Video Ads Pilot on Free Courses Moving Forward in Australia

Hey Instructors,

Following our July announcement about testing ads on free courses, we wanted to update you on the next phase of our pilot program.

Starting today, we're beginning to introduce pre-roll video ads on lectures within our free courses in Australia. These short ads will play before course videos begin and learners are able to skip after 5 seconds. We plan to expand to additional regions in the near future.

We want to reiterate that this pilot remains focused exclusively on free courses. We're taking a measured approach to understand both learner behavior and the potential opportunity for Udemy with these ads. Since free courses don't currently generate instructor revenue, there's no change to your earnings structure.

Our commitment: we're carefully monitoring the learner experience and gathering feedback. As we learn from this pilot, we'll keep you informed about our findings and any future plans.

Platform changes can raise questions, and we're here to support you. Your insights and feedback remain invaluable as we explore new ways to grow our consumer business and create opportunities for the entire Udemy community.

Feedback? We'd love to hear from you– please feel free to share any concerns or questions here in this thread.

Again, thank you for your continued partnership.

The Udemy Team

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Comments

Thanks for the update.

Will there be a plan to revenue share with instructors?

As it could mean we can make some of the less active courses free to get more enrollment but expect some revenue from the ads.

AlexGenadinik

Even if it's a free course, you should only do it with really good courses. If people watch bad courses, they'll never become paid customers, but if they are impressed by you, they might pay for your other courses in the future. And they will watch more of the free course,

AlexGenadinik

I am a little bit excited about this… but only a little bit. Ads generally aren't a strong revenue stream.

Plus, even if instructors get a rev-share, I don't think instructors will get a generous or even a standard revenue share (YouTube gives approx 50% - it would be fair if we land on a similar rev-share on free courses. If I had to guess, Udemy is thinking 20-25%)

Selling products is a far stronger monetization strategy….unless your revenue share keeps getting cut (ahem-ahem).

So hopefully this new feature will help Udemy thrive, but I think we need to have an open dialog with the management team about the falling instructor revenue and deep cuts of rev-share in a number of monetization paths.

Col (Dr) Shabbar Shahid (Veteran)

@RyanJaress Thanks for sharing. Appears to be a strategic move and hope it takes us forward.

Habibur_Rahmn574

I think it’s a good initiative. Millions of people watch tutorials on YouTube for free by viewing ads, which does not hinder their learning. It’s important to clearly explain to learners why ads are being shown, as this will set their expectations and increase acceptability.

veenug131@gmail.com

Dear Ryan

Seems like a great way to promote courses. Sorry I couldn't figure out how to make one of my course - FREE.

I have done it long time back but somehow this time, I amn't able to figure out.

Pl help.

MarinaT

Hi Veenug,

Thank you so much for your question. I recommend checking out this help center article, which outlines how you can change the course from paid to free.

Please keep in mind that if you switch from free to paid and back to free (or vice versa) after the course is published, the promotional announcements for the course will be permanently disabled.

Also, if you're trying to make an existing course free, please remember that there are restrictions in place when it comes to free courses, for example, a free course can't exceed two hours of video content. If that's the case in your particular situation, it might explain why you can't switch the course to free.

Please let me know if you have any other questions.

veenug131@gmail.com

Dear MarinaT

Thanks for your help. I could figure out -how to put a course for FREE.

I have a question - In the video clip by Udemy, how much content of the course will be played ?

Regards

MarinaT

Hi Veenug,

You’re very welcome! Just to clarify: Are you asking about ads and when they will be shown? The team is currently testing different placements, such as a short ad before the free course starts, during a natural break, or at the end of the course. Please note that ads will be added to your free course, not that your course is being added to ads.

You can also find more information about this here.

techeazyai

Will it be applied to paid courses as well, when students enroll using Promotional free coupons?

MarinaT

Hi @techeazyai,

Great question! No, paid courses that learners access using a free coupon code aren’t affected by the ads pilot.

DamianMcKinnon

Is there more information around about this? Are the ads course related or is Udemy inviting companies to advertise now? Is the plan to share revenue with instructors once the initiative goes live with paid courses? Potentially that would just accelerate the earnings of this inner circle of privileged instructors. Will the ads only appear on PP courses or will it also appear in the courses that Udemy is not promoting like they used to? Which would effectively reduce their desirability even more.

RyanJaress

Hey everyone! 👋

Thanks for the great questions about our ads program. Here's where things currently stand:

Current Status
We're running a pilot on free courses only in all geos except the EU, UK and US (around 150+ geos) with pre-roll video ads. Since these are free courses, there's no revenue sharing at this stage.

About the Ads
• Ads may come from various advertisers (not necessarily course-related)
• Currently on all free courses in the pilot regions
• Short ads that play before course videos begin

Future Plans
We don't have definitive timelines yet for:
• Expansion to paid courses or other regions
• "Free-with-ads" + paid options
• Revenue distribution models
• Changes to exclusivity policies

What's Next?
This pilot helps us learn and iterate before making broader changes. We'll keep you updated as we gather data and make decisions about future phases.

Thanks for your patience and continued feedback!