Frequently Asked Questions

We offer two memberships. Annual is $299 per year, renews annually, and you can cancel anytime. Lifetime is $1,499 one time — it never renews. You can compare them side by side at wgoaa.org/join.

Lifetime is $1,499, paid once. It never renews. Once that’s paid, you’re done! — Every future online course we release is included for life at no extra charge. Lifetime members also receive a welcome package: the Signature WGOAA Bomber Jacket and the WGOAA Surprise Box.

Everything, on both plans — over time.

What you get right away:

• FREE attendance to our next live virtual training event — live Q&A with the instructor, meet like-minded women, and get all handouts, downloads, and bonus materials. All from your living room sofa. We host 12 training sessions per year. Check the events calendar for the next one.
• “The Powder Room” — our private, members-only community. Connect with instructors and women across the country, protected by the WGOAA firewall.
• The Dispatch — our WGOAA Publication, delivered 4 times per year with articles, discounts, advice columns, and inspiration.
• Apparel store discounts — start shopping at shop.wgoaa.org.
• On-demand recordings — missed the live event? Every replay is inside your membership at no extra charge.
• Invitations to in-person events when we host them.
• All future courses added at no extra charge with an active membership.

What you get over time:

Many of the original 8 courses of The Armed Female Academy, released one by one every few weeks. They remain available for the life of your membership — a $2,999 value, each taught by a different female expert.

The lifetime member pays a one time fee without a recurring charge. This includes the Armed Female Academy sessions, and all the replays, permanently — plus every future online course free for life. This also includes a lifetime publication subscription, priority access to new courses and events, and no price increases ever. Lifetime members also receive the welcome package, including the Signature WGOAA Bomber Jacket and the WGOAA Surprise Box. You’ll be prompted for your size after you purchase.

No. Annual at $299 or lifetime at $1,499 are the only two memberships we offer.

Yes. Klarna is available at checkout on the lifetime membership, which lets you split it into monthly payments. Choose Klarna when you pay. Klarna isn’t available on the annual membership.

Visa, American Express, Discover, Venmo and PayPal. Klarna is available on the lifetime membership only.

While we do run sales occasionally, we don’t have standard discount codes. Our pricing is what you see at wgoaa.org/join — $299 for the year or $1,499 for life.

We’re women-only — built by women, for women. No bro gun culture, no in-your-face range attitude, no gun-encyclopedia trivia nobody needs. What we teach is awareness, safety, security, preparedness, and self-defense at every level, from women who understand what it’s actually like. We’re nationwide, so you’re not stuck training around whoever happens to be near you. And our community is private and uncensored, behind a firewall.

Women who love to attend our virtual events benefit immediately from an active WGOAA membership — because registration is free. We host at least 12 live online events every year, so the membership pays for itself almost immediately. If live training is your primary driver, the membership is for you.

Here’s what you get with membership that the Academy alone doesn’t include:

• All event recordings — every live virtual event replay, plus handouts, companion guides, and bonus materials (non-members pay for these).
• Slow-release training — every few weeks, a new course appears in your portal, separate from live events. Some (but not all) come from the foundational Armed Female Academy sessions.
• Live attendance — join the events in real time, ask questions, and train from home.

The Armed Female Academy is the official training branch of WGOAA. Every course is designed for a woman’s lived reality — nothing is cut-and-paste from the industry. We rebuilt firearms education from the ground up, just for women.

What you get:

• Eight long-form courses in one package, each taught by a female expert — a criminal defense attorney, a tactical paramedic, a custom holster maker, and more.
• $2,999 value, sold for $297. One payment. No subscription. Lifetime access.
• Printable workbook and handouts included.
• Independent of membership — this is the original 8 courses only; it does not include future courses or member benefits.

When you purchase the Armed Female Academy Package, this is a one time purchase that includes the original eight courses. This is not a subscription and is separate from the WGOAA membership. These courses include the following:

• Safe Start — safe handling, manipulations, and real confidence before you ever touch a firearm. Amara Barnes
• Handgun Foundations/Shooting Fundamentals — grip, stance, sight picture, trigger control, and dry fire drills you can do at home. Amara Barnes
• Picking The Right Gun For You — matching a handgun to your grip, your body, and your carry needs instead of a salesman’s advice. Lisa "Guns" Ludwig
• Carry Like A Woman™ — purse, thigh, belly band, dress and professional-attire carry, built for how women actually dress. Hannah Hannah “The Tactical Stylist”
• Precision Carry — kydex holsters, wedges, wings and cant, and how to stop printing. Jessica Hazelaar
• Lawful Self-Defense — the legal reality of defending yourself, taught by a female criminal defense attorney. Rachel Moss
• Emergency Trauma Care — stop-the-bleed, building a trauma kit, gunshot wound response including self-aid & tourniquet application. Jenn Foreman
• The Psychology of Predators & Victims — how predators pick targets, and how to become one they skip. TerryAnn Bowen

The Academy and the membership are related, but they are not the same thing.

The Armed Female Academy = eight standalone courses, one payment, lifetime access. Courses only.

The WGOAA Membership = ongoing access to live trainings, replays, the private community, the publication, apparel discounts, and member-only courses released throughout the year.

Quick comparison:

• Academy: One-time fee, own the original 8 courses forever.
• Membership: Annual fee, free live attendance to 12+ online events per year, event replays, The Powder Room community, The Dispatch publication, and member-only courses.

You don’t get live events, the community, the publication, or future courses with the Academy alone.

WGOAA members get access to some, but not all, of the Armed Female Academy. When you sign up, you immediately get access to some of our beginner handgun materials. After that, WGOAA releases additional courses throughout the year that are for members only, including some of the Armed Female Academy foundational package, however access to the entire Academy is not guaranteed.

WGOAA is constantly developing new trainings to meet the needs of our armed female community. Active WGOAA members get free access to all of the upcoming trainings. So when we offer a new live online training event, you get to attend free, with a special link provided within the portal. Everyone else has a paywall. Members do not. When you purchase the Armed Female Academy, this is a stand alone purchase and does not give you free access to future trainings. That is what the membership is primarily for.

Think about what it would cost to get this piecemeal. An hour with a criminal defense attorney on self-defense law. Private range time with a certified instructor. A proper holster fitting from the woman who builds them. A trauma course taught by a working paramedic. Booking those eight women one at a time, plus the range time, is where the $2,999 comes from. We packaged it so you don’t have to find them, book them, or travel to them. $297, once, and it’s yours for life.

Straight answer, because you deserve one: our hands-on handgun courses are taught on semi-automatics.

What transfers to a revolver: grip, stance, sight alignment, and trigger control.

What won’t apply: magazine loading, slide work, and malfunction clearing.

Four of the eight courses don’t depend on what you carry:

• Lawful Self-Defense
• Emergency Trauma Care
• The Psychology of Predators & Victims
• Carry Like A Woman™

Picking The Right Gun For You is worth your time either way. If you’re staying with your revolver, you’ll get real value — just not the full hands-on benefit. If a semi-auto is anywhere in your future, this is built for exactly that.

Coming soon: The Armed Female Academy is developing a Revolvers course for beginners. Members get notified first — and it’s included with membership at no extra charge.

You don’t. You can start today and learn before you ever buy — Picking The Right Gun For You exists so you walk into that store knowing what you want, instead of taking a salesman’s word for it. Most of the training does come alive once you own a handgun, so plan on getting there. But waiting to learn until after you’ve bought one is backwards, and it’s how women end up with a gun that doesn’t fit their hand.

Everything is online and on-demand — no live fire, no travel, nobody watching you.

At home: The drills are dry fire, done safely at your own pace. What you learn here is what you take to the range.

At the range: Many courses include an instructor on a live range walking you through the skills. These videos are excellent companions for your next range visit.

Why membership matters here: Members get access to the replays for the life of their membership. Attend live from your living room, then re-watch at the range and skip to exactly the part you need.

Here: wgoaa.org/armed-female-academy. One-time payment, and you own the package! Just login to re-visit as many times as you want. If checkout gives you trouble, try opening the page in a private or incognito window — that clears up most of it.

Not all of the Armed Female Academy courses are available within the WGOAA membership. While some of them are released over time to our members, the entire academy is not guaranteed and is subject to change.

Many women choose to purchase the Armed Female Academy to avoid having a recurring annual fee. When you purchase the original 8 courses, this is a package that you own and can access anytime. This gives you all the time you’ll ever need to learn the information and re-watch as many times as needed.

We are always in the process of designing and scheduling our next event. You can view our current lineup on our calendar at wgoaa.org/calendar-events. If nothing new is posted there yet, it means we haven’t announced the next one. Every event goes out by email first, so joining our list is the fastest way to hear about it. We have a new event posted every month.

Our online events aren’t free — they’re included with membership, so members attend at no extra cost. From time to time we do open a class up for non-members to purchase a seat, so you can get a feel for what WGOAA is actually like before you join. When we do, it shows up on the calendar. In-person events are members-only, by invitation, when we host them.

At least twelve live training sessions a year, and sometimes two in a month depending on instructor availability. These sessions are designed to accompany The Armed Female Academy or are a part of our WGOAA Collective Series - anything outside of the Armed Female Academy sessions. Every one is recorded and added to the membership area, so missing a live session doesn’t mean missing the training.

The join link is in your registration confirmation email, and we send another one the day of the event. It’s worth checking your spam folder — it lands there sometimes.

We’re online and nationwide, so you can train from anywhere in the country — that’s most of what we do. In-person events happen occasionally and members get the invitation when they do. For something local, our directory lists women-friendly instructors, ranges and businesses across the country: wgoaa.org/wgoaa-directory.

We’re not chapter-based, so there aren’t local groups to join. Being nationwide and online means you’re not limited to whoever happens to be near you. When we host in-person events, members get invited.

Your courses are at member.wgoaa.org/courses. Everything you’ve purchased is in there, ready to watch, with lifetime access.

Go to member.wgoaa.org and choose "Log in with secure code." That emails you a one-time link, so there’s no password to remember, and it works the same way every time.

Try this in order:

• Clear your browsing history for at least the last 7 days — that clears the cache
• Go to member.wgoaa.org
• Choose "Log in with secure code," or use Google login if you have a Gmail address
• Check your email and follow the link

If it still won’t work, open the same page in a private or incognito window and try again. That fixes almost everything. Still stuck, open a ticket at wgoaa.org/support.

Every session is recorded and posted in your course area at member.wgoaa.org/courses. Recent ones can take a day or so to appear after they air.

For members:

• Log in and look on the left side of your screen.
• Click Courses, then “see all.”

For Armed Female Academy-only purchasers:

• Log in and click the big folder labeled “Armed Female Academy.”
• At the top, click the “Learning” tab.
• All your replays are there.

Memberships are individual, and our services are for adults 18 and over. If she’s 18 or older, she’ll need her own account. If she’s under 18, we can’t host her information — but you’re welcome to watch and learn together under your own account.

Our programs are geared toward biological women. We don’t ask for the gender of any member when they sign up, and we ask that all of our members stay respectful of each other’s personal beliefs and privacy. If you have a concern about someone within the membership who you believe shouldn’t be there, please reach out to admin@wgoaa.org.

We don’t take photos of any member without her direct consent. The only photos we take are at WGOAA events, where everyone opts in and signs a photo release beforehand. Nothing gets used without that.

The Powder Room sits behind a firewall and is accessible only to members. It isn’t on social media, and it isn’t indexed or visible to the public. That’s the whole point — no Big Tech reading what you write, no trolls in the replies.

Open a ticket at wgoaa.org/support or email support@wgoaa.org and tell us what you need. We handle upgrades and cancellations by hand on purpose — it’s the only way to make sure nothing gets double-charged or missed. If you paid through PayPal, you’ll want to cancel on their side too, since the subscription lives there.

No. Our Lawful Self-Defense course is taught by a criminal defense attorney and members get legal content inside the portal, but that’s education, not advice about your situation. For anything specific to you, talk to a local attorney.

No. We’re education and community only — we don’t sell firearms, ammunition, or tactical gear. What we do have is a full course on choosing the right gun for you, taught by a woman, without anyone at a counter talking over your head.

Email support@wgoaa.org and our team will reach out to learn about your business. We have more than 100,000 followers across our online channels, and we offer joint-venture webinars, paid posts to our community, and email marketing to an audience that’s entirely women.

Not at this time. We’ve had enough people try to spam the community that it started pulling away from what we’re there for. We do offer paid endorsements and partnerships — email support@wgoaa.org if you’d like to hear about those.

If you’re interested in becoming an instructor for WGOAA, contact support@wgoaa.org to learn more. This gives you incredible reach to an all female audience while also building your expertise and reputation.

Our instructor certification program is currently under development. Please stay tuned for announcements. This certification will be a blend of in person as well as virtual instruction and is reserved for women who are ready to take her expertise to the next level.

The directory is at wgoaa.org/wgoaa-directory and there’s an option there to add your listing.

Merchandise and apparel are at shop.wgoaa.org. Members get a store discount.

We do, and they're genuinely free — just your first name and email. First Time Handgun Buyer's Guide for Women covers what to look for, and what to look out for, when buying your first or next handgun, written by Amara Barnes: get it here. Poised & Prepared: The Calm & Capable Woman's First Steps is a non-tactical guide to owning your safety: get it here.

The First Time Handgun Buyer's Guide for Women is exactly that, and it's free: wgoaa.org handgun buyer's guide. Amara wrote it so you walk into the store knowing what to look for and what to look out for, instead of taking a salesman's word for it. If you want the full version, and so much more, register for an upcoming session of Safe Start - Beginner Handgun For Women. Just CLICK HERE.

Start with Poised & Prepared — free, and written for exactly that: get it here.

You’re not the only one. A lot of women own a gun and have never really handled it. There’s nothing wrong with you for that — nobody ever showed you.

Next step: Register for an upcoming Safe Start — Beginner Handgun For Women training. We cover:

• Safe firearm handling
• How your gun works
• How to check for loaded
• How to load and unload your gun and magazine
• And much more

Register for Safe Start here →

Check your spam and promotions folders first — that's where it usually is. If it isn't there, request it again at the same page and it'll resend: Handgun Buyer's Guide or Poised & Prepared. If it still doesn't show up, open a ticket at wgoaa.org/support and our team will get it to you directly.