How does Maker School’s 90‑day refund policy work, and what happens if someone requests a refund claiming they made no money (even if they actually did) just to get the community for free?

#279 · why AI agents aren't making you money

How does Maker School’s 90‑day refund policy work, and what happens if someone requests a refund claiming they made no money (even if they actually did) just to get the community for free?

If someone asks for a refund under Maker School’s 90‑day policy—whether they claim they made no money or not—I simply give them their money back. Honestly, most people who request refunds are those who probably weren’t going to succeed anyway. You can often tell by looking at their post history: if they’ve never even introduced themselves in the community, it’s clear they’re not interested in taking full advantage of what Maker School offers. The real value of Maker School lies in the relationships and network you build. When you make an introduction, you instantly connect with people who are building agencies earning $5 k–$10 k per month, as well as beginners, veterans, and folks across every experience level. The community spans almost every continent (except Antarctica) and is present in major population centers worldwide. Those who ask for a refund usually lack the willingness to put themselves out there, held back by limiting beliefs, and that’s why I don’t hesitate to refund them. My actual refund rate is about 2‑5 % month‑to‑month, rising to roughly 6 % during big sales because many people join excitedly without thinking it through. While that’s a regret of running large promotions, it also brings in significant revenue, so I continue to run those big sales.

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Related answers

youtube ↗Agency Operations

How do you handle refund requests in a mentorship-type community where you work one-on-one with members to get them results?

I typically just give people the refund. There is very little reason not to give people a refund. I find people that don't give refunds kind of stupid, because you're clearly not making a lot of money — and if you're not making a lot of money, odds are you're not the sort of person people should really follow. Self-fulfilling prophecy, of course. If somebody asks for a refund because they're not satisfied with your service, give them the refund and make your service so goddamn good that they are almost always going to be satisfied. Get your refund rate down to like 3% or something, even on a community like mine where I literally guarantee you insane results. Then you never have to worry about this. The only situations in which I don't historically give refunds are where it's clear people are trying to screw me. I'm a pretty good judge of character — out of the last 100 people that have tried to screw me, I've caught like 99 of them, and even in many of those cases I'll just give them the refund anyway. Examples of people screwing me are things like asking me to unlock the whole course up front with some big fake backstory about their business, assuming I won't look into it — and then I look into it and it doesn't exist, because they want to resell the course on the internet. I'd say I have a less than 1% false positive rate there, and in the two or three instances where I did have a false positive, I sorted it out with the person and ended up giving them a little bit extra because of the struggle I gave them. I have a lot of general people that hate me on the internet, especially recently on Twitter, but I do not have a lot of customers past or present that hate me, because I tend to treat them extraordinarily well — and that's what you should do as well.

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youtube ↗Client Acquisition

Deshan says, 'Why did those people who asked for a refund in Maker School not achieve the results? Tell me about their mistakes so I can avoid them.'

The vast majority of wins in Maker School come down to consistency—or lack thereof. Outreach demands are fairly low: first week 2‑3 hours/day, then after building systems you can reduce to 1‑2 hours/day, and after a couple months most people can do the outreach in 45‑60 minutes. The actual outreach feels high and scary to those with low expectations about how much outreach is needed to get a client; they’ll think 'Oh my god, how do you do all these Upwork applications?' or cold emails or community posts take forever. But outreach is literally the only thing in your business that has any value when you have zero clients—nobody cares how good you are at voice agents until you have people on a call evaluating your skill to build voice agents. So just spend all your time on outreach. Many people aren’t willing to do that, unfortunately. Still, those who aren’t willing sometimes achieve great results because there’s a market hack/glitch where a little time, energy, and money can yield much larger returns. However, about 95% of those asking for refunds simply lack the consistency muscle and come up with every excuse not to do the work. I’ve been there too—I had low expectations about the volume needed; it took me 2,500 doors knocked to make my first dollar with an agency model. After that it becomes hard not to think, 'Holy, I can get a client in five hours of my time, which means I can get a client every day.' If you spend five hours a day doing this, you’ll get more clients in one day than most people get in a month.

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youtube ↗Offers

How should I decide what to guarantee for my performance system—behavior, output, money—and how would you present it as an offer?

Nick says it’s difficult to guarantee outcomes you don’t directly control. In Maker School he guarantees a first client or a refund, which is downstream of his control but still offered. He notes that in practice, money is the strongest guarantee because it’s simple and quantifiable; you can offer a money‑back guarantee even without direct control, as the program’s overall value is evident—participants often find it valuable and may have a pipeline of leads even if they don’t land a client. He shares that his refund rate is very low because participants interact with him daily for 90 days. He appreciates the question, noting that most sellers focus on agents rather than outcomes, and thanks for the AI comment reframe. Regarding school growth boost, he says he would enable the feature, estimating it brings about 20‑30 % of net new people, so letting the platform take a cut is fine because you still grow your top line; he doesn’t know the exact percentage but sees it as acceptable.

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youtube ↗Client Acquisition

What is your new revenue goal after reaching 500K per month?

I don't really know what the next goal should be after hitting 500K, but I want to make more money, so I'm considering setting it at a million dollars a month. I'm also planning an AR direction school and thanked for the tip on the Boolean offer. Regarding whether it's better to have a free community with one paid school versus many freebies, I've found that many people can't afford the $184/month paid school and drop off because there's no intermediate capture mechanism. So I set up a free community, which I've discussed in earlier videos. Since then we've grown to 14,000 members, with about 200 online at any time, indicating good engagement. About 0.4-0.5% of the community upsells to the paid Maker Maker School, which translates to roughly 50 members per month. I recommend creating a free group, but you must manage it carefully—I don't allow AI posts, and I review flagged content daily to ban offenders. This approach requires being strong-willed.

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