X Creative Ways to Make Money with Udemy: Your Ultimate Guide

By 2025, the e-learning industry will be worth $325 billion, and between 2022–2027, the annual compound growth rate will be 14.22 percent.

So, there’s never been a better time for work-from-home income seekers than right now, and you’re right to explore Udemy for e-learning opportunities.

It’s a top website with millions of students worldwide interested in various topics including business, technology, design, and personal development.

This represents a huge money-making potential, which is why we’ve curated four creative strategies to help you tap into this market. As we delve into each idea, you’ll learn:

Your possible rates from selling courses on Udemy
How developing course materials generates income on Udemy
How to become a Udemy affiliate and your possible rates
Why Udemy is also a platform for business growth
The best place to find training on remote work opportunities

But first, what is Udemy?

An Overview of Udemy

Udemy is a platform that allows individuals, businesses, and educational institutions to offer online courses.

It was launched in 2010, and since then, it’s become the go-to platform for online learning and a huge opportunity for freelancers to access its vast global network of students and enterprise customers.

Whether you’re selling a course, partnering with instructors on the platform, or offering complementary products to the learners, you’re sure to find a ready market and a source of income from the comfort of your home.

This is what makes Udemy so revolutionary. It’s also why we’re excited at Small Revolution to equip you with the entrepreneurial mindset and hard skills that make freelancers successful.

Our comprehensive courses cover critical aspects such as the anatomy of winning a resume and marketing yourself with SEO articles.

Enroll today and learn the necessary skills to thrive on Udemy and other freelance platforms.

1 – Create and Sell Online Courses

Creating and selling a course is the most common way to make money on Udemy. The platform features a revenue-sharing model that allows you to earn a percentage of net course sales.

Currently, the rate is 37% of net course sales without referral links and coupons from the instructor. A typical example of this is if users click on an advert to access your course or sign up after browsing the Udemy marketplace for courses.

However, if students purchased your course through referral links and instructor coupons, the rate is an exciting 97% of net sales.

Signing up as an instructor on Udemy costs you zero dollars. All you need to do is create your course, upload it to the website, publish it, and watch as the passive income streams in.

That said, here’s a step-by-step guide on how to access Udemy’s online teaching opportunities:

Identify a topic – First, identify a subject that you’re knowledgeable and passionate about. This helps you create comprehensive and compelling content.
Research – Study the demand for courses in that topic and analyze competitors’ offerings. This will help you discover marketable niches to focus on.
Plan and structure – Organize your course according to Udemy’s templates and guidelines to make it easy to digest. This encourages course completion and generates positive reviews for increased signups.
Create high-quality video content – Record your video content using a top-quality camera and microphone. This boosts the learning experience for better reviews and signups.
Edit and upload – Edit your videos using software like Adobe Premiere or iMovie and upload them to Udemy.
Set a price – Set a price for your course while considering that Udemy takes a commission from the sales.
Market your course – Use social media platforms, email marketing, or paid advertising campaigns to promote your course.

Another advantage of creating and selling a course on Udemy is that it helps you establish yourself as an expert in your field. The website has 62 million students from over 190 countries, including over 13,400 enterprise customers.

This is enough to build a solid reputation in your field, which leads to more earning and skill-building opportunities through industry meetups and guest invites.

With our SEO Article Masterclass, you’ll learn how to build your professional reputation and brand with useful and easy-to-digest content that’s optimized for search engine algorithms such as Google and Bing.

This will not only drive up course purchases but also pave the way for opportunities with well-established businesses and industry professionals via partnerships.

2 – Develop Course Material for Other Udemy Instructors

Udemy allows coursework co-development. It’s an excellent way to add expertise and fresh perspective to the course, which enhances users’ learning experience and boosts enrollment.

Co-development also enables instructors who’d otherwise be too busy to keep their content constantly updated and relevant, especially for dynamic topics with evolving data.

Under this collaborative agreement, you get to split the revenue with the instructor you’re developing the course material for. This typically entails earning a percentage of the sales, which Udemy supports with a revenue report that indicates your share.

That said, this support doesn’t represent a contractual relationship with Udemy. The arrangement is strictly between you and the instructor you’re working with. Therefore, it’s better to collaborate with an instructor you know and trust to ensure a successful working relationship.

For new partnerships, reviews are powerful resources to help you identify ideal instructors to work with on Udemy.

Positive feedback from students and a high rating tells you more about an instructor’s professionalism and cooperativeness, which are crucial indicators of a solid working relationship.

3 – Become a Udemy Affiliate

Apart from creating and selling courses on Udemy, it’s possible to make money by promoting the site’s courses as an affiliate.

Udemy has a robust affiliate program that allows users to earn commissions whenever they refer students to the site.

As an affiliate, you receive a unique referral link to share with potential students. Every time a student clicks through your link and purchases a course on Udemy, you earn a commission.

The current base rate is 10% of affiliate sales with an increase based on performance. So, for instance, if a student purchases a Udemy course through your referral link, you earn a commission on all those courses.

Requirements to Join the Udemy Affiliate Program

The prerequisites for becoming a Udemy affiliate are pretty straightforward. All you need is a website, blog, or social media page that’s up and running to be considered.

With any of the above options ready, the following factors come into consideration:

List of followers – Your website or blog needs at least 500 unique monthly visits every three months. Your social media page needs a minimum of 500 followers.
Consistent traffic – Your content needs to generate consistent traffic to demonstrate your potential for affiliate marketing.
Matching audience – Your audience must be suitable for the numerous courses available on Udemy in terms of demographics and interests.
Brand alignment – Your brand must be in line with Udemy’s mission to improve lives through learning, which reflects in your type of content.

Another critical consideration for a potential Udemy affiliate is your promotional methods. Udemy restricts common strategies such as paid ads, which include Facebook Ads, Twitter Ads, Facebook Boost Post, and Google Ads.

This compels you to demonstrate your ability to drive traffic and generate conversions using organic promotional methods. These include search engine optimization, social media engagement, email marketing, and blogging.

At Small Revolution, we offer a comprehensive course on blogging that harnesses the power of OpenAI’s Chat GPT to breathe life into your blogs and stand out in a crowded online space.

The course guides you through ideation, drafting, editing, and SEO optimization using AI, all while maintaining your unique voice.

4 – Leverage Udemy for Business Growth

Udemy is not only a platform for selling courses but a powerful tool for growing your business. Here are some creative income ideas to leverage Udemy for business growth:

Repurpose your content – Turn your course materials into promotional tools that generate revenue and fuel your business growth. For example, e-books and podcasts for sale on other online learning platforms.

Publishing on Udemy simply grants a hosting license for the website while you retain full rights to your content and the ability to advertise on other platforms.

Use Udemy as a marketing tool – Utilize its global presence to build brand recognition and credibility, which leads to greater opportunities such as partnerships with well-established businesses and professionals.

Udemy is currently active in over 180 countries with over 13,400 enterprise customers from various industries. This is an excellent community to engage with via discussion forums and offer valuable insights that boost your brand visibility.

Upsell your services – Use your content on Udemy as a platform to upsell additional services, for instance, one-on-one coaching and advanced coursework.

This enables you to maximize your revenue potential by offering custom digital education solutions for your learners.

Partner with other course creators – Find other instructors on Udemy who complement your business and work together to create joint courses.

This can help expand your reach and bring in new customers who may not have otherwise found your business.

Use Udemy for market research – Explore Udemy’s marketplace and identify potential niches to include in your existing business strategy.

This entails going over enrollment numbers for various related sub-topics and course categories and creating a product or service around them.

Prepare for Home-Based Work Options With Small Revolution

So, there you have it, four creative ways to make money with Udemy, but your opportunities don’t end there.

There are plenty of remote work options available today, including freelance writing gigs, and we at Small Revolution are eager to help.

We’ll guide you through developing an entrepreneurial mindset to strategically pursue these opportunities and sharpen your hard skills to help you stand out from other candidates.

Our courses cover eCommerce copywriting, SEO article writing skills, and blogging with ChatGPT.