HEDLINE: Udemy’s Online Course Millionaires

21 months have gone by since our last report on how much top course creators on the online learning platform can make. That definitely qualifies for an update as Udemy shared new data on its course creator earnings.

At the time of our first post, Udemy’s Top 10 course creators had earned a combined $5 million with the top person having made $450k over the course of two years.

While back then these numbers were a strong confirmation that learning online literally pays if you are a top instructor, I think they also showed that learners were willing to give up-and-coming startups, like Udemy, a chance instead of only putting their money with established players in the field, like Lynda.com for instance.

Today we already think of it as normal or an established business that learners choose online courses to acquire new skills and are willing to pay for them, and people can make a nice living creating such courses.

Let’s take a look at the evolution of Udemy. Not only has the startup added some senior executives last year along with raising more money as well as heavily invested in their marketing efforts. They have also expanded into offering part of the course catalogue in seven local languages and opened a first overseas office in Dublin, Ireland. All of it should translate into making the platform and its creators more money, shouldn’t it? It does.

The first Udemy instructors have become millionaires teaching via the platform with the Top 10 Udemy instructors earning a combined $17 million and individual earnings ranging between $500,000 and $8 million.

The top three Udemy instructors are currently

• Web Development - Rob Percival Earnings: $2.8 million Students: 120,000
• Web Development - Victor Bastos Earnings: $900,000 Students: 52,000
• Personal Development - Alun Hill Earnings: $650,000 Students: 47,000

Once more, work skills for the knowledge and tech economy make the top of the list. It also shows that talented instructors are not a nine day wonder. Victor Bastos who comes in on second place teaches on Udemy since 2011 and made top of the earners list in 2013. Since then he doubled his earnings.

Udemy states to have 12,000 instructors and 5 million students on its platform. The US-based startup raised $48 million to date with a $32 million Series C in May 2014 to ramp up its international expansion.

Further Reading

• Sharing Economy Millionaires: Top Udemy Instructors Continue to Crack Major Earnings Threshold | PR Newswire