Coursera Statistics (2024)

Coursera was launched in 2012 to provide universal access to world-class learning. It is now one of the world’s largest online learning platforms with over 250 partners and 92 million registered learners in 190 countries.

In this article, we’ve compiled a carefully curated list of the top Coursera statistics, numbers and facts from recent, credible sources.

You’ll find Coursera data on:

• The company itself
• Funding and valuation
• Coursera courses
• Coursera impact on learners
• Coursera demographics and users

So let’s get to it.

Top Ten Coursera stats

1. Coursera was founded in April 2012 by Stanford computer science professors Daphne Koller and Andrew Ng 
2. It offers over 7,000 courses and has has 92 million registered learners 
3. In 2023, 77% of respondents to a Coursera learner survey (and 91% in developing economies) reported career benefits from taking a Coursera course.
4. 95% of respondents (and 99% in developing economies) reported personal benefits, such as gaining more confidence and feeling more accomplished  
5. 30% of unemployed learners were employed after completing their most recent course or program on Coursera during 2023
6. In 2022 Coursera's total revenue was $523.8 million, up 26% from $415.3 million in the previous year
7. In Q4 2022 Consumer revenue was $79.8 million, up 21% on sustained demand for industry microcredentials.
8. 81% of learners gave their course a 5* rating
9. 100+ Fortune 500 companies, and more than 6k campuses, businesses, and governments come to Coursera to learn
10. Coursera’s total Funding is $464M across 16 rounds with 6 lead investors (Class Central)

Wondering how Coursera compares against its competitors? See statistics on: MasterClass, Udemy, edX, Cohort Based Learning and Skillshare.

Coursera – the company

• Coursera was founded in April 2012 by Stanford computer science professors Daphne Koller and Andrew Ng 
• Its CEO is Jeff Maggioncalda
• It is headquartered in Silicon Valley, CA, USA (LinkedIn)
• Coursera’s total Funding is $464M across 16 rounds with 6 lead investors (Class Central)
• It employs around 1.5k people (LinkedIn)
• Coursera has over 250 partner institutions (Impact Report)
• It offers over 7k courses (Class Central)
• It has 92 million registered learners (Impact Report)

Coursera and the Pandemic

• Coursera attracted as many learners in 2020 alone as its closest competitor did in its entire existence (Class Central)
• The pandemic meant Coursera’s enrollments quintupled year over year (Forbes)
• In March 2020, Coursera announced Free Coursera for Campus which was taken up by over 10k departments, schools and universities, benefitting 1.7m learners (Coursera Blog)
• In June 2020 Coursera gave free catalogue access for all university students which led to 1.2m enrollments (Class Central)
• From 2018-19, Coursera’s registered learner count grew from 37.3m to 46.4m. Aided by the pandemic (during which parts of enterprise were free to access) it reached 76.6m 2019-20 (TechCrunch)
• The number of degree students grew by 91% compared to 2019 and it expanded its workforce by 300 staffers (Forbes)
• In total, Coursera made 115 certificate courses free until the end of 2020 during the pandemic
• A free contact tracing course, in three languages, had over 1m enrollments and at least 340k course completions (Impact Report)
• 50% of Coursera’s most popular courses in 2020 were Covid-19 related (Class Central)
• In April 2020 Coursera provided a free Workforce Recovery Initiative to upskill newly unemployed workers which attracted 1.1m learners across 70 countries and served 325 government agencies (Class Central)
• Coursera’s sales and marketing costs rose from 31% of revenue in 2019 to 37% in 2020 as it spent $9.2 million more in 2020 to host and support new, free users (TechCrunch)

Coursera Financials

• Coursera's total funding is $464M across 16 rounds with 6 lead investors (ClassCentral)
• In 2022 Coursera's total revenue was $523.8 million, up 26% from $415.3 million in the previous year (Coursera Q4/Full Year Report)
• Gross profit was $331.5 million or 63.3% of revenue, up 33% (Coursera Q4/Full Year Report)
• In Q4 2022 Consumer revenue was $79.8 million, up 21% on sustained demand for industry microcredentials (Coursera Q4/Full Year Report)
• For 2023, Coursera projected revenues in the range of $595 million to $605 million, which represents an increase of approximately 15% over 2022 (Class Central)
• Coursera initially provided free MOOCs, it first monetized its proposition in 2013 with verified certificates for between $30-100 each (Class Central)
• This was followed in 2014 by ‘Specialization’ certificates whereby a student has to earn a verified certificate in several related courses-helping Coursera reach $1m a month in revenue (Class Central)
• Degree partnerships were launched in 2015, these cost around $20k less than half of most other on campus MBA programs and in the same year, assignments and homework were placed behind a paywall (Class Central)
• In 2016 Coursera for Business enabled businesses to purchase content for their employees at $400 per user per year (Class Central)
• In 2018 Coursera introduced the MicroMasters program costing between $2-3,000 enabling Coursera users to take MasterTrack modules and earn credits towards a master’s degree
• In 2019, Coursera achieved Unicorn status after a Series E funding round of $103m led by the SEEK group (TechCrunch)
• Coursera’s 2020 revenue jumped 59% to $293.5, though it still recorded a net loss of $44.8m (Forbes) 
• In mid 2020, Coursera was valued at $2.4bn after raising $130 million in a Series F funding led by bicoastal venture firm NEA (Forbes)
• In March 2021, after pricing its IPO at $33 per share, the company’s valuation was estimated to be between  $4.30- $5.5 billion (Forbes)
• In the first month their stock traded as high as $62 a share before dropping back to $48 on 26th April 2021 (Barrons)
• Coursera has increased its valuation by between 67-100% in less than a year between 2020-21 (TechCrunch)

Coursera products and courses

• In February 2020, Coursera launched a $399 annual subscription – Coursera Plus – for full, certified access to over 90% of the platform's online courses (Business Insider)
• Over 2,000 top courses are now subtitled in 9 languages
• As of the end of 2020, Coursera offered over 5,540 university courses (Class Central)
• In 2020, Coursera announced 9 master’s degrees from six universities. (Class Central)
• It also offered 580 job relevant industry courses (Impact Report)
• Coursera offeres 33 degrees from university partners across nine countries (Forbes)
• In its 2021 Q1 Earnings Call Coursera announced 5 new degrees, 6 MasterTrack programmes, 4 university certificates, 2 additional entry-level Professional Certificates and welcomed 10 new university partners (Business Wire)
• The average course rating in 2021 was 4.7/5 (Impact Report)
• 81% of learners gave their course a 5* rating (Impact Report)
• 65% of first time learners progress to another course (Impact Report)
• 94% of learners would recommend Coursera to a friend (Impact Report)
• Course completion rates in programming courses using in-browser experiences are 20% higher than those with offline programming (Impact Report)
• Courses that are around 4 weeks long have the highest completion rates (Impact Report)
• The three most popular courses in 2020 were Covid-19 Contact Tracing (John Hopkins University), Crash Course on Python (Google) and Science Matters: Let’s Talk about Covid-19 (Imperial College London) (Class Central)

Coursera impact on learner outcomes

• 85% of respondents to a Coursera Learner survey said they went to Coursera to improve their career prospects. (Coursera Impact Report 2023)
• 77% of learners (and 91% in developing economies) reported career benefits from taking a Coursera course. Including getting a new job, earning a promotion, gaining applicable career skills, and more (Coursera Impact Report 2023)
• 95% of learners (and 99% in developing economies) reported benefits, such as gaining more confidence, feeling more accomplished, and more (Coursera Impact Report 2023) 
• 30% of unemployed learners were employed after completing their most recent course or program on Coursera (Coursera Impact Report 2023)
• 1 in 4 Entry-Level Professional Certificate completers got a new job and 93% reported personal benefits (Coursera Impact Report 2023)
• 67% of low income learners in the US reported career benefits from taking a Coursera Course – 54% gained new skills, 26% got a new job or increased their job interview offers, 11% increased salary or pay. (Impact Report 2023)
• 67% of first-generation college students in the US reported career benefits from taking a Coursera course – 58% gained new skills, 24% got a new job or increased their job interview offers, 16% increased salary or pay. (Coursera Impact Report 2023)
• 65% of leaners without a college degree in the US reported career benefits from taking a Coursera Course – 56% gained new skills, 24% got a new job or increased their job interview offers, 18% increased salary or pay. (Impact Report 2023)
• 95% of global learners reported personal benefits from taking a Coursera Course.
• 99% of learners in developing economies reported personal benefits in terms of confidence, a sense of fulfilment or feeling more capable as a result of taking a Coursera course (Coursera Impact Report 2023)

Coursera users and customer growth

• Between 2018-19, Coursera’s registered learner count grew from 37.3m to 46.4m (TechCrunch)
• From 2019-20, it reached 76.6m – aided by Covid-19 restrictions and because it made parts of its enterprise offering free to use during the pandemic (TechCrunch)
• By Q4 2021, Coursera had 92m registered learners (Impact Report)
• 100+ Fortune 500 companies, and more than 6k campuses, businesses, and governments come to Coursera to learn (LinkedIn)
• 80% of learners are outside the US (Coursera Blog)
• The top 5 countries in terms of learner growth are Paraguay, Lebanon, Philippines, Guyana and Indonesia (Impact Report)
• Coursera has 175 university partners (Impact Report)
• It has 75 Industry partners (Impact Report)
• Coursera for Business serves 2,900 enterprise organizations with over 620k learners, 92% of whom reported positive career outcomes (Impact Report)
• Companies using Coursera for Business train 94% more employees, using 40% fewer training resources and 46% less time (Impact Report)
• Coursera serves 230 government agencies and has 580k government learners, 91% of whom reported positive career outcomes (Impact Report)
• The organisation has 60 non profit and community partners and has worked with 70k underserved learners such as refugees and transitioning service personnel (Impact Report)

Coursera on the Web

• Coursera.org receives nearly 60m visits to its website per month (Similarweb)
• The US (23.68%), India (9.02%) and Mexico (4.29%) drive the most traffic to the site (Similarweb)
• The volume of traffic to Brazil has been increasing by over 23%  (Similarweb)

Frequently asked questions

Sources

• https://www.linkedin.com/company/coursera
• https://investor.coursera.com/news/news-details/2023/Coursera-Reports-Fourth-Quarter-and-Full-Year-2022-Financial-Results/default.aspx
• https://blog.coursera.org/coursera-impact-report-2021/
• https://growjo.com/company/Coursera
• https://www.businessinsider.com/coursera-plus?r=US&IR=T
• https://www.similarweb.com/website/coursera.org/
• https://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2020/07/17/online-learning-platform-coursera-raises-130-million-at-reported-25-billion-valuation/?sh=47bdd217688f
• https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2021/04/19/coursera-boosts-its-international-presence-with-several-new-degree-and-certificate-programs/?sh=4e968e52d4f2
• https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2021/04/19/coursera-boosts-its-international-presence-with-several-new-degree-and-certificate-programs/?sh=4e968e52d4f2
• https://search.techcrunch.com/search;_ylc=X3IDMgRncHJpZANoNTVRTmJtSFFpaVhtYUxIYTQxeHBBBG5fc3VnZwM4BHBvcwMyBHBxc3RyA2NvdXJzZXJhBHBxc3RybAM4BHFzdHJsAzgEcXVlcnkDY291cnNlcmEEdF9zdG1wAzE2MjAwNjA4MjcEdXNlX2Nhc2UD?p=coursera&fr=techcrunch-s
• https://blog.coursera.org/
• https://www.classcentral.com/report/coursera-2020-year-review/
• https://www.barrons.com/articles/coursera-stock-is-soaring-analyst-buy-ratings-are-rolling-in-51619455105
• https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210504006267/en/Coursera-Reports-First-Quarter-Fiscal-2021-Financial-Results