There are a lot of "the sky is falling" messages on the forum and I would like to add a somewhat different perspective on the current and past results for at least one moderately successful instructor. Of course no two instructors have the same experience, courses or results and we have heard a lot of negative reports recently.
For perspective, I have been on Udemy for eleven years. I have earned a bit below $1.5 million during this time. I do almost no marketing myself, I have 18 courses that have lots of competition in their category.
Bottom line perspective. I am earning what I deserve given my level of effort.
The first graph is my enrollments by month/by course. I have been plotting this since 2017. Since 2021 the number of course enrollments is remarkably steady with only a slight decline in trend.
Second graph is monthly revenue total and for UB. You can see that UB revenue is down in the past year along with marketplace revenue. But in neither case is the decline a disaster, particularly given my relatively low level of effort and the reduction from 50% to 17% UB share. I am OK with this, although like everyone else I would like to see a greater return.
With new features that can enhance the learning experience I do intend to increase my own effort in the coming year by adding value to my courses and I only hope this will maintain the approximate current level of earning.
