No catch. No secret upsell. No “wait until the final week when we reveal the £997 platinum freedom accelerator”. No sideways sell, no diagonal sell, no “Alan appears from behind a curtain holding a credit card machine” moment.

Just free.

We get it. If something is free on the internet, most people assume one of three things is about to happen:

1. You are about to be sold something.
2. You are the product.
3. A man in a hoodie is about to explain crypto to you.

So people ask us all the time:

How does Rebel Finance School make money?

Fair question. Let us draw back the curtain and show you everything…

In 2023, we wrote a short article called The Cost of Rebel Finance School, where we shared that Rebel Finance School cost us £12,195 that year, while YouTube had made us £782. At the time, that felt like a lot.

Since then, Rebel Finance School has grown. The YouTube channel has grown. The email list has grown. The costs have grown. The spreadsheet has grown extra legs and started demanding snacks.

So we went back through the numbers.

We reviewed old spreadsheets, YouTube income, Zoom costs, contractors, software, design work, book costs, tour costs, and on and on…

We went spreadsheet spelunking.

We emerged blinking into the daylight, covered in accounting dust, with an answer.

This is not a tax return. It is not forensic accounting. Nobody arrived at our house wearing a grey suit and carrying a very large 80s calculator.

Katie kind of wishes they did.

This is us trying to answer a simple question:

We excluded ordinary life costs, personal travel that would have happened anyway, and anything where the connection to Rebel Finance School felt too weak.

For example, with the New Zealand tour, we were already travelling to New Zealand. So we did not include flights there and back. That would have felt cheeky. We only included the extra movement caused by doing the tour, such as renting a car to get to the meetups, petrol and parking.

We also excluded 2 paid partner projects from this analysis that Rebel Business School ran with RBWM and SOHA.

Those projects overlapped with Rebel Finance School in theme and content, but they were separate commissioned projects run through Rebel Business School. They had their own delivery costs, admin, project management, team time and operational work.

We could not cleanly match all of that hidden work to individual spreadsheet rows, so we excluded both the partner income and the partner delivery costs. Those two projects were pilot tests that more or less broke even.

In other words, we are not trying to make the numbers look better. We are trying to avoid counting income without counting the hidden work that created it.

Why do it if you don’t earn anything?

This is the real question. Not “how much does Rebel Finance School make?”

But: Why keep doing it if it costs money, time and energy?

The answer is different for each of us.

Why Alan does it

When I was 20 years old my life was in tatters, I lost my job working with my dad, my parents were getting divorced and my girlfriend dumped me. At that point a guy called Matt handed me my first ever self development book.

That knowledge changed my life forever and I have been a mission to learn and improve my life ever since. When I learnt about money I went from “money is a pain and causes fights” to a retired millionaire able to travel the world and spend his time doing whatever he wants with his time.

I do it because money changed my life or rather learning and implementing money, finances, investing and FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) principles changed my life.

I grew up watching my dad go bankrupt and seeing the stress, fear and uncertainty that money problems can create. Learning about money gave me stability, confidence and eventually freedom.

Rebel Finance School is one of the ways I try to pass that on. This has been my life’s work. I find something that changes my life, then want to tell EVERYONE else about it.

I love seeing people go from “I am rubbish with money” to “Hang on, I can do this.” I love the emails. I love the comments. I love the spreadsheets. I love the live energy of the course. I even love the chaos of running a project that helped 50,000 people last year alone!

Financial education should not be locked behind a paywall. We have had people try to force us into doing that and it is NEVER going to happen!

If we can help people reduce stress, build confidence, pay off debt, start investing and move towards freedom, that feels like an excellent use of our financial independence.

You need a purpose in life. Mine happens to be helping you get on top of your finances. And if I have to pay to help then so be it. I am donating my money and volunteering my time to help you.

Why Katie does it

I am extremely proud of the impact we have through Rebel Finance School. When we did the UK tour in 2025 there were a few moments that stood out…

• More than one couple told me words to the effect of “the money stuff is great but the true change is on our relationship. For the first time we’re excited about a shared vision for the future. Being on the same page about where we’re heading has strengthened our relationship and made us feel closer as a couple“.
• One solo mum told me “I don’t have a massive gap and probably never will but the piece of mind I have from knowing where the money goes is priceless“

Knowing that Alan and I have made these changes possible is so rewarding.

Running Rebel Finance School is such a buzz. The feeling of working with Alan on something meaningful, the fun and silliness of working with the Rebel Ninjas, the connection we get with you on the live sessions.

And on a personal level, Rebel Finance School has been transformational for me. Anyone that attended the first RFS back in 2020 will tell you how nervous I was and how I struggled in front of the camera. Six years later I still get a little bit nervous but I am 100x more confident than I was. That increased confidence has helped me in all areas of my life.

I grew up thinking I wasn’t creative. Now I get to create spreadsheets, graphs, presentations, workshops and videos that help unlock people. I used to think I wasn’t a generous person. Now I get to spend my time, effort and energy figuring out how to help people with their money.

I LOVE Rebel Finance School and I’m passionate about it being a free, available, accessible resource for everyone. That’s why I pour my heart, mind and money into this.

Will Rebel Finance School stay free?

Yes. Rebel Finance School will stay free. Free free.

Not “free until week 9 when a suspiciously shiny sales funnel appears” free.

Actually free. Properly Free.

We may earn money from YouTube. We may publish books. We may do talks. We may get sponsorship one day if it aligns with our values and does not compromise the course and the integrity of our education.

Are we trying to make it sustainable?

Yes. Of course. We are financially independent, but that does not mean we want to pour money into a leaky bucket forever.

We teach people to understand the gap between income and spending, so it would be a little embarrassing if we ignored ours completely.

The difference is that Rebel Finance School is not our household budget.

It is a mission project.

We want it to reach more people, help more families, and create more impact. To do that well, we need better systems, better content, better tools and better ways to fund the work without charging participants.

That is the puzzle we are working on. At the moment we see this as our donation, our volunteering, our gift to the world.

We earn some YouTube income, but the free course and the ecosystem around it have cost far more than they have brought in. For the 6 years from 2020 to 2025, the negative gap is –£48,701.

And we are more than okay with that.

Because this is exactly what money is for.

We did not sort out our finances so we could sit on a pile of index funds like a pair of spreadsheet dragons.

We fixed our finances so we could buy back our time.

We created a gap between our income and spending so we could create choices. We invested so that one day our money would work for us. We reached financial independence so we could stop making every decision from fear, pressure, or the need to earn.

And then the question changed.

It was no longer:

How do we get enough?

It became:

What do we do with enough?

For us, one of the answers is Rebel Finance School.

We use some of our time, money and energy to create something we wish more people had access to: clear, kind, practical financial education without a price tag, without judgement, and without a sales pitch hiding behind the curtain.

That does not mean everyone needs to run a free course. That is just our version.

Your version might be helping your family. Supporting a friend. Giving to causes you care about. Starting a project. Volunteering. Mentoring. Creating art. Building a community. Taking care of your health. Being present for the people you love.

Money is not the point. Money is the tool.

The point is what money allows you to do, who it allows you to become, and what it allows you to give.

That is why we teach this stuff.

Not because we want everyone to have prettier spreadsheets, although obviously prettier spreadsheets are a noble cause and Katie wishes to be on record saying that it is ok if this is your purpose in life!

But because when you reduce money stress, build confidence, create a gap, and buy back your time, you have more capacity to live, love, create, contribute and pay it forward.

Rebel Finance School is free because we want more people to experience that shift.

We want more people to feel less trapped. We want more people to realise they are not bad with money. They just needed the tools.

We want more people to build a life where money supports their values rather than quietly mugging them in a dark alley every month.

So yes, Rebel Finance School costs us money.

But it also gives us something back that is harder to put in a spreadsheet.

Purpose. Connection. Contribution. Impact. Growth.

Stories from people changing their lives. Messages from people paying off debt, starting to invest, talking to their partners, teaching their kids, sleeping better, and finally feeling like they can breathe.

And that, for us, is 1 million per cent worth it.

If money was no longer the thing holding you back, what would you use your freedom for?

Would you give more? Create something? Help your family? Change career? Volunteer? Travel? Rest? Build something useful? Build a Lego City? Write a movie? Learn a martial art?

Please tell us in the comments. Your answers inspire us and remind us why we keep doing this.