Parity Pricing for Students Worldwide: A Behind-the-Scenes Look

At Notion Mastery we understand that not everyone earns a salary in US Dollars (USD), which is why we offer discounts based on country of residence to enable parity pricing of our course.

While there are apps out there that will manage parity pricing for you, they did not offer us enough flexibility or customization (and, in some cases, were not supported or maintained). Because of this we established a customized system using Excel, Tally, Notion, Spark and Thrivecart to manage our parity pricing.

Here’s a breakdown of that system:

Ben set up an Excel spreadsheet for us that:

  • Pulls in current currency data
  • Calculates the purchasing power % for each currency
  • Recommends a % discount based on purchasing power
  • Compares the recommended discount to the current discount that we are offering
Our currency Excel spreadsheet showing recommended discounts.
Based on this, we can see that we should increase our current discount for Albania by 20%. We review the discounts on a quarterly basis and make updates as needed.

On a quarterly basis we review our current discounts vs the recommended discounts and make adjustments as needed. This data informs the discount % that is set for parity coupons in Thrivecart, our cart provider, as well as on the list of Parity Eligible Countries that we share from our sales page to help folks determine if they are eligible for a discount or not.

This public Notion page lists all the countries that are currently eligible for parity pricing, and links to the Tally form we use for parity pricing applications.

The Notion page we share with information about parity pricing.
Within the toggle is a database that lists all the countries currently eligible for parity pricing. If someone’s country of residence is eligible, they can click the link to the form to apply for parity pricing.

The Tally form asks folks to provide their name, email address, and address of residence. Anyone applying is also required to upload an image of documentation that displays the name and address they’ve provided, so our team can verify their eligibility for parity pricing.

A section of our Tally form that asks the applicant to supply evidence of their country of residence.
Applicants must upload evidence of their country of residence, such as a piece of mail or photo ID.

The applications are sent from Tally into a Notion database where we can review them.

Our parity pricing application database showing one submission.

Once a day, Monday to Thursday (excluding stat holidays!) we review the parity applications in Notion. Occasionally folks from non-eligible countries apply, in which case we send them a quick email to thank them for their application and let them know their country is unfortunately not eligible. Most of the time the applications we receive are from eligible countries. Our team reviews the supporting documentation included in the application, comparing the name and address in the image to the name and address provided in the application form. If everything matches up, we then do a quick search of our own parity pricing database to confirm the percentage discount the applicant is eligible for.

Once we’ve confirmed the percentage, we use templates stored in Spark to email the applicant their discount code.

A template email we send to folks who are eligible for parity pricing.
The email templates in Spark contain links to Thrivecart, with the applicable percentage discount already applied to the product.

The prospective student can then use the link we provide to purchase Notion Mastery at a price that is more accessible in their local currency.

Whenever new sales come through, we relate a student’s sale to their entry in the student database (you can learn more about all the databases we use to manage our course ops here). If their sale has used a parity pricing coupon, we also relate the student’s parity application to their student profile, which gives us another layer of review and security that our coupons are not getting shared fraudulently.

A student profile in our Notion database, showing a relation to their parity application.
A student’s profile is related to their sale, intake form, and parity application if applicable.

Offering parity pricing is an important step in making products more accessible to people around the world. Since we implemented parity pricing in 2021 this process has helped hundreds of students access Notion Mastery at a price that is more affordable in their local currency. If you’re considering implementing parity pricing for your course or product, we hope our process and tools can provide some guidance and inspiration for your own setup.

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