So, what’s the fuss about how much does Udemy pay? When it comes to price or money, there are two main topics that most people are highlighting in. They want to know how much they need to spend to join the online platform. Second, they want to know how much payment is made by the instructors. It’s a logical question, really, considering that the platform claims itself to be a ‘melting pot’ of learners and instructors from all around the world. Naturally, instructors also make some earnings when they contribute to the website. The question is: How much do they get?
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How Much Does Udemy Pay? The Possibility of Being an Instructor
It’s quite logical to think that becoming an Udemy instructor may give you an extra financial benefit. After all, it’s one of the most popular and top notch online educational platforms. Surely, it pays off handsomely. Or is it?
In general, an instructor can earn from $1000 to even 3 million dollars as a lifetime earnings. However, their revenue depends on many factors, including the course’s quality, how many courses they have made, how long they have been in Udemy, and their audience’s size. Because of these factors, some instructors are able to live well and become full time instructors, while the others only earn enough.
As an online e-learning platform, it provides a place for instructors and learners to take part and contribute. It’s considered a win-win solution for everyone involved. Instructors are able to share their experience, knowledge, and expertise, while learners can get the knowledge.
In general, when learners join a course, they can get access to materials, such as videos, (digital) notes, learning modules, and such things alike. Instructors also need to provide quizzes or tasks for the participants to complete, making sure that they understand the subject. Now, the question is: Will you be able to do so if you are interested in becoming Udemy’s instructor? Can you handle that much responsibility?

How to Become an Instructor
Basically, you need to sign up and have an account on the platform. Feel free to choose the topic of your expertise as there is no limitation to what you can provide. A word of advice, though: Teach what you are best at. You should share your skills and experience within the subject that you are familiar with. However, you can check the platform’s restricted list of what topics that they won’t accept.
If you want to find out whether your subject may be popular or in high demand, you can use the platform’s Marketplace Insight tool. It can give you an idea of search volume, student demand, and also revenue. If there is no data for that particular topic, it’s most likely that it hasn’t been available and your opportunity to hit it off would be huge. You should start soon enough. But keep in mind that this tool isn’t a perfect insightful tool, meaning that you can’t really rely on the data produced.
No need to pay or whatsoever to become an instructor. However, you will need to fill in (and complete) their instructor identity verification steps and process. And if you create paid courses, you will need to sign up as a Premium instructor type. All courses generally need to have video content, with 30 minutes as the minimum. You should also provide a minimum of 5 learning modules or lectures, while following the platform’s guidelines at the same time. The platform provides the so-called course quality checklist to help you ensure your quality course.
The standard course is video-based material. But instructors can add other teaching tools to create rich and useful learning experience. Exercises, quizzes, notes, or assignments can be a part of those materials. Instructor can also create Practice Test course for certification. There is a certain payment schedule for instructors. Plus, they can use direct deposit, Payoneer, or PayPal to receive the payment.
How Can Instructors Earn Money?
When instructors want to earn from Udemy, there are only two ways for doing so:
- Becoming a Premium Instructor (where you can sell your courses through one-time sales)
- Getting invited for Udemy Business
When you become a Premium Instructor (and you have been accepted for it), you can start creating, publishing, and selling your courses. You will then be given a unique referral link or code, which you can share through whatever channel available, such as your social media, media, website, and others.
Your payment scheme should be simple and straightforward:
- If there is a sale through your referral code, you get 97% from the sale value.
- If there is a sale not from your referral code, you only get 37% of the (sale) value.
Let’s say that you have a course worth $100. If someone buys the course with your code, you get $97, but if that person buys the course from Udemy marketplace or from someone else’s code, then you only get $37.
You can get higher payment if you can become an instructor in Udemy Business. However, becoming one is pretty difficult as it works as an invitation only. Udemy Business instructor is paid monthly.
How Much Does Udemy Cost?
If you are a student or a participant, and you are thinking about joining Udemy, you should know that a course can cost you from $13 to around $200. Yes, that’s per course and there is always a possibility that the price may be higher than the average, especially if the subject is on demand or if it’s highly wanted.
However, if you are familiar with Udemy’s operational mode, you will see that the platform likes to offer generous discounts so they can keep up with the competition. You can make use of the discounts or price cut offers if there is any.
Some of Udemy subscription plans are:
- Personal Plan. This is designed for individuals with a free trial period up to seven days. You will then have to pay $27 per month.
- Team Plan (for Udemy Business). Each user will have to pay $360 a year. It’s charged annually, not monthly.
- Enterprise Plan. This is another plan for Udemy Business. You need to talk to the representative about the price.
Final Words of How Much Does Udemy Pay?
In the end, you can join Udemy either as a participant or an instructor. Be ready to pay if you are a participant and be ready to get paid if you are an instructor. Now that your question about how much does Udemy pay has been answered, you can decide whether to join the bandwagon or not.