How prices are reported, and why medians are never pooled across currencies

Start with the published price

An offering page shows the usable price captured from its source. A numeric amount is formatted for display. A clear source state such as Free, Subscription, or Per-course fees remains a label. When the source does not provide a usable amount, the page says Not listed rather than estimating one.

Use Market composition for market-level price context. Its median and range cover paid, institution-run courses in the selected market. Platform pricing, free and audit offerings, other markets, and program bundles are excluded. Programs bundle courses that can carry their own fees, so including both tiers would mix units.

Keep currencies and models separate

CredScape does not convert currencies. Canadian and United States figures remain in CAD and USD. A median never pools those currencies. Price models also remain separate because institution-run tuition, a platform certificate fee, and a platform subscription do not describe the same purchase.

This is why a side-by-side comparison can show several prices without declaring one combined benchmark. Read each figure with its currency, catalogue, and source.

Understand a comparable-set median

The Comparable set workbench groups positive, stated fees by currency, price model and kind of offering. It flags unusual fees within the selected group and requires at least five usable fees before printing a median. Unusual fees are flagged and remain in the median, middle half, range and count. Below that floor, the named priced offerings are the evidence and no median appears.

The displayed minimum, median, maximum, and middle-half range describe all fees in that group, including flagged fees. Published fees count positive fees and captured amounts marked Outside bounds, including fees outside the selected group. Eligible fees count only fees in the selected currency, pricing and price tier group. The median card says "over 5 eligible of 8 published fees"; the workbench's "Eligible fees" cell shows eligible fees out of all candidate offerings, for example "5 of 9". Coverage by source uses the same published-fee count, because a median over the eligible subset is not automatically a median for the full market. Your proposed fee is positioned only when a median is reported and its currency, tuition pricing and credential tier match the benchmark group. With a blank brief credential, placement is allowed and the sentence names the selected tier, for example "against certificate offerings".

How the median is calculated

Every step after the candidates are chosen is a fixed rule. No step uses judgement, and every set is treated the same way.

1. Choose the candidates. Semantic search retrieves offerings that resemble your brief, a second model reranks them by relevance, and up to 20 qualified offerings form the set. This is the only step that uses a model.

2. Screen each fee. A fee of $1 or less, or above $30,000, is treated as a capture error and is not used. Such an offering is marked "Outside bounds ($35,000)" for a captured $35,000 fee, which does not mean the program is free or that the provider publishes nothing.

3. Group like with like. Usable fees are grouped by currency, how they are charged (institution tuition, a platform certificate fee, or a subscription), and a CTDL-based price tier (short course / certificate / diploma). Course, Certificate of Completion, Certificate of Participation and Badge form the short-course tier; Certificate and MicroCredential form the certificate tier; Diploma forms the diploma tier. These groups use credential types as a proxy for purchase size; review ambiguous completion certificates against their syllabus. A fee with no valid recorded currency or known way of charging cannot join a group.

4. Pick one group. If the brief names a credential, only that price tier is used. Otherwise the currency, pricing and price-tier group with the most usable fees is used. ApprenticeshipCertificate, LearningProgram and Degree have no price tier. A named credential without a tier never falls back to another group. The report explains, for example: "No benchmark: Apprenticeship Certificate offerings are not grouped into a price tier." A blank credential keeps the largest-group rule. Other groups stay visible in the set but are never averaged in.

5. Flag outliers. Within that group, a fee more than 1.5 times the middle-half range beyond the middle half is flagged as unusual (Tukey's rule). When the middle half has no spread because most fees are identical, a fee at a third of the median or less, or three times the median or more, is flagged instead. Unusual fees are flagged and remain in the median, middle half, range and count.

6. Require at least five. A median and middle-half range print only when the group contains five or more eligible fees. Below that, published fees and eligible fees are counted separately. For example: "3 eligible certificate fees, fewer than 5, so no median is reported." Flagged fees remain in the eligible count; no median is claimed. Excel labels eligible offerings "In benchmark" only when a median is reported, and "Eligible, no median" otherwise. Other offerings in the set are labelled "In set"; excluded offerings are labelled "Excluded (in benchmark)" when counted in the benchmark, or "Excluded" otherwise.

The median and the middle-half range are then computed over all fees in the selected group, with standard linear interpolation between values.

Two price levels

Consider every gap between consecutive sorted fees whose ratio is at least 2.5 and whose sides each contain at least three fees. Choose the largest ratio among those qualifying gaps. If none qualifies, no split is reported. For example, the report may show "Two price levels: $825–$835 (3) and $3,949–$13,440 (4)" beside the median. The PDF chart marks the gap with a dashed separator.

The note begins "Fees in this group fall into two price levels" and explains where the median falls. At or below the lower level's maximum, the median describes the lower-priced offerings. At or above the higher level's minimum, it describes the higher-priced offerings. Between the levels, the median sits between two kinds of offer rather than describing a typical one. Compare against the level that matches your offering.

What exclusions change

Excluded offerings stay listed and marked excluded. The benchmark is not recomputed and still includes them. Corrections and additions recalculate prices across every admitted offering, including excluded offerings. The benchmark always describes the selected currency, pricing and kind of offering within the saved set, so a figure cannot be tuned by removing offerings one at a time. The PDF report and the Excel notes sheet both state this.

Limits to keep in mind

• The median describes the offerings in this set, not the whole market.

• Offerings with no recorded kind are shown but not priced. Fees tagged No currency, Other currency, Pricing unknown, Other pricing, Tier unknown or Other tier are left out. Unusual fees remain eligible.

• Listed hours are shown as each provider states them. Some describe classroom time and others estimated learner effort, so CredScape does not divide fee by hours.

Saved snapshots retain their stored method. Older snapshots that removed outliers keep that explanation; these flagging and price-tier rules apply to new reports.