What is a business model?
The short answer
A business model is simply how your business makes money: what you sell, who buys it, and how much they pay. It's not a document or a plan, it's the plain answer to "how does this actually earn money?"
Cutting through the jargon
"Business model" sounds like something you need a course to understand, but it's really just one sentence: who pays you, for what, and how often. Everything else is detail.
Common shapes a business model can take
Most businesses fall into a handful of familiar patterns, sometimes combined.
- One-off purchase: someone pays once for a product
- Subscription: someone pays a small amount regularly for ongoing access
- Service or booking: someone pays for your time or expertise
- Marketplace: you take a cut when two people transact through you
- Free with ads or sponsors: your users don't pay, someone else does
Picking one for your idea
Start by asking what your customer is actually getting, and how naturally they'd pay for it. If they use your product once and are done, a one-off price usually fits. If they get ongoing value, a subscription usually makes more sense. Don't force a model that doesn't match how people actually use what you're building.
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