Offering demo classes

Parents rarely commit a term's fee to a teacher they have never seen teach. A demo lets someone attend real classes first — the same batch, the same teaching, just with a deadline attached.

How it works

You turn demos on for a batch and say how many sessions you are offering. A student joins as a demo member rather than a full one, sits in on real classes alongside everyone else, and has a deadline by which to enrol properly.

If they pay before the deadline, they become a normal student and nothing else changes. If they do not, Pedagio removes their access automatically.

Step 1 — Turn demos on for the batch

Open the batch settings for the group and switch on demo sessions. Four settings follow.

Setting	What it means
Number of demo sessions	How many classes you are offering. Shown to students on your public batch page.
Demo fee	Charge for the demo, or leave at 0 for free.
Days to decide after batch starts	The deadline. Counted from the batch start date, or from when they join if the batch has already begun.
After deadline	Deactivate (keeps their record) or Remove (takes them off the list entirely).

Deactivate is usually the better choice

A deactivated student keeps their record, so you can see who tried the batch and did not convert — that list is worth following up. Remove wipes them from the roster. Use it only if you need a clean list.

Step 2 — Charge for it, or not

A free demo gets more sign-ups. A small fee gets fewer sign-ups but better ones — someone who paid ₹200 to attend generally turns up, and someone who would not pay ₹200 was unlikely to pay the full fee.

If your problem is nobody knows you exist, make it free. If your problem is demo students who never attend, charge a token amount.

Step 3 — The deadline

The clock starts at the batch start date, or at the moment they join if the batch is already running — whichever is later. So a student joining a batch that began three weeks ago still gets their full decision window.

Keep it tight. Seven days is the default and works for most batches: long enough to attend a couple of classes, short enough that the decision actually gets made. A 30-day window mostly produces students who drift.

The session count is a promise, not a limit

“3 demo sessions” is shown to students, but Pedagio does not lock a demo student out after the third class. What actually ends their access is the deadline. If someone joins a daily batch with a 7-day window, they will sit in on seven classes, not three. Set the deadline to match the number of sessions you intend to give away.

Step 4 — Converting

A demo student pays the full batch fee from the same page as everyone else. Their membership upgrades in place — same group, same history, attendance intact. Nothing to re-enter.

Installments work here too, and pairing them with demos is effective: the demo removes the doubt about quality, and installments remove the objection to the amount.

Making demos convert

Put your best class in the window. A demo student judges you on the two or three classes they happen to attend. If one covers revision admin, that is what they are judging.
Ask before the deadline, not on it. A conversation two days out is a conversation. On the last day it is a chase.
Follow up the ones who lapsed.Deactivated demo students are the warmest list you have — they attended, and something stopped them. Often it is timing or money, and both can change.

Demos on other things you sell

The settings above apply to batches. If you sell 1-on-1 teaching, price a demoblock on the course offering instead — a single trial class, usually cheap or free. See Selling class packs.

For recorded courses the equivalent is a free preview lesson, which does the same job: let the teaching sell itself before anyone pays. See Selling recorded courses.

Running a batch→