How To Sell Study Documents Online And Earn Money

Looking for ways to sell documents online? If so, pay attention to the pointers given in this article on how you can sell study documents online.

One of the easiest ways to make money as a teacher, student, or subject expert is to sell documents online.

You may not know it, but your knowledge is in high demand. Some people are willing to part with decent amounts of money to get study notes to avoid attending a physical class or enrolling in a course.

The question is, where do you start? Well, there is no formula for selling study notes online.

There are popular ways to do so, though, and that’s what we want to discuss in this article.

I’ll take you through a shrunk guide to finding legit buyers for your study materials and provide you with ten tried-and-tested sites to help you get started.

But first things first . . .

What Types of Study Documents Can You Sell Online?

Some people have notes from lectures they attended years ago. Others are professors with piles of pamphlets from their decades of tutoring.

Don’t fret. It’s not all that strict regarding how you structure your study materials. It’s the internet, remember?

As long as you can convey knowledge in a clear, flowing, exhaustive, and comprehensible way, you are good to go.

Here are some of the documents you can sell:

Class Notes. Class notes include information presented by a professor or tutor during a lecture or class session.

They may also include the student’s personal insights and additional information on the subject in question.

It’s always advisable to review your documents, whether physical or digital, to fix grammar mistakes, misinformation, omissions, and outdated information before putting them up for sale.

Presentations. Presentations often come in the form of audio, video, and slideshows, which begs the question: are they sellable?

Yes, they are, and it’s very much possible that they will fetch you more money than standard class notes and study guides.

More to the point, most can be converted into textual documents.

Research papers. Research papers present an original argument about a topic.

They are a requirement in graduate level coursework and are often schematic; hence hardly require revision or reassessment before being sold.

Note that you can’t legally sell someone else’s research paper without their knowledge and permission.

Exam review documents. These are documents meant to help students prepare for exams.

They are usually in Q&A format and try to mirror actual exams. Past exam papers and flashcards may also qualify as exam review documents.

Study guides. A study guide can be a concise summary of a key concept, a set of practice questions and answers, a detailed subject breakdown, etc.

You might need some tutoring experience to create one, as you will need to identify and home in on key ideas and concepts about a topic, subject, or course.

What Subjects and Topics Should I Create Documents For?

The most popular subjects are the ones that most people pursue. These include Math, Physical Science, English, Chemistry, and Biology.

Pick the subject you know and are passionate about and drill down to your area of specialization.

For example, in Math, you can focus on one of Trigonometry, Algebra, Calculus, or Geometry and create numerous study guides and exam review materials tackling the subject from numerous angles.

In English, you can choose communication skills, essay writing, grammar, or literature analysis.

Sciences have their key topics, too. Find them and focus on one or two.

Can I Sell Handwritten Notes?

Yes, you can. Different note-sharing platforms have specific documents they accept, and many won’t accept handwritten files.

Thankfully, there are ways to convert such documents into editable digital text.

For example, you can use a scanner to capture a digital image of your notes and then run it in optical character recognition (OCR) software to make the text editable.

Handwriting recognition software, like OneNote, may also come in handy, especially if you are preparing notes and want them converted in real time.

Is It Legal to Sell Study Notes Online?

When it comes to the legality of selling class notes online, there are many grey areas that make it difficult to come to a definitive conclusion.

It’s, however, outright intellectual property infringement to sell finished study materials that you didn’t prepare yourself.

Where Can I Sell Study Documents?

Here is a list of 10 sites that will help you find buyers for your study documents:

Sites To Sell Documents Online

1. Stuvia

Stuvia lets you share your study resources for a price of your liking.

You can upload virtually anything, from flashcards to study notes and summaries, as long as they are your own creation.

The platform, which makes payments monthly, cuts a 30% commission on all sales and lets sellers keep the rights to the creations.

This means you can list your work on sites similar to Stuvia without being penalized.

But that’s not even its most appealing feature. The earning potential is. According to the site, you will make an average of $103 per month, selling about a dozen study documents.

Each document is sold indefinitely, too, meaning you will receive money for as long as it gets downloads.

2. OneClass

OneClass hires note-takers, i.e., college students willing to take and share class notes with other students.

For $370-$470 per course per semester, OneClass is one of the highest-paying file-sharing sites for students.

You can join it for free if you are an active student from a recognized institution.

A trial period is enforced to ensure your notes are of the required standard, after which you can begin posting what you learn in class.

Each time someone downloads your document, you get credits that you can redeem later.

That’s on top of the fixed $470 that you receive for agreeing to upload notes for the whole course.

You can withdraw your earnings as gift cards or cash into your PayPal account once you have $10 (800 credits) in your OneClass account.

3. Oxbridge Notes

UK-based Oxbridge Notes supplies more than 250,000 students with notes from fellow students and graduates worldwide.

Note sellers only need to upload their notes. The site takes pictures of the notes, creates PDF samples and zip files, and prepares them for download.

The site cuts a 50% commission from each sale and sends the rest of the money to the uploader.

Joining Oxbridge Notes is easy. You will be asked to fill out a registration form on the homepage and upload samples of your work for review.

The Oxbridge Notes team will then get back to you, letting you know if your application was approved.

From there, you can upload as many revision materials as you wish as long as they meet the site’s quality requirements.

4. NoteXchange

Compared to other sites, NoteXchange is different in that it lets students open stores and sell their notes from there.

It also gives them the freedom to market their documents and set their own prices. As a note-taker, there is no limit to the number and type of files you can upload.

You can sell class notes, study guides, mini-quizzes, and flashcards and even offer tutoring services to students who need one-on-one help.

You can also enroll to become an official NoteXchange note taker if you are a student in a class of at least 75 students.

The best part is that the site lets you keep 100% of earnings on sales you drive. For sales driven by others, you will keep 50%.

You will also like the fact that you can upload different types of files, including scanned handwritten notes, in formats of your choice.

5. StudySoup

StudySoup is a peer-to-peer learning marketplace that connects note-takers and users to a mutually beneficial platform.

Available to students in universities and colleges across the United States, the site pays $60 for each study guide and a 50% commission for each download.

Class notes attract commissions only, but they happen to be more in demand.

Registered note-takers are required to upload class notes once every week for eight weeks.

They are also expected to upload at least 3 study guides per course on the weeks they don’t upload notes.

Per StudySoup’s rules, you can only provide notes of no more than two courses per semester. That’s a maximum of four per year.

And since you can earn up to $500 per course, it’s possible to make $2,000 per year simply by uploading class notes once every week.

Websites To Sell Study Notes Online

6. Nexus Notes

Nexus Notes bills itself as the world’s number one marketplace for higher education and professional course notes.

Its database consists of millions of learning materials, course summaries, class notes, and study guides provided by students and professionals from universities in over 50 countries.

You can join as a verified or unverified author. Verified authors have both excellent academic transcripts and notes.

Unverified authors, however, have great notes but relatively poor academic performance. Understandably, verified users earn more than their unverified counterparts.

Since Nexus Notes is a subscription-based platform, authors earn a commission on downloads as opposed to a percentage of sales earnings.

This, however, doesn’t change the fact that your earning potential is dictated almost solely by the number of downloads your documents garner.

You might also like Crafts to make and sell online for extra cash.

7. StuDocu

With over 17 million users, StuDocu is one of the most popular file-sharing platforms for learners.

It’s also one of the friendliest to students, as 80% of its database is free to access.

From the notetakers’ point of view, StuDocu stands head and shoulders above other platforms in that earnings are not dictated by views and downloads.

Instead, the site buys and pays for documents upfront and takes the risk of finding buyers for them.

The downside is that documents don’t sell for as much as they would on rival sites. And many times, study materials are rejected for silly reasons.

You could call it the perfect platform for quick money but the absolute worst for a decent stipend.

8. Studypool

There are two main ways to earn money on Studypool: answering questions and selling study documents.

According to the site, you can make up to $5,000 per month uploading documents, with a single view being worth as much as $10.

You can upload as many files as you like and in any of the major popular document formats. Supported formats include txt, tex, doc, docx, pdf, sip, slsx, wpd, ppt, odt, and odlt.

While Studypool offers some of the best pay rates per view, it is also very strict on content quality. Your paper has to make sense and be neat.

The competition is also significantly high, and you must be extremely creative to stand out from a pool of contributors with similar documents.

9. DocMerit

On DocMerit, document prices are determined by the seller and not the site.

Also, each download is considered a separate sale, meaning you can earn from a single document multiple times.

Unfortunately, the site invites everyone to upload documents, whether or not they have a college degree, which increases competition and makes it difficult to get downloads.

Additionally, there is a minimum payout threshold of $20, which can take quite some time to meet.

The best way to earn a decent income on the site, according to reviews, is to focus on creating book summaries.

Few people have time for this, and book summaries generally fetch more money per sale than regular class notes.

10. Course Hero

Course Hero is a fantastic website with a solid reputation among both students and tutors.

It is estimated to have over 20 million users, the majority of them students looking for study materials and tutoring services.

You can earn up to $10 per view from your upload documents. The site also claims that you can make upwards of $5,000 per month if you are a consistent contributor.

That’s a mouthwatering amount but, unfortunately, one that only a tiny fraction of note-takers make.

If you want to be among the top earners, you have to be patient and ensure each document you upload is well-organized, readable, factual, and detailed enough.