There is no fee to create and host a course on Udemy. You can publish as many free and paid courses as you like. We believe in a sustainable partnership where instructors are rewarded for creating amazing content and bringing students to the platform, and Udemy is rewarded for driving traffic to our instructors.
Click here to jump to the revenue share scenario table.
About the Instructor Revenue Share
Udemy operates under a tiered revenue share for paid courses. As an instructor, the two main revenue share scenarios that you can expect most often are:
- Instructor Promotion → 100% revenue share (less a 3% administrative processing fee, 4% in the territory of Japan) on sales made by instructors where the student makes the purchase using an Instructor Coupon (either at full price or at a discount), which you the instructor create and control.
- Udemy Organic → 50% revenue share on organic Udemy sales where no Instructor Coupon is used.
If you’re opted in to any of our marketing programs, i.e., Udemy Deals, and the marketing boost program, your revenue share can range from 25% to 50%. Receiving 97% revenue share is only possible when your course is purchased with an instructor coupon.
These programs are completely optional, and you can change your participation status at any time from the premium instructor page. That said, instructors who participate in Udemy’s Marketing Programs make, on average, 54% more than instructors who don't participate.
Revenue Share Scenarios
These examples explain possible revenue scenarios:
| Scenario | Description | Revenue Share |
|---|---|---|
| Organic Course Sales | A student finds your course in Udemy's marketplace and makes a purchase without using an Instructor Coupon code |
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| Instructor Coupon Code Sales | A student purchases your course using an Instructor Coupon code, either from promotions to your own audience (e.g., your email list or YouTube subscribers) or to your Udemy students via Promotional Emails. |
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| Affiliate Sales (< 7 day window) | A student purchases your course within 7 days of clicking an affiliate link with or without using an Instructor Coupon code. |
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| Affiliate Sales (> 7 day window) | A student uses your instructor coupon code to purchase your course more than 7 days after clicking on an affiliate link. |
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| Affiliate Sales (> 7 day window) | A student acquired by an Affiliate purchases your course outside the 7 day window without using an Instructor Coupon code. |
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| Ad Program Sales w/ Instructor Coupon | A student acquired by Udemy via paid ad purchases a course using an Instructor Coupon code |
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| Ad Program Sales w/o Instructor Coupon | A Student acquired by Udemy via paid ad purchases a course without using an Instructor Coupon code. |
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| External Partner Program | A student purchases your course from an External Partner (e.g., Groupon) with or without an Instructor Coupon code. |
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Mobile Purchases
Apple and Google keep 30% of mobile sales, and revenue splits happen based on the Net Amount received. See Udemy’s Premium Instructor Agreement for details.
So What's This All Mean for You?
The key thing to keep in mind is that if you’re spending your time doing what you do best -- creating high quality courses and getting students excited about your Udemy course -- you stand to keep up to 97% of the net revenue from course sales.
In the meantime, Udemy will be hard at work growing the marketplace, expanding your potential audience, and delivering you results. Instructor success boils down to one simple equation:
Udemy really shines at growing the marketplace and expanding your potential audience, and this instructor revenue share allows us to invest heavily in aggressively marketing on your behalf [think: new channels such as Udemy For Organizations, mobile, new international markets, and many, many more new potential students].
Plus, and this part is important, Udemy is a true community. In addition to having our entire marketing team push for your success (whether that means driving dollars, impacting students, or something else), our instructors support one another by pooling their knowledge about what works. This means that you’ll have the entire 9,000 instructor community at Udemy identifying new tips, tricks, and tactics to help you grow your student base and revenue. Check out the latest tactics for promotional success here.
You’ll be able to track your sales, including the student source and traffic source for each student in your Udemy Revenue Report.
We’re thrilled to partner with you to truly change the game in education, and make sure that people worldwide have a chance to never stop learning.