Udemy Costs: What Are Your Options?

If you have considered Udemy, you may still not be clear about how its pricing works and what exactly is included. As well as paid courses, Udemy also offers a decent selection of free courses, but what’s the real difference between its paid and free courses?

In this detailed Udemy pricing guide, I’ll do my best to explain how much Udemy costs and what you are really getting for your money.

What Is Udemy: An Overview

Udemy is the largest online learning platforms, offering over 213,000+ courses across 13 main categories and dozens of subcategories from Business, Design, Health & Fitness and much more. Its courses are affordably priced, and the focus is on learners gaining a new skill or developing an existing one. All courses are designed, so you can learn at your own pace and fit it around your schedule. Once you successfully complete an Udemy course, you’ll gain a certificate, be mindful that this isn’t an accredited certificate, it’s just an acknowledgment of completion. A great way to get started is by checking out the 500+ free courses Udemy has to offer.

Udemy Costs Overview

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 just over 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.

Browse free Udemy 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.

> Check out all of Udemy’s free courses here

Udemy Paid Courses

Udemy’s paid individual courses are reasonably priced somewhere between $12.99 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.

Udemy’s Discounted Courses

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.

> Check out all of Udemy’s paid courses here

Udemy Personal Plan

If you prefer to subscribe to a subscription plan over paying for an individual course, then the Personal Plan is your answer. The Personal Plan subscription will give you access to a collection of 8,000+ top-rated courses in tech, business and much more. A 7-day free trial is included when you first sign up for the subscription, and it’s billed monthly or annually, and you can cancel at anytime.

Udemy’s Personal Plan

> Check out Udemy’s Personal Plan here

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 6,000+ 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

Udemy for Business Enterprise and Team Plans

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.

> You can contact the Sales team here for more information

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

If you aren’t satisfied with your purchased course at Udemy, you are entitled to a refund within 30 days of purchasing. The easiest way to request a refund is through your web browser. All you need to do is navigate to your purchase history, locate the course you wish to refund and click Request Refund (see image below).

Udemy Request Refund

Then you will select Refund method (see image below) where you can choose to have the refund to your original payment method, or you can choose to receive Udemy credits instead.

Before clicking Submit, you just need to select a Refund reason and a brief description as to why you are requesting one.

Udemy Refund method

Then, after your refund request has been submitted, you will be sent an email confirming it has been processed. It usually takes 5-10 business days for the refund to appear in your account.

Udemy Alternatives

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 a subscription model, then Skillshare could be the answer. This elearning platform is aimed at creatives and entrepreneurs with access to over 35,000 courses on its paid subscription plan.

Skillshare is an alternative to Udemy

Be aware that Skillshare doesn’t issue completion certificates, but some of its courses are created by top industry professionals and big companies like MailChimp, Google or Moz.

Read Skillshare Review

Visit Skillshare.com

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 180+ classes across a wide range of exciting categories from Food, Design & Style, Science & Tech, Sports & Gaming and more.

MasterClass is an alternative to Udemy for its subscription plan

It works on a subscription model that is billed annually with monthly installment plans available. It has new classes added every month and you can download and watch its classes offline.

Read MasterClass Review

Visit MasterClass.com

Coursera

If it is important for you to receive an accredited certificate on course completion, then Coursera may be a good option as it partners with secondary educational institutions like Stanford, The Imperial College of London or Duke University.

Coursera is an alternative to Udemy for its accredited certificates

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 elearning 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).

More information

Visit Coursera.com

Udemy Costs: 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

Please leave a comment below if you have any questions, and I’ll do my best to help you out.

Article Updates:

08/17/23 – Udemy Personal Plan Updated

07/17/23 – Udemy Personal Plan

06/22/23 – What is Udemy? An Overview

05/09/23 – Udemy Costs: FAQ

03/27/23 – Udemy Pros & Cons

03/08/23 – Udemy Costs Overview

10/22/21 – Leadership Development Programs

Catherine Cooke

Hey. I am Catherine and I have been working as a freelancer for many years now. In 2005, I graduated from a BA honours in Art & Design from BCU and then went onto complete a Master’s Degree in Teaching from UEL. The skills I gained from learning and teaching have led me to create Upskillwise, a place for learners like myself to find the best possible resources and courses to train and upskill themselves, either personally or professionally. If you have a question, please feel free to ask me anything or leave me a comment.