that a startup founder can customize in 30 minutes instead of building from scratch for 8 hours? That’s worth $200, not $20.
Dan Kulkov sells Figma design systems for $299-$599. His customers are design teams at startups who’d otherwise spend weeks building their own. He makes multiple six figures annually because he’s solving a $5,000 problem for $300.
Price reflects value, not effort. Your template might take you 20 hours to create, but if it saves someone 40 hours, it’s worth far more than your hourly rate.
2. Premium content and newsletter subscriptions
Subscription-based content means people pay monthly or yearly for regular access to your insights, analysis, or proprietary research. Platforms like Substack, Ghost, or Patreon make this easy to launch.
Why this works: Recurring revenue creates predictable cash flow. You build a direct relationship with your audience without platform dependency.
Lenny Rachitsky started his newsletter in 2019 sharing product management advice. He built a free audience for a year, then launched a paid tier at $15/month. Today, he has over 15,000 paid subscribers—that’s roughly $2.7 million in annual recurring revenue from a newsletter. He writes 2-3 posts per week and occasionally interviews product leaders.
Not everyone will reach Lenny’s scale, but the model works at smaller numbers too. Just 500 paid subscribers at $10/month is $60,000 annually. A thousand subscribers at $20/month is $240,000.
Best for: Experts who naturally consume information, spot trends, or have unique access to insights. If people already ask you, “What are you seeing in the market?” or “What should I be paying attention to?” you have newsletter material.
Strategic considerations: The key is consistency and differentiation. Generic productivity advice won’t command $20/month when there are 10,000 free productivity newsletters.
But deep industry analysis? Proprietary frameworks? Unique data? That’s different.
The Diff by Byrne Hobart analyzes business strategy and finance. It’s dense, thoughtful, and impossible to find anywhere else. Readers pay $20/month because the insights are worth exponentially more than the subscription price.
Start free to build an audience, then introduce a paid tier when you’ve proven regular value. Most successful paid newsletters had 1,000-3,000 free subscribers before launching paid tiers.
3. Cohort-based courses
Unlike traditional online courses where students work at their own pace, cohort-based courses run live with a group of students over a set period—usually 3-6 weeks. Students learn together, engage in discussions, and complete the program at the same time.
Why this works: Higher completion rates, premium pricing, and community effects. People pay more for structure, accountability, and peer learning.
Wes Kao co-founded Maven, a platform for cohort-based courses, after seeing the model work firsthand. Traditional online courses have completion rates of 3-8%. Cohort-based courses? 70-90% completion rates because of the live structure and peer accountability.
You can charge $1,000-$5,000+ per student while running just 2-4 cohorts per year. Do the math: 50 students at $2,000 per cohort, twice a year, is $200,000 annually.
Tiago Forte runs “Building a Second Brain,” teaching personal knowledge management. His cohorts accommodate 500-1,000 students at around $1,500 each. That’s $750,000-$1.5 million per cohort. He runs it 2-3 times per year.
Best for: Experts teaching skills that benefit from practice, feedback, and group dynamics. Works particularly well for strategy, leadership, creative skills, or business development.
Strategic considerations: This isn’t passive, but it’s leveraged. You teach 30-100 people at once instead of one. The live format also forces you to refine your curriculum with each cohort.
Many successful creators run cohorts twice a year, creating focused revenue events rather than constant selling. You’re “on” for 4-6 weeks, then off for months. It’s a much different lifestyle than managing ongoing coaching clients.
4. Productized services
Productized services take your expertise and package it into a fixed-scope offering with clear deliverables, pricing, and timelines. Instead of “I do marketing consulting,” it’s “I run a 2-week brand positioning sprint for $8,500.”
Why this works: Eliminates the friction of custom proposals and scope creep. Clients know exactly what they’re buying. You can systematize delivery, making each project more profitable than the last.
Brian Casel built Restaurant Engine, a productized web design service for restaurants. Fixed price ($5,000), fixed deliverable (a restaurant website), fixed timeline (14 days). He wasn’t custom-designing every site—he had templates and processes. This let him deliver quality work quickly while maintaining profitability.
At one point, he was completing 8-10 websites per month with a small team. That’s $40,000-$50,000 monthly from a systematized process.
Best for: Consultants or freelancers who’ve solved the same problem multiple times and can now templatize the approach. If you find yourself doing similar projects repeatedly, productize it.
Strategic considerations: The magic is in the constraints. Narrow the scope, define the deliverable, and fix the price.
Nathan Barry started ConvertKit (now valued at over $200 million), but before that, he offered productized design services. “$5,000 for a landing page design package with 3 rounds of revisions, delivered in 10 days.” Clear input, clear output, clear timeline.
A “website audit with 15-point checklist and video walkthrough, delivered in 5 days for $2,500” is easier to sell and deliver than “website consulting at $200/hour.” You can still do custom work, but productized offerings create a scalable base.
5. Advisory and consulting retainers
Rather than project-based consulting, retainers give companies ongoing access to your expertise for a monthly fee. You’re not executing work—you’re advising on strategy, reviewing decisions, or guiding their team.
Why this works: Predictable monthly income, typically $3,000-$15,000+ per client. Less intensive than hands-on consulting. You can manage 3-8 retainer clients simultaneously.
A founder I know advises SaaS companies on growth strategy. Five retainer clients at $8,000/month equals $480,000 annually. His time commitment? About 8-12 hours per client monthly. That’s 40-60 hours of actual work for nearly half a million in revenue.
Best for: Senior experts with proven track records who can provide strategic guidance without needing to execute. Works well if you’ve built companies, led functions, or have deep domain expertise.
Strategic considerations: Retainers require trust and proven results. You’re unlikely to land these without case studies or a strong reputation.
Set clear expectations up front: number of hours, response times, scope of advice. Some advisors offer “5 hours monthly of strategic guidance via calls and async Slack support.” Others do “one 90-minute strategy session monthly plus unlimited email access.”
The best retainers focus on high-stakes decisions where your input creates measurable value. A CMO advising on a $100,000 ad spend decision justifies a $5,000 monthly retainer because even a 10% improvement returns more than the advisory fee.
6. Proprietary software or SaaS tools
If your expertise includes a repeatable process, you might be able to build software that automates or facilitates it. This doesn’t mean becoming a tech company—many single-founder SaaS tools solve niche problems profitably.
Why this works: Software scales infinitely. Once built, the marginal cost of each new customer is near zero. Subscription software creates compounding revenue.
Pieter Levels built Nomad List and Remote OK as solo projects. Combined, they generate over $3 million annually. He’s one person who taught himself to code and built tools that serve specific audiences: digital nomads and remote job seekers.
Or look at Danny Postma, who built Headshot Pro, an AI headshot generator. He launched it in 2023, and within months it was generating $50,000+ monthly. One founder, one tool, solving one specific problem: professional headshots without a photographer.
Best for: Experts who’ve created a methodology, system, or workflow that others want to replicate. If you built a spreadsheet or process that people keep asking for, consider turning it into software.
Strategic considerations: You don’t need to code. No-code platforms like Softr, Bubble, or Glide let you build functional tools.
Start micro—solve one specific problem exceptionally well. Tyler Tringas built Storemapper, a store locator widget for e-commerce sites. Hyper-specific. He grew it to $50,000 MRR (monthly recurring revenue) before selling it. The tool did one thing really well for one type of customer.
The hard part isn’t building; it’s distribution. But if you already have an audience from content or consulting, you have a built-in launch channel.
7. Licensing your frameworks and methods
If you’ve developed a proprietary system, methodology, or framework, you can license it to other practitioners, agencies, or companies. They pay to use your IP, often with training and certification included.
Why this works: Turns your intellectual property into an asset. You’re not delivering the work—others are, while you collect licensing fees.
Donald Miller built StoryBrand, a marketing framework. He didn’t just use it himself—he created a certification program. Marketing consultants and agencies pay $5,000 to get certified, then they pay annual licensing fees to continue using the StoryBrand name and materials. He’s trained over 7,000 certified guides. Even at conservative estimates, that’s tens of millions in licensing revenue.
Best for: Experts who’ve created a named methodology with proven results. If people reference your framework by name, you can license it.
Strategic considerations: This is an advanced model requiring brand recognition and proven efficacy. You can’t license something nobody’s heard of.
Start by training others in your method for free or low cost. Build case studies showing it works. Once you have 20-30 people successfully using your framework, formalize the licensing structure.
Typical licenses range from $2,000-$25,000 annually, depending on how practitioners use it. Include support, updates, and community access to justify ongoing fees. The real value? Creating a network of people who validate and promote your methodology.
8. Speaking and workshops
Corporate speaking and workshops pay experts to share insights with companies, conferences, or industry events. Fees range from $5,000 for smaller events to $50,000+ for established speakers.
Why this works: High per-event income, flexible scheduling, and exposure that creates other opportunities.
Patrick Lencioni, author of “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team,” charges $70,000-$100,000 per keynote. He speaks 40-50 times per year. That’s $2.8-$5 million annually from speaking alone, not counting book sales or consulting.
You don’t need to be Patrick Lencioni to make speaking work. A SaaS founder I know speaks at 12 industry conferences annually at $10,000 per talk. That’s $120,000 for roughly 24 days of work (including prep and travel). Those talks also generate consulting leads worth 3-5x the speaking fees.
Best for: Experts who can distill complex ideas into engaging presentations. You need a clear point of view, strong communication skills, and credibility in your domain.
Strategic considerations: Start local and build up. Offer workshops to companies in your network, speak at smaller conferences for free to build testimonials, and record every talk.
Having 3-5 video examples makes booking easier. Event organizers want proof you can deliver.
Package workshops as “half-day strategy sessions” priced at $10,000-$25,000. I know a pricing consultant who runs quarterly workshops for SaaS companies. Four clients at $15,000 each is $60,000 for four days of delivery. He does this while maintaining other revenue streams.
9. Research reports and proprietary insights
Annual or quarterly research reports compile data, analysis, or trends that your audience can’t easily access elsewhere. Think industry benchmarks, salary surveys, market analyses, or competitive intelligence.
Why this works: Creates defensible value through unique data. Organizations pay $500-$5,000+ for reports that inform strategy.
AngelList publishes salary data for startup roles based on their platform data. Companies pay for detailed breakdowns. Gartner built a $5 billion business on research reports and advisory services.
On a smaller scale, there’s Hiten Shah, who ran Userium (now SaaS Metrics). He published research on SaaS pricing, churn rates, and growth metrics. Companies paid $1,000-$3,000 for detailed reports because the insights informed million-dollar decisions.
Best for: Experts with access to data, insider knowledge, or the ability to synthesize fragmented information. If you’re already tracking trends or analyzing markets for yourself, packaging it for others is a natural step.
Strategic considerations: The value is in proprietary insights, not publicly available data. Running a survey of 500 industry professionals creates original data. Compiling public information doesn’t.
Salary reports work because people can’t easily access that data anywhere else. One founder runs an annual survey of freelance designers, collecting data from 2,000+ respondents. He sells the full report for $299. If 500 people buy it, that’s $149,500 for one research project.
Release research regularly—quarterly or annually—so buyers anticipate it. Many successful research models start free to build audience, then introduce paid tiers with deeper analysis or raw data access.
Choosing what fits you
None of these models are inherently better than coaching. They’re just different. The right choice depends on three factors:
Your working style. Do you prefer creating once and selling repeatedly (digital products, courses), or ongoing client relationships (retainers, advisory)? Do you want passive income or high-touch interaction?
I’ve seen brilliant strategists struggle with digital products because they need the energy of client conversations. I’ve also watched great systematizers burn out from too many coaching calls when they’d thrive selling templates.
Your existing assets. What have you already built? If you have templates, productize them. If you have a unique methodology, license it. If you have an audience, launch a paid newsletter. Start with what’s already 70% done.
A marketing consultant I know had created a 30-page proposal template for agency pitches. He’d refined it over 50 client projects. Instead of gatekeeping it, he sold it for $199. First month? $4,000 in sales from his email list. He’d already done the work.
Your revenue goals. Different models scale differently. Digital products can reach millions but often sell for $50-$200. Retainers serve fewer clients but command premium pricing. SaaS compounds slowly, then explodes.
Match the model to your income timeline. Need revenue this month? Productized services or workshops. Building for three years from now? SaaS or premium content with compounding subscribers.
The truth about building leverage
The most successful experts don’t pick one model—they layer them. A cohort-based course leads to a community subscription. A productized service becomes a SaaS tool. Research reports create speaking opportunities.
Nathan Barry started with productized design, then wrote ebooks, then built ConvertKit. Each model funded and informed the next.
Arvid Kahl sold his SaaS (FeedbackPanda) for seven figures, then built an audience through writing, launched paid courses, published books, and now does advisory work. Multiple streams, compounding reach.
The point isn’t to avoid coaching. It’s to recognize that your expertise is an asset with multiple monetization paths. Choose the ones that leverage your strengths, respect your time, and build long-term value.
Start with one model. Build it properly. Then expand from there.
The real mistake isn’t choosing coaching—it’s thinking coaching is the only choice.
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