Huge Disappointment

Udemy has launched 5 Days Sales on PP. This is huge disappointment for me and i hope for may instructors out there. September seems to be all time down. If Udemy really want to go for it then we need to have every day minutes utilization of course just like YouTube. In Udemy is going to continue this then YouTube is much better option for us as compared to Udemy. On YouTube we will have fair idea of followers and as well trends. Furthermore, YouTube is also sharing 55% of revnue as compared to just 18% on udemy. I am very disappointed.

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Comments

RonErez

It seems like my course is being discounted so maybe it's also a market sale. I haven't had any sales this September but it's still a little early to tell if this will be the worst month ever.

DamianMcKinnon

Oh this is the worst month ever for me in 6 years. Nothing but doom and gloom lately in the Instructor community it seems despite admins telling us 'how important we are"…

MuhammadDuj869

yes course are discounted but i do not think that they will bring sales. If course is discounted at 12 USD and PP is 8 USD then

ThomasMitchell

August was my worst month since July 2019. September will likely be worse. I spent the last 5 days professionalizing my website and removing all links to Udemy, instead charging for my own stuff, and building out upsells.

If I’m gonna make beer money, it might as well be on my own platform

Sergio-Apasoft

It's quite frustrating not having data on PP usage.
I base course creation and updates on the statistics from Marketplace and UB.
But in PP, I don't know which of my courses are being viewed, how many minutes each student spends, which ones are the most popular, etc.
How can I plan anything with that? It's like a black hole.
I sincerely believe Udemy will soon provide us with this data, just as it does at UB, but before advertising this plan so heavily, they should have considered providing instructors with the appropriate tools to make informed decisions.

LawrenceMMiller

On my calendar at least, this is September FIRST! 9:48 on a holiday, Labor Day. How can anyone be judging sales this month on the first of the month. Give me a break.

MarinaT

Hi @Sergio-Apasoft,

We understand that the data you mentioned is essential for you as an instructor. Other instructors have shared similar feedback, and please rest assured that the responsible team is aware of this. We’ll continue to share your input with them and keep you updated on any developments.

RonErez

Good point. I do see people asking on Reddit if PP is worth it. Some people actually prefer buying and owning a course instead of paying for a subscription. Anyways hopefully this month will be good.

ThomasMitchell

I can make an educated guess at how things are likely to go by looking at the last 6 months. Can Udemy surprise me? Sure. But if I’m betting money, I’m betting on things being worse.

ThomasMitchell

Is there a specific reason why this was rolled out before having the ability to show instructors the data? I’m uncomfortable with “trust me, bro” when it comes to knowing where my revenue is coming from.

LawrenceMMiller

Probably. But we all know the trend. Hopefully it will bottom.

Parker

This was not thought out well. For the past 7 years, I could see how much I was earning each month (marketplace sales + UB minutes updated daily). It was predictable… a steady income. Even with declining sales y.o.y. I could still plan ahead. Now, I have no idea what I "might" earn. I can't live my life on; "keep you updated."

Parker

PP promotions feel like a desperation move. I make on average $75 per month with PP. So, if this is the new trend, I've hit bottom.

MuhammadDuj869

For most of us our bread and butter depends on these earning. The drastic change is making lot of us mentally paralyzed.
Last month my PP sales were just 30 USD. The PP is pure win for Udemy as company but huge loss for instructor like us. There is nothing just to build own plateform :(

ARIYA

Hi everyone,

I’ve recently entered the Udemy ecosystem as a new instructor, and after reading this thread, I must admit I’m feeling a bit concerned.

I already have my own website and platform, but as many of you know, marketing a personal site requires significant investment — both in time and budget. That’s why I initially saw Udemy as a promising channel to reach a wider audience and scale my educational impact.

Now I’m wondering: is it still worth investing in Udemy as a long-term strategy?

I’d really appreciate hearing your honest experiences — especially from those of you who’ve been here for years. What’s working for you? What would you do differently if you were starting today?

Oneness

Haven't had a sale in days.

Why don’t Udemy instructors form a union? I think it’s a fair question. Udemy is a U.S.-based company, we’re paying our taxes, and the platform itself is a legitimate business. But as instructors, many of us are putting in thousands of hours of hard work, time, and personal resources into creating high-quality courses—yet we have little to no collective voice in how policies, payouts, and changes are made.

If we were organized as a union or an association, we could potentially be much stronger together. Udemy might finally hear us out and take our concerns seriously—whether that’s around revenue share, pricing models, visibility of our courses, or support for instructors. Alone, it often feels like we’re at the mercy of platform decisions, but together, we could actually influence positive change for the instructor community as a whole.

Oneness

Hello Ariya,

I’m with you on this. I have 40 courses on Udemy, but I just don’t see it as viable anymore. I’ve already started investing in my own site using the income I made from Udemy.

With the low earnings per enrollment, the withholding tax, and rising inflation, it’s simply a no-go to keep creating new courses for the platform—especially high-quality ones that demand serious time and resources. Unfortunately, the numbers don’t make sense anymore, and for me, Udemy is no longer a sustainable place to build the future of my courses.

ChrisBankes120

I still don't understand why I can get $000s worth of sales of ten courses in Premium but only $2.83 or so from individual subscriptions. If they were that unpopular (as the one individual subs suggests) then I wouldn't get the other sales….anyone any ideas please?

ARIYA

I had placed a lot of trust in Udemy as a platform, but based on recent experiences, I’m starting to reconsider. I was already aware of the low pricing and aggressive discounting, but I had estimated that it could still be a viable starting point to launch and enrich my courses. However, given everything that’s happened, it seems Udemy may not be as reliable as I hoped.

I’m not sure if this is the right place to discuss alternatives, but I’d genuinely appreciate any suggestions. I had planned to produce practical, experience-based courses within a structured educational framework focused on event management and crowd safety. But right now, I’m feeling very discouraged about continuing course production for Udemy — especially since their support system seems weak, and my course has been stuck in review for three days with no update.

MuhammadDuj869

Its very unfortunate, indeed. Udemy should speak to us. Unfortunately, this is one of major drawback of such plateform. With just few lines of code they can make huge impact on life of others.

MrHJ

The answer is likely in Udemy's official $-attribution function for the personal plan.

Your courses individual sales and attraction means nothing in personal plan (and Udemy business), you only get your individual share of the total amounts of hours studied within these plans.
See for example:
- On Udemy Business, instructors are compensated based on learner engagement. This differs from the Udemy marketplace model, where instructors are compensated based on course purchases.
- …
- Each instructor's share of this amount is equal to their share of the total minutes consumed across all Udemy Business courses. For example, if 3% of all consumption in Udemy Business courses for a given month occurred in your courses, you'd receive 3% of the Udemy Business instructor revenue pool for that month.
- …
- Consumption is calculated as minutes spent watching videos or actively using on-site interactive learning tools like practice tests, quizzes, coding exercises or Udemy AI Assistant. It includes re-watched minutes and minutes consumed using the mobile-only offline viewing feature.
- How do I Earn Revenue From Udemy Business? – Udemy
Some countries students count for more. For example, some localities are heavily rebated down to 10-25% of the price on your screen.
Imagine that a state or University in one of these poor/developing places buys personal plan/UB and sets 1k, 10k or 100k of its students to study its own instructor materials at Udemy. Then you get $2 and they get $2+M, for a cost, maybe $10k (full refund, saves on lecturing halls, offices, and employees). Udemy of course gets the $8+-10+M big bucket of cash. Note that there is no roof for the Udemy and competing instructor profits.
Personal plan may currently have fewer subscribers than expected. The program is heavily criticized on the internet for low quality (likely some Udemy employee has been doing some well-poisoning) and an aggressive sales function. Three degrees of FUD can be directly seen despite a large marketing operation. It is FUD from Udemy's firings, something later, and disgruntled customers.

The current market drive seems to primarily be about trying to make PP customers sign up for full year subscriptions. This is likely due to serious customer retention problems within the PP-program.

Personally I suspect/estimates that many of my customers are PP-customers that looks for better quality in all aspects. My courses are therefore an upselling effect to the UB/PP programs, and this likely is about 15-45% of the course purchases.

I don't have any sales drops, but there is a dampening of sales, this dampening is not about any Udemy sales actions, the PP or UB marketing, but about a new very sloppy drone farm that arrived in 2024 Oct-Nov and stated to farm Udemy aggressively in 2024 Dec/2025 Jan. This results in lowering of growth from +45% to +10%/15% as a function of the Drone farm capturing customer attention while having a very bad customer retention.

In that aspect, the current PP-marketing drive seems to be about finding future customers for me, as long as Udemy manages to keep them aboard. The marketing drive likely also constitutes an interesting test of the markets willingness to pay for Udemy subscriptions and courses. Should it be successful at $120-240, very few arguments would remain to not move the lowest pricing tier towards $12-18.

Regards

OxfordLearnLab

Hello

So is because PP sales and the way they are counted that is possible that i can see just UFB sales so far in September but no Marketplace?

Thanks

Marty_Prem

Is that why I got zero sales so far this month? Nothing to do with the changes but I started hosting my own courses/quizzes and will be using WOO Commerce to cash out

https://creativesolutions.training/cts-practice/

ChrisBankes120

Your Limited Time Bundle Offer shows 8 individual courses……….

MrHJ

@OxfordLearnLab To get an answer about your numbers, you have to address the Udemy company, or a Udemy employee, or failing to find a Udemy employee, a Udemy social media consultant.

Thank you for your interest in my comment!

NicvanOudts784

I have been with Udemy for about 10 years and so far September has been the WORST month ever. I usually average over $100 per month but so far this month I have made 1 sale for $3.76! My courses all are on PP. Can I have them removed so students have to buy them?

With purchased courses, instructors get the money even if it was an impulse buy and the student never opens it or just accesses the course for a very short time. That happens quite a bit. With PP we are losing out on that revenue.

Oneness

Isn't there an option to opt out of PP?