Udemy

RandyMinder · ‎03-31-2024

Hello @SansaoSeara - I have 10 courses on UFB. The only thing I know for sure is that a course generally has to have a minimum of 25 ratings with an average of 4.4 or higher. Beyond that, I have no clue how Udemy determines when to add a course. What has helped me in the past is my students sending an email to Udemy asking them to add one if my courses. I'm pretty certain this is how two of my 10 courses have been added. Even though I have 10 courses in the UFB platform, 60% of my total monthly incomes comes from the marketplace.

RandyMinder · ‎02-20-2024

Hi @Andy Walsh - Why is any of this catching you by surprise? Didn't you do at least a little bit of research on how Udemy works before creating and publishing your course? Udemy pricing, as absurd as it may be at times, is clearly spelled out. Also, you should understand that the price set for a course really has little or no meaning because most students will never pay full price for a course. They will simply wait a few days until the next sale and then purchase the course for somewhere between $9.95 and $12.95. I have created close to 40 courses since August 2019, with 20K paid students and I don't think there have been more than a 15-20 times any of those students paid full price for one of my courses. Therefore, the actual price on a course has little meaning. What matters is when the next Udemy sale occurs and hoping your course is good enough to get in the Udemy Business offerings.

RandyMinder · ‎02-11-2024

Hello @ Dzuya - Why not just do a search on Udemy for 'Numpy' and see what you get? I did and filtered for all courses rated 4.5 or higher and got back 492 results. Lot's of courses on this topic.

RandyMinder · ‎02-05-2024

Hi @Ahmedassem278 - Can you rephrase your question or statement. It doesn't make any sense.

RandyMinder · ‎01-31-2024

Hi @NancyOsier1134 - This is a very strange title for a course: "Therapy Prep 4 Kids-Families getting a head start on therapy". I cannot tell from the title exactly what the course is supposed to cover. It's almost seems like you have combined a title and subtitle into a single title. If the title isn't clear, what search criteria would potential students use to actually find the course? I would suggest you make the title of your course more concise and clear as to what the course is about. Also, check your competition. How many courses exist on the same or similar topic? This is one thing the VAST majority of new instructors never bother to do before creating a course - checking to see what competition already exists. If there are more than 5-10 existing courses rated 4.5 or higher, you are going to have a very difficult time getting sales.

RandyMinder · ‎01-16-2024

@Niyazi Harmanbasi - I do fairly well on Udemy but it's just a source of passive income for me. I have a day job and I work on courses when I feel like it. There is no way I would feel comfortable attempting to support myself on Udemy. It's way to unpredictable. And, every year Udemy is taking a bigger chunk of revenue for itself. So, my attitude is that I'll ride the Udemy wave for as long as I can but it could disappear at any time.

RandyMinder · ‎01-11-2024

@SoyMarketer - Everybody's courses will be too expensive. On the other hand, my guess is that a vast majority of students only purchase courses when Udemy is running a sale so it probably doesn't really matter what the non-sale price of a course is. At least 95% of my marketplace sales occur when Udemy is running some sort of sale. I certainly never purchase a course unless it's on sale.

RandyMinder · ‎01-10-2024

@SoyMarketer - It used to work that way, many months ago. However, it no longer does. You basically have no control over the price of your course unless you opt out of the Deals program.

RandyMinder · ‎01-10-2024

Hello @SoyMarketer - You really have no control over the price of your course, if you have opted into the Deals program, which you do by default. You can set a price but Udemy decides the best price for your course based on some internal algorithms. And, based upon experience, this price can change from time to time. Also, when Udemy is running a sale, the price for your course will be reduced to anywhere between $9.95 and $12.95, usually. So, the bottom line is that you can never really know what your course will be priced at, unless you create promotional coupons where you can set your own price.

RandyMinder · ‎01-07-2024

@chenjonathan86 - Udemy is cheating you? When you signed up as an instructor on Udemy and published your first course, you agreed to let Udemy set prices for your course and market it as it sees best. Or did you not bother to read what you were agreeing to? The quick summary is this. Udemy can set whatever it thinks is best for your course. It really doesn't matter what price you set. Udemy basically ignores that. And, Udemy runs sales just about every other day where the price for your course will be reduced to somewhere between $9.95 and $12.95. Since about 95% of your sales will come when Udemy is running a sale, you can expect to earn anywhere between $1 and $5 for each sale.

RandyMinder · ‎12-31-2023

Hi @Dayztrader - "The other side to this is the more students you show enrolled the more credibility your course is perceived to have." Enrollments mean nothing because of free courses and free coupons. When selecting a course to purchase, students don't care about enrollments. They care about ratings. Rating counts are far more important. And, the more the better as long as the ratings are roughly above 4.2 - 4.4 . When I purchase a course, I don't even look at enrollment counts. I will generally search for the topic I am interested in and filter the courses so that I am only looking at courses rated 4.5 or higher. I'll then generally select the course with the highest number of ratings.

RandyMinder · ‎12-26-2023

Hello @RoG - I cannot tell you if it's worth it to teach on Udemy. If you do, just be aware of what you are getting in to. It is EXTREMELY difficult for new instructors to make any sort of real money (more than say $200 per month) on Udemy. The competition is fierce and unless your course has something to do with business or technology, it's even harder. Also, before you start creating your course, do a little research and see how many other courses already exist on the topic. Very few instructors bother doing this and they then wonder why they are not getting any sales.

RandyMinder · ‎12-14-2023

Hi @ClementAlexandre - Giving out free coupons or making your course free is rarely a good idea. Most of the signups are bots and not real students. It's likely that the 150 that joined are not real students. Regarding ratings and reviews, I have close to 30 courses I have created and am approaching 20K paid students. It's been my experience that only about 1 in 5 PAID students will leave a rating. Of that 1 in 5, only about 1 in 5 of those will leave any sort of review. What this means is that once you have five PAID students, you might get a rating. Once you have 25 PAID students you might get a review. You're going to need a lot of patience. You have created a course on a topic that is not particularly in demand on Udemy and you are competing against other established courses. It could take many months to gain any sort of real traction.

RandyMinder · ‎12-13-2023

@ClementAlexandre - DavidV has already responded about how to market your courses. You could also trying using ChatGPT and see what it might suggest with regards to marketing courses on Udemy. You might get some creative answers. Also, I might suggest you rename your course to something like "Car Design" or "Automobile Design". It appears the other courses are named something similar. If someone comes to Udemy and searches for "Car Design", your course might not turn up because of its name.

RandyMinder · ‎12-13-2023

Hello @ClementAlexandre - Congrats on your first course. With regards to how you can maximize audience and sales, did you do any research first to determine if anyone actually wants to learn how to draw cars? Udemy is primarily a site for business related courses. Of course there are many non-business related courses on Udemy but the courses that sell best are generally related to business. This is just a hunch but I suspect there are not many people who come to Udemy looking for courses on how to draw cars. I did a search on Udemy for such courses and there are none. That could be a good thing and that could be a bad thing. Maybe it's good because no one has thought of it before. Maybe it's bad because there is no demand for such a course. This is why it is crucial to do some research first, before creating a course, to determine if anyone would be interested. To be honest, it's very unlikely Udemy is going to put much effort and money into marketing your course. Udemy will promote courses that are likely to sell and make them money. This means that you will probably have to market your course yourself, at least initially, until your course gains some traction.

RandyMinder · ‎11-28-2023

UFB students never see these messages, correct?

RandyMinder · ‎11-24-2023

Hello @GabriellePi333 - You cannot assume Udemy will automatically promote your course. It will depend largely on how many other courses already exist in the particular topic area, that are highly rated. If there are many, it just makes sense Udemy will promote those courses and not a new one because Udemy is more likely to earn revenue from an established course rather than a new course. More than likely you will have to do your own promotions until your course gains some traction and Udemy notices it.

RandyMinder · ‎11-24-2023

I would offer two pieces of advice: 1) Before the instructor spends months creating their first course, they should do their homework and research how many courses already exist in the topic area. A routine question I see here from new instructors is, "why am I getting so few sales?". A common reason for this is because 20+ courses already exist, all rated 4.5 or higher. It's virtually impossible to compete against this. 2) Understand how little the instructor will earn from each sale. A typical question I see here is, "I put so much work into my course, published it and set the price at $49.95. Udemy sold it for $9.95 and I earned $3. What happened?" Typically an instructor will a maximum of $2-$5 per sale. Sometimes as low as $.65. And, if the instructor stays in the Deals program, they have no control over the price of their course. Udemy attempts to determine the optimum price.

RandyMinder · ‎11-20-2023

Hello @RitadeSousa063 - You have no control how your course(s) are advertised on the Udemy sight. Udemy handles all that for you if you enrolled in the Deals program, which you did by default. Udemy decided how best to advertise your course based upon ratings, sales and how new it is, and probably other factors.

RandyMinder · ‎11-16-2023

Hi @Samreen Nisa Qureshi - There is nothing wrong. By default you have opted into the Udemy Deals program. This means they can sell your course for any amount they want. The price you set really doesn't mean very much. Udemy can set the price higher or lower based on some internal algorithms that attempts to maximize sales. Most new courses are automatically set at $19.99. The only recourse you have is to drop out of the Deals program but then you are solely responsible for marketing your course. But you can set any price you want.

RandyMinder · ‎11-08-2023

Hello @Palara - Welcome to the realities of Udemy. You have to understand that when you opt in to the Udemy Deals program (I think that's what it's called), which you do by default, Udemy can sell your course for anything they want. The price you set really means almost nothing. They claim to have some sort of algorithm that optimizes each course's price for maximum sales. I haven't really seen any evidence of this, but it is what it is. And, in some countries, like India, the price will almost always be set lower. Then after all the fees and taxes and Udemy's cut, we get what is left over. This averages between $3 and $5 per sale but I've seen it as low as $.65. Most new instructors rarely spend anytime learning how earning money on Udemy really works. So they are shocked when they set a price on their course at something like $49.99 and Udemy sells the course to someone in India for $5 and you keep $1 (maybe).

RandyMinder · ‎10-10-2023

Good luck. It's been my experience most students don't want to engage with the instructor unless they have a specific question they want answered or they want you to do some of their work for them.

RandyMinder · ‎10-09-2023

Hello @rmathisen - I don't think anyone here is going to be able to help you. We're all just instructors and moderators here. You will need to reach out to Udemy instructor support and instructorsupport@Udemy.com (I think). I will say though this appears to be an on-going issue with instructors. Courses get banned or taken off-line with no explanation from Udemy as to why or what the instructor needs to do. This is one area Udemy can certainly do a MUCH better job.

RandyMinder · ‎10-05-2023

Hi @Prof.Dr.Sha550 - Why should anyone buy a Udemy course when so much is free elsewhere? Because if the course is good and meets a need, people will pay for it. Over the past three months I have earned over $11K from my courses. Other instructors are making far more. But to earn this sort of money, the course must meet a real need, almost certainly needs to be in the business / IT space, be somewhat highly rated (4.4 or higher) and not have too much competition. Have you really thought about how many people want to learn how to play a keyboard on the phone? Frankly, that would not interest me in the least. Did you first research why would anyone want to do that? Maybe some people do, but that is the question you have to ask yourself.

RandyMinder · ‎09-23-2023

@Alexia - I think you are going about this all wrong and you are likely to irritate many of your students. Why would any of your students want to purchase a 'work in progress'? You are basically telling your students, "thanks for purchasing this course but it's not finished yet and more content is coming". I would give you a 1 star rating and ask for a refund. BTW, I don't have any problem with a review course being only 2 hours in length. What I have a problem with is you labeling it Part 1 and telling your students more is coming. This will not end well for you.

RandyMinder · ‎09-21-2023

Awesome reply. You would think a marketing person would know how to market their course.

RandyMinder · ‎09-21-2023

Hi @DaliaAlQtai744 - Giving away large numbers of free coupons is almost always a bad idea. Worse yet is making your course free. It's been the experience of many instructors here, myself included, that those "students" who enroll for free usually never actually go through the course. And, for whatever reason, those that do seem to be more inclined to leave bad reviews. I took a look at your course and was immediately turned off by the fact that you have "Part 1" in the title of the course. Yet, the course is only 2 hours in length. This implies a part 2 is coming that would require another purchase. I suspect you are doing this to increase the likelihood people purchase both part 1 and part 2. And, that's not a terrible idea. However, if you are going to do that, the part 1 course needs longer than 2 hours (IMO). I have done this same thing twice, with pretty good success. However, both part 1 and part 2 are 5+ hours in length. Also, have you taken a good look to see how much competition you have? In most cases, when an instructor creates a post like yours, the reason for poor sales is because there are already dozens of other courses teaching the same thing. In cases like this, the new course has almost no shot of success unless the instructor does his/her own marketing.

RandyMinder · ‎09-09-2023

Hi @ilovedogs74 - you almost never want to make your course free (free coupons are a bit different). There are bots that roam the Udemy environment and snap up all free courses. These are not real students and will never actually engage in your course. Also, many instructors would tell you that many students who do engage in a free course (free coupon or free course) will, more often than not, leave poor reviews. It's just not worth it.

RandyMinder · ‎09-05-2023

Hi @Harnam - I would strongly suggest you first check to see how many courses already exist in this space. I'm guessing there are already dozens, if not hundreds. So many times a new instructor will spend months creating a course, release it and then wonder why they have virtually no sales. In most cases it's because dozens of other courses, rated 4.5 or higher, already exist. The level of competition on Udemy is intense and there are not many areas that are not saturated with courses. Especially in the business and IT space.

RandyMinder · ‎08-09-2023

Hi @TranceMindset - I think the best piece of advice I (or any experienced instructor) can give you is this. Before you even jot down your first outline notes, check to see how many courses already exist on the topic you plan to build a course around. So many times I read about a new instructor who created their first course and it's not selling. Turns out it's because there are already 20+ courses existing on that topic, many of them rated 4.5 or higher. The new instructor really has no chance unless he/she is able to do their own extensive marketing.

Udemy

Randy Minder

RandyMinder •
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Lead BI Developer / Power BI / Microsoft Fabric

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Re: Udemy Business

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Re: 2 hour courses in numpy-

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Re: How come a bunch of people joined my class but no one leaves reviews?

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Randy Minder

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Lead BI Developer / Power BI / Microsoft Fabric

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