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My Foray into Online Teaching and How Much I made

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By Rena

I was busy for the last quarter and for this quarter as well, and the year passed so quickly. One of the item I was busy with was starting some side income. I did some engineering consultancy work (haven't gotten paid yet), tuition, and online teaching. One of the item that I was seriously considering was online teaching and I ventured in via the most common online learning platform (which enables you to learn on your schedule on any topic anytime you like). Yes, this is the slogan of Udemy.

I got this idea for teaching on Udemy from this famous finance blogger in Singapore here - years back. I didn't reference the blogpost, because I can't find it. I found it months back, but today when I searched, I couldn't. 

Anyways, long story short. I recalled reading that the author learnt piano online on Udemy. This wasn't the main topic of the post (it was reflection of his year), by anyways, when I read it, that sticked to my mind. No idea why. But shortly after, my friend recommended me this platform as well. She wanted to get out of Engineering, and was going for an interview, so she took some courses on Udemy and got the job. And I guess that gave me quite a good impression of Udemy. I told myself, one day, I'll look at this platform. One day.

Then the pandemic came. And we get skillsfuture credits right? So I used it for Udemy course. Learnt web development and app development. The course was great, I wasn't. I am still struggling with backend web development. Frontend is ok. I even applied some stuff I learnt here... App development I learn during my maternity leave, and when I 'm free. But once I don't use it for sometime, I have to start from the beginning. But the key thing, the course was wonderful. And it cost less than $20 each, plus fully claimable. Paid nothing out- of- pocket.

Then recently, I was looking back at my past posts made many years ago. Well, seem like I write more than I do. While most of them aren't as relevant or aligned with what I want now, what I wrote here sticked in my mind. I recalled wanting to teach. And yes, I tried tutoring. But home tuition is something I've been there, done that. Udemy came to my mind again. And since this blogger bought a piano course, I thought I'll make one too. 

So I did. 

Recording wasn't my forte. But anyways, I finished it as a weekend project. It was a course I was proud of. It was a piano course I would use to teach my kids. And I published it - in February.  Gift the course to my partner so that he can teach my kids. He has more patience than me. Gift the course to another person. And I guess I didn't think much about it anymore. Udemy is a marketplace, and I gave them a large  percentage of the course fees so I'll leave them to do the rest.

Most of the months from February till June, there was zero sales, except for April. I made a single sale that month. And Udemy pays on the 8th of each month 2 months after the sales is made (because they have a 30- day money back guarantee). My course was listed at $34.99 (of course, no one buys at this price, as Udemy always have some form of discount).  And yes, I finally got my first pay check from Udemy for the sale of this course via paypal,

And drum roll - I made US$1.47 for selling that course to 1 person. The royalty the instructor gets is about 25 - 50% for sales not driven by the instructor.  Adding in the 30% withholding tax, the amount I got for this sales is US$1.47.  It's $1 charge to get  it out from my paypal account if the amount I'm transferring out from it is less than $200. So, yes, the money stays in my paypal account untouched for now. 



How does this sound?

It was a milestone for me. I was in fact happy to make the US$1.47 for this sales. It was my first revenue from Udemy, anyway.  Screenshot it and kept it as a momento. 

If I'm going to teach online full time, Udemy is not a choice unless I can sell thousands of my course each month. But it was great start. I wanted to teach in a different way right, teach online. Been there, done there, and made US$1.47.  

Yeah!




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