---
title: The Money Back Guarantee
teaser:
tags: playbook
author: Dan Croak
published_on: 2011-09-09
---

We offer a money back guarantee on our workshops:

* [Everybody Codes](http://workshops.thoughtbot.com/courses/9)
* [Advanced HTML & CSS](http://workshops.thoughtbot.com/courses/10)
* [Intro to Ruby on Rails](http://workshops.thoughtbot.com/courses/3)
* [Test-Driven Rails](http://workshops.thoughtbot.com/courses/1)
* [Scaling Rails](http://workshops.thoughtbot.com/courses/8)
* [Intro to Rails with PostgreSQL](http://workshops.thoughtbot.com/courses/11)

For a one-time, expensive (hundreds or thousands of dollars) purchase of a
service like training, a money back guarantee makes a lot of sense.

It's simple and has a positive effect on our motivations:

* we have to deliver a great service
* we have to talk to people to make sure they're a good fit for the content

We have to be willing to say "you shouldn't take this workshop" when we sense a
potential student is too advanced or too beginner for the content. The money
back guarantee makes that decision easier because it's not really rejecting
revenue if they won't be happy with the workshop.

It also helps us understand if we've priced the workshop correctly.

For the few individuals who have asked for their money back, they don't say
"this workshop was worth $0", they say things like "for me, it was more like a
$900, not a $1,100 course." So, we refund a portion of the registration and
note that we either need to improve the workshop or drop the price a little.

## Could it work with SaaS apps

We don't offer a money back guarantee on our SaaS apps for these reasons:

* They all have 30-day free trials. There's time for evaluation before paying.
* They start at about $10/month. The financial risk of having a bad experience
  is very low.
* The nature of subscriptions is such that if people are unhappy, they stop
  paying. Our motivation to satisfy them is ongoing.