How to Create a Website like Udemy?

E-learning platforms like Udemy and Coursera have transformed the education space. In fact, these powerhouses have defined the “new normal” — online learning.

The e-learning market is expected to grow at 14% CAGR from 2022 to 2032. What has spurred the growth of such e-learning platforms? The comfort of learning from anywhere! Besides, the rising costs of traditional education and the increasing skills gap in the job market have led to their exponential growth. Are you an entrepreneur learning

how to create a website like Udemy?

Then, the e-learning business is a lucrative avenue. Both entrepreneurs and tutors can monetize their skills and earn passive income. All you need is research, meticulous planning and the right developmental approach. But can you create a website like Udemy to compete with the giants?

Fortunately, this blog expounds on Udemy’s business model and steps to build such a phenomenal marketplace. So, let’s learn the ropes of trade and get into business!

Udemy — One of the Best Online Learning Platform

Before understanding Udemy’s business model, let’s understand how the platform entered the domain. Udemy is an online learning and teaching marketplace that was launched in 2010. The founders, Eren Bali and Oktay Calgar, established the platform to develop courses for students and professionals.

The Secret Success Factors for Udemy’s Growth

Udemy’s courses cover diverse domains, from accounting to the much sought-after artificial intelligence. Over the years, the platform has obtained $373 million in funding, accelerating its growth.

So, what makes Udemy stand out in its realm?

Here are a few magic ingredients that contribute to Udemy’s growth:

• Accessibility: Online learning platforms like Udemy have extended the learning experience beyond the walls of the classroom. Anyone can enroll for any course from any part of the world!
• Diverse Course Catalog: It offers access to a broad selection of courses with new additions every month. Its online courses span across 13 distinct categories.
• Course-creation Toolkit: With easy and accessible course-creation tools, creating free or premium courses is like a breeze.
• Skill-based and Practical Training: The courses emphasize a skill-based and practical approach rather than a theoretical one.
• Competitive Pricing Model: All the courses follow individual course pricing within the range of $12.99 to $199.99. Additionally, the business plans for a corporate team of 5 to 20 people start from $30 per user.
• Standardized Rating System: Users can evaluate the tutors and course materials with a credible rating system.
• Competent Instructors: High-quality instructors and course material build trust among the learners.

Source: Udemy

How Udemy Works?: Business Model Explained

Consider it as an Amazon or eBay for online learning space. It is the one-stop shop for learning a new skill or a concept online. Like the top e-commerce players, it leverages the marketplace model, where tutors sell their courses at a fixed price.

So, does Udemy follow any unique strategy?

Most importantly, Udemy allows anyone to create a course on the platform. So, here, even a learner can become an instructor or vice-versa. All you need is some engaging content and passion to “transform lives through online learning”!

Udemy tries to sell multiple courses to new students, categorized across different levels and interests. While other platforms sell a given course for a higher price or tag the courses with a subscription fee, Udemy offers a variety of courses for learners to choose from.

Moreover, the platform doesn’t own the courses offered by the tutors. Instead, it acts as a mediator, just like Uber and Lyft, bridging the two sections of the marketplace.

Interesting, right?

Additionally, the instructors decide the prices themselves. And the platform derives a commission over these prices for hosting the courses on the platform.

Let’s break down the business model from the perspective of two key stakeholders:

For Learners (B2C perspective)

Udemy’s primary target audience is professionals and students who want to upskill themselves with on-demand market skills. So, how can they get started?

Anyone can register on Udemy and create a basic profile. Learners can browse different course categories, from software, finance to personal development. Depending on their interest, they can purchase a course with “add to cart” or “buy now.”

Udemy’s value proposition is learning for anyone from anywhere and anytime. So, once you have the course, you can complete it at your convenience!

For Instructors (B2B perspective)

Do you own a craft or a skill? Then, you can pretty much earn from your skills on Udemy. Yes, you heard it right! All you need to get started is a simple sign-up! You can choose a promising topic that aligns with your interest using Udemy’s Marketplace Insights tool.

Udemy offers support to instructors through integrated course-building tools. Furthermore, the platform offers insights into the courses with a sizable market demand. Just create your curriculum, record a video and launch your course!

Now that we are done with the business model let’s understand how Udemy uses it to make money.

How do Platforms like Udemy Make Money?

As an entrepreneur, eventually, everything comes down to the dollars you earn.

So, let’s break down Udemy’s revenue model!

Initially, Udemy started as an open-source platform where it didn’t charge its learners. When the platform attracted a decent audience, it explored different monetization strategies.

Source: Classcentral

Udemy’s revenue model includes two important paradigms: consumer-facing platform (B2C) and enterprise-facing platform (B2B).

Over the years, Udemy has tried and tested the following revenue strategies:

1. Pay-per-course: Unlike its competitors, Udemy follows a pay-per-course model. This is serious business and Udemy’s most significant revenue stream. Tutors charge a fixed amount for their courses and earn a decent revenue after the platform deducts commission.

According to Glassdoor, the Udemy’s average instructor salary is over $60,200/year

Let’s understand Udemy’s comprehensive revenue sharing or commission model.

If a learner purchases the course through:

a.) Paid acquisitions like Google or Facebook (25% to instructors and 75% to Udemy)

b.) Directly from Udemy platform without coupons or referrals (50% to instructors and 50% to admin)

c.) Instruction’s coupon or referral link (97% to instructors and 3% to admin)

2. Monthly/Yearly Subscription: A Udemy Pro subscription is a monthly or yearly personal subscription plan with access to diverse course topics.

3. Corporate eLearning: Apart from the in-demand courses, “Udemy for Business” is the platform’s segment for organizations. Customized learning paths, analytics, and progress tracking are the subscription’s features.

Udemy Business Plan — Source: Udemy

4. Cohort learning: Udemy’s Cohort leadership development programs span across diverse leadership levels. And the subscription prices depend on the cohort’s volume and functionality.

5-Step Guide on How to Create a Website Like Udemy

Creating a platform like Udemy requires careful planning and much research. Let’s break the entire process into actionable steps!

Given below are the significant steps on how to create a website like Udemy:

Step 1: Decide a Niche

Although business boils down to numbers in your company’s profit statement, the profits won’t help you to thrive in the market. You need a main sail to lead your ship! So, decide your niche.

It is the first and one of the essential steps to creating your platform. In fact, it is a make-or-break decision!

Whether you plan to make a full-time career or just earn some passive income along the way, consider a profitable niche with high market demand!

This ensures that you won’t fall off the track from your objectives!

You could start an online tutoring business, a language learning platform, or a course marketplace business like Udemy. Haven’t found your niche yet?

For starters, here’s a checklist to take the final call:

• Evaluate your skills and interests
• Spot your area of expertise
• Perform market research
• Identify the target audience
• Perform competitor analysis
• Brainstorm your ideas

Further , we have listed a few business ideas as well:

• Online Language Learning platform like Verbling
• Online Fitness Coaching Business like HealthifyMe
• Online Growth and Development platform like Master Mind Flow.

Step 2: Choose a Business Model

How far can your business go without a strategy? That’s where a business plan helps. For instance, you cannot construct a building without a detailed architectural plan.

Likewise, a business model is the heart of your e-learning platform. It provides a basic framework to conceptualize your business idea. Choose a model that aligns with your platform goals and audience.

Source: Mindk

Here are a few business models to establish an e-learning platform:

Pay-per-course model

This is a significant business model adopted by most critical players in the e-learning domain. Instructors create courses and price them at a fixed rate, and the learners pay for every course they purchase. It is as simple as that!

Further, the amount goes to the platform, from which a fixed commission percentage is deducted, and the remaining proceeds go to the tutor. Thus, the model is scalable and also easy to monetize!

Although initially you can begin with a few courses, you can diversify your courses as you proceed. Another vital advantage of this model is — upselling. Bundle all the similar classes and courses in the same category and sell them at premium prices. So, either way, it’s a win-win situation!

E.g., Udemy, Coursera, edX

Subscription-based model

If you want a recurring revenue stream monthly or yearly, the subscription-based model fits your bill. Here, the learners can access all the course content on the platform at a fixed subscription price. This subscription could be monthly or yearly.

Learners can gain knowledge on multiple domains rather than limiting themselves to their niche. Besides, tracking a few subscription packages is easier than hundreds of courses on the platform.

E.g., Skillshare, Coursera

Freemium Business Model

As the name suggests, the freemium business model combines “free” and “premium” business models. Here, the introductory course and features are delivered for free, but the advanced/ premium courses are offered at a premium price.

So, how do the freebies help? The freebies establish trust and build a long-term relationship with the learners.

Corporate eLearning

With new technologies being introduced every other day, organizations are responsible for filling the existing skills gap. And corporate e-learning is an effective way to train employees. Platforms can offer skill-specific training programs, employee onboarding courses with assessments, etc. This is a profitable business as companies would be ready to spend a significant sum on training their employees!

E.g., Udemy For Business

Free Course Business Model

Let’s explore the two types of free course business model:

Ad-based

Like blogs and websites, e-learning platforms can also benefit from ads. All you need to know are the right places to embed your ads! The possible places that could instantly attract learner’s attention and strike you a deal. For instance, you can place ads close to content the user is interested in or also within course materials like videos, PDFs, etc.

E.g., Academic Earth

Donation-based

You can even run your e-learning platform entirely on donations! If you have won a sizable audience in the market with your value content, you can rely on donations. Users who acknowledge your platform’s mission, values and find your course content valuable will contribute voluntarily.

E.g., Khan Academy, Coursera Campus program (provides free access to learners in universities)

Step 3: Finalize the Platform’s Core and Advanced Functionalities

Now is the time to decide what your platform would offer.

Do you want your platform to provide 1-to-1 live classes or self-based courses? Do you want to vouch for multi-language translation or extensive filtering? The options are endless. But the decision is yours!

Of course, in any platform, there are two types of features:

• The core or MVP features that make the platform functional
• The additional features that give it an edge over others

Let’s explore the essential features that help your platform to run seamlessly!

Admin Dashboard

Here are the essential features of the admin dashboard:

Quick Analytics

Provides a detailed analysis of your platform, entailing the total no. of tutors, total students registered, total courses, appointments, commission, and pending refund requests.

Payment Management

The admin can approve the course refund request and tutor payout request.

Comprehensive Tutor Listing

It entails a complete tutor listing including name, email ID, approval status, rating, activated/deactivated status, and featured listing. You can also find a tutor through extensive search filters.

Complete Student Listing

It offers a sneak view of the total number of students on the platform with their name, email, active status, and profile creation date. Further, you could even search for a student using the above details and even delete their profile if needed.

Appointments Management

This helps to keep track of all the appointments made on the platform along with the tutor’s name, user name, enrollment type, payment status, time, etc.

Earnings Report

It provides a breakdown of the platform earnings, listing the tutor and admin earnings section, commission percentage, the payment request amount.

Tutor Dashboard

Here are the essential features of the tutor dashboard:

Profile Customization

Tutors can update his profile and make it more appealing to learners.

Group Class Management

Whether it is a free or paid group class, tutors can update slots and inform their availability.

Course Management

Create a new course with the basic information, pricing details, topics, resources.

Class Bookings

Tutors can get to know the learners enrolled in their group and one-to-one classes.

Request Payouts

Tutors can request payouts once the course is completed.

Earnings Dashboard

It provides a complete breakdown of the tutor earnings including the approved and pending amounts.

User Dashboard

Here are the essential features of the user dashboard:

Profile Management

Users can update their profile and also include their course completion certificates.

Browse and Purchase Courses

Search courses using filters like grades, course category, subjects, price, etc.

Transaction Management

Provides a list of all the transactions made by the user along with course type.

Lesson Management

Provides a complete list of all the paid and free lessons purchased by the user.

Refund Request

Users can check if their refund request is approved by the admin.

Step 4: Select a Technology Stack

Now comes the time to execute your plans! That said, there comes an important question that intrigues entrepreneurs. Which technology must you choose?

Choose a technology stack that is robust and scalable enough. On top of that, it should be able to handle large amounts of traffic and data.

Let’s understand the common technologies used to create a website like Udemy.

Step 5: Build Your Website

Now that you have your niche, zeroed in your business model, identified the platform’s core functionalities, and are sorted with the technology stack. It’s time to prepare your launchpad!

Do you want to make a website like Udemy from scratch? Or customize an existing ready-made script?

Whichever approach you choose, ensure you take into account your platform’s functionalities and budget in view. How is the cost calculated?

You need to do a simple math: consider the hours required to develop functionality; the more hours, the greater the cost. Apart from that, the tech stack and the developmental company also decide the cost.

Building a platform like Udemy costs $76,500 and $103,000 approximately, based on the stated factors.

Here are the prominent development approaches to build your website:

Build Your Website From Scratch

Creating your website from scratch provides more room for customization. But, accept it or not, it sure is rocket science! You need to have a technical team and push your deliverables a few months ahead. And this is not always possible.

Speaking about the cost, building a fully-fledged e-learning platform from the basics costs approximately $100,000. And this includes web design customization, QA testing, and project management.

Here’s a detailed region-wise breakdown of the development cost:

Use software-as-source (SaaS) platforms

SaaS products are less expensive, and you don’t have to code it from the basics. Moreover, they are ready-made e-learning solutions hosted on the cloud server. But, there’s a trade-off! It limits the freedom to choose a hosting server or domain. Simply put, you won’t own your software.

Besides, SaaS platforms don’t provide the source code and are not scalable enough for massive business models like Udemy.

Saas platforms like Thinkific charge a recurring fee monthly or yearly to launch your online learning business. And platforms like Gumroad deploy a shared revenue model and charge a 10% flat fee from every sale.

Customizable ready-made scripts

Now, let me spill the beans over the most effective of all approaches — ready-made scripts. Here, you experience the best of both worlds.

What is a ready-made script? It is a replica or clone script of a popular platform with a similar concept. And the platform could be either website, marketplace, LMS, etc.

Once you have a ready-made script like Pinlearn you have a base model to build the website. This base model is called Minimum Viable Product (MVP).

Make a few tweaks and customizations wherever needed and you are good to go!

In contrast, building a website from scratch requires twice the effort and at least 10 times the price of the white label solution. So, now you know which option works best for you!

Step 7: Launch Your Website (Checklist for launching a website)

Once you have designed and built your website, the final act is launching your website. It involves putting together what you have done in your previous steps.

Before launching your website, make sure all the functionalities are operational. Of course, you don’t want your website to face glitches in the final step.

So, what’s the final launch all about?

Here are a few other pointers to successfully launch your website:

• Pricing your online course considering your course type, duration, and efforts
• Choose a secure payment gateway like Stripe
• Lock in your domain with your website
• Ensure that the website content is in place
• Link all the popular social media networks with the site
• Re-check your CTAs and ensure the right message is conveyed
• Test your website’s functionalities across all browser types
• Make sure your website is responsive across all the devices

Step 8: Market & Promote Your Website

Finally, your website is live. But your work doesn’t end here! Make your website known and lead your audience to your creation.

In simple words, market and promote your website.

Let’s shed some light on the common strategies for website promotions!

• Search Engine Optimization: 53.3% of website traffic comes from organic search. Integrate keywords, optimize headings, add alt text to images so that your website is discoverable by search engines.
• Guest blogging: Collaborate with a guest blogger in the industry and expand your target audience. Apart from that, you can become a guest blogger yourself and promote your website.
• Social media Marketing: Social media is here to stay. So, harness its target audience and build brand awareness. Create compelling content, collaborate with influencers, and promote your products and services on popular social media networks.
• Email Marketing: Create engaging newsletters with direct content and effective CTAs to generate leads.
• Udemy’s Unique Promotional Strategy: Udemy follows a “fixed price promotion.” How is it different from conventional marketing strategies? The platform sells the majority of its courses more or less in the same price range. For example, an 18-hour course on Adobe Premiere is priced at $13.99, while a 1-hour course is also sold at the same price.

“The devil is in the details”! So, try exploring out-of-the-box promotional strategies that help you stay ahead in the race!

Source: sfi

How can Pinlearn Help to Create a Platform like Udemy?

Pinlearn is a ready-made script that helps develop and launch e-learning platforms effortlessly.

Here’s how Pinlearn can help to build a website like Udemy:

1-to-1 Live Streaming

With live video-conferencing and real-time interactive features, tutors can exchange knowledge through the personalized live sessions. The software comes with an integrated Zoom SDK interactive whiteboard which simulates a virtual learning experience.

Create and Sell Courses

Tutors can curate, upload and sell in-demand courses through Pinlearn’s course management software.

Diverse Course Types

Pinlearn leverages a marketplace model that offers 1-on-1 live streaming, group webinars, and self-paced courses to choose from.

Comprehensive Tutor Dashboard & Analytics

A smart GUI-based dashboard enables easy course creation and student management.

Multiple Monetisation Channels

Admin can diversify their monetization channels by exploring different e-learning business models.

Multi-Language Support

Translate your website in any language and offer courses in regional locales to connect with your audience better.

Self-hosted & White Label Solution

Gain 100% authority to choose hosting and domain servers and brand your website the way you want.

The Bottom line

Udemy is an exemplary in the e-learning space. Its unique business model and marketing strategy stands the test of time. In the meantime, the e-learning marketplace model is not confined to a specific industry. From education and corporate learning to leadership and personal development and beyond, the model stays significant to all!

Although developing a website like Udemy is challenging, a ready-made script like Pinlearn offers a basic foundation. That said, you can skip the groundwork and focus on the customizations you require.

This blog provides a comprehensive guide to create a website like Udemy. All you need to brainstorm is the right business model, the core and advanced functionalities, and, of course, your target audience!

So, get in touch with the experts to embark on a learning experience and redefine the benchmarks of the e-learning industry!

FAQs on How to Create a Website like Udemy?

1. How do I build a site like Udemy?

You can either build a website like Udemy from scratch, use SaaS products, or ready-made scripts.

2. How long does it take to build a platform like Udemy?

It might take several months to build a full-fledged website like Udemy. Hence, it is better to use turnkey solutions that have the core functionalities in place.

3. How much does it cost to build a website like Udemy?

It costs anywhere between $70,000 to $105,000 to build a website like Udemy.