Course marketplaces promise easy discovery and passive income. Upload your course to Udemy, Skillshare, or Domestica, and their algorithm will send you students. When those first sales roll in, you feel validated. You’re tempted to upload everything you know.
This path leads to a business you don’t control, revenue you can’t predict, and growth you can’t sustain.
The Dating App Problem
Course marketplaces operate like dating apps. They’re matchmakers, not relationship counselors. They profit from connecting students with courses, not from helping you build a sustainable teaching business.
Once that match is made and the transaction completes, their job is done. They have no interest in you developing ongoing relationships with your students or building a loyal following. They just want the next swipe, the next purchase, the next commission.
Platform Risk
Here’s what happens when you rely on marketplace algorithms:
Your premium course gets placed next to low-quality content with terrible thumbnails. The platform discounts your course without warning or explanation. Your best content disappears from search results because the topic isn’t “trending.” Meanwhile, inferior courses in business and tech categories get promoted because that’s what corporate buyers want.
On Udemy, with its 70 million users, most revenue comes from selling business subscriptions to companies. If you teach watercolor painting or personal development, you’re competing in a system designed to sell Excel tutorials and coding bootcamps.
The Money Math Doesn’t Add Up
When someone finds your course through Udemy’s platform, you get 37% of the sale price. That’s right, you keep barely a third of your own course revenue. Sure, you can earn up to 97% through your own referral links, but attribution is messy and unreliable.
Skillshare is even worse. They pool 30% of subscription revenue and divide it among creators based on watch time. You’re competing for scraps from a fixed pie. Domestica is selective about who they accept, but the payout structure remains similarly restrictive.
The average course creator makes $2,000 to $3,000 per year from marketplaces. Only the top 1% in trending niches reach $50,000. Is that the business you’re trying to build?
Self-Hosting
The path to real course creator success requires taking control. Platforms like Kajabi, Teachable, and Thinkific solve the technical challenges without stealing your revenue. For $30 to $300 monthly, depending on your student count, you get:
Complete control over pricing and presentation. Direct relationships with your students. The ability to build email lists and sell additional courses. Keep 100% of your revenue minus payment processing fees.
Yes, you need to drive your own traffic. But here’s the truth: serious course creators drive their own traffic anyway. Even on marketplaces, the algorithm rarely delivers sustainable results without your marketing efforts.
The Hybrid Approach
Don’t abandon marketplaces entirely, use them strategically. Here’s the approach that actually works:
Test on Marketplaces First: Upload initial courses to validate ideas and get feedback. Use the platform’s audience to refine your content and messaging. Build your brand within the course itself.
Convert Platform Students to Your List: Include strong calls-to-action within your courses. Don’t send students to social media—capture their emails. Build brand recognition that encourages them to seek you out directly.
Move Proven Courses to Self-Hosted Platforms: Once you know what works, create premium versions on your own platform. Price appropriately for the value you deliver. Build deeper relationships with serious students.
Why Running Ads to Marketplaces Fails
The math is brutal. You pay for ads to drive traffic to Udemy, where you keep 37% of sales. After subtracting ad costs, you’re often losing money. Even worse, you’re paying to build Udemy’s customer list, not yours.
For premium courses requiring consideration, ads to your own platform make more sense. But the real strategy is using ads to build your email list, then nurturing prospects until they’re ready to buy. This approach yields higher conversion rates and lifetime customer value.
Building Your Course Business
Real course creator success comes from owning three things:
Your Platform: Whether through Teachable, Kajabi, or similar services, you need direct control over the student experience and pricing.
Your Traffic: Develop content marketing, SEO, and social media strategies that bring students directly to you, not through intermediaries.
Your Student List: Email addresses and phone numbers are your most valuable assets. They enable repeat sales, upsells, and long-term relationships that marketplaces prevent.
Course marketplaces aren’t evil, they’re just not designed to help you build a business. They’re designed to build their business using your content. The algorithm that gives you initial success will eventually bury you beneath newer courses and platform priorities.
If you’re serious about course creation as a business, not a hobby, you need to own your platform, your traffic, and your customer relationships.
