Udemy Online Courses Platform: An Honest Review for 2026

By Stefan Ciancio on 2026-07-08

TL;DR: The Udemy online courses platform is a viable starting point for new creators due to its massive built-in audience and low technical barrier. However, its restrictive revenue sharing model, constant deep discounting, and lack of direct student access make it a poor choice for building a sustainable, high-revenue business where you control your brand and financial destiny.

Quick answers

How much do Udemy instructors actually make?

Income for Udemy instructors varies drastically. A few top instructors earn six figures, but the vast majority make very little, often just a few hundred dollars per month. The platform's promotional pricing means your $100 course is frequently sold for $10-15, and your revenue share can be as low as 37% of that sale price, limiting your overall earning potential significantly.

Is Udemy worth it for course creators in 2026?

For absolute beginners, Udemy can be worth it for gaining initial visibility and validation for a course topic without marketing costs. For serious entrepreneurs aiming to build a brand and a scalable business, it is not worth it. The trade-off for their marketplace traffic is a near-total loss of control over your pricing, branding, and most importantly, your direct relationship with students.

What are Udemy's biggest downsides for creators?

The three biggest downsides are: 1) Lack of pricing control, as Udemy can discount your course at will. 2) A punishing revenue share model that minimizes your earnings on sales they drive. 3) Inability to directly email your students, which prevents you from building a core business asset - your email list - to sell future products.

Can you get rich selling on the Udemy platform?

It's highly improbable. The business model is built on volume and low prices, not high-value sales. To get rich, you need to control pricing and own the customer relationship, allowing for upsells, recurring revenue, and high-ticket offers. Udemy's structure actively prevents all of these core business-building activities. The platform is designed to make Udemy rich, not necessarily its instructors.

What is a better alternative to Udemy?

A better alternative is self-hosting your course on platforms like Kajabi or Teachable, combined with a robust marketing funnel. For example, using automated webinars to sell your course allows you to command higher prices ($199-$997+) and build a direct relationship with your audience. I built my entire company, WebinarKit, around this more profitable and sustainable model.

Does Udemy do the marketing for you?

Udemy markets its platform, and your course may get visibility within its ecosystem and through its affiliate partners. However, you are competing with over 200,000 other courses. The most successful instructors on Udemy are also expert marketers who drive significant external traffic themselves, which ironically earns them a higher revenue share but also begs the question: why not drive that traffic to your own platform?

Is the Udemy Online Courses Platform a Good Place to Start?

Yes, for a specific type of creator, the Udemy online courses platform is a logical and low-friction place to begin. If you are brand new to course creation, have zero audience, and the thought of connecting payment processors and running ads gives you hives, Udemy handles a lot of the heavy lifting. They provide the hosting, the payment system, and a potential firehose of traffic from their existing user base of millions of learners. When I first started, the appeal of a done-for-you marketplace was huge. You upload videos, fill out a description, and theoretically, sales can start rolling in. This can be an incredible way to validate your course topic. If you put a course on Udemy and it gets zero traction even with their marketplace, that’s a strong signal the topic might not have market demand. However, you must view it strictly as a starting point or a testing ground, not a final destination. The platform's structure introduces severe limitations that cap your growth almost as soon as you start succeeding. It's like learning to drive in a go-kart; it's fun and easy to start, but you'd never try to drive it on the highway or use it to build a real logistics business.

How Does Udemy's Revenue Share Actually Work?

Udemy's revenue share model is designed to benefit the platform first and foremost, and it can be confusing for new instructors. The percentage of the sale you keep depends entirely on the traffic source that led to the purchase. If you bring a student to Udemy through your own marketing efforts using your unique instructor coupon or referral link, you receive 97% of the net revenue. This sounds great, but it means you are doing all the marketing work just to send traffic to a platform you don't own. The real catch is with sales generated by Udemy's own marketing. If a student finds your course by browsing the Udemy marketplace, clicking one of their ads, or through a Udemy affiliate, you receive only 37% of the revenue. This is where the vast majority of sales happen for most instructors. So, if your course has a list price of $199 but Udemy's site-wide promotion sells it for $14.99, and the sale comes from their traffic, you're getting 37% of that $14.99. That's about $5.55 for a course you might have spent months creating. This model actively discourages you from relaxing and letting the platform work for you, while simultaneously penalizing you for using their primary value proposition: the marketplace. This structure was one of the key reasons I prioritized building my own brand and funnels outside of these restrictive ecosystems.

What Are the Biggest Hidden Costs of Using Udemy?

The biggest hidden cost of using the Udemy platform is the immense opportunity cost of not building your own independent business assets. This isn't about money you pay out; it's about the future revenue you forfeit. Every sale that happens on Udemy is a customer you don't truly own. You can't add them to your email list to notify them about your next course, your coaching program, or your new software tool. That direct line of communication is the single most valuable asset in any digital business. When I launched my book, Sell More With Webinars, and its accompanying programs, I could market it directly to an email list I had spent years building. The lifetime value of a customer on my own platform could be thousands of dollars; on Udemy, it's capped at the low, one-time price of a single course. Another hidden cost is brand dilution. On Udemy, you are just a tile in a massive grid. Your branding is secondary to Udemy's. On your own site, you control the entire student experience, from the sales page to the thank you page to the course interface. This allows you to build a premium brand and charge premium prices. The final cost is data. You get minimal data about who is buying your course, how they found it, or what their other interests are. This data is gold for refining your marketing and product development, and on Udemy, you're flying blind.

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Why Did I Move My Courses Off Platforms Like Udemy?

I shifted my entire business model away from marketplace-style platforms to gain full control over the three pillars of a digital business: pricing, branding, and communication. My early experiences were similar to the Udemy model. I’d create a course, put it on a marketplace, and get excited by the initial trickle of sales. But I quickly realized I was building someone else's asset. I couldn't dictate my price; my $497 course was often sold for $20. I couldn't build a proper sales funnel with upsells. Most painfully, I couldn't email the people who bought from me - the warmest possible audience for future offers. This was a deal-breaker. The transition to self-hosting was a game-changer. I could now run a webinar funnel, using a tool just like the one we built, WebinarKit, to build trust and demonstrate value over 60-90 minutes before asking for the sale. This allowed me to sell courses for $297, $497, and even $997. The math is simple: would you rather sell 100 courses at a $5 profit on Udemy ($500) or 10 courses at a $400 profit on your own platform ($4,000)? It’s not even a question. This control allowed me to build a predictable, scalable business, not just a hobby that generated passive income pocket money. My entire portfolio of businesses, from software to events, is built on this principle of ownership.

How Does Udemy Compare to Self-Hosting Platforms?

Udemy and self-hosting platforms cater to fundamentally different business goals and strategies. Udemy offers a done-for-you marketplace in exchange for control and a large chunk of your revenue, whereas self-hosting gives you total control but requires you to be the master of your own destiny, including generating traffic. I've used both models extensively, and the difference is stark. Think of Udemy as leasing a small kiosk in a giant, crowded mall. The mall owner (Udemy) dictates your hours, your signage, and takes a huge cut of your sales, but they also bring in foot traffic. Self-hosting with a tool like Teachable or Kajabi is like buying your own commercial property on a main street. You have to put up your own sign and run your own ads to get people in the door, but you control everything inside and keep all the profits (minus standard payment processing fees). When you self-host, you connect your own payment gateway via a service like Stripe. Their fees are transparent - for instance, a standard fee is 2.9% + 30¢ per transaction. You can compare these on my review site ProcessingScoop. Compare that to Udemy's 63% cut. Here’s a direct comparison:

Feature	Udemy Online Courses Platform	Self-Hosting (e.g., Kajabi, Teachable)
Audience	Built-in marketplace of millions	You must generate your own traffic
Revenue Share / Fees	37% - 97% share. You keep as little as 37% on Udemy-driven sales.	Monthly subscription fee + standard payment processing fees (~3%). You keep ~97% of revenue.
Pricing Control	Extremely limited. Udemy frequently runs site-wide sales, discounting your course to $10-$20.	100% control. You set the price, create coupons, and offer payment plans.
Student Data & Communication	No direct email access. Communication is limited through their platform messaging system.	Full ownership. You get student emails and can integrate with any email marketing service.
Branding & Customization	Minimal. Your course page lives within Udemy's branded ecosystem.	Full control over website design, sales pages, and the entire student experience.
Ease of Use (Technical)	Very easy. Upload content and go. No technical setup required.	Requires some setup (domain connection, email integration) but platforms make it straightforward.

Can You Build a Sustainable Business Solely on Udemy?

No, building a truly sustainable, multi-six or seven-figure business solely on the Udemy online courses platform is virtually impossible by design. A sustainable business requires multiple levers for growth: the ability to increase customer lifetime value (LTV), the power to create and sell a diverse range of products at different price points, and a direct, owned relationship with your audience for predictable marketing. Udemy systematically removes all of these levers. Your customer LTV is capped at the low price of one or two courses. You can't effectively launch a high-ticket coaching program, a mastermind, or a software tool to your Udemy buyers because you can't export their emails into your own marketing system. I've built my career on creating ecosystems of products. For example, someone might read my blog, buy my book, then attend a webinar and purchase WebinarKit, and later join a high-level mastermind from my events brand, Epic Marketing Events. That customer journey could be worth $5,000+. On Udemy, that same customer's journey is worth about $15, and I never hear from them again. True business sustainability comes from building a brand and an email list, an asset that you own and that appreciates over time. Udemy is like a hamster wheel: you can run on it forever and generate some energy, but you never actually go anywhere new.

What's a Profitable Alternative to the Udemy Model?

A significantly more profitable and scalable alternative to the Udemy model is the high-ticket webinar funnel. This is the exact model I've used to generate millions in sales and built my company, WebinarKit, to help others do the same. Instead of selling a low-priced course on a crowded marketplace, you create a premium course or coaching program priced between $197 and $1,997. You then use targeted ads on platforms like Facebook or Google to drive traffic to a registration page for a free, value-packed automated webinar. During this webinar, you spend 60 minutes teaching a core concept related to your course topic, building authority and goodwill. At the end, you transition into a pitch for your premium course. This model works because it aligns value with price. You're not asking for a sale on a cold sales page; you're asking after delivering immense value upfront. This allows you to convert colder traffic at much higher price points. The economics are night and day compared to Udemy. On Udemy, you might need 1,000 sales at a $7 profit to make $7,000. With a webinar funnel selling a $497 course, you only need about 15 sales to hit that same number. This is a real business lever, giving you the margin to invest in ads and scale predictably.

How Can You Launch a Course Without a Marketplace?

You can successfully launch an online course without relying on a marketplace by following a strategic, audience-centric framework. The key is to de-risk the process by building an audience and validating your idea *before* you invest hundreds of hours creating the full course. I've used this exact five-step process to launch multiple successful products, including software and courses. It shifts the focus from 'build it and they will come' to 'build them, then build it'.

Validate Your Idea with a 'Micro-Audience'. Don't try to boil the ocean. Find a niche community on Facebook, Reddit, or LinkedIn where your ideal students hang out. Engage authentically, answer questions, and become a trusted voice. Your goal is to get 50-100 people from this group to join a private email list or Facebook group for early access and feedback on your upcoming topic.
Create a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) Course. Don't build a 20-module epic. Create the first 2-3 modules of your course - just enough to deliver a significant 'win' for a student. This MVP is what you will presell. This minimizes your upfront time investment and gets you to market faster.
Host a Live 'Founders' Launch' Webinar. Invite your small micro-audience to a live webinar. Over-deliver on value for 45 minutes, then pitch your MVP course at a special 'founders' discount. Be transparent that they are the first students and their feedback will shape the rest of the course, which you'll be building out live over the next 4-6 weeks.
Build the Course Alongside Your Founding Students. Use the revenue from your founders' launch to fund the rest of your production. Drip out the new modules week by week, getting real-time feedback from your paying students. This ensures you're creating a course that people actually want and will get results from. This feedback loop is invaluable.
Automate and Scale. Once the full course is built and you have testimonials from your successful founding members, you're ready to scale. Convert your live launch webinar into an automated one using a tool like WebinarKit. Now you can run paid traffic to it 24/7, creating a true, scalable sales asset instead of just a course listing.

Are Udemy's Marketing Tools Enough to Succeed?

No, Udemy's internal marketing tools are absolutely not enough to build a top-tier, financially successful course on the platform. While they offer features like 'Promotional Announcements' and the ability to create coupon codes, these tools are superficial and lack the power of a real marketing stack. The announcements have limited reach and engagement. The coupon code system is primarily useful for driving your *own* external traffic, which begs the question of why you're sending your hard-won traffic to Udemy in the first place. The platform's main 'marketing' is its marketplace and affiliate program, but this is a double-edged sword. Yes, they can bring you sales, but you're a needle in a haystack of over 200,000 courses, and those sales come with a 63% revenue haircut. The most successful Udemy instructors are masters of external marketing. They have large YouTube channels, popular blogs, huge email lists, or significant social media followings. They use Udemy as one of many distribution channels, often for a lead-in 'tripwire' course. They succeed *despite* Udemy's limited tools, not because of them. Relying solely on Udemy to make you successful is like opening a restaurant and not buying any ads because you assume the phone book listing will be enough.

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What's the Future of Online Course Marketplaces Post-AI?

The rise of powerful AI will dramatically reshape the landscape for platforms like Udemy, making it even more of a 'red ocean' for creators. With AI content tools - like my own, Maker AI - the barrier to creating the raw material for a course (scripts, outlines, slides) is dropping to near zero. While expertise and delivery still matter, the sheer volume of new courses being published will explode. A study by Global Market Insights already projected massive growth in the e-learning market, and AI will only accelerate that. This hyper-saturation means that discoverability on a marketplace will become exponentially harder. The value of Udemy's marketplace traffic will diminish as the noise-to-signal ratio worsens. In this new reality, the only durable competitive advantage is a strong personal brand and a direct relationship with your audience. When everyone can generate decent content, the only thing that will make someone choose *your* course is that they know, like, and trust *you*. This is something that cannot be built on a rented platform like Udemy. The future belongs to the creator-entrepreneurs who use AI as a leverage tool to produce better content faster, but distribute it through their own owned channels - their website, their email list, and their own funnels.

FAQ

What is the average income of a Udemy instructor?

There's no official 'average' income, and it's heavily skewed. A small percentage of top instructors earn six figures, but the median income is likely very low, probably less than a few hundred dollars per month. A majority of courses make little to no money at all due to competition and the platform's discount model.

Does Udemy own your course content?

No, according to their terms of service, you retain ownership of the content you upload to the Udemy online courses platform. However, you grant Udemy a broad license to offer, market, and sublicense your content to students. This means they can sell it on your behalf under the platform's rules.

How long does it take to get a course approved on Udemy?

Typically, it takes 2-5 business days for Udemy's quality review team to approve a course. This process checks for minimum standards like HD video quality, good audio, a minimum amount of content, and adherence to their platform policies. If your course is rejected, they provide feedback for you to make corrections.

Can I sell the same course on Udemy and my own website?

Yes, you can. Udemy operates on a non-exclusive basis, meaning you are free to sell your course on other platforms or your own website. However, you cannot offer your course for free elsewhere if it is paid on Udemy. Also, be mindful of their pricing rules to avoid conflicts.

What are the technical requirements for a Udemy course?

Udemy requires all video to be in HD (720p or 1080p), with clear audio free of distracting background noise. Courses must have at least 30 minutes of total video content and consist of at least five separate lectures. They also have standards for the course landing page and curriculum structure to ensure a good student experience.

Is Udemy good for B2B or corporate training courses?

Udemy has a 'Udemy Business' offering, which is a subscription for companies. If your course is selected for this collection, you get paid based on student engagement. It can provide a separate revenue stream, but the payout per minute is quite low, and you have no control over whether your course is included.

How much does Udemy Business pay instructors?

Instructors in the Udemy Business collection are paid from a pool that represents 25% of the monthly subscription revenue from Udemy Business customers. This pool is then divided among all instructors based on the total number of minutes consumed by students in their courses. The effective rate per minute is often very small.

FAQ