Update for instructors: improving free coupons: better targeting, higher quality learning

Hey Instructors,

We're rolling out major improvements to coupon codes to help you attract higher-engaged learners and build sustainable revenue.

After analyzing marketplace data and listening to your feedback, we're launching changes to help you:

Attract more motivated learners who are more likely to complete your courses and pay for it
Convert more learners into paying customers
See improved rankings based on genuine engagement
Get meaningful reviews from learners who value your content

What we plan to redesign today:

Smart limits on ‘Free Coupons' that preserve promotional value

What we plan to redesign in Q2:

Trial access (24-48 hours) that is intended to create urgency and higher intent
Discounts when coupons expire, intended to convert interest into sales
Better marketplace signals so your great courses get more visibility

These changes are to help everyone succeed in a healthier ecosystem.

Want to learn more? Check out our teaching center article. And, let us know what you think and comment here in the thread!

Teach On,

The Udemy Instructor Team

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Comments

FrankKane

Link seems to be broken - here's the correct one: https://teach.udemy.com/update-for-instructors-improving-free-coupons-better-targeting-higher-quality-learning/

The short version is that free coupons are now limited to 10 redemptions. Mass free coupons rarely did us any good anyhow.

And going forward, we'll be able to offer "coupons" for free access to a course just for a day or two, at which point learners will be pushed to enroll in Personal Plan or purchase the course.

Cyvitrix

Excellent move!

RyanJaress

Hey there! Thanks for pointing that out. It has been fixed.

PhillipBurton

The Q2 changes look promising.

Rafał Podraza

So to confirm — you’re reducing free coupon limits to only 10 redemptions instead of, for example, 100 as before?!

That seems extremely restrictive and makes it much harder to launch new courses effectively.

MrHJ

This change has been wanted for a very long time!

A. delivering 3k to 27k (extreme case) free coupons per month per course creates competing businesses where Udemy can be undercut and courses sold for a $1-2 putting Udemy totally out of the loop.

B. delivering 3k to 27k (extreme case) free coupons per month per course inflates student counts, creates artificial rankings, artificial ratings, suppressing quality and overall customer perception of the Udemy platform.

C. delivering 3k to 27k (extreme case) free coupons creates external businesses such as drone-lord companies directly affecting Udemy's business platform and putting the company in the rear part of the business vehicle. The 1k coupons thus abandons company control over to external black market actors and places instructors at a real and serious risk of being black mailed into paying for racketeering and protection schemes. Just giving away these coupons freely on the internet is an invitation to black mail, what if the black mailers drones takes 500 coupons, pay or get 500 1-star ratings spread out over 5-10 years.

D. If Udemy is to use 1-10k mass-coupons, the coupon should only allow 48hours of access, not count the registries as students and not allow them to give ratings and reviews. Possibly marketing schemes should be attached to these coupons so that the Udemy marketing crew freely can work on all registered such possible future customers.

PhillipBurton

Two questions about the trial access (24-48 hours), which you might not know right now?

Will those students be counted as students in our course?
Will they be able to submit a review, or use the Q&A?

Phillip

Aakaro

isn't it too resrestrictive

datasiens

I need an instructor coupon code which remains valid at least for a couple of months. This will motivate me to bring students from my own channels.

JohnElder

Is this a joke? So the change is that instead of giving away 1000 free coupons per month, now we can only give away 10? Someone thought that was a good idea? And this is supposed to attract more learners? Are you trying to push instructors away?

RonErez

Honestly I don’t really use free coupons. It would be nice if we could create 3 promotional emails a month and if we could create 4 coupons a month instead of 3 or if the $9.99 coupon lasted more than 5 days. These are just friendly suggestions. I do appreciate that Udemy is making efforts to evolve hopefully in a positive direction.

HilaryColeman

This change has destroyed my business model.

I work in the space educating schools and families, meaning I may present on a podcast or at a school and, as part of the presentation package I offer free access to the listenership or school community. This has now become impossible.

The articles I have read refer to listening to instructor feedback, but if so, could all options not be retained enabling instructors to use the type of coupons that are most right for them?

Thank you.

LindsayMarsh

if I can find a way to not have to update my coupons on my website every single month that would be a massive timesaver. I just create the same discount each month for 8 courses. I miss the long term coupons that I could have up their for longer term.

romi_fauzi

I think Udemy it's trying to push instructor away from their platform…I also think it's not worthy anymore to put our course on Udemy..

RyanJaress

We hear an understand your frustration, it's true that this does represent a significant reduction in the number of enrollments allowed for one free coupon.

As mentioned in our Teaching Center article, a big reason behind this change is the feedback that we've heard that allowing so many free enrollments was giving lifetime access without encouraging meaningful engagement with the course content. We also saw learners collecting unlimited free courses without ever watching content or converting to paid enrollments.

So this measure to limit free coupons more strictly was taken to help address this large-scale issue that a more moderate solution just wouldn't effectively address.

FettahBen

@RyanJaress What about free targeted coupons? Has there been any change? The free open coupons now show only 10 redemptions.

MichaelPog

@RyanJaress I second that. It's a massive waste of time. Udemy used to have permanent discount coupons. I wish we still had a handful of those so we don't have to do those updates every month.

JohnElder

Well that's simply a lie. Any instructor who is theoretically worried about "giving lifetime access without encouraging meaningful engagement" (as you say) can simply not give out coupons. Problem solved…without screwing over all the instructors who rely on giving out coupons. But nice try with the gaslighting. We're not dumb enough to believe that WE are the ones who pushed for this change.

As far as learners collecting unlimited free courses without ever watching content…so what? That's not an actual real problem, it's a made up fake one. They get the coupon, they don't watch the course. As opposed to now, under the new policy; they can't HAVE a coupon and they don't watch the course. Nothing has changed. Either way, they aren't watching the course. If they didn't watch it when it was free, they aren't going to suddenly BUY it now that they can't get a coupon. Again, just how dumb do you think we are?

This is corporate nonsense, wrapped up in a smile to try to convince instructors that you are once again making it worse for us...

I'd respect it If you were upfront and said that free coupons inflate learner counts and your lawyers were worried about getting sued for reporting false numbers in your SEC filings...that would be something. Of course, that's an easy fix too...just don't count a learner unless they've watched at least one video...or the Coursera merger is changing the model and requires the coupon change…or whatever the actual reason for this is. But I suppose that's too much to expect…

JohnElder

Yup

ainame

@RyanJaress

I think that it is not good solution for new courses. Learners are difficult to find new courses without a strong promotion.

Learners that use many free coupons and do not learn much. It is normal and it does not affect on buying of other learners.

Please consider this features, it pushes out instructors from Udemy. Instructors gradually intend to build own website to serving their courses and sell without Udemy

HilaryColeman

@RyanJaress what recourse is there for instructors whose business model will be destroyed by this out-of-the blue change?

I am just now launching my course. I already have a mechanism for only offering free coupons to targeted groups. If the intention is to address instructor feedback, then why not offer all options, not restrict us to suddenly 1% of the coupons we used to be able to give?

I already have school communities lined up this year and as part of a package I have agreed to give free course access to all of their students. This has now become impossible, despite the fact that it will overall grow paying customers too.

Very sadly I assume the answer is that Udemy's profits increase more with this change even if instructors like me are forced to leave the platform, but as an educator at heart I'm really hoping this feedback can be taken on board and there is a favourable update for us.

Thank you.

Agilemastery

I believe this is a very poor marketing decision by Udemy. In the marketing world "Lead Magnets" and "Lost leaders" are considered key for any marketing event. This is a standard marketing technique. We teach it in our marketing courses.

Talk about shooting yourself in the "foot." This is how many , many students come into the Udemy fold. As an instructor with Udemy now for 7 years, that is exactly how I came into Udemy. I was on YouTube a number of years ago as a university professor looking for a specific topic that I needed some knowledge expansion on. I was offered a free coupon by an individual with a YouTube course in this area and I signed up and took the free course. It was really good. So then I went ahead and bought a number of other courses. This then gave me the idea that I could actually do the same. So here I am 7 years later with 30 courses published on Udemy, with some on the business plan and all earning revenue for Udemy. This would never have happened without that free coupon.

So how in the world of "business logic" can Udemy actually believe that by reducing and in some cases eliminating lead magnets, this will actually lead to more students? From a marketing perspective this makes actually no sense at all. They are killing their golden goose.

coursevania

I strongly disagree with this decision by Udemy, especially from a marketing perspective.

Free coupons were never just about giving away courses; they were a core marketing funnel tool.

For many instructors (especially new ones), open free coupons helped with:

1. Market Validation
When you launch a new course, you need data. Free enrollments helped test thumbnails, landing pages, curriculum structure, and messaging. With only 10 redemptions, you can’t gather statistically meaningful feedback.

2. Social Proof & Early Reviews
New courses struggle because they have zero reviews. Free coupons helped instructors gain initial traction and social proof, which directly impacted conversion rates. Limiting it to 10 makes it almost impossible to build momentum.

3. External Traffic Strategy
Many instructors drive traffic from YouTube, LinkedIn, Reddit, Telegram, blogs, etc. Free coupons were used as a lead magnet to build brand trust. Now, 10 redemptions vanish instantly — making it useless for broader marketing campaigns.

4. Algorithm Boosting
Higher enrollment volume (even free) improved course visibility signals. With only 10 redemptions, smaller instructors lose that discovery advantage, while established instructors with large email lists will still dominate.

5. Funnel Economics
Marketing works on scale. You need volume at the top of the funnel to generate conversions at the bottom. Cutting 1,000 down to 10 completely destroys the top-of-funnel strategy.

The upcoming 24–48 hour trial access also shifts power away from instructors. Instead of letting us decide how to use free access strategically, everything becomes controlled for conversion optimization.

I understand the concern about “freebie collectors,” but punishing all instructors for that behavior feels like overcorrection. A better solution would have been engagement-based limits, not hard caps that restrict growth.

From a marketing standpoint, this move makes it significantly harder for new instructors to compete and scale organically.

Sarafudheen PM

Trial access is definitely a positive step and a thoughtful feature to improve learner engagement and course quality.

However, restricting free coupon redemptions to just 10 may not work equally for all instructors. For many of us, especially when launching a new course, free coupons have been an important marketing strategy to gather early feedback, build initial social proof, and refine the course based on real learner input.

While free coupons may not be effective for every instructor, they do work well for some depending on niche, audience, and promotional strategy. A strict limitation might unintentionally impact instructors who rely on this approach for course growth.

From a marketing perspective, completely restricting scale in this area could be seen as a challenging decision for certain instructor segments. It would be great if Udemy could consider a more flexible or tiered approach that supports different instructor needs while still maintaining quality standards.

JosieMcKenlay

Or if the $9.99 offer to our students truly was $9.99. So many of my students complain that even if I created the coupon to reflect $9.99, it is often higher when they click on the link (something to do with Udemy then running a sale at the same time which is hard to predict I think but I find this all confusing)

Balexander

I'm just now getting to know Udemy. This is because of the coupons. I'm collecting some and then I'll dig deeper into it. Don't you think that people will choose another platform such as YouTube, which already has a lot of free tutorials to take a course?

I am quite willing to pay for something I could appreciate, but I also see teachers who really know everything from cooking courses to computer courses. How credible and substantive are these courses. So I am not going to pay for something I have no confidence in, but I would be willing to pay after I have taken a course and am satisfied with the quality and clarity of the course.

RonErez

I did have a course that I gave away over 4000 free coupons. That was a few years ago and to this day probably only a handful ever started the course. I do not use free coupons ever unless it is a rare circumstance where I decide to offer my course to someone as a gift. So I tend to agree with Udemy on this point. As someone else already mentioned it would be nice if coupons lasted longer and I would be really happy if there was at least another promotional email per month and if we could create 4 instead of 3 coupons per month.

Ceci Mansilla

I honestly think this is a poor decision — it will definitely impact my strategy.
I hope there’s still room to review and adjust it.

OxfordLearnLab

For me free coupons never worked. So i stopped long time ago. I also find the 5 days window a bit long - usually people buy when they see real urgency. For me is when i send a second message reminding the offer is expiring.

I know each of us have a different business model so i can understand the problem.

If we do have 10 free coupons and just 24hrs i will retry with free.

GreenCourses

Going from 1000 to 10 is a sharp decline in coupons

GreenCourses

I don't think this is a good idea.

Asenito

This does not help instructors in any meaningful way. If you did not want to use the coupon for 100 people, you were not forced to do that. The coupon for 100 people for 31 days gives you plenty of additional options. For example, you can have offline training for big groups and give them access to the course as an additional benefit, or reward people with free access to a course.

Moreover, you also limited the time from 31 days to 5 days. This means that if I share a free coupon with a student, I will get it quite angry emails from students that the link does not work, as they did not manage to enroll within the 5-day period.

At least extend the validity of the coupon from 5 days to 31 days, and the number of students per coupon from 10 to 25.

Boris035

This is a very delicate decision. Let me share my two perspectives:

Pro-Udemy Approach: If you check some websites where free coupons are distributed, you’ll easily notice the market is flooded with free access. It’s very difficult to distribute all 1,000 coupons within one take (by combining different sites, FB groups, and similar). And, most likely, you’ll get a few reviews in the best-case scenario. So, the benefit for an instructor might be questioned. On top of that, this practice affects Udemy's sales and promo policy. So, we can conclude it’s reasonable if Udemy is taking some measures to solve the issue (and close the gates).
Anti-Udemy Approach: Let’s be honest, if you are not a well-established instructor, those 1,000 free coupons might be a nice weapon for you. As we saw, some instructors use it as a “thank you gift” for their live sessions – a valid move. Others found it useful for early feedback/validation and traction (I had that policy before; now I’m not satisfied with the number of reviews I can get). And, I found some other useful cases for those 1,000 free coupons: when your sales are stuck, including the low landing page visitor numbers, or when you republish an old course, etc. In such cases, that move triggers the algorithm, and your course suddenly starts performing better – say, like tilting a pinball machine.

So, yes – I agree that Udemy should do something about those low-performing free coupons. On the other hand, I would like to be able to “tilt a pinball machine” from time to time if needed – so, maybe having those 1,000 free coupons once or twice per year per course can do the job for us?

PhillipBurton

Two more questions about the trial access (24-48 hours), which you might not know right now?

3. Can we restrict what they can watch? For example, if you have a 4 hour course, the trial access may permit them to see the entire course, which I don't think is the point. You are after a purchase at the end, after all.

4. Can we have a CTA at the end? Can we make a Call to Action video at the end of the videos that they can watch, letting them know what else they can see in the full course, and Click Here to continue learning?

Phillip

CarlosDeLeon

That is something that would actually be useful, along with the possibility of having more coupons available so that we could have one coupon per marketing channel for tracking purposes.

The "improvements" mentioned here do not seem to help me in any way, and I don't believe this is coming as a response to instructors' feedback.

Shahtajbhutto

This decision seriously hurts the marketing model for new instructors. I was planning to launch 3 - 4 courses over the next six months, but reducing coupon limits from 1,000 to just 10 completely destroys our ability to market new courses effectively. On top of that, the coupon with 100 slots for 31 days can now only be created one time, and the 10 slot coupon can also only be created once not three times like before. Previously, we had the flexibility to create three coupons and choose between 100 or 1,000 slots, which gave instructors real control over their promotions. Now that flexibility is gone. If the goal is to reduce, then at least lower the limit to something reasonable like 200 300, or give us the option to create three coupons with 100 slots each. This current setup makes it extremely difficult for new instructors to grow.

I hope this feedback is taken into consideration, as these tools play an important role in helping new instructors succeed on the platform.