How to Use Udemy Marketplace Insights for Course Topic Research

Before you build a course, check if anyone’s searching for it

In my years as a college dean, I saw plenty of well-intentioned educators design entire curriculums based on what they thought students needed, only to find empty classrooms on day one. We called it curriculum drift. In the online course world, the equivalent is spending three months recording, editing, and uploading a course, only to realize nobody is actually looking for the topic.

You cannot rely on gut feeling. Before you open your screen recorder or outline a single module, you need baseline data on whether people are actively searching for your idea. If you are considering Udemy as a distribution channel, they give you a built-in way to check that demand. It is called Marketplace Insights, and it removes the guesswork from topic research.

What Marketplace Insights Actually Shows

Udemy’s Marketplace Insights tool provides a dashboard of specific data points for any keyword or topic you type in. It is designed to give you a snapshot of the supply and demand economics on their platform.

When you search a topic, the tool shows you five core metrics:

First, the monthly search volume. This tells you how often students are typing that keyword into the Udemy search bar.

Second, the number of existing courses. This is your competition. It shows exactly how many other courses are currently indexed for that exact keyword.

Third, the average revenue. This is the mean monthly revenue generated by the courses ranking for that keyword.

Fourth, the median revenue. This is arguably the most important metric on the dashboard. The average gets heavily skewed by the top 1% of instructors who have massive organic rankings or bring their own external traffic. The median tells you what the middle-of-the-pack course actually makes. If the average is $3,000 a month but the median is $50, you know exactly what a new creator can realistically expect.

Fifth, the top course revenue. This shows the ceiling for the topic.

Finally, the tool gives you a topic health score, which visually categorizes the balance between high, medium, or low competition versus high, medium, or low demand.

How to Access It

Accessing the tool is straightforward. It is completely free, but you do need a Udemy account. You do not even need to be a published instructor or have an instructor account approved yet; a standard free student account works. You simply navigate to the Marketplace Insights page on Udemy’s website, log in, and you can start running searches immediately. There are no usage limits or paywalls.

Reading the Data Correctly

The biggest mistake new creators make with this tool is misinterpreting the search volume. The volume displayed is relative, not absolute. Udemy does not give you a hard number like “4,500 searches per month.” Instead, they provide a visual indicator or a relative score. You cannot take this number and compare it to Google Ads keyword data. It only has value when compared against other search terms within the Udemy platform itself.

To read the data correctly, you have to look at the relationship between volume, competition, and revenue. High search volume is useless if there are 2,000 existing courses and the median revenue is zero. Low competition is useless if the search volume is also zero. You are looking for a mathematical relationship where the demand outpaces the supply enough that a new course can comfortably slide into the ecosystem and capture organic traffic.

The Sweet Spot

When I advise professionals on Plan Your Course, I tell them to look for the sweet spot: moderate demand, low competition, and decent median revenue.

Moderate demand means people are actively looking for the solution. Low competition means you are not fighting against hundreds of established courses with thousands of reviews. Decent median revenue proves that the searchers actually have their credit cards out.

This sweet spot usually exists in highly specific sub-niches. “Python programming” is a bloodbath. “Python for financial data analysis with Pandas” might be a sweet spot. The broader the keyword, the harder it is to find this balance. The more granular you get, the more likely you are to find a topic health score that leans in your favor.

Red Flags to Watch For

There are a few data combinations that should make you stop and pivot.

The first red flag is a saturated topic. If a keyword has massive search volume but thousands of existing courses and a median revenue that is practically non-existent, walk away. You are looking at a market where the top three courses hoard all the traffic, and everyone else fights over scraps. Keep in mind that 54,000 new courses were added to Udemy in 2024 alone. The shelf space is getting incredibly crowded.

The second red flag is high search volume with universally low revenue. This usually indicates a “curiosity” search rather than a “problem-solving” search. People want to know about a topic, but they do not value it enough to pay for a course.

The third red flag is declining demand. If you check a topic and notice the search volume trend is pointing downward over several months, you are likely looking at a fading trend or a seasonal topic that will not sustain year-round income.

What Insights Doesn’t Tell You

As useful as this tool is, it has strict limitations. First, it does not show you conversion data. It tells you how many people searched, but not how many actually clicked a course and bought it.

Second, and most critically, the data is specific to Udemy’s marketplace. It is not a proxy for general web demand. A topic might have zero searches on Udemy but massive demand on YouTube, Google, or LinkedIn. Udemy’s audience skews heavily toward individual consumers looking for career advancement or tech skills. If you teach B2B sales strategies, niche healthcare compliance, or high-level executive leadership, Udemy Insights will likely tell you there is no demand. That does not mean the demand does not exist; it just means Udemy buyers are not looking for it there.

Finally, Insights does not tell you anything about the quality of the existing courses. A low-competition niche might look appealing until you watch the top two courses and realize they are outdated, poorly produced, and practically unwatchable. Sometimes low competition exists simply because no one has bothered to make a good course yet—which is an opportunity—but the tool will not tell you that.

Using Insights Alongside Other Research

Because of these limitations, you cannot use Marketplace Insights in a vacuum. You have to triangulate your topic research.

Use Google Trends to see if the general web interest in your topic is rising or falling. Use standard keyword research tools to see what people are typing into Google, which has a vastly different intent than a Udemy search.

You should also apply the principles found in SEO, AI Search & Content Strategy to ensure you understand how people are actually phrasing their problems outside of a walled garden like Udemy.

Most importantly, if you have an existing audience—whether it is an email list, a LinkedIn following, or a YouTube channel—ask them directly. Marketplace Insights tells you what strangers on one specific website are searching for. Your own audience will tell you what they will actually pay you to teach.

The Problem With Building Only For Marketplaces

If you rely entirely on Udemy Marketplace Insights to dictate what you build, you fall into a dangerous trap: you start optimizing for their algorithm instead of your students.

Udemy has specific requirements for course length, pricing, and structure to rank well in their search engine. They also run constant global promotions where your $100 course is sold for $12. When you research a topic strictly through the lens of Udemy data, you are accepting their business model as your own. You are agreeing to race to the bottom on price, give up your customer data, and surrender control of your student relationships.

If you want to understand the mechanics of playing this game, you can learn them in Sell on Udemy, Skillshare & Marketplaces. It is a valid way to get started and generate initial revenue. But you have to recognize that you are building on rented land.

Why Your Own Platform Changes the Research Game

Once you understand how to read demand data, the real leverage comes from taking that skill off the marketplace. A topic that looks completely saturated on Udemy might be wide open on your own website.

Why? Because on your own platform, you are not relying on a shared search bar. You bring your own traffic. You are not competing against 500 other courses for the same organic keyword; you are the only option on your landing page.

Furthermore, owning your platform changes the economics entirely. You can serve any niche, at any price point. If Udemy Insights tells you there is no demand for a highly specialized B2B topic, that is likely because Udemy buyers are not shopping for enterprise solutions. But if you own your platform, you can build a targeted, high-ticket course for a specific industry and sell it for $1,500 directly to businesses.

When you own the platform, the research question shifts. You stop asking, “What will the Udemy algorithm rank me for?” and you start asking, “What specific transformation can I deliver that my audience will pay a premium for?”

Marketplace Insights is a great tool for understanding basic supply and demand. Use it to test your initial ideas. But do not let it constrain your ambition. If you are ready to stop optimizing for algorithms and start building a real, owned education business, it is time to Validate & Launch Your First Course on your own terms.