Upcoming improvements to the refund system (RU)

In the State of Udemy in May, you mentioned that you’d be updating the refund system. What changes will you be making?

Throughout the coming months we will be releasing a series of updates to our refund system. The first improvements that we will be making are to our refund platform. These changes will allow us to more effectively track and process refunds efficiently for students, and help us to monitor and enforce our refund policies. With these updates, we hope to better flag and catch abusive refunds, while providing risk-free exploration for the majority of students.

In addition to the platform improvements, we will be updating our refund-abuse policies to identify bad actors and limit their ability to request a refund. We will be implementing new policies based on refund rates, course consumption, and repeat course refunds.

While these are the currently prioritized changes, the work on refunds will not stop there. We will continue to monitor refund trends, reasons, and behavior to identify opportunities for additional improvements and updates.

What are you hoping to achieve with these updates?

The new refund system will help us set better student expectations and identify abusive behavior. Our goal with the new system is to provide a better experience for revenue driving students, while protecting you and your content from bad actors.

When will these changes go into effect?

The changes to the refund platform and new thresholds will be going into effect throughout July and August. At this time we will also be experimenting with user interface updates to the refund request process. You may see changes to the refund request experience if you are also a Udemy student, and are included in the experiment group.

How will this impact my revenue?

We believe that the new refund system will improve both the student and instructor experience. With the new abuse policies, we anticipate that you will see either a flattened refund rate or a decrease in refund requests. The new experience is intended to discourage bad actors from abusing the policy, while allowing students who refund in earnest to continue to do so. These changes are not intended to remove refunds entirely, but over time we expect that you will see fewer refund requests per course and overall higher take-home revenue.

What will I see differently in my dashboard? Will there be any other changes to what I see as an instructor?

At this time, you will not see any changes in your performance dashboard or experience as an instructor.

What other improvements is Udemy making to refunds?

While we are implementing the changes above throughout the coming months, we will continue to explore ways to improve the refund system. This includes monitoring refund patterns and behavior to identify future policy improvements and exploring alternative modes of refunds including a credit system. We will continue to update this page as the project progresses to keep you updated on the refund system and future improvements.