How therapists creating online courses build passive income

Curious about creating online courses to bolster your income?

As a private practice therapist, your income is typically generated from the hours you spend in session.

More clients translates to more revenue. But it also means more of your time and energy invested in direct, one-to-one work.

But therapy sessions aren’t the only way to earn income as a therapist.

There are other opportunities to drive revenue in ways that don’t rely on exchanging time for money. And one of the most effective ways is through creating online courses.

Summary

Creating online courses allows therapists and SLPs to generate supplemental income beyond traditional session-based work, reaching broader audiences without geographic licensing restrictions while maintaining more flexible schedules.
Digital therapy education provides opportunities to share specialized expertise at accessible price points, though success requires strategic planning around content selection, pricing, marketing, and ongoing optimization rather than truly passive income.
Understanding what platform to use, how to price courses, when to launch, and what content converts best are essential components of building a sustainable online education business for mental health professionals.
Successful course creation begins by identifying the overlap between your areas of expertise (zones of genius) and your audience's biggest pain points, then starting small with focused workshops before scaling to larger programs.
Effective course marketing requires continuous testing, analytics review, and optimization across multiple channels, with pricing strategies that balance audience affordability, market positioning, and sustainable compensation for your time and expertise.

With the right approach and strategy, creating online courses can be a great way to supplement your therapy income.

But, what, exactly, does that look like?

This article explores the potential benefits of digital therapy education as a secondary income stream, as well as tips on how to effectively build, launch, and sell your own online course.

Why digital therapy education can be lucrative for therapists

Before we get into tips on how to build and how to market courses, let’s quickly touch on why online education might appeal to therapists.

“Launching online courses lets me reach more therapists beyond my private practice to help increase my income while also offering resources in an accessible, affordable way,” says Jenny Hughes, PhD, trauma psychologist and founder of The BRAVE Trauma Therapist Collective.

Therapists are drawn to the online education space for a number of reasons, including:

Income potential. The online learning space is booming, with global e-learning revenue on track to surpass $203 billion in 2025. Clearly, there’s money to be made with online courses—including for therapists looking for a new and different way to monetize their skills and experience.
Less client restrictions. As a therapist, you have strict limits on who you can and cannot provide therapy to. For example, in the U.S. you can only offer therapy, including telehealth video therapy sessions, to clients in states where you’re actively licensed. Creating online courses, on the other hand, gives you the opportunity to access and address a much larger pool of potential clients.
Fewer compliance issues. As a therapist, you’re bound by strict compliance regulations. “With therapy, HIPAA, ethics codes, and state regulations come first,” says Nusha Nouhi, Clinical & Health Psychologist at Marina Health of California. But what about compliance for online courses? Even though you’re a therapist, you’re not offering therapy in your online courses. Therefore, you don’t have the same compliance restrictions. While it’s important to research any regulations that might apply to online courses (like digital privacy laws or teaching requirements), you don’t have to worry about therapy-level compliance when building and marketing your course.
More accessible. Therapy can be expensive. Online courses allow you to share your expertise at a more accessible price point, which enables you to reach and help more people, including those who might not be able to afford ongoing one-on-one therapy sessions.
More variety. You’re a skilled therapist, but your skills aren’t limited to how you show up in session. Online courses allow you to explore, package, and share knowledge in new and different ways—and earn more money in the process.

Does creating online courses generate passive income?

Providing therapy is an active revenue stream—meaning that your income comes from direct, ongoing work.

When you see your clients for therapy sessions, you get paid.

If you see fewer clients, you get paid less.

And, if you pause your therapy practice, you’ll experience a pause in your income as well.

Online courses are different.

Of course, it’s true you will spend a good amount of (unpaid) time building, launching, and creating systems to market, manage, and sell your course.

However, once that initial work is done, there’s almost no limit to how much money you can earn from your course. With the right systems put into place, your course can continue to sell and drive revenue indefinitely—even when you’re not actively working on it.

That being said, it’s important to note that online course income isn’t completely passive. If you want your course to continue to sell and drive revenue, some ongoing effort will be required.

“Once courses are launched, they can become more ‘passive,’ but course creators also continue to take time to market their courses and keep their course content up-to-date,” says Rebecca “Becky” Stone MA, LMHC-QS, owner and director of clinical and consulting services at Stone Counseling & Consulting Services.

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How therapists can create a successful online courses business

Now that you understand the potential benefits of digital therapy education, we’ll share some actionable tips to support you in creating online courses:

Find your sweet spot

The most successful courses exist in the sweet spot where two core things overlap:

The areas where you’re most qualified to teach (also known as your “zones of genius”)
The biggest problems your audience is struggling with

Courses built in that overlap showcase your unique expertise and provide solutions to problems people are actively searching (and willing to pay) for—and those are the courses that sell best.

So, how do you go about finding that sweet spot—and creating online courses that speak to the overlap?

Step 1: Identify your zones of genius

The first step to finding your course sweet spot is defining the areas where you’re the most qualified to teach.

To identify your zones of genius, ask yourself exploratory questions like:

Where do I have the most training, experience, or expertise?
What modalities or techniques do I specialize in?
What skills or topics am I most passionate about?
What sets me apart from other therapists?
What are my strongest professional skills outside of therapy?
What do I do better than anyone else?
What are the unique overlaps in my background/experience?

Identifying your zones of genius will help you focus on course topics that feel authentic to you—and “the more authentic and engaged you are, the more your course will resonate,” says Nouhi.

Step 2: Identify your audience’s pain points

For the next step you’ll need to shift your focus outward to determine where your audience is struggling—and where they need support—most.

“Start with your community’s biggest pain point,” says Hughes.

There are a variety of strategies you can use to uncover your audience’s pain points, like:

Asking directly through surveys, polls, or conversations
Listening to conversations on forums, social media groups, or comment threads
Paying attention to the recurring challenges you hear from clients, colleagues, or peers in your professional community
Exploring the educational content and courses that are most popular with your audience

Step 3: Look for the overlap—and use it to drive your course content and strategy

Once you have a clear picture of a) your zones of genius, and b) your audience’s needs, it’s time to look for the overlap.

Where do your zones of genius overlap with your audience’s most pressing problems—and what kind of courses can you create at the intersection?

For example, let’s say that, after 20+ years of practice and multiple advanced trainings and workshops, you’ve identified cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) as one of your zones of genius.

And, after researching your audience—graduate students studying to be therapists—you determine that sleep issues rank high on their list of challenges.

Your “sweet spot” would be courses that frame CBT as a solution to your audience’s sleep problems—like “How to Use CBT-I To Get Better Rest During Finals Week” or “10 CBT Exercises To Quiet Your Bedtime Anxiety—and Get Better Sleep in the Process.”

The point is, when you find the overlap between what you have to offer and what your audience actually needs, you’re not just creating online courses; you’re creating the right course—one that feels natural to create, deeply resonates with your audience, and has the best chance of selling.

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Starting out? Start small

When it comes to creating online courses, bigger isn’t always better.

“A concise and high-value training can be more effective than an ambitious program that overwhelms you,” says Christina P. Kantzavelos, LCSW, founder of Begin Within Today.

Smaller projects can offer major advantages over larger courses. For example, smaller projects:

Require less time, energy, and labor to complete, allowing you to build and launch faster—and with less overwhelm
Give you the opportunity to test your ideas before committing to a bigger build
Allow you to learn, experiment, and develop your skills as a course creator in a lower-stakes environment
Build the foundation you need to later take on larger, more ambitious projects

So, what does starting small actually look like?

Rather than trying to create a comprehensive training that covers everything you know and have to offer, choose a single problem or topic—and then build a short workshop, mini-course, or focused training around that specific offering.

Learn everything you can from building these smaller courses, and then aim to go just a little bigger on your next go-around.

Over time, you’ll develop the confidence, skills, and experience to successfully create and launch larger courses—without the overwhelm of biting off too much too soon.

Tailor your strategy to your audience

There’s no single “right” way to build, launch, and market an online course.

The most effective strategies for your course will vary based on your audience—what they value, how they learn, and where they spend their time.

For the best results, make sure to tailor each part of your course strategy to your specific audience, including:

What platform to use. Think about the features your students need and value most—and then choose a platform that supports those features. For example, if your ideal customer values communication with their instructor and peers, look for a course hosting platform with strong community features.
Your content strategy. Think about what content converts best for your specific audience—and then tailor your content strategy accordingly. For example, Kantzavelos builds courses for therapists, who “want actionable resources they can take into sessions immediately.” As such, she built her content strategy around these types of resources, like “case examples, practical tools, and step-by-step frameworks, [which] have been converted best,” she says.
Your marketing strategy. The way you promote your course should reflect where your audience spends their time and how they prefer to engage. For example, if you’re targeting younger professionals, you might focus on marketing via short, engaging videos on Instagram or TikTok—while an older audience might respond better to email or LinkedIn marketing.
When to launch courses. Think about when your audience is most motivated to buy—and then build your launch schedule around that. For example, if your course is aimed at new therapists, launching around graduation season or licensure exam dates makes sense. If you’re targeting parents, aligning a launch with the back-to-school season might capture their attention when routines are shifting and they have a bit more free time.

The point is, your course will only succeed if it resonates with the people you’re creating it for.

The more you tailor your platform, content, marketing, and timing to your audience’s needs, the more your course will feel like the perfect fit for that audience—and the more successful it will be as a result.

Make sure the price is right

Understanding how to price courses isn’t just about picking a number. It’s about “balancing accessibility with sustainability,” says Hughes.

Or, in other words, you need to price your courses in a way that’s both fair to your customers and sustainable for you as a therapist and course creator.

So, what does that kind of pricing look like?

There are a number of factors to consider when pricing your course, including:

Your target audience’s budget. If you want to sell courses, your course price needs to align with what your audience can realistically afford. “My audience—trauma therapists—are often overworked and underpaid, so pricing too high would exclude the very people I want to serve,” says Hughes.
Your contributions. Your pricing should also align with “the time, effort, value, and costs that it takes to launch and manage [the course],” says Stone. If your contributions aren’t reflected in your pricing, chances are courses will feel like too much effort with not enough payout—or, put another way, like “the juice isn’t worth the squeeze.”
The course’s content and value. Your course pricing should also reflect the depth of the content in the course—and the value that brings to the student. For example, a short workshop with an hour of content will have a lower price point than a six-week, multi-module program with 20+ hours of content, bonus resources, and ongoing community support.
Competitor pricing. Before setting your price, research what others in your niche are charging. “When pricing my courses and other services, I take into account price comparisons of similar offerings,” says Stone. This helps ensure your course is aligned with market expectations—so you don’t accidentally price yourself out of the market or undervalue your work.
Pricing structure. In addition to figuring out the right price for your course, you’ll also need to determine the right pricing structure. Choosing a pricing structure comes down to three things: how much to charge, how often to charge, and what those charges cover—and different pricing structures will make sense for different types of courses. For example, if you’re selling a large course that’s packed with value and feels “complete”—meaning you have no plans to make any major updates or additions in the future—it would make sense to charge clients a higher one-time fee (for example, $297) for lifetime access. On the other hand, if your course is still evolving—and you’re adding new content, events, and features every month—it probably makes more sense to charge a recurring monthly subscription fee (like $50 per month).

Weighing these factors will help you identify the pricing that makes the most sense for your course.

But, if you’re still struggling to price your course, a good rule of thumb is to always charge more than you think you need to.

Why?

Because while it’s easy to reduce a too-high price tag, raising your prices is much more difficult—and could (and likely will) have a serious impact on your sales.

Optimize your marketing

According to Hughes, if you want your course to be successful, you have to “constantly be marketing to make this a viable passive income source.”

But effective marketing is about more than frequency. It’s about continually optimizing your approach so you can reach more people, make more sales, and steadily grow your revenue.

So, what does that look like?

There are a number of ways to improve your course marketing efforts over time—and drive more sales in the process—such as:

Test, test, test. As you’re creating and sharing your marketing materials, experiment with as many elements as you can—your copy, ad images, subject lines, call-to-action buttons, and even what time of day you post. Then, use what you learn to continually refine your approach.
Dig into your analytics. Track engagement, clicks, and conversions to see what’s actually working—and then use those insights to drive your marketing strategy. For example, after reviewing your analytics, you may find your Instagram Stories outperform posts—and shift your strategy to prioritize Stories over grid content.
Be flexible. The best marketing strategies are flexible. If something isn’t working, don’t cling to it. Be willing to pivot to new strategies or platforms that better serve your audience and drive better results.
Go wide to narrow. When you’re just starting your course marketing, it’s fine to try different things, whether that’s different marketing channels or content types. But as you gather more data, make sure to narrow your approach—and focus your efforts on what’s working best.

The point is, the more you optimize your marketing, the more effective your efforts will be over time—and the more revenue you’ll drive as a result.

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Creating online courses could take your career to the next level

While creating online courses doesn’t necessarily offer therapists a shortcut to instant income, digital therapy education can be a smart, effective way to expand your reach, diversify your revenue, and share your expertise in new ways.

And, with these tips, you’re equipped with the knowledge that you need to transform your therapeutic and professional experience into a sustainable revenue stream.

Sources

Statista. Online Education - Worldwide. March 2024.
Thinkific. How to Choose a Fail-Proof Online Course Topic. February 2023.
Teachable. How to Price Your Online Course in 3 Easy Steps. July 2023.

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