We need to talk about Degree Doctor discounts and sales. Or to be more precise - the absence of them. Yep. Fun blog topic, right?! 😂 But a necessary one, because this is important. [Elizabeth puts on her serious face]
Every now and then, somebody asks me whether we offer discount codes for our PhD resources or whether we're planning a sale.
I completely understand why people ask. Who doesn't love saving a bit of money?
But, when it comes to the Degree Doctor products and services, the answer is always the same.
Nope. We don't do discounts.
No discount codes. No flash sales. No Black Friday deals. No special offers that disappear at midnight like Cinderella’s golden carriage.
This isn't because I've got something against bargains. I like a bargain as much as the next person - I LOVE a yellow sticker at the supermarket and do a little victory dance when I get some posh bread for literal pennies!
The reason we don’t discount our products is because I've made a deliberate decision about how I want people to experience buying something from Degree Doctor.
Let me explain.
I don't want you waiting for a sale to get help with your PhD
Imagine you're struggling with your literature review.
You've spent weeks reading, you're getting increasingly frustrated, and you've finally decided that one of my guides might help.
You find it. It costs £85.
You buy it. Boom.
Then, three weeks later, you discover that somebody else bought exactly the same guide for £50 in a sale. Then you're seeing FLASH SALE!!!! stories popping up all over our Instagram.
How would that feel?
A bit rubbish, probably.
That's not something I want people to experience when they buy from Degree Doctor.
If you need help with your PhD today, I don't want you wondering whether you'd get a better deal by waiting another month.
Your research doesn't conveniently arrange its difficult moments around somebody else's promotional calendar, nope.
I don't want you hunting around for discount codes either
You know that thing where you're about to buy something online and you spot a box asking for a discount code?
So off you go to Google or click on your Coupert browser extension.
Twenty minutes later, you've tried a ton of expired codes and signed up to a newsletter you didn't want - which spams you for a while with something of absolutely no interest to you, despite you very clearly clicking “unsubscribe”.
All to discover that you are no closer to getting a discount.
Fiddlesticks. 🙄
I don't want you doing that.
When you look at a Degree Doctor product, the price you see is the price we're charging.
You don't need to search for a secret offer, join a sketchy mailing list to unlock a discount code that never arrives or wonder whether there's a better deal hiding somewhere on the internet if you just hunt and peck around for long enough.
I don't want you feeling pressured to buy before you're ready
There's another reason I don't particularly like using discounts to sell educational resources.
Sometimes, a sale encourages us to buy something because we're worried about missing out.
Not because we actually need it.
I don't want somebody buying one of my PhD guides because a neon countdown timer is telling them they've only got three hours left to save 50%.
Eww.
I'd much rather they take their time, look at what the resource offers and decide whether it's genuinely going to help with the problem they're experiencing.
Buy it because it's useful to you - not because you're frightened of missing a bargain.
Does that mean Degree Doctor resources are cheap?
Nope.
Our paid resources take considerable time, academic expertise and work to develop and maintain, and we price them to reflect that.
I also know that not everybody can afford them, and I don't want to pretend otherwise.
That's one reason I continue to share free PhD support through my blog, YouTube videos and email newsletters.
You don't have to buy something from Degree Doctor to learn from us.
But if you do decide that one of our paid resources is right for you, I want you to be able to make that decision without wondering whether somebody else is getting a secret better deal and having the yucky experience of FOMO.
So, will Degree Doctor ever have a sale?
Our approach is simple: we don't run promotional discounts or sales.
That doesn't mean our prices can never change. As our resources develop, we may review them - indeed we’ve done that a few times when we’ve made significant improvements or changed the structure of some products.
But we don't use temporary discounts to pressure people into buying, and we don't expect you to wait for a particular day of the year to get a better price.
I'd rather you knew where you stood.
The right time to buy a Degree Doctor resource is when it's right for you.
Not when our marketing calendar tells you to. Okay?
If you're wondering which Degree Doctor resource might be right for you, have a look around our Shop. And remember, there's plenty of free help available through the blog and YouTube channel too.