Skillshare Help Center

Earn From Your Teaching

As a teacher on Skillshare, you can earn revenue from the Skillshare Teacher Fund each month.

In this article:

In order to deliver the best experience to our teachers and students, we have updated our payment model to better align our teachers’ earnings with student success and industry standards. Read our announcement, Introducing a New Teacher Payment Model (September 2022), to learn more about the switch to this model.

How We Calculate Your Teacher Earnings

Skillshare operates under a subscription model. Members pay an annual fee for a Skillshare membership, which includes unlimited access to our entire catalog of classes and other membership benefits like hands-on projects, teacher feedback, and offline viewing through our mobile app. View the full benefits of a Skillshare membership here.

Teachers are paid each month from the Skillshare Teacher Fund, which is set at the start of each month. The Skillshare Teacher Fund for March 2023 (to be paid out on April 16) will be 950,000 USD.

Teachers will be paid out from this fund based on the following metrics:

Minutes Watched

The majority of the Skillshare Teacher Fund each month goes toward paying teachers for minutes watched in their classes. When calculating how much you will get paid for minutes watched, we calculate your share of that month’s total minutes watched as compared to other earning teachers, and also we take into account several factors tied to the member that watched your class, including things like if a member is using a free trial or the nature of their paid subscription, and other variations in their behavior. This enables us to align teacher earnings with actual sales revenue.

Engagement

A smaller share of the Skillshare Teacher Fund each month goes toward paying teachers for meaningful engagement with members. Members tell us they desire more teacher engagement, and teachers who do are more successful overall on the platform, so we are going to reward teachers directly who engage meaningfully with their students. To identify the best ways to reward teachers for engagement, we’re taking an adaptive approach designed to evolve over time as member behavior shifts.

Starting in February 2023, engagement earnings are calculated and distributed in the following way:

  • The monthly engagement reward will be based on positive student reviews (a rating of “met” or “exceeded” expectations).
  • Active members of our Top Teacher and Teach Corps programs have been selected to be eligible for these earnings. If you are a member of one of these programs on the last day of a calendar month, you will be considered active in that program for that earning month.
  • Eligible teachers in those programs who receive at least one (1) new positive student review in any of their classes by 11:59pm ET on the last day of that calendar month will automatically receive a reward of either $250 (Top Teachers) or $100 (Teach Corps) on their next monthly payment. If you earned a monthly engagement reward, a confirmation email will be sent to you between the end of the earning month and the next payment.

Please note that negative reviews (rating of “somewhat” or “not really”) do not have any impact on monthly engagement earnings, and that earning engagement rewards will be subject to our usual Terms and payment requirements. For more information on how reviews work, head to Receive Student Reviews.

If you are not yet a member of one of these eligible programs, and aspire to level up your teaching success on Skillshare and unlock this phase of engagement earnings, we invite you to explore this article about our teacher programs and take advantage of the many resources in our Teacher Help Center about quality and engaging teaching. Regardless, you can continue to earn each month for minutes watched in your classes and referrals; for more information, refer to the current article Earn From Your Teaching, as well as Earn From Your Referrals.

The current phase of engagement earnings is in effect starting February 2023 and continues through much of 2023 so that we can learn, iterate, and also provide teachers with predictability. For more background on this current phase of engagement earnings, please visit Update on Engagement Earnings and the Skillshare Teacher Fund (January 2023).

What You Can Expect About Monthly Earnings

We send your monthly payment for earnings from the Skillshare Teacher Fund and referrals (see Earn From Your Referrals) on the 16th of each month through Tipalti. If the 16th of the month falls on a weekend or holiday, Skillshare will send your monthly payment on the closest preceding business day. Review our article When and how do I receive payments from Skillshare? to learn more about Tipalti, payment options, and processing times.

While we do our best to estimate your teacher earnings each month on your Teacher Stats dashboard, your actual payment may differ because of these additional factors:

  • Your share of the total minutes on the platform is calculated based on the performance of your classes relative to the performance of other teachers’ classes, in addition to adjustments based on member data, such as price differences by markets, if the member is using a free trial or a paid subscriber, and other variations in user behavior.
  • Our Trust & Safety team regularly conducts fraud investigations among users that may occasionally result in changes to your minutes watched, and thereby, your share of total minutes. To learn more about these fraud investigations and their potential effect on your minutes watched, review the article Why did my minutes watch decrease?

Exceptions

There are a few exceptions to earning for your teaching on Skillshare that are important to keep in mind:

  1. You must accrue a minimum of 75 total minutes watched by members across all of your published classes in such month in order to receive a payment for that month.
  2. Trailer minutes do not count toward your monthly payment as all class trailers are available to watch for free.
  3. Minutes watched by students through a free access link or during a free trial do not count toward your payment.

Tracking Your Earnings

Your Teacher Stats dashboard is an overview of activity and earnings for your teaching on Skillshare. Visit Where can I find information on my class performance and earnings? for a detailed breakdown of the information displayed on this dashboard.

In the current phase of engagement earnings, engagement rewards will be paid to eligible teachers each month as a manual payment on top of earnings for minutes watched and referrals. These rewards will not appear on your Teacher Stats dashboard. To check that you have received a reward payment, review our FAQ, I received a reward or bonus on my monthly payment. How do I track that?

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