The eLearning market was valued at around 352.98 billion in the year 2025 and is anticipated to reach an expected value of $842.64 billion in market size by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 19.0% in the forecast period (2025-2030). The statistics precisely illustrate the current situation of the online learning industry and testify to the enormous potential this industry has to offer for both entrepreneurs and users such as learners, tutors, etc.
Industry experts are looking forward to the rapidly increasing popularity of eLearning websites in the coming future and anticipate huge growth. This makes the eLearning industry a lucrative business avenue for those planning to launch their own website. There are numerous online learning websites that are growing rapidly and serving learners worldwide. However, one name that tops the list and is hugely popular among learners is Coursera.
Coursera is one of the successful online learning websites, in this article, we share information about Coursera, how it works, and its revenue model. We also share insights on how you can build a website like Coursera effortlessly.
Coursera was founded by professors of Standford University, Andrew Ng, and Daphne Koller in 2012. Coursera has partnered with 275+ universities and organizations around the world. Enterprises too partner with Coursera to train and upskill their employees. Its vision is to provide affordable, flexible, and job-oriented courses to learners around the world.
The courses offered by Coursera include various subjects ranging from business, engineering, and computer science to social science, medicine, and many more. Coursera offers certifications, bachelor’s, and master’s degree programs to its learners.
1. Launch and early traction (2012-2013): Coursera was launched in 2012 offering free access to learners worldwide, raising an initial investment of $16 million. Nine months after the launch, Coursera earned $1 million in revenue and within a year this revenue reached $4 million.
2. Expansion and diversification (2014-2017): Coursera continued to grow and diversify its offerings, by including specializations and degrees. In October 2015, Coursera announced giving access of assignments to only those who have paid for certificates, hence, monetizing its content. Meanwhile, Coursera also formed partnerships with businesses to offer corporate training.
3. Scaling and Monetization (2018-2020): In this stage, Coursera continued to scale its business by attracting more and more learners. In 2018, Coursera’s estimated revenue was around $140 million as compared to $100 million in 2017. Coursera’s valuation reached over $1B after a Series E funding round of $103 million.
4. Tremendous Growth (2021-present): Coursera has become one of the largest and most successful eLearning platforms. The total revenue of Coursera was $415.3 million in 2021, up from 41% as compared to 263.5 million in the prior year. Currently, Coursera has 162+ million users on its platform and offers more than 10,000+ courses for learners.
After gaining extensive knowledge about Coursera and its growth journey, let’s move forward to understand how Coursera works and earns money.
This website works by effortlessly connecting students with expert instructors. Let’s see how Coursera works:
1. Course selection: Learners browse through the list of courses offered by top universities and institutions on the platform. They select the ones that interest them. Additionally, they can read information about the courses, and syllabus, and can check the ratings of their instructors.
2. Enrollment: For free courses, learners can enroll by clicking on ‘enroll for free’ after which they can sign up with an email address or Facebook account and they can start their learning journey.
However, for paid programs after the selection of the course, learners can enroll by clicking on ‘Apply Now’ to start their application or ‘Request more info’ to know more about the course. Then after paying the respective fees they can access course content.
3. Learning: After successfully enrolling, learners get access to video courses along with assignments, quizzes, and course content. Learners can complete the courses at their own pace and can engage with instructors and other students through discussion forums.
4. Certifications: After the completion of the course, learners can receive a certificate of completion. All paid courses offer free certification, however, to earn a certificate for free courses a fee needs to be paid.
Moving forward, let’s see how Coursera earns money.
Coursera makes money in several ways, let’s put the spotlight on all of them.
1. Commission: Learners buy a paid course and a commission is deducted from instructor’s fee by Coursera.
2. Coursera Plus: A monthly or yearly subscription is offered by Coursera where learners can get access to 90% of the courses by paying a set amount of fee.
3. Professional certificates: Learners can get professional certifications by paying a set fee.
4. Bachelor’s and Master’s degree: Coursera offers bachelor’s and master’s degree programs through partnerships with universities and colleges around the globe. The revenue is shared among Coursera and its university partners.
5. Partnering with Government and Businesses: Coursera offers courses to upskill employees of big companies and government organizations and in return charges a certain fee for the training.
All these revenue streams work together to generate revenue for Coursera.
Here is a comparison of some of the competitors of Coursera:
| eLearning Platform | No of courses | Price Plan | No of learners |
| Coursera | 10,000+ | Free, Paid, Subscription, Degrees, Certifications | 162+ million learners |
| FutureLearn | 1000+ | Free, Premium paid courses | 17+ million |
| Udacity | 150+ | Free courses, Paid nano degree | 11.5+ million learners |
| edX | 3000+ | Free, Paid certificate courses | 55+ million |
With the success of platforms like Coursera, a lot of entrepreneurs feel encouraged to launch their eLearning business with similar concepts, features, and functionalities. Coursera was a combination of a brilliant idea supported by a reliable and feature-packed website. Let’s explore how to build a website like Coursera and its development cost.
Building a website like Coursera may seem to be a challenging task in the beginning. However, by following the steps mentioned below you can streamline this process and easily enter this industry.
Before beginning with the development process, the foremost step is to understand the online education market, analyze the industry trends, and gain insights into your target market. This will help you in creating a website that is well-positioned for success in this highly competitive market. It is an essential step that sets a solid foundation, ensuring you build a website that caters precisely to the needs and preferences of your target audience.
The next step is to determine a niche and target audience for your online learning website. Deciding on the right niche for your website narrows down the market and is likely to have a lower barrier to entry, which means that it is easy to enter the market. Also, defining your target audience helps in creating an online learning website that will be in demand.
There are numerous features that make the core of almost all eLearning websites. Advanced features streamline the user experience for learners and tutors on the website, making it popular in the industry. Let’s look at the essential features and functionalities that are important to build a website like Coursera.
After selecting the right set of features for your online learning website, the next important thing is to choose the right development approach.
To build a feature-packed online learning website like Coursera there are two options. One is to build it from scratch with custom development or choose a ready-made software solution.
A custom-developed solution requires more time, effort, and investment. You would need a well-experienced team of designers and developers to handle the development process. However, a ready-made solution is hassle-free and takes less time and effort. Yo!Coach is one such ready-made solution that can make this whole process of development easy for you.
This solution offers best-in-class features to streamline the operations of your online learning business. Yo!Coach can effectively build and launch a course-based website like Coursera. It offers relevant features and technology to seamlessly connect tutors and learners on the platform.
Yo!Coach is reliable ready-made software that helps entrepreneurs in successfully building their online learning websites. This software offers many essential features that streamline the user experience on the website and provide an intuitive learning experience. Yo!Coach team has already helped 1000+ clients across the globe in establishing their online learning business. It comes pre-integrated with several capabilities that make it easy for entrepreneurs to launch their own online learning websites like Coursera, Udemy, Preply, Cambly, and more.
Key Benefits of Yo!Coach:
Features Offered by Yo!Coach:
The final step is to launch your website in the industry and market it efficiently so that it reaches out to your right target audience. The following marketing strategies can be leveraged by business owners to promote their online websites like Coursera:
In this ever-evolving education industry, building an online learning website is the need of the hour for any entrepreneur. eLearning websites like Coursera are becoming popular among learners and the demand for such platforms is on the rise. This constantly increasing demand means an amazing opportunity for edupreneurs to enter this industry and establish their online learning business.Thus, if you have a brilliant startup idea and want to build your own website like Coursera and need assistance, contact our experts to discuss.
All innovation starts with an idea to solve real-world problems. At FATbit Technologies we are passionate about driving digital transformation to prepare businesses for a digital-first tomorrow. Let’s discuss your BIG idea NOW.
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Sapna Sharma is a Content Writer at FATbit Technologies. Through her blogs, she brings insightful information to help entrepreneurs and startup owners know about recent market trends and developments in the eCommerce industry. In her spare time, she likes to paint and read books.
