Udemy

I wish I came out with that, I usually end up with $3. Which I would be able to balance out with sales if the rating system were better (like a single review pulls down a course and you have to wait for more 5 stars to come in to balance out the bad review because all the 5 stars from the last year are not counted in anymore and so and such). So I suppose we all have our pet peeves here on Udemy ;)   The reality is: All established platforms that take a commission and make their decisions do not depend on individual instructors. There are tons of instructors everywhere. If they all left a platform something would change. But that will never happen.   With prices it's a race to the bottom everywhere and on a large scale that won't change either. At the same time the individual effort and time is valued less, also by students, as we can often tell from the reviews. Few think about the incredible work that went into these videos. Many expect that paying $10 will buy them exactly what they were looking for. And some might get nasty if their personal expectations are not met, no matter how unrealistic they are.   So you spent half a day on 3 minutes of your 10 hours course - will you get paid for it? Only if you manage to sell masses. Will anybody see it, care about it, appreciate it? Probably not. Maybe very few people, who maybe have done something like that before and can imagine what it takes. So, the baseline is that you should really have some fun creating those courses, otherwise you'll get depressed. Or you are lucky enough to know and be able to present a topic well that tons of people are willing to buy and you don't have top notch competition.   ... View more

Hi Ross, I got four 1 star reviews in my also 15 month here, two of them last week. I wrote to all of them asking why. In two cases the students told me that it wasn't on purpose. One changed the rating to a 5 star. So, I would recommend to ask because there's nothing to lose - they cannot go back and rate you minus 1 stars and complete 200% to make it count. But I also believe that there is some foul play every now and then because some ratings just seem to be off. Could be a competitor, could be someone holding a grudge. These are the two options. If it was a mistake the students might change it. In the latter case, bad luck, I guess. (The type of bad luck that keeps me awake at night grumbling and growling). Good luck to you!   ... View more

It doesn't become outdated though if no new ratings (or very few) come in over the next few months. Which can happen if you make very few sales over a few months. Not all courses make hundreds and thousands of sales per month, and that doesn't mean they are bad, it might be the topic. In my area I've seen high rated courses that looked fine, they were up for a couple of years and had less than 100 sales. You know, sometimes it's just the market. And not everybody wants to make courses on topics they are not qualified for just because there is high demand. And what they are qualified for might just not be the big hit on Udemy (or maybe you speak the "wrong" language with a "wrong" accent). Those instructors are the ones that get hurt most by unfair reviews. ... View more

The same thing happened to me with my 2nd course. When it was brand new I had like 2 good reviews and then I got a one star. The guy also took the effort to tick all the boxes, apparently the course sucked just in every single aspect. With a rating below 4 it took ages for the course to get back on its feet. About a year later now, it's a solid 4.7 but for several months I missed out on the sales that I am now getting. I checked that person's profile a year later, and he never booked another course. Which is more probable: my course being so horrible that he left Udemy because of it, or he really only wanted to pull my course down? It is a shame that it is possible for such people to succeed. It now happened again with my last course. Third review and I get 2 stars after 13% and no comment. Pulled my rating down drastically. The few sales I made in the past month now went to no more sales. It is not like I don't understand the procedure but the reality is that one person can kill your course, maybe not for good but for a long time, and that shouldn't be possible. ... View more

It depends on the country you live in. The fees are usually different for different regions. They also change frequently. I did a calculation a while ago for Germany and figured that any transaction below 100 USD is cheaper via PayPal, anything above is cheaper via Payoneer. But I cannot even say if that still holds true because since then I have received several emails regarding change of policy, likely including fees as well. Unfortunately they are not super transparent either e.g. the fees are partly hidden in lower currency exchange rates than average and they are not listed anywhere, so it is not too easy to compare allover. I mostly use Payoneer though because I feel they are more customer friendly, the transactions are faster and I have heard multiple times of PayPal withholding money for no reason. ... View more