Coursera vs Udemy for Business

Coursera for Business and Udemy for Business are both eLearning Content providers. Both websites have versions available for individual users.

Their “for Business” offerings specialize in group or team learning plans. Coursera has solutions tailored to general enterprises as well as governmental organizations and educational institutions. Udemy for Business is similar, having a plan tailored to a specific team within an organization, enterprises, non-profits, and government agencies.

Features

A key component of Coursera for Business that makes it easier to use administratively for managers is that it comes with curated collections based on department focus and roles. Through Coursera’s partnerships with higher education institutions, employees can take classes approved by actual professors and researchers in their fields. In many cases, courses are facilitated and led by actual college professors.

Udemy is known for not only having a catalog of academic-focused classes, but non-academic online classes. Udemy for Business will provide users to both focus on professional development in addition to their passions outside work. It also provides support to administrators in the form of events, webinars, and literature on how to use online course work to one’s best advantage. It also supports another important component of corporate eLearning: analysis. Udemy for Business provides admins with built-in reporting tools and insight into how users are learning and has built-in reporting tools.

Limitations

Given their academic rigor, Coursera courses are not as flexible or “pick up and go” as other eLearning providers. Owing to this, they might not be as engaging, exciting, or “gamified” as other options. If going with Coursera for Business, plan on providing team members with dedicated time for focusing on their coursework. Be mindful of tediousness as well.

On the other hand, Udemy’s course catalog provides a lot of flexibility because they are not as strongly vetted. With approving each course a team member takes, there runs a risk of classes of poor quality being taken. For professional use, managers may want more challenging coursework to be utilized.

Pricing

Udemy for Business markets its Enterprise plan as being its standard, but it also has a Team plan. The key difference between these two plans lies in the number of users per license. Its Team plan supports between 5-20 users at $240 a year per user. Its Enterprise price is dependent upon the number of users but requires a minimum of 21 users. Both plans provide unlimited access to Udemy’s course catalog, branded dashboards/URLs, and have mobile app versions. However, the Enterprise has additional features such as custom content creation and access to non-English language collections.

Coursera’s business plans start at $400 a year per user with its Team plan, which is designed for use by a single department within an organization, or smaller business. It also has an Enterprise plan designed for use by larger organizations. Owing to this, the key difference between the two plans is that the Enterprise plan comes with analytics and integrations with other tools to provide managers with more insight into usage and track professional development. Both plans come with unlimited course access and are available for use on mobile devices.