Is Selling Online Courses Profitable?

By Marc Cronin, August 2026

The short answer is yes, but the long answer depends on your niche, audience, and marketing. Here is an honest look at course profitability.

Revenue Potential

Course creators earn anywhere from a few hundred pounds per month to six figures per year. The average is somewhere in the middle. The key variable is not course quality, it is audience size and marketing.

What Determines Profitability

Three things matter most: audience size before launch, pricing strategy, and follow up marketing. A course launched to a list of 1000 engaged subscribers will outperform a course launched to nobody every time.

The Real Costs

Platform fees (30 to 100 pounds per month), email marketing (20 to 100 pounds per month), content creation time (100 to 500 hours for your first course). Total first year investment is typically under 5000 pounds.

Realistic Timeline

Month 1 to 3: build the course. Month 3 to 6: launch and get first sales. Month 6 to 12: optimise and scale. Most profitable courses take 12 months to reach consistent revenue. See our course creation coaching.