Udemy

Hi @WilliamStewart , we generally post Udemy Business earnings around the 6th or 7th business day -- there's more bookkeeping involved with Udemy Business revenue than with other types of instructor earnings, since it's generated from contracts and invoices rather than raw platform interactions. But I would expect it to post soon, likely tomorrow or the day after.   I'll see if we can update our documentation to make the timing a little clearer.   To those of you wondering about bank transfer, yes, this is what we're seeing as well. Although payment has been issued on our side, it looks like the final transfer will happen when US banks resume normal operations tomorrow. Thanks for your patience. ... View more

Thanks for outlining your concerns clearly, @junderwood. I've captured them to raise with the broader team when we reconvene.   In the meanwhile, I can confirm this wasn't a security issue, and sensitive information wasn't compromised. I hope that helps a little. ... View more

Hi @junderwood , I understand why you're frustrated and why you're being persistent. I would be, too.    I do have to echo Eliana's suggestion to write to Support. Much as we want to help, we don't have the tools to troubleshoot your individual situation in the Community, since not everyone at Udemy can see what payment method you're using, how much a particular payout is expected to be, if/when it was issued on our end, and other important details.   If Support can confirm that payment was initiated on Udemy's end for your case, then the longest you should expect to wait to see these amounts would be Tuesday morning, after the Monday US banking holiday. It's possible it could be delivered sooner, but I know you mentioned you have bills coming up on Monday that might necessitate adjustments, and I want to be clear about the worst-case scenario.    The best advice I can give you is to ask for confirmation from Support that payment is processing on our end, and expect a Tuesday handoff between JP Morgan and your bank. We're sincerely sorry for the trouble.    ... View more

Hi all -- at this point, we've issued 100% of August earnings. If you use PayPal or Payoneer, you should see these amounts right away. If you use bank transfer, the final transference to your account may depend the hours of operation of the relevant banks. Thanks for bearing with us. Rest assured we're digging into the issues that affected this month's payout process, and working to ensure next month is smoother.   @WilliamStewart to your question, the Udemy Business earnings calculation is a separate process. At this stage, I believe we haven't yet posted Udemy Business revenue for September -- I'd expect that to be posted early next week.   I'm logging off at this point so I won't be responding immediately to new comments or questions, but will check back tomorrow along with the regular Community team. ... View more

Hi all -- just a quick update that we've processed most PayPal payouts at this point, but there are still a few batches outstanding.  ... View more

Hi @MinervaSingh66 - We've distributed Payoneer and bank transfer payments, and have begun sending batches of PayPal payouts. I'll update here and in the original post when they've all gone out. If your payout method is PayPal, you might not see your payout just yet, but it should be coming very soon.  Thanks for your patience. ... View more

@AmandaFran Yes, all bank transfers are handled via JP Morgan. We've issued these payments on our end, but it could take additional time for them to reach individual accounts depending on your bank's business hours, as noted in the post at the top.    @ThomasMitchell Thanks for making your expectations clear. That's not something I can provide at this time (which I think you know, just trying to be clear and direct). I can commit to raising it with the broader team next week. ... View more

That's great to hear, @Waya -- Payoneer and JPMorgan funds were just sent. I'm waiting to hear confirmation from the team about PayPal. When that's done, I'll update the original post. ... View more

@mdabarik I unfortunately can't advise you on how to proceed here -- we're really close to the finish line on our side, but depending on your payout method and its own rules, the funds sent may or may not be available for withdrawal right away. I can only confirm when money has been sent from Udemy's account to the various distribution partners (PayPal, Payoneer, or JP Morgan).      ... View more

Hi @EveWilliams -- we're still expecting to deliver early today (Saturday the 8th), in line with the most recent update. I'm in touch with the team working on this, and will provide an update when payments are being sent. At this point we expect this to be within the hour. ... View more

@mdabarik , that's our expectation at the moment -- if anything comes up that causes this estimation to change, I'll let you know as soon as possible.  ... View more

Hi @mdabarik  -- Sorry, no updates at this time. It's currently 8:30pm Pacific Time on October 7th, and we expect payment to be delivered early on Saturday October 8th. We're still on track for this timeline at this point, but we don't expect it sooner.  ... View more

@Abhishek1301 Please refer to my post above, and to the update posted to Ryan's original message. We're currently processing payments and expect to deliver them in the early hours of Saturday the 8th, Pacific time. I'm in touch with the team working on this and will provide an additional update if this expectation changes. ... View more

Hi all,   I'm stepping in on behalf of the Community team to provide an update as we continue to work with the broader team to resolve the problem with this month's payout.   Our teams have identified and resolved the underlying issue preventing distribution of August earnings. Payments are processing, but aren't immediate. At this point, complete distribution is expected in the early hours of Saturday, October 8th, Pacific Time. We want to get you your earnings as soon as possible, and we know you count on us to do so. We're sorry for the delay in this critical process.   In terms of providing updates, we've revised the initial post to reflect this latest information. Since updates from the Udemy team can get lost within the comments, we'll continue to update the original post as new updates emerge, in addition to leaving new posts below.   Thanks, all. ... View more

Hey @MichaelPog -- you're right that this is the sort of data we're tracking; I'll try and dig in with the team to confirm that we're generally seeing the same learning trends between trialers and subscribers. As you noted, if a learner is really committed to getting a limited amount of learning for free, they can manage it through other systems on Udemy today, but I hear you that it may be more work (and less reward) for someone to refund than it is to cancel a trial.   In general, I'd say there's likely a bigger opportunity in getting trialers who don't consume anything to activate and see the value of instructors' great content than there is in tamping down on trialers trying to circumvent payment by speed-learning in their week of free trial.      ... View more

Hey @MichaelPog, I think I confused both you and @Bella with a poor explanation here -- let me jump in directly to try and remedy that.    1 is correct, ultimately, but I want to take a second crack at explaining this statement, which used too few words to hint at too much math: "As long as trialers are consuming roughly the same content as subscribers, this doesn’t actually affect instructor payouts for Personal Plan, since it’s relative consumption that determines your share of instructor revenue pool."    Instructor payouts for Personal Plan are determined by two things: the total money being paid by subscribers for a particular month, and the proportion of minutes spent on each instructor's content. If subscriber payments create an instructor revenue pool of $10,000 in a month and an instructor accounts for 2% of total minutes of consumption, that instructor will get $200. Trialers don't contribute anything to the money being paid in, of course, but they do contribute minutes to the pool. Ultimately, though, the number of minutes doesn't determine payout; the proportion of minutes do.   If trialers consumed really different content than paying subscribers, then including them would change how much each instructor takes home, since the proportional minutes for each course would be different. But if trialers' consumption patterns are basically the same as paying subscribers', then the proportional minutes consumed is the same either way, and instructor payouts aren't actually affected by including or excluding them.   I'll illustrate with an example, using an imaginary miniature subscription:   Let's say in March there are just three courses in the subscription: A, B, and C. Trialers spend 100 minutes on A, 400 on B, and 500 on C (total 1000) Subscribers spend 50 on A, 200 on B, and 250 on C (total 500) The net instructor revenue is $100 If we include trial minutes in the revenue calculation... A has 150 minutes, B has 600, and C has 750 (total 1500) A would get 10% of the payout, B would get 40%, and C would get 50%. A would get $10, B would get $40, and C would get $50. If we exclude them and only look at paying subscribers... A still has 10% of the payout, B still has 40%, C still has 50%. A still gets $10, B still gets $40, C still has $50. Currently, we don't have reason to believe trialers consume content in a substantially different way than paying subscribers. We exclude their consumption today to ensure we're directly rewarding instructors whose content is getting engagement from our most valuable learners, and to avoid a situation where someone could sign up for free and deliberately consume content differently to skew proportional minutes and influence instructor payouts.   Does this make any more sense than the first attempt?   Then, while I'm in the neighborhood: @EveWilliams to your question about exclusivity, I want to emphasize that there aren't any new exclusivity requirements here. The Udemy Business content collection and the Personal Plan collection are generally the same (with some differences in addition/removal timing, as noted above). So, the only content with an exclusivity requirement is content that was already in Udemy Business, which has had that requirement for several years already. If what you're doing now is working for you, you shouldn't expect that staying the course on exclusivity (no pun intended) will change your performance.  I hope that helps clarify.      Zooming out, I appreciate all the questions in this thread. They've made me realize that although we've announced the fundamental aspects of Personal Plan as we've rolled it out and grown the pilot, those details are scattered across a lot of blog posts and not easily referenced. With the pilot hitting its stride, it's a great time for us to move information about the program (what content is included, how instructors are paid, etc.) into a more permanent home in our Help Center. We'll work on getting a resource up in the next few weeks, and appreciate you helping us understand what's crucial for you to know when it comes to individual subscriptions. ... View more

Thanks, @DiogoAlvesd487 ! I'm so glad you found it useful. It was great to see some familiar names on the call (and new ones too, of course). 😊 ... View more

Hi all,   Thanks for the continued questions. I'll try to address several inquiries together here.   @Parker:  I believe you created a separate thread regarding the trends you're sharing, and you'll get a more detailed response there. In general, the trends you're describing aren't universal -- we've continued to see growth, and continued to see sales driven by paid channels rise with Udemy's increased investment in growth.    @derekm1215: We definitely keep instructor costs in mind whenever we make changes to anything that would affect your return on investment. This includes pricing, promotions, revenue share, Q&A features, support changes, and more.    Overall, we don't expect that this change will meaningfully alter the average share instructors take home in 2021. Based on historical data and trends, we expect that in 2021 this system will result in the same division of revenue between Udemy and most instructors, and between Udemy and instructors overall.   To address a point both you and @EveWilliams made, it's not the case that all "big" instructors or courses will see an upside, while all "smaller" instructors or courses will see a reduction. Improvements to Udemy's marketing systems have resulted in a much greater number of courses getting sales from paid channels than would have been the case a few years ago. It's not just the top 1% or 10% of courses that get paid traffic, and all courses have the potential to benefit from the increased audience brought in by paid channels (today, many do). If we want to continue these investments (which we do! we want to keep growing for and with instructors), revenue share can't rest on real-time, 1:1 attribution.    @EveWilliams, to your larger point about trust:   We recognize that changes like this can be difficult to parse and to plan around. There are two ways we can earn trust when we make these kinds of changes: by communicating clearly, and by delivering results. Our goal with the new revenue share model is to continue to provide instructors with opportunities to monetize their expertise, which means continuing to invest in growth. We hope and expect that as time goes on, instructors will benefit from that continued investment.    No change, whether it's a new policy, a new feature or a new growth strategy, will affect every instructor the same way. In a marketplace we can't ever guarantee that every instructor will see the same level of return. Our focus is on continuing to grow, continuing to adapt to changes in the world and in the online education space, and continuing to reward instructors who deliver the content and the results students are looking for.     ... View more

@GuilhermeMP -- We believe that a subscription model will complement the transactional model. Based on previous testing and data, offering students multiple options (individual purchase or subscription to a collection) stands to create more value for instructors and the platform. We also believe we can better help some students meet their learning goals with this model.    We'll approach this new initiative with careful testing and analysis, and we'll share more information as the pilot progresses.  ... View more

@JonAvis865 , my apologies, I missed your question.   We'll be providing more information about the individual learner pilot when it first becomes available to select students in April. But to answer the revenue question: when instructor revenue reporting for the subscription first begins, earnings from individual subscribers will not be lumped in with your Udemy for Business earnings. Since these will be discrete calculations -- monthly minutes consumed and subscription revenue in separate "pools" for business and individual learners -- they will appear separately.   ... View more

Hi @KateAlison017  -- Only courses currently in the English Udemy for Business collection will be included in the initial pilot. However, if you're opted into the Udemy for Business program, your course will be considered for inclusion in the collection moving forward. So let's say that today, you're opted in, but you don't yet have a course that's been included. In the future, your course could be added to one or both collections. For now, the plan is to keep them consistent.   In terms of what content is included, the curation team works to ensure the Udemy for Business collection includes Udemy's most engaging, well-received content in professional skills. To maximize the chances that your content is included, your course should be highly rated, recently and/or frequently updated, and focused on a topic relevant for professional learners. You can read more here.   @Paul-N -- When the announcement mentions "category-level" promotions along with Brand and TV advertising, this could refer to any promotion where prospective students are directed to a group of courses rather than a single course landing page. It doesn't necessarily mean the category landing pages as they exist today. The idea is to be able to market more holistically, directing prospective students to the place that's right for them at that moment in time, whether that's an introduction to the way they can use Udemy to meet their goals, a group of courses to give them a taste of the breadth of content on the platform, or an individual course they can purchase on the spot. Does that make sense? ... View more

HI all,   Lots to dig into here! Going to respond first to two specific questions from above, then address some of the broader points after: @janoschhrm, you asked "Is there the possibility that the subscription pilot, if ever rolled out in all markets, will be available for courses without the need for exclusivity? "   We're just starting this pilot and have a lot to learn, so I can't make definitive statements about the exact long-term policies. That said, we don't have plans to change exclusivity requirements for Udemy for Business, and for the individual learner pilot the goal is to maintain consistency between the collections (from the student perspective) and the policies (from the instructor perspective). So for now, no -- but we'll be evaluating policies as well as performance as we manage the pilot.   @TaniaMagdal781 and @MarkTimberl006 , you both asked what we meant when we wrote "On May 3, the Marketing Boost Program will be retired, and we’ll open up the opportunity for direct paid advertising to all courses on Udemy."   Under today's terms, Udemy can't run paid, off-platform marketing for courses whose creators are opted out of the Marketing Boost. So, there are courses that affiliates might like to promote, or for which our data suggests certain types of paid ads would perform well, but we're not doing those things. Moving forward, all courses will be eligible for these types of promotions (so, treated as courses opted in to the Marketing Boost program today, but with a 37% revenue share rather than 25%).   Mark, I know you also had questions about how courses are selected for different types of promotions. This ties in to some of the broader questions others are raising about Udemy's marketing strategies, so I'll respond separately to that -- wanted to get this more straightforward answer out first. ... View more

Hi @GuilhermeMP ,   To be really clear, we're not doing away with course-level marketing. We will continue to promote individual courses as they're relevant to new student audiences, like we do today. We will also expand some of the efforts we've begun in brand or platform-level advertising, such as TV. It's a question of investing in the full marketing "funnel," from the moment a student becomes aware of Udemy (and learns to pronounce it!  ) all the way to purchasing a specific course.    The category-level promotion was given as one example. It definitely isn't meant to represent the singular future of Udemy's marketing investments. I hope this helps. ... View more

@Julian and  @Anonymous  - Thanks for continuing to engage here. I wanted to clear up two things about our marketing strategy that are relevant to points you've raised.   First, @Anonymous, we're definitely not doing away with course-level marketing. We're looking at broadening the toolkit, not swapping one tool for another. The push to enable more "top of funnel" channels like TV or category-level promotions isn't meant to replace tried-and-true strategies such as individual course placements on search engines, social media platforms, and affiliate websites. We still expect to invest a lot in those channels. We just want to be sure we can also take a more long-term, holistic approach to marketing, which includes enabling more investment in channels like brand advertising that are incompatible with today's revenue share model.   Second, @Julian,  the goal behind this change is continue to grow the platform with and for instructors. Your hypothetical doesn't quite make sense, because if we didn't make this change, we wouldn't invest in those channels that would drive up "organic" sales. As cookies continue to be deprecated, we we also would likely have to reduce investment in other advertising channels for the same reason. We can't spend advertising dollars that don't bring a sustainable return.   You will obviously be able to judge the results for themselves as 2021 moves forward. But I did want to clarify those two pieces -- that we'll still be advertising plenty on a course level, and that the change is designed to maintain instructor share while growing collective revenue, not to shift share from one party to another. ... View more

@SandorSzekeres - It's much more than just the top 5% of instructors who benefit from Udemy's paid channels. If you're opted into the Marketing Boost program, you'll have visibility into which of your sales are driven by ads, affiliates & external partners today in your revenue report. As a very rough rule, if you currently earn about half as much from ad, affiliate, and external partner sales as you do from "organic" sales, your effective share will not change when the new system is implemented.   To the graph you posted, I'm touching base with our product team to understand what sorts of filters might be applied to the data you see on the Marketplace Insights tool (e.g. only certain channels, a certain time window, etc.). Though each topic will have a different distribution of channels, based on overall trends I think it's really unlikely that Cyber Security courses as a whole only receive 4% of sales via ads and affiliates.   @JohnBura  - Affiliates aren't going away. They'll continue to be paid as a marketing cost on Udemy's side. We'll keep evolving our tracking to ensure affiliates are credited for sales they drive.     ... View more

@Kain_Ramsay  - The affected channels are "organic" (all sales currently attributed at the 50% rate) and paid (ads/affiliates/external partners, all sales currently attributed at 25%).   You're correct that Udemy for Business revenue share will not be affected. ... View more

@ThomasBlees450 - You don't have to pay to be eligible for sales from Udemy ads and affiliates. There is no change there. The update in May will just mean that instead of receiving 25% of the net amount for ads/affiliate sales and 50% of the net amount for "organic" sales, you'll receive 37% of the net amount for all these sales.   @RobinLouw - Is there a specific question about the new model we could help address? Happy to help if I can. ... View more