When it comes to online courses there are two main platforms that I publish on to generate most of my revenue: Teachable and Udemy.
Now, I have always preferred Teachable over Udemy (and I still do), but I’ve been warming up to Udemy (again) for the past month or so now.
At the beginning of the year, I went back and looked at my Udemy numbers when I started doing my taxes.
At that time, I had published 3 courses and one course was generating the bulk of my sales (70%+).
Overall, my course income had been about $70 – $150 per month over the past ~18 months and I hadn’t published anything new to my Udemy profile for over a year.
I was very surprised with that because it means the income was 100% passive, my favorite kind!
So I did some more research and published a few new courses on Udemy since then.
And I’m happy with the results. I’ve more than doubled my income over the past few months to over $300 per month (again, all 100% passive).
As a result, I’ve warmed up to Udemy a lot more.
I used to think Udemy had no place and was primarily a low level market place to pump bad courses.
However, I realize now that it CAN be a great source of passive income if you pick the right niches and publish consistently.
My goal is to try to get to $500 per month income in the short term.
So this post will be all about comparing Teachable and Udemy!
High Level Breakdown
Here’s the high level breakdown of Teachable.
Teachable has a much higher income potential than Udemy, but you have to do A LOT work.
And you need a solid marketing plan.
Teachable is doesn’t do any of the marketing for your online course.
So unless you build a solid marketing plan and business around your course it’ll never sell.
In contrast, Udemy is more of a market place for low priced courses (most sell for under $15 bucks).
You don’t really need to promote or market your course on Udemy because they do that for you.
Udemy gets a bunch of organic traffic to their marketplace.
Further, they will even spend money on advertising (primarily Facebook ads) for your online course.
Teachable Pros
Alright, so I wanted to go over some of my favorite things about Teachable first.
And FYI, I think there are a lot of great things about Teachable. – And it’s still my favorite online course platform.
Let’s start off with the most obvious benefit…
1. Much higher income potential
The biggest benefit of Teachable over Udemy is that the income potential is MUCH higher.
With Udemy, most courses are priced under $15 bucks and Udemy will be taking a 50%+ share of that sales price depending on if any advertising or affiliates are involved.
Also, if affiliates are involved, you could only be taking home 25% of the sales price.
Sure, you can opt out of the low level pricing, but your course will almost never sell.
Udemy is designed as an online market place for low priced courses – and that’s who their main customers are.
As a result, if you want to sell a premium course, you should host it on Teachable instead.
Under Teachable, you can price your course at whatever level you want. ..even $1 Billion Dollars (cue Dr. Evil voice).
2. Ability to be paid daily
If you are in the U.S. you can quality for Teachable payments. Basically, this allows you to get paid on a daily basis for every sale instead of at the end of every month.
Getting paid daily is super helpful if you depend primarily on your course for income, especially if you are a digital nomad.
In fact, I’m not aware of any other course platforms that allow you to get paid daily like Teachable.
Udemy, Skillshare, and most of the other big platforms all pay instructors every 30 days.
3. Much More Control
With Teachable, you have a ton of control over your course, including the domain name.
Also, when it comes to Udemy, you are restricted from contacting students through a variety of ways.
But with Teachable, you can get a lot more information about your students (or potential students), including the ability to email them directly.
This is super important if you want to engage in email marketing with your students.
Teachable Cons
Okay…while there are a lot of great things about Teachable, here are some of the things I don’t love about it…
1. Transaction fees
One of the worst things about teachable is the transaction fees – but that’s just the cost of doing business.
In the last month, I paid around $300 bucks in transaction fees. Depending on which plan you have under Teachable, transaction fees could be as high as 10% per sale!
2. No Marketing Support
As I mentioned before, when it comes to teachable you will get no marketing support from the platform.
Teachable is more like a hosting site, NOT an online marketplace like Udemy.
As a result, you NEED to drive traffic to your course through your website, social media, YouTube page, and other sources.
If you can’t drive traffic, you won’t get any sales, simple as that.
Udemy Pros
Alright, let’s switch gears to Udemy. Like I said I didn’t have too high of an opinion of the platform just a few months ago.
But now my tune has changed. And here’s why!
1. Can “Launch & Forget” Courses
One of the great aspects about Udemy is the ability to generate 100% passive income.
You can truly just publish a course and then forget about it for years to come. Take my top selling course on Udemy for example.
I published it in late 2017 and over the past two years, it has consistently generated $50+ per month! And I haven’t promoted or added anything to the course over that time period.
Pretty cool, right?
If you target underserved niches on Udemy, you’ll be able to generate passive income like that too.
And this is one reason why I’ve focused a lot more of my efforts on Udemy over the past few months.
2. Very High Organic Traffic
As I mentioned, Udemy gets a ton of traffic to their website.
And they help you out by advertising your courses on platforms like Google and Facebook.
As a result, you really don’t need a marketing plan at all.
All you need to do is focus on producing great courses ins elect niches. Udemy will take care of the rest.
Udemy Cons
Udemy is pretty cool and all, but here are a few things I don’t love about the platform…
1. Paid Monthly
Udemy only pays instructors on a monthly basis and they pay through paypal.
I know Paypal isn’t available for everyone, so that can be a big turnoff for a lot of instructors.
2. Lack Of Student Information
Udemy controls much of the information about the students. You don’t get their email addresses at all. As a result, you can’t engage in email marketing.
And email marketing is what has made me so much money with my Teachable courses.
3. Can’t do affiliate marketing
One thing that sucks about Udemy is you can’t include affiliate links in your course. Now, I do not recommend spamming affiliate links in your course.
However, sometimes in my Teachable courses, I talk about products/services that I personally use that may be able to help students.
And if they sign up for those services, I’ll get a cut of that income. But that’s not possible through Udemy.
4. Lower income potential
Finally, the income potential is much lower on Udemy. Udemy focuses their efforts primarily on low priced courses.
And they take a big chunk of your course sales (50%+). As a result, your income potential on Udemy will almost always be lower than Teachable
Teachable vs. Udemy Income: Final Thoughts
Overall, I think Teachable is still the superior platform for making money with online courses.
Teachable is better when it comes to:
- Income potential
- Instructor control (of both the course and student information)
- and the flexibility of payout options
However, Teachable is not great if you don’t have a good marketing plan to drive traffic.
If you aren’t willing to build a great marketing plan, advertise your course, or build a website around your course, Udemy is the better option.
Udemy is perfect if you just want to create one-off small courses to make passive income every month.
No, it won’t make you rich, but you can create those courses and then forget about them while collecting a check every single month.
Readers, what are your thoughts about Teachable and Udemy? Are your income observations the same as mine?
Let me know in the comments!