What Percentage Does Udemy Take?

Udemy marketplace is a well-known and well-respected worldwide website for developing new skills. The platform helps to connect learners from all over the world with educators.

The platform generates revenue by utilizing content created by a virtual course creator and its primary objective is to assist practitioners to improve their skills.

But what percentage does Udemy take and how much are instructors and many course creators being paid through the instructor revenue pool?

How Does Udemy Generate Revenue?

As previously stated, Udemy is the top marketplace for learners and online teaching with a large selection of Udemy courses, a wide range of learners, and numerous Udemy instructors.

Udemy is making a lot of money and competing hard in the market, with its instructor revenue share graph growing year after year.

Fees For Instructors

Are you aware of the fact that instructors are not expected to pay any fees to share their courses on Udemy? That’s right!

Lecturers can promote their courses free of charge, and whenever a customer or learner purchases a course from Udemy, the company makes money.

As a result, the profits from online courses will be split between the two parties, Udemy, and the lecturer. How the money will be split generally depends on the way the purchaser came to buy the course.

On Udemy, there are three profit-sharing categories.

Instructors Promo

This tier is quite interesting, and it refers to cases where students use a referral link provided by the instructors to purchase their courses.

When this happens, the instructors get 97% of the overall course price because the student purchased the course using a promotional code. However, the educator must then pay a 3% fee to Udemy as an extra charge.

Udemy Organic

I’m sure you’ve heard of the word “organic,” which refers to cases where the learners head to Udemy’s website, start browsing the courses, and move on with purchasing the course of their choice.

In this case scenario, students are not using coupon codes or referral links provided by the instructors to purchase the courses.

Therefore, Udemy and the instructors split the money in half because this is an organic sale.

Moreover, Udemy charges a 30% fee for each sale that is completed via the Udemy mobile app.

Paid Acquisition

Paid advertising is a further way to boost sales. Udemy assists instructors in increasing their sales by promoting their courses on other platforms like Google, Facebook, and others.

Whenever learners purchase courses through a paid platform, Udemy retains 75% of the courses’ sales.

However, in this case, it is up to the instructors to decide which channels they will be using to promote their courses.

We should note here that there is a small number of Udemy educators who are dissatisfied with the way their courses are promoted and sold.

Extra costs, high prices, marketing on different channels, and other factors could all be to blame.

Most educators, on the contrary, commend Udemy because it allows them to earn millions of dollars annually by having their courses sold on the platform.

Of course, investors concur that Udemy is a win-win money-making opportunity.

What Makes Udemy Unique?

With today’s technological advancements and competitive pressure, everybody is looking for an edge. This ability will assist them in distinguishing themselves from the rest of the people.

In addition, mentioning several skills on one’s resume can make one more valuable and skilled for a wide range of job positions and improve their job prospects.

Udemy is an excellent educational platform for people of all ages. It is a one-stop shop for individuals who wish to acquire new sets of skills or enhance their existing ones.

The greatest feature of Udemy is that it has over 200,000 courses some are paid courses while some are free courses.

That’s phenomenal, isn’t it? Several courses are completely free, while some others can be accessed at a reduced price.

Highly qualified educators will provide learners with valuable support and knowledge. Subscribers get unlimited access to their selected courses, with no date of expiration.

Moreover, the courses are presently available in over 65 different languages.

Entrepreneurship, computer technology, estate development, financial management, digital marketing, music, photojournalism, fitness, and self-development are among the most popular programs.

As previously stated, with millions of students and a multitude of online courses accessible on Udemy, it is obvious that the company has turned into an extremely lucrative business that keeps growing year after year.

Udemy’s Business Model In Detail

It’s really no shocker that Udemy follows the “Marketplace Business Model.

To keep things simple, Udemy categorizes and uploads the offerings or product lines of various educators onto its official site.

The company acts as a go-between for the educator and the learner. It does not own any goods or services.

As a result, the price is established by the independent educator on Udemy. In addition, Udemy charges an educator a commission for utilizing its system and reaching a bigger audience.

Think of a widely known eCommerce platform like Amazon or Shopify which serves as a middleman between the buyer and the seller, where each referred sale comes with a commission for them.

How effective is that? Around 223 million dollars, as is what Udemy made in 2020. These profits are generated in a variety of ways, from course sales to instructor promotions, and so on.

Udemy’s Key Aspects

As the top online education platform and open market, Udemy offers its educators the opportunity to communicate with several millions of learners and instruct them about their areas of expertise.

The four main Udemy aspects are as follows:

Simplicity

Learners are given the choice of selecting an Udemy business program and attending classes in their free time.

Whenever an online course space is made accessible through the website, learners of all educational backgrounds can sign up for it, and they can do so whenever they wish to.

Furthermore, there is no time constraint, which enables the learners to attend the classes and gain new knowledge and skills at their own pace.

Variation

On Udemy, you can find a plethora of selling online courses. That’s because the platform has connected highly qualified educators from all over the world who are experts in a wide range of topics.

Udemy offers classes ranging from corporate to culture. It is up to the learner to acquire and enhance their skills as they see fit.

Value For Money

There are a handful of free online programs offered on Udemy. However, there are several courses available with good discount prices that start at $9.

That’s incredible, isn’t it? In addition, Udemy provides coupon codes and deals to help learners buy the course at a low cost.

Udemy accepts a variety of payment options, and learners can use their desired payment method to proceed with their payments.

No matter what kind of courses learners join, they are all looking for a “certification of completion.”

When you finish a course on Udemy, you will receive a certificate of completion. Of course, a learner must complete a course to qualify for a certificate from Udemy.

These certificates can be acquired in several formats, including JPEGs and PDFs.

Advantages Of Udemy For Instructors

Marketing Potentials For Courses

One of Udemy’s best attributes is its course promotional features, which enable instructors to advertise their courses as well as commercialize their brand image to learners and the appropriate viewers.

Udemy promotes educators’ courses in four different ways: by retargeting advertisements, with external partner promos, email marketing, and by search and discovery.

Retargeted Advertisements

Educators can utilize this feature to contact members of the audience or learners who looked at the course, added it to their wish list, and yet did not purchase it.

Their courses’ ads will appear in their learners’ Facebook news feed as well as on other websites.

Search And Discovery

Udemy assists educators in improving their course’s search engine visibility on their website.

Email Marketing

Furthermore, Udemy sends out marketing emails to assist educators in promoting and marketing their courses to the appropriate audience.

The email messages are personalized depending on the student’s purchase history and behavior.

Collaboration With Large COURSE Niche Content Websites

Udemy collaborates with Groupon, LivingSocial, as well as other flash sale websites to assist educators in selling courses.

Course Value Checklist

This feature guarantees that educators’ courses are sellable, highly qualified, and able to provide learners with advanced and additional support in their learning journey.

Learners on Udemy are provided with the opportunity to work on assigned tasks to put into practice the skills and information they received from their selected courses and enhance their skills.

They also get the chance of sharing their completed tasks or results with their fellow learners to receive or provide feedback.

Tips On How To Become A Successful Udemy Instructor

Distinguish Your Course From The Rest

Because Udemy has over 25,000 courses, you must create a distinct course to grow your audience.

What you need is to attract users who have already bought other courses and do not desire to revisit (and continue paying) for the courses that bear no difference from the ones they’ve already taken.

This is perhaps the hardest aspect of the research you need to do, but keep in mind that it is a necessary component of designing a profitable course.

Take some time to explore Udemy and see what is already available on the particular subject you want to build a course on, and then come up with a new perspective.

Do not generate a duplicate of an existing course, even if that isn’t performing well and you believe you could offer a better version of it.

Create a Comprehensive and In-depth Course

If you’re going to devote yourself to this, make it a serious commitment. People favor (and, once more, spend money on) courses with a large amount of information.

A bigger Udemy course, such as 40 presentations and 15 hours of video content, is always preferable to a smaller one that offers 10 lectures and a couple of hours of videos.

This way, you can prove that you are knowledgeable about the topic, which is, after all, why you are introducing this course to the platform.

Explicitly State Your Objectives

Before you begin creating your course, you should clearly define all of your objectives. Below are a few points to remember:

• For whom are you creating this course?
• What are your criteria for selecting a topic?
• What will the price for accessing the course be?

Generate The Course’s Content

There are numerous points to think about as you create course content, such as:

• Finding a smart and to-the-point title
• Getting all the content in front of you and working your way up from there.
• Focusing on the format

Here are some Content Development Suggestions:

• With a handful of exceptions, your lectures should be no less than 2 minutes long and no more than 10 minutes long.
• It’s best to incorporate as much video content as you can.

It will feel closer to a live presentation and will better keep your audience’s attention. Videos should account for approximately 60% of your course’s material.

• Don’t forget to include an introduction and a summary in every lesson.

Your introduction should serve as an outline for the information your learners will receive in the lesson, and your summary must emphasize the most important learnings.

Retain Your Learners’ Interest

This is where you need to be creative again. You need to establish relationships and make sure your students are interested and engaged with your course.

Whether that’s with quizzes, 1-1s with students, or other creative ideas, that is up to you to decide.

The Bottom Line

Udemy’s mission is to assist people in reaching their objectives and fulfilling their visions and serve as a one-stop shop for both educators and students.

It is a great way to promote your courses and earn a profit from them.

Depending on the way your course is sold, your Udemy earnings will be different, but if you successfully promote and sell courses online, rest assured your income will be great!