Udemy Review - Is it the right choice for you?

If you've ever looked for an online course, changes are that you've heard about Udemy. It's one of the biggest online learning platforms overall, if not the biggest. With more than 100 million monthly visitors and 45 million enrolled users, no other online learning platform in the Western world gets used by more people.

But the question is? Is it the right platform for you?

Let's find out in this in-depth Udemy review!

What is Udemy?

Udemy is an online learning platform founded in 2010 by Eren Bali, Gagan Biyani and Oktay Caglar. Courses are created by a pool of 60,000 instructors, spanning all kinds of industries, skills & hobbies. That's why Udemy has a really broad course offering, consisting of about 175,000 courses total.

While most very popular courses are about technology, marketing & business, there are also lots of courses about more niche topics, hobbies, etc.

Let's see what their platform so popular!

Udemy courses

Udemy's main offering are their courses. As mentioned before, they are produced by independent instructors, which can apply as teachers on the platform. Courses can have quizzes, tests & other resources, but this highly depends on the individual instructor.

What makes these courses so popular is their awesome value. Many of the top courses are really cheap, but they're nevertheless high-quality courses that pack tons of value. That's possible because Udemy is such a popular platform.

Udemy's top courses are often taken by tens of thousands of students, which means even if the instructor only makes a couple of bucks for every student that signs up, they can still earn an awesome living (top Udemy instructors can earn millions).

Udemy mobile app

Udemy also offers a mobile app that you can use to watch courses on the go. You can even download courses, so that you can watch them when you're offline.

Pro & Cons

Who is Udemy for?

Udemy's platform is suited for all types of learners that want good courses at fair prices. Since they're not specialized on a particular niche, most people will find courses that match their interest, no matter if you're looking for technology education or a better way to bake sourdough bread.

The great thing about Udemy is that you can buy courses for a lot less than you can on many other platforms, which gives you the chance to try things out, without having to pay a lot of money for it.

Udemy pricing

Udemy's pricing is pretty straightforward, with most courses costing between $10.00 - $25.00 USD. Now, if you're wondering why the prices shown on the Udemy website seem to be much higher: That's because Udemy runs heavy discounts most of the time. They use this marketing technique to create a sense of urgency amongst potential buyers.

That's why I would typically recommend you wait until a sale comes on, so you don't have to pay the full price as advertised.

Udemy refund policy

Udemy has a pretty generous refund policy for their courses. They offer a 30-day money-back guarantee, meaning you can "test" a course for up to 30 days. If you feel like you're not getting enough value from it, you can request a refund. Now that being said, you won't be eligible for a refund if you've already watched a significant portion of the course, or if Udemy thinks that you're abusing their refund policy in any other way.

These refunds are either cash refunds or Udemy credit refunds, depending on the payment method you chose when buying the course.

Udemy free courses

If you want to get started with free learning resources, you can check out the library of free courses that Udemy offers. These are limited in length and don't get the same features as regular courses, but they're still a nice way to learn!

Udemy for businesses

Udemy also has various plans for businesses that want to use Udemy to upskill their employees. These are subscription plans, usually paid per year and per user, giving you access to a library of courses curated by Udemy. They differentiate between 3 distinct offers:

• Team Plan

• Enterprise Plan

• Leadership Development Programs

Their Team Plan is meant for smaller teams of 5-20 people and includes access to the core course library of 6,500+ courses, as well as basic team management features. It costs $360/user/year plus applicable taxes.

For companies with 20+ employees, there's the Enterprise Plan, which comes with an extended course library of 14,000+ courses, as well as lots of other features like:

• International course collection (curated courses in all major languages)

• Analytics & reporting

• User management (SSO, APIs, etc.)

• Option to create & host custom courses

• Optional: Udemy Business Pro

Pricing for this plan is custom and has to be discussed with the Udemy for Business sales team.

Lastly, there's the Leadership Development Programs, which are a collection of courses for business leaders developed by top universities and in collaboration with corpU. This plan includes live events, personalized learning resources and much more.

Pricing for this plan is available after contacting sales.

Udemy for students

Udemy currently doesn't have a special offer or plan for students, but since courses on Udemy generally only cost between $10 - 20 USD, there's not much to discount anyway.

Learning & Customer support

Udemy has a self-service knowledge base for general questions about your account. If that's not enough, you can contact the Udemy support through their chat widget.

For questions about the topics of a course, you can use the course Q&A forum to ask. Depending on the instructor, you can receive very good feedback or no feedback at all. I've personally taken courses where the instructors replied to all questions very thoughtfully, while I've also seen courses where lots of students got no answers.

Certification

When you complete a course on Udemy, you receive a certificate of completion. This certificate attests, that you've watched a significant portion of the lectures, but it's not a certification that's typically recognized by organizations, like companies & universities.

After all, it only shows that you've taken the course, and not that you can apply what you learned in practice.

Still, having these certificates shows that you've dealt with the topic of the course before, which might be helpful for some employers.

If you're looking for accredited certifications, you can check out alternatives like Coursera or edX.

Create an Udemy account

To create an Udemy account, click on the "Sign up" button in the top right corner.

After that, you can choose your favorite method to create your account, be it Google Sign-In, Apple Sign-In, email, etc.

Udemy instructors

As mentioned before, anyone can sign up to become an Udemy instructor, which is why Udemy now has more than 60,000 instructors. Udemy doesn't have very strict teacher guidelines, instead they rely on their marketplace to separate the good course from the bad ones through reviews, sales and so on.

That means that the overall level of qualification of instructors on Udemy isn't as it might be for other platforms, but you can still gauge the quality of courses by looking at the reviews and the amount of students on a given course.

Especially when looking for popular topics, the first courses you'll find are typically created by professional educators that have lots of experience with teaching and great reviews from their students.

A great example of this is Jonas Schmedtmann, a German instructor that has created some of the most popular courses on the entire Udemy platform.

With just five courses, he has amassed more than 1,350,000 students, that leave stellar reviews (all his courses have a rating of around 4.7/5). Buying his JavaScript course will give you access to more than 70 hours of content, all for the price of $10 - $20 USD.

Summary: Is Udemy worth it?

In my opinion, Udemy is definitely worth it! As one of the biggest online learning platforms worldwide, it's a great fit for most online learners. You'll love Udemy for their:

• Broad selection of courses (175,000+)

• Great value (Buy courses for $10 - $25 USD)

• Learner-friendly platform

• Good mobile app