In this episode, I explain why paid launches are working so well right now — and why they might be the smartest move you make for your next launch. I break down the difference between traditional free webinars or challenges and paid launch experiences, and I share exactly how my two-week, five-session paid bootcamp model works, including standard and VIP tiers.
I also talk honestly about why free launches have become harder — from audience overwhelm and low show-up rates to freebie collectors and creator burnout — and then walk you through four powerful reasons to test a paid launch instead. While you may see fewer sign-ups, the quality, engagement, and conversions can be significantly stronger.
3 Key Takeaways:
Paid = Higher Commitment
When someone invests money, they’re far more likely to show up, engage, and implement — which leads to better results and stronger trust.
Engagement and Conversions Improve
Paid participants are more serious and qualified, meaning higher show-up rates, better interaction, and stronger conversion rates into your main offer.
Your Launch Can Fund Your Marketing
A paid launch can generate revenue upfront, giving you cash flow to fund ads and scale — rather than relying on a free event that only costs you time and money.
If free launches have been feeling heavier, harder, or less effective, this episode will help you see why — and show you a practical alternative that could change the game for your next launch.
LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
Connect with Teresa on Website, (Grow, Launch, Sell), Sign up to Teresa's email list, Instagram, LinkedIn, or Facebook, Subscribe to my Youtube
Transcript
After 10 years in the online space, I have done every type of launch that you can imagine, and there is one launch that is working really, really well at the moment, paid launches. In this video, I'm gonna be sharing with you what paid launches are, why they work so well, and the four reasons that you should consider trying a paid launch for your next launch.
If we haven't met, my name is Teresa Heath-Wareing and I work with course creators, membership owners and coaches to help them grow their online business. And I have recently been given the award of Business Coach of the Year from the National Coaching Conference and Awards, which I am obviously over the moon about.
And every single week I put out a new video and podcast. What I share with you. Tactical and strategic things that you can actually do in your business that is going to help you grow your online business without all of the overwhelm and with what is working right now. So if you haven't [00:01:00] subscribed to the YouTube channel, I urge you to hit that subscribe button and to make sure that you get notified every time I put a new video out, and I would be so honored if you could share this video with someone who was in the online space that you think could benefit from it.
Okay, let's talk about free versus paid. So what do I mean by free versus paid? Now, most launch experiences have been free, so you would do a free webinar, a free challenge, a free bootcamp. So basically for them to come into the launch experience, and I call launch experiences, just the mechanism that you're using, like I said, a webinar, a masterclass, which they tend to be the same thing, a bootcamp, a challenge, a.
Open house. Those are what I call launch experiences. And when I talk about launching, I don't necessarily mean for the first time. This is just basically a focused period of marketing where you are selling your online thing, like your course, your program, your membership, whatever it might be. So [00:02:00] in most cases.
Up until fairly recently, most launches were free. So you would advertise that you were doing a free webinar, a free challenge, and people would sign up and come and join that challenge or come and join that masterclass for free. And then at the end of the thing, you would then present your offer, which would be your paid program, course, membership, whatever it was.
Kind of marketing activity that you were doing to get them there in the first place was free. Now, let me explain to you what I mean by a paid launch experience. So ordinarily and what I've been involved with and what I teach is more about a paid bootcamp or a paid challenge, something that is a bit longer.
I would say that you can do paid workshops rather than. Masterclass or webinars, masterclass and webinars tend to be about an hour or to an hour and a half. They're very much focused on the what and [00:03:00] the why and less so on the how. And your program tends to be the how, whereas when you are doing something paid, it normally means it's going into more depth.
So let me explain to you my paid launching the I am using currently. I'm doing a bootcamp where basically the bootcamp is over two weeks, but it's five actual sessions, so it's two sessions on week one and three sessions on week two, and for that bootcamp, it is a paid thing. Now the. Cost of the, the bootcamp is low, so my cost of my bootcamp at the point I'm recording this is 49 pounds.
But there is also a VIP level where if you join the VIP level, you get additional things. So for instance, rather than just the five sessions, you will also get some q and As with me where. I basically get to coach you. There are also things like you might get some other bonuses and some other nice bits that you would get if you sign up for the VIP.
So basically there are two levels to my paid launches, the standard level, and [00:04:00] then the VIP level. But they're both paid. The standard level is 49 pounds. The VIP level I think is 97, like I said at the point of recording this. But the point is to come into that launch experience, which is a bootcamp you have to pay now.
You might think, well, this doesn't make sense because I want them to buy the bigger thing, and if they're buying the lower thing, will they buy the bigger thing? We're going to address the reasons why you might want to consider a paid launch, but let me talk about why free are getting a little bit more difficult.
Well, the first thing is the overwhelm is massive. There are so many. Free things that we can now do online businesses and launching has become way more popular than it ever has done and will continue to grow. And because of that, there'll be lots of free events, lots of free challenges, lots of free boot camps, which means there is often low commitment from the person that is engaging or signing up to them and the poor sharp rates.
So when I started this back in. Or when I started in the online [00:05:00] space about 10 years ago, the show up rate for a webinar would be anywhere between 40 and 50%. Then when we hit COVID, it went up. It was actually like you could get 60%, which is great, and now we are seeing some as low as 15 and 20% show up rate, which means the number of people who signed up to come to say, your webinar only.
15 to 20% of them might actually turn up. And one of the key things is you want them to turn up because if they turn up, they're way more engaged. They're more likely to consider buying your thing that you're selling. At the end, you are also potentially attracting freebie collectors. So there are people that just like to sign up to free stuff and will busy themselves with going to all the webinars in the world.
Therefore, you might attract some of them when you are doing a free thing. Often when we are doing free launch experiences, we tend to give information without implementation. And if you've watched any of my other videos, if [00:06:00] you've listened to the podcast, then you will know. One of the big things for 2026 is we need that implementation.
That actually what we don't need is more content or more information. At this point, we need to actually get it done and we need ways to help us get it done. And sometimes when we're doing. Three things, rightly so, we are just giving them the information because there has to be a balance of like how much we give away when we are giving it for free.
And this can lead to creators, to online business owners, to you to meet, burning out basically. Launching is not a very quick and easy thing to do. It takes work and time and effort. And sometimes you might find yourself feeling very resentful when you are putting in all this time and effort. You are delivering really good stuff and people just aren't engaging and they're not taking it seriously.
So there are lots of reasons why free launches are not as successful and not as good maybe as they used to be. Now I am not. As [00:07:00] all saying that free launches are dead and you should no longer do them. There are many places where a free launch is very much appropriate and very much needed for the thing that you are doing.
There are lots of reasons why for some people I would pick a free launch over a paid launch and often as I do in my program, Grow Launch Sell, these are the kind of conversations we're having on those coaching calls with me. Where every member of Grow Launch Sell, because it's a very tight program that I have, they get to ask me about their specific business, their specific launch, their specific offer, and I get to give them advice on what I think would work best for them.
So I'm not saying that free launches are dead. I'm explaining to you why I think paid launches are something you should consider. So let's talk about why paid launches work so well and why you should consider them for your next launch. And I'm gonna be sharing with you the four reasons. Why paid launches work so well?
Reason number one, [00:08:00] commitment equals better results. When you are asking someone. To pay for something. Their commitment level is way higher than when you are giving them something for free. Now you might think, but I'm being really kind, giving them something for free, and this is really useful and helpful of me to give them something for free.
And surely because I'm being so kind and giving them it for free, they will take it seriously. Unfortunately, that is not the case and they don't always do that. However. When you pay for something, and this is same for us and true for us as it is for your customers, when I pay for something, I am giving it way more importance than I something that I am doing for free because I've put money down, I've got skin in the game, as they would say, and when someone has got skin in the game, they've got something to lose.
So if they've paid for it and they don't engage with it, then they feel like they have lost their money because they haven't spent time [00:09:00] and done the thing they've paid for. So. When they've paid for it, it means they're more committed, which means they get better results. Ordinarily, in a challenge or a bootcamp, you are giving them something to do.
You are asking them to try different things or experiment with something or do some work. And you know, as I do, when I get someone to do something in a bootcamp, the outcome they're gonna get at the end is awesome and is really going to help them. But they do have to do the work and getting them to pay to join the bootcamp means that they are more likely to do the work, which means.
They get better results at the end, so it's a win-win for everybody. Number two, paid launches lead to higher engagement. If someone has committed by paying some money to do it, they are going to show up or they're more likely to show up. Now, are my paid bootcamps a hundred percent attendance? Absolutely not.
I am yet to see one that ever is, but. [00:10:00] The engagement is considerably higher. So you are talking back around there's 50, 60% levels of engagement, whereas if it was free, like I said, we are looking almost as low as 15 and 20%, or we can be so. By getting them to pay, the engagement is higher, and because the engagement is higher, it's a better experience for everybody.
Now, I don't know about you, but I have done a webinar to one person where one person showed up for a webinar back in the day when I first. Started, and that doesn't make for great engagement. It doesn't make for a great experience. It doesn't make for a great kind of, you don't feel brilliant showing up and trying to give a webinar to one person that can affect how you show up.
Whereas when people are showing up. You get the engagement. They get the engagement. It just feels so much better, and as I've already said, when someone engages, they are more likely to consider paying for your thing or your program if they have engaged. Because the other thing about engaging [00:11:00] is they get to start to build that know, like, and trust.
If someone has signed up for a bootcamp and they never show up to one of the calls and they can't get to see what I'm like or whether I'm worth working with, then. It's very unlikely that they're gonna buy from me. When they engage, they show up, they will realize whether they like the person they're watching or not, and therefore are more likely to consider buying your paid thing.
Reason number three is when you do a paid launch, firstly you are being paid for it, and that makes it feel very, very different, which means you can actually earn some money before. Before you've even sold your actual program or your offer or whatever it is that you're selling, but secondly, you can use that money to fund.
Scaling your launch, and this is really, really key. One of the things about launching is that we constantly need to be bringing people into our world, and one of the ways in which we can do that is through something like meta ads. Now, what you can do when you are charging for a launch [00:12:00] experience, if you are running ads to that launch experience and people are signing up, that in effect is paying for the ad itself, which means.
If you are getting a positive ROI, it means you can put more money into the ads 'cause you know it's going to be paid for on the backend when they sign up for the program. So, for instance, if your program is 49 pounds or dollars and it is costing you 20 something pounds or dollars to get one person on the bootcamp.
Then we just add more money in at the beginning. So you can use a paid launch to fund itself to basically increase and scale that launch. And number four, doing a paid launch will lead to higher conversion rate. Again, if you've watched my video, which we will make sure we link to in the notes below this video, if you've watched my video on.
Numbers and what is realistic for you. When you are launching, you will see that often I talk about from [00:13:00] your launch list, which are the people who signed up for the way that you are launching your bootcamp, your challenge, or whatever it is. You can expect between one and 8% of those people to sign up to your program, to your paid offer.
However, in the last few. Paid launches that I have done, I have been seeing conversion rates of 20 to 27% because the people who are in the room, the people who have signed up are serious. If they have paid to be part of a bootcamp or paid to be part of your launch experience, it means they really are considering.
Working with you, or it means that they really do have the problem that you are trying to help them fix. You see, I might do a webinar that's for free and people might think, oh yeah, fancy. Going along and seeing what that's like. Well, actually there may not be my ideal customer, but because it's free.
They're not losing anything per se other than a bit of their time. However, if I am saying, even if it's a small amount of money, like 49 pounds, you [00:14:00] have to pay 49 pounds to come and join the bootcamp. Then someone who's just doing it just out of interest is less likely to do that because they've actually gotta pay money for it.
So number four is the conversion rate will be higher because the people in the room are more serious. Okay, let me recap those four reasons again, why you should consider doing a paid launch for your next launch. The commitment is higher, which means they will get better results because they are showing up and doing the work because.
They paid to be part of your launch, you will get higher engagement and a high up show up rate, which again, will be better for everybody. Number three, the launch can potentially fund itself because if you are being paid to do the launch, you could always. Filter that money back into things like meta ads in order for you to get more people in the launch in the first place, and number four, you will get a much higher conversion rate because the people who are taking part in the launch are [00:15:00] much more tailored to be your audience.
But there is one big objection that I want to just tackle before we finish this video that you'll get. Far less people signing up to this launch experience than maybe you are used to, and that is an important thing to note. But I really don't want you to let this stop you. If you are doing a webinar where you are currently getting a few hundred people signing up, then you can fully expect the minute you do a paid thing for that to dramatically decreased.
But don't see this as a bad thing. One, you are earning money that you weren't earning when you did it for free. Two, if they really are your perfect customer, then they're going to sign up if it's the right thing. And three, they are much more likely to convert. So even though you have less people coming in at the top of the funnel, you are converting more coming outta the funnel.
So for me. It absolutely has its place. It doesn't mean I [00:16:00] only do paid launches. Now I do happen to do a lot of paid launches, but I do occasionally do free webinars and they have their place too. But if you are serious about. Getting people into your offer, then I would definitely consider having a paid launch.
And the great news is if you are a member of Grow Launch Sell, then coming up in the next few weeks will be a new module all about how to do paid launches for your next launch. And if you are not in Grow Launch Sell, then you can just click this QR code here and it will take you to the Grow Launch Sell page where you can find out more about it and get on the wait list.
