SKILLSHARE REVIEW: Best Online Courses Platform?

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Are you looking for a Skillshare review? I have been using Skillshare for a year now. So I’ll share my unbiased review. If you’ve read my previous blog posts about online courses, you perhaps read that I wasn’t a fan of online courses until I bought the premium subscription of Skillshare.

Today, I’m happy to tell you that Skillshare is my go-to online course website. I have enrolled in many courses and learning new skills, especially the skills I once thought I won’t be able to learn.

Affiliate Disclosure: Some of the links in the blog post could be affiliate links, which means we’d earn commissions if you buy the products, but it won’t cost you any extra money. Please read the disclosure page for more details.

If you’re someone like the older version of me who hated paid courses, you might think spending money on the courses is useless and you can find all the information for free. My friend, I used to think the same. It turns out, I was wrong about that. All the useful information isn’t free out there.

There is a reason why people pay hundreds of dollars to experts to learn something they can’t do on their own.

According to a video posted by the World Economic Forum, learnability is a skill that can save your job. Furthermore, they portrayed a message that some jobs that people will be doing in the next 10 to 15 years don’t even exist today. What it means is that the better you can cope with the advancement of technology, the easier it would be for you to survive.

The context of the video was that people who’d adapt to the new changes and embrace the innovation of the future would be the ones who’d successfully secure their future. Learnability is a skill that is likely to become a game-changer in the years to come.

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Let’s cut to the chase.

Now, I’ll share a bunch of key features of Skillshare that will help you understand why I’m going gaga over this online course website.

Key Features of Skillshare

A wide range of course categories

Skillshare has multiple course categories which makes it pretty useful for a lot of people. You can find thousands of online courses across a wide range of categories such as Animation, Creative Writing Film & Video, Fine Art, Graphic Design, Illustration, Music, Photography, UI/UX Design, Web Development, Business Analytics, Freelance & Entrepreneurship, Leadership & Management Marketing, Lifestyle, and Productivity.

Mobile apps availability

Skillshare has mobile apps for both Android and iOS, which means you can learn new skills on the go. Sometimes, it’s not possible to carry a laptop so the mobile app does the job. I have been taking courses on my smartphone using the Skillshare app for a year now.

Course bookmarking

Course bookmarking is exactly what it looks like. Meaning, you can bookmark the courses that you find on Skillshare and enroll whenever you want. Your bookmarked courses will be available to you in your account.

Watch history

Watch history saves your recently watched courses which help in keeping track of your online learning. Sometimes, you forget the course name or the instructor’s name, watch history shows you the history of your content consumption.

Download Courses

The Skillshare app has a download feature, which means, you can download the video course in your Skillshare app and access it offline. However, you can’t download the individual class, but instead, it downloads the whole course for a limited time.

Discussion Section

Every course has a discussion tab where you can ask questions and discuss things with the instructor as well as other students. It takes the whole learning experience to the next level when you have the facility to interact with others.

Do you want to know more perks of Skillshare?

Let me share more:

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Why Skillshare is worth it

Over 20,000 courses

According to Wikipedia, Skillshare has around 27,000 courses, but I’ve read somewhere on Skillshare that they have over 22,000 online courses. It’s safe to say that they have over 20,000 online courses. Let me remind you that a course is between 1 hour to 5 hours long.

7-day free trial

Skillshare offers a 7-day free trial to the users. You can try out everything by signing up for free and get to know the platform. When I signed up, they used to offer a 30-day free trial.

Teach and get paid

Skillshare can be a source of passive income for you if you have a skill that you want to use. All you need is to join Skillshare as an instructor and go through all the procedures, meaning, understand all the requirements to create a course, and upload your course content on the platform. Skillshare pays instructors per minute-watched by the paid users. Usually, they get paid $0.05 to $0.10 per minute.

Referral and Affiliate Programs

Skillshare offers both referral and affiliate programs. If you refer a new user to the platform, they’d get a free 2-month membership and you’d earn a free month on your account once they complete the first payment. On the other hand, you earn a $7 commission when a new user signs up to Skillshare through your affiliate link.

Pricing

Skillshare costs $99 per year, which is affordable as compared to individual courses being offered by the influencers which cost $49 to $999. With Skillshare you get access to thousands of courses at $99.

The perks of having a Skillshare premium membership don’t end here.

Take a look at some extra benefits of Skillshare:

Extra Benefits of Skillshare

Skillshare Scholarships

Skillshare has teamed up with many organizations and brands to provide scholarships to the students. VSCO, Mailchimp, and a few more companies have partnered with Skillshare to offer scholarships to the students. Furthermore, you can apply to fund a scholarship on Skillshare as well.

Gift Cards

Skillshare allows you to gift premium memberships to loved ones in different denominations such as 3 months, 6 months, and 12 months. You can save up to 47% on 12 months gift card.

Discount Coupons

The premium members have access to the perks sections, which is basically a collection of coupon codes from various SAAS companies and online services. You could find discount coupons from Adobe, Squarespace, BenchTax, Invision, and more.

Pros and Cons of Skillshare

ProsCons
The course catalog is massive, which is a huge advantage. It means you can find courses on a wide range of topics. The Skillshare app doesn’t allow users to download a single video lecture out of the list. Rather, you have to download the whole course.
The price is rather affordable as compared to the online education industry. If you start buying individual courses on other platforms or from the industry experts, they’d cost much more than $99.It might be difficult for a beginner to pay a lump sum amount of $99. They must introduce a monthly plan without increasing the total price.
The platform user interface (on both app and website) is quite friendly. You don’t have to be an expert on computers or mobile devices to use this platform. When you refer someone to try the platform for free, you don’t immediately earn a free month on the platform, but instead, you earn a free month on the first payment of the user you referred to the platform. That’s why the referral program seems less enticing.
The affiliate program allows you to promote Skillshare and earn some money.The affiliate commission is low. It must be at least 20% to 30% for each sale. When you earn $7 after bringing a customer who paid $99 to Skillshare, it doesn’t seem fair.
You can join Skillshare as an instructor and make a passive income with a course. However, don’t overlook how the payment is calculated.The payment structure for instructors is a little bit complicated. They get paid between $0.05 to $0.10 per minute watched by the premium users.
The discussion section allows you to interact with the instructor as well as the students.

The Final Words About Skillshare

Overall, I liked this online course platform and I’m willing to stick to this platform for a while. The price is affordable, and the number of courses on the platform makes it more attractive.

I’ve taken some courses on Udemy and Fiverr, which is why I know Skillshare is far better than any other online course website. It doesn’t mean those aren’t good platforms. What I’m saying is that Skillshare makes more sense to me.

For instance, if an average course on Udemy costs $15, and I decide to take 10 courses in a year, then I’d be spending $150. On the flip side, I can take 100 courses by just paying $99 on Skillshare.

I’m planning on renewing my subscription so that I could enroll in more courses in 2021.

 Does Skillshare seem interesting to you?

Let me know in the comments whatever your answer is.