Skillshare Affiliate Reviews 2025

Skillshare might not have a course on “How to Enjoy Learning” (although this one comes pretty close), but if you’re seriously considering using their online platform to acquire new knowledge, then you’ve likely already developed this important life skill.

Michael Karnjanaprakorn and Malcolm Ong are the godfathers of Skillshare, having created the platform while living in New York in November 2010. The platform has evolved into what we see today: A thriving marketplace for learners and teachers. It has been steadily making its mark as the go-to digital platform for elective online learning since its inception over 10 years ago.

We took Skillshare for a spin with a Premium access trial and can’t wait to show you what we found. Read on to find our comprehensive—and honest—review of Skillshare, updated for 2025.

What is Skillshare?

Skillshare is a digital platform designed to connect students (you!) with online courses taught by real-world experts, creators, entrepreneurs, and professionals. It’s built to teach anyone anything.

Course subjects span the gamut but typically revolve around sharing desirable creative and entrepreneurial skills. You can find classes like securing your WordPress site or how to paint fantasy woodlands in watercolor. All it takes is a quick search of their database to find a course built to teach you what you want to learn. 

If you’re not exactly sure where your curiosities are taking you, users can browse courses via predetermined categories on the site. These are always growing and changing together with the course content and include the following mind-bogglingly long list in 2025:

• Creative:

Animation, Drawing, Graphic Design, Illustration, Photography, 2d Animation, 3D Animation, 3D Design, 3D Modeling, Adobe After Effects, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe InDesign, Adobe Lightroom, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Premiere, Art, Calligraphy, Character Design, Cinematography, Comic Art, Concept Art, Copywriting, Creative Writing, Design, Digital Illustration, Digital Painting, Digital Photography, Editing, Fashion, Figure Drawing, Film Production, Fine Art, Hand Lettering, Handwriting, Lettering, Lifestyle Photography, Logo Design, Motion Graphics, Music, Music Production, Painting, Pattern Design, Photo Editing, Photo Retouching, Photographic Composition, Portrait Photography, Product Design, Publishing, Sketching, Sketchup, Storytelling, Street Photography, Surface Pattern Design, Typography, UI Design, UI/UX Design, UX Design, Vector Graphics, Video Editing, Videography, Voice Over, Watercolor, Web Design, Writing

• Business:

Entrepreneurship, Freelance & Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Marketing, Productivity, Accounting, Bitcoin, Blogging, Branding, Business Analytics, Content Marketing, Data Visualization, Finance, Management, Microsoft Excel, Powerpoint, Project Management, Public Speaking, SEO, Social Media Marketing

• Technology:

Data Science, Game Design, Mobile Development, Product Management, Web Development, Blockchain, CSS, Game Development, HTML, HTML5, Javascript, Product Management, Programming, Web Development, WordPress

• Lifestyle:

Crafts, Culinary, Gaming, Health & Wellness, Languages, Baking, Cooking, Embroidery, Fashion Design, Flower Arranging, Interior Design, Jewelry Design, Knitting, Makeup, Pattern Making, Screen Printing, Sewing, T-Shirt Design

As you can see from these categories, the creative courses dominate on Skillshare (and I would say that most of the “lifestyle” categories could just as easily be labeled “creative”). If you find these categories a bit too much, Skillshare also narrows things down for you and lets you also browse by just 16 subcategories under the the headings of “Create,” “Build,” and Thrive.

But regardless of what you are looking for, since there are thousands of Skillshare courses to choose from, chances are high that you’ll find a relevant course for your knowledge gap.

Note that in 2022, Skillshare also launched Learning Paths to help you select among the huge variety of courses on the platform. These are curated collections of high-quality courses on popular topics. As of 2023, the number of topics covered is still quite limited at only 60+, but they are still regularly adding more, and the list of current learning paths is a good place to start your exploration of Skillshare.

Are Skillshare courses accredited?

Many users wonder, “Are Skillshare courses accredited?” The answer is no—since Skillshare is neither a school nor college, none of their courses will earn you “certificates” in the same way that other learning institutions can underwrite your accomplishments. 

Courses on Skillshare are in general produced by individual creators, and while there is in theory nothing stopping them from seeking accreditation with external bodies for their courses, I have never seen this in practice. For those who are, in fact, seeking accredited online courses, you should consider checking out other e-learning platforms such as Coursera or edX instead of Skillshare. 

Review of Skillshare Pricing & Costs

No Skillshare review is complete without talking about the bottom line, so let’s get to it. Skillshare used to have a free membership with a range of free courses but has replaced this with only a paid membership and a one-month free trial.

Skillshare’s premium membership, which gives you access to the full catalog of 30,000+ courses, costs $32 per month if you pay monthly, or $168 for a full year if you choose to be billed annually ($14 monthly). To get 30 days of premium membership for free, use our Skillshare link.

My Review of Skillshare Courses

My honest Skillshare review? They knock it out of the park for me in a few big ways. First, the courses are both easy to find and easy to match my goals. The provided course descriptions, reviews, and project outlines help me understand quickly whether or not the course will meet my needs.

The courses are broken up into “chapters” as short videos, which means I can easily replay parts of the course where I feel I have more to learn. This ease of jumping back and forth between content helps me get the most out of the course.

The Skillshare dashboard is a wealth of inspiration. Given that most classes are short on Skillshare, the ability to quickly navigate to my saved lists of classes, see courses my favorite teachers are facilitating, and even view what’s hot across the platform—becomes important to stay motivated and inspired to learn new things.

The drawbacks of Skillshare are essential to consider and why I awarded the platform 4.2 out of 5 stars. Although they have been making strides in this regard in the last two years or so, the platform also has weak quality control for instructors, putting the responsibility on us, as members, to assess our options more thoroughly. This is added work that the platform could alleviate with only a few changes.

Conclusion: is Skillshare Worth it?

The chance to learn for learning’s sake is reason enough for me to soundly proclaim that Skillshare is worth it. The hands-on projects and ability to connect with others, including experts in your desired fields of knowledge, makes the $14 a month fee a bargain. The onus is on YOU to determine which courses would bring you the most value, whether you aim to bolster your resume with sparkling competitive skills or assert yourself as a professional hobbyist.

Skillshare members can gain much more than just new skills from the courses. You’ll fall in love with learning again, meet motivated and skilled peers that will challenge and inspire you, and may find yourself addicted (nay, obsessed!) with gaining knowledge.

Add a line item to your annual budget for Skillshare access. Your brain will thank you for it!