
Ask HN: Can money still be made in online courses? - hguhghuff
I&#x27;m thinking of trying to make money via online courses.<p>Is there still money to be made or has the ship sailed?<p>Which is the best marketplace to develop for? Udemy?
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codegeek
Dislclaimer: I run a product in Ed Tech space.

Depends on the domain and market. If you are looking to create and sell yet
another "Learn how to code" course, you are going to have a hard time even
though you can still get a piece of the pie.

However, if you create quality online courses in domains that are still doing
paper or in person but students are hungry to consume more online content,
there are plenty of opportunities but it depends on your knowledge and
experience in those domains.

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philippz
Online courses is "the business model" for influencers. It's a heavily content
driven business model. If you already have a vibrant and following community
that's the best way to earn money on top of ads and product placements. It's
also repeatable and you already of ton of content you can recycle. Apart from
that, sure! Search for a niche.

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jmnicolas
Udemy is the worst of the worst : you often find courses that have been
stolen, they just add a 2 minutes introductory video on top of the stolen
content.

I wouldn't use Udemy even if it was free.

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hugo47
I created an online course this year, which was based on a somewhat popular
blog post of mine which I now use to send people to the course. So mainly yet
another "learn how to code" class.

Moneywise, it has not been worth it, I have so far earned < $500 in 5 months
(I publish on Udemy and using the free tier of teachable). I took me 3-4
months to create the course (almost fulltime).

However, I see this as a learning experience. I wanted to figure if I like
creating a course. And I can say that it requires much more work than it
seemed to be but I enjoy teaching and the overall satisfaction I get from
creating a course.

My next course I want to research much deeper upfront (building a mailing
list) and also self-publish only. It would not recommend publishing on Udemy.
_All_ of my sales on Udemy have been a 10-15$ promotion, which means I earn
very little on each sale. I didn't know that before, but I don't think anyone
sells the course for the official price. The pricing seems to be just a
marketing trick.

I think making serious money online is something for the long haul and
requires to have several products. You need to have your substantial list of
followers that you can sell products to on your own platform OR find a
lucrative niche which is getting harder to do. Also, you have to enjoy this
because it is a lot of work to create quality courses.

