Performance artists are more than just performers. They are teachers, mentors, and masters of crafts that take years to develop. Until now, idlidu helped artists earn from bookings and live concerts. Today, we are adding a third revenue stream — online courses and live workshops.
Two Ways to Teach
Recorded Courses are pre-recorded video lessons that students can watch at their own pace. You upload your videos to YouTube or Vimeo (unlisted), add them as lessons in your course, and students work through them whenever they have time. Each lesson can be marked as a free preview, letting potential students sample your teaching style before they buy. Student progress is tracked automatically.
Live Workshops are scheduled real-time sessions. You pick a date and time, set a maximum number of participants, and set a duration. Students enroll in advance. One hour before the session starts, the meeting link becomes visible to enrolled students. After the workshop, you can add a recording URL so students get on-demand access to the replay. We send reminder emails to enrolled students at 24 hours and again at 1 hour before the start time.
How Pricing Works
You set your own price for each course. Payment is handled through Cashfree for Indian users and PayPal for international users. The platform commission is the same tiered rate that applies to bookings: 9 percent for Starter artists, 6 percent for Growing, and 3 percent for Established. If you are already earning from bookings, your tier applies to course earnings too — they count toward the same lifetime total.
Building a Course
Creating a course takes about ten minutes from your dashboard. Navigate to Courses in the sidebar, click Create Course, and fill in the details. You will set a title, write a description, choose a category and difficulty level (Beginner, Intermediate, or Advanced), set your price, and upload a thumbnail. For recorded courses, you then add individual lessons — each with a title, video URL, and duration. You can reorder lessons by dragging them and mark specific lessons as free previews.
For live workshops, you set the scheduled date and time, the maximum number of participants, and the expected duration. Once you are happy, publish the course and it appears on the public marketplace.
Discovering Courses
Students browse courses at idlidu.com/courses. The marketplace supports filtering by category, course type (recorded or live workshop), difficulty level, and price range. Each course page shows the full description, curriculum with lesson titles and durations, the artist's profile, and reviews from past students. Free preview lessons are available without enrolling.
Refund Policy
For recorded courses, students can request a refund within 48 hours of purchase as long as they have watched less than 30 percent of the lessons. For live workshops, refunds are available if the artist cancels the session. No refunds are given within 24 hours of a workshop start time.
Why This Matters for Artists
Bookings are event-based — you earn per performance. Courses create recurring, scalable income. Record a course once and sell it to hundreds of students over time. Live workshops let you offer masterclasses at scale — instead of teaching one student at a time, run a session for 20 or 50 participants. Both formats appear on your artist profile, adding depth and credibility. Clients browsing your profile see not just your portfolio and services, but also your expertise as an educator.
Getting Started
Courses are available now for every artist on idlidu. Go to your dashboard, click Courses, and create your first course today. Whether it is a beginner guitar course, a Bharatanatyam workshop, or a masterclass on stage presence — your audience is waiting.