In this article, we will talk about Udemy, its features, pricing, pros & cons and if it is ultimately worth it.
Just a heads up, our articles may contain affiliate links in order to help cover the costs of running this review site.
What is Udemy?
Udemy (Udemy.com) is an online learning platform with a whopping 185,000+ courses, taught by 42,000 educators, it provides learners around the world with in-depth online courses in a marketplace format.
So, What does Udemy have to offer?
Firstly, Udemy is one of the best choices for casual learners since you can purchase courses that pique your interest as you go.
Additionally, you will retain lifetime access to any courses that you buy. Besides (when applicable) you will get a neat certificate of completion to go along with it.
With thousands upon thousands of courses, it has the biggest and most diverse content library out there.
What do courses at Udemy Consist of?
Courses on Udemy are comprised of modules, video lessons, quizzes, written content, and practice exams. You can preview each course’s material on its main page underneath the Purchase button.
Ease of use
Another thing that makes Udemy stand out, which is clearly due to the sheer size of its audience and instructors, is subtitles, closed captioning, and language variety in the courses offered.
The search filters make it extremely easy to find a course that is either in your native language or has subtitles in it.
Additionally, with Udemy’s mobile app (available in IOS and Android), you are able to download and view courses offline or listen to lectures on the move via podcast mode.
How Much Does Udemy Cost? 💵
Udemy‘s courses range between $12.99 and $199.99, but most courses offer occasional discounts and/or coupons which helps us save a little bit of that 💰
Udemy Plans and Memberships
Individuals 👤
For individual users, the Personal Plan would be best. It costs:
- $29.99 per month, as a monthly membership.
- $199 per year ($16.58/ month), as an annual membership (Save $160)
The Personal Plan Subscription includes a seven-day free trial which will give you unlimited access to 8,000+ expertly picked courses as long as your subscription is ongoing. You can terminate your subscription at any moment and you will have access to the content until the next billing date.
As of writing this article, Udemy’s Personal Plan can only be accessed by individuals in specific regions. You should be able to tell if you have access to the personal plan by clicking here.
If your region doesn’t have access to the personal plan, it will show something similar to this:
Udemy Prices for Business, Teams and Enterprises
For Bussiness 👥
The Udemy Business Team Plan is a subscription meant for organizations with 5 – 20 individuals. From a technical standpoint, this package provides employees with a customizable learning experience where they can enjoy unlimited access to more than 8,300+ top courses. It costs:
- $360 per user (plus applicable taxes) with an annual subscription package.
After purchasing this package, the administrator will have access to a variety of courses and will be able to select specific content for the team to work on. This enables the administrator to tailor the team learning experience, which is advantageous in larger enterprises. If you want to give the Udemy Business Team plan a try, you are able to test it for 14 days and upgrade when you feel like it.
Enterprise 🏢
The Udemy Enterprise is an additional membership level for businesses. This membership enables companies to enroll their staff in various great courses simultaneously, and the membership is typically more cost-effective for firms to enroll their employees at once.
- This plan will require a minimum of 21 members, and the price would depend on after getting in touch with Udemy Support.
This plan includes substantially more features and content than the Standard Bussiness Plan. You would have access to 19,000+ courses (instead of 8,300), you will be able to create and Host proprietary courses, Create learning paths, have mobile app access, and more. Request to try out their demo here!
Udemy’s Refund Policy
- Course Refund Policy: qualified Udemy courses have a 30-day window to request a full or partial refund. Sometimes, refunds may only take place in the form of credits, for example, for any course bought through IOS/ Apple. But, Udemy reserves the right to deny you a refund. Please read Udemy’s refund policy here if you have more questions or inquiries.
- Plans Refund Policy: subscriptions at Udemy have a very strict refund policy. There are few specific countries and regions that are able to request a refund within a specific time period. Please note that Udemy counts the day of sign up as your first day of your trial. The regions that require Udemy to issue a refund by law are:
- Brazil: 7 days
- The European Union (EU): 14 days
- Israel: 7 days
- Quebec (Canada): At any time.
- United Kingdom: 14 days
- South Africa: 7 days
You can read more about Udemy’s Refund Policy Here. Additionally, learn how to create a refund request Here.
Payment Methods 💳
Currently, you are able to pay with Paypal and International Credit and Debit Cards.
Are there any free courses? Is there a free trial period?
Udemy offers about 2,000 free courses and has a seven-day free trial period for the Personal Plan.
However, when the free trial period ends, you will be billed for whatever plan you selected upon sign-up. You may cancel the 7-day trial period and its attached plan at any time without receiving any penalty.
In order to cancel the free trial period, log into your Udemy Account, go to your student profile’s Subscription tab, and select “Cancel trial.”
Course Quality at Udemy
The quality of the courses on Udemy varies as the instructors are either professionals or independent; some can be amazing, and others can be just. . . meh. Make sure to check the reviews of previous students to determine the quality, and how relevant the actual course information is to your personal needs before purchasing it.
With the 30-day money-back guarantee, if a course you bought has poor quality or questionable content, it will be easy to request a refund.
What Accreditation and type of Certificates do I get after completing a Udemy course? 📜
Udemy gives certificates of completion to help you showcase the knowledge you have acquired from completing the course. However, Udemy certificates are not provided for free courses or courses that only consist of practice tests.
It is worth noting that since Udemy is not an accredited institution, all the credentials are ineligible for formal accreditation. Meaning, the certificates have partial validity but can be used to document your knowledge in certain areas or topics.
You may include them in your resume to demonstrate to a potential employer that you have documentation verifying your knowledge of a specific skill and that you are committed to professional development.
Pros and Cons of Udemy
Here’s a list of the advantages and disadvantages of Udemy:
Pros
- Wide variety of courses, from business to web development, to arts and music
- Learn at your own pace
- Courses created by industry professionals
- Great promotional discounts
- Lifetime access for bought courses
- Easy process to become an instructor
- Excellent for corporate training solutions.
- Efficient filtering system
Cons
- Certificates of completion are not considered formal accreditation
- Courses are not transferable to universities/ Credits
- Quizzes and additional course content cannot be downloaded for offline viewing
- Strict to a non-existent plan membership refund.
- Lack of quality monitoring
Udemy’s Popular Courses ⭐️
IT and Software Development
- Python Hacking Course
This course was created by a Data Scientist and a Machine Learning professional. They aim to share their experience and assist you in learning complex theory, algorithms, and coding libraries in a straightforward manner. This course is trusted by over 900,000 students worldwide. This course will guide you through the world of machine learning step by step. With each session, you will learn new abilities and gain a better grasp of this challenging but lucrative topic. This course can be completed by completing either the Python or R tutorials or both – Python and R. Choose the programming language that will help you advance in your career.
Office Productivity
- Microsoft Excel
This Microsoft Excel course incorporates four classes: Master Microsoft Excel Macros and VBA in 6 Simple Projects, Microsoft Excel 101 – An Introduction to Excel, Microsoft Excel 102 – Intermediate Level Excel, and Microsoft Excel 103 – Advanced Level Excel.
As you progress through the four courses, you will learn Excel skills that facilitate daily responsibilities. You will begin with the fundamentals, laying a solid foundation for greater understanding as you progress through intermediate and higher-level topics.
Web Development
- Web Development Bootcamp
With over 60 hours of video content, this course is likely one of the finest for learning full-stack web development. The system has over 600,000 students enrolling and a 4.7 rating score. Around 66% of students have given this course five stars, and you can tell from their comments and reviews that they are happy with the course material. This course is designed for novices to learn web development with no prior experience required. It covers a wide range of topics like CRUD operations, data validation, authorization, and much more.
Digital Marketing
- Complete Digital Marketing Course – 12 Courses in 1
This is an available complete digital marketing course with over 20 hours of training, tests, and practical activities you can take. SEO, social media marketing such as YouTube Marketing, Facebook Marketing, Google Adwords, Google Analytics, and other topics will be covered. The course is highly participatory, with tasks, checklists, and actionable lessons integrated into each session.
Becoming a Udemy Instructor 👨🏫
Becoming an instructor at Udemy is pretty straightforward.
Firstly, you must create an account and click “Teach on Udemy” on the main page. After a short quiz, you will be in the creator dashboard where you can begin course creation!
Before you publish a paid course, you must undergo the instructor identification verification process . And, you must set up a payment method in your account.
Creating a course at Udemy allows you to reach 49 million students from around the world from the comfort of your home. It’s a great way to secure passive income without too much risk.
By using the Marketplace Insight Tool, you are able to research specific topics and see analytics on: how they are performing on the site, the top monthly revenue, and the current median.
Trying out this tool before you start making your course, will definitively facilitate the chances of creating a well-performing course.
Udemy wants to build a long-term relationship with instructors in which they are rewarded for providing great content. You will be a part of a community of thousands of instructors who will offer guidance to help you succeed. In addition, you’ll have access to useful materials produced by learning experts to help you become an online instructor.
How do I make money from being a Udemy Instructor?
When a student pays for their content through a Premium Instructor’s coupon code or referral link, the instructor receives 97% of the income. In order to become a Premium Instructor (which is free), all you have to do is create a paid course, submit your application, and undergo review by Udemy.
You can read more about the process here, but it is a pretty simple and straightforward process.
From regular sales, instructors receive 37% of the revenue for any Udemy sales that do not involve an instructor discount or course referral link. These sales may occur after a user clicks on an Udemy advertisement or searches for courses on the Udemy marketplace.
As an Udemy instructor, you can offer your course for free (if it’s under 2 hours) or at a price that you specify. Additionally, you can opt-in to the Udemy Deals Program where you allow Udemy to set promotional offers on your content to maximize sales.
Please note, that it may take up to 10 business days to opt out of this program. If you want to learn more about the terms and conditions, please read this help article.
Udemy Business instructors are paid depending on learner engagement. This contrasts the Udemy marketplace model, in which teachers are paid depending on course purchases. Each month, 25% of monthly subscription revenue from Udemy Business subscribers is allocated to the teacher revenue pool. Each instructor’s portion of this total equals their portion of the total minutes spent across all Udemy Business courses.
But, Why Udemy?
Udemy is a great online learning platform. Primarily due to its convenience and massive content library with varied content. If the long-term subscription is not for you, you will be able to find an individual course that has valuable information on your topic of interest.
Anyone can become an instructor. Of course, professionals or field experts can be instructors, and this also provides an opportunity for those who are interested in sharing and teaching their interests and skills to learners.
How to know which online learning platform is the best?
With the rise of the demand for hybrid learning, people worldwide will inevitably seek more and more from the e-learning industry. And eventually, everything became quite competitive. From 1000+ courses to 10K+ offered by different universities, it gets a bit confusing to choose which platform is suitable for you.
For starters, you must ask yourself what precisely you want to learn. Every online learning platform offers different strengths. If you wish for an approved and professional credential, Coursera and edX may be far better alternative online platforms for you.
While Udemy offers competitive courses related to business, technology, and marketing, Skillshare is best suited for creative niche courses – like graphic design, Animation, creative writing, etc.
We also have LinkedIn Learning, which focuses mainly on the business, creativity, and technology sectors. The courses are delivered by industry specialists and are offered in about seven languages. LinkedIn Learning provides bite-sized material, practice quizzes, and workout files for interactive learning experiences. Udemy provides students with resource materials such as PDFs, papers, and other things uploaded by the instructor.
Feel free to read our review on Linkedin Learning Here.
So, is Udemy worth it?
If you are buying an individual certified course like a AWS for Cloud Computing or any of their specialized courses that companies contract Udemy to provide, then yes it is worth it.
You can easily find a PDF with all of the courses offered to business and enterprises in the Udemy Business Website, under Resources> Our Products, and boom! You have found a list of the best courses that provide the best value to you and have been quality checked (one of the main cons listed above). These courses are basically the Crème de la crème of their collections and there are 17,000 of them as of writing this article.
Regardless, when it comes to their Personal Plan, it is debatable given that you don’t get access to the entirety of the content’s library, besides its very tough refund policy.
Let’s not forget that you can give it a try by taking one of their free courses, and you can keep an eye out for the occasional sales with very generous discounts.
Hear Real-Life Stories about Udemy from Udemy Case Studies
“Udemy responds to the needs of the business in an agile and global manner. It’s truly the best solution for our employees and their careers”.
Luz Santillana Romero, Development and Engagement Director
“We chose Udemy Business for its breadth of tech content, Learning Paths, and custom courses,” says Gonzalo. “Besides its scale, Udemy Business is extremely adaptable — this was an amazing surprise.”
Gonzalo Roca, Operations Manager.
“We don’t sell physical products — our people, skills, and retained knowledge drive our revenue. Our L&D team in Ukraine has inspired the rest of the company to use knowledge for growth and accelerate opportunities. And Udemy Business has given us the right tools and flexibility to make this happen. The time to market is incomparable to any other platform”
Christian Haahr Sigsgaard, Global Learning & Development Director.
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