Philosophy

Udemy is a marketplace of online courses where you can sign up as an instructor and upload your content. You don't own the platform and you don't have any control over student data, pricing, or terms and conditions.

Buisnesstools, on the other hand, lets you build your own platform with your own branding, and you have complete control of the platform and data.

Revenue Sharing

Udemy

Udemy uses a tiered revenue-share model depending on how students find your course.

• If students purchase via your referral link, you earn 97% of the sale price.
• For organic Udemy sales, you earn about 37% of the sale price.
• Sales through Udemy's paid ads or affiliates give you only 25%.
• Udemy often offers discounts on courses, which can reduce your earnings drastically.

Buisnesstools

On Buisnesstools, you earn 100% of what your course is priced at, no matter how the student came to your platform. You just have to pay a 2.5% transaction fee, which is a standard fee for all payment aggregators.

Pricing and Sales Trap

Udemy

• Udemy frequently discounts courses to around $9.99 - $13.99.
• This can undervalue your course, especially if it is high quality and comprehensive.
• Pricing control is limited on Udemy.

Buisnesstools

• Buisnesstools does not have any control over the prices of your courses.
• You decide what you want to sell your course for.
• You can also change the price of your course at any time.

Content Restrictions

Udemy

On Udemy, you don't own the platform, hence you have to follow their guidelines. Here are some of the important rules you should know before you decide to sell on Udemy:

• You cannot create content on topics related to sex, politics, weapons, or other sensitive topics.
• You cannot promote your course, products, or platform in the video.
• You cannot include direct links or references to paid content outside Udemy in course materials or announcements.
• In 2024, Udemy introduced a generative AI program that enrolled instructor content automatically to train AI tools, with limited opt-out options.

Buisnesstools

• On Buisnesstools, you own the platform and you decide what content should be on your platform.
• Buisnesstools does not have any restrictions on the type of content as long as it is legal.
• The content on your platform should abide by your local law, and you are responsible for the consequences of your content.

Data Control and Customer Relationships

Students who have purchased your previous courses and are satisfied with them are more likely to buy from you when you upload your next course.

Udemy

• You don't own your students' email data on Udemy.
• This limits your ability to build long-term relationships, sales funnels, or loyalty.
• Emailing students is done via Udemy's platform, with no direct contact info given.

Buisnesstools

• You own all the data on your platform, including the emails.
• That is the reason having access to student emails is important.
• You can also set up group chat communities with your students.

Perception and User Experience

Students are not scared of paying for an expensive course—they are scared it won't provide them results.

The courses on Udemy are generally perceived as generic courses. If you have a comprehensive or premium quality course that you have taken a lot of effort in building, it would be a disservice to your efforts to publish it on Udemy.

Having your own website and providing Q&A support makes your course seem more legitimate and justifies a higher cost. Read this article on how to make your course seem more legitimate.

On top of that, on Buisnesstools, students can comment on your videos, you can reply to them, they can message you on group chat or interact with other students and engage in the community, which is not possible on Udemy.

If you want a low-effort online course and you don't want to invest time and money building an education business, Udemy is for you.

If you are serious about providing quality education, user experience, building communities, and starting a business, Buisnesstools is the better choice.

Growth Potential

After launching your first online course, you might want to expand your business by launching new courses, digital products, or paid communities.

Udemy does not support these products, so you will have to use other platforms to sell digital products and communities.

It's not a good experience for students to have to switch between multiple applications to access your products, e.g., Udemy for courses and Slack for communities.

Also, these are generic platforms and do not convey strong branding. If you get started with Buisnesstools, you can slowly release new products, and all of them will be available on your own custom-made website with your branding.

Conclusion

When to Choose Udemy?

• If you are a part-time or hobbyist teacher teaching for fun and you don't want to spend time marketing.
• If you don't have time to provide support.
• If you don't mind sharing a chunk of your revenue for managing your business.

When to Choose Buisnesstools

• If you are serious about building an education-based business.
• If you want full control over branding, pricing, student data, and customer relationships.
• You keep 100% of your course sales after payment processing (minus the 2.5% transaction fee).