I Built a Udemy Course in 50 Hours — Here's Exactly What I Earned

Intro

Picture spring 2020, at the height of the Covid-19 lockdown. The streets were empty, patrolled by police, and the atmosphere was heavy.

My employee gave us free Fridays for a month, for a "mental health", but at the same time it was prohibited to go outside. That was my entrepreneurship trigger - what can I do over a span of 2-3 weekends to earn some extra income?

Udemy course idea came naturally - I love to e-learn myself, and I don't mind tutoring. Plus, I was in the phase of life that I just mastered a quite modern technology that was on the rise - BigQuery (it's like a no-maintenance database, that can sink enormous amounts of data). That was a match.

To keep myself on track, I set two rules:

1. "Perfect is the enemy of good." I had never edited videos before, my audio setup was just a laptop mic, and my spoken English wasn't perfect. But my goal wasn't perfection— I wanted to focus on my honest intent of passing knowledge to other geeks.
2. Real ROI. That meant:
   1. No more than three long weekends of work.
   2. No new equipment purchases.

In the end, I spent about five full days (roughly 50 hours total, including tweaks later on). No money invested—just time.

The question is: was it worth it?

Udemy's Revenue Share Model

Before looking at my numbers, it's worth understanding how Udemy splits revenue with instructors.

Instructor-driven sales

If you bring the student yourself - through a referral link or your own marketing - you keep 97% of the revenue.

Technically, on the Udemy platform, in the instructors' UI, one can acquire a URL to the course with a referral code like this:

For example, if you share your unique link on social media, and someone buys through it, almost the entire payment goes to you.

Udemy-driven sales

If you, as an instructor, stay passive on the marketing front, all the sales, however, come through Udemy's own marketplace traffic or ads. Here's how the split works:

Before May 3rd 2021

• 50% share for organic marketplace sales.
• 25% share for sales driven by Udemy's paid ads.

After May 3rd 2021

Udemy simplified this into a "blended" model: instructors now get a flat 37% of non-referral sales.

That means if a student pays $10, the instructor typically sees $3.70.

Why does Udemy get away with this?

Because their SEO is powerful. Every course page is designed to rank in Google, and Udemy as a platform has strong domain authority. Students searching for skills like "BigQuery course" are very likely to land on Udemy.

But here's the key question: what if an instructor could build their own SEO content, and capture that traffic directly? That's exactly where tools like Modality.Ink come in—helping instructors turn their course material into Google-rankable blog posts, so they can keep closer to the 97% share instead of settling for 37%.

Earnings analysis

Pricing

On Udemy, instructors can set their own course price. But most enrollments go through Udemy's famous "Deals Program," where the platform constantly adjusts prices to create urgency and boost conversions.

I opted into this program with a mid-tier price range, meaning students typically saw my course listed anywhere between $10 and $40.

Reach

In total, 1,442 students enrolled. For me, that number was the most rewarding part—knowing that over a thousand people were interested in learning what I had to share.

Revenue

That's my Revenue Report as seen in Udemy UI:

$3.4k - not bad for 5 days of work, circa $680 a day ($85/h) - not bad indeed!

Over time, I lost interest in keeping the course up to date, which led to its value and original traction being lost (shame on me; I actually regret that!).

I didn't do any promotion, except of first 5 courses that were bought by people from my social network, but that's marginal.

With 1,442 students, on average, that left me with just $2.36 per student—despite the list price being anywhere from $10 to $40.

How much did Udemy earn?

Let's break it down.

Before May 2021

From Udemy organic traffic

From Udemy ad program

After May 2021 (blended 37% share)

Grand Total

So, while I earned $3.4k, Udemy pocketed $5.6k—1.6x more than me. Of course, they had marketing and platform costs, but the gap is hard to ignore.

Now imagine if I had driven my own traffic: at a 97% instructor share, I could have earned up to $8,735 from the same $9,005 in sales. That's the difference between letting the platform own the traffic versus building your own funnel.

Conclusions

Pros

• My ROI was solid: about $85/hour before taxes. Definitely worth the time.
• Publishing on Udemy added credibility—great for a CV and personal brand.

Cons

• Udemy earned 1.6x more than I did from my own course.
• Courses require ongoing updates to stay relevant and keep sales flowing.

The big lesson? Traffic ownership matters. As long as Udemy controls the funnel, instructors will keep handing over most of their revenue.

That's exactly why we built Modality.Ink—a tool that transforms lesson recordings into SEO-ready blog posts. Instead of relying solely on Udemy's marketplace, you can attract your own students through Google, keep more of the revenue, and build an audience that belongs to you.