Two roles, not two rivals
Udemy and Learnomy do different jobs, so the useful plan is often to use both. Udemy is a marketplace: strangers search it, find a course and buy. Learnomy is a plugin on your own site: nobody finds you unless you bring them. We would put an introductory course on the marketplace and the full programme on your own site, as long as Udemy’s current instructor terms allow it.
This section is about doing that without making a mess.
Building the course you keep
In Learnomy Free you create a course, pick how it is sold, and build sections and lessons from seven content types. Video comes in from a host you choose, such as YouTube, Vimeo or Loom, with watch tracking. Quizzes have six question types, and a certificate is issued on completion with a public verification page.
The course lives on a page you control, with your domain and theme. That matters for search too: a course page on your own site builds your own site’s authority, while a marketplace listing builds theirs.
What Udemy handles for you, and what you inherit
On Udemy, hosting, checkout, delivery and discovery are the platform’s job. Its support pages describe a revenue share that depends on how the buyer found the course, and promotion programmes that instructors are enrolled in under its rules. Check Udemy’s current instructor terms for the exact position, because they change.
On Learnomy you inherit all of it. You pick a host, connect Stripe or PayPal, write a sales page and find your own buyers. Learnomy has no built-in email marketing, funnel builder or directory, so promotion is a separate job and a separate tool.
Selling on your own site
A buyer clicks Buy on your course page and lands on a single checkout. They apply a coupon, enter billing details and pay by card through Stripe or by PayPal, and the money goes to your processor account. Learnomy takes no share.
- Coupons can be percentage or fixed, with usage limits and date windows.
- Memberships let you sell ongoing access to a library instead of single courses.
- You can run a launch price on your schedule, without a marketplace calendar.
- Guest checkout is off by default, and you turn it on in the payment settings.
The student relationship and the first week
On Udemy, the platform decides what instructors can see and how they can contact students. Read its terms before you invite anyone to your own site.
On Learnomy, every student account, order, progress record and certificate is in your database. You can email people through your own tool, offer the next course when they finish, and export students as CSV. WordPress’s personal data tools handle an individual’s export or erase request.
Your student arrives from your email list, a search result or a link on social media, not from a marketplace shelf. They buy, sign in to an account area, and work through lessons in a full-screen player with a progress bar. They see your brand and nobody else’s courses next to yours. That is the point, and it is also the cost: nothing recommends them a second course unless you do.
Who should not switch
If you have no audience, the marketplace may be where your first hundred students come from. If you want to test whether a topic sells before building anything, a listing is a cheap experiment. And if hosting, checkout and delivery are chores you would rather never think about, Udemy removes them.
Move to Learnomy, or add it, when you want to set prices yourself, own the relationship and sell more than single courses.
Moving or splitting
There is no importer for Udemy, and you should check what you may reuse from your own material. Rebuild by hand, or script a large library against the REST API or WP-CLI.
- Decide which course stays on Udemy and which moves.
- Rebuild the moving course in Learnomy Free, with its quiz and certificate.
- Test a purchase on the test gateway.
- Add a link to your own site in a way Udemy’s rules allow.
- Bulk enrol only people you are allowed to contact, by pasted emails or CSV.