Selling online courses is one of those ideas that sounds perfect on paper. You take something you already know, record yourself teaching it, upload it somewhere, and collect passive income forever. The “record it once, sell it forever” pitch isn’t wrong — it’s just dangerously incomplete.
The global e-learning market is projected to exceed $490 billion by 2029. Individual creators are building six- and seven-figure course businesses. These aren’t exaggerations — the ceiling is real. But the floor is also real. Udemy alone hosts over 200,000 courses. The median Udemy instructor earns less than $1,000 total — not monthly, total. Most courses launch to silence because nobody knows they exist.
The difference between courses that generate thousands monthly and courses that generate nothing has almost nothing to do with production quality or teaching ability. It comes down to three things: choosing a topic people will pay for (not just one you know well), having an audience to sell to before you create the course, and understanding that the course is the product but distribution is the actual business.
I’ve spent over 15 years evaluating online income methods. Course selling is a legitimate model with genuinely passive characteristics once built. But the real work happens before the launch — and the most important work isn’t creating content. It’s building the audience who’ll buy it.
First — This Is Important…
Hey, my name is Mark.
Online courses can generate substantial revenue. But course income depends entirely on having an audience to sell to — and building that audience is the real work. The course itself is the easy part.
The model I use generates $500–$1,200/month per digital asset without needing an audience, email list, or launch strategy. Each asset earns recurring revenue independently through search traffic.
Go here to see the exact system I use to do this
Here’s how selling online courses actually works — including the parts most guides skip.
Two Fundamentally Different Models
The platform you choose isn’t a minor detail. It changes every aspect of how the business works.
Model 1: Marketplace (Udemy, Skillshare)
You upload your course to a platform with millions of existing users. The platform handles traffic, payments, and discovery. You create and optimise — they distribute.
Udemy is the largest course marketplace. You set the listed price ($19.99–$199.99), but Udemy runs aggressive site-wide promotions constantly, discounting courses to $9.99–$14.99. Revenue split: you keep 37% of organic sales (when a student finds your course through Udemy) and 97% of sales from your own coupon links. In practice, most Udemy sales come through their discounted promotions, meaning instructors earn $3–$7 per student. The top Udemy instructors have 100,000+ students and earn six figures annually — but reaching that level takes years of consistently high-rated content.
Skillshare pays based on minutes watched, not course purchases. Rate: roughly $0.05–$0.10 per minute watched by Premium members. A 60-minute class watched by 1,000 students generates $3,000–$6,000. Skillshare favours short, skill-focused classes over comprehensive courses.
Marketplace pros: Built-in audience (Udemy has 70M+ learners), no marketing required, fast to launch, zero barrier to entry. Marketplace cons: Very low per-student revenue, no pricing control, you don’t own student emails, intense competition in popular topics.
Model 2: Self-Hosted (Teachable, Thinkific, Kajabi)
You host the course on your own platform, set your price, own the student relationship (including email addresses), and keep the majority of revenue. The trade-off: you drive 100% of traffic yourself.
Teachable: 5% transaction fee on free plan, 0% on paid plans ($39–$199/month). You keep 95–100% minus payment processing. See Teachable review.
Thinkific: Free plan available. Paid plans ($49–$149/month) remove fees. See Thinkific review.
Kajabi: All-in-one platform ($149–$399/month) with built-in email marketing, funnels, website builder, and community. Higher cost but replaces 4–5 separate tools.
Self-hosted pros: Full pricing control ($47–$2,997+), you own the customer relationship, much higher per-student revenue, multiple revenue stream potential. Self-hosted cons: You drive all traffic, requires existing audience or paid ads, higher monthly costs, more setup.
The Revenue Math: What Courses Actually Earn
Udemy at Scale
| Metric | Amount |
|---|---|
| Total students enrolled | 5,000 |
| Avg revenue per student (after discounts + Udemy cut) | $3.50 |
| Total lifetime revenue | $17,500 |
| Timeline to reach 5,000 students | 12–24 months |
| Equivalent monthly (over 18 months) | ~$972/month |
Self-Hosted Premium Launch
| Metric | Amount |
|---|---|
| Course price | $197 |
| Students enrolled (launch week) | 100 |
| Gross revenue | $19,700 |
| Platform + processing fees (~3.5%) | –$690 |
| Net revenue from one launch | $19,010 |
One launch. Repeated 2–4 times/year with the same audience plus new subscribers.
The Critical Variable: Email List Size
| Email List | Conversion (2–5%) | Students/Launch | Revenue at $197 | Revenue at $497 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 500 | 10–25 | 10–25 | $1,970–$4,925 | $4,970–$12,425 |
| 2,000 | 40–100 | 40–100 | $7,880–$19,700 | $19,880–$49,700 |
| 5,000 | 100–250 | 100–250 | $19,700–$49,250 | $49,700–$124,250 |
| 10,000 | 200–500 | 200–500 | $39,400–$98,500 | $99,400–$248,500 |
Your revenue is determined by your audience size multiplied by your price. A mediocre course with a 50,000-person email list outsells a brilliant course with 200 subscribers every time. The audience is the business.
Topics That Actually Sell
The market pays premium prices for skills that solve specific, urgent, career-relevant, or financially valuable problems.
High-Demand Topics
Software and technical skills (Excel, Python, data analysis, web development, cloud computing, cybersecurity), digital marketing (SEO, paid ads, email marketing, social media strategy), business skills (sales, negotiation, project management, financial modelling), creative tools with commercial application (Photoshop, Premiere Pro, Figma, After Effects), career advancement (interviewing, leadership, public speaking), and health/fitness with specific outcomes (not “get fit” but “marathon training for over-40 beginners”).
Topics That Struggle
General academic subjects freely available on YouTube and Coursera, hobby skills without commercial angle, anything too broad (“how to be successful”), and ultra-niche topics where the paying audience is too small to sustain a business.
The sweet spot: A specific skill helping people earn money, advance their career, save time, or solve a measurable problem. “Complete Python for Data Analysis” outsells “Introduction to Programming” because the outcome is clear and valuable.
Creating the Course: What Actually Matters
Content structure beats production quality every time. A well-organised course recorded on a decent webcam with clear audio outperforms a poorly structured course with cinematic production. Students care about outcomes and clarity, not your camera.
Minimum Equipment
A laptop with webcam or smartphone, a USB microphone ($30–$80 — Blue Snowball or Audio-Technica AT2020), screen recording software (OBS is free, Loom has a free tier), editing software (DaVinci Resolve is free and professional-grade), and a quiet room with decent lighting ($25 ring light helps enormously).
Total startup: $30–$150 if you already own a computer.
Course Structure That Converts
Start with the promised transformation (“By the end of this course, you will be able to…”). Break content into modules of 3–7 lessons at 5–15 minutes each. Include exercises after each module. Provide downloadable resources (templates, checklists, worksheets). Keep total length 2–8 hours. Record a compelling introduction that sells the transformation.
Validate Before You Build
Before spending 40–100 hours creating: pre-sell the course at a discount before it exists. Announce your concept. If 20+ people pay in advance, build it. If nobody buys, choose a different topic. This prevents the most painful failure — months of work on a course nobody wants.
Launch Strategy: The Part That Determines Revenue
A course launch isn’t “upload and wait.” It’s a structured marketing event.
Phase 1: Audience building (2–6 months before). Create free content on your course topic — blog posts, YouTube videos, podcast episodes, LinkedIn articles. Build an email list through a lead magnet (free PDF, mini-course, webinar recording) targeting people interested in your topic. This is the foundation. Without it, the launch has no audience.
Phase 2: Pre-launch (2–4 weeks before). Announce the course is coming. Share behind-the-scenes content. Run a free live webinar providing genuine value that naturally leads into the paid course. Open a waitlist with early-bird pricing.
Phase 3: Launch window (5–7 days). Open enrolment with a clear deadline. Send 3–5 emails over the launch period: opening announcement, value/testimonial email, FAQ/objection-handling, deadline reminder, final call. Share social proof — testimonials, results screenshots, video reviews. The deadline creates urgency, the single most important conversion driver.
Phase 4: Evergreen automation (ongoing). After the live launch, set up an automated email sequence. New subscribers receive a nurture sequence over 10–14 days that builds trust and presents the course offer with an individual deadline (using tools like Deadline Funnel). This generates ongoing sales between live launches.
Marketing Channels Ranked by Effectiveness
Not all marketing channels work equally well for course sales. Here’s what actually drives revenue, ranked by effectiveness for course creators.
Tier 1: Highest Conversion
Email marketing is the single most important channel for course sales. Email converts at 2–5% for course offers — dramatically higher than any social media channel. Your email list is the only audience you truly own. Algorithms can’t throttle your reach. Platforms can’t shut down your account. Every piece of content you create should funnel people toward your email list.
Webinars (live and automated) convert at 5–15% of attendees for courses priced $197–$997. A well-structured 60-minute webinar that teaches something valuable, demonstrates your expertise, and presents your course as the logical next step is the highest-converting sales tool in the online education space. Software options: Zoom (free for live), WebinarJam, EverWebinar (for automated replays).
Tier 2: Strong Traffic Drivers
YouTube is the best long-term traffic source for course creators because videos rank in search and continue driving views for years. A YouTube channel teaching free content on your course topic builds trust, demonstrates expertise, and drives email subscribers. Many six-figure course creators built their businesses primarily through YouTube.
Blogging and SEO works similarly — search-optimised articles on your course topic drive organic traffic to your email list over months and years. Slower to build than social media but more durable and higher-intent (people searching for your topic are already interested).
Podcasting builds deep trust through long-form audio content. Podcast listeners tend to be highly engaged and convert well. The limitation: podcast discovery is slower than YouTube or blogging unless you guest on established shows.
Tier 3: Supplementary
Social media (LinkedIn, Twitter/X, Instagram, TikTok) provides visibility and brand building but converts poorly directly to course sales. Social media is best used to drive email subscribers — not to sell courses directly. Posts disappear from feeds within hours; email sits in an inbox until opened.
Paid advertising (Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Google) can scale course sales rapidly but requires significant budget ($5,000–$20,000+ per launch) and expertise in ad targeting, funnel optimisation, and conversion tracking. Paid ads work best for courses priced $497+ because lower-priced courses can’t absorb the customer acquisition cost. Not recommended for beginners.
Affiliate partnerships — recruiting others with relevant audiences to promote your course for a 30–50% commission — can drive significant sales without upfront ad spend. Best approached after your course has proven results and testimonials.
Scaling Beyond One Course
Once one course works, expand by creating tiered courses for the same audience (beginner → intermediate → advanced), building a paid community or membership ($27–$97/month recurring), offering coaching as a premium upsell ($500–$5,000/month per client), creating complementary digital products (templates, tools, guides), licensing your course for corporate training, and bundling courses into all-access packages.
Creators earning $10,000+/month typically have 2–5 courses, a growing email list, an evergreen system running continuously, and at least one higher-ticket offer. See best digital products to sell online and realistic online income expectations.
The AI Disruption: How It’s Changing Course Sales
AI has fundamentally shifted the online course landscape in two directions simultaneously.
The challenge: Free AI tools can now answer most “how-to” questions instantly. Students who once paid $197 for a course on “Excel for Business” can now ask ChatGPT. Information alone has been devalued. If your course is purely informational — a collection of facts and instructions — AI has undercut your price to zero.
The opportunity: What AI can’t replicate is structured transformation, accountability, community, and curated learning paths. Students don’t just want information — they want someone to organize it, sequence it, hold them accountable, and confirm they’re on the right track. A course that takes a student from “I don’t know Python” to “I built my first data dashboard” with exercises, feedback mechanisms, and a support community offers something ChatGPT cannot.
The creators winning in 2026 have shifted from selling information to selling transformation. Their courses include hands-on projects, peer interaction, live Q&A sessions, accountability structures, and certification. They use AI as a teaching tool within their courses rather than competing against it. The ones struggling are the ones who sell recorded lectures that could be replaced by a well-crafted prompt.
This shift also means course pricing is polarizing. Low-priced information courses ($9–$47) are losing ground to free AI alternatives. Premium transformation courses ($297–$2,997) are gaining ground because the value they deliver — structured outcomes, community, accountability — is something technology can’t replicate at any price.
Real Income Tiers: Where Course Creators Actually Land
Based on industry data and what I’ve observed across hundreds of creators over the years, here’s the honest distribution.
| Creator Tier | % of Creators | Monthly Revenue | What They Have |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zero traction | ~60% | $0–$100 | Course exists, no audience, no marketing |
| Side income | ~20% | $100–$1,000 | Marketplace presence or small email list (500–2K) |
| Part-time income | ~12% | $1,000–$5,000 | Established email list (2K–10K), 1–2 courses, some evergreen |
| Full-time income | ~6% | $5,000–$20,000 | Growing brand, 2–5 courses, email list 10K+, community |
| Six-figure+ business | ~2% | $20,000–$100,000+ | Large audience, product ecosystem, coaching/community upsells |
The uncomfortable pattern: 60% of course creators earn virtually nothing because they created a course without building distribution first. The 8% earning $5,000+/month almost universally built their audience for months or years before launching their first paid product.
Platform Comparison Table
| Platform | Type | Monthly Cost | Revenue Share | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Udemy | Marketplace | Free | 37–97% to creator | Beginners, no audience |
| Skillshare | Marketplace | Free | Per-minute royalty | Short skill classes |
| Teachable | Self-hosted | $0–$199/mo | 95–100% to creator | Mid-level creators |
| Thinkific | Self-hosted | $0–$149/mo | 95–100% to creator | Mid-level, communities |
| Kajabi | Self-hosted | $149–$399/mo | 100% to creator | Serious full-time creators |
| LearnWorlds | Self-hosted | $24–$249/mo | 100% to creator | Interactive learning focus |
| Podia | Self-hosted | $39–$89/mo | 100% to creator | Simple all-in-one needs |
| Gumroad | Hybrid | Free + 10% fee | 90% to creator | Digital products + courses |
Choose based on where you are: Udemy if you have no audience. Teachable/Thinkific when you have 1,000+ email subscribers. Kajabi when course revenue justifies the $149+/month cost and you want everything in one platform.
Common Mistakes That Destroy Course Sales
Building before the audience exists. The #1 mistake. Spending 100 hours creating a course then asking “how do I sell this?” is backwards. Build distribution first.
Trying to teach everything. The Expert’s Curse — cramming everything you know into one course. Students want a specific transformation, not an encyclopedia.
Underpricing. A $27 course needs 370 sales to generate $10,000. A $297 course needs 34. Price based on transformation value, not what feels comfortable.
Launching once and quitting. Most creators launch once, see modest results, and conclude it doesn’t work. Successful creators launch 2–4 times/year and build evergreen systems between launches.
Ignoring student outcomes. If students don’t get results, they won’t leave testimonials, refer others, or buy future courses. Outcomes determine long-term business viability.
Who Course Selling Is NOT For
Wrong if you lack genuine expertise in a monetisable topic, won’t invest months building an audience first, expect immediate income after uploading, aren’t comfortable on camera (screen recordings work but personality helps), or want completely hands-off income.
For models not requiring audience building, see online business with no inventory. For model comparison, see best business model for long-term income.
Pros and Cons
Pros: High margins (90%+ self-hosted). Semi-passive after automation setup. Low marginal cost — serving 1,000 students costs the same as 10. Builds authority and personal brand. Multiple revenue streams from one expertise. Price flexibility ($9.99–$2,997). Growing market.
Cons: Revenue depends on audience size. 40–100+ hours upfront to create. Marketplace courses earn low per-student revenue. Audience building takes months. Intense competition in popular topics. Content needs periodic updates. Marketing execution is the real skill.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much can you make selling online courses? Marketplace instructors: $100–$2,000/month with a popular course. Self-hosted creators with audiences: $5,000–$50,000+ per launch. Median creator across all platforms: less than $1,000 total lifetime.
Best platform for beginners? Udemy (they provide traffic, no audience needed). Teachable for self-hosted beginners building an audience. Skillshare for short skill classes.
How long should a course be? 2–8 hours total. Each lesson: 5–15 minutes. Concise and actionable beats long and comprehensive.
Do I need to be a world-class expert? No. You need to know significantly more than your target student and teach a specific transformation clearly.
Can I sell without a following? On Udemy/Skillshare, yes. Self-hosted, practically no. Build the audience first.
How long to see meaningful revenue? Marketplace: 3–12 months for consistent sales. Self-hosted: depends on audience building timeline — most need 4–12 months before a viable launch.
The Bottom Line
Selling online courses is a legitimate business with genuinely passive characteristics. The ceiling is high — creators routinely earn $5,000–$50,000+ per month. But the business isn’t the course. The business is the audience — your email list, content platform, and ability to reach people who trust you enough to buy.
If you have expertise and will invest months building an audience before creating your course, this is a powerful model. If you want income that doesn’t depend on audience building, personal brand, or launch cycles, the model needs to be structurally different.
For recurring revenue from digital assets earning through search traffic — no audience required, no launches, no email lists — here’s the system I use to generate $500–$1,200/month per website.
Mark is the founder of MarksInsights and has spent 15+ years testing online business programs and tools. He focuses on honest, experience-based reviews that help people avoid scams and find real, sustainable ways to make money online.