Interesting Skillshare Statistics before you Start

In order to link those who want to offer their abilities with others who wish to learn them, Skillshare was established in 2011.

With over 12 million registered members since its start, Skillshare has developed into a global learning community with many successes.

To help you learn more, we’ve assembled a selection of the most important Skillshare statistics, figures, and facts from current, reliable sources.

The Statistics

To start, let’s delve into the basic statistics before we go into more detail. Here are the top statistics for Skillshare, as well as the stats for the company, financials, courses, and users.

Top Statistics

• During 2020, daily views and browsing time tripled.
• Skillshare courses are, on average, broken down into a series of 2 to 5 minute videos, totaling 20 to 60 minutes of pre-recorded content per class.
• The platform is host to over 8,000 teachers.
• On average, the top 500 teachers on Skillshare earn $2,000 per month.
• Skillshare is the world’s largest creative online community.
• In 2010, Michael Karnjanaprakorn and Malcolm Ong founded Skillshare.
• It has more than 12 million registered users.
• Skillshare offers unlimited access to all of its courses for $168 a year, or $13.99 a month, with Skillshare Premium.
• Skillshare offers more than 35,000 courses.
• The courses offered by Skillshare are divided into three different categories: Thrive, Build, and Create.

Financial Statistics

• Each month, 30% of Skillshare’s membership fees go toward a pool of royalties for its instructors.
• The royalty pool is divided according to the percentage of total Premium minutes viewed; for example, if a teacher’s class watches 5% of the Premium members’ minutes, they receive 5% of the royalty pool.
• The number of instructors earning more than $200 per month climbed by 2.9% between 2017 and 2020, while teacher salaries increased by 3.2 times.
• In 2011, Founder Collective led an Angel round in which Skillshare raised $550,000.
• In a Series B round sponsored by Union Square Ventures and Spark Capital in 2016, it raised $12 million.
• In October 2020, Skillshare raised $66 million in a Series D fundraising round that was mostly driven by Adobe.
• There have been nine funding rounds, totaling $116.8 million for the company.
• There are 22 investors total, with Spark Capital and Union Square being two of the six key investors.
• According to PrivCo, its post-money value is between $100 million and $500 million.
• In 2014, Skillshare switched to a membership structure, with a monthly membership fee of $9.95.
• For about $168 a year, or about $13.99 a month, Skillshare Premium now offers unlimited access to all of the platform’s courses.

Company Statistics

• Malcolm Ong and Michael Karnjanaprakorn started Skillshare in 2010.
• In April 2011, the Skillshare website was launched.
• Matt Cooper is its CEO.
• Skillshare had 546 employees as of May 2021.
• Its main office is in New York City.
• It is the biggest creative online community in the world.

Course Statistics

• Skillshare had more than 35,000 classes by January 2022.
• It introduced its first 25 online courses in August 2012.
• In April 2011, Skillshare began offering offline, in-person courses at a location of the instructor’s choice.
• Online courses made up 5% of company income in August 2012; a year later, they made up 99%.
• The three categories of courses are Thrive, Build, and Create.
• A Skillshare lesson often consists of a succession of brief 2–5 minute films that total 20–60 minutes of pre-recorded video content.
• Video was the format used for the majority of courses (a total of 10 million). The second most popular type of course was writing, with 3 million students.
• One million courses were made up of journal entries, which are typically shorter than other kinds of content. There were 500,000 different sorts of series, including audio, video, and text-only.

User Statistics

• There are 12 million active users on Skillshare.
• 40% of Skillshare’s subscribers and 20% of its best teachers come from countries other than the US.
• There are 500,000 paid subscribers on Skillshare.
• Each month, 8.13 million people visit Skillshare’s website on average.
• More than 180 countries are represented among its subscribers.
• Most of its traffic is generated by the US (24.29%), India (7.28%), and the UK (5.78%).
• Throughout 2020, Skillshare’s daily visitors and time on the site more than tripled.
• On Skillshare, the top 500 instructors get an average salary of $2,000 per month.

Statistic Breakdown

Now that we’ve shared the important statistics about skillshare, let’s delve into the specifics, including demographics, skill categories, cities, growth, course creators, and students.

Demographics

• Ages 25 to 34 were the most popular on Skillshare, followed by 18 to 24 and 35 to 44.
• The typical Skillshare user was 32 years old in 2022.
• Users of the platform were equally split across genders, with 50% men and 50% women.

Skill Categories

• A number of new courses on Skillshare have been released in the past year, covering subjects like blockchain technology and data analytics.
• Additionally, the business and Crunchbase have teamed up to provide a monthly membership that grants consumers access to all of its courses.
• With 1.5 million students taking design courses on Skillshare on a monthly average, design is the most popular category on the platform.
• Street photography, web development, and journals are among other well-liked categories.

Cities

• In the US, the cities that used Skillshare the most are as follows:
  • New York City
  • Los Angeles
  • Chicago
  • San Francisco
  • Seattle
  • Austin
  • Portland
  • Denver
  • Philadelphia
  • Boston

Growth

• The company debuted Skillshare Street, a new series that was well received by consumers.
• After that, there were approximately 5 million video views per month on average.
• All videos were shared via the Street platform, and some of them acquired up to 9 million views.

Course Creators

• Each month in 2022, 1,000 new course creators joined Skillshare on average.
• Compared to 2016, when 100 new course makers joined the site each month, this is a significant rise.
• Because of the introduction of a series of how-to videos on Medium in 2017, Skillshare has grown significantly. People were able to see in these videos just how simple it is to make a course on Skillshare.

Students

• An average of 1 million new students registered in courses each month on Skillshare in 2022.
• This is an increase from the 800,000 new students added each month on average in 2021.

What Is Skillshare?

Skillshare is an online learning platform that allows students to take online courses in their own time and for creators to teach users in their own way.

The Skillshare platform offers a wide range of specialized skills, including web development, graphic design, business analytics, UX design, and much more.

The main way to study using Skillshare, which was established in 2010 in New York by Michael Karnjanaprakorn and Malcolm Ong, is to complete a project while watching online videos.

Skillshare is more affordable than other e-learning platforms and is a great place to start for those looking to advance their professional abilities or find new courses to pique their interests.

What Courses Do Skillshare Offer?

With over 35,000 courses to choose from on Skillshare, there is plenty that can be learned on the platform.

These courses are divided into 13 different categories. The current categories are:

• Food and Drink
• Gaming
• Music
• Advertising
• Business
• Design
• Writing and Publishing
• Photography
• Social Media
• Technology
• Fashion and Style
• Film and Video
• Entrepreneurship

What Is The Typical Skillshare Course Structure?

Courses on Skillshare follow a conventional online learning framework but include additional capabilities.

The video lessons come first. On the web browser version, the video lessons are arranged and presented to the right of the video playback screen, making it simple to switch between lessons or quickly observe how the course is structured.

There are five ways to increase your learning below the video playback screen:

• About
• Discussion
• Projects and Resources
• Transcripts
• Reviews

About

A description of the course and what you can learn are provided in the About section. 

Some courses also describe who the course is intended for, which is helpful when browsing for new courses to learn from.

Discussion

Students can pose questions and get feedback from one another in the Discussion section.

The Skillshare teacher can also step in to respond to comments to provide help and feedback.

For learners who are searching for feedback to assess their progress in a particular subject, the group learning component is advantageous.

Projects And Resources

Projects are included in each Skillshare lesson. You can read a thorough overview of the project here, along with some additional teaching tools supplied by the teacher.

Students are invited to upload photos and an optional write-up of their projects so that classmates and the teacher can provide feedback.

Transcripts

For those who find it easier to read along while they listen to their lessons, Skillshare provides a transcript in this section.

This is also a great tool for referring back to lessons and making notes during each lesson.

Reviews

You can read reviews and thoughts from former course participants here.

Skillshare offers handy ways to see who a course is “best suited for” (beginners, experts, etc.), what they like the most about it, and whether it lived up to their expectations.

What Are The Skillshare Membership Costs?

Free courses were formerly available through Skillshare’s free membership option. But that program is no longer accessible.

Instead, after registering for a Skillshare Premium membership, the site grants free access for a month.

You have two options for membership fees following your one-month trial:

• Monthly subscription – $32 a month
• Annual subscription – $168 a year, averaging around $14 a month.

With a premium subscription, you have unrestricted access to all 35,000+ online classes.

Additionally, as a premium subscriber, you can download courses to view offline on iOS or Android devices.

How Much Does Skillshare Pay Creators?

According to Skillshare, top instructors earn over $100,000 annually on the site, but part-time instructors will make considerably less.

The amount that Skillshare pays you is based on how long paying subscribers watch your material.

To get paid, teachers must have paying members watch them for at least 30 minutes. However, changing the playback speed of courses is now a possibility, and this would have an impact on your salary as a teacher.

Who Are The Best Skillshare Teachers?

On Skillshare, you can select courses by teacher. As the outcome of a Skillshare course depends greatly on the instructor, it’s wise as a student to look for these top creators:

• Aaron Draplin – Logo design, illustration, graphic design.
• Sean Dalton – Character design, illustration, drawing.
• Jake Bartlett – After effects, lettering, motion graphics.
• Dale McManus – Instagram marketing, smartphone photography.
• Daniel Scott – Adobe Suite, graphic design.
• Thomas Frank – Productivity
• Christine Nishiyama – Drawing, character design, illustration.
• Brent Eviston – Drawing, creativity.
• Rich Armstrong – Art, motion graphics, web design.
• Cat Coquillette – Painting, illustration, Photoshop.

What Are The Pros And Cons Of Skillshare?

Skillshare learning has its benefits as well as its weak points. Here is a quick list of Skillshare’s pros and cons.

Pros

• Over 35,000 courses to choose from, split into 13 categories.
• Has an affordable subscription plan, with a 50% saving on the annual payment plan.
• One-month free trial with a premium subscription.
• Offers an additional month free when you refer a friend.
• Offers a wide variety of course topics for different skill levels.
• Offers project-based learning.
• Has discounts and perks for additional services and products.

Cons

• As anyone can be a creator on Skillshare, the quality of the courses can vary.
• There is no certificate or accreditation on completion of the course.
• Doesn’t have “MasterClass” caliber instructors.

In Summary

This has been an in-depth look at Skillshare and its statistics for the year. With this article, you’ll have all the Skillshare knowledge you need.