Skillshare Review: Is Teaching on Skillshare a Good Way to Make Money?

Skillshare is an online learning platform. Students pay either a monthly or annual fee and get unlimited access to thousands of creative courses.

As far as becoming a teacher, anyone can teach on Skillshare. You don’t need a teaching degree or certification. So if you’re an avid hobbyist, a successful entrepreneur, or someone who’s really passionate about teaching others a new creative skill, then Skillshare might be for you.

It’s important to be aware that Skillshare has a lot of rules and requirements when it comes to creating courses. For example, you can’t teach anything you want. Every video also needs to meet their high production standards.

In this sense, it’s not like making money on YouTube, where the content and quality aren’t vetted. It’s important to read through the Get Started Guide, Class Quality Guidelines, and Additional Teaching Rules before you apply to become a Skillshare teacher.

Costs and fees

It’s free to sign up to teach with Skillshare. However, even though Skillshare doesn’t charge fees, they take a whopping 80% cut of the money that teachers generate on the platform. 1

In the past, Skillshare used to give teachers up to 50% of the revenue they got from student subscriptions. This number later dropped to 30% in 2020, and now teachers only get a mere 20% in their current payment model.

Equipment costs

Creating courses on Skillshare can also incur certain costs. Because of the platform’s high standards, you may need to buy or rent the following equipment:

• Paraphernalia for teaching your course
• Video recording equipment
• Professional video editing software (or similar content creation tools)
• Microphone (lavalier or USB)
• Ring light or tabletop light

You may also need to buy materials to create a professional backdrop for your videos.

Before we get into all the details about how much money you can make on Skillshare, it’s worth covering the basics of how Skillshare works and what requirements you’d need to meet. While it is an accessible course selling site, not everyone can teach on Skillshare.

1. Meet Skillshare’s teacher requirements

Just about anyone can teach Skillshare courses. The qualify, you only need to be at least 18 years old and teach in one of the following languages:

• English
• French
• German
• Portuguese
• Spanish

In terms of education and training, no special degrees or certifications are required for teaching on Skillshare. You just need to be able to demonstrate your aptitude in the subject matter you plan to teach.

2. Apply to teach for Skillshare

There are two ways to start teaching on Skillshare: by applying or by receiving an invite. To apply to become a Skillshare instructor, go to Skillshare.com and the Become a Teacher page. Click “Apply to Teach.”

After signing up with Facebook, Google, Apple, or your email address, you’ll complete a questionnaire. You’ll be asked 10 questions on the following topics:

• The category you’d like to teach
• What will make you a good teacher
• What your first topic will be

You’ll also need to record and share a link to a 1–2 minute sample teaching video. Once you’ve completed the application process, Skillshare will review your answers. You should receive a response back within 2 weeks.

If you’re approved, you can access your Skillshare account from the website or mobile app. You can publish your first course immediately.

Where to download the Skillshare app

App Store Google Play

3. Create and upload your course

Skillshare has revamped its course list over the years. Currently, courses are separated into the following categories and subcategories.

Skillshare Course Categories

Notes: * Denotes subjects only available to instructors in the Rising Teacher program or Top Teacher program. 2

Unfortunately, some subjects are only open to long-established Skillshare instructors who have been invited into the Rising Teacher or Top Teacher program. Since these programs aren’t open to new teachers, they’re not a good place to start if you’re creating your first Skillshare course.

When coming up with course topics, do your research. First, see if anyone has created content for the topic you want to teach. You’ll want to find something unique but also in demand.

Restricted topics

Make sure your chosen topic isn’t on the restricted list. Here are some examples of topics you can’t go near:

• Dropshipping
• IT security
• Weapons training
• Medicine
• Standardized tests
• Politics
• Fitness
• Pet care
• Sales

There’s a long list of topics you can’t teach and subject matters you can’t include in your course. Read through this list carefully and keep it bookmarked as it can change.

Skillshare isn’t a gig app, so this isn’t the type of side hustle where you set your rates and get paid per completed project. In fact, payment isn’t even guaranteed.

Unlike some other online course selling platforms, Skillshare doesn’t allow you to set your own prices for your courses. Rather, they set prices for you and then give you a cut of the money they get from students—although it’s a little more complicated than that.

Here’s a breakdown of the different ways you can make money as a Skillshare teacher.

Subscription royalty payments

Every month, Skillshare assesses their earnings from student subscribers and allocates a certain percentage of their subscription revenue to teachers. Currently, Skillshare gives teachers “approximately 20%” of this revenue. 1

However, it’s worth noting that this percentage is liable to change. In fact, they only switched to this payment model in January 2024, after they received complaints from instructors about the lack of transparency of their previous model, which allocated revenue to a “Skillshare Teacher Fund.”

The nitty gritty details of how Skillshare calculates royalty share payments are complex and not entirely clear. What the company does say, however, is that the payout rate depends on the geographical location of the student, and teachers only get money for minutes of paid views from students. In other words, your courses need to be viewed by students who have an active paid subscription.

You won’t earn royalty income from Skillshare in the following cases:

• Video views accessed through a free access link
• Video views from students who are currently on a free trial
• Course trailer views
• Total course watch time of less than 75 minutes in a given month

Bonuses for positive reviews

If you’re a Rising Teacher or Top Teacher, you can also earn money based on what Skillshare refers to as “meaningful engagement.” In simple terms, this refers to positive feedback from students.

Here’s what you’ll get each time a new student leaves you a positive review:

• Top Teacher: $250
• Rising Teacher: $100

1-on-1 sessions

Skillshare recently started offering instructors the option to host live classes and one-on-one teaching sessions: These involve live interactions with individual students rather than prerecorded lessons, so it’s more like conventional tutoring and more in line with what you’d get on popular tutoring platforms (e.g., Tutor.com or Cambly).

Instead of uploading pre-recorded lessons, you’re engaging in live interactions with individual students.

Initially, only selected teachers were allowed to offer one-on-one lessons during the initial trial stages of the program. But since Skillshare announced their acquisition of the Superpeer platform in March 2024, instructors can now create a Superpeer account to start offering 1:1 calls. To get started, follow Skillshares instructions for how to start hosting 1:1 lessons.

Just beware that the details of this service are likely to change over time. Skillshare has already made it clear that while you can currently keep 100% of your earnings from one-on-one sessions, they plan to start taking a 10% cut (and potentially more) in the future. 3

Referral rewards

One other way to make money on Skillshare is to refer new students to the platform. Once someone you refer becomes a paying member, you’ll get 60% of their subscription fee. For an annual subscription, you’ll get 60% of the annual fee. For a monthly subscription, you’ll get 60% of the subscription fee for their first 12 months.

Like the case with their regular payment model, Skillshare has changed their referral bonus policy. They used to give teachers a flat bonus of $10 for each person referred who turned into a paid member, but this system was replaced with the current model in 2022. 4

According to a 2016 post from Skillshare, a typical teacher makes between $0.05 and $0.10 for every minute watched. So let’s say that you accrue 1,000 watch minutes each month. That equates to an income of $50–$100 per month in royalties.

However, you should take these Skillshare salaries with a grain of salt. After all, they’re from 2016, when their payment system was probably different, and they’re reported by Skillshare rather than an objective party. But that’s not to say that there aren’t still opportunities to make decent money on Skillshare.

Online reports from Skillshare users suggest that realistic earnings fall somewhere in the range of $100–$200 per month for instructors who are putting the right time and effort into a course selling side hustle. Some instructors even report earning hundreds of thousands of dollars from selling Skillshare courses—though it’s safe to say that earnings this high are the exception rather than the rule.

Factors that can affect your earnings on Skillshare

It’s difficult to estimate how much you’ll earn per hour on Skillshare since there are so many factors that can impact your earnings. Here are just a few examples:

• Number of published courses you have
• Number of enrolled students
• Popularity and demand for your courses
• How much marketing you do
• Where your students live
• Time of year

Plus, depending on the subject matter and your current level of preparedness, it could take you more time and money to create online courses. In this sense, it takes longer for some teachers to “break even” in terms of hours worked or course materials purchased.

How do you get paid?

Skillshare pays teachers via Tipalti. Once you’ve set up an account, you’ll have a choice of several payment options:

• Direct deposit/ACH
• Wire transfer
• PayPal
• Prepaid debit card

Simply select your preferred payment method, enter your personal details, and complete your tax forms. You’ll then get paid on the 16th of every month for earnings you acquired in the previous month.

Skillshare reviews are mixed when it comes to teachers, but the general consensus seems to be negative. Although some teachers love Skillshare and are able to make a very healthy living from it, others have drawn attention to a few notable shortcomings of the platform.

Skillshare keeps cutting the pay for instructors

Skillshare’s payment model is notoriously mysterious, and it keeps changing. Recently, they’ve been changing the payment model multiple times per year—just as an example, you can find payment model updates published in January 2022, September 2022, January 2023, and December 2023.

These updates would be well received if they benefitted instructors, but that might not be the case. While there are a variety of factors that can affect teacher earnings, online reports from the past couple of years suggest that at least some teachers blame Skillshare for drops in their income.

User reviews:

Reddit: “Slilllshare has really cut their budget for paying its teachers since oct2022.”

Reddit: “I was making a few hundred, enough to pay for some bills and groceries. They cut the pay so much I’m losing motivation to continue making classes. […] It took a while to get the ball rolling and be able to partially support myself with it, to only have them cut the teacher share like this.”

Reddit: “It used to be good, but Skillshare has changed the way they pay teachers and cut the pay with about 45%. […] The price per minute used to based on the payment of subscribers, which was around $0.07 per minute. Now there’s a set teacher pool and minutes are worth around $0.04.”

Reddit: “I went from close to $2k per month down to about $300. pretty bummed.”

Reddit: “It used to be able to pay for my utilities and small expenses at least, and now it’s not livable.”

Reddit: “I am now receiving less than 30% of what I used to average.”

You probably won’t make enough to quit your day job

Another key point mentioned in Skillshare instructor reviews is that although it’s relatively easy to start earning money on Skillshare, the earning potential is far lower than what you might expect.

Although some Skillshare teachers are happy just to receive any amount of passive income, others feel that it’s just not worth the effort you need to put into building the course. This seems to suggest that Skillshare is better suited to beginners who want to test the waters with course selling, whereas people who want to start a full course selling side hustle may want to look elsewhere.

User reviews:

Reddit: “Took me about 4 months to prep, script, film, edit a 1 hour long course on UX Design. It’s been on Skillshare for 14 months. It’s made $200 with 154 students. It was fun to make and I’m glad I completed what I set out to do, make a course – but not worth it financially.”

Reddit: “You’ll almost certainly get some profit, but unless you get really lucky its not a replacement for a full-time job.”

Courses might get removed with little explanation

On the surface, it seems that anyone can make money selling courses on Skillshare, but the reality is that the platform has some pretty strict quality requirements that you’ll need to meet. Notably, the application process isn’t the only thing you need to worry about.

Even if your course is initially approved, there’s no guarantee that it won’t get dropped later down the line. Some instructors have reported instances of Skillshare banning their courses with little warning or issuing strikes against them for quality concerns, even when their course was popular among students.

User reviews:

Reddit: “I noticed a few months ago that teachers were having their classes removed (not spammy classes – legitimate classes as per Skillshare teacher terms). I thought it would never happen to me because all my content complies with terms and besides, they were popular and highly rated. As of this morning about half of the classes were banned. Instantly. No warning. No reason. Just corporate fluff about ‘moderation team – review – guidelines’ etc.”

Reddit: “All courses closed, the response is vague, they don’t tell you exactly what should be done to fix the problem. […] I’d like to cooperate. I just don’t know what to do to fix the problem. They could have given me a few days to fix the problem before closing courses.”

Reddit: ” I was striked for audio issue where in one of lesson had some reverb because I record using my phone. The reverb was not over bearing or hindering my voice but still they decide to strike me.”

Rising competition is making it harder to succeed

A major complaint from instructors is the market saturation on Skillshare. As more and more people are drawn to the passive income potential offered by course selling websites like Skillshare, it becomes harder for new instructors to break into the market and gain traction.

This is certainly an issue you’d find with other platforms, and Skillshare has even attempted to address this problem by adjusting their algorithm to favor new courses for the first 90 days they’re live on the site. Nevertheless, new instructors still express feelings of discouragement at not achieving their expected results.

User reviews:

Reddit: “Skillshare is becoming increasingly competitive. More teachers are joining because there’s money to be made. More courses are made, and your courses will get lost in the sea of courses. Skillshare now pays $90% for referrals. […] If you’re a new teacher, unless you create an absolutely amazing popular course, chances are you will be earning less than the referral.”

Reddit: “Skillshare has an algorithm in place that stops your classes from being found over others. Skillshare will not really promote your classes and will favor others that have earned their stripes. They want you to bring your own audience with you. Once you bring that audience and have more classes and they’re doing okay, the skillshare algorithm will rank you higher.”

So, is Skillshare worth it? Skillshare reviews from teachers seem to suggest that although you could once earn good money on Skillshare, that’s no longer the case for most aspiring instructors.

The main appeal to selling courses on Skillshare is gaining exposure to a much larger audience than most people would probably be able to reach on their own. But with this exposure comes a pretty big sacrifice in terms of earnings.

Ultimately, Skillshare is better suited to beginner instructors who aren’t sure where to start with a course selling side hustle or who want a hands-on platform that will do a lot of the work for them. For more serious experts who plan on selling courses for a living, there are better options out there.

Skillshare pros and cons

Here are some benefits and drawbacks to consider before you sign up to teach on Skillshare:

Skillshare’s limitations

Skillshare imposes a few rules on instructors, which can thwart your plans to make lots of money selling courses online. Here are a few notable limitations that are worth considering:

• For big earnings, you need to promote your own courses: Skillshare may sound like an easy solution for finding students who are willing to buy your courses, but their massive 80% cut of teacher revenue makes it hard to earn decent money through the platform alone. The only way to keep the bulk of your earnings is to get students to sign up with your referral link.
• You can’t share your videos on YouTube or social media: It’s against Skillshare’s rules to share your course content anywhere for free, and this includes YouTube and other social media channels. This limits the ways you can monetize your course material.
• You can only post one class per week: Skillshare instructors can only upload one new class every 7 days. If your plan is to start a full-time side hustle selling online courses, you may want to look elsewhere.

Some of these restrictions will affect your earning potential on Skillshare, so it’s worth evaluating your goals to make sure Skillshare is the best course selling platform for you to use.

How Skillshare compares to other online course selling platforms

Despite the platform’s large user base of learners, Skillshare falls short of its lead competitors. For example, teaching on Udemy offers most of the same benefits, but the platform has a more transparent pay structure and little to no restrictions on how many courses you upload or where else you post your course content.

It’s also worth reiterating that you don’t even need to use a platform like Skillshare to sell your courses online. Although it takes more time and effort to build your own website to host your courses and then advertise them yourself, doing so would give you a lot more freedom, and you’d get to keep 100% of your course revenue.