Selling Courses Online in 2025 A Teachable and Udemy Comparison

Teachable and Udemy Key Differences

The primary distinction between these two platforms rests on their core function: Teachable operates as an online course platform empowering you to distribute online courses directly from your personalized website.

It equips you with tools to construct a website, house your content, organize a course curriculum, foster learner interaction, develop compelling sales pages, handle payment processing, operate your affiliate network, and more.

Conversely, Udemy functions as an extensive online marketplace that permits you to list and offer your courses for sale. When you publish a course on Udemy, it’s integrated into their vast catalog and becomes available for purchase through their platform.

While Teachable supplies the essential infrastructure needed to sell your educational offerings, it doesn’t undertake the marketing efforts. You bear the complete responsibility for promoting and advertising your courses.

The main benefit of utilizing a platform like Teachable is the absolute authority it provides over every element involved in creating and commercializing online courses, making it an ideal foundation for managing a focused online course business.

To utilize its services, Teachable implements a monthly subscription charge. For plans at the lower tiers, an additional modest per-transaction fee is also applied.

Regarding Udemy, it not only furnishes the necessary infrastructure for hosting your course materials but also actively markets them to its established user base.

Udemy necessitates that you allocate a significant portion (67%) of your course revenue back to the platform, which represents a substantial share. Furthermore, it imposes various limitations and controls concerning pricing strategies, promotional activities, accessibility to student information, and related areas.

From my own perspective, Udemy is certainly a commendable platform; it was the very place I earned my initial income as a course instructor. Its user-friendliness facilitated a swift start, and crucially, it provided assistance in promoting my courses.

Nevertheless, I harbor reservations about relying on marketplaces as the exclusive approach for selling online courses. Allow me to illustrate this point with a couple of examples.

Udemy adjusted the revenue share allocated to instructors on its platform downward from 70% to 50% back in 2013, and subsequently from 50% to 37% in 2021. Interestingly, the initial revenue share arrangement offered was actually 90%.

Consider the position of a seller active on Udemy during such transitions; their earnings would have diminished by a notable percentage, with no recourse available to them.

Furthermore, in 2016, the platform decided to impose a price ceiling on Udemy courses, restricting them to the $20 to $50 range. This policy change significantly impacted numerous instructors, myself included, yet the decision remained beyond our influence.

It was at this juncture that I fully grasped the significance of cultivating my own email subscriber base, establishing my unique audience, and operating my independent business. Consequently, I opted to transition to Teachable and establish my dedicated online school.

Potential Downsides of Relying Exclusively on Udemy

Here are several distinct reasons why, in my view, concentrating solely on Udemy (or similar marketplaces) for course sales might be disadvantageous:

• The primary limitation of selling through Udemy is the absence of autonomy. You lack governance over its operational policies, course pricing structures, methods of student communication, and other critical aspects. Essentially, your control on Udemy is confined mostly to selecting the course topic you wish to develop.
• Utilizing Udemy means you neither build your own brand recognition nor cultivate your proprietary email list. The platform promotes its own brand, and it is their subscriber list that expands. Therefore, should circumstances prevent you from selling on Udemy, your business activities and income stream could cease entirely.
• The Udemy environment has largely devolved into a competitive landscape where prices are driven lower, with the majority of courses retailing between $5 and $10. Consequently, your actual earnings often amount to only $2 to $4 per course enrollment. Such pricing levels make achieving a sustainable full-time income exceptionally challenging for most instructors.
• Although Udemy boasts a substantial audience for specific popular fields like Technology and Personal Development, its user concentration is significantly smaller across many other niche subjects.
• Presently, Udemy faces intense competition. The era when simply uploading a course guaranteed incoming sales has passed. Now, substantial personal marketing initiatives are required before observing any meaningful progress on the platform.

We explore this topic further in our comprehensive Udemy review. This analysis is essential reading if you are contemplating selling courses via Udemy.

Teachable vs Udemy Comparative Conclusion

So, does Udemy present a valuable opportunity for course creators? The answer varies depending on circumstances.

My recommendation is to consider exploring Udemy primarily if your subject matter falls within one of its highly frequented niches. The platform possesses a vast user base in these areas, which you potentially can capitalize on.

However, it’s advisable to treat Udemy as merely one component of your overall sales strategy for your course business. It can also serve effectively for generating prospective leads and validating new course concepts.

Otherwise, the recommended path involves cultivating your own audience and leveraging a dedicated hosted online course creation platform to establish your course website and begin selling directly from the outset.

If you wish to evaluate the Teachable platform, you can initiate a complimentary trial period by clicking the button provided below.