Udemy Affiliate Program: How to Make $1000 a Month (2023)
Would you like to become a Udemy affiliate and promote the world's largest online learning platform?
This review will tell you everything you need to know about the Udemy affiliate program.
Udemy Affiliate Program Overview
Commission: 10%
Cookie Duration: 7 days
Where to Join: Rakuten Advertising
Payment Options: PayPal, Direct Deposit or Check
Udemy Affiliate Program Review
The Udemy affiliate program is hosted Rakuten Advertising affiliate network (formerly Linkshare).
To be able to join the program, you need to have a Rakuten Advertising account.
When you search for Udemy on Rakuten, you will see multiple results for Udemy.
The Udemy affiliate program is divided based on regions. Currently, there are the following programs:
Udemy US (label just Udemy)
Udemy Asia-Pacific
Udemy Brazil
Udemy EU
Udemy UK
You should apply to one of these programs based on your website traffic. If you apply to the US program, but most of your traffic comes from Asia, your application won’t be accepted.
The Udemy affiliate program commission is the same for all regions, so no worries if you don’t have US traffic.
Udemy affiliates can select just one region.
Udemy Affiliate Program Requirements
Udemy lists detailed requirements for its affiliate program on its website and Rakuten Advertising.
Every affiliate that is accepted into our program needs to have a website, blog or social media page that is up and running. For now, we don't accept affiliates without a live website or page to run their promotions or who are just getting started.
Unlike most affiliate programs, Udemy specifies how much website traffic your website should have.
They require at least 500 unique monthly website visitors in the last 3 months.
If you don’t have a website but a social media page, you need at least 500 followers to become a Udemy affiliate.
That is a very easy requirement to meet. Udemy apparently only wants to prevent affiliates with brand-new websites/social pages from joining the program.
Another requirement for joining the program is to have relevant content.
Udemy wants to see that their course can appeal to your audience. Since Udemy has courses pretty much on any topic, this requirement is easy to meet and will prevent you from joining only if your content is on topics such as violence, crime, weapons, sex.
Udemy states you should be notified about acceptance or denial within a week.
If your application gets declined, you can contact Udemy to learn why.
Udemy Affiliate Program Commission
The Udemy affiliate program commission is 10%.
Not that long time ago, the Udemy commission was 40%. Last year it dropped to 15%, and now it is just 10%.
10% may still seem like a lot, but it is not. If you are at least a little familiar with Udemy, you know that they constantly run promotions.
Most Udemy visitors buy courses that cost between $10-20. This means you can expect, on average, to receive a $1-2 commission.
Udemy states that you can ask for a higher commission if you are among the top Udemy affiliates.
The cookie lasts 7 days, and you get credited for all courses your referral buys during this time.
Your referrals don’t need to be new to Udemy. You will receive a commission even if they already have an account and buy through your Udemy affiliate links.
Udemy provides you with banners and sometimes also with coupon codes.
Of course, you can create an affiliate link to any course you like.
You can withdraw your commission from Rakuten with PayPal, Direct Deposit or Check after your referral has cleared the 30-day refund period.
How Much Can You Earn as Udemy Affiliate?
How much money can you make as a Udemy affiliate? Is it really possible to make $1,000 a month promoting Udemy courses?
It’s possible, of course, but it is not easy. Courses on Udemy are cheap, and your commission is low, so to earn $1,000 a month, you would need to have a blog with decent traffic.
To earn $1,000 a month, you would need around 666 people to buy a $15 course through your Udemy affiliate links.
If we were optimistic and you had a nice 2% conversion rate, you would need around 33,300 clicks to your affiliate links.
However, realistic conversion for Udemy courses would be below 1%.
If you don’t have a big blog with a lot of traffic, reaching $1.000 monthly with the Udemy affiliate program is impossible.
How to Make Money with the Udemy Affiliate Program
Udemy affiliate program commission is low, and the referral period is short. However, one big advantage to this program is that ranking your content related to some Udemy courses can be relatively easy.
Udemy has courses in over 100 different categories, and there are courses for literally everything.
Therefore, you would have many options if you want to create content specifically for Udemy courses.
You would always be able to find keywords that have low competition.
There is no point in searching for keywords related to more expensive courses to make your commission bigger, as most people on Udemy are waiting for Udemy special deals.
If you see a course on Udemy for $99 and don't buy it, you will see it tomorrow for $19.99.
Unfortunately for affiliates, Udemy is running promotions non-stop. Everyone not visiting Udemy platforms for the first time is aware of this and doesn’t buy a course for a price that is not discounted.
Therefore, I would not recommend promoting expensive courses. Instead, focus on writing content around low-competition keywords and optimize it well with Surfer.
To increase conversion of your Udemy affiliate links, I also recommend promoting free Udemy courses.
You will not get any commission for sign-ups to the free courses, but these referrals can purchase a paid course within the 7-day referral window.
Free Udemy courses are mostly very short, and course authors use them to draw traffic to their paid courses that cover the topic in depth.
I would suggest not trying to rank for keywords like "free Udemy courses" as they are very competitive and instead include links to the Udemy free courses in posts that cover less competitive topics.
Of course, be sure to use the word "free" when linking to a free Udemy course, as that will increase the click-through rate.
Unfortunately, Udemy has just a 7-day referral period. This promoting method would work much better if the program had the standard 30-day referral period.
Should You Join the Udemy Affiliate Program?
Personally, I think that the Udemy affiliate program is not worth joining.
Udemy affiliates receive a low 10% commission. Since most people buy Udemy courses for low discounted prices, you can expect to mostly make $1-2 per referral and sometimes $3-4 when you get lucky.
This is very little, and you would need to have a website with a significant amount of traffic to make decent money.
Moreover, the 7-day referral period is also short.
The only positive thing about becoming a Udemy affiliate is that you can easily find low-competitive keywords. Udemy has so many courses that you can always think of a post topic related to some Udemy courses with low competition.
Overall, I cannot recommend the Udemy affiliate program. There are much better affiliate programs.
I am affliate of udemy .Now the commision is 15% only
i am promoting udemy courses in my blog from last 5 months, but i am able to make only 2$. iT IS VERY SAD
In these 5 months i got a traffic of 5 Lakh + PV
Hi,
thank you very much for the information about the commission. I updated the review.
I am sorry to hear that you are not seeing any results with such a traffic.
How exactly do you promote Udemy?