
Ask HN: What are your expectations for refund policies for online courses? - 21dayhero
Hi HNC,<p>I&#x27;ve launched a product which I would categorize as &#x27;online program&#x27; because it is not really a tech product and it&#x27;s not a self-guided online course per sè, because it includes human guiding you throughout the whole online program, day-by-day.<p>Context: it&#x27;s a program to help you build a 15-min morning routine in 8 weeks. My avatar is someone who doesn&#x27;t have a very strong discipline and tends to procrastinate, therefore would benefit the most from a structured, guided program.<p>Now, I want to have some sort of the refund policy and make it as fair as possible. I am torn however between these options:<p>- Be super user-friendly (my preferred choice in most cases) and provide no-questions-asked refunds before the program starts and within the first 1 or 2 weeks of the program.
- Be more firm and offer no refunds at all, because in this particular case, my avatar might have a tendency to &quot;chicken-out&quot; last minute and come up with an excuse to procrastinate again. But by not offering a refund, a user might end up getting into &quot;loss aversion&quot; and &quot;sunk-costs&quot; thinking - &quot;oh well, if I paid for it, I might as well do it&quot; and in a result, actually complete and really benefit from the program. So not offering refund might actually do good for tahe user. But then again - I can&#x27;t assume there will be no legitimate reasons for refund requests...<p>As an online-citizen - what is your preferred choice?
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mtmail
I'd stay super friendly. I bought multiple courses and ebooks in the past I
never finished, one never even started. I think those procastenating or
finishing (parts only or complete) the course and seeing no results know the
course is hardly to blame. And thus won't request a refund.

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21dayhero
yeah, I'm thinking along these lines too. Thanks for the input.

