How to setup custom EMI payment plan for your online course?

In the world of online education, the biggest barrier between great courses and eager students often isn’t content quality or marketing – it’s the price tag.

Over the past few years in the online ed-tech space, I’ve seen countless promising students hesitate at the checkout page, not because they doubted the course value, but because the lump-sum payment was simply out of reach.

This is where EMI (Equated Monthly Installment) plans come in, transforming an intimidating four-figure price tag into manageable monthly payments that align with students’ budgets.

For course creators, like you, offering EMI options isn’t just about being student-friendly, it’s a strategic business decision that can significantly boost student enrollment rates and expand your reach to a broader audience.

What are EMIs?

EMIs, or Equated Monthly Installments, break down large payments into manageable monthly chunks.

Think of it like Netflix’s monthly subscription but for education. For instance, instead of paying ₹50,000 upfront for a web development course, students might pay ₹5,000 monthly for 10 months.

As a course creator, you can offer either interest-free EMIs (where the total amount remains the same) or interest-bearing EMIs (where students pay a premium for the flexibility), moreover, you can also create custom and flexible EMI plans using Fermion, which we’ll talk about further in the post.

Why are EMIs popular among students?

The growing popularity of EMI options among students comes from several practical advantages:

1. Financial flexibility: Students, especially those transitioning careers or still in college, often operate on tight monthly budgets.

   A $200monthlypaymentfeelsfarmoremanageablethanaone-time200\; monthly\; payment\; feels\; far\; more\; manageable\; than\; a\; one-time$2,400 charge. I’ve seen students who initially refused at a course’s full price but comfortably enrolled once they saw the EMI option aligned with their monthly educational budget.

2. Psychological comfort: There’s a significant psychological difference between making a large one-time purchase and smaller monthly commitments.

   I’ve noticed students feel more confident investing in their education when the payment structure matches their allowance pattern – monthly stipend, monthly payment.

3. Risk mitigation: EMIs allow students to start their learning journey without depleting their savings. This is particularly important for career transition courses where students might need a financial buffer during their job search phase.

4. Better return calculation: With EMIs, students can often start earning from their new skills before completing all payments.

   For example, one of my batchmates, started freelancing after the third month of a 12-month course, making the remaining EMIs essentially self-funding.

How can you set up a custom EMI payment plan for your online course?

In order to setup an EMI payment plan, the usual route is to partner with a bank or financial institution that offers consumer financing options.

You will need to set criteria for customer’s eligibility based on credit scores, income, and other factors. This will help in assessing the risk of lending.

But, again, this leaves a very little room for you to configure a custom EMI payment plan for you.

I’ll be walking you through on how you can setup a custom EMI payment plan for your online course through Fermion.

What is Fermion?

Fermion is a high-powered platform that helps technical instructors (like yourself?) in setting up their online academies.

When thinking about providing the best online technical education, Fermion is the best in class. It doesn’t just help you set up your courses online but also provides you with an infrastructure where you can add interactive and evaluative coding labs inside your course, with the click of a button.

Steps to setup a custom EMI payment plan for your school

Step 1: Login into your school

(P.S. Get started for free on Fermion by scheduling a free demo with me here: https://sales.fermion.app/demo-call)

Fermion works as a white-labeled school, which means that your account will be setup under a domain name as well as a URL of your choice.

Your credentials will be shared with you once your account is setup.

Step 2: Navigate to pricing options for your digital product

Once you login, this is how your dashboard will look like:

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On the left sidebar, you will find a bunch of digital products that you can setup inside your online school to get started.

For the sake of simplicity, let’s create a simple cohort based course and navigate to it’s pricing.

Go to the courses tab like shown in the picture:

Create a new course. You can either choose a cohort based course or a recorded course.

Give it a good title.

Once your course is created navigate to the pricing area.

Step 3: Explore pricing options

You will be greeted with such a screen when you open the pricing tab.

There are now two pricing options available for you, let’s explore them one by one.

Let’s create a new fixed pricing plan for now

The fixed pricing plan works in a pretty straightforward fashion.

1. Choose a single or multiple currencies for your plan and add the price point you wish to.
2. Change the pricing state to published to make it available for your students.

Note: Fermion handles payment gateway integration for you. Domestically, gateways like Razorpay, PhonePe, Paysharp are used while internationally gateways like Stripe and PayPal.

Let’s now explore the partial payment plan

Step 4: Setting up the custom EMI plan

Create a new partial payment plan.

Configure your partial payment plan.

Setting up your partial payment plan is also pretty easy. Here’s what you need to follow:

1. Add the total cost of product. This is the final price the user will pay overall. The EMIs below must sum up to this amount.
2. Add the minimum mandatory amount. This is the mandatory amount that the user must pay upfront. User can pay more than this amount as well. Paying this amount will give user the access to product.
3. Set the EMI collection interval. Set the interval in days, when want the user to pay the next EMI if available.
4. Set up EMI options for your price. Enable how many EMIs users can choose by default. We recommend keeping at least 3-4 options.

This is how the EMI options work for your custom pricing options.

Click on save changes to save your pricing plan. You can also add similar pricing plans in multiple other currencies.

Voila!

You have now setup custom EMI pricing plans for your digital product.

If you’d like to setup such a plan for your online platform, let’s speak.

Conclusion

Setting up EMI plans for your online courses doesn’t have to be a complex financial juggling act.

While the technical aspects of EMI implementation might seem overwhelming at first, platforms like Fermion have simplified the process considerably.

The key is to remember that you’re not just creating a payment plan – you’re opening doors for students who might otherwise miss out on valuable education.

From my experience while working in the online ed-tech space, implementing EMI options increased enrollment rates by nearly 40%, particularly among early-career professionals and career switchers.

More importantly, the completion rates among EMI students is also higher, likely because the monthly payments kept them consistently engaged with the course material. The beauty of modern EMI systems lies in their automation – once set up, you can focus on what you do best: teaching and creating content.

With the right EMI setup, you can transform your course from a significant financial hurdle into an accessible investment in your students’ futures.

To get started, schedule a free demo call with me.