MEGATHREAD: Black Friday Sales are Here!

Udemy's Black Friday sale is officially live! This is one of the biggest sales events of the year for all of us instructors, bringing massive traffic and activity across the platform.

What are your thoughts and experiences with this year's Black Friday event? Whether you have insights to share, observations about the platform during peak times, or just want to connect with fellow instructors during this busy period, this is the space for our community discussion.

Let's share our thoughts and experiences!

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RonErez

Oddly enough I've had more sales from October 28th-November 13th which was followed by a sudden drop in sales. From November 21-24 I've seen sales increase partially I suppose because I sent out a promotional email to students and published a new course on Android Development. Currently I have 16 students in that course where 12 of these students bought the course through my promotion. It would have been nice if more than 4 would have purchased organically via Udemy but Black Friday is not quite over yet.

If I’m sharing my thoughts, it would be helpful to know in advance when Black Friday actually begins. For example, I scheduled the Android course to be published two weeks before Black Friday, on November 15th, but it turned out the sale started much earlier than I expected.

Hoping for the best!

TheBusinessBridge

is this something we need to opt in to?

Naresh498

It applies to all by default.

SivakamiS2017

Quite frankly, Cyber Week has not even given me last month's revenue so far ! Hopefully there is a surge in the next 5-6 days.

MrHJ

@RyanJaress , @RonErez

I am a fairly recent arrival to Udemy and this Black Friday is the first Black Friday where I have number of courses able to deliver useful data on sales and events. Also I have been advised to not write at forums, but will make an exception for Udemy and this black friday.

There are two major positive events to report which are very good for Udemy and the performance of its sales staff.

I made a graph with total sales and 3 events which affects sales

First there is the graphed data within the Green Box. This is a fantastic positive event and felt just like Udemy 2023-2024. Big sails, strong wind, ship moving forward at good speed!
Second there is some kind of Udemy User Interface experiment (the red box). Students even sent quite nasty mails complaining on unwanted night mode and unplayable videos. It took a week until someone discovered how to disable the experiment.
Third is the strong sales of Udemy Black Friday event (which is marked with black boxes and will continue this 25, 26, 27, 28, and maybe 29th?) This is great Black Friday performance from Udemy and its sales staff. Around 10-20% of the height of the graph is likely due to my own sales efforts.

Udemy Black Friday event is proceeding well and hopefully will be even more well performing as it continues!

Considering the Udemy platform itself, it seems to have been better performing except for the red box experiment event.

Regards and happy Black Friday!

MarinaT

Hi Henrik,

Thank you for sharing.
PS. It looks like there was an issue with the image. I just reuploaded it.

MrHJ

Thank you @MarinaT

Regards

Robin_Slee

Its been a downwards slope for many months now, this week has been no different.

I may try my best to reboot this thing in the new year, but right now, I have no motivation.
If you can relate, give this post a like, so I dont feel like billy no mates! lol

ThomasMitchell

I hear ya. I’ve been spending all my free time building out my website and YouTube channel. I’m still keeping the door cracked and hoping things turn around somehow, though.

Dr. Kat

Same. This Black Friday only showed me that it’s time to move on. Currently working on picking up my YouTube channel and promoting my courses to my email list.

Matthieu

Same here. I didn't have any high expectations, but this month is even lower than the previous months. The few days left won't be able to pick up. That's sad, not only in terms of revenues but also it feels like a relationship is ending…

JosephPhillips

What a dud. I miss the olden days of hitting refresh and the excitement. This is sad to see.

LindsayMarsh

BF used to really be something to behold. Even instructors with one or two courses who were new would see some really amazing revenue. We used to do countdowns and build our entire year around BF. Timing our course launches to make sure our courses were trending before BF. Now, It is much lower than last month, a random October. The good news is since my udemy income is dropping so much I can qualify for health insurance discounts lol.

CarlosDeLeon

The days of seeing big jumps in revenue during the BF sale are long gone.

For me, just normal days so far (and by normal I mean, bad in terms of sales).

Sergio-Apasoft

October was a better month for me. This year, Black Friday sales were similar to any other day :-(

Times have irrevocably changed. We must adapt and seek alternatives.

Sergio-Apasoft

October was a better month for me. This year, Black Friday sales were similar to any other day :-(

Times have irrevocably changed. We must adapt and seek alternatives.

Baudilio Bey Perez

Obviously, times have changed. I can't complain about Udemy because thanks to the courses I've published there, I've achieved a lot, but marketplaces are no longer a good business. The best thing to do right now is to create a personal brand that boosts sales of our programs, regardless of whether our courses are on Udemy or another platform. It's hard work, but it's the most reliable long-term strategy. However, we can still use these types of platforms to test the quality of our courses with feedback from enrolled students.

PythonicEducation

I made half the money this BF, with 6 courses, than what I made last year's BF with 2 courses. I think this says it all.

SeanFowler063

The return on investment isn't worth the time to make a course on Udemy, 3 years ago I was making 1500 to 2000 dollars a month and my Black Friday month was around 3000 dollars, now im hardly breaking 200 dollars month with the same number of courses and so I just gave up making new courses and that is also what causes other instructors to stop making courses as well, because of that, even skillshare is doing better now then here,

What's really messed up is I made more money last month than this month in Black Friday sales.

Its just year after year they keep making a change that gives them more money and us less.

JulianJenki396

I remember the good old days, we would prepare, get everything lined up try to time a release to get the fetured spot. All seems like a long distant memory.

Maybe one day Lindsay maybe.

Esther

Similar here, I was somewhere around the 2000 mark regularly, November touching 3000. 2025 it dropped to just above the 1000 mark, since September it's below. Heading towards pocket money more than income, certainly not a reliable income, and more cuts to come in January.👎️