Pros & Cons
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- Generally, high-quality courses for learning hard and soft professional skills
- Has some free classes
- Clear resources for instructors
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- Some courses aren't well vetted
- Questionable marketing of course pricing
- Courses might be duplicated elsewhere for free
Udemy Specs
| Some Courses Free | |
| User Created Classes |
Udemy is an online learning service that sells video courses for personal and professional development. Think management training, software tutorials, and so forth. You can pay for Udemy courses individually or access the whole catalog with a subscription. Although Udemy is a good place for self-paced, non-degree learning, it's hard to compete against all the excellent free content you can find online. Aside from what you can find on YouTube, Editors' Choice winner Khan Academy has excellent free video lessons for academic learning, particularly in math and finance. We also recommend MasterClass, another Editors' Choice winner that offers more compelling and original educational videos you won't find anywhere else.
How Much Does Udemy Cost?
Udemy has a few classes that you can take for free, but most require a fee. Note: Expect to see inflated prices that are then deeply discounted or slashed in a "limited time promotion" that never seems to end.
If you pay per class, prices range from less than $20 to more than $150. You will almost never pay the price that's shown. For example, a class listed at $159.99 is discounted to $27.99. Another lists at $139.99 but really sells for $22.99. Anchoring the consumer to a high price point and making them think they're getting a deal is an unwelcome gimmick.
Subscription prices suffer the same fate. A Personal Plan costs $35 per month, unless it's marked down to $29.75 per month, or $14 per month. However, the latter is billed annually, so it's actually $168—unless you find another deal that slashes the price to $142.50 per year. What's the value of a subscription? You can access more classes, certification prep resources, and "AI-powered coding exercises."
(Credit: Udemy/PCMag)A Team Plan for businesses costs $360 per person per year, which is at least clear and straightforward. It comes with all the subscription perks plus the ability for an administrator to see data about which classes account users are taking and how much time they spend learning.
Udemy also offers an Enterprise Plan for groups of 20 people or more, as well as a specialized Leadership Academy subscription for groups of 25 or more. Both have custom pricing, and you must contact the company for a quote.
We're not surprised by the chaotic pricing, as we've seen similar trends with other learning sites, such as Coursera. One outlier is MasterClass, whose base price has come down to a flat $120 per year. MasterClass, at least, has interesting and entertaining videos that you cannot find for free on YouTube. The site has recently veered toward becoming a more skills-based educational platform. Although it's still not directly comparable to Udemy, MasterClass is a service we highly recommend.
What Can You Learn at Udemy?
The professional development and software courses are strikingly similar to LinkedIn Learning's overall style. Everything's very professional, and the materials are presented clearly. You're mostly watching a talking head and occasionally reading bullet points or summaries that appear on screen. In our experience, Udemy instructors tend to have a more relaxed style. The LinkedIn Learning speakers appear to have had only one take to read from a prompter. The content is good, but LinkedIn Learning ultimately feels very corporate and stuffy (unless you revisit the videos that originated on Lynda.com, which LinkedIn acquired; the Lynda classes were always excellent).
Udemy's software classes are what you would expect from any good tutorial. They show the program most of the time, zoom in close to provide more detail when needed, and, when they're very good, show the instructor's face at the beginning before the teacher becomes a voice-over.
(Credit: Udemy/PCMag)If you dig, you can find weak content and self-serving instructors. Udemy isn't immune to poor teaching or wacky topics. One class I found purports to teach the healing power of crystal therapy, but it is instead one long infomercial for the instructor's jewelry business. However, the overwhelming majority of courses are of good quality or better. Student ratings and reviews sometimes help you decide whether a class will be any good, although even the worst courses seem to earn three stars or better.
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In our business test account, we did not find some of the more far-fetched courses, such as pet CPR or how to fly a helicopter, let alone anything leading to a "diploma" in crystal healing. It's good that the business accounts seem to have some filters.
The Learner's Perspective
Whether you buy classes individually or have a subscription, you must create a Udemy account. As you enroll in courses, the classes are saved to a dashboard where you can view your learning progress.
In looking for new classes, you can read a detailed course description, including the duration time, number of assets the instructor gives you, whether you receive a certificate upon completion, and so forth.
(Credit: Udemy/PCMag)Videos are the backbone of every course. They can be lecture-style or tutorial-based. Whatever the case, videos typically last no more than about 10 minutes each, and they're grouped into sections. A course could be three hours long, but no video will be more than 10 minutes.
This format helps instructors make sure their courses have a clear structure. Instructors must break their content into specific, digestible pieces. The result is that students can see the overall scope of the course in advance. It also makes it easy for you to pause and take a break from a course when needed, as a break is never more than nine or ten minutes away. Short videos also let learners easily repeat something they didn't understand (or want to refresh). Do you already have some experience with the subject matter? You can skip videos that cover what you know.
Udemy's video player gives you speed controls, closed captioning, volume controls, resolution options, and a quick button to rewind or fast forward five seconds at a time. Some of the videos have not only closed captioning for the native languages, but also subtitles in other languages. You can also turn on a complete transcript and have it auto-scroll while you watch or listen.
The Instructor's Perspective
Udemy welcomes instructors who want to make courses and sell them on the platform. Compared with other sites that host learning content, Udemy has exceptional resources for teachers, including a list of in-demand topics that it updates regularly. Anyone can become an instructor on Udemy. The same is true for Skillshare and Teachable. We haven't closely compared Udemy's platform from the instructor perspective with other platforms where teachers host their lessons, but what's here is comprehensive.
(Credit: Udemy/PCMag)In getting started as an instructor, Udemy provides excellent resources to help you make a good course. It provides not only tips and instructions, but data regarding what kinds of courses learners seek based on keyword and topic searches, called Marketplace Insights. The site also informs you whether the number of courses currently available aligns with demand and provides statistics about the earning potential of your subject.
Instructors' earnings from Udemy depend on the number of people who have bought or watched their courses and how the learners found the course. The math isn't complex, but multiple factors are involved.