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What is the Ideal length of an online course? |

Feb 13, 2023

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What's the most effective length for a course when you teach online? There's a common belief that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to get really good at something. It's still a bit high.

In the event that you do not have 10,000 hours, then how much time should you spend on your online course? What is the length of each part? Each video?

We've compiled statistics at to discover which courses with the longest average lengths make the best profit. This is only one component of the picture. Before you even plan your online training, you'll need to determine your goals.

The teaching goal affects the length of an online course

There's an idea you'd like to develop for an online course, and you're sketching out the course outline. If it's a subject that you are passionate about and would like to share, you may find it hard to set an amount of hours of learning time students will spend.

If you own an online course--which means you earn a significant part of your earnings by offering online courses -- it's easy to create many hours of material. Since the more content you offer means increased revenue, doesn't it?

Not necessarily. Keep in mind that consumers have their own needs to consider. They want an extensive understanding of the topic, however, they do not want to be able to learn for a lifetime about it.

Imagine that your class, "Introduction to Music Theory," is 120 hours length, while your competition's time is just 48 hours. It is possible that you will miss the vast majority of pupils eager to create their first orchestras as soon as possible.

Don't take the time to cut your class just yet. Skip over the essentials of sight reading, and your music students may demand a refund.

However, if you get caught up with the finer details and you could also be tempted to jump ship for a faster option. It is important to balance time efficiency with accuracy.

If you're a corporate trainer, your goal is to educate students on the field as quickly as possible. It's a cliche, but time is actually money. Your client's time is money. is also your student's employer, the more time (and the money) they'll waste.

In this instance, set concrete learning outcomes--proficiency with a certain app, for instance--that you and your clients will agree to. Next, determine the most efficient method to achieve those results.

The more efficient your plan and the better your client will feel. That can lead to recommendations and repeat business.

The most profitable length of online courses

We'll get to the meat of the matter. Based on the data we've looked at , the most profitable course duration can be between 10 and 25 hours.

Below that, 5--10 hour courses are about 75% more lucrative. In the greater range, longer courses--25-100 hours--are slightly less profitable than the shorter ones.

Who says who?

We say. We have gathered data on over 40,000 course creators to get our figures. On average, creators with 10-25 hour courses earn revenue of 10,000.

A graph that compares online course length to profits
LENGTH OF ONLINE CLASSES vs. Profitability

If you're planning to create your first online course, you could do worse than to set a duration between 10 and 25 hours. This being said, caution venditor. While this data is useful to provide a general picture of course lengths and the way they work, we want to make one thing clear the length of a course isn't an indicator of growth in revenue.

Caveats to making the most profitable online course length

According to our findings that 10-25 hours are a good target, it's not the ultimate goal for course lengths. The most important thing, more than course length, is the impact and the transformation you're providing through your course. There are a few factors to take into consideration when deciding on length of the course.

Rare online course material

If you're offering a specific topic that isn't thoroughly covered by other sites, you have less competition for your students to benchmark against. There will be less decision-making to do in comparing options in terms of the amount of time needed to achieve their desired result.

Therefore, if you believe that your students need 30 hours of training before breeding race pigeons you should definitely design an instructional program which will spend 30 hours teaching your students.

But, having no competition does not suggest that you must put your caution to the wind and extend your program as long as necessary. Be focused on the pupil's goals and the best way to give them the best chance of the success they desire.

On the other hand, if your target market searches "how to breed racing pigeons," and is able to find all the info they're looking for quickly on, you'll need take into account the increasing quantity of competition. When this happens, course length can become an additional competitive advantage. Your course will need to be both more thorough and efficient, taking shorter time and energy than it would take them to search through other resources and research the subject in depth, and teach themselves.

The complexity of the subject of the matter

Sometimes, it's impossible to hurry. It's only possible to condense the information so much before it starts losing value. If that's the case be sure to teach your subject thoroughly instead of sacrificing knowledge to fit in the 10-25 hour sweet spot.

If your course is especially lengthy--it's found that you require 50 hours in order to teach the fundamentals of breeding pigeons, and you want to get your duration at least 10-25 hours (maybe so that it is in line with the competition) think about breaking your topic into segments. It could be an eight-hour program covering the history of race pigeon breeds and their genetics and a 12-hour class in properly housing, feeding and training pigeons and so on.

However, if the topic you're teaching will require 5 hours of training Don't overburden the class with unnecessary information in order to reach 10 hours. Your students won't appreciate the weight of dead material, and you'll lose them.

If you're in this situation, make use of brevity as a selling point--or offer a free introduction to the topic, and encourage students to upgrade the knowledge they have acquired by taking paying classes. Use our Mini Course Template to create an online course that functions as a free lead magnet and gives them a taste of what else is available for purchase.

Competing online courses

Study courses that are similar to yours prior to planning and starting your own. The places your competitors fail are the areas in which you could excel. Look for:

  • Learning gaps. Are your competitors failing to provide a comprehensive overview of a area? It could be a centerpiece of your own course.
  • Done-to-death subjects. Explore new angles, or find new ways of passing on your knowledge. For those who are woodworkers, and there are 57 classes on building birdhouses, do the one that focuses on bat houses instead.
  • Out-of-date topics. In particular, when it comes to tech, the field of knowledge is always changing. It is possible to outdo your competition with the most current edition of the programming language, or by using the latest web-based marketing tricks.
  • An extremely successful program. If you've got a outstanding competitor that is dominating your field, study what they're doing. What helps them outshine others? How can you do it better?

The length of a course that is required for continuing learning

In the event that your learners are pursuing continuing education or are meeting the standards of a university or professional body it is important to take that into account when setting your course lengths.

As an example, based on the state where they operate, REALTORS(tm) are required to attend a specific number of hours of continuing education per year. If that's your target audience, you may want make your course content match.

What is the length of videos for online courses be?

It's possible to go on and on about the subject you choose however it doesn't mean that educational videos must be feature-length.

In fact, unsurprisingly short videos are most effective at keeping students active.

An investigation by SumoMe has revealed that:

  • The engagement of the user drops quickly after 2 minute. It doesn't appear to matter whether your video is 26 seconds long, or exactly two minutes in length--the engagement remains about the similar.
  • Between 3 and 6 minutes , engagement really falls off.
  • Between 6 and 12 minutes, engagement level out.
  • In 12 mins, engagement once starts to decrease.

  Key takeaways:  

  • If the video you are uploading isn't long, ensure that it clocks in below 2 minutes.
  • If it's lengthy, make sure it's longer than six minutes. However, if you're watching it for longer than 12 minutes take your time and be careful.

In order to keep viewers engaged, you may need to break videos down (divide the four-minute subject into two sub-topics) or to build the content (combine two topics of three minutes for a six-minute video. ).

As always, keep the students' needs in focus. If, without sacrificing important information, you absolutely cannot shorten your video from 2 minutes 30 seconds to even two minutes you can keep the length as it was originally. It's not worth making videos of low quality just to boost engagement statistics.

How long should the online courses be?

If it's about the the ideal length of lessons for online courses, it isn't as clear-cut when it comes to video.

The ideal timespan in which to fit the lesson won't be just applicable to creators of online courses. Teachers of every type are faced with the challenge of choosing the right duration of a lesson to hold the attention of students. In the case of the public schools, this could depend on age; since the students will likely be adults, it is important to take different factors into the consideration.

As an example: Are your students learning by choice, or by force? If they're already interested in a subject, and they're learning about it in order to improve their lives, they could feel more driven to set aside large chunks of time for classes.

However when they're taking your course in order to meet professional or corporate requirements you'll find them less likely to be enthused on the subject that you're covering. For that reason you might want to limit your lessons to short lengthsand break them up into quizzes or exercises.

5 strategies to keep the attention of online students

The science behind attention span is complex and always changing. However, there are some simple techniques you can use to ensure that your students are engaged regardless of how long the online classes will be.

  •    Have them laugh.

Students pay more attention to teachers who slip comedy into their classes. There's no need to be a comedic genius; even the simplest of puns, or "dad jokes" might suffice to grab the attention of students.

  •    Shake it every 15 minutes.

Changing things up at intervals helps break up the lesson and keep students listening. Consider sharing fun stories and ad-hoc remarks, using innovative types of media like a video or an image--or a question ("How do X pertain to you? ?").

  •    Convert abstract concepts into concrete.

Breeding racing pigeons and building bat houses are two concrete examples of online course subjects. Real or fictional examples can help students to grasp the topic.

  •    Motivate them.

Your students might have an idea of the reason they'd like to master a particular subject. Let them see the actual results of their learning. "Learning this software for HR will make your job easier," or "Building bat boxes will help to support the decreasing populations of the tiny brown bat (Myotis Lucifugus) within your region."

  •    Take a step away from your comfort zone.  

In a multimodal lesson that is, it makes use of different methods to inform learners and keep them interested. If you're comfortable with making slideshows on the internet, consider making your lessons interactive by using animated or live-action videos. Or, instead of simply present a factual piece to students, provide them with the information they'll need to do research on and make their own decisions.

Overall, 10 to 25 hours are generally the most lucrative online course length for users Keep this in mind only as a reference point, not a rule. There are numerous specific factors that you should be aware of when planning the duration of the online course.