Do You Need a Course, a Membership, or Consulting? A Simple Decision Guide for BCBAs

If you have been circling the idea of building something online for a while, you have probably landed on the same question more than once:

Should I create a course? A membership? Should I just start offering consulting?

And if you are like most behavior analysts I talk to, you have probably researched all three, made a pros and cons list, changed your mind twice, and still feel unsure.

That is not a sign you are behind. It is a sign nobody ever laid out a simple way to think about this decision.

So let's fix that.

Why This Decision Feels So Hard

Part of the problem is that most business advice treats this like a personality question. Pick the model that matches your "entrepreneurial style."

That framing is not very useful when you are also trying to figure out:

• how much time you actually have

• what your audience is asking for

• what has already worked for people in your space

• whether you even have an audience yet

Behavior analysts tend to want to get this right before starting. Understandable. But there is no version of this decision where you can eliminate all risk in advance. There is a version where you can eliminate a lot of unnecessary guessing, though. That is what this framework is for.

Start With the Problem, Not the Format

Before you decide course, membership, or consulting, get specific about the transformation you help people create.

Ask yourself:

• What is the specific result someone gets after working with me?

• Is this a one-time skill they need to learn once, or an ongoing need they will have repeatedly?

• Do they need me to teach them something, walk alongside them over time, or do the work for them?

The answer to that last question points you toward a format faster than almost anything else.

• Teach them something once → points toward a course

• Walk alongside them over time → points toward a membership

• Do the work for them (or work closely with their specific situation) → points toward consulting

This is not a perfect formula. But it is a much better starting point than "which one sounds more exciting to build."

Consulting: The Lowest-Tech, Highest-Touch Option

Consulting is usually the fastest way to generate revenue with the least amount of upfront building. You already know how to do this work. You are trading time and expertise directly for money, often one-on-one or with a small number of clients.

Consulting tends to be a good fit when:

• you do not yet have an audience or email list

• you want to validate that people will pay for your expertise before building anything bigger

• you enjoy working closely with individual clients or organizations

• you need income now, not in three months after a course launch

The tradeoff is obvious. Consulting caps your time. You cannot scale past the number of hours in your week. Many behavior analyst entrepreneurs start here, though, because it requires no funnel, no course platform, and no audience-building runway. It just requires you to say yes to a client.

Courses: Teaching a Specific Skill or Process, Once

A course makes sense when you can identify a clear, teachable process that gets someone from point A to point B, and that process does not really change much from person to person.

Courses tend to work well when:

• the transformation is skill-based or process-based (not situation-dependent)

• your audience wants to learn it themselves rather than have it done for them or need ongoing check-ins

• you can teach it once, well, and it stays useful without constant updating

• you already have some audience or way to reach potential buyers

Courses are appealing because they feel scalable. Build once, sell repeatedly. But that scalability is a bit of a myth in the early days. Courses still require marketing, launching, and often more upfront content creation than people expect before that "passive income" reality kicks in.

A course is a poor fit if your audience's problem is actually more nuanced or situational than "teach me the steps." If every client's situation looks different, a rigid course structure will frustrate both you and them.

Memberships: Ongoing Support for an Ongoing Need

A membership is the right call when the problem you solve is not a one-time skill gap. It is an ongoing need for accountability, community, evolving resources, or continued support.

Memberships tend to work well when:

• your audience needs help implementing over time, not just learning once

• community or accountability is part of the value, not just content

• you already have recurring questions or needs from your audience that a single course would not fully solve

• you are comfortable with ongoing content creation and member engagement

The appeal of recurring revenue is real. So is the ongoing labor. Memberships require consistent delivery of value month after month, which is a different kind of workload than launching a course once. Retention also becomes its own skill you will need to learn.

A Few Questions to Ask Yourself

If you are still unsure after reading through all three, try answering these:

• Do I have an audience yet, or do I need income first? (If no audience yet, consulting is often the realistic starting point.)

• Is the transformation I offer a single skill, or an ongoing process? (Single skill leans course. Ongoing process leans membership.)

• How much time do I actually have to build and maintain this right now? (Consulting requires the least building. Memberships require the most ongoing maintenance.)

• What have I already been asked for? (Pay attention to what your audience is actually requesting, not just what sounds good to build.)

You Do Not Have to Pick Forever

One thing that trips up a lot of behavior analyst entrepreneurs is treating this like a permanent, unchangeable decision. It is not.

Many successful online businesses in this space started with consulting, then built a course once they saw a repeatable pattern in their client work, and added a membership later for ongoing support. The order matters less than actually starting somewhere and paying attention to what your audience tells you along the way.

You are allowed to start small. You are allowed to change models later. What you cannot do is make progress while stuck choosing between three good options indefinitely.

Final Thoughts

If you have been stuck on this decision for a while, the format is probably not actually the problem. The real question underneath it is usually: what result do I help people get, and what is the simplest way to deliver that right now?

Start there. The right format tends to follow once that is clear.

Get a free ebook to help you out here: A Simple Roadmap to Launching Your Online ABA Business