Hey folks,

Usually you’ll find some cool scripted animation technique introduced here, but today I want to talk about my experience as a course creator and affiliate marketer on Skillshare

I’m also a Skillshare student (I actually pay $99 for their yearly membership), which gives me strongly conflicting views on the company and service.

With their recent change to their free trial terms I thought I’d take this opportunity to share some thoughts.

A little background

Skillshare is an online training platform that offers thousands of classes to millions of students.

For students interested in creative arts (design, illustration, crafts, music) and web development there are thousands of classes to get you started.

Despite having a disastrous experience as a course creator (they pulled my course down in the middle of a launch), I still recommend Skillshare to students and make a little money each month from referrals.

Skillshare attracts students through their HUGE course catalog and once-generous, free trials.

Teachers are given special referral links that historically offered new students a 2-month free trial.

Skillshare teachers get paid $10 every time their referral link gets someone to sign up for a free trial. They also get paid for every minute a premium member spends watching their course. It works out to roughly 5-6 cents a minute on a good month (depending on a number of fluctuating and hard to understand factors).

The 2-month free trial made it easy for teacher’s to get new students by saying things like:

Hey, check out my course. This link will give you a 2 month free trial of Sillshare Premium. You can access my course and thousands of others if you sign up for free today.

It was a very attractive offer.

Skillshare is changing the rules

Skillshare just announced to teachers that on September 30, 2020 they are slashing the 2-month free trial down to 14 days. They claim that shorter trials lead to 30% higher conversions which is much better for them and teachers (not so good for students).

To make matters worse, Skillshare teachers have to change all their marketing that included the 2-month deal before September ends. I’ve had a very lazy approach to recommending Skillshare (as seen in my earnings report below). I probably have to edit a dozen or so youtube video descriptions that promote Skillshare.

There are others that put huge effort into their promotions and have them plastered everywhere.

You can get the 2-month Free Trial Before Sept 30th

Since I’m a Skillshare teacher I can still offer you the free 2 month trial until September 30. If you have ever had any interest in Skillshare you have nothing to lose by checking it out.

Some courses I recommend for web developers and designers:

Click any of those links and sign up before Sept 30th and you will get 2 months of Skillshare premium for free (and I’ll get that $10 bonus).

If you assume a decent course costs anywhere between $49 and $197 these days, you will definitely get value from Skillshare as a student.

You’ll get access to thousands of classes for a whole year for around a hundred bucks.

Sure there will be some duds, but overall the reviews and ratings drive the good classes to the top and are easy to find.

2 Words of Caution

Having access to courses doesn’t do anything for you. You must be disciplined in watching them and doing the work.
If you don’t like the courses just be sure to cancel before the trial ends or else Skillshare will automatically bill you.

If Skillshare sounds good to you, you can Click here to start your 14 day free trial, and yes, I’ll get a commission 😉

Earning Money on Skillshare as a Teacher

As you’ve read, I’m happy with Skillshare as a student.

As a teacher, I’m not so thrilled. I once had big plans to put loads of exclusive content on Skillshare, but in the middle of a course launch they took my course down without warning and it took 2 weeks to rectify the situation.

I’m not going into all the details here, but the short story is it was a horrible experience and I learned I couldn’t trust them or invest in their platform as a teacher. I ended up moving that course and all others to Thinkific (affiliate link) and it ended up being the best business decision of my life. More on that on another day.

However, Skillshare’s payment model still intrigued me. I had previously struggled to sell my self-hosted course Adobe Animate For Everyone at the level I wanted to achieve. The course got rave reviews (and still does), but I just didn’t have the audience or marketing prowess to make it soar.

As a bit of a test, I put a copy of the course on Skillshare to see how it would do. All the work was done. There was nothing to lose.

Minutes Watched of a Relatively Unpopular Course with Virtually No Promotion

Although the chart above doesn’t show it, Covid had a profound impact on minutes watched.

Prior to March my monthly minutes were 2,000 or less and now I’m hitting ~4,000 minutes consistently. What does that mean in dollars?

My Skillshare Earnings

As you’ll see, having a course on Skillshare that I don’t promote hasn’t made me a millionaire 🙂

If you’re struggling to pay the cable bill or need some “side money”, $248 a month does help. I know.

However, I’ve learned it is sooooo much better as a course creator to have full control over your content and pricing with a self-hosted solution like Thinkific. (again that’s an affiliate link and I’ll do a full blog post on them soon).

But do take a look at those referral numbers

That column on the right shows how much I made from just referring Skillshare.

I have very few referral links in the wild. My attitude about my course on Skillshare and their service can be summed up as “Hey, if you want it, it’s there, and I can get you in for free“.

It’s pretty crazy to make $70 in a month just doing that. I suspect if you put real effort into it you’d see a lot more.

In Summary

Do I recommend Skillshare for students? YES

Public high schools can rarely afford quality training for the digital age, universities are over-priced, and most training is done remotely these days anyway. Why not take control of your own course schedule? Start your free trial with my affiliate link. I appreciate the $10.

Do I Recommend Skillshare for course creators: NO

My bad experience aside, I don’t believe course creators should be handing over their creative property to anyone; whether it’s Skillshare, Udemy, or even LinkedIn Learning. There is more value in your courses than you realize. Don’t fall for the “with our large student pool will you’ll get a lot of exposure” crap.

Do I think you can make some money on Skillshare with some effort as an affiliate? YES

However, I’d recommend that you take some classes and recommend the ones that provided you value.

Hopefully this article gives a better understanding of how Skillshare operates and whether or not they are a good fit for you.

Feel free to post questions or anything about your Skillshare experience below.

If you know someone who would appreciate this article or the 2-month free trial, feel free to share.

Thanks for reading!

Carl

Read: Skillshare changes it’s referral policy