Pricing a class pack that actually works

What is a class pack, in money terms?

A pack is attendance a student has paid for and not yet used, which makes it money you hold and still owe. Bindro treats it that way literally: buying a pack debits cash and credits a class-pack liability account, and nothing is sold at that moment — no platform fee is earned and nothing reaches your balance.

When a student spends a credit on a class, the liability is debited and your balance, the platform fee and any tax are credited, exactly as if they had paid by card that morning. This is why an unspent pack can never be paid out to you, and why a refund puts the credit back on the pack rather than inventing money.

The practical consequence is the one that catches teachers out: a good January of pack sales is not a good January of income. It is a January of commitments you now have to teach.

How many credits should a pack hold?

Size the pack to a period the student can see the end of. A pack that matches a term — five, six or eight classes — gets finished, and a finished pack is a student who comes back to buy another. A twenty-class pack sold in enthusiasm and abandoned in March is a refund conversation waiting to happen and a student who feels foolish.

Bindro allows between 2 and 100 credits per pack. The bound at the bottom is there because a one-credit pack is a drop-in with extra steps.

• Five to eight credits: matches a term, finishes, rebuys. The safe default.
• Ten credits: works when you teach more than once a week and they attend both.
• Twenty or more: only with a long validity, and expect to be asked for extensions.
• Two or three credits: useful as a paid intro offer rather than as your main pack.

Why does bindro refuse my pack price?

Because the price has to divide exactly by the number of credits. A pack priced at ten pounds for three credits would leave a third of a penny per credit that nobody could ever spend, and nobody would ever be told — so bindro refuses to publish it and names the field rather than silently rounding.

In practice this is easy to satisfy: pick the per-class price you want first, then multiply. A 10-credit pack at $15.00 a class is $150.00, and each credit carries $1.37 of platform fee when it is spent — not when it is bought.

Decide what the pack saves against your drop-in price before you set it. A pack that saves nothing is a loyalty scheme with no loyalty in it; a pack that halves your rate trains students never to pay full price again.

How long should a pack stay valid?

Between one and thirty-six months, and the choice is a real trade rather than a default. A short window sells worse and gets used; a long one sells better and produces the awkward email in month eleven. Three to six months suits most weekly timetables.

Expiry does not move the money to your balance. An expired pack is refused at checkout and its unspent credits stay as liability, so what you do about a student who lost track of a pack is your decision and not the platform's. Deciding that policy before you publish is better than deciding it while someone is upset.

Put the expiry date in the words you use to sell the pack, not only in the confirmation email. "Six months from purchase" in the class description prevents more disputes than any refund policy.

What should I tell students about sharing a pack?

Tell them explicitly, because the platform will not. A pack is a code rather than an account: whoever types it at checkout spends a credit. If you are happy for a couple to share a pack, say so; if you are not, say that instead, because the default is silence and silence reads as permission.

A student can always be told exactly how many credits are left — the count is a fact the system holds, not an estimate — so "three classes left" is a sentence you can say without checking a spreadsheet.