Udemy Pricing: How Much Does It Cost?

If you’re considering a career change, flexible jobs, or remote work from home, Udemy might be on your radar. With options ranging from free Udemy courses to heavily discounted paid ones, it’s not always clear what you’re getting. How do free courses stack up against paid ones, and are there better Udemy alternatives?

In this concise Udemy pricing guide, I’ll break down the costs, discounts, and value to help you decide if it’s the right platform for your goals. Let’s dive in!

To ensure this article on Udemy’s pricing is both informative and useful, I’ve extensively researched Udemy’s pricing structure, refund policy, discounts, and how its costs compare to other online learning platforms. Additionally, my Master’s degree in Teaching and Education, combined with years of experience exploring online learning platforms, has enabled me to craft this comprehensive pricing guide.

Catherine CookeUpskillwise Advisor

Table Summary Of Udemy Pricing

To sum up Udemy costs, you’ve got the option to buy an individual course $9.99 – $199.99 USD or if you prefer a subscription plan, then you can choose its Personal Plan for $20.00 USD per month. A 7-day free trial is included. All of Udemy’s individual plans come with a 30-day refund guarantee in case you change your mind. Plans are also available for teams and businesses starting at $360 USD

Is Udemy Free?

Udemy made quite a significant change to its free courses as of April 2020. The platform used to offer thousands of free courses. Currently, you can find close to 500 courses for free on its platform. You may be thinking, darn, I missed out on a bunch of free courses. Well, that is true, but have you considered that quantity doesn’t always mean quality. This is just one of the reasons that Udemy made the change to its free courses, so that learners can really appreciate the value between free and paid courses.

Udemy’s new free courses are more limited than its paid courses, which makes sense, especially when you are trying to differentiate between free and paid courses. The new free courses must be no more than 2 hours of video content, and their option to direct message and QA with the teacher and other students is not available anymore. The objective of the free experience is to get a taste of the topic and the instructor before deciding on whether you want to commit to a paid course or not.

Udemy Paid Courses

Udemy’s paid individual courses are reasonably priced somewhere between $9.99 to $199.99 USD. It often runs promotions on its courses offering heavy discounts on its courses (see image below). If you want to be the first to be alerted about its course discounts, you can subscribe to its promotion emails to be notified. The only prerequisite regarding discounted courses is that the price cannot be any lower than $12.99 USD.

Some may think that the slashing of its prices is maybe a marketing strategy to encourage you to buy the course. But whichever way you look at it, you are still getting an absolute bargain.

What’s included in an Udemy Paid Course?

You may still be asking yourself; What’s actually included with a paid Udemy course? Let me highlight below what you actually get when you splash the cash.

• Certificate of completion
• 30-day money-back guarantee
• Access to course via the Udemy app
• Lifetime access to the course material
• Learn at your own pace

Who decides the Cost of Udemy’s Courses?

As the instructor is the curator of Udemy’s Courses, it is their responsibility to determine the price of the course. Both the instructor and Udemy can offer discounts on courses at anytime.

Instructors can choose to participate in the Udemy Deals Program. This means that Udemy will use data to optimize your course discounting in different currencies. It isn’t always guaranteed that all courses are included in Udemy’s promotions, as a number of elements like course topic, enrollment, rating, reviews are considered before it is considered for inclusion in the deal.

Udemy Personal Plan

If you’d rather subscribe than pay per course, Udemy’s Personal Plan gives you unlimited access to 12,000+ top-rated courses—including certification prep and AI-powered coding exercises.

It comes with a 7-day free trial, is billed monthly or annually, and you can cancel anytime. Perfect if you love learning at your own pace and want the freedom to explore a wide range of topics without the commitment of buying each course.

Udemy for Business

Udemy doesn’t only offer individual courses, it also has Udemy for Business. Udemy for Business focuses on upskilling and empowering your remote workforce to learn what they need and when they need it.

Its 24,000+ course collection are chosen by the content team, ensuring they are of the highest quality for businesses. The process for choosing the courses can be based on Course reviews and ratings, Number of enrollments, Instructor reputation and more. As well as that, the content team keeps an eye on the market, ensuring new courses are added weekly so that new skills and demands are up-to-date.

Udemy for Business Plans
Each of the plans that Udemy for Business offers are to meet the needs of all organizations, no matter the size.

• Enterprise Plan: (21 or more users) = Contact sales for customized pricing
• Team Plan: (5 – 20 users) = $360 USD/ user/ year (plus applicable taxes)
• Leadership Development Programs: (Open & Private Programs) = Contact sales

International Collection

Udemy for Business doesn’t only offer courses in English. Its courses are for global employees with content available in French, German, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese and Japanese.

The international content is taught by subject-matter experts in their native language in courses ranging from IT, web development, soft skills, business marketing and design.

Accepted Payment Methods & Currencies

You can purchase an Udemy course using most major international a credit or debit cards like Visa, MasterCard, American Express, JCB and Discover.

Other payment methods may include the following (this does depend on your device, location and what country you have your Udemy account in).

Boleto Bancario: in addition to our other payment methods, Brazilian students can purchase Udemy courses using a Boleto Bancario.

Cash Payments and Bank Transfers may be an option for students in several Latin American nations, as well as some countries in Europe and Asia.

PayPal is a supported method of payment for Udemy courses in most countries.

Udemy Refunds

Let me be totally honest—when I first requested a refund from Udemy, I expected it to be a hassle. But to my surprise, the whole process was super straightforward and stress-free.

If you’re not satisfied with a course you’ve bought, Udemy offers a 30-day refund policy. And the best part? You can do it all in just a few clicks from your web browser.

I simply logged into my account, headed over to my Purchase History, found the course I wanted to refund, and clicked Request Refund.

From there, I was prompted to choose my refund method—either back to my original payment method or as Udemy credits, which is handy if you think you’ll try another course later.

Before hitting Submit, I just had to select a reason and add a quick note explaining why I wanted a refund. Nothing lengthy or complicated.

After I submitted the request, I received a confirmation email almost instantly letting me know that my refund was being processed. For me, the money showed up in my account about a week later—but Udemy mentions it can take 5 to 10 business days.

Udemy Cost Comparison

I wanted to compare Udemy’s Costs and all things cost related alongside other online learning platforms. I thought that way we can easily see how it compares to its competitors.

As you can see from the table above, Udemy is the only platform that offers the option to purchase individual courses, as well as a subscription plan that can be paid both annually and monthly. Alongside that, a free trial is available and a generous refund policy. If one or more of these cost factors are important to you, it’s worth considering all of this before choosing an online learning platform.

Udemy Alternatives

Skillshare

Best For Creative Courses

4.5

Read review Visit Skillshare

MasterClass

Learn From VIP Instructors

4.7

Read review Visit MasterClass

Coursera

Accredited Certificates

4.8

Read review Visit Coursera

Hopefully, now you have a clearer picture of how Udemy’s cost and pricing works. That could have left you feeling unsure about the platform whether it’s right for you. If that is the case, I have together some alternative platforms for you to consider.

Skillshare: If you prefer a platform that offers an annual subscription plan and a generous free trial, then Skillshare could be the answer. This e-learning platform is aimed at creatives and entrepreneurs with access to 35,000+ classes. In case you’re looking for a completion certificate, be mindful that Skillshare doesn’t offer this, but some of its courses are created by top industry professionals and big companies like MailChimp, Google or Moz.

MasterClass: If you like the idea of your course being taught by a celebrity, then MasterClass has you covered. This online platform is currently offering 185+ classes across a wide range of exciting categories from Food, Design & Style, Science & Tech, Sports & Gaming and more. It offers 3 different subscription plans that are all billed annually, starting with the Individual for $120 USD. If you change your mind, MasterClass offers a generous 30-day refund policy. New classes are added every month, and you can download and watch its classes offline with the MasterClass app.

Coursera: If it is important for you to receive an accredited certificate on course completion, then Coursera may be the right option as it partners with Universities and Companies like Stanford, The Imperial College of London, Google and IBM. You can join most Coursera courses for free, however, if you are looking to get a certificate, you will need to pay for the course (or program). There are different types of learning programs available: individual courses (start at $49 USD), Specializations (start at $49 USD), Coursera Plus Subscription ($59 USD/month or $399 USD/year) and complete degrees (starting at $9,000 USD).

Udemy pricing: Last Thoughts

As we sum up this detailed cost and pricing guide for Udemy, you should have a comprehensive understanding of how it all works. Let me briefly summarize below;

If you only want to commit to an individual course, that is reasonably priced and with the possibility of it being discounted, then Udemy has you covered. It has a course catalog of 213,000+ courses on pretty much any topic you desire (within reason). Its courses are constantly being added to and updated by its instructors.

Udemy for Business offers three different plans depending on the size of your team. For smaller businesses, the Team Plan would be ideal for 5 – 20 users, costing $360 USD/ user/ year. For larger organizations, the Enterprise Plan is for 21 or more users, and you would need to contact sales for a customized price. Finally, the Leadership Development Programs offer a couple of options for 5 or more seats or 50 or more seats. For this, you will need to contact sales for a quote.

Lastly, if you do decide that your purchased course isn’t for you, you are entitled to a 30-day money-back guarantee. The refund request is really straightforward to do, and you can expect the money to be back in your account with in 5-10 business days. I’ve highlighted below Udemy’s Pros and Cons, so you can see easily see the platform’s strengths and weaknesses, if you want to read in more detail you can check out our Udemy Review Article.

Udemy’s Pros

Udemy’s Cons

Udemy Pricing: FAQs