If you have a WordPress website and want to host your online courses and even memberships or digital downloads in one place, without investing in another tool, then you might want to check Learndash out.
LearnDash is one of the most well-known online course builder plugins for WordPress. It is used by all kinds of organisations and entrepreneurs. Through this LearnDash review, take a look at exactly what LearnDash is, the features of LearnDash, the pros and cons and most importantly, discover whether or not LearnDash is the right plugin for you.
Table of Contents
What is LearnDash?
LearnDash is a WordPress LMS, Learning Management System that allows you to easily customise, organise and manage your online courses. It has an incredible user interface. Especially with the brand new update, LearnDash 3.0 just blew everyone away with the new features.
With their new Focus Mode, course builder, and many more other new features, managing and selling online courses just got easier.
Why host courses on your WordPress website?
A lot of people use other course platforms such as Podia, Teachable, Thinkific to host digital products. However, having your courses on your website using Learndash allows you to have complete customisation.
You can create your own sales pages, checkout pages and all the traffic that your driving will be sent to your website. Analytic tools more powerful when everything is hosted on your website.
LearnDash is also cheaper than most of these other options, since it is an add-on to your WordPress website. LearnDash also comes with extra plugins to help you get the functionalities you’re looking for.
LearnDash features
Here are the main features that LearnDash offers. Keep in mind that LearnDash has a lot of extra plugins through WordPress to help you further customise your interface and customer experience.
Products
With LearnDash, you can entice customers to purchase by offering free samples of your content. Once your customers finish their purchases, they will get their accounts automatically and they are enrolled in the course they purchased.
You can create recurring payments through LearnDash and set the payment schedule to anything you’d like. This is powerful to set up recurring income for your business.
All of the payments can be done through PayPal, Stripe, and 2Checkout.
With LearnDash, you can easily add a shopping cart experience for your courses by using one of the free WordPress shopping cart integrations including WooCommerece and Easy Digital Download.
You can add coupons, discount codes, sales, course bundles, tax rules, custom receipts, sales funnels with tripwires and more with LearnDash.
You can sell your courses as a bundle so customers get access to more than one course after purchase. You can also run flash sales or give customers a discount if they purchase all the courses instead of one-by-one
Instead of selling access to individual courses, LearnDash has recently launched its membership capability. It lets you create various memberships that contain access to multiple courses. When someone purchases access to the membership, then they get enrolled in all the courses associated with it. You can choose to sell access for a one-time price, or regularly.
Course builder
LearnDash offers a wide range of functions for you and your audience. Not just delivery courses and lessons, LearnDash allows you to group your students into groups and sub-groups, assign assignments, run reports on enrollment, progress, and performance.
With assignments, you can quickly approve, comment, and award points on submitted assignments.
Within Learndash, you can add images, videos and any kind of content and change the settings to best fit what you’re looking for.
You can also interact with learners based on actions they take or don’t take in your courses. You have the option to encourage learners to complete quizzes and courses by awarding certificates, points, and badges as they progress. Reward them for individual tasks, or for completing a group of courses!
Customisation
When using WordPress, it’s important to make sure all of your plugins and themes are working in sync and luckily, LearnDash is here for you. LearnDash can be used with any themes, without the need to code. You can use page builders such as Elementor, Divi and BeaverBuilder to optimise your pages.
Within LearnDash, you can choose colours, logos, course display, and lesson options with the ability to change them whenever you need.
You can set LearnDash up to automatically deliver content according to a predefined schedule, at the exact time when your students should receive it, along with a notification email to be delivered at the same time.
Integrations
LearnDash integrates with the most popular apps for running a business.
You can integrate with platforms such as PayPal, Stripe, MailChimp, ConvertKit and a lot of other popular tools and software you might be using.
Support
LearnDash has an amazing Get Started Guide to help you quickly get used to the LearnDash interface and start creating your online courses for your audience.
LearnDash also has countless guides and tutorials, responsive help desk that can assist with any trouble or questions you have, along with living webinars and an engaged Facebook community.
How to get started with LearnDash
Step 1- WordPress One-Click Install
To use LearnDash, all you need is a WordPress website.
Step 2- Upload LearnDash
Once logged into your WordPress site, simply upload the LearnDash ZIP file that you download after purchase. Once uploaded, click “Activate” and you are all set
Step 3- Import Demo Site
LearnDash gives you the entire LearnDash demo site for FREE so you can get started quickly. On the contrary, you can also create your sites.
Step 4- Take the Bootcamp
LearnDash has a clear Bootcamp that walks you through everything you need to know and do to set up your online course platform. You will be able to learn exactly how to create and even sell your courses within the Bootcamp.
LearnDash pricing
There are three LearnDash plans, Basic, Plus Package, Pro Package. All of these plans give you every single feature that LearnDash has to offer. The only difference is Basic is for the use of one website, Plus is for up to 10 websites and Pro is for up to 25 websites.
So if you’re an entrepreneur looking to host your online courses through your website, then having the Basic plan should be enough.
LearnDash is also hosting all kinds of promotions so check out their website to get the latest pricing, but normally, the Basic plan costs $199, the plus plan costs $229, and the Pro plan costs $369. These are the prices for your license for one year. The license will automatically renew after one year and you can cancel at any time.
An active license key is needed to continue to receive new feature updates, security patches, and support. If you do not renew your license, then LearnDash may still work but they cannot guarantee compatibility with future versions of WordPress.
My experiences with LearnDash
I have used LearnDash for one of my other businesses. LearnDash offers a vast range of features, with all kinds of functions to help keep your audience engaged and give them the full learning experience.
It is great for people that already have WordPress websites and want to add a learning element to your business, especially for bigger companies that want to provide a university-like experience.
I stopped using LearnDash because I didn’t need all the extra features and there is a learning curve to LearnDash, especially for someone that is not very tech-savvy like me. My website also had a complicated backend and I had some trouble with managing everything under one WordPress website. I eventually stopped using LearnDash because of that.
Having said that, I have seen other websites and taken courses that are hosted on LearnDash and the interface is great, with a lot of fun assignments that you can take. There are also extra LearnDash plugins you can get to further customise your interface.
LearnDash Pros
- You have fully customised your course platform and the user experiences for your audience
- The drag-and-drop course builder is easy to use
- A lot of plugins and features to achieve what you’re looking for
LearnDash Cons
- A bit of a learning curve for non-tech-savvy people, in comparison to other online course platforms
- All the functionalities can be overwhelming
- You’ll need to integrate with third-party plugins for deeper payment functionality
LearnDash Alternatives
If you want to check out LearnDash alternatives and have a look at other eCommerce platforms, you can check out the reviews on these different platforms and tools. These are some other popular and great eCommerce tools you can use.
- Podia: an all-in-one platform that can host all your digital products, courses and memberships in one place. Check out this Podia Review to find out more.
- SendOwl: easy-to-use eCommerce platform with advanced marketing features. It is especially good if you already have a website. Check out this SendOwl Review to find out more.
- Selz: allows you to quickly start selling along with your own storefront Selz. You can also embed the store on your WordPress website or sell on social media. Find out more at Selz review,
- Gumroad: both an eCommerce platform and marketplace for creators to host and sell their products and services. Find out more here at Gumroad review.
- Sellfy: Sellfy allows you to build your won website, store and sell all kinds of products at an affordable price. Check out the Sellfy review to find out more.
- Payhip: Great starting point with their free forever plan that comes with all the features, allowing you to sell anywhere you’d like. Find out more in Payhip review.
If you want to check out all these different eCommerce platforms go up against each other neck-to-neck, check out this Best Ecommerce Platform Ultimate Guide. This ultimate guide breaks down everything when it comes to choosing the right eCommerce platform for your business, without all the overwhelm.
Conclusion
LearnDash is a great tool that gives you everything you need to build your courses, memberships and more. If you are someone that has a WordPress website and want to start building a course platform, then LearnDash could be a great option for you. Not only is it more affordable than many other third-party platforms, but it also offers a huge range of extra features.
However, if you want a simple, standalone course platform that doesn’t require much of a learning curve, then you might want to check out some other options, such as Podia, Selz, Gumraod, Sellfy or Payhip.
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