You want to know how to make money teaching art online? That’s a great idea, because sharing your artistic skills on the web can be both financially rewarding and personally satisfying—as long as you choose the right platform. In this post, I’ve sorted out the 6 best online teaching platforms for artists and give you a detailed breakdown of each one’s pros and cons to help you find the best fit for your needs. Let’s go!
Teaching art online is usually not the first thing that comes to mind when you’re an artist thinking about expanding your career and monetizing your creative skills.
But look at it this way: if you’ve been into your type of art for quite some time, you have acquired skills that new artists look up to and would love to learn from you.
By becoming an art teacher, you can share your knowledge, thus building trust in the art community—and making newbie artists happy. In return, watching your students grow and discover their own artistic voice under your guidance can be profoundly rewarding.
Apart from being a valuable source of extra income, creating and cutting videos itself can be a creative and fulfilling activity—if you’re using the right online teaching platform that respects your creative freedom and doesn’t take away an unfairly big portion of your earnings.
In this post, I show you the best options to make the most money as an art teacher, along with some detailed instructions on how to start teaching art online!
Can you make money teaching art online?
Well, as I already said above, online teaching is not an as popular way for artists to make money as, for example, selling prints, licensing your work, or taking on art commissions.
→ How To Make Money With Art Skills [19 Passive Income Ideas For Artists]
However, teaching is definitely worthwhile a consideration because learning various art skills or doing creative activities online is something many people are interested in.
When you are a digital artist, for example, you can show others how to use a specific software. Sophisticated programs like Photoshop, Corel Painter, or CorelDRAW are not easy to get to grips with because they are so rich in features.
Newcomers will always appreciate someone who takes them by the hand and shows them the ins and outs of the program step by step.
This also holds true for traditional forms of art. If you have never painted with acrylics or oil, you’ll be more than happy to have someone to help you take the first step.
But teaching art isn’t limited to just demonstrating techniques—there are so much more things that are important for artists. For example, you can give tips on how to overcome creative block, how to market and sell artwork, how to start an art business, how to organize an exhibition, and so on.
Apart from that, you can also teach art therapy, healing art, or habits and routines that foster creativity.
The sky is the limit.
If there’s something that you had to learn in your creative journey, chances are other artists are struggling too. They will be happy to learn from you and willing to pay for the lessons.
Now, how much money can you actually make teaching art online?
Generally speaking, the average hourly rate for an online art teacher is around $20-$30. According to ZipRecruiter, the average yearly salary is around $53k.
I think that’s a pretty realistic estimate because I know artists myself who make up to $3,000 per month or more teaching online art courses.
It all depends on how you go about it…
How to make the most money as an art teacher?
First off, it’s important to understand that there are different ways of teaching art online—and they will make you different amounts of money.
Here’s a quick breakdown of what you can do, along with the pros and cons of each option:
1. Live Classes
- Platforms: Zoom, Google Meet
- Pros: Direct connection with students, higher price per session.
- Cons: Time-bound; you must show up live.
2. Video Courses
- Platforms: Teachable, Thinkific, Payhip, Sensei LMS, Sellfy
- Pros: Passive income; create once, sell over and over again.
- Cons: Requires equipment to record/edit lessons.
3. One-on-One Coachings
4. Memberships & Subscriptions
- Platforms: SendOwl, Payhip, Sellfy, Thinkific, Sensei LMS
- Pros: You can build an engaged community; recurring income
- Cons: Requires lots of promotion to build an audience of subscribers.
5. Lesson Plans & Ebooks
These are basically the options you have when you want to teach art online.
In this post, I want to specifically focus on video courses, as well as memberships and subscriptions. Why?
Because those are the online teaching options that artists can make the most money with long-term—with the least effort possible! (ᴖᴥᴖ)
Live classes and mentorships might be higher paid, by the hour, than a video lesson of the same duration. However, they require your constant presence, taking your time and energy every time you teach.
Don’t get me wrong, 1-on-1 sessions can be fun, too, because you’re forging direct connections with your audience. I also offer live sessions, and I believe they are a great addition to online video courses.
But if you are looking for a lucrative side-hustle that can generate you a passive income over a longer period of time, online video courses and memberships are the way to go!
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Where to start teaching art online?
Now that we’ve covered the above, it’s about time to figure out where you can actually start teaching art online.
As a rule of thumb, I recommend choosing a teaching platform that gives you the greatest independence possible when it comes to course design and pricing structure.
That being said, I usually recommend avoiding platforms like Skillshare, Udemy, Domestika, and Coursera for a number of reasons:
• You have only limited creative freedom.
You must play by their rules, which can restrict how you present your video content, communicate with students, or even market yourself and the course.
• You have no control over pricing.
These platforms tend to deeply discount courses, especially during sales—which happen frequently. For example, you might list your course for $100 and then see it discounted for $10, which means you receive only a small portion of the actual profit you could make.
• You must share your profit with the platform.
E-learning platforms usually take 30–75% of your earnings, also depending on how the user finds your course (through your referral or their platform). If a student comes through Udemy’s marketing, for example, you may only get 25% of the revenue.
• New rules might negatively affect your course.
Platforms may impose new content limitations at any time, change which topics are allowed, and exclude teachers and courses from their platform. Skillshare, for example, requires instructors to publish at least one class every six months; otherwise, their existing courses may be removed.
Udemy also removes courses, if you’re not adding a minimum of five minutes of new video content every six months.
While such updates might make sense for areas that undergo a lot of changes, art-related topics don’t become outdated within half a year. So it might be hard for art teacher to find new content to add—not only topic- but also time-wise.
• There's seems to be a scam problem.
Based on Google reviews, many of the above mentioned platforms seem to struggle with scam-related issues. Users often report being charged subscription fees despite canceling after the free trial, and some say they couldn’t cancel their subscriptions at all.
Skillshare, for example, holds a 2-star rating on Google, while Domestika has dropped as low as 1.1 stars. Keep in mind that associating your art course with a platform that has poor reputation might also negatively impact your own artist brand—or keep users from signing up in the first place, even though they are interested in your content…
6 Best online teaching platforms for artists
1. Thinkific
- Why To Get
- Comprehensive all-in-one learning platform
- No transaction fees; you keep all of your profit
- Why To Avoid
- You have to market your courses yourself
Thinkific is an all-in-one online learning platform that allows you to sell all kinds of e-learning products—including courses, memberships, coaching sessions, and even digital downloads like e-books and PDFs.
It’s an excellent choice to make money teaching art online, because it has a user base of over 100 million students, many of them being enrolled in creative subjects. The platforms offers a very easy-to-use course builder that makes launching your online art course a breeze, even for beginners without any experience.
To get started, you can choose one of Thinkific’s ready-made templates that come complete with course pages, sign-up pages, and student dashboard, among others. Each template can be customized with the included drag-and-drop editor, letting you adapt colors, fonts, and other design elements to match your personal needs.
Payment options are flexible. You can choose to offer one-time purchases, monthly plans, or recurring subscriptions—depending on what suits your teaching model. On top of that, Thinkific also provides built-in tools to track your sales, orders, student enrollments and engagement levels—which is super-helpful to make the most of your online art teaching business!
Thinkific offers four pricing plans, starting with the Basic plan for $36 a month. You can create unlimited courses, offer 5 coaching and webinar sessions, and sell up to 5 digital downloads.
The next one is the Start plan for $74/mth. that removes any limitations on courses, memberships, coaching sessions, and downloads. There’s a 25% discount available on all annual billing plans that allows you to save more than $150 on the Basic plan and $300 on the Start plan.
One key advantage of Thinkific is that it doesn’t take a cut of your course sales, unlike some other platforms that charge transaction fees or commissions. This, along with its ease of use, makes Thinkific a top choice for artists looking to teach online!
2. Teachable
- Why To Get
- Intuitive course builder adequate for beginners
- You can host courses, coachings & digital downloads in one place
- Why To Avoid
- 5% transaction fees on the Basic plan
Teachable, as its name suggests, is an online teaching platform very similar to Thinkific. Currently, there are more than 100,000 active creators on the platform, selling courses worth over a billion dollars.
Teachable is a great fit for artists looking for a platform to sell courses, memberships, coaching sessions, digital downloads, and even lead magnets to attract more students.
→ 40+ TOP Lead Magnet Ideas For Artists (Creative & Unique + FREE PDF!)
Teachable is so popular among artists because it’s easy to use and offers decent design options, without being overwhelming. You can create a professional-looking website for your educational offerings using the drag-and-drop editor, without needing any coding knowledge or other technical skills.
Moreover, Teachable gives you a free subdomain where students can easily log in and access your courses. If you prefer a more personalized web address, you can also link your own custom domain.
Selling for $29 a month, Teachable’s Starter plan is slightly cheaper compared to Thinkific. However, there’s a transaction fee of 7.5% on each sale. You can publish one product, which can be a course, a coaching session, or a download, and have up to 100 students.
To publish up to 5 products with up 1,000 enrolled students, you’ll need to upgrade to the Builder plan for $69 a month, which also eliminates transaction fees and includes built-in email marketing tools.
→ Email Marketing For Artists: How To Start & Build An Email List
All in all, Teachable is a great choice for artists who prefer ease of use over more advanced customization options. It’s ideal to monetize your skills teaching online without dealing with code or complex setups.
3. Payhip
- Why To Get
- Completely free plan with all features included
- Easy setup and course management ideal for beginners
- Why To Avoid
- Not a full LMS (Learning Management System)
Payhip is another all-in-one ecommerce platform where you can sell courses, coaching services, memberships, digital downloads, and even physical products.
Even though Payhip isn’t specifically geared towards teaching online, it’s course builder doesn’t lack behind. You can structure your course into modules and lessons, and enable features like free lesson previews, surveys, quizzes, Q&As, and student discussions.
In addition to that, Payhip also supports memberships, meaning you can lock your content behind a paywall and people have to subscribe to get access. Payments are processed instantly via PayPal or Stripe, and UK/EU VAT is automatically handled for you!
Payhip’s pricing plans are straightforward and belong to some of the most budget-friendly in the industry. Plus, there’s even a free forever plan with no limits on course uploads, student enrollments, and earnings!
The only difference between the plans is their transaction fees: the Free Forever plan takes a 5% fee on each sale. When upgrading to the Plus plan for $29 per month, the fee will be reduced to 2 percent.
The Pro Plan charges no more transaction fees, but for $99/month, it’s only cost-effective if you’re making several thousand dollars a month.
4. Sensei LMS
- Why To Get
- WordPress plugin with full control over design and functionality
- Powerful e-commerce capabilities through WooCommerce
- Why To Avoid
- You need to have your own WordPress site in place
Sensei LMS is the way to go if you’re looking for a way to make money teaching art online that gives you full control over course creation, student interaction, and your financial earnings. However, you will need to have your own WordPress site, because Sensei LMS is a learning management plugin for WordPress.
→ How To Make An Artist Website With WordPress In 5 EASY Steps
Although building a WordPress site takes more effort upfront, it will definitely pay off if you want to take matters in your own hands and not depend on a third-party platform.
Despite all that flexibility, Sensei LMS is as easy to use as any other e-learning platform on the list. Without needing coding skills, you can create a full-fledged course with lessons, quizzes, student downloads, and much more.
On top of that, you can track student progress, enable manual or automatic grading, and issue certificates once a student successfully completes your art course!
Sensei LMS comes with seamless WooCommerce integration, meaning you can sell courses just like any other digital or physical product in your own ecommerce store.
→ Ultimate Guide To Selling Art On WordPress – WooCommerce For Artists
Payment methods are as flexible as the entire plugin; Sensei LMS allows you to collect one-time payments, recurring subscriptions, and offer memberships or bundles. To attract more art students, you can even create coupons for joining your course at a discounted price!
Just like so many other WordPress plugins, the basic version of Sensei LMS is open-source and completely free of cost. You can publish an unlimited number of courses, add basic quizzes, and issue certificates.
However, in order to sell these courses, you’ll have to get the Pro version of Sensei LMS, which integrates with WooCommerce and allows you to collect payments. But for $15 a month, Sensei Pro is one of the most affordable—yet most powerful—options on the list!
5. Sellfy
- Why To Get
- Fully hosted store with product pages, checkout & marketing tools
- No need for a separate website or third-party tools
- Why To Avoid
- Free plan doesn't support product sales
Sellfy is a solid choice for artists wanting to sell courses online—especially for those seeking a simple, beginner-friendly setup. The platform is built for ease of use, requiring little to no technical knowledge.
While it’s not a full-fledged course platform like Teachable or Thinkific, it still works well for selling pre-recorded video courses, PDF downloads, or ZIP bundles. Your audience can either download that content or stream the videos (available on paid plans)—and you don’t even need your own website because Sellfy hosts everything for you!
Sellfy will give you a customizable storefront to manage and sell your teaching offers, along with payment gateways like PayPal and Stripe to handle purchases.
Sellfy offers a free plan, but it only supports physical product sales—digital products, including online courses, require a paid plan. The good news is that all plans come with zero transaction fees and a huge discount when you choose to pay annually.
There are altogether three paid plans: Starter, Business, and Premium. They all allow unlimited product uploads (digital, physical, or subscription), video streaming, and provide access to built-in marketing tools like email campaigns and discount codes.
The Starter plan costs $22 per month and includes all the essential features you need to start teaching art. The Business plan at $79/month adds more advanced tools like product upsells and abandoned cart emails. Plus, it removes the Sellfy branding. If you’re not sure which plan suits your needs best, you can always start with a free trial!
6. SendOwl
- Why To Get
- Content delivery platform with easy setup
- Ideal for artists with a website to embed checkout functionality
- Why To Avoid
- No full LMS with learning paths, quizzes, etc.
SendOwl is a digital delivery platform that lets you sell video courses, eBooks, audio files, and memberships—without needing a full learning management system. That being said, SendOwl doesn’t include features like quizzes, student dashboards, or progress tracking.
However, you can still host and deliver video files directly through SendOwl, which makes it an option to make money teaching art online. You can choose to deliver your art courses either at one time or gradually via the drip scheduling feature.
Unlike Sellfy, SendOwl doesn’t offer a built-in storefront, but you can easily link it to your own website, or social media through buy-now buttons, links, or custom sales pages.
The upside is that SendOwl offers valuable features such as Google analytics, income analysis, order logs, country-specific tax reports, and also integrates with email marketing platforms like ConvertKit, AWeber, and MailerLite.
SendOwl currently offers three different pricing plans that mainly differ in storage space and sales volume. The Starter plan is usually more than enough to start teaching art online. It costs $39 per month and allows up to 5,000 orders or $10,000 in annual sales. You’ll get 10 GB of storage and support for 20 products.
The Standard plan is $87 per month, supports 25,000 orders or $36,000 in sales, plus 50 GB of storage. All plans include access to subscriptions, upsells, marketing tools, cart recovery, and email integrations.
SendOwl is an excellent fit for artists with an existing website who want a secure and flexible checkout system to sell video courses, e-books, and other files. However, if you’re looking for a comprehensive LMS with learning paths, quizzes, and student communities, platforms like Thinkific, Teachable, or Sensei LMS would be a better fit.
6 Best Platforms To Make Money Teaching Art Online At A Glance
| Teaching Platform | Features | Pricing Plans | More Info |
|---|---|---|---|
|
• Comprehensive all-in-one learning platform • No transaction fees; you keep all of your profit |
starting at US$36 / mth. (billed annually) | Visit Thinkific's Website |
|
• Intuitive course builder adequate for beginners • You can host courses, coachings & digital downloads in one place |
starting at US$29 / mth. (billed annually) | Visit Teachable's Website |
|
• Completely free plan with all features included • Easy setup and course management ideal for beginners |
free forever plan; paid plans starting at US$29 / mth. (billed annually) | Visit Payhip's Website |
|
• WordPress plugin with full control over design and functionality • Powerful e-commerce capabilities through WooCommerce |
free plan available; paid plans starting at US$15 / mth. (billed annually) | Visit Sensei LMS's Website |
|
• Fully hosted store with product pages, checkout & marketing tools • No need for a separate website or third-party tools |
starting at US$22 / mth. (billed annually) | Visit Sellfy's Website |
|
• Content delivery platform with easy setup • Ideal for artists with a website to embed checkout functionality |
starting at US$39 / mth. (billed annually) | Visit SendOwl's Website |
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Okidoki, this was my review of the best platforms to make money teaching art online! I hope you’ve found a great fit for your needs and I wish you lots of success with your art courses.
Have you already published a course? What was the most challenging part of it and which platform are you using? Let me know in the comments below. I’d love to hear from you!
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