The Rebranded Teacher
The Rebranded Teacher
Let's Talk About Your TPT Product Pricing Strategy
Price isn’t just a number on Teachers Pay Teachers—it’s a signal that guides clicks, conversions, and the algorithm’s attention. We dig into how buyers scan search results, what “fair value” looks like in context, and why a $0.50 tweak can lift both earnings and rank without sacrificing trust.
I walk through a live case study of a one-page, eight-problem function notation activity with a unique emoji puzzle angle. We compare it against search results in the same keywords, map where most offers cluster on price, and unpack how underpricing can raise quality doubts while overpricing can stall sales and bury your listing. You’ll hear how moving from $1.50 to $2 fits the market range, increases revenue per sale, and sends stronger signals to TPT’s search engine—while still respecting the product’s true value.
From there, we break down a simple framework you can apply right away: research pricing before you create, build to the value that matches the winning price cluster, and run small, thoughtful tests after launch. If you see consistent $3 to $4 winners on your keywords, add depth—more problems, warm-ups, paired worksheets, or a mini set of activities—to justify that tier. If your product is intentionally small, aim for the highest defensible price that still attracts clicks beside similar listings. The goal is to balance perceived value, buyer budget, and algorithm incentives so your catalog earns more and ranks faster over time.
Ready to price with purpose instead of guessing? Hit play, then subscribe, share this with a TPT friend, and leave a quick review telling us your most effective pricing tweak. Your feedback helps us bring more practical, step-by-step guidance to every episode.
Watch This Episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/YUqeSCIN5K4
Check Out My YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/laurenfulton
My Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/laurentschappler/
My Other YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@LaurenATsch
Free Rebranded Teacher Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/749538092194115
Welcome to the Rebranded Teacher Podcast. My name is Lauren Fulton. I'm a full-time teacher, author, and seller on Teachers Pay Teachers, and I help other teacher entrepreneurs grow their TPT businesses in a way that's purposeful and sustainable. So if you're looking for actionable, step-by-step ways to grow your business, you're in the right place. Let's get started. Personally, I can't think of a better way to sabotage your sales on Teachers Pay Teachers than to overprice or underprice your product. We're going to talk about why and how you can fix it and how you can know that you're pricing your resources appropriately. So when we're talking about pricing a resource appropriately on TPT, I think a lot of times, especially new sellers, you're really thinking about how can I price this so that a buyer wants to purchase it. And yes, that's important. Do not get me wrong. But there are a couple of things that you also want to think about when it comes to being strategic with your pricing beyond just what would a buyer be willing to pay for this? Because the truth is a buyer is going to be willing to pay a range of prices. So not every buyer is the same. Some buyers might be willing to pay nothing for your resource. Like legitimately, they're only on TPT for the freebies. And it doesn't matter how great your resource is or what have you, they will have some reason to not pay for it. Other buyers might be willing to spend one, two, three dollars on a product, and some may be willing to spend five, ten, fifteen, whatever dollars on a product, depending on, of course, what type of resource it is, how much value it's going to give to them, and what the competition is like on TPT. So I want to get that out in the open that you are not boxed in. There is not one perfect price for your product out the gate. Now, over time, you may find that you make the most money if your price optimized at$3, for example. But you're not gonna know that for sure until after you started to make some sales, after you started to make some price tweaks and all that good stuff. So, what we're talking about today is how to initially price your resource so you're coming in fair, you're coming in at market value, but you're also optimized to help you get the most views because a lot of people don't realize how pricing affects your views on TPT. So pricing affects your views in two ways. First, a buyer's budget is going to affect their willingness to view your product. So if I'm putting a product up on TPT and I'm priced at$5 and a buyer really only has in their mind that they want to spend closer to two or three dollars, then seeing that$5 price tag could affect their willingness to view my product based on the rest of the prices that they see in TPT search. So if they go to search for a product on TPT, let's say a third grade reading activity or something like that, they go to search for that and they see a bunch of search results, a bunch of options that are below$5 and mine is at or over$5, they might pass it up because they feel like they have plenty of options that are on the lower end of their budget versus going to the top end or over their budget for the resource that they're trying to get. At the same time, pricing on the lower end could affect their willingness to view in a positive way. So if I'm priced on the lower end of search results that are popping up, so say my resource is$2.50, they're seeing$3,$4,$5, they might be more interested in taking a look at my product because it's more cost effective. Now, this does not mean price lower, get more views. That's not how it works. What we want to do is we want to price appropriately to get more views. So underpricing your resource can have the opposite effect. So if your product looks like everybody else's NTPT search in terms of like the value that it has to offer, but your resource is priced way below market value, they may think that there's something wrong with the product and may not want to look at it for that reason, or they may look at that higher price tag and perceive that those resources with the higher price tag has have a greater value. So it can kind of like you really want to make sure that you're coming in at a fair market price. And again, there's not one perfect price, but there's usually going to be a small range in prices, and we want to think strategically because of number two, TPT's algorithm. TPT's search engine algorithm is going to favor resources that have higher earnings. So the more money a product makes for TPT, the higher it's going to rank that product in relevant searches. Because more money means more satisfied customers, means more people walk away with something that they wanted, it means more money for TPT. So the higher the earnings for a product, the more it's going to get pushed up that search engine algorithm, which is gonna help you rank, which is gonna help you get more views, because the closer we are to the top of those search results, the more it tells the buyer, hey, this most closely represents what you're looking for. Okay. And that signals value to the customer as well, even more so than the pricing. But let's look at a couple of things on TPT to kind of show you what I'm talking about. So I have this particular product, and I actually had this priced at$1.50, which I believe is a very fair price.$1.50. We're talking about a one pager, it has eight problems, and that's it. So initially, straight out the gate, I was like, okay, this resource has eight problems. It's a one pager, it is unique. I will give it that. It's pretty unique in that gazette answer problems, it creates like little emoji puzzles for them to solve, like bull and eye would be bullseye. And so it's unique in that aspect. It's also something that is probably not going to get a lot of competition in the market because emojis are copyrighted. And so I had to pay several hundred dollars to get the rights to these particular emojis so that I could create these emoji puzzles. And a lot of people are not going to be willing to do that. So that's one of the reasons why I ultimately was like, you know, it is pretty unique. Let's maybe look at kind of moving it close to the$2 range. And here's the other reason why. What I did was I searched for function notation activity. And I see$3,$3.50,$4,$3,$4,$3.50. I do see$1.50. I see$1.99. I see$3.50,$3.50,$14,$3,$3,$3,$150. Across the board, there are some resources that are closer to like$150, which is how I initially had this price. And there are two resources that are priced about the same,$1.99 and$2. And when I look at these products, for sure, a lot of these resources, like for example, this product, I'm sure it's really cool. It has a few more problems for them to solve, but it's just not as unique. It's a coloring activity. It's just not as unique as this emoji puzzle. And then across the board, I'm seeing resources that are priced between three and four dollars. That's kind of like the average price for these resources. So what that tells me is that if TPT can sell a$3 resource or a$4 resource, they're probably going to prioritize that$3 or$4 resource over a dollar and 50 cent resource for sure, because that$3 or$4 sale is going to make them more money than me selling my dollar and 50 cent product. So what I ultimately decided to do was I cannot charge$3 for it. It's not there. Like it's a one-pager, it's not as like, say, cool as designing a Halloween scene. It's not as in-depth or interesting as this mystery activity, which is also mine. Certainly doesn't have nearly as many problems as like this partner pack activity that I have, which has so many problems in it, so much opportunity for practice. So I can't charge three or four dollars for it. The value is just not there, and the sales just wouldn't be there either. So for sure, this is one of those resources where it could entice the buyer because it's visually interesting, it is different, it's unique, and it's a lower priced product. So it's a lower ticket option. What I really just want to do is I really want to beat out, ultimately beat out some of these lower priced options. But the only way that I can kind of move up the search engine ranking here is going to be by selling quite a few of these function notation resources, but I have to make more money. So even just increasing the price by 50 cents, which I felt like is a like it's definitely still worth$2, even just that small amount will help increase the amount that TPT is making on the sale, which incentivizes the TPT algorithm. When I start to push traffic to this resource, it's going to incentivize the TPT search engine algorithm to move that resource further up because it's making more money. So even though it's just a 50 cent difference, that 50 cents not only can put more money in my pocket, but that 50 cents can help make a difference in my search engine ranking. Now, if I were overpricing this, let's say I was like, hey, the average price here is like$3 for a resource, I'm gonna price at$3. If I were overpricing this, then it's just gonna get passed up in TPT search. People are not gonna purchase it. And then that's going to hurt me in the search engine algorithm because TPT does not rank your product on potential. TPT ranks your products primarily on results. So what if I'm not making any sales at$3, then I would be better off pricing it at$1.50 and making sales. Hopefully that kind of makes sense. So we're really walking this fine balance of what is the highest that I can potentially price this without pricing myself out of the market or overpricing so that I'm hurting my sales. But I also want to make sure that I'm not undershooting so that I'm not shooting myself in the foot in the TPT search engine algorithm rankings by not meeting my maximum earnings potential, if that makes sense. Okay. So I would say take a look at what's selling and take a look at what's similar. So in that case, with the two resources that were priced similarly to mine, I felt like mine was similar in value. Not that it had the exact same number of pages or the exact same number of problems or that it was the exact same type of resource, but that it was similar in value to what the other$2 resources were offering. It was also similar in value to what the$1.50 resources were offering. So in my case, I was like, you know what? I'm gonna go up. I'm about to really push traffic to this line of resources. So I'm gonna go up to$2 and I'm going to see if not only can that help me bring in just a little bit more money, even though it's not a lot by the time TPT takes their 20%, you know, we're talking about 40 cents or something. Like it's not a lot, but even just that small tweak could potentially help me rank higher faster in TPT search when I'm priced appropriately. Now, another tip that I want to mention is that you can see how once the product is created, I'm kind of at the mercy of the value of the product in order to price the resource. So I can't go for$3. Even though I'm seeing that the average product price is$3 to$4, I can't get to that because the value is just not there for my product. So in my case, in my particular case for this particular resource, I was looking for something that was easy to create, easy to duplicate. I could create and these products really fast. And so for me, having it be a small product was worth it. But this is where it comes in really handy to do your research on pricing before you create the product. Because if I did my research on this pricing and I see that across the board, the three to four dollar range is kind of seems to be the sweet spot for this particular search term. That would probably tell me, hey, go ahead. If you create a resource that's worth between three and four dollars, TPT's search engine algorithm is liking that, which tells me that customers are liking that, buyers are liking that, right? Because the search engine algorithm only likes what buyers like. And so the buyers are liking that three to four dollar range. They're willing to spend that amount of money. So I could go ahead and create something that's worth that amount of money. So perhaps it could be like a little bit longer of a worksheet. Maybe it has 10 problems, maybe it includes a little warm-up, maybe it has two different worksheets, or maybe it's a set of activities, something to kind of beef it up and provide a little bit more value so that I can get it to that$3 mark would be great. But I only know that if I do the research before I create the product, because after I've created the product, the value is pretty much set in stone unless I want to go back and recreate it, which in my case I absolutely do not. I don't want to go back and recreate it. So doing that research ahead of time can also really help you. And I'm gonna tell you that there are a lot of pricing guides out there. There's some really antiquated advice about like 25 cents a page, and there's a lot of old stuff out there, really and truly taking a look at the TPT search results and looking at how much buyers are paying for resources in the keywords that you're going to be targeting, and then taking a look at those resources and seeing which current price point on the market most closely correlates in value to my own resource. And you can factor in things like uniqueness, creativity, appeal, you can kind of factor in some of those things as well. But taking a look at that before you create the resource or using that as a guide, even after you've created your resource to figure out a good starting point for your product is a great idea. So rather than just thinking, I'm gonna charge$4 for this product, or I think this product is worth X amount of money, taking a look at what's on the market could help you decide, hey, I might could charge$5 for this product, but I'm seeing that the average value of what's selling is between three and four dollars. Maybe I go for$4.50 versus$5 at the beginning because that seems to be what buyers are attracted to within this set of search results. And I don't want to price myself out of an opportunity, but I also don't want to go solo that TPT search engine algorithm is like, yeah, sorry, you know, you we're not gonna make as much money on your product as we are selling a$6 product. So just kind of keeping those things in mind. Thanks so much for being here on the podcast, you guys. I appreciate those of you who show up every single week. And if you want to watch this on YouTube, I did a little screen share showing some of the search results and showing the product that I was talking about. So if you want to follow along on YouTube, you can find the link to my channel down inside of the description. I tend to do a lot of these little walkthroughs lately as I'm talking and as I'm recording so that you can kind of see what I'm talking about. The YouTube videos can be really helpful for those of you who are visual learners. So make sure and check that out and make sure you're subscribed to this podcast and subscribe to that channel. I'm gonna see you guys right back here next week.