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Monetization via Paid Certification

AKA: Paid Trainings

Payment offers made by companies or individuals to get training or certifications for using or interfacing with the OSS. Often one-time payments for one certification or training session, but companies might need continuous flow of certifications for new employees.

Requires:

  • Setup of a payment mechanism (hosted or self-build)
  • Setup of online communication platform to conduct paid trainings
  • Collection and description of one or more certification levels
  • Time to conduct the certification or training

Variants & Options:

  • Training: Maintainers works with client directly to teach the use of the software
  • Personal Certification: Maintainer conducts or oversees the certification of one or more candidates (people)
  • Interface Certification: Maintainer conducts or oversees the certification of a software interfacing with the OSS

Platforms

Evaluation

Characteristics Value Note
Effort to set-up Weeks Might require training materials, Course System and/or Certificate Hosting.
Effort to maintain Medium Constant reminders to certify might be necessary. Updating certificates and training material might be necessary
Cost to set-up Low Maybe cost for a designer to design certificates
Cost to maintain Low Hosting of certificates might cost
One-time Income Medium Probably based on hourly wage - but can grow with demand for training or importance of certificates
Recurring Income Low Only for longer training projects with companies or mult-level certificates
Income Predictability Low Too complex --> no users; Too easy to understand --> no income
Full income Threshold 100+ clients per month;
Recipient I/C Certificate recipients probably want a certificate from an organization - not an individual. Payments might go to an individual certifier
Additional Work Medium Extra work to conduct certifications and/or trainings
Visibility Medium Easy to forget, ignore, or overlook, but certified people might talk about it
Necessity to pay Low Might increase with the wide-spread use of the software
Entry Threshold Low Credit card is sufficient
Countervalue Work
Scalability Low Scales to the time available to certify or train
Effort for marketing High
Competitors M Other maintainers might be competitors to certify.
Software types Big SW Better for big, complex and widely-used software

NOTE: Potentially, "unofficial" certificate can also be issued by non-maintainers (i.e., just expert), which could increase the competition (or income by "licencing" the right to certify).