How to move your course from Udemy to your own platform

TL;DR: Moving your course from Udemy to your own platform is the most direct way to gain revenue control and own your student data without the technical overhead of self-hosting. Udemy takes 63% of marketplace sales and doesn't share student email addresses, per Udemy's own instructor revenue-share terms. On our Builder plan at $69/month (annual billing), you keep 100% of revenue after standard processing fees, and Teachable Payments automatically remits VAT and GST across 45+ countries. This guide is for creators who have already validated a course on Udemy and are ready to build an independent business around it, not for creators who are still testing whether their idea sells. It covers content backup, email list capture, platform setup, and launch strategy.

When Udemy runs a site-wide sale, your $200 course can be discounted to as low as $9.99, Udemy's own stated Deals Program price floor. You spent months building that course, recording lectures, designing slides, and answering student questions. Now you're realizing you don't own your student list, you can't email your buyers directly, and you're giving 63% of your revenue to a marketplace that controls your pricing. That revenue split and the email restriction are both covered in Udemy's instructor terms.

Udemy is a great place to validate a course idea. It's a terrible place to build a business. Migrating to your own platform is a structured process that pays for itself almost immediately once you run the actual fee math.

Why independent creators leave Udemy behind

The core problem with Udemy isn't the platform's quality. It's the business model. When you host on Udemy, you're renting an audience from a marketplace that sets your prices, hides your student data, and takes the majority of every sale.

Why you need direct revenue control

On organic marketplace sales, Udemy takes 63% of the transaction, leaving you with 37%. Instructor payouts haven't kept pace with Udemy's revenue growth. Payouts as a share of Udemy's revenue fell from roughly 40% in 2019 to roughly 31% in 2022, according to SellCoursesOnline's Udemy earnings study.

The subscription model is worse. Udemy's subscription revenue share has been cut three times in three years: 25% to 20% in January 2024, to 17.5% in January 2025, and to 15% in January 2026.

On your own platform, you set the price. You can charge $200, $500, or $2,000 for the same course. You control the discounting, not a marketplace algorithm that can discount your course to Udemy's stated floor of $9.99 during every site-wide sale.

Building assets you actually control

Your email list is the one business asset that doesn't change when a platform restructures its pricing. On Udemy, you don't have that asset. While you can export student names and enrollment data as CSV, you cannot access student email addresses. The platform treats those students as Udemy's customers, not yours.

This matters more than the revenue share. If Udemy changes its algorithm, its pricing, or its policies tomorrow, you have no way to contact your students directly. You can't tell them about a new course, a coaching offer, or a migration to your own site. You're building on rented land.

Break free from Udemy pricing

Udemy caps your pricing at $200 for most courses. And unless you opt out of the Deals Program, which is on by default when you register as a premium instructor, Udemy's pricing algorithm can discount your course automatically without your day-to-day approval. The platform's educational announcements rules also prohibit you from linking to paid content off Udemy or sites that request money or personal information from students.

On your own platform, you can offer order bumps, one-click upsells, abandoned cart recovery, and coupon codes. We include these checkout tools on every plan. You can also offer subscriptions and memberships, which smooth out the launch-or-nothing income pattern that plagues marketplace sellers.

Get ready to move your course: A checklist

Before you touch a single file, you need a preparation plan. Rushing the migration means losing content, missing students, or launching to silence.

Download your Udemy course files

Udemy does not package your course for bulk download. Each lecture video must be downloaded individually, as there is no option to download a course in its entirety from the Curriculum page.

Manual asset backup steps:

1. Locate original video files: Check your computer's video folders, external drives, and cloud storage first. These are your highest-quality source files.
2. Download from Udemy if needed: Preview course content through the course player and click the gear icon at the bottom right to access course settings for individual downloads.
3. Organize by module: Create a folder structure that mirrors your course curriculum, with separate folders for each section and lecture.
4. Save supplementary resources: Download any PDFs, worksheets, slide decks, or resource files you uploaded to Udemy.
5. Export your student list CSV: While you can't get emails, you can export student names, enrollment dates, and progress data as a CSV for your records.

Understand what you can and can't take

Here's the hard truth: you cannot export student email addresses from Udemy. You can export names, enrollment dates, progress, and last visited dates, but email addresses are not included.

You also can't take Udemy's marketplace ranking. What you can take is your content, your expertise, your brand, and your course reviews and ratings, which you can export via CSV.

Build your email list first

Since you can't export student emails, you need to capture them before you leave. The most effective strategy is to add a lead magnet to your Udemy course that directs students to free educational content on your own site. Udemy's educational announcements policy prohibits linking to sites that request money or personal information, so any email capture must happen after students voluntarily navigate to your site for the free resource.

Email capture strategies while still on Udemy:

• Add a bonus lecture that offers a free resource (checklist, template, or mini-course) hosted on your own website.
• Include a link in your course description to free educational content on your own website.
• Use Udemy's educational announcements to share valuable educational content that links to your site.
• Create a free companion resource on your own site that complements the Udemy course, where students can then discover ways to stay connected with your work. The goal is to build visibility for your own platform among your Udemy students before you migrate. Students who visit your site for free resources are more likely to follow you to your independent platform.

Evaluate top Udemy alternatives

Before you commit to a platform, understand your options. Here's the decision matrix we use when advising creators on where to move.

Our Builder plan at $69/month (annual billing) includes 0% platform fees and affiliate tools, and every plan, including Starter, comes with native iOS and Android apps. Kajabi's Basic plan starts at $143/month (annual billing), more than double our Builder price for a comparable feature set, though Kajabi does include a native email funnel and CRM that we connect to through Builder-tier integrations instead. Thinkific charges $199/month for its branded mobile app as a separate add-on, while we include iOS and Android apps on all plans.

"Since I moved them to Teachable, my sign ups have tripled and my cancellations have gone down to almost nothing." - Stephanie L. on G2

Migrating your course from Udemy: A simple guide

Once you've backed up your content and started capturing emails, it's time to set up your independent course hub. Here's the step-by-step process on our platform.

1. Launch your independent course hub

Sign up for a 7-day free trial and create your school. The setup takes minutes, not days. You'll name your school, choose a subdomain, and land in the dashboard. No code, no payment gateway configuration, no Zapier chains. Our no-code builder means you can go from signup to a live, purchasable course without touching a single line of code.

2. Upload and organize your course content

Our drag-and-drop course builder lets you bulk upload video files and organize them into sections. This resolves the pain point of manual page-by-page creation that plagues self-hosted setups.

The builder supports video, audio, text, quizzes, and drip content. You can reorder modules, add completion requirements, and enforce minimum watch-time. This course-delivery depth goes further than Kajabi at the same price point, with gradebook, compliance settings, and per-student progress tracking built in.

3. Maximize revenue with flexible pricing

On our platform, you set the price. You can offer one-time purchases, payment plans, and subscriptions. You can create multiple pricing tiers for the same course, offer order bumps at checkout, and set up one-click upsells. This membership setup tutorial shows how to build subscription-based revenue on your own platform.

4. Design your high-converting sales page

Our page editor lets you build a sales page with testimonials, FAQs, and clear call-to-action buttons. You can customize the layout, add video embeds, and connect your custom domain. The page editor is no-code, so you can launch a professional sales page quickly. For a complete walkthrough, this full setup guide covers the entire setup process.

5. Set up your custom domain

Connecting a custom domain establishes brand authority and professionalism. Instead of sending students to a Udemy URL, you send them to your own branded site. This is a small step that makes a big difference in how students perceive your course.

6. Ensure smooth student purchases

Checkout reliability matters more than any other feature during a launch window. A broken checkout during a 48-hour promotion means lost revenue and frustrated students. Our built-in checkout handles transactions securely, with order bumps, one-click upsells, abandoned cart recovery, and coupon codes available on paid plans.

How to migrate your existing student list

This is the hardest part of the migration, and it's where most creators lose students. Here's how to handle it.

Can you export your Udemy student list?

No. Udemy does not provide student email addresses to instructors. You can export names, enrollment dates, and progress data, but not contact information. This is why building visibility for your own platform before you leave is critical.

How to share your new course link

Udemy's educational announcements rules prohibit linking to paid content off Udemy or sites that request money or personal information. The safest approach is to use educational announcements to share valuable free content that happens to live on your own site, where students can then discover your paid offerings.

Strategies for discounting your migration

Offer your existing Udemy students an exclusive migration discount. On our platform, you can create coupon codes that give your Udemy students a special price on your independent course. This incentivizes them to move with you and gives you their email address in the process. A significant discount can net you more revenue than Udemy's 37% share on organic sales. This student enrollment tutorial shows how to add students to your new school.

The real cost of selling courses: Udemy vs. you

Let's run the actual fee math. This is where the migration decision becomes obvious.

The real cost of selling on Udemy

On organic marketplace sales, Udemy takes 63% of the transaction. On instructor coupon sales, Udemy takes 3%, but you're driving all the traffic yourself. On subscription sales, Udemy takes 85%, leaving you with 15%.

The average revenue per course on Udemy is already below $100, according to Class Central's analysis of Udemy's financials, which demonstrates the financial pressure driving migrations. If you're earning $1,000/month on Udemy organic sales, you're keeping $370. That's the reality of the marketplace model.

Our pricing and transaction fees

Our pricing is straightforward. The Starter plan costs $29/month on annual billing with a 7.5% transaction fee. The Builder plan costs $69/month on annual billing with 0% platform fees. The Growth plan costs $139/month on annual billing with 0% platform fees and more products and students. Full details are in our plan documentation.

Payment processing fees apply on every plan. US card processing via Teachable Payments is 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction. International card payments incur 3.9% + $0.30. Non-USD transactions processed through Stripe where currency conversion is required incur a 0.95% currency conversion fee, as detailed in our 2025 pricing update.

Calculating your true take-home pay

Here's the comparison at different monthly revenue levels, assuming US card processing at 2.9% + $0.30.

The break-even point between Starter and Builder is approximately $533/month in course revenue on annual billing. At that point, the Starter plan's 7.5% transaction fee equals the $40/month price gap between the two plans. Any creator earning above that threshold pays more in fees on Starter than they would on Builder.

Proven tactics for selling courses independently

The biggest fear when leaving Udemy is launching to silence. Without marketplace traffic, will anyone buy? Here's how to build demand before you launch.

Building organic reach before you launch

Your email list and social following are the business's core assets. Solo Educators on our platform lean on Instagram (41%) and YouTube (25%) as primary channels. Start publishing free content on these channels before you launch your independent course. A YouTube video that teaches a small piece of your course content can drive signups to your email list, which becomes your launch audience. For more strategies, check out our audience building resources.

How to migrate your email list safely

Once you've captured emails from your Udemy students, import them into an email marketing tool. We connect with dedicated email platforms through Builder-tier integrations, so you can use your preferred tool for advanced automation. Send a warm-up sequence that introduces your new platform, explains the benefits, and offers the migration discount.

Set up your own evergreen funnel

An evergreen funnel captures leads and converts them to sales automatically. On our platform, you can offer a free preview or mini-course that captures email addresses, then automatically upsell students to your paid course. This creates a revenue stream that runs without your active involvement, which is the opposite of Udemy's launch-dependent model. For a step-by-step approach, see our launch strategy guides.

How affiliates expand your course reach

Our built-in affiliate tools, available on the Builder tier, let you recruit partners who sell your course for a commission. With BackOffice enabled on Teachable Payments, an optional add-on at 2% to 2.8%, affiliate payouts and tax forms are handled automatically. This is how you replace Udemy's marketplace traffic with a network of partners who have their own audiences. For more on growing your business, see our business growth resources.

Managing your first 90 days as a solo creator

The first 90 days after migration are critical. Here's what to expect and how to handle it.

Timeline to your first platform sale

Days 1-30: Set up your school on our platform, upload your course, and send your first email to your migrated list. Expect slow sales as your audience adjusts to the new platform.

Days 31-60: Launch your evergreen funnel and start publishing organic content. Your first sales should come from your email list and social channels.

Days 61-90: Refine your sales page, test different pricing, and recruit your first affiliates. By day 90, you should have a clear picture of your conversion rates and revenue trajectory. For real-world examples, see our success stories.

Driving enrollments on your own platform

Run limited-time promotions to create urgency. Offer order bumps at checkout to increase average order value. Use local payment methods and adaptive pricing to convert international students. We accept student payments in 130+ currencies, so your global audience can pay in their own currency with familiar payment methods. For pricing strategies, see our revenue and pricing resources.

When to keep your Udemy course live

You don't have to delete your Udemy course immediately. Many creators keep a simplified, lower-priced version on Udemy as a lead generation tool that funnels advanced students to their independent school on our platform. Udemy offers instructors the choice to opt out of their Deals Program and exercise full control over pricing, or participate in their data-driven pricing strategy. The key is to make your independent course the premium offering and your Udemy course the entry point.

Ready to make the transition to your own platform? Start a 7-day free trial and build your independent course hub today. Or run the fee math comparing your current Udemy earnings against our plans on the pricing page.

FAQs

Can I export my student email list from Udemy?

No, Udemy does not allow instructors to export student email addresses due to privacy policies. You must build an off-platform email list using opt-in incentives before closing your Udemy account.

What are your platform fees?

The Starter plan costs $29/month on annual billing with a 7.5% transaction fee. The Builder plan costs $69/month on annual billing with 0% platform fees.

Do you handle international sales tax?

Yes, Teachable Payments automatically calculates, collects, and remits VAT and GST across 45+ countries. This removes the creator from the tax filing loop entirely, as detailed in our payment documentation.

Can I keep my course on Udemy and sell it elsewhere?

Yes, non-exclusive Udemy courses can be sold elsewhere. Instructors can opt out of Udemy's Deals Program to exercise full control over pricing.

How long does it take to migrate my course from Udemy?

Migration timelines vary by course size and complexity. Effort scales with how much content, email infrastructure, and customization you're rebuilding. Book a call with our team and you'll walk away with a migration plan specific to your course, no obligation.

What happens to my Udemy course reviews and ratings?

Your Udemy reviews and ratings can be exported via CSV, but they stay associated with your Udemy presence. You can collect new testimonials from your migrated students on your new platform.

Key terms glossary

Teachable Payments: Our native payment gateway that processes student transactions and automatically handles global tax compliance across 45+ countries.

Tax Remittance: When you sell through Teachable Payments, we automatically calculate, collect, and remit sales tax, VAT, and GST across 45+ countries on your behalf. You are not responsible for filing those taxes yourself.

Revenue Share: The percentage of course sales kept by a marketplace platform like Udemy in exchange for hosting and traffic. Udemy takes 63% on organic marketplace sales.

Order Bump: A checkout feature that offers an additional product at a discounted price during the purchase flow, increasing average order value.

Evergreen Funnel: An automated marketing sequence that captures leads and converts them to sales without requiring a live launch event.

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