How To Build The Perfect Value Ladder

We've talked about what a value ladder is in past deep dives, but we're going to be recapping it again for anyone just diving in.

A value ladder is a concept that involves offering a series of products (or services) that gradually increase in price and value.

You're essentially leveling up your audience through different offers. 

They can skip parts of the value ladder based on the point of their journey they're at, but the point of your value ladder is to bring them on a consistent customer journey.

And, while the offer gets more advanced, the price naturally goes up to match.

Here's what a sample value ladder can look like:

• Free Value: These are my SuperThreads and newsletter. It can also be a lead magnet in some cases, but I prefer using our newsletter AS the lead magnet.
• Low Ticket Offers: Good examples of LTOs are eBooks, mini courses, templates and even workshops. You can read more in this deep dive.
• Mid-Ticket Offers: Good examples of MTOs are courses, communities, and cohorts. You can read more in this deep dive.
• High Ticket Offers: Good examples of HTOs are masterminds, evergreen group coaching and consulting. You can read more in this deep dive.

There are plenty of other offers not listed here, and varying price ranges that will be based on your niche (and therefore audience), and your business model as a whole.

The way you build out your exact value ladder will vary, as we'll see from the examples in this deep dive.

🔎 Do you need to include ALL of these in your value ladder?

Definitely not.

We'll be taking a look at some value ladders that bring their audience directly up the ladder, focusing on a very specific niche and end goal as they make their way through, and some that have a much different style.

For now, let's get started with a visual example of what a value ladder could look like:

✍️ The Value Ladder

Here's a picture of a basic value ladder. 

You can see the terminology used is very similar to what we've discussed, but in this case it says "Bait" instead of "Free Value" and "Frontend" and "Backend" are swapped for "Low Ticket" and "High Ticket".

The other term you see here is "Continuity Program" which is referring to something that will bring you recurring revenue. 

This might be a community, a SaaS, async group coaching, a membership site or even a paid newsletter.

Which brings us to our first fake value ladder for this deep dive.

Here's a mock value ladder for my personal brand Text Based Creator:

1. Free Value: Newsletter, Website/Deep Dives and SuperThreads
2. Low Ticket Offer: eBook to get you started writing online.
3. Mid Ticket Offer: Course to help you launch your newsletter.
4. High Ticket Offer: Group Coaching to help you scale your business.

And there may be another mid-ticket offer in there as well. 

Like The Summit, for example, which is a 30 day challenge designed to help people master their daily writing habit, explode their following, and become the go-to authority in their niche.

But the key is not building a value ladder that is so broad that you are trying to solve too many problems at once and end up specializing in none.

This brings us back to our Niche Down X Brand Wide topic, which we've covered in depth in deep dives like:

1. How To Niche Down And Brand Wide For Growth
2. How To Own A Brand Identity And Scale With Sub-Niches

And while I won't build too much on that in this deep dive, it will be a recurring theme as we make our way through the best value ladders.

The offers match the value proposition (and therefore fit in the value ladder) and we typically tend to want to buy from creators that specializes in exactly what we need.

Okay, we're almost to our first creator. 

Let's just start by taking one quick look at a mock value ladder that a dentist may have:

✍️ A Dentist's Value Ladder

We'll go through this one quickly, but since I'm a visual learner I assume I likely have a good handful of others who will appreciate this perspective as well.

Here's what we see for a dentist's mock value ladder:

• Free Value: Teeth Cleaning
• Low Ticket: Teeth Whitening 
• Mid Ticket: Retainer
• High Ticket: Cosmetic
• Continuity: 6 Month Check-Ups

Just like with my value ladder, the dentist in this case could have a couple different mid ticket offers, and even [obviously] a handful of high ticket offers, but this is a good visual example of leveling up your audience with your value ladder.

Note: Another reason I wanted to highlight this value ladder before moving into the deep dive and looking at some creators value ladders is because it's a perfect example to portray how some people may skip some levels of the value ladder.

I may go into a dentists office because they offered a free cleaning, but I also may just show up because I need/want teeth whitening or even a retainer.

BUT, once you get to the retainer/cosmetic, it usually takes place AFTER the dentist has built some trust with their patients - similar to how we need to build trust as we level up our audience through our ladder.

✍️ A "Full" Value Ladder

The first value ladder we'll look at is the one built by Nicolas Cole and Dickie Bush. 

And the reason we're starting here is because:

1. It's the most clean and straight forward.
2. It has grown and changed over time.
3. They add in different layers at different times.

We'll start by taking a look at it in it's most basic format and then add in different layers.

Basic Value Ladder:

1. Free Value: Email Based Courses and Newsletters
2. Low Ticket Offer: eBooks / Books (shown in image $10-20)
3. Mid Ticket Offer: Ship 30 For 30 (course / cohort - $350/$800)
4. High Ticket Offer: Premium Ghostwriting Academy (group coaching - $5000+)

This is one of my favorite value ladder formats.

• Low Ticket Book
• Mid Ticket Course
• High Ticket Group Coaching

That said, let's talk about some of the layers they add on.

• Workshops $100-150
• Video Courses $200-350

They run workshops from time to time, and then have even some those workshop recordings for $100-150, and also do at least one massive launch of a new program each year like:

• Full Stack Writer
• Category Newsletter Creator

These programs typically roll out at around $300 or so.

Note: Ship 30 For 30 used to be a cohort based program that was priced around $800, making these course launches and webinar injections perfectly suited for their value ladder, but now they have Ship 30 evergreen at $350.

From there they have the last step in their ladder: Premium Ghostwriting Academy.

Premium Ghostwriting Academy is a high ticket evergreen group coaching program that is priced from $5000-7500 and teaches people how to land ghostwriting clients.

🔎 Jumping In At Random Places In The Ladder

If you notice, it's pretty easy to see where you could fit into this value ladder without necessarily purchasing the step prior. 

Let's look at a few examples:

• Ship 30 For 30: I could easily sign up for Ship 30 For 30 without having to have purchased one of the low ticket offers.
• Premium Ghostwriting Academy: I could easily jump to Premium Ghostwriting Academy without having purchased either one of the low ticket offers OR any of the mid ticket offers.

That said, each of those purchases would have helped Dickie and Cole build trust and move us up their value ladder (especially the book to one of their video courses!)

✍️ Another "Perfect" Value Ladder

Another great example of a value ladder is Katelyn Bourgoin's.

And she's currently in the process of a big pivot after multiple launches this year which allow us to evaluate even further.

Here's what it currently looks like:

1. Free Value: Newsletter & Freebies
2. Low Ticket: Wallet Opening Words (Playbook - $129)
3. Mid Ticket: Painkiller (Video Course - $475)
4. "High" Ticket: Un-Ignorable (Course/Cohort $700-$3000)

There's a couple awesome things we can analyze in this one.

Let's take a look:

• Katelyn's "Low Ticket" is actually $129. This is a higher price point than we see from some other low ticket items.
• Katelyn just announced that this will be the last Un-Ignorable Cohort and at the same time launched her new course "Painkiller" which looks like it will also have a second layer of coaching to replace Un-Ignorable completely.

🔎 So What Do We Learn From This?

The first thing we can make note of and learn from is the fact that Katelyn's value ladder actually starts at what some creators may consider a "mid-ticket" ($129), depending on the niche.

Nicolas Cole and Dickie Bush have the eBooks priced around $10-20, and even Matt Gray has sold a low ticket mini-course tripwire for $29 - but Katelyn found a way to deliver an eBook with tremendous value and price it at $129 (you get a lot more than just a PDF).

The second thing we can learn from is that Katelyn is currently going through a massive pivot. Since Un-Ignorable launched it has been the driving force of her income, with sponsorships of the newsletter being secondary. 

Now she launched Wallet Opening Words as her low ticket and Painkiller to be another portion of her value ladder - showing that you can definitely make BIG changes to your value ladder in just a years time.

✍️ From Low To High Value Ladder

Next up we're looking at Jeff Walker, creator of Product Launch Formula.

Jeff's value ladder is pretty straightforward:

1. Free Value: Discovery Content and Newsletter
2. Low Ticket: Launch Book ($10-$15)
3. Mid-High Ticket: Product Launch Formula [Video Course] ($1997)

Jeff isn't the only creator who goes from book to mid-high ticket range, but his value ladder is so simple I wanted to plug it in here to discuss.

Jeff also does some consulting and runs a yearly event called PLF Live, so it's important to note that value ladders can have extra layers (like we saw from Cole and Bush above).

But, at it's core, it's extremely simple.

You know exactly what you should do if you want to learn from Jeff and his launch formula.

You either buy his book, or wait for his course to open.

And, if you want to take action right away, you buy his book first, and then wait!

This model is a great example of not only simplicity in a value ladder, but also being hyper-specific and having a signature product.

✍️ From Low To High Value Ladder

Next up is Dan Go's value ladder.

Dan is in the fitness industry, which may have us initially thinking he is in a lower price bracket, but he actually found a unique way to skip right over low ticket altogether.

Dan's value ladder is also extremely simple:

• Free Value: Newsletter and Articles
• Low Ticket: Nothing
• Mid Ticket: Lean Body 90 (90 Day Program - $497)
• High Ticket: Private Coaching ($2,000-$8,000?)

I don't know exactly what Dan charges for his private coaching, but I know it's high ticket.

He can make this ladder work because of his target audience and overall positioning.

Eventually one day if he decided to write a book that puts all of his methodologies into one neat package it would only make his already proven value ladder even stronger!

✍️ Low Ticket Volume

You don't always need a value ladder. 

Sometimes you just need one or two signature products.

Justin Welsh's recently launched his program Creator MBA, but originally he just had his LinkedInOS and ContentOS priced at $150.

Here's what his value ladder looks like now:

1. Free Value: Newsletter and Articles
2. Low-Mid Ticket: LinkedIn OS and ContentOS (Video Courses - $100-150)
3. Mid-High Ticket: CreatorMBA (Video Course $897)

Justin doesn't necessarily need a true high ticket backend offer in his value ladder because of how much volume he has coming in.

Even before he rolled out CreatorMBA he made $2.3M+ in 2023 with just his two $150 courses.

You need to find the value ladder that works best for your specific stage and goals.

If Justin wanted to add a layer of high ticket group coaching he could likely make millions more per year, but he'd be trading a lot more hours for it, or tacking on the management of others - neither of which he wants (or sees as worth it just to make more money, when he already has enough).

✍️ Building Your Value Ladder

The image above shows some of my favorite offers for each part of a value ladder.

This is based on my deep dive for offer freedom and price scale, and obviously varies based on your goals and business model as a whole.

Your value ladder should accomplish a few things:

• Level up your audience to the end goal.
• Have a specific starting point for them to enter.
• Make it clear they can enter at any point in the ladder.
• Level up the value and the price point with the delivery.

There are endless ways to accomplish this, and you don't need a full value ladder to start, but you should be slowly beginning to think about how you can bring your audience through an entire customer journey with your products.

For the whole first year of my personal brand I didn't have a way for my audience to "Fuel" their newsletter. I just had the blueprint for the newsletter, and content flywheel system.

Now ending the year I'm adding a new level in the value ladder that levels you up:

• *Fuel: SuperThread Mastery and Summit
• Engine: 2-Hour Newsletter System
• Accelerator: Async Coaching (Will eventually likely be group coaching)

So don't rush your process.

Learn from your audience and take the time you need to be able to expand and grow. 

And don't forget to Niche Down X Brand Wide.