Step 1: Define the Offer
Before setting a price or building a booking page, decide what your office hours are actually for. The more specific your focus, the easier it is to promote and the more value participants get.
Questions to define your offer:
- What topic? Your specific niche, not everything you know. A fitness creator might run office hours on programming for home gyms. A copywriter might run office hours on email subject lines and open rates. A startup mentor might run office hours on fundraising for pre-seed founders.
- What format? Group call where all participants join together, open Q and A style. Or a block of time divided into 15-minute 1:1 slots. Group is more scalable; 1:1 slots are more premium.
- How long? 60 minutes is the sweet spot for group office hours. Long enough to cover real depth, short enough that people can commit.
- How often? Monthly is sustainable and creates anticipation. Weekly is possible if your audience is large and active.
For a practical guide to running paid Q and A sessions, which share most of the same mechanics, see the complete guide to paid Q and A sessions.
Step 2: Price It
Group office hours price differently from 1:1 sessions. The value is still real access to your expertise, but divided across multiple participants, so the per-seat price reflects that.
| Format | Participants | Duration | Price per seat |
|---|
| Small group | 3-6 participants | 60 min | $40-80 |
| Medium group | 7-15 participants | 60 min | $25-50 |
| Large group | 16-30 participants | 60-90 min | $15-35 |
| 1:1 office slots | 1 participant per slot | 15-20 min | $50-150/slot |
| Subscription | Unlimited monthly access | 60 min/mo | $40-100/mo |
At $35/seat with 10 participants, a single 60-minute session generates $350. Run it twice a month and that is $700 from two hours of reactive time. The math improves further as you add participants or raise rates based on demand.
For context on whether group or 1:1 sessions generate more revenue at different volumes and price points, see group vs 1:1 sessions: which makes more money.
Pricing note: if your first few sessions sell out, raise the price. If they fill slowly, consider lowering the price for a few sessions to build social proof, then raise it once you have testimonials and a track record.
Step 3: Set Up Booking, Video, and Payment
The setup should take two hours or less. The goal is one booking link that handles registration, payment, and video without sending participants to multiple tools.
What you need:
- A booking or ticketing system that limits registrations to your session cap
- Payment collection before the session (participants pay to register)
- A group video call platform that handles multiple participants
- An intake field to collect participant questions before the call
The one-link approach: A platform like Talkspresso handles all four in one flow. Create a workshop or group session, set a price per seat, set a participant cap, and share the booking link. Participants register and pay, and everyone joins the same HD group video call at the scheduled time. Sessions are automatically recorded.
Fees: Free plan at 10% of session revenue, no monthly cost. Pro plan at $29.95/mo with 0% fee. Payment processing (2.9% + $0.30) applies on both.
Take-home example: At $35/seat with 10 participants, $350 gross. On the free plan, take-home is approximately $303 after the 10% fee and processing. At $35/seat with 15 participants, $525 gross and approximately $455 take-home.
For a guide specifically on collecting payments for group sessions, see how to collect payments for group sessions and workshops.
Step 4: Fill the Calendar
Announcing office hours to an existing audience is the fastest path to filling the first session. The announcement should include:
- What the session covers (specific topic, not vague expertise)
- Who it is for (the specific person who would benefit most)
- When it is (date, time, timezone)
- What it costs
- How many spots are available (scarcity is real when you have a cap)
- The booking link
Where to announce:
- Email list or newsletter (highest conversion, use this first)
- Social media (best for reaching followers who are not on your list)
- Community you are active in (forum, Slack, Discord)
- Story or short-form video if your audience is on Instagram or TikTok
Timing: Announce 1-2 weeks out. Send a reminder 3-5 days before. Send a final reminder 24 hours before. Three touchpoints is enough for a focused audience.
For a small audience: If your list is under 200 people, do not wait for email to fill the session. Post in 2-3 relevant communities where your target audience is active. A genuine post in a community where you are known can fill a 10-person session from a few hundred views.
Step 5: Deliver and Follow Up
A good office hours structure that works for most group formats:
- First 5 minutes: Welcome everyone, explain the format, collect questions by asking participants to type them in the chat
- Middle 45 minutes: Work through questions in order. Group related questions together. Give concrete answers, not general principles.
- Last 10 minutes: Cover any remaining questions. Announce the next session and how to register. Close with something actionable for everyone in the room.
During the session: Take notes on the questions being asked. Over time, the recurring questions become the outline for a course, a guide, or a second product.
After the session: Send a thank-you message with the recording link and the registration link for the next session. Ask two or three participants if they would be willing to share a quick testimonial about what they got out of it.
The recording: Record every session automatically. Share the recording with registered participants. Consider selling recording access to people who could not attend live, at a lower price than the live session. Over six months, a library of session recordings becomes a standalone digital product.
For a deeper guide on subscription pricing for recurring sessions, see coaching call subscription pricing.
Scaling Up
Once your office hours are running consistently and filling reliably:
Add a subscription tier: Offer monthly access to office hours as a subscription at $50-100/mo. Subscribers get a guaranteed spot in every session. This converts one-off participants into recurring revenue.
Add 1:1 premium slots: Offer a small number of 15-minute 1:1 slots within the same office hours block for a higher price. Participants who want private attention pay a premium for it.
Layer in digital products: Turn the recording library into a paid archive. Compile the most common questions into a FAQ guide or a mini-course. Your office hours are already generating the content; the product is just organizing it.
Cross-promote to group sessions: Once participants know and trust your format, a promoted group workshop at a higher price point converts easily. The office hours audience is your warmest audience for everything else you sell.
The Bottom Line
Paid office hours are underused by most creators and coaches because the format seems informal. That informality is actually the feature. Low prep, reactive content, genuine value, recurring revenue. A single one-hour session per month at scale beats the effort-to-revenue ratio of most other formats.
Define the offer. Price it. Set up one link. Announce it to your audience. Run it. The first session is usually the hardest. After that, it is a recurring asset.
Create your group session on Talkspresso. Built-in group video, ticketing, and automatic recording.
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