Can You Sell the Same Course on Udemy and Your Own Website?

If you’ve spent any time building courses, this question has crossed your mind. Maybe it hit you when you saw Udemy take their cut. Maybe it happened when you realized you couldn’t email your own students with a link to your website. Or maybe you just want the best of both worlds: Udemy’s traffic and your own platform’s control.

It’s a reasonable question. And the answer is more nuanced than a simple yes or no.

Let me break down exactly what Udemy allows, what they don’t, and how to build a strategy that works within the rules while still building your own business.

What Udemy’s Rules Actually Say

Udemy has a specific policy about this, and I’m going to quote it directly because precision matters here:

“Courses that you charge for on Udemy cannot be offered for free off of Udemy (e.g. YouTube, your own site, other sites).”

That’s the explicit rule. Notice what it says and what it doesn’t say.

It says you can’t charge for something on Udemy and then give that same thing away for free elsewhere. It does NOT say you can’t sell courses on your own website. It does NOT say you can’t create different courses for different platforms.

The prohibition is specifically about taking the exact same paid content and making it freely available outside of Udemy. That’s the line.

What “Same Course” Actually Means

This is where instructors get confused, and honestly, where Udemy’s enforcement can feel murky. But the legal distinction is actually pretty clear when you break it down.

“Same course” means identical content. Same videos. Same worksheets. Same structure. If you could essentially copy-paste your Udemy course onto your own site and charge for it there too, you’re in violation territory.

“Derivative or different content” is allowed. This means you can create something that builds on, expands, or approaches the same topic from a different angle. Different title, different content, different format.

The key question Udemy would ask: Is a student getting essentially the same experience on your site that they paid for on Udemy? If yes, that’s a problem. If no, you’re likely fine.

Let me give you a concrete example. If your Udemy course is “Python for Beginners: 50 Videos Covering the Fundamentals,” you cannot put those exact same 50 videos on your own site and charge for them. But you CAN create “Python Mastery: A Project-Based Deep Dive with 80 Videos, Live Q&A Sessions, and Personal Code Reviews” and sell that on your site.

Different content. Different format. Different value proposition. Completely allowed.

Three Legitimate Multi-Platform Strategies

Now let’s get practical. Here are three approaches that work within Udemy’s rules while still letting you build your own platform business.

Strategy 1: The “Lite vs Premium” Approach

This is probably the most common approach, and it works like this: You create a solid but streamlined version of your content for Udemy at their typical price points. Then you create a premium, enhanced version for your own site.

Your Udemy course might be 4 hours of core content covering the fundamentals. Your own-site course might be 12 hours that includes the fundamentals plus advanced modules, case studies, downloadable templates, community access, and live office hours.

The Udemy version stands on its own as a complete learning experience. Someone who only buys that gets real value. But your own-site version is clearly a different, more comprehensive product.

Strategy 2: The “Teaser vs Full” Approach

Here’s another angle: Use Udemy as a way to deliver a substantial subset of your full curriculum, then drive people to your site for the complete experience.

Let’s say you have a comprehensive 20-module program. You might put modules 1-8 on Udemy as a standalone course called “Introduction to [Topic].” The remaining 12 modules, plus all the supporting materials, live on your own site as “The Complete [Topic] Professional Certification.”

The Udemy course is complete in itself—it teaches the fundamentals thoroughly. But it’s also clearly a gateway to deeper learning. Students who want to go further know where to find you.

Strategy 3: The “Topic vs Application” Approach

This is my favorite for subject matter experts who have depth to offer. You teach the theory and foundations on Udemy, then teach the practical application on your own site.

For example, your Udemy course covers “The Psychology of Habit Formation: Understanding the Science.” Your own-site course is “The 90-Day Habit Transformation Program: Applying the Science to Your Life.”

The Udemy course delivers knowledge. Your site course delivers transformation. Different outcomes, different content, different value.

This approach has a nice benefit: it naturally positions your own platform as the place for real results, while Udemy becomes the place for foundational learning.

The Email Constraint You Need to Understand

Here’s something that catches a lot of instructors off guard. Even with these legitimate strategies, you can’t use Udemy’s email system to drive students to your site.

Udemy’s promotional emails allow no external links. Zero. You can’t say “Hey, I have a more advanced version over here” with a clickable link. That’s against their terms.

Educational announcements have a bit more flexibility, but they must be course-relevant and are still limited. You can’t turn them into a funnel to your own business.

So how do students find your other offerings? Two main ways:

First, your instructor bio and course landing page CAN contain your website URL. Students who are interested can find you there.

Second, you build your brand recognition. When someone searches for your name or topic, they find both your Udemy presence and your own site. The connection happens organically.

What Happens If You Violate the Rule

Let me be direct about this because the stakes are real.

If Udemy determines you’re violating their policy—selling the same paid content elsewhere for free, or essentially duplicating their marketplace offering—they can take action. This ranges from removing the offending course to suspending your instructor account entirely.

Is it worth risking your account over? Absolutely not.

The good news is that you don’t HAVE to violate the rules to build a multi-platform business. The strategies I outlined above are completely legitimate. They just require you to actually create different content for different platforms—which, honestly, is what you should want to do anyway if you’re serious about serving your audience well.

The Smartest Strategy: Udemy for Discovery, Your Site for Business

Use Udemy as a discovery engine. It’s a marketplace with millions of active learners. Some of them will find you there who would never find you on your own. That’s valuable.

But build your real business on your own platform. That’s where you control the pricing, the student relationship, the email list, the upsells, the community. That’s where you’re building an asset you actually own.

If you want to explore the marketplace option more deeply, check out my breakdown of how to Sell on Udemy, Skillshare & Marketplaces. It covers the full landscape of what these platforms offer and what they cost you in return.

Why This Question Becomes Obsolete

Here’s the thing about asking “Can I sell the same course on Udemy and my own site?” It’s the kind of question that feels urgent when you’re starting out, but becomes almost irrelevant as you mature as a course creator.

Why? Because once you’ve built your own platform and your own audience, you stop needing to ask permission.

When you own the platform, you make the rules. You decide what to sell, how to price it, how to market it, how to communicate with your students. There’s no policy document to parse, no terms of service to worry about, no account suspension risk hanging over your head.

That’s not to say marketplaces like Udemy are bad. They’re not. They serve a purpose, especially early in your journey when you have no audience and no traffic.

But they’re training wheels. At some point, you’re supposed to take them off and ride on your own.

If you’re still deciding where to focus your energy, my guide on how to Pick Your Platform walks through the decision framework. And once you’ve made that choice, Create Your Product Suite will help you think through how to structure your offerings for maximum impact.

The instructors who win long-term aren’t the ones who figure out how to game Udemy’s rules. They’re the ones who use Udemy appropriately while building something they actually control.

Because ultimately, the question isn’t whether you can sell the same course in both places. The question is whether you want to build your house on rented land—or own the foundation yourself.