An Update to Your Teacher Referral Offer

Skillshare is always working behind the scenes to grow our community, ultimately driving more students to your inspiring and demystifying classes. As part of these continued efforts and to keep apace with industry best practices, we will be shortening our free trial offers. Starting at 11:50am EST on September 30th, Skillshare will transition to a 14-day free trial offer for all referrals made through a teacher’s referral links. 

Why is the referral offer changing to 14 days free? 

Traditionally, Skillshare teachers have offered a 2-month free trial through their referral links. However, recent data strongly suggests that shorter free trials motivate more members to stick around as long-term subscribers. In fact, we’ve observed that new Skillshare members on a shorter trial are 30% more likely to become paying members and take more classes than those on a longer trial.

A shorter, 14-day free trial offer should lead to more paying members, which means a larger royalty pool for teachers — that means you! Plus, we’re excited that this shift to a shorter free trial will help you see a quicker financial return during periods of increased free trials — like every January when we see a flood of new students joining Skillshare. In the past, this January surge in new students was immediately reflected in the minutes watched in your classes, but you had to wait months before the boost was felt in your earnings. A shorter free trial will help you see that financial boost sooner!

How and when will the change happen? 

All teacher profile and class referral links will direct to a 14-day free trial offer for new members, starting at 11:50am EST on September 30th, 2020. This includes referral links that teachers have shared in the past (e.g. on previous social media posts).

Note that the 14-day offer for teacher referrals will be longer than the standard site offer encountered by a new member that visits Skillshare.com directly, which will be a 7-day offer. This means you can continue to let your community know that signing up through your special link is the best way to join Skillshare! And your referral bonus will remain the same — for every new student that signs up via your referral links, you’ll receive a $10 bonus!

What do I need to do to prepare? 

We strongly encourage teachers to make updates to any place where you’ve advertised a 2-month free trial using your profile or class referral links — think your personal website, YouTube, Instagram posts, and other spots students are likely to continue seeing and clicking your referral links. Simply update any language around the length of the free trial offered from 2 months to 14 days. Note that you will not need to update the link itself, as it will automatically switch over to a 14-day offer on September 30th. This will help reduce any confusion among future students and new members. 

Have more questions or feedback?

We’re always working to improve the Skillshare experience for all teachers and students, and we value your feedback. Please email us anytime with questions, feedback, and ideas at teach@skillshare.com. We’re grateful to create this amazing community together with you!