How to Sell Online Courses: Teachable vs. Udemy vs. Gumroad
Online courses are the highest-margin digital product you can sell. Create once, sell infinitely, with no inventory or shipping. But choosing the right platform determines whether you keep 90% of revenue or 50%. Here is the complete guide.
The Three Platform Types
1. Hosted Course Platforms (Teachable, Thinkific, Kajabi) You get a full course website with your branding. Students enroll through your site. You control pricing, marketing, and student data.
Pros: Full control, higher revenue share, professional appearance, built-in marketing tools. Cons: You drive all traffic, monthly fees ($39-159/month), technical setup required.
2. Course Marketplaces (Udemy, Skillshare) Your course is listed on a platform with millions of students. The platform handles payment and some marketing.
Pros: Built-in audience, lower barrier to entry, no monthly fees, some organic traffic. Cons: Low revenue share (Udemy pays $2-10 per sale), no control over pricing, high competition, no student data ownership.
3. Simple Digital Product Sales (Gumroad, Payhip) Sell courses as digital downloads or simple video files. Less features but maximum simplicity.
Pros: Low fees (5-10%), simple setup, no monthly fees. Cons: No course-specific features (progress tracking, quizzes, certificates), limited student management.
Teachable: The Best All-Around Choice
For most course creators, Teachable is the best starting point. Here is why:
Revenue share:
- Free plan: $1 + 10% per transaction
- Pro plan ($59/month): No transaction fees (you keep 95%+ after processing)
- Business plan ($249/month): No transaction fees + advanced features
Key features:
- Drag-and-drop course builder
- Video hosting (no need for separate Vimeo/Wistia accounts)
- Student progress tracking
- Quizzes and assignments
- Completion certificates
- Affiliate program (let others sell your course)
- Email marketing integration
- Sales pages and checkout (no separate landing page tool needed)
- Coupons and upsells
What Teachable does well: Everything you need to sell a course is included. You do not need separate tools for video hosting, payment processing, landing pages, or email marketing. This simplicity is worth the monthly fee.
Where Teachable falls short:
- Limited community features (no forums or discussion boards in lower tiers)
- No built-in email marketing automation (integrations only)
- Design customization is limited compared to WordPress solutions
- You do not own the platform — if Teachable changes policies, your business is affected
Udemy: The Marketplace Play
Udemy has 60+ million students. Listing your course there gives you instant access to a massive audience. But the economics are fundamentally different.
How Udemy pays:
- Organic sales (student finds your course on Udemy): You keep 37% of the sale price
- Promoted sales (Udemy runs a discount): Revenue share varies, often $2-10 per sale regardless of listed price
- Instructor coupon sales (you share a discount code): You keep 97% of the discounted price
Most Udemy courses sell for $10-20 during frequent sales (even if listed at $99). A course with 1,000 students at $10/sale earns about $3,700 after Udemy's cut.
When to use Udemy:
- You have no existing audience and want to reach students quickly
- You want to test course demand before investing in a hosted platform
- You are building brand awareness (students who like your Udemy course may buy premium offerings elsewhere)
When NOT to use Udemy:
- You have an existing audience (email list, social media following) — sell directly and keep more revenue
- Your course is premium-priced ($200+) — Udemy's discount culture undermines premium pricing
- You want to build a sustainable course business — marketplace dependency is risky
Strategy: Use both. Put a basic version of your course on Udemy for discovery. Sell the premium version with bonuses, community, and support on Teachable. Use Udemy as a lead generation tool.
Skillshare: The Subscription Model
Skillshare operates differently. Students pay a subscription ($14/month or $99/year) for unlimited access to all courses. Instructors are paid based on minutes watched.
How Skillshare pays:
- Payment is based on watch time, not course price
- Average earnings: $0.05-0.15 per minute watched
- A 30-minute course watched by 1,000 students earns approximately $1,500-4,500
- Top teachers earn $3,000-10,000/month
When to use Skillshare:
- Your content is short-form (30-60 minute classes)
- You teach creative or practical skills (design, photography, writing, productivity)
- You want passive income from watch-time royalties
Skillshare works best as one revenue stream among several, not as your sole platform.
How to Choose Your Platform
You have no audience yet: Start with Udemy (free to publish, built-in students). Simultaneously build your own audience through content marketing. Once you have 500+ email subscribers, move to Teachable.
You have an audience (blog, YouTube, social media): Go directly to Teachable or Thinkific. You already have students — do not give away 60% of your revenue to a marketplace.
You want maximum simplicity: Use Gumroad. Upload your videos and PDFs, set a price, share the link. Gumroad takes 10% + $0.30 per sale. No monthly fees. Perfect for testing course ideas.
You need advanced features (community, certifications, memberships): Consider Kajabi ($149/month) or Mighty Networks. These are all-in-one platforms for serious course businesses.
How to Create a Course That Sells
1. Validate demand before building. Before creating any content, check that people want to learn your topic:
- Search the topic on Udemy — are existing courses popular (1,000+ students)?
- Check YouTube — are there tutorial videos with high view counts?
- Survey your audience — ask what they want to learn
- Presell — offer the course for sale before creating it (the ultimate validation)
2. Define a clear transformation. Your course should take students from point A to point B. "From beginner to confident Python programmer." "From no design skills to creating professional logos in Canva." The transformation sells; the content delivers.
3. Structure for completion. The biggest problem with online courses is low completion rates (10-20% on average). Combat this with:
- Short lessons (5-15 minutes each)
- Clear modules with specific outcomes
- Action items after each lesson
- Progress tracking and accountability
- A manageable total length (2-6 hours for most courses)
4. Price for value, not for cost. Your course price should reflect the transformation it provides, not the hours of content. A course that helps someone earn $1,000/month is worth $200-500, even if it only has 4 hours of video.
Common pricing tiers:
- Introductory course: $27-97
- Comprehensive course: $147-297
- Premium course with support: $397-997
5. Include bonuses that increase value.
- Templates and worksheets
- Private community access
- Live Q&A sessions
- Personal feedback/review
- Lifetime updates
- Additional mini-courses
Marketing Your Course
Before launch:
- Build an email list (offer a free mini-course as lead magnet)
- Share valuable content on social media
- Create a waitlist with early-bird pricing
Launch:
- Email your list with a clear, time-limited offer
- Host a free webinar that leads to the course
- Offer launch-week bonuses or discounts
Ongoing:
- Create content (blog, YouTube, podcast) that attracts students
- Run evergreen email sequences for new subscribers
- Collect and showcase student testimonials
- Offer affiliate commissions to partners
Realistic Income Expectations
- First-time course, small audience (under 1,000 email subscribers): 10-50 sales in the first month ($500-5,000)
- Established creator (5,000+ subscribers): 100-500 sales per launch ($5,000-25,000)
- Top course creators (50,000+ audience): $50,000-500,000+ per launch
Courses are not passive income — they require ongoing marketing and updates. But with the right platform, pricing, and marketing strategy, they are one of the most profitable online business models available.