Udemy Deep Dive: How It Actually Works

Udemy is the biggest online course marketplace. Over 60 million students, 200,000+ courses, available in 75+ languages. It’s where most new course creators make their first sale.

It’s also where most new course creators are surprised by how little they earn per sale. Let’s be clear about the numbers.

The Pricing Reality

When you publish a course on Udemy, you set a price. Let’s say you set it at $99.

your course will almost never sell at $99. Udemy runs sales constantly. Site-wide promotions, seasonal events, targeted discounts, new student offers. During these sales, your $99 course sells for somewhere between $10 and $15.

Students on Udemy know this. They’ve learned to wait for sales. When the price goes back up, enrollment drops. Most courses on Udemy sell at the discounted price roughly 90% of the time.

This isn’t a flaw in the system. It’s the system. Udemy’s model is high volume at low prices. They want millions of students buying cheap courses, not thousands buying expensive ones.

The Revenue Share Model

What you earn depends on how the student found your course. There are four channels:

Udemy Organic (you earn ~37%). A student found your course through Udemy’s search, browsing, or recommendations. Udemy keeps roughly 63%, you get roughly 37%. This is the most common channel.

Instructor Promotion (you earn ~97%). A student clicked your promotional link — an email you sent, a social media post, a link on your website. Since you drove the traffic, you keep almost all the revenue. Udemy takes a small processing fee.

Paid User Acquisition (you earn ~25%). Udemy paid for advertising or partnered with an affiliate to bring in that student. They keep 75% to cover the acquisition cost.

App Sales (you earn ~37% minus 30% app store fee). If a student buys through the iOS or Android app, Apple or Google takes 30% off the top, then the standard revenue split applies.

Here’s what this looks like in practice. Your $99 course on sale for $12:

Channel	Student Pays	Your Share	You Earn
Udemy Organic	$12	37%	~$4.44
Instructor Promo	$12	97%	~$11.64
Paid Acquisition	$12	25%	~$3.00
App Store	$12	~26%	~$3.12

The difference between organic and instructor promotion is massive. A sale you drive yourself earns nearly three times what a platform-driven sale earns. This is why building your own audience matters, even on Udemy.

The $99+ Pricing Strategy

Given that your course sells at a discount most of the time, what should you set as the base price?

Most experienced Udemy instructors set their price at $99 or higher. Here’s why:

Udemy has pricing tiers. Higher-priced courses get placed in higher discount tiers during sales. A $99 course and a $19 course might both sell for $12 during a sale, but the $99 course has higher perceived value — and Udemy’s algorithm tends to favor higher-priced courses in search results because they generate more revenue per sale.

Setting a low price like $19 doesn’t mean you earn more per sale. It means you earn less, because your course still gets discounted to the same sale price but starts from a lower anchor.

The rule: Set your Udemy price at $99 minimum. Let Udemy discount it. Don’t fight the model.

What Udemy Gives You

Despite the revenue share, Udemy provides real value:

• Discovery engine. Students find your course through search and recommendations without you doing anything.
• Payment processing. Global payments, tax handling, refund management. All handled.
• Hosting. Video hosting with global CDN. No bandwidth costs.
• Mobile apps. Your course is automatically available on iOS and Android.
• Analytics. Revenue reports, student engagement data, geographic breakdown.
• Certificates. Auto-generated completion certificates for students.

What Udemy Doesn’t Give You

• Student email addresses. You can send messages through Udemy’s system, but you can’t export a list.
• Pricing control. Udemy sets sale prices. You can’t opt out of site-wide promotions.
• Branding. Your course lives inside Udemy’s interface. Students see Udemy’s logo, not yours.
• Exclusivity freedom. If you opt into Udemy’s promotional programs (which you should for organic discovery), there are restrictions on selling the same course elsewhere at a lower price.

Is Udemy Worth It?

Yes, if you’re starting from scratch. The first 100 students are the hardest to get. Udemy makes them easier.

No, if you’re expecting to build a full-time income from it. The math doesn’t work at $4 per sale. You’d need thousands of monthly enrollments to replace a consulting income.

Use Udemy for what it’s good at: validation, reviews, early revenue, and practice. Then use those results to build something you own.

Your task: Log into your Udemy instructor account. Go to the Teach section and browse the course categories relevant to your topic. Count how many competing courses exist in your niche and note the top-rated ones. You’ll use this data in lesson 05.

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