I am super excited to finally begin selling online video courses.
Last week I published my first Udemy course on creating animated video presentations with Powtoon (affiliate link). Not only do I teach you how to use the program, but you’ll also learn how to create a voiceover for your videos using Audacity.
Make sure you sign up for the course and leave a review!
Yes! You can use a free Powtoon account if you want. No premium membership needed. You just have to display their watermark on your videos.
Why You Should Create Animated Presentations
I learned from my YouTube Analytics Reports that the Powtoon videos get the best retention rate (that’s the percentage of people who watch the entire video).
The average retention rate for YouTube as a whole is between 30 and 50% (my videos tend to fall in the 50 percentile range), but my Powtoon videos like this always reach the 70+ percentile range.
And as you may know, retention plays a role in how well your video ranks for your targeted keywords. It can also impact your Partner earnings (more and longer ad displays).
My Goal With Udemy
For months now, I’ve been toying with the idea of selling on Udemy.
Rob Cubbon was a big inspiration. He currently earns four figures per month selling courses and gave me a lot of pointers along the way.
Thanks, Rob for being there to answer my gazillion questions and for sharing your experiences! 🙂
He told me that it’s a good idea to build up a following by publishing some free courses, so when I launch my paid courses, I’ll have an audience and credibility on the platform. Makes perfect sense to me.
Having said that, I may not sell my Photoshop Course on Udemy. I’ll explain why below.
What I Like About Udemy
Like anything, there are pros and cons with the marketplace. I’ll start off with what I like…
1) They promote your courses HARD!
Within the first two days of getting my course published, I had a couple hundred students enroll with ZERO promotion on my end. I just announced the course to my followers today (six days after it was published on Udemy.)
Granted, it’s a free course so that is probably why the students signed up at such a high rate. I wouldn’t have expected that many had the course cost money — especially since this is my first one and I had no audience on the platform.
So I can already see that it’s not hard to get exposure for the free courses.
And once you join Udemy they DO send a lot of promotional emails out (actually too many for my taste), but it must work very well for them.
2) The course creation process encourages you to get organized.
Because Udemy provides numerous course guidelines and require you to have a certain amount of sections and lectures for your course, it does help you organize your material for a better learning experience.
Plus, it’s much more effective to create a course with several shorter videos than one super long video (which is what I often do on YouTube).
3) It’s great for site owners with small audiences.
If you have not yet built a sizable email list or large following, you can still make money on Udemy if you are good at creating video courses.
They currently have over 3 million students enrolled, which means they have 3 million people to market your course to. The better your enrollment and course ratings, the more organic exposure you’ll receive.
4) Affiliates can easily promote your course.
Because Udemy has an affiliate program, you can encourage your followers to promote your course without the hassle of setting up your own or using an affiliate network.
What I Don’t Like About Udemy
Now let’s get to some things I don’t care for…
1) Their commission structure is confusing.
I had to edit this section because Rob informed me that the commission structure I originally posted was wrong.
Last year Udemy made quite a few changes to their commissions, and it caused some high-earning instructors to jump ship. Basically if the person you refer to your course was already a Udemy member you only earned 50% instead of 97%. Yikes!
But they have reverted back to their old structure and now you earn 97% (100% minus 3% in processing fees) on all sales you refer. So that’s a good sign.
Nevertheless, their commission structure is a bit confusing so you need to read their terms carefully — that is, if you can find them! Here are some of them at the bottom of this page.
Apparently they change their commissions quite a bit, so I guess that’s why they don’t document them in many places.
However, that page doesn’t mention that you receive 25% from affiliate sales and Udemy ads. Thanks for clarifying this, Rob because I could never find that anywhere on their site!
2) The video quality is good but not great.
Because Udemy is hosting the videos on their site, no doubt they have to keep tabs on bandwidth.
So even though you may publish your videos in HD and they look great on your computer, you will notice the quality is not as great on Udemy’s site.
It’s not bad at all, but certainly not as crystal clear as it was on my computer before I uploaded to their site.
3) The final reviews took too long.
When I first published my course, The Udemy Support Team reviewed it within one business day. I thought, Cool! That was fast!
But after I made the recommended changes (very minor), I waited another four days and ultimately had to email their support to ask for another review request. This happened twice.
I don’t know if that’s rare, but that didn’t sit well with me.
I May Make Different Plans For My Photoshop Course
As you may remember, I’m getting ready to launch a Photoshop video course.
I am very excited about this one because I think it’s going to be incredibly helpful for people who want to create eye-catching images for blog posts, social media and tip-o-graphics/infographics I create for Pinterest.
It really will make Photoshop seem easy and less intimidating for the average blogger/website owner who wants the flexibility of creating their own images without design, template and font limitations of the free image creation sites.
I was not going to use Udemy when I was under the impression that I might only earn 50% of the sale if people are already Udemy members. But now that Rob has informed me that you earn 97% on all sales you refer then I may go ahead and use Udemy for this course after all.
I’m also looking into Gumroad because of the free bandwidth and people can download the videos. There are over 20 1280×720 resolution HD videos (2+ hours) in this course, so free bandwidth for downloads is a huge selling point for me!
Not to mention these additional perks…
- Their setup process is incredibly simple
- You can offer coupons (HINT: I will be offering a launch coupon to those on my list)
- You can email your customers
I haven’t made up my mind completely, but Gumroad is winning the race so far.
Should You Use Udemy?
It depends on the situation.
I think Udemy can be a great platform for getting exposure and making money with video courses. Just make sure you understand how their commission structure works. Also, be prepared to test other options.
Obviously you’ll earn the most selling courses directly from your OWN site, but there are downsides to that as well. Udemy definitely makes it easy, and it’s a good option if you’re new to selling video and/or you have a small following.
I don’t think there is one definitive answer here. Even though Udemy takes a hefty commission in certain instances, is it worth it because of the additional sales they drive on their own?
You really have to experiment, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do! I’ll certainly keep you posted. No doubt I’ll be doing a podcast on this at some point. 🙂
What about you? Have you ever sold video courses? Are you thinking about it? Let’s chat!
Hi Lisa Irby,
It’s a nice post. We are in the animation industry. Basically, we’ve never tried Udemy but after reading this blog, will try it. Thank for sharing such an informational updates.
once i had read about making money with udemy on the offical site but totally forgot about it … thanks for sharing it and now i know what to do next 😉
Thank you Lisa! I can’t wait to take the course! 🙂
thanks lisa ,where i can learn about program video online??
Lisa, I’ve completed your free course about creating animated videos with Powtoon. Nice job! I found it very helpful. Question: Does Powtoon offer the ability to create a “Ken Burns” effect with imported images? Also, a CTA suggestion: ask for reviews at some point in your course. (Yes, I did give a quick review!)
Thank you for the CTA reminder. After I published my course I read where someone else suggested that because most people don’t automatically leave reviews….as I’m finding out. So thank you!!
No Ken Burns effect for Powtoon unfortunately.
I would love to take your photoshop course but with Canva, PicMonkey and other graphic tools available now I really don’t see myself purchasing photoshop.
Would be great though to have a paid tute that discusses the use of layers and some of the universally found tools, because I do have graphic editor. It’s just not as robust as photoshop. Is that even doable?
Anyway….I have a client that sells a video course using Digital Access Pass on her own WP site. What makes a platform like UDEMY or Gumroad a better option? I know DAP offers support but so far there have been no issues, but I’m not sure I want to go that route myself.
I know what you mean Tessa. I debated about doing the course for that very reason but there are so many design, font and template limitations to free tools that there will always be a demand for learning Photoshop. And now that it is much more reasonably priced, more non techy/design people and bloggers like me are using it. I did consider that but was pleasantly surprised to hear that there was interest so we’ll see how it goes! 🙂
But you’re right. A lot of graphic editors are based on the layer principle. Once I learned Photoshop I found it easier to grasp other tools like Final Cut Express and other programs that use layer-based layouts.
Udemy gives you access to customers that may not have ever found your course and the reason I’m considering Gumroad is some people may want to download the videos and that’s a very good option considering the costs of bandwidth (there’s is free). That is a HUGE selling point when you are selling 1.3 GB of video.
Wow Lisa…
You are quick in everything. First, you’ve got your podcasting going. And now you’ve got this Udemy courses going. Wow…oh wow…you’re speedy gonzales!
Udemy is one project on my list. I’m still trying to finish an ebook. Somehow I feel like a tortoise, and I haven’t even started yet and I’m already tired just thinking about this. LOL. Anyway, you have given me a wonderful inspiration.
Rob Cubbon is always there to answer every questions and he’s been a wonderful friend and mentor to me as well. I am stoked about your course, Lisa. I have signed up for it. Looking forward to seeing more of your course.
Angela
LOL! Yes it has been a busy year. And don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll get your ebook done. Just take it one chapter at a time. 🙂 But I know how you feel. I’ve had projects like that where it just seems to take forever to get going. Udemy inspires me though because I feel like video courses is what I should have been doing all along. It’s just draining trying to do decide how to sell them. 🙂
Congratulations Lisa! and thanks for sharing this useful information.
I have a couple of doubts: 1) Does Gumroad allow you to host your videos and show the course progress on their platform?, I mean is Gumroad much like the Udemy platform or it is a differente concept?.
2) You mentioned that you could use Premise Plugin, but it seems that it doesn’t exist now, but instead, there is a new platform called newrainmaker.com, have you heard something about them?.
Thans again!
Hi Carlos
No Gumroad allows people to actually download the videos. Udemy does not. Now that I know Udemy lets you keep 97% for all your referrals I am still considering them. Gumroad is very popular for large video files because most customers prefer to download them so they can watch them and store them wherever.
Rainmaker is the new Premise but I wasn’t all that impressed with it to be honest. I figured since I own Premise and they still support it, why not use it. You cannot buy Premise anymore.
Thanks Lisa!
Lisa,
This is a wonderful blog post. I’m sure you’ll do an amazing job with your courses. You’re so thorough in your explanations and research. I will continue to follow. Glad I’m a member of Udemy so I’ll head over and sign up for your course.
Thanks for your generosity.
Thanks a lot Cynthia! Hope you enjoy the course. 🙂
Hi Lisa, congratulations on creating your Udemy course. I published my first course a little while back too, kept it very short and also free to get an idea of the type of response I would get and it’s been brilliant so far.
Good luck !!!
Excellent Wasim! Good luck to you and happy earning. 🙂
Well, Lisa, I am so glad to hear that you are doing this. I am working on a tutorial right now and it will be interesting to see how a pro does it.
Where’s the pro? Ha ha ha! Thanks, Linda. Good luck on your tutorial.
Congrats Lisa! I’m definitely going to check out your course over there on Udemy. I never could wrap my head around those other Powtoon tutorials I watched in the past.
I got impatient with myself while I was making my Udemy course. Organization is not my forte and I have tons of notes and partial lessons that seem to never get finished. So I started off with Skillfeed instead. They allow you to upload one video at a time if you want and that’s perfect for me to get my feet wet.
Can’t wait to see your income reports in a few months. I’m sure they will be just as impressive as Rob’s are.
Take care Lisa and have a great week.
Thanks Ileane! I’m the same way with the organization and I think that’s why it’s taking me so long to actually put something out. I always start and then get sidetracked. I’m so used to just sitting down, recording and publishing to YouTube. 🙂 So yes I can totally relate to that. Didn’t know you were using Skillfeed. I haven’t really looked into them much yet.
Great article on Udemy Lisa! I recently registered with them and want to create a course. I like that Udemy promote your courses “hard” 🙂 that’s always a good thing. Like you said, free first is always best. You get to show people your skills. Thanks for the heads up on what I can expect. I’ll be sure to check your course out.
You should do it, Keeon! Yes I think their promotion is probably the biggest benefit.
Hi Lisa,
Thanks for the Powtoon Course. It is a great introduction in less than a hour. I have been a Udemy student for a few years now and the resolution is not an issue. I have a 23 inch monitor on Windows 7 PC and on HD YOUR videos look great. For example the Audacity screens actually look clearer and crisper than Audacity does on my screen when I open it.
So, I wouldn’t take that as a negative in considering Udemy, some instructors do send up low quality videos that are not clear, but yours is great. Reviewers usually blast those cheap looking videos and the instructors learn quickly that quality counts especially when it comes to demonstrating computer software. Looking forward to your upcoming Photoshop course – I will buy it wherever you put it – but it is convenient on Udemy as I can have them altogether and watch on my mobile devices with the Udemy app – not sure if Gumroad has that but it is great to use Udemy on my iPhone an iPad and Galaxy Note.
Thanks Charles, and good point about the quality. I can be picky about things sometimes. lol I may end up selling on both platforms to accommodate both audiences — those who want to download and those who want to use the Udemy app or watch from the computer.
Lisa thank you so much for your experience and opinion with Udemy.
I have just started a crafts video class website and have had some students take the courses. I’m using WordPress with Vimeo and s2Member plugin. I’m still doing some trial and error on pricing, length of access to classes, or may just allow students to download and keep their class.
Another thing I need to work on is to find other marketing venues than my current email list. Selling my video classes on Udemy may be a good way to expand my marketing.
Because of your post, I’m going to give it a try.
Thank you!
Laura Lynn
Go for it Laura, and now that Rob got me straight on the commission structure, it’s an even better option than I originally thought. Good luck!
Lisa, I had very seriously considered using Udemy to market my online courses. The commission structure is what turned me away. Even if they’ve changed it somewhat (per Rob), Udemy frequently offers discounts up to 90%. So, if the retail price of your course is $50, and a student uses a 75% discount coupon (easy to get), then at a 50% commission, you’d only receive $6.25!
I really hate having so little control over the purchase price of my courses. Udemy also feels to me like a huge discount mart. Anybody that’s familiar with Udemy knows that it’s foolish to pay any where near full price for a course.
You also can’t automatically put your students on your own mailing list. Udemy has pretty strict limitations on how and what you can communicate with your students.
I’m in the process of creating my own online courses and membership program. I agree that it’s a real pain installing this on my own website, but I’ll ultimately have the best long-term control of my material and customers that way. Gumroad sounds interesting, but who know if they’ll change their rules and commission structure at any point (like Udemy did – and as Facebook and Google have).
I’m looking forward to learning more about your Photoshop course. I’d really love to use Photoshop, but it’s NOT user friendly. I remember once spending 30 minutes just trying to figure out how to change my background color – and never succeeded! I’m currently using Canva, but it has too many limitations and glitches for me to be able to depend upon it for my business.
Hi Debra,
That is certainly another downside, but I believe you can opt out of the promotions if I’m not mistaken. Of course the downside to that is you may still limit your income because you may not have gotten some of those sales without their promotion. But I totally understand what you mean. It’s a tough decision.
Now that I know the commission structure is back to 97% on all referrals I may give it a go.
Lisa, I have some questions. This Udemy sounds like a possible income for me, but right now I’m not in a position to teach a course. However, you mentioned about an affiliate program. Is it possible I can make money promoting other peoples courses taught on Udemy and receive some commissions? Is there an affiliate program I could sign up for on Udemy? If there is, how do i sign up?
Absolutely! I should have mentioned that but didn’t think of it. Their program info is here https://www.udemy.com/affiliate/ I know of quite a few people doing well with the program because of course prices and commissions.
Hey Lisa. Ok, I had joined through the link you provided but it turned out it was for Rakuten. I joined it and was told I would get a reply in my email. After waiting about two weeks and no word, I decided to check and it turned out I was approved for a test link, but it gives no explanation of the test link. I don’t know how I am suppose to promote a test link I know nothing about, nor would receive any kind on money for. It is all very confusing. I could really use a coach or adviser of some type to help me out. I would really like if someone would check out my website ProdFo.com and help me out to see what I got that is good? What is not so good? What I could add to make it better. What I should adjust or delete. So far, I am promoting my website and I got over 5,000 visitors but no one is making return visits nor checking out my pages. All of the visitors I got just look at my home page for about 20 seconds and just leave. The first 5000 visitors when I had some money promoted my website through an advertising program call Ad Media. I really could use your help because you know how to make money on websites and know how to use Udemy. Please help me out Lisa.
You can opt out of the 90% / 10$ promotions if you feel they are too much, Debra. And, you can send emails to the folks on your paid courses but, no, you don’t get their email addresses.
You’re absolutely right that Udemy has made everyone expect discounts and you rarely get a full price purchase. That’s why most people put their courses on at $99 or even $999 and sell them for $10-25.
However, although I’m not saying that Udemy are the cleverest company in the world, they are the leaders in the online learning space and stand head and shoulders above the rest and they obviously thing that this is the pricing structure that’s working at the moment.
I’m more comfortable with it at the moment. I would rather have 100 students on my courses each having paid $10 that 10 having paid $100. I will have 90 more happy customers who I can promote to in the future.
And, don’t forget, you can have your courses on udemy as well as other online learning platforms and your own site.
But I appreciate that some people are uneasy with discounts.
Thanks for the clarifications, Rob. I’ve closely reviewed Udemy’s new revenue sharing policy, and I may end up offering a few courses through them, in addition to my own website.
Hi Lisa,
another great article, i’ve never tried Udemy (for studying nor teaching), i only heard about it before but now you got me curious and i will explore it today.
As i see in the comment above me, the commission structure has changed, but i was wondering – when you submit a course with Udemy, do they “own” the content or can you submit the course in your own website as well, with your own platform (for example with WPCourseware or Learndash)? Because then you could enjoy both worlds… but i have the feeling you can’t do that 🙂
And one more thing – maybe you can use Udemy to promote your “deeper” courses, i mean – make a free course and say that if they want to learn more, they can go [here] and take the long course… but then again, i’m not sure the folks in Udemy will like that 🙂
Good luck – keep updating us about it please!
Maya.
Hi Maya, you can indeed sell it on other platforms. They don’t own your courses. Now that Rob has informed me that the old commissions are back I may sell it on Udemy for those who want to watch on the site and on Gumroad for those who want to download. Decisions, decisions!
And thanks for the tip. Yes that is also another good way to use them.
Hi Lisa
Thanks Rob for highlighting the changes. I’ve read the Udemy terms again. And I’m still confused, but it sounds much better than the previous pricing changes. Selling from both Udemy and your own site seems to make perfect sense. Services like Gumroad or Selz that handle the payments, HD streaming or downloads etc make this easy. Doing this would give you the best of both worlds wouldn’t it?
Hey Lisa, Awesome, I’m so glad you’ve got a course there already. And I was so happy to answer your bazillion (er, two or three) questions. I agree with your pros and cons breakdown of Udemy.
However, the commission structure you mention and the article that you reference is now out-of-date. Now you get 97% from all your coupon sales regardless of where the student has come from. (You get 50% of courses that are sold “organically” or 25% of sales from affiliates or Udemy ads. It’s a little complicated and tends to change regularly – as I’m sure you’ve already guessed!) The upshot of this all is that the 97% you get on your own coupon sales is HUGE. You get most of the course price when you promote to your audience either here or at Udemy. And the rest that you get is from other peoples’ efforts so it’s a nice added extra.
Clear as mud?
The important thing is that you’re inspiring your audience to earn passive income and build their brand on the Udemy platform if they feel it’s right for them and that’s a good thing. 🙂
Thank you so much for the shout out.
OH! OK I have updated the article. I found the commission structure to be VERY confusing when doing the research. Thank you so much for clearing that up!! And I STILL can’t find the full, updated info on their site. Crazy.
Lisa, here’s the link for Udemy’s current revenue sharing policy:
https://support.udemy.com/customer/us/portal/articles/1609093-instructor-revenue-share-new
Thank you Debra! And thanks for the review on Udemy!
Hi Rob, thanks for sharing your information and experience!. When you say that you keep 97% when you use your own coupons, how do you create those coupons and where/how do you promote them?. Dou you use Groupon or your site?.
Thank you!
Hey Carlos, they have a very robust coupon system. You can create coupons for whatever price you wish (including $0) and you can limit the coupons by number (“I have only 10 coupons available”) and by date (“this reduction is only available for 10 day”) so you can create scarcity in order to incentivise purchases.
Never used Groupon. But, funnily enough, I find Kindle is good for promoting courses.
Any more questions, hit me up! 🙂