How much support is included in the price?

A buyer sends a message at 9.12pm asking you to review their sales page. You sell the template for £19, and the answer takes 35 minutes because you need to understand their offer before giving useful advice. Nothing in the checkout promised a review, but the request feels close enough to the product that saying no feels awkward. This is how a low-priced offer quietly becomes one-to-one service.

Start with the job the buyer is paying for

Support becomes difficult when the product promise is vague. “Learn how to launch” invites questions about strategy, copy, tools, timing and individual circumstances. “Use these five worksheets to draft your launch plan” gives the buyer a narrower job and gives you a clearer basis for deciding what help belongs in the price. Before choosing a support policy, write one sentence completing this phrase: “After buying this, the customer should be able to…”

1. 1List the result the product teaches or delivers, not every result the buyer might want afterwards.
2. 2List the points where a reasonable buyer could get stuck using the product itself.
3. 3Separate those predictable sticking points from requests that require you to inspect the buyer’s business, work or personal situation.
4. 4Include the first group in the offer. Price, schedule or redirect the second group separately.

Define four parts of support

A useful support policy answers four practical questions: where can someone ask, when will you reply, how much can they ask, and what kind of answer will they receive? “Email support included” answers only one of them. The missing details become a negotiation after purchase, usually in the buyer’s favour because the request is already in your inbox.

Choose boundaries you can keep during a normal week, not the ideal week after a launch. If you do not want to count questions, use a time or scope boundary instead: “I can clarify how the workbook works, but I cannot review your completed plan.” The wording should be firm without pretending the buyer is unreasonable for asking.

Match support to the price and delivery model

Price does not determine support on its own, but it sets a constraint. Suppose a £19 product attracts 20 buyers and each buyer receives 15 minutes of personal help. That is five hours of support before you improve the product, answer general questions or handle sales and administration. If each request takes 30 minutes, the same sales create 10 hours. The arithmetic is simple; the cost is easy to overlook because no separate invoice appears.

• Digital download: include access instructions, a short usage guide, examples and help with reasonable product questions. A product such as [digital downloads](/features/digital-downloads) is well suited to a self-serve promise when the files and instructions do most of the teaching.
• Course: provide a clear route through the material, technical access help and a defined place for questions. If you offer personal feedback, name what is reviewed and how many times.
• Membership or community: describe whether the value is the library, the discussion, your scheduled input, or a combination. A community can create an expectation of ongoing presence even when you intended to provide a resource library.
• Coaching or live sessions: treat the time as the product. A call, review or workshop should have a duration, preparation requirement and follow-up rule rather than an implied promise of availability between sessions.

Build support into the product before adding more of yourself

Repeated questions are often a product-design signal. If six buyers ask where to begin, add a “start here” page. If they all misunderstand one worksheet, change the instruction and add a completed example. If they need the same technical explanation, turn it into a short guide or welcome email. This costs time once and can reduce the number of future private replies.

Your storefront can help make the promise visible before payment. On store.fan, you can sell downloads, courses, coaching calls and other formats from your own storefront. Use the product description to state what is included, then repeat the support boundary on the order or welcome page. If you use a course format, [host and sell online courses](/features/online-courses) so the delivery structure is part of the customer’s experience rather than something you explain manually each time.

Use a support ladder instead of one vague promise

Not every question needs the same level of access. A support ladder gives buyers a next step without making every purchase a private service. Start with information that is available to everyone who buys, then reserve your time for requests that genuinely need it.

1. 1Self-serve: instructions, examples, frequently asked questions and a short troubleshooting page.
2. 2Clarification: one defined route for questions about using the product, with a stated response time.
3. 3Group help: a scheduled webinar, office hour or community discussion where one answer can help several buyers.
4. 4Paid personal help: a review, coaching call or implementation service with its own price, scope and booking process.

This also gives you language for a boundary: “That question is outside the product’s support. You can find the general guidance here; if you want feedback on your specific situation, the next option is a paid coaching call.” The redirect is not a failure of generosity. It tells the buyer what kind of work they are asking for.

Review the policy after the first sales

Keep a simple record of support for each product: number of questions, minutes spent, repeated topics and requests you declined. After a launch, total the minutes and divide by the number of buyers. If 60 buyers create 12 hours of support, that is 12 minutes per buyer on average. The average will not describe every customer, but it gives you a starting point for deciding whether the promise is affordable.

Look at the questions as well as the time. A high number of access problems points to delivery or onboarding. Repeated requests for personal judgement point to an offer boundary. Questions that reveal a missing lesson point to the product itself. On store.fan, money from sales goes straight to your own Stripe account, while Stripe’s own processing fee still applies; your support time remains a separate cost that you need to account for.