How to Pay for Udemy | All Payment Methods Explained | Easily 2026

Once you're logged in, Udemy lands you on your personal homepage — "Let's start learning" with your most recent lecture, followed by recommended courses based on your occupation and interests. This page also shows a shopping cart icon in the top-right with a badge count if you already have courses queued up for checkout. Payment isn't handled here directly; this is just your starting point before heading into account settings.

Click your profile picture in the top-right corner to open the account dropdown. It's a long menu — My learning, My cart, Wishlist, and Instructor dashboard sit at the top, followed by Notifications and Messages, and then the settings section further down with Account settings, Payment methods, Subscriptions, Udemy credits, and Purchase history. Payment methods is the one you want if you're setting up how you'll pay before you buy anything.

Selecting Payment methods opens a page with a single checkbox — "Show my saved payment methods on the checkout step" — and a list underneath. On an account with nothing saved yet, this list just says "You don't have any saved payment method," which is normal if you've never bought a course before. Saving a method here means you won't need to re-enter card details every time you check out, which is worth doing before a sale if you plan to buy more than one course.

Card payments are the most common way to check out on Udemy and typically the fastest, since Udemy's checkout form takes a card number, expiry, and security code directly without redirecting you elsewhere. If you'd rather not save the card to your account, you can leave the checkbox from the previous step unchecked and enter your details fresh each time instead.

If you'd rather not enter card details directly into Udemy, PayPal is offered as an alternative at checkout. Selecting it redirects you to log into your PayPal account and approve the charge there, which keeps your card number off Udemy's checkout form entirely and is a reasonable choice if you already use PayPal for other online purchases.

Gift cards can be applied toward course purchases at checkout, which is useful if you've received one or want to cap your learning spend for the month. Enter the code in the designated field during checkout and the balance applies to your order total before any remaining amount is charged to your card or PayPal.

If a payment doesn't go through, the most common causes are an expired card, a typo in the card number or billing address, or a bank declining an unfamiliar online charge. Double-check the details you entered against the Payment methods page, confirm the card hasn't expired, and if it still fails, try PayPal or a different card rather than repeatedly resubmitting the same failing one.